Elmo Loves Diaper Changes

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Amari does not.

In fact, the mere question, "Do you need a diaper change?" now invokes a dramatic drop to her knees accompanied by an operatic wail that might loosely translate to, "Oh, the humanity." She doesn't put up a fight, which is nice - some of my friends need tasers and four-point restraints quell their child's resistance - but the insta-tears and the theatrics have inspired Carrie and I to try anything and everything to make it a more pleasant experience.

Music has always been an effective distraction, specifically a very colorful caterpillar who sings songs of different genres according to the colored segment you push. Red is reggae, blue is opera, orange/country, and so on. Along with us singing goofy songs about what we're doing at the time - hits like "I Found My Thrill on Pooberry Hill" and "Damn That's a Lot of Pee" - the caterpillar has had the most staying power.

A few days ago, during a visit with her friend Mackenzie, I noticed Amari take a particular interest in a life-like baby doll - something we don't have at home. She was fascinated by it, stroking its hair and giving it pats on the back, something she likes to do with just about everyone. It's kind of her thing and it's very endearing. By the end of our visit she was hugging and kissing the baby, probably longing for a smaller friend who didn't pull her hair and take her things.

In the past, I've tried to get Amari involved in the diaper-changing process, opening the drawer and asking her to pick out her own diaper. She would get very excited, run over to the drawer, and pick out several diapers, close the drawer, open it again, pick out another diaper or two, and so on. Nonetheless, when I'd close the drawer more definitively and try to pick her up, the mellow-drama ensued.

Yesterday, I decided to see if getting Amari to change someone else's diaper might help so I recruited the always lovable Elmo. I pulled out a diaper, asked Amari if Elmo needed his diaper changed, and let her go to work. For fifteen minutes, she stood by the diaper-changing area, carefully pulling the blanket flat, trying hard to open the diaper correctly, then placing Elmo on top of it while attempting to wrap it around him. She never succeeded, but she was fully enthralled, and when she was done to her satisfaction, she began covering him with a small blanket and tucking him in for a nap. When it came time to change her diaper, although there was still some fuss initially, having Elmo lying beside her draped in wool and synthetic polymers, somehow made things a little easier.

Tonight, as bedtime approached, Amari snatched up her new bestie, Elmo, whose diaper had long since slipped off of his scrawny, hairy legs, and walked towards our staircase. Carrie scooped them up and I followed moments later to tell them a bedtime story and let them share an mmm-ba (bottle). When I came downstairs, Amari was curled up in Mapa's arms with Elmo faithfully sitting against the wall just above her head.

I can't find my camera right now, but I'll try to remember to add pictures of Elmo manana. In the meantime, here are a few pics of Amari from the past week or so.

Oh yeah, I forgot - first outing in full rain gear.

Amari was not completely sold on this, but maybe 

when she grows into her raincoat. 

My latest $1 thrift store buy. It doesn't run, but

with a rope and Granny's handy-dandy tractor...

Video footage coming soon.

Moonshadow's being followed by an Amari

G'night all.

Shout Outs and Beat Downs in Title Town

I have no business being awake right now. I got a whopping three and a half hours sleep last night, and I've been up for over eighteen hours. This is a direct consequence and a major drawback of having a teen and a toddler at the same time. Last night was up until midnight-thirty helping Siobhan with her first AP English essay, and this morning Amari decided to wake up at the ungodly  hour of 3:45 when a power outage sent Carrie into a mini-panic about how she was going to wake up without an alarm clock. The power came on fifteen minutes later, but by then none of us needed an alarm.

Before I get into anything in particular, I'd like to give a few "shout outs" (I think that's what they're called) to friends and followers and fellow writers, parents, and creators.

