Tomorrow’s my birthday!!

July 3 will mark the 35^th year I’ve kicked around dirt on this lovely spiraling rock. I’m five years closer to that magical number 40. And, as a someone nears that age their forced to take a moment and reflect on everything they’ve done since they were born.

So here’s my reflection. Snapshots of my life over the past 35 years:

July 3, 1975 I’m born! Holy shit it’s bright out here

Age 1 - What’s up bitches!! I can walk!!

Age 2 - I don’t wanna poop in that thing!

Age 3 - Mine!

Age 4 - Is this a losth toof?

Age 5 - Why is the sky blue? Why do birds fly? Why does daddy’s butt make those sounds?

Age 6 - Can you turnaround while I get dressed?

Age 7 – Mommy, can I have a Garfield lunchbox?

Age 8 – My first record – The Beach Boys, Surfin’ USA

Age 9 – My first kiss.

Age 10 – Double digits bitches! I’m an adult and now! I know everything!!

Age 11 – My mom makes me Jams that are too poofy in the front so I look like I’ve got a butt-in-front.

Age 12 – I love every girl that looks my way and masturbation is so AWESOME!!!!

Age 13 – Iron Maiden, Meggadeath, MTV Headbangers Ball

Age 14 – My first heartbreak.

Age 15 – Music obsession reaches a new high.

Age 16 – I start dating my future wife.

Age 17 – This writing thing is pretty damn cool. Maybe I should obsessively write a journal and poetry…

Age 18 – I can drink, party all night, go to class when I want and my parents aren’t around? I LOVE college!

Age 19 – Long hair and living the grunge life-style.

Age 20 – I guess I’ll major in journalism and minor in professional writing.

Age 21 – I sell my car for $50 and my best friend almost murders me over it.

Age 22 – Why hello there real world…damn this sucks!

Age 23 – I marry the wife and place my balls in jar never to be seen again.

Age 24 – The wife and I contemplate moving to Washington state for the hell of it. End up in Virginia instead.

Age 25 – My first house! Now I’m all grows up!

Age 26 – Let’s start taking this running thing to a whole new level!

Age 27 – It’s a boy!! Let’s name him Grayson!

Age 28 – I just….want….to…..sleep. And I run my first marathon!

Age 29 – It’s a girl!!! Let’s name her Macy!

Age 30 – I just….want…to…sleep.

Age 31 – Oh sweet vasectomy how I love you!!

Age 32 – No more diapers! No more cribs! And everyone’s sleeping! Could this be real?

Age 33 – Alright family…let’s pack-it-up and move our asses to Chicago!!

Age 34 – Wow…this four-months being unemployed sucks…. Oh hey new job!

Age 35……..

What a wonderful ride it’s been.

So Sunday’s our big day dudes!! This is it…our time to shine. Our time to throw our chests out like we’re the hardest working hooker on the block.

It’s Father’s Day!!

For some reason I always get my hopes up for this holiday - like a kid before Christmas. I imagine it being an epic holiday and find myself getting more and more jazzed as the day approaches. Then…well, the reality of fatherhood slaps me in the face.

Here. Let me illustrate for you. Take a gander at my fantasy Father’s Day versus the real Father’s Day.

Fantasy Father’s Day

Wake up to a warm, naked wife with freshly brushed teeth kissing me while her hands wander about under the sheets.

Reality Father’s Day

Son with ass-breath standing inches from my face saying, “DADDY!!! Wake-up daddy! I’m hungry. Can I have breakfast pplllleeeassse!!!?”

Fantasy Father’s Day

Wake up from post-sex morning nap to find my wife handing me a warm cup of coffee and the Sunday Times. She says, “hey, I’m gonna take the kids to the grocery store, why don’t you go for a nice long run, take a shower, then I’ll give your feet and legs a good rub-down.”

Reality Father’s Day

Walk downstairs to a destroyed kitchen with cat puke on the floor. Step on one of my daughter’s Zhu Zhu Pets, find there’s no more cream in the refrigerator, and roll my eyes as I answer the boy’s same question six times in a row.

