Welcome!

     It was a dark and stormy night.  Stinky and The Bean huddled together under the covers of mommy and daddy’s bed, waiting for the thunder to pass.

     Unfortunately, daddy had eaten burritos for dinner.  Which meant the “thunder” wasn’t passing anytime soon.

     OK, so the dog and the kid really don’t hide under my blankets (the kid being almost six months old doesn’t hide anywhere, though the dog does pretty much live in our bed).   But that’s hardly the point, right?  Why waste a perfectly good opening line, a veritable classic like “dark and stormy night”?  And if you can mix in a little fart humor, well that’s just about my idea of heaven..

     Right behind watching The Bean (my daughter) figure out how to pet Stinky (my other daughter, the furry one) for the first time.

     Insert readers’ simultaneous “awwww” here

     If you had told me a year ago, smack in the middle of The Wife’s pregnancy, that I’d be sitting here typing in gooey, sappy, daddy-ese about my two kids, I’d have told you that you were nuts.  Insane.  That’s just not what I do.  I don’t write sappy.  I don’t write goopy.  I write angst and (melo)drama.  I write about screwed up people with screwed up lives and screwed up relationships.  

     Not the way The Bean’s giggling while she’s covered in poop and pee can turn even her frazzled, frustrated, and notoriously cranky and cynical daddy into a giggling, goofy, dad.

     But now, here I am, writing about that exact thing.  And all the other things that pop into my head now that I’m a daddy and a husband (and a teacher, writer, and – even at my age – son).  They’re not always pretty (see: “covered in poop”).  And they may not always make me look good (after all, I’m still me, which means a better than average chance I’ll come off like an idiot – dead meat from the neck up as my father says – more often than not).

     But hey, I wouldn’t waste that good opening.  Why waste good material?

     And so, on we go.

     ME