1. A very hearty round of cyber applause to my dear friend Susan Williams who is one of the best mom's I know and the former Thursday co-parent to Amari B. Her boys, Aiden and Liam, taught Amari to crawl and inspired her to smile every time she saw them. Susan and Lucas recently moved to Santa Rosa where Lucas works as a mechanic and Susan has somehow managed to find time amidst full-time parenting to create her own business: Cloud 9 Bath and Body. Prior to launching her website and blog, Susan used us and other friends as her appreciated and fresh-scented guinea pigs. I smell really good every day thanks to her. Check her out at:

http://www.cloud9bathbody.com/

http://www.cloud9bathbody.blogspot.com/

You won't regret it.

2. My new/old friend Chandeen, who recently started her own interior decorating, crafts, gardening, and peanut butter and honey blog. Our families have known each other for years and our paths crossed almost fourteen years ago when I went out to India for a few months to get away from myself. Chandeen is a gifted (and prolific) writer and super creative. As the Beastie Boys might say, "She's crafty." Have a read - you won't be disappointed. And your house might really appreciate you.

http://designedbychance.blogspot.com/

3. Renee Cashmere's Breeder Cow. I know I've said this before, but it's worth another mention since I'm appreciating those who inspire me. She a fellow parent, a former Pirate (Sir Francis Drake HS), and one my early high school crushes. Little did I know she had writing skills to go with her arsenal of being really nice and cute. She's a wonderful writer if your into that perfect balance of humor, emotion, and honesty thing. :)

http://www.breeder-cow.blogspot.com/

4. Okay. Last one. This one goes out to Debbie Wassen, secretary at the schools  I was working at until last September. I've known Debbie for years, since my subbing days in the early 2000's. I spent months with her in Independent Study one year, and I felt like I made a good friend in the community. When Amari arrived and I began writing this blog, Debbie was always the first one to let me know she'd read it. She would giggle about something I'd experienced and tell me stories about her daughter and her grandchildren. Debbie - thank you for reading and encouraging and just being the wonderful person you are.


Okay - on to this whole parenting deal. Eventually life just becomes a series of stories that we recount and recap in hopes of preserving their memory right? In this spirit, I will share two experiences I had last week.

Beat Down on Franklin Road

As you may know, Hunter Calvert is both Amari's closest friend and her greatest adversary. Every morning after I drop Carrie and Siobhan at the high school, I meet up with Jim to get some socialization - both for the kids and for us. Visits are unpredictable - often contingent upon sleep levels, teething pain, or just plain surly, boyish behavior. Hunter has escalated from taking to hitting to hair pulling, mixing in the occasional aggressive surprise hugs to remain endearing to his peers.

Initially, Amari only reacted with tears, and Jim with increasing embarrassment. With time, however, Amari learned to defend herself, hitting Hunter when he would take things and sometimes even giving him a preemptive whapp in anticipation of his thievery. Sometimes the whapp's would be doled out to Hunter's face, leaving him stunned but rarely responsive. Funny how when she does it I call it boundary setting and I'm totally okay with it. I think Jim is, too, grateful that Amari has become a Karma Warrior.

 I also call her whining emotional expression.

Last Tuesday at our house was one of the rougher mornings we've had. Both kids were in moods and neither was playing nice. At one point, a hungry Amari grabbed a jar of baby food off the table to bring to her dad. A simultaneously hungry Hunter attempted to intercept her delivery by taking the jar away from her. No sooner had his hand reached towards hers than Amari stopped, turned directly towards him, and popped him square on the forehead with the full jar of food. Hunter gave his usual stunned look, only this time the pain receptors fired a little harder, tears followed quickly, and the visit ended rather abruptly. Jim admitted later, that he was relieved it was finally Amari's that put an end to a play date.

I still call it boundary setting.

Next story.

Title Town, USA

That's right, the San Francisco Giants World Series trophy is making its way across northern California, and on Wednesday it passed through our humble town for approximately two hours. Earlier in the week, I'd developed some intention of going, thinking it would be nice to have a picture of Amari with the trophy, but come six o'clock on the evening of a challenging day, I changed my mind. Apparently, over a thousand people visited the trophy, some waiting outside the building it was being viewed in for over eight hours. Festivities included singing and chanting and other stuff that sounded pretty much like a tailgate party with a trophy.