Fantasy Father’s Day

Walk downstairs after my foot-rub and my living room is filled with all the top dudes in my life, a keg, and golf on the big screen TV!

Reality Father’s Day

I don’t get a run in, the kids refuse to eat their breakfast and start breaking down when I click off their favorite TV channel.

Fantasy Father’s Day

Golf’s over and a party van rolls up in front to the house to pick up the dudes and me. Once inside we realize all the wives got baby-sitters and we’re all gonna rip Chi-Town up for the night!

Reality Father’s Day

The girl pee’s herself, the boy’s hamster has escaped, and the wife “really wants to take advantage of that sale at Kohl’s tonight.” I open the refrigerator to find only one beer and it’s a damn Milwaukee’s Best and we’re out of wine.

While my fantasy Father’s Day would be bad-ass…I admit, I’d take the reality Father’s Day any day because without it, I wouldn’t have earned the right to stick my chest out in pride that day.

I’m just kidding…Give me the Fantasy Father’s Day!!! It’s just one day I’m asking for!!

Happy Father’s Day dudes!!!

The Spring is such a wonderful time of year. It brings the people-folk out of their houses. The runners start training in mass for races, bikers create that cloud-like blob along early-morning road sides, and dogs with their owners begin making longer journeys around the neighborhood.

I was on a run yesterday when I passed a number of people walking their beloved furry animals. I couldn’t help but remember just over a year ago when the wifey and I made the collective decision to bring a dog into the family.

And….scene:

It was late fall, the family had just moved from Virginia to Chicago to be with me after waiting months to sell the house. We had already bought a cat and everyone was settling into a good mid-western big city routine.

I’d just finished reading the amazing book The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (yeah it’s an Oprah Book Club book but I didn’t read it because of that…you wanna fight about it?!!!). I suddenly got a hankering to bring a dog into the family thinking in my head, the kids would love growing up with a furry bastard around the house.

It was like being a teenager all over again…I wanted something that I knew was no good. I wanted to bring a dog into a three bedroom, one bathroom house, already equipped with one brand new cat, a backyard no larger than a postage stamp, long winters hovering around 0 degrees, and a wife I knew damn good and well would not walk this beast.

We went to the SPCA as a family. We met dogs. We walked dogs. We played with them on shit-covered sheets of ice. We finally found the “perfect” one! Five minutes later the SPCA worker was quickly removing him from us after he tried to eat my daughter’s face off.

Two days later we brought home a large doggie. We loved that bastard. But holy shit no one in his short life had even begun to train him. And when he stood up on his hind legs, he was the same height as my beloved wife at 5’1”.

This is the same wife who for the first time since she was 14 years old, wasn’t working a job. She was staying home with our children, in a new city, hundreds of miles from any family and friends while her husband was gone from 8 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. during the work-week.

We named him “Odie.” Most of his short life in our home he spent chasing the cat, leaping on counters, tackling our children, trying to eat my wife, and sparking calls from the wife to me at work that sounded a lot like “I can’t handle the two kids, this winter, and this damn dog!!!”

I took him on walks. I read up on training and implemented the tips as best I could. I set up an appointment with a trainer but had to wait a month for a new class to start. But every day I came home it was the same. House trashed, the dog crated, wife frazzled and crying, and kids swinging from the ceiling.

A few days later I came home to the wife in tears again and mumbling, “I just can’t handle it!”

I asked her to put the kids to bed, I grabbed the dog, put him in the car and headed back to the SPCA. It was the worst feeling I’d had in years. I knew I was taking him back to prison after experiencing our wonderful family. A lot of other people would have made a different decision, but I knew we were not the ideal family for this dog that had lived in our house for four days.

Later we explained to the kids that I took Odie to a farm to be with tons of other dogs where they could run around and have so much fun.

We kept track of Odie on the SPCA website and a week later he was adopted and never returned. Looking back at those pictures the wife and I miss him. We wished he had found him at a better time in our lives.

But…we’re confident he’s enjoying his life on that farm with all those dogs…

It’s been just over a week since I lost my job.

I’ve woken up in the morning, helped get the kids ready for school and out the door. I’ve written blog posts. I’ve cranked-up my obsession with working out to a level to where I’m sure I’ll get injured soon.

