Laid-Off Dad

I wanna drive it all night long

The year is drawing to a close, and as usual if you had told me on January 1 that the year would end like this, I'd have about dropped my teeth. Seriously, Iraqi government: Did you have to hang Saddam so tantalizingly close to the new year? He probably had planned a real Swingin' New Year's bash, unaware that he actually would swing before it ever happened. And now all the would-be guests are wondering whether they should still go. Sure, it's probably in bad taste, but the champagne's still there, and it's paid for, so really, what's the diff?

I remember the day three years ago when he was caught, and images of disembodied hands checking his disheveled hair for nits dominated every TV station in the world. I was in Chicago, planning to fly back to New York that day and wondering how gentle the TSA people would be with their full-cavity searches.

As we contemplate 2006, and how much it mostly sucked, we must remember that life is a highway. I am reminded of this fact about 12 times a day, because Robert is now the proud owner of the "Cars" DVD, in which that song features prominently. Not Tom Cochrane's original, but an overpolished update from the country-boyband Rascal Flatts (whose name sounds just a wee bit too focus-groupy). It's got fiddles and sexy backup singing and is officially the catchiest song ever committed to MP3 format. I bought it with one of the iTunes gift cards I got for Christmas, and the boys and I like to crank it up, set it on repeat, and dance ourselves stupid. We start off calmly enough when those first stylin' geetar licks start up, and by the end the boys are mostly naked, chests heaving, and begging for water.

You know that standard movie shot, the one that peers into the window of an apartment from very far away at the boisterosity within? (The only one I can think of now is Tom Hanks and Elizabeth jumping on the trampoline in "Big.") Whenever we dance to that song, I picture the three of us in that shot, hopping up and down and shaking our biscuits without a care in the world.

Here's hoping you can have that same blissful time ringin' and swingin' in the New Year. I'm off to hang out with my family, who will spend the next couple days celebrating my dad's 70th birthday party and hoping our highways are as long and blessed as his. I can't predict the extent of biscuit-shaking there will be at his party, but I'm sure I'll be able to use the pictures to negotiate a nice chunk of the will.

And all through the house

Evening, all. It's Christmas Eve, about 11:30, and my wife is singing at her third 90-minute church service of the day. She'll be at it for another hour or so before she and her overtaxed vocal cords stagger home. So I'm here with the boys, who are busy dreaming of all the wheeled and spherical things they got for Christmas. If there was a theme to the gift-giving this year, it was Cars and Balls -- Robert likes to race the former, and TwoBert likes to hurl the latter at his father's glasses.

The only outliers were Grandma Jellyspoon's completely awesome hats and mittens, which will hopefully get some wear if the temperature ever bothers to fall below 45º. We were all outside today playing Hooligan Fiesta in shirtsleeves. On Christmas Eve. In New York. Do glaciers even exist anymore?

I said the boys are sleeping, but in fact Robert is the only one who's stayed down for the count. (This is not surprising, because if the apartment building were ever swallowed up whole, "Poltergeist"-style, Robert would sleep through it.) TwoBert has been restless all night. He took almost a four-hour nap this afternoon, and even though we got him to sleep by eight he's already been up twice. All it takes is a sip of water and a slow dance to get him back down, but the frequency is a little strange. Frankly, I think he's having nightmares about the fairy lights, which someone has recently re-jiggered for the worse. Remember how they used to run away from you, and you got to chase them? Now, they mostly converge on you, often forming logos of the show's main sponsor around your feet. It's creepy enough to feel like a carcass being set upon by army ants, but when the ants swarm in the name of corporate brand awareness it's downright alarming.

I was with the boys all day today while their mother spent eight hours singing just about every Christmas carol there is, and we had an absolute ball. These precious days when it's just the three of us keep getting better. TwoBert is getting more verbal, and he's got a three-foot drop on his curve ball. And Robert's grasp of logic continues to astound me. He and I were eating chocolate and watching the Giants' season limp off into obscurity when I noticed he had brown rings all over his face and hands. I asked him to go wash off, and he said, "But Daddy, I'm just going to come back and eat more chocolate. So really, what's the point?"

Oh crap. TwoBert's up again and ready for another slow dance, so I'll cut this short. Have a lovely night, everyone. May your holidays be safe, healthy, happy, and free from menacing, carnivorous logos.