Since Amari won't remember whether she was at that event, I decided to create my own memory of how I took her all the way to the airport to get a photo with the trophy and Giants closer, Fear the Beard Wilson.

Go Giants...

Slack Tide and Placentears

I learned a new term the other day and then I made up another one. At this point in my life, that's a banner week in the Fishman household.

Slack tide is a term sailors use to describe the relatively still water at the turn of low tide. It is a brief respite from the push and pull of nature's most powerful force, from the ocean's cyclical breath that makes us feel as though we're constantly moving, even when we're just standing still. There may not be a similar term in the parenting world, but there's certainly a similar feeling. I'm not talking about the sanity that comes during epic three-hour naps or independent play, but rather those times where the world may as well be standing still because nothing outside of this moment with my child matters in the least.

The moments sneak up on me - like a song on the radio that leaves me in tears yet I can't remember what you'd been thinking about. I'm talking about the days when our house is spotless or in complete shambles, when my "To Do" list is empty or impossibly long, and when my nerves are frayed or fine tuned by a recent night's sleep(lessness). I'm talking about those unpredictable, heart-wrenchingly blissful little episodes that can't be reproduced with words, pictures, movies, or even drugs. In those moments, I feel calm, at peace, and sometimes I even feel impervious to the next tide that's about to pull me away.

The funny thing about the slack tide, is that often times I don't even notice it until it's slipping away. Thursday morning, when the tide began to rise again, I realized just how good things were - which brings me to my made up term...

Asian Placentears

The winter storms have made their way south or north or wherever they were headed when they passed through, and we've been blessed with dry weather and semi-sunshine for the past week and a half. We live on three acres with fruit trees, berries, several raised beds, and lots of animals. Translation: there's always something that needs  to be done. The cool thing now that Amari can walk, is she can trapse around with Granny C and me as we prune trees, weed, mow the property, and most recently, plant trees. Even cooler than that is her willingness to follow directions and help out - mostly by putting weeds into a bucket, dumping them out, and starting over. She will also pick up sticks and rocks and perform taste tests in case we need to identify anything toxic in the yard.

When Amari was born and our midwife, Carla, asked us if we wanted to keep the placenta, Carrie and I weren't really sold on that idea. We didn't know what the hell we'd do with it and were both kind of grossed out by the notion of a placenta in our freezer, so we stalled with a simultaneous and lengthy, "Ummmmm..."
I guess Carla was concerned we might have seller's remorse be she interrupted our "...mmmmmmmm," by offering the suggestion/directive, "Most people like to keep it."
"Okay. Yeah," we consented with mock-enthusiasm, as her assistant finished double-bagging it. Since that moment, a thick freezer bag has sat on the door-shelf of our freezer, a deep-red, amorphous blob of blood, nutrients, and feces. We still didn't know what the hell we were going to do with it and we were still pretty grossed out, but much like the other half of the corn tortillas we bought last February, we eventually forgot it was there.

Early on we'd discussed planting the placenta with a fruit tree, but last spring passed in a blur of do-do and diapers, dog paddling in an attempt not to drown. This Tuesday, however, the placenta emerged from its cold, coffin-shelf in all of it's double-bagged, frost-bitten, blood-sicled glory. Granny C had purchased us an Asian Pear tree in exchange for me digging two extra holes for her apricot and plum trees. Not a good trade, if you're wondering, but a really good workout. Two hours later, Carrie, Granny C, and I stood around the hole as I scissored the bags open, dumped the placenta into the hole, and buried it beneath the roots of our new fruit tree. According the directions, it may even bear fruit this season. Who doens't love a delicious, cruncy, Asian placentear?

On a side-note, when I asked Carrie to come out for the ceremonial burial, she said, "Why? Do you want me to re-create the moment?"

Slack Tide

G'night

Mercury Retrograde?

