I remember Saturday mornings before Daisy was born. They typically went like this:

• Roll out of bed mid-morning
• Lollygag
• Stroll down to local diner for coffee-toast-eggs-bacon
• Leisurely peruse newspaper, eyeing the movie listings
• Perform some sort of debauchery
• Deliberately waste time (e.g. practice hanging spoons from face, or have a lollygagging race)

Now how do my weekends start? What fabulous and relaxing activity is currently filling my previously idle Saturday mornings?

Picking lice out of each other's scalps! Yay!!

Ok, it's not quite that exciting. We didn't actually find any lice.

Apparently there is a charming case of head lice going around in my daughter's public school. Nice. I guess we wouldn't want daddy's tapeworm to be the only parasite in the house. So, we spent some quality family time yesterday peering at each other's scalps, wondering if this flake of dandruff, or that bit of carpet fuzz was an actual louse. So far, none found.

It's pretty cool being me.

I hadn't seen Cary in over two months.

"Mike, you have lost weight!" Cary exclaimed.

"Nope."

"Yes, I think that you have. You look thinner."

"That's just not possible. I've had these jeans for years and they fit the same as always. I have not lost weight."

Cary and I argue almost every day, although usually via phone. He's the guy who tests the software that I write so we invariably have arguments that go like this:

Cary: Mike, I am thinking that customers will not understand the error message that says, "Null Pointer Exception"

Me: Ok, but you got that error by pressing the F7 key. I doubt that many of our customers even know they have an F7 key.

Cary: How will they know what they did wrong? The error message is not clear. This should be fixed.

Me: You did something the customer will never do! I can't code for that. What if monkeys fall out of the sky and piss themselves out of fear, and the rain of urine causes a short in the customer's computer? Should I write software that anticipates this situation? Should it say, "A shower of monkey piss has been detected. Appropriate countermeasures have been undertaken." Then the computer would simultaneously shoot the monkeys out of the sky while dabbing at the urine with a hanky. Is that what you expect?

Cary: (exasperated) Fine.

I don't think Cary has ever won an argument with me. My debating skills are top-notch, as you can see. (Note, however, that sometimes after the fact, I do go fix the "monkey" problem du jour.)

So, we were in familiar territory while discussing my phantom weight loss.

"Mike, but I can see that you are thinner."

"That just can't be, Cary. I'm still eating like crap. I'm not exercising more. My clothes fit the same. I have not lost weight."

"Your belly is gone."

"I NEVER HAD A BELLY!"

"Ok." Cary sighed, wearily shaking his head with disbelief.

I told my wife about the conversation when we got home. Although she agreed that I never had a belly, she acknowledged that I seemed a bit slimmer.

Weird.

I rarely weigh myself. It's probably been about 4 months since I got on a scale. I dusted it off that night (literally) and let it be the final arbiter in this all-important issue. I was astonished to find that it agreed with Cary. I had lost between 5 and 10 pounds since I last weighed myself.

WEIRD!

So....tapeworm? Elaborate prank between Cary, my wife, and the scale? Horrible wasting-away disease? They're all such good theories.

I'm hoping for tapeworm.

Went out to lunch with a few of my other coworkers today, Jay, Pablo and Cary. On the way I told them how I had managed to offend my wife this morning when I implied that she had shirked some of her motherly duties. This is, of course, a laughable thing to accuse my wife of, because when you factor in my overall helplessness as a human, she does roughly 2000% of the parenting in the house.

"Yeah, it didn't go over so well," I explained, "She told me that she looked forward to my additional leisure time now that the fantasy baseball season was over."

"Ouch!" sympathized Jay.

"Oh man!" Pablo said, wincing, "Well, that's what you get for marrying someone smart. Me? I'm gonna marry someone DUMB."

All of which brings me to my main point.

I came in 2nd in my fantasy baseball league! Out of over 66,000 teams, of which at least 100 of them were actually trying hard to win, my team came in 2nd. This means that I am some sort of baseball genius. Not the kind of baseball genius that can hit a ball with a bat, or catch a ball, or even throw a ball, but the kind that can go clicky-clicky on the computer for hours at a time. Hoo hoo!

Also, I spent an hour this morning with my daughter's first grade class. I can honestly report that American first graders are borderline brain-damaged. I hope their teacher minored in neurology or at least trepanation.

(The long awaited Blog Swap has arrived. Today's post is brought to you, in the style of Mike, by Dolface. Similarly, I have posted on his blog.)

There will be less whining here than usual, because today (maybe as a reward for yesterdays pleather fiasco), was an actual good day.

Yes, yes, i know, "But Mike!" you're saying "whining is what you DO, it's why we come here, so we can laugh at your misery and feel better about ourselves".

