I slept in late yesterday because the alarm was mis-set. Then I accidentally put on old Jncos to wear to work.

Granted, they are a nicer pair and I made it until about 3pm until someone said, "Nice baggy jeans."

We won't get into the whole eating small dinners at 10.30pm thing I am currently rocking. (Otherwise, I would say I'm doing pretty well. 60%, let's say.)

To everyone, but wasn't to me until this morning: Waking up alone sucks.

Most of my life, sure, no problem. No biggie. But of all the things in the last 18 hours that I miss most, that's it. Followed closely by the fun of getting ready for work with someone in the morning.

And I promise I'm not going to post like Eeyore every 10 hours now.

I'm sitting in Atlanta, the airport, waiting for the flight back to SF. I'm sitting by myself. R is already in Boston. By magic, our flights took off at the same time from the gate, leaving little time for teary goodbyes. (They weren't as teary as they could have been or as I expected.)

We spent a week at Buxton, NC with the family. It was good mostly except for: cutting my fingers badly against my razor, losing my class ring (more to follow) and ripping the skin by a toenail.

I had a small bit of panic as the flight closed the door in Richmond. But it passed as we got into the air and I started reading. Still, to quote Keren: Blarg.

Anyway. That thing that I have been posting over and dreading for months? Yeah, it's here now and I'm holding on ok. All in all, it was extremely low-key. R won't let me change my FB status to 'it's complicated' but whee. Ok, now I got back to something else over the next 90 minutes til I board.

Ah, I thought I smelled something opening up the ad circulars last weekend. It was desperation. Yep, according to this, Father’s Day is starting to rank up there with Mother’s Day and, can you believe it, Christmas on the ol’ retailers’ watchlist. And that’s fine and what not. Money makes the world go ‘round or something equally pithy.

But here’s the thing that gets me: what dad wants, according to marketing.

Apparently, you should buy dad a circular saw.

Which is wrong on two counts. First, a dad should already have a circular saw. It’s a rule of some sort. Step One: Plant your seed in a woman’s womb? Check. Step Two: Buy a circular saw. I don’t care if you live in a geothermally heated teepee, you’re going to need a circular saw at some point. Second, and more importantly, saying that what Dad wants for his special day is a power tool is like saying you should definitely get Mom a vacuum cleaner. And an apron.

Then, failing that, a Dad only wants to sit on his ass watching NASCAR or baseball on a giant screen TV.

So, you’ve got your dichotomy here. The gift of a power tool says, “Get off your lazy ass and get some work done around here” while the gift of a big-ass TV says “You’re a hopeless lost cause, you alchie SOB. Here, drink yerself to death.”

Yay Fatherhood.

Chrissakes, people. Dad teaches you how to throw a ball, ride a bike, throw a punch and cuss like a truck driver. That’s what dads are good at. It’s where we excel, those finer points of life. So don’t turn Father’s Day into some made-up retail shit day. Give him something real. A hug. A call. Baked goods. Ice cream. Some alone time with Mama…

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I guess the thing I really like about these days before Father’s Day is the age Reed’s at. He’s old enough to understand that a ‘special’ day is coming and is excited getting prepared for it. He’s been making little ‘secret’ drawings all week, and at various times will say something like “We’re doing [insert full description of thing here] but I can’t tell you about [insert full description of thing here] because it’s a surprise. For Father’s Day!” Which is just great and funny and beautiful. And doubly wonderful because it makes me laugh. It pulls me out of that getup-makebreakfast-gohere-dothis-makelunch-dolaundry-makedinner-dobaths rut I get into. THAT is the greatest gift.

I guess the thing I’m scared of is: that might change someday. That the constant consumerist drumbeat of our culture will one day ring in my children’s ears. Because, honestly, I’d take Reed’s drawing of him and I (with no arms, apparently) over a plasma TV any day.

Some nights I go to bed simply hoping to wake up the next day as a little bit better father. God please bless these little children and know that as hard as it can be, I don’t want for anything else.

Briefly after naptime Rebekah was playing with her super-big Duplo blocks in her crib. Then a block makes an escape through the slats on the back side of the crib and disappears down the wall. Up rides the cavalry—Daddy—to save the block from beneath the bed. I reach under, grab it and hand it to her, which she readily and graciously accepts.

Then points back to the spot where HER block had disappeared at the back of the crib. Silly Daddy. I appreciate that block, but that one obviously came from underneath the crib and I lost mine back here, so would you mind getting that one please?

I love how her little mind works. She counts now. One, two…four.

Speaking of counting, yesterday Reed told us he was D years old. And that on his next birthday he’d be E. Yes. He’s applied the numbers to the sequential alphabet. Over lunch he exclaimed—aghast—that both Mama and Daddy are “past the alphabet!”

Ah. New ways to feel old…

Oh, and Rebekah put on her own pants today, which, given her recent pants-less wanderings is more reassuring than you’d think.

I heard today that Jeff Healey died of cancer. He sang "Angel Eyes" which was my huge, huge torch song for this girl I dated in high school. In the tape deck on dates, at the prom, or on lonely drives through the winding back roads of Hangover County. It voiced that seemingly all-encompassing, blinding love you get in high school, that 'love-sickness.' In the end, we were a total trainwreck with enough chapters to fill a book. And not a 'happily ever after' kind of book. Think more along the lines of Bronte or a messed-up Henry James sort of way.

Still, there is always that song. For some reason it always takes me back to a moment where I believed I could hold the entirety of the world.

I was dumfounded to learn he was just seven years older than me. My heart goes out to his wife and children.