Thank God for the arbitrary and culturally defined division of time. Be it days, weeks, months, lunar cycles, or equinoctal axis rotations (it's a thing), we always get a chance to start anew. Today it's a Sunday - and pretty darn close to the end of January - which marks the end of an extremely challenging week. It wasn't anything in particular, just one of those periods of time that I felt a little "off," a little reactive, a chronic sense of being beneath or behind and incapable of getting back on track. 

I tried all my old tricks - making lists, prioritizing, taking action, and even acknowledging that Murphy's laws were in effect and embracing the excitement of what mini-disaster lay just around the corner - but nothing seemed to work. If my mom were alive today, she would probably pull out her handy, dandy ephemeris and tell me Mercury is retrograde, which of course would explain everything. Just looked it up to make sure, and unfortunately I can't even blame Mercury this time. Retrograde was in December and post-retrograde ended like ten days ago. 

One of the drawbacks to getting older and cultivating a sense of responsibility and accountability for my feelings is that I no longer get to blame my moodiness on others. Oh man, how I used to love to find easy targets to blame for anything and everything I was feeling. Instead, I have to run with the my old mantra, "Everybody sucks, it must be me." If everyone's pissing me off a little, then chances are, I'm the problem. 

I think the primary source of my frustration is a complete and utter lack of time. I love being a dad, and I've created a schedule which allows me to spend as much time with her as possible, but there are other things I'd like to do, that I have to do.  Carrie works all day, I work nights, and both of our schedules wear us down from time to time. The moodiness, especially on Sundays, can be contagious. If parenting were a paid gig, we'd be the happiest people on the planet. 

Three more weeks until February break...

The cool thing is, we have an awesome, little girl who, with a smile, a giggle, a kiss, or a new word, makes every single sacrifice totally worth it. Teeth are popping in all over the place (including a couple of molars), and although Amari cries unexpectedly and sleeps inconsistently, I still think she's a trooper. Her vocabulary is slowly increasing, and I'm pretty sure she understands just about everything. Sometimes when we're hanging out in the morning I like to play a game I call, "Fetch the random item across the room." It tests her knowledge and allows me to watch a few uninterrupted sports highlights.

Last week, Amari also got her first taste of gardening - and dirt. She absolutely loved both. For nearly an hour, Granny C weeded the daffodil bed in front of the house while Amari placed bits of grass and dandelions into and out of a bucket, occasionally pausing to taste a rock or a clump of dirt. The next morning, when we were walking to the car, Amari took a detour to where she'd been working the day before, pointed, and said, "More, more." 

I also introduced Amari to bubbles this week. What a joy to re-experience the simpler pleasures in life. Although she hasn't mastered the art of blowing the bubbles herself, opting instead to suck the soapy liquid off the wand, when I blow the bubbles she squeals with delight, occasionally saying, "Hello bubs," while waving frantically. 

I'm sure there's a ton I'm forgetting, but once again time is my foe. If I intend to start anew tomorrow, I'd better try to get some sleep. 

 Gardening with Granny C

Gettin' Messy

 My new shirt from Aunt Jessica

 Just fitting in with the Locals

Soil Sample

Blue's Clues - Where Did Steve Go?

Martha Allen, senior year Humanities, was by far the best teacher I ever had. She was kind, passionate, encouraging, and devoted. I imagine she made every single student in her classes feel as though she cared about them. During my final semester we read excerpts from various authors and I started a journal of ideas and quotes that affected me or changed the way I saw the world. I have no idea where that journal is today, but I've recently rediscovered its contents through my parenting experiences.

For example, Rita Mae Brown once wrote that "people are like teabags - you can never tell how strong they are until they're in hot water." Over the past couple of months, Carrie and I have learned that we have different, albeit complimentary, perceptions of hot water. When Amari was learned to walk, pulled a kitchen drawer out, flopped on her butt, clipped her gum on the drawer handle, and started bleeding profusely - I panicked, racing her upstairs saying, "Shit, shit, shit. Carrie, Carrie, Carrie." She calmly asked what happened, told me to blend up some ice and fruit, and wrap it in a sock to ice her gum. Problem solved, bleeding stopped, dad feeling pretty lame.