Too bad, if you don't like it come back tomorrow, by which time I'm sure something bad will have happened to me, and things will be back to normal around here.

But today was a good day; nothing bad happened, no telemarketers called, nothing fell off the house or got stolen, Daisy had fun at school, and Hank... hmmm.

Well, whatever it takes to make Hank happy happened.

As for me, my day went like this: I got up, didn't take a shower, didn't get dressed, drank coffee, staggered into the office, and got to work.

The morning passed as I worked, and most unusually, I didn't have to interact with a single person (well, I answered some email, but that hardly counts, right?).

When it was time for lunch I went and stood in front of the refrigerator and ate coldcuts from the package, pickles from the jar, and cheese off a knife.

Heaven.

The afternoon was pretty much the same, although I considered taking my pyjama bottoms off and working like that just because I could. Then I remembered that I hadn't taken a shower, and in a rare burst of generosity, decided to keep them on. Sometimes I'm a prince.

And that was it, that was Mike's Good Day.

Tomorrow will no doubt reach new depths of misery and horror, but I will always have the beacon of today, shining like my pale, unshowered ass peeking out of the wasitband of my pyjamas.

(No blog swap yet. Stand by. Hopefully tomorrow)

I hate Halloween parties.

Mostly I hate them because I can never think of a good costume. How many times can I cut eye holes in a sheet and go as a ghost? More often than you'd think, but it's too annoying to do every year.

I haven't actually had to attend a costume party in a while, but this year it seemed inescapable. My daughter's piano teacher, whom we like very much, was hosting a joint piano recital and costume party on Sunday. My wife called ahead of time and confirmed that the adults were expected to be in costume. So, if I wanted to see Daisy's very first piano recital, then I had to go to the damn party.

Daisy always has her costume idea picked out months in advance. Last year she was a superhero of her own creation called Spirograph Girl. Her superpowers were, apparently, pattern recognition, and maybe flying. This year she was another self-invented superhero: Lighta. Lighta's superpower is the ability to see well.

My friend Jay theorized that Daisy wanted to be a superhero who could see well because Daisy wears glasses. Maybe next year she'll be Non-Allergic Girl. Able to consume dairy, eggs, AND nuts! In a single bound!

Anyway, apparently, Daisy didn't inherit her creativity from me, because I was stumped.

"Haaaaaaaaaaaannnnk!" I whined to my wife, "What should I be for Halloween?"

She thought for a moment and then inspiration struck.

"Well, since Daisy is going to be Lighta, maybe we should go as her nemeses. We could be supervillians like...The Black Hole!"

"Oooh! Good one! I think I'll be....The Switch, who can turn lights off and on AT WILL!" and I sprang from the couch. And then I sat back down again.

After a smattering of effort, I drew the electrical symbol for a switch onto a white t-shirt. With the addition of black pants, a snazzy black cape (made of Pleather!), a couple of light switches, and some gelled-up hair, I was ready to go. I spent several minutes practicing unfurling my cape while exclaiming, "The Switch!"

So, I was either The Switch, which is a good costume, or I was a caped, effeminate dork, which isn't much of a stretch from my everyday persona. Regardless, I was out of effort and inspiration. It was a done deal. My wife donned all-black garb and became The Black Hole, and on Saturday afternoon we swept out of the house to attend the party.

Being sophisticated and suave party-goers, we strolled up to the party house a few minutes late. Since the event was half recital and half-party, my wife had been urging us to hurry up and get to the party on time, but I assured her that it was better to arrive a little late. I mean, it's a party! Be cool, babe!

We arrived at the party to find a room full of people sitting quietly, waiting for Daisy to kick off the recital. They stared at us expectantly. I scanned the room, while fluorishing my cape, and quickly noticed that not a single other grownup had come in costume. I was late and caped. Pleather or not, this is pretty much a worst-case scenario for me.

Thankfully Daisy soon rescued me from my discomfort by assuming control of the party. She described her costume and super-powers to the audience and then sat down at the piano for an excellent rendition of The Sneaky Skeleton. I was charmed. Late, but charmed.

I spent a couple hours walking around downtown San Francisco this afternoon while doing a crapload of shopping. It was a beautiful day, however, and I had my mp3 player loaded up with good tunes, so I enjoyed the walking parts. It enabled me to play one of my favorite people-watching games: What's Wrong With You.

It's a simple game, really. I just look at the various people around me, and quickly assess their most prominent flaw. The flaw-stream in my head went something like this:

Dumb... walks too slowly... geek... freakishly tall... internal voices too loud... whoa, nice boobs... weirdo... too critical of others... preaching about Jesus... too fit... first day out of bubble... oooh, nice boobs... too tan... smells like death... etc

It's pretty fun.

