Totsiens

Two years ago we hired an au pair because I found out that, unlike day care, they didn't charge by the child.

This week, despite my six month effort to shove her into a loveless greencard marriage, we said goodbye to her.

In between Stacey was more than a part of the family, she was like the leg that kept us from falling over. She was also like an arm, a foot, and in many ways she was a pelvis. The point is, her going felt less like a goodbye and more like an amputation. She's the limb you can still feel despite it being gone (I assume you're all amputees and you can relate to this idea). The girls keep saying "Stacey on plane" and pointing each time one goes by as if she's just been circling around up there and any particular aluminum tube might be the one to bring her back.

One of the things I find particularly shitty about getting older is that you learn that everything eventually passes. The best summer ever, the worst day of your life, these are all just things that end up in your file. The things or the people you felt like you'd DIE without or DIE because of when you're a teenager (when it seems like threatening to DIE is all you do), you learn, in fact, you will live through. I mean Life Goes On is a great lesson and all, but there's something lost when you realize that all those hours spent moaning while listening to Cure albums are just a phase, a coping mechanism, and that the things you hold the most dear, the closest to your heart, even those things will someday fade.

So look, Stacey's not dead. She's back in South Africa. We're going to miss her. She's going to miss us. And then one day, she won't. One day she'll get a job she's excited about or meet a boy better than I was able to procure via Craigslist and all of this, the good, the bad, and the goodbye, all of it will feel a little less near, a little less raw, until eventually, it will be a chapter in a book she read long ago and rarely, if ever, gets off the shelf. All of which is what should happen, what needs to happen. It's why you don't spend the rest of your life crying after your first date invites another guy along or your second date decides she's a lesbian (I assume this also happened to all of you and that you can relate. And that you're amputees. Writing to a very specific group of you tonight). I'm just saying, sometimes the knowledge that you'll get over something is as disappointing as the thing itself. It makes your devastation feel less real, less necessary. If you get over everything, what really matters?

So for now I'm going to wallow in the sad the same way I always advocate feasting on the happy. I'm going to dig out my Disintegration album and claw at the carpet the way I did when that girl said, Kyle, you've made me realize I just don't really like boys. So Stacey, wherever you are, I hope you're getting over it, and I hope you appreciate that we're choosing not to.

The irony is that when I was so on the fence about even having kids I used joke that we should just adopt an amazing teenager bound for bigger and better things, have her for a year or two, and then get our house back to ourselves. Instead we ended up with twins, a boy, a minivan, and a teenager bound for bigger and better things who we would have adopted a thousand times if only we were allowed. The fact that we couldn't means we'll be scratching at our phantom leg/arm/pelvis for some time.

Totsiens, Stacey.

Ponies, Generosity, and Brain Damage

The girls have started pre-school. Given that I'm never actually in town on weekdays I've never been, but I've heard it referred to as a 'hippie school' on multiple occasions. Based on the pictures I get it looks like Lord Of The Flies with watercolors. Just a lot of kids running around painting each other, forming tricycle gangs, and plotting to take over the world. By 11am everyone looks like an extra from a Mad Max movie and then they all sit down and have juice boxes. I'm not clear on if or how any of this is supposed to be educational. Nixie is confident she can count, but actually sounds like she's reciting an international phone number. 1-2- 6-3-6-2-4-1-1.... and on and on until she arbitrarily says ten and you clap.

The first day Amy dropped them off the girls cried. And cried. And then there was more crying. A teacher took each of them separately and showed them around the various stations (this is where you'll paint other children, this is where you'll prepare yourselves for battle, etc) and they continued to cry. And then they spotted each other across the playground and they ran to each other and they hugged and held on to each other. Sisters. Twins. And then there was no crying. There is no point to that story other than to melt your hard cold heart. If you are unmoved you have died and are only now becoming aware of it. My condolences. This is how it happens. The bright white light was a rumor.