Dancing in the dark

It's strange. Before now, I don't think I've ever been seized by the absolute need to write. Lately, though, it's been a very real compulsion. I'm writing every day. Tomes. Bales of rough-hewn cotton dumped effortfully from the flatbed of my mind onto the pallid prairie of Microsoft Word. So much is in flux now, so many moveable parts misaligning and realigning, and I want to write it all down. I want to remember what it was like when I was right here. In this place.

The place I was in last night was Union Square, chasing little boys who were chasing little fairy lights along the 16th Street transverse. There's a holiday installation there designed by Tord Boontje and soundtracked by Goldfrapp -- and let's face it: anything co-created by a "Tord" and a "Goldfrapp" is worth the trip for the names alone. Projectors beam the little images of leaves and animals and flowers and other enchanted thingies onto the sidewalk, and at the same time sensors determine where you are and tell the projector to make its these thingies run away from you. Sort of like chasing cockroaches around your kitchen, but with whimsy.

From the moment the Berts arrived at this place, they were delighted. And their disparate chasing styles say a lot about their current developmental stages. TwoBert is very huggy lately, and he spent a lot of time trying to "pick up" the images, ostensibly to hug them and garble sweet nothings into their ears. Robert took a more militant tack, waiting along the border for a cluster to gather nearby and then ambushing them with mighty leaps.

It's a fun time. If you go, don't be surprised if 1) your kids get really wound up and start shrieking like their being electrocuted and 2) you get caught up in the mayhem and start shriek-stomping along with the kids. Be warned, though: If you think it's hard to keep track of more than one child during the day, it's an extra-special exercise in consternation at night. You might want to fit your kids with day-glo bracelets and/or GPS chips.

Also, the fray consists of about 100 kids at a time, flinging themselves randomly at high speed. And since they're staring at the ground the whole time, they have absolutely no appreciation for anything in their way. So there will be collisions and tramplings. You can rationalize this by realizing that people spend most of the holiday season hurtling through crowds and, occasionally, knocking foreheads. The sooner kids learn this valuable life lesson, the better.

I'm a three line whip, I'm the sort of thing they ban

Do you know many 41-year-olds who don't own their own home? If you know me, then the answer to that question is "ho, yes!"

I am a career renter, ever since I ventured out to the esteemed institution of higher learning that happily took a pile of my parents' money. Part of this stems from my circumstance, because I have a rent-stabilized, two-bedroom apartment in New York City, a dwelling that is rapidly becoming as rare as a Yangtze River Dolphin. But another part stems from what has been my overriding philosophy of the renter-landlord relationship: Yes, I'm basically pissing money down the drain every month, but I'm also paying that money for the luxury of Not Caring. If the oven door fell off, or a bunch of bathroom tiles worked themselves loose, I could always look on with amusement, knowing I wouldn't have to go spelunking in the Land of Orange Aprons for replacement parts. Instead, my landlord would send over an army of paint-stained lumberbums to fulfill my every need.

I am hereby abandoning this mindset. I want autonomy. I want equity. I want to be able to tear down the walls, re-build and re-furbish, put in a sunken living room. This is due entirely to the influx of housing porn on TLC that lets you watch people buy, fix up, and flip a home in a tidy 30 minutes. It's all so easy! You can make a five-figure profit in the time it takes to heat a meatloaf! Who wouldn't want that?

Predictably, Robert has caught on to the new mania. His favorite parts involve demolition (naturally), which probably feeds the joy he feels when he dumps an entire basket of toys onto the carpet.

If only it ended there.

One day not too long ago, I came home to hear that we had a mouse sighting. I was initially non-plussed, because everyone knows most apartment buildings are vast ecosystems of many co-habitant species, and every once in a while a wayward creature ventures into Humanland. But we kept seeing them and not understanding where they came from. And why now? There wasn't any huge construction in the building, or anywhere nearby. Was this the time of the Great Whiskered Uprising?

It turns out, no. When I started hunting around for mouse-shaped entryways, I pulled the toy shelf away from the wall to find that someone had taken his demo worship to the next level and ripped 20 feet of baseboard molding away from the wall. Our building is old (the plaster and lath probably predate Boss Tweed) and not exactly brimming with craftsmanship (see lumberbums, above), so without the baseboard there was an inch-wide crack long enough to invite a wagonload of mice in for cheese and crackers.