Last week, dad got some redemption. Arriving home after Carrie's bedtime, I was surprised to see the living room lights on, troubled to find her pacing and crying with a screaming Amari in her arms.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"She's been crying for almost an hour, she won't stop..."
"She has an earache. She needs to go to the ER," blurts Granny C from the rocking chair.
Annoyed, I snapped, "Did you go to medical school while I was out? Don't diagnose my daughter."

Granny C proceeded to share the "battery" of tests they'd conducted which included taking her temperature and yanking on her ears. Conclusion - earache. Prognosis - apparently not good.
"Let me take her," I said calmly and she continued to cry in my arms for a few seconds until I said, "Do you want to watch an episode of Blue's Clues?" Silence.
"Yeah," Amari uttered her latest and most awesome word. It's muffled and shortened, but it's definitely a 'yeah.' Alleged earache gone, ER and other catastrophes averted. Carrie went to sleep and Amari sat silently on the couch with me, tooth pain numbed by her love of Steve, Blue, Salt & Pepper, and maybe even the warm arm of her dad. She stayed up much too late that night, but eventually she leaned over on my side, closed her eyes, and slipped into a peaceful, vertical sleep.

Last weekend, I got another opportunity to demonstrate the strength of my teabag (don't worry this isn't a prison story). On Sunday, Carrie and I enjoyed a delicious brunch which included poached duck eggs, sweet potato hash, and pork sausages. Amari ate everything. Tons of it. Then she wanted to play in infant swing hanging from the ceiling. She was smiling and laughing and swinging and eventually spinning herself around in circles. She did this until we left twenty minutes later, and neither one of us gave it a second thought when we strapped her into her car seat. Less than a mile down the road we heard a cough followed by a little cry and when Carrie reached back to offer Amari a pacifier, she came back with wet fingers and the wonderful hypothesis, "Oh crap, I think she threw up."

Sure enough, upon pulling over, we discovered poor little Amari looking quite pale and exhausted by the volcanic ooze of eggs, sausage, and orange slime dripping down her chest and seemingly into every crevasse in the car seat. Carrie kind of freaked out a little - mostly grossed out, but also a little bit of what-the-hell-are-we-going-to-do-with-no-change-of-clothes-and-a-car-seat-full-of vomit panic. Without so much as a word - probably because I was holding my breath - pulled Amari from her brunch soup, stripped her down on the side of the road, put her jacked on her naked upper body and wrapped the rest of her in a blanket. "You sit in the back with Amari and we'll drive illegally." Any cop that had kids would either understand completely or throw the book at us. It was a risk I was willing to take.

Back to the work 'yeah' for a minute. Last week, Jim was lamenting the fact that both of our kids had mastered the universal head shake "No," but neither was able to say yes, except by process of elimination. Do you want this? Head shake. This? Head shake. This? Head shake - sometimes coupled with a disgusted look like, "Are you fucking kidding? I only like cottage cheese five minutes ago and five minutes from now." Amari is, moment to moment, extremely fickle. And yet she likes a lot of things provided you have a lot of patience.

Anyway, while the Calverts were away last weekend, Amari fulfilled Jim's wishes that one of the kids learn to say yes. I don't know how or when exactly it happened, but she suddenly started answering a very quick, abbreviated, "yeh," when we ask her questions. Are you hungry? Yeh. Do you want to go upstairs, outside, inside, etc.? Yeh. It's awesome. It opens up a whole new line of questioning possibilities. I've already caught myself saying things like, "Do you love dada?" Yeh. "Is dada the coolest guy ever?" Yeh. "Does dada deserve an award from a prestigious parenting society..." and so on. There is definitely a certain momentum to her use of the word.