The girls have also entered that phase where you have to kiss all of their injuries to make them better and because they go to a freeform warrior school there are a lot of injuries. The other day I was changing Nixie and she had a wicked painful diaper rash and she was sobbing and sobbing, and then she started to yell 'Kiss IT, Kiss IT!" For years I wouldn't share a soda with my wife for fear of germs, but when a crying little girl asks you to kiss her ass, you just do. That's the best way I can describe the special kind of brain damage that is fatherhood. It's probably also the only reason anyone buys a pony.

Despite the fact that they look alike and are often dressed alike, the girls are beginning to differentiate themselves. Somehow Ripley seems to have gotten all of Amy and I's (Amy and my? Amy and your? Were you involved? That's weird) stinginess. We're just not generous people. We've been known to use a ruler when splitting a cookie. Both our brothers are the opposite, and both of us took horrible advantage of this growing up. I remember pocketing my allowance and convincing mine to buy us both candy. Which he did with a smile. These are the genes Nixie received. If Ripley cries, Nixie gives her the rest of her milk. If Nixie cries Ripley comes and takes her milk. Nixie says 'for you'. Ripley says 'MINE!'. I would worry about it more if I didn't know that someday Ripley will crack. Someday someone will yell "Kiss it!" and she will without a second thought.

Should You Have Children

The other day someone wrote to ask if they should have children. I appreciated this. I wish more people would write to ask if they should do things. I like having a vote in things that don’t really concern me that I’m not qualified to talk about. It makes me feel like an elected official. Anyway, this is what I told them:

Having children is like deciding to move to a foreign country. Everything is strange and noisy, you don’t speak the language, there’re a million rules you don’t understand, and the minute you cross the border you realize you can never go back. Things are different than they were back home. You can’t get that thing you used to love or go to that place you always went. For a long time those differences will drive you crazy.

And then slowly you’ll look around your new country and see it for what it is, not for how it compares to where you moved from. You’ll start to see it has an awesomeness all its own. Some pointy mountains over here, a nice lake over there, and that bird looking thing down there, all of this will become appealing to you. It will never be like where you were, it will always be someplace new, but eventually it will feel like home and to your surprise you will find yourself writing to friends in the old country telling them to move here both because it is awesome and so you will feel less alone.

You will show them pictures of the mountains and lakes you’ve discovered and their eyes will glaze over and you will say, ‘but it’s such a CUTE mountain! And you should see it at bedtime!’. And they will likely smile at your little mountain and then go out drinking at some bar in the country you used to love with people you used to drink in bars with. And maybe you will wonder – do I really belong here? And you will look at the mountains and know they are yours and you will think OF COURSE I belong here. And then the mountains will vomit on you and you will want to go home. This will continue for twenty years.

In the end, moving is a huge decision, and there’s no right answer. You can live right where you are forever and always find something new and cool to see. And if you want to stay, stay – the world has plenty of mountains. But if some spirit of adventure or broken piece of contraception spurs you to move, my guess is you’ll eventually be quite happy in your new land. If nothing else, you’ll get to name everything after yourself.

Is Lonestar One Word Or Two?

Dear Blog,

I was just looking through you for some evidence that I've been working on a television show that I sold last August, wrote last fall, and shot a pilot for this spring. But it doesn't look like I told you any of this. Probably because at each step I was sure it wasn't going any further and so it seemed less important than telling you about what my kids had thrown up that day.

Anyway, I did all those things and now you will be able to enjoy/hate the fruits of our labor this fall. Knowing me as many of you do you probably find it distressing that a large corporation like Fox would devote airtime to something that had fallen out of my head and dried on pieces of paper. You probably want to rush out and sell your Newscorp stock. That's fair. I'll wait. Now that your retirement portfolio is safe, let me just say that, well, I think the show's actually going to be pretty good. Maybe not Seinfeld good, but at least Rhoda good. If Rhoda was a drama about bigamy.