This was not a job for a landlord minion. This was a job for me, the patriarch, acting heroically to stave off the tide of vermin. So I laid down five rolls of steel wool the length of the wall and hammered that baby back into place. And it felt good. Good enough to rip it up and do it all again.

Little chicken man

During my first week at college, I saw one of those comedic hypnotists convince my new friend John that he had a dire message to deliver to the crowd, and that as soon as he reached the microphone he realized he could only crow like a chicken. John was normally a laid-back, slow-drawler from Macon, Georgia, and the site of him hopping up and down, flapping his bent arms and buckawk-ing with manic urgency was as surreal a thing as I've seen.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to TwoBert's world.

If there is one true thing in this random universe, it's that TwoBert has something to tell you. He's seen the signs, he's read the word, he knows what he wants, he knows what's to come. Mostly he'd like that thing over there, just out of his reach. Or perhaps a drink. But the poor boy is still so hamstrung by his pre-verbality that all he can do is point and moan like a baby Wookiee. He's got superb comprehension -- once you figure out what he's moaning for, his eyes beam like halogen foglights, and he smiles and shakes his head vigorously like a dog waiting for you to toss the Snausage. And to his credit, he's learned to ask for water long before he's actually thirsty, because by the time he's finally communicated that he wants a pull of water, he knows he'll be absolutely parched.

Luckily, there is no mystery when he wants to go for a walkabout. This morning, after his nap, he scampered into the room, threw both his shoes at me, and pulled on my fingers like he was reeling in a 20-pound marlin. We walked 9 city blocks (!) to the park, and he spent two hours throwing himself headlong down the curly slide. Free-range chickens should have it so good.

Peace, love, dope!

When I was in my early 20s, I saw Field of Dreams in the theater. And as it happened, I went with my dad. Dad and I were never big co-moviegoers, but we'd heard about the heart-rending father/son theme and figured it was worth a shot toward some quality bonding. So we sat there, side by side, watching Kevin Costner ease his father's pain, and by the end I was bawling my eyes out. It was the most emotional connection I'd had with a movie since Bambi's mom never made it back from her walk in the woods, and as we walked to the car I gave my dad the first hug I ever really meant.

Unfortunately, 20-year-old firebrands are famous for not understanding (and therefore impugning) their fathers' motivations. But ever since we saw that movie together I've spent more time looking at life through his eyes. And feeling grateful that every decision he made as a father was made with his kids' welfare at the top of his priority list. He worked his ass off trying to establish a secure home and a vital lifestyle for us, things I until then took for granted. I try to keep focused on that, and when I lapse The Voice manages to remind me.

Last night, Field of Dreams came on HBO, and the boys and I watched it together. According to Robert, the film's highlights were 1) the spitting, 2) watching the "fat men" disappear into the cornfield, and 3) when "the man with the big belly and the deep voice" wanted to beat Ray Kinsella with a crowbar.

Toward the end of the film, I was in the kitchen preparing dinner, and when I came back Robert asked if I wanted to hear something "completely sad." I suppose so, I said. Came Robert's smiling reply: "The girl was eating a hot dog and the man pushed her, and she fell over on her head and now she's dead."

Not the emotional response I was hoping for, but it's early.

Extraordinary wetness and the madness of crowds

I'd like to begin this post by saying it's official: I can't give either of my children a bath without ending up looking like I just left the front row of a Gallagher concert. TwoBert has learned how to kerplunk, and oh, how it gives him the ecstasy. He raises and drops his feet over and over, and the water flies everywhere, and out comes the machine-gun laugh that would be absolutely darling were he not soaking me through to the shorts.

There is at least solace in consistency, as I can now pretty much bank on spending the time between 8:00 and 8:30 every night sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing Great States Junior with a large towel draped across my lap.

I took the weekend off from posting, but not from writing. The noun-and-verb express is still steaming ahead, tap-tap-tapping its way toward what I hope will be a viable, salable bit of written work. I've never felt this motivated to complete something in all my years.

How bold have I become? I actually agreed to chaperone my parents and my kids to see the Rockefeller Center tree at a time when the entire nexus becomes a rat king of slow-moving tourists with shopping bags. Seasoned cityfolk like me normally wouldn't be caught dead getting all snarled up in that mess, but there I was, very much alive, navigating the stroller through hordes of inert gawkers with outstretched cameras.

The madness parenting has wrought upon me knows no bounds.