On the flip side, however, the word 'yeh' also allowed Amari to inadvertently tell her first lie. I'm not sure that it was a lie as much as she was telling me how she felt, but two days ago when I smelled a distinctively full diaper, I asked Amari, "Did you make a poo poo?" In the past, she could just shake her head "No" and I would have just thought, "Well, that's all she knows how to do." But now that I know she can 'yeh' with the best, her head shake felt like a little stab in our unblemished bond.

On the fun and goofy side of parenting, I took a field trip last weekend and met my buddy Matt at my brother's house in Cloverdale. I think I mentioned last week that Amari has become a fan of the show Blue's Clues, which has been a blessing first thing in the morning when we're trying to make coffee, unload the dishwasher, start a fire, and just plain wake our asses up. Feeling a little guilty about putting her in front of the TV, I decided it would be cool to create interactive parent-child videos that I could put on instead. Me saying and doing things that she and I do together - reading books, singing Little Bunny Foo Foo, high-fiving, and so on. I started to script an episode of Blue's Clues which incorporates some of my favorite songs from childhood.

I also hoped that by including Matt and Jacob, Amari would feel close to them even though she doesn't see them very often. The result of the fun, goofy, creative afternoon was a two-part, almost thirty minute episode of Blue's Clues (including outtakes). If you have kids, screen it first, but I'm pretty sure it's G rated.

I really do love this job...

G'night all.

Part One: http://www.vimeo.com/18904148

Part Two: http://www.vimeo.com/18930029

Enjoy

Uh Oh...

spaghetti-o???

With increasing frequency, Amari is determined to do things on her own. Although her independent eating challenges the last stronghold on any sense of order I had prior to parenting, watching the delight with which she pinches things between her fingers, clasps them in her palms, and eventually navigates them into her mouth is worth all the sticky surfaces, the hours of vacuuming, and the surprise treats left between cushions and beneath tables.

One of Amari's favorite toy is, I've learned, called a Shape O Ball - that many-sided ball with pieces that fit into a variety of shapes. She's liked it for ages now, and although we've transitioned it upstairs for a while, she manages to find Hunter's every time we visit the Calverts. She has excellent fine motor skills and a pretty good eye for circles. After that, it's a team effort - with me rotating the ball as quickly as she snatches up the next piece. I marvel at Amari's persistence and determination as she tries to put a triangle into a circle, then a square, a star, and finally its rightful place - across the living room with deserved frustration. Anger expressed, she presses on, and when all the pieces are in the ball or appropriately tossed aside (i.e. pentagon, cross, trapezoid), she quickly says, "Mo, mo." 

Similarly, now that she's walking, and now that she sees Hunter and Reya navigate their worlds with reckless abandon, she is challenging herself to do new things every day. At the bottom of the ramp that leads to Granny C's, there's a three inch drop off that is tricky for her tiny legs and feet. The first few dismounts, she fell forward onto her hands and knees with a loud grunt. Each time, she picked herself up, turned around, climbed up the ramp, turned around, and tried again. Face plant, face plant, face plant, and finally a success - after which she walked away and headed back home. 

Even language has become an endlessly adorable practice. Tonight, as we were putting Amari to bed she curled up between us, and began saying, "Dada, mapa, dada, mapa, dada, mapa," Every now and again she would look back at me as though to make sure I knew she was talking about me. One of our recent concessions (translation: necessities for mental health) has been introducing Amari to a show called "Blue's Clues." The main character is Steve, and a couple of days ago when he came on the TV, Amari ran up to the screen, waving her hand excitedly, and saying, "Hi St...Hi St..." not quite able to get the "-eve" out. Now that the charms of Jason Mraz have worn off, it's good to have Steve around. When Amari had a toothing meltdown earlier this week, he was the only one would could really calm her down. 

Matt and I are actually planning to make our own episode of Blue's Clues this weekend in hopes of giving Amari something to watch while maintaining that interpersonal connection when  dad needs to do get shit done. I'm curious to see how it works, because so far it's really just the videos of her that have her transfixed. 

We'll know soon.