The downside is that we'll have to write all the episodes in LA which means that for the foreseeable future I'll be spending weekdays there and weekends at home. Amy is excitset about this, which is a new emotion she created that's equal parts excited and upset. Excited that there will finally be a show about bigamy on a major network. Upset that she will be alone with three children when it airs on Monday nights.

My absences have also taken a toll on the house. All the little things that used to get fixed when I was here and we were both just oozing free time seem to be permanently backburnered. I may have mentioned that our microwave started to beep randomly and turn itself on and off at will, just spreading noise and radiation around the house. But it's screwed into the cabinets which really makes taking it in a bigger task than Amy's up for or I have time for so it just continues to beep and cook air. There's also a window about halfway down our stairs that you can't actually reach, the sill of which snagged a piece of clothing we threw over the balcony to be washed. Since then we've just been throwing more clothes at the original stuck item to try to dislodge it. The result is a heap of clothing that runs about halfway up the window which grows each day. Again, a few minutes to dig out the ladder would probably fix it, but when you're just here two days a week you tend to hope that you're just one more piece of clothing away from starting the avalanche that will liberate everything.

Anyway, I'm excited. I'm sure we'll be canceled in short order once someone realizes their mistake, and then I'll have all the time in the world to fix microwaves and get clothes out of windows. Until then, I'm going to be paid to surround myself with brilliant people and make stuff up. Given that five years ago I was working in construction and crawling around in laundromat ceilings, I'll take it.

I'll See You In Hell, Vacation

Yesterday as I was walking through the airport with two screaming children in my arms, another screaming child strapped to my chest, and large amounts of luggage trailing behind me I felt like I should get Trojan to sponsor all of our family activities. For small fee I would gladly wear sign that read: Don't Want To End Up Like This Asshole? Wear A Condom! I predict sales would skyrocket in my wake. Forget condoms, I could convince people to join the priesthood.

The following is an account of what I hope will remain THE WORST VACATION EVER. If anything else rises up and claims the title, I hope it kills me. The plan was simple: take the whole gang to Mexico for what may be one of the last weeks I have off for some time to come. We did not get far before the problems began.

At the airport it turned out that Stacey had not gotten the proper paperwork to leave the country although we discussed the need to do so at length over the course of the months leading up to the day. So instead of taking along an extra pair of hands, we were already down a man and out hundreds of dollars in non refundable air and hotel fees. AWESOME!

Those of us who remained were on the plane for about ten minutes before Ripples began to throw up. Only then did I understand the phrase Projectile Vomiting. As Amy struggled to clean everything out of her lap I had to point out that it was also all over the back of the seat in front of us. Blowing Chunks also suddenly made sense.

We repeated the vomiting while eating in the airport during our plane change, then again on our next flight where the flight attendant berated Amy, an er doctor, about the importance of hydrating Ripples. By the time we got to Mexico everything we owned was covered in vomit.

Then we got to customs. Let's not even talk about the line. The line is child's play. The line is the sort of thing you complain about when you have nothing else to really complain about. The only important thing about the line is the fact that we were literally the last people in it. And when we got to counter it turned out that Amy, doctor Amy, planning super mom Amy, had neglected to actually look at her own passport, which was EXPIRED. This led to our vomit covered family being pulled into some sort of interview room at midnight in Mexico where it turned out that the price of trying to get into Mexico with an expired passport is a 'tip' for 47$ and ten Euros. Let me just say that if you haven't bribed a mexican official while wearing a four month old you really haven't lived.

The next day, mother's day, we were at least there, on vacation, at the beach, ready to HAVE FUN. Except it wasn't. Ever. At all. Ripples began to break out in some sort of rash to accompany her fever and vomiting. Mars got in on the fever thing and cried and cried, and then cried more. The whole day is just a blur of crying and screaming and sludge like strawberry daiquiris. All I know is that it ended at dinner with our friends and their children. Six adults v. six children. I cannot describe to you the horror of that evening except to say that if cyanide pills had been on the menu I would have ordered them as an appetizer. If I had been another patron in the restaurant I would have murdered us all with my butter knife. Also, let me just say now, once and for all, I hate asian food. Fuck asian food.