I’ve been pissed as shit. I’ve been depressed. I’ve spent my time feeling helpless, letting distractions rule me, and occasionally fed-off bursts of incredible support and energy.

Yeah…right now, I feel like a victim and I’m not scared to say that. But it’s been nine days…and now I straddle that line.

On one side I can continue to slip…turn a blind-eye, wake up months from now with still nothing.

On the other, I can move on, flip my chin to what’s left behind, all while leaving small motivational bits and stories in my wake.

The way my son looks at me after everything he does makes me feel like a rock star. The way my daughter snuggles closer to me in the mornings when I crawl into bed with her to wake her makes my heart break. My family is my motivation. But pride, as a man, is my downfall. And my pride’s just been buried six-feet down and a tombstone reading “you were fired” has been slapped down forever marking my time on this orbiting rock.

But I won’t dwell. I won’t be gotten the best of.

I’ll never forget laying in bed with my wife in college, then after we first moved in, then after we had kids….and a million other times where I’ve said…. “I’m gonna make $1 million before I turn 30.” I’m 34 now.

But with time comes lessons, some learned harder than others. Risks – bring on a whole new meaning. Love – we could all write books about love. Family – it’s what defines you, and later, you find the pen in your hand with a wife and children eagerly looking at you to begin writing their chapters. Jobs – they’re the essential component in the glue holding everything together but it DOES NOT make you the person you are.

The loss of my job does not define me. It’s humbled me. It’s made stop dead. It’s made the musical soundtrack of my life adjust yet one more time. It’s made my vision of life, family, love, profession….change…..again.

When I was a kid I told myself I’d never be like my father. When I was 10, I told my brother the same. When I was a teenager, I told my future wife the same tale. When I was in college I wrote endlessly about it. When my first born entered our lives I journaled this continued promise vowing this transformation would never happen.

My current situation has me closer to being my father than I could have ever imagined I’d experience.

So I’m putting the gloves back on. The mouthpiece is back in. And I just glanced over my shoulder to see if my family showed up for their front row seats. And I can see them all lined up, leaning forward, looking at each other for reassurance, but throwing fake confidence my way. And I’m loving it…cause I’m about to cross back the fuck over and move on..far….far away from that dividing line…and fulfill a promise made long ago….to more than provide…but BE someone.

Wifey got back yesterday after 5 days of being by her family’s side to put her cousin to rest. The next day her phone lit-up with a jobby job offer that seemed too good to be true. Five days a week – 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. – the same time the kids are in school so no childcare required. At least not till summer time.

Her paycheck won’t be “extra money” by any stretch. But I still can’t help but think of how I’m going to use the money to get my half-sleeve tattoo finished, or to get the roof replaced, or to dangle in front of my kids’ faces only to quickly snap it away as they reach for it, or to….wait…what honey?!!….yes dear…. Ummm…or to pay bills.

This past month seems to have been about change. The wifey of course experiencing the largest. Me having my daily routine thrown off for a couple weeks – which as any Type-A person knows, is like having your security blanky burned right before your eyes. A change in my waist size from not being able to work out for many days. And, now a new routine with the wife going back to work. On the horizon – hopefully one more large change….

This past month I got a massive dose of stay-at-home mommy life…make that, single stay at home mommy life. We laughed, we all cried, at times I was tied up and beaten with various stuffed animals, occasionally I was proud, yesterday I repeated myself 379 times, on Monday my daughter took a massive poop while the boy tried to wait patiently cause he had to pee, Sunday we bought a cap gun and a Lil Pet Shop birdie, Tuesday I scooped 4 days worth of cat shit, Friday my son said “daddy….you’re a weird man.”

This past month I truly loved spending the time I did with the little bastards and enjoyed experiencing the parts of their days that I miss when I’m at work. But I was glad to get back to my somewhat normal day-to-day life. With enough time, alcohol, and therapy…I’ll forget how challenging it is and look forward to doing it again.

This past month was the first full month of my blog and I gotta say I’m kind of digging it. Who the fuck knows where it’ll go…but it’s definitely providing me with a killer outlet for my ramblings…..