Isaac Fishman

Insert Clever Title Here

My dad spent Christmas here again this year, and every time he visits I get more excited about the possibility of him moving to the coast. This time we even looked at a few houses and found both the prices and availability promising. It's sad how many people are selling their homes - unless of course you're buying, in which case - awesome. Do it soon.

One night during the visit I told my dad I was going to stay up to do some writing, and he asked, very sincerely, "How do you do that? How do you start?" It was a good question, but there was no single answer. Sometimes it's obvious - a milestone, a birthday, a challenging experience- while other times it's more subtle - a feeling, a reflection, a compulsion to capture something that might otherwise slip away forever.

Today it's this...

How quickly becoming a parent has changed me. Twenty years ago, just six months out of high school, I left California holding the possibility that I may never return. My dad's alcoholism was culminating in failed relationships, legal problems, and a seemingly inevitable inertia towards something awful, while my mother was married to a drug addict/manufacturer/dealer and was cultivating a lethal relationship with cocaine. My brother was in his room with his bong almost as much as I was out of the house, and my sister was living in the San Francisco drinking away the pain of her first love's incarceration in England for trafficking drugs.

Good times. Good times. Life was pretty sweet back then.

The moral of the paragraph is that I wanted out. Badly. I worked twelve hour days, six days a week for almost seven months and saved enough money to get out of dodge for a year. I headed to Thailand then India and consequentially Europe. At first I felt guilty about leaving my dad, but the first taste of the liberation from family roles and obligations dissolved those feelings like and ice cubes in hot water. In the words of MLK, I was free at last.

When I landed in Amsterdam eleven months later, heart-broken from my first love affair, I found two jobs, an apartment, and started to imagine a permanent life abroad. My dad wanted/expected me to go to college and leaving to travel was the only form of rebellion I knew. He had gone to Spain for a summer after his first year of law school and returned seven years later with a wife, three kids, and a proclivity towards all things opiate. I think he feared I might do the same. In some ways I did.

My mother didn't pile the same expectations on me. Her hopes and guidance were more ambiguous and and even less helpful. According to her I was going to be a "very special person." According to her astrological charts I was going to pursue knowledge over wealth while my brother was going to be a millionaire. According to me, that kind of sucked, so I remained skeptical and took knowledge like I took everything else back then - with grain of salt and a shot of something strong. Instead of expecting me to return to college, my mom and her boyfriend decided to move to Amsterdam, too, throwing a wrench in my "as far away as possible" plan and prompting me to start researching other continents.

Ultimately, I returned to the States, to college, and in many ways to my family roles and obligations. My dad got better, got sober, got himself relocated and started a new life. Seven years later, when my life was falling apart, I ended up moving back in with him. I'm pretty sure it wasn't what he wanted in his life at the time, but he did it without hesitation, with love, and of course with a towel on the floor whenever I dared eat in the living room. I still wanted to be on the other side of the world somewhere, but I drank and used instead and struggled to find any direction in my life. Being close to my dad was probably what kept me alive.

A decade later and we're in different parts of the world again. I finally found what I was looking for and I no longer need to escape. I started a family and so did my dad. Now, although I can still relate to that anxious, itchy-footed teenager, I've become a very serene and sedentary adult. And now, I can't think of anything better than my dad spending the rest of his life here on the coast, here in our town, and even here on our street.

So, Dad. There you have it. That's how I write.

A couple of weeks ago I was at the Calverts and we were discussing abstract art - specifically a piece in their bedroom that I think looks like it was drawn by their sixteen month-old son, Hunter. The question I asked, which Noah applauded was, "How does this guy know when he's done?" Melissa answered, "It's probably like you with your writing. He just knows."

I don't think that makes any sense at

How's that?

PS: I have the holiday video ready. It's set to a synth-pop version of Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmastime." I hope you all enjoy it. More videos coming soon.

http://www.vimeo.com/18338839

PSS: I found an old photo of me with my dad where I could finally see that Amari looks a little like me. Or at least like I used to.