That night we laid in various beds with various children and did not sleep, but listened to them scream. When they screamed for Mommy even when mommy was holding them I knew that we were not going to make it. In the morning Amy changed our flight and began to pack. Suddenly the amount of money wasted on Stacey's paperwork aborted trip looked minuscule, and the amount we were wasting to get out of ours looked worth it. Had I known what was coming, I would have rethought my bribe to get into the country. When the official said, "what should we do about this situation?" I would have just asked if they had separate prisons for adults and children.

Anyway, we were going home! Yay! And we had a little more time to play at the beach and the pool. Yay! So while Amy packed, the girls and I went swimming. Except Ripley didn't like the water so she kept trying to pull a large umbrella down on herself while Nixie swam. Until Nixie wasn't swimming, and I heard people mumbling things and suddenly running toward the pool and looked up to see her floating face down in the middle. I joined the herd of people jumping in, pulled her up, got her out of the pool and found her extremely confused, but after a little coughing and spitting, completely fine. Her swimming companion seemed far more traumatized just for having witnessed the panic of adults flying into a pool. Let me just say a couple things about face down floating children: I cannot imagine a more primal terror than looking into a pool and seeing it, but the look on your wife's face when she sees you having to pull one of the children you were supposed to be watching out of a pool because they are floating face down is a feeling of personal failure on par with little else. In addition to blowing chunks, and projectile vomiting, the phrase 'I just looked away for a second' has new meaning.

But then, but then, we were headed home. At which point the girls began to practice a form of non-violent resistance right out of a civil rights demonstration. Basically, anytime we needed them to go somewhere, they laid on the ground and forced you to drag them like luggage. Which is what we did, along with the actual luggage. Which is what we were doing when I realized I looked like a walking advertisement for castration.

And now it's over. I'm home. We're home. Alive. Safe. All that stuff. But... I don't know. I think we're a lot worse off. At some point in the past I think I thought or wrote or read somewhere (who the hell knows) that having kids was like starting a business. And you take this person you love and you essentially make them a business partner. And at some point all you can talk about is the business. I can't recall a SINGLE SECOND of our trip where Amy and I weren't talking about one of the kids and the various ways in which they were trying to kill us. I was on a beach in Mexico in the general area of the woman I love and I don't think we so much held hands unless it was to exchange a dirty diaper or pawn off a screaming child. Is it heartwarming to see your daughters scream at the waves to 'go away' as they roll in and 'come back' as they roll away? Yes. Is Nixie incredibly sweet and Ripples fiendishly clever and Mars capable of smiling with his whole body? Yes. Is it enough? No. Not for me.

A long time ago a friend told me about all the things he was going to continue to do after he had children. His logic was, they're joining my life, I'm not joining theirs, so they'll just have to do what I do. And while it's true, you can make your children follow you anywhere, they can beat you at your own game. They can make you hate the very things you used to love. That's a scary powerful kind of voodoo.

12 Hugs

I'm going through a hugging phase.

Last week I was home for 6 WHOLE DAYS and took the girls to a gymnastics class where their teacher explained that children needed 12 hugs per day for 'growth'. This seemed oddly specific. 10 hugs would shrink them? 14 would get them in the WNBA? She wasn't clear what the consequences for missing the mark were, just that 12 was the magic number.

Personally, little rules like this hold a lot of attraction for me. When I was in high school I read that keeping your hands in your pockets made you look weak and shifty. Since I felt like I looked extremely weak and very shifty it was a revelation to think that this might all just be the fault of my POCKETS! So I started pinning them closed to keep me from getting my hands in there. But it turned out that if I couldn't pocket my hands they just tended to flop around so that it looked like I was doing a little dog paddle as I roamed the halls. Weak and shifty or groping at the air like an escaped mental patient. Those were my choices for navigating high school. It was very difficult to find a prom date.

Anyway, I've taken up the challenge of 12 hugs per day to maintain my own 'growth'. This was super easy at home as the girls will hug anything upon request. "Nixie? Can you hug the remote control? Good. Now can you hug it while you walk to dad? Great."

Now that I'm back in LA it's way more difficult. I'm not really a hugger by nature. I'm more of a 'can't I just send you an email?' type. As the end of a day rolls around and I realize I've only bagged 10 hugs I have to start figuring out which of the people left it's going to be least awkward to hug. Will the sound mixer think it's odd if we hug goodbye? Will the security guard report me? Last night I only made it to 11 and I just couldn't find anyone else to hug. Three days ago I'd never heard of this rule, and now I'm laying in bed thinking of calling the front desk for a hug just to put me over the top.

Then this morning I was walking through an underpass (despite the lyrics, some people do walk in LA; the ones who are so cheap they'd rather walk than have to tip the valet to get their car back) and I passed a box with two buttons. One marked ACKNOWLEDGE and the other marked RESET. It was like an existential control panel. ACKNOWLEDGE, RESET. So I pushed the first one and then the second one, and then I felt like I probably shouldn't have pushed either and I ran for several blocks before the authorities could show up.

The point is, life is so complicated and messy that I love the idea you can somehow navigate it by just repeating a series of simple tasks. 8 glasses of water, 12 hugs, pin your pockets closed, mash some buttons under the freeway, and you're all set. Or reset according to the buttons.

As of today, we're done with the pilot. It's been an amazing experience, and no matter which way things go, the next few months are going to get complicated. Amy and I have been worrying about how we'd deal with the various eventualities. Now, I plan to just focus on hugging my way through it. If we see each other it would be great if you could spare one. Or twelve.

Spaces

Hello!

It's me. I'm at home. In my house. Where I used to live. Of course this is just temporary. Staying here wouldn't make any sense. No. Tomorrow I will leave again to go to some other place where I don't live because that's what I do. And why? All so I can entertain you. You're welcome.

Last month we made a TV show, me and a bunch of my friends. Honestly, they did most of the work. I ate things. If eating things is a job then I did the work of many people. I don't know enough about making television to know if eating things actually is a job, so I'm unable to tell you how valuable my contribution to the process really was. But I ate anyway. While I ate other people acted and pointed cameras at one another and turned lights on and off and someone yelled 'action' and 'cut' and then someone else yelled 'please don't put that flaming space heater next to those gas pumps' because I was trying to help and had put a flaming space heater next to some gas pumps. After that I went back to eating.

Now that it's over, I miss it very much. In my real life no one says things just because I write them down and give them to them, even though I've stressed how much easier this would make all our lives. No one asks if I want anything to drink or eat or if they can get my dry cleaning. No one

See that? The little space between this line and the last? That's two days in that little space. If I remember right I was in mid sentence and Mars started crying and I went to attend to him and POOF, a space. That's exactly how my life feels these days. You're right in the middle of something and then something else comes along and by the time you look up there's just this... space between where you were and where you suddenly are. In that particular space up there I left home. Rented my insanely blue rental car. Checked into my hotel. Began to eat doughnuts for breakfast all over again. Let me stress that blue cars and hotels and donuts are awesome and that having someone else make my bed is the only way my bed has ever been made. I'm a lucky individual and I'm well aware of it, and if my lamentations about constant travel indicate otherwise, then allow me to make it clear: I love my job and I'm happy to have it, however long it lasts.

But. Before I left Nixie was getting off the bed. Whenever the girls climb down from things we say 'Be careful Nixie' or 'Careful Ripley' or 'Careful whoever you are' because we're good parents who want our children to be safe but also have trouble telling them apart. Anyway, Nixie was getting off the bed, and as she did, she very calmly said to herself 'Careful, me'.

If you have a soul you'll understand that's just incredibly fucking cute. And you'll understand how no matter how much you love a job, it's hard to leave moments like that in the spaces that result from it.