In other news, the Great Blog Swap will probaby occur tomorrow evening. Dolface has graciously offered to post here at I Am Prepared to Give Up at Any Time, attempting his best Mike blogpression. I will be doing the same at his blog.

The Great Media Swap has inspired me. Perhaps there is room in my life for more swappage.

(Fear not, Hank)

Who wants to swap blogs with me for a day? Or, more simply, who would like to trade blogging styles with me for one day?

It would amuse me to try and write an entry in someone else's style. For example, out of the blogs that I regularly read, I think I could do a decent entry in the style of:

• The Mincemeat Vixen
• Dolface
• Tinyhands

I could also pull off one these, but I'm damn sure these folks don't read me:

• Izzle Pfaff
• Tony Pierce
• Jason Mulgrew

The idea is to mock. All of the above bloggers have identifiable styles or topics that I would enjoy imitating (with respect, of course!). Similarly, I feel there is MUCH to mock from my blog.

Anyone want to play? You don't have to be on the above list, but I'll probably have a harder time making fun of you if you aren't.

This morning my wife parked the car on a busy San Francisco street and left her purse in the car. Sometime later, two guys walked up, smashed the window, grabbed her purse, hopped into their car, and sped away. This occurred in broad daylight, amidst dozens of people around.

Later, when my wife returned to the car, she discovered what had occurred and called the police. Upon their arrival to the scene of the crime, many people came forth and offered detailed descriptions of the thieves, down to their hairstyle and wardrobe accessories. This all rang a bell to the cops because apparently the same two thieves had done the same thing on the same block the previous day. The cops are hoping to catch them with a minor sting operation, but Hank and I are not hopeful.

As it turns out, my wife keeps a lot of important things in her purse, such as:

- Driver's license
- Money
- Credit cards
- ATM card
- Insurance cards (with my social security number on them!)
- Her brand new Treo 650 cell phone (brand new!)
- House keys
- Our ability to feel safe from theft

It's as though Hank made a list of the most obnoxious, hardest to deal with, least customer-oriented, most hellspawn-ish organizations, and then filled her purse with items from those groups. I will grant you that my wallet has a very similar set of items, but that doesn't make replacing them any easier.

So, today we jumped through various hoops to rectify this situation.

We spoke to the DMV, credit card companies, credit bureaus, banks, cell phone companies, auto body shops, insurance reps, and my new personal favorite: the locksmith! Of course by "my new personal favorite", I mean "my new personal least favorite".

I searched for locksmiths on Local Google and found one less than a mile from my house. The dispatcher sounded competent and they had someone to my house within a couple hours. Things looked good until the locksmith opened his mouth.

First, some background about me. I'm one of those people who can't stand pregnant pauses in conversation. I'll generally rush to fill them with poorly-formed opinions or maybe some whimpering. Similarly, if someone is struggling to finish their sentence, I'll usually mop up for them, perhaps by adding an expletive or a "between the sheets".

So, when the locksmith began to speak haltingly in a French-accented stutter, I was practically falling forward with my desire to insert words into the conversation. He'd pause for a long time before each few words, gather himself, stutter once or twice, and then let fly with the next sentence snippet.

Of course I had to be EXTREMELY polite to this guy, not just because people are apparently supposed to generally be polite to each other (an absurd and unreachable standard), but this guy in particular was literally going to have the keys to my house in his possession. For the safety of my family members, it behooved me to let him complete his sentences.

The second bad sign was when I determined that he was not bonded. That's important, right? I almost booted him right there, but I was fearful of not getting another locksmith the same day, and it seemed important to get our locks rekeyed TODAY given that thieves were in possession of our house keys and our address.

The third bad sign was when he was unable to re-key our locks and instead chose to replace them. As it turns out, we used to have good quality locks and now we have something with the brand name "Tuff Stuff". I am dismayed to report that the quality of their workmanship appears to be as good as their spelling.

Anyway, four hours after the guy arrived, he had replaced our three locks and was on his way. Sadly, I did not do an adequate job of checking his work, and now I find that two of the locks are nearly unusable, one of them getting jammed after a few iterations of usage. Gah.

I'll be playing the locksmith game again tomorrow or the next day. This bites.

If you had asked me years ago what was important in my daughter's development, I would have stressed academics. I have depressing recollections of physical education as a child, performing poorly in the national fitness tests and getting picked nearly next-to-last in various P.E. team activities. Although I have fond memories of kickball, there is no end to this sentence that does justice to my awkwardness of actually playing the sport. Kick it with your foot, little Mike!

As Psychology 101 would predict, I seek for my child to succeed where I have failed. This is why I get the most joy out of seeing her perform any physical tasks like jumping on her pogo stick, or even skipping down the sidewalk. The skipping down the sidewalk thing brings me exquisite joy. It's the most accuracte kinetic represenation of the joy of being in a six year-old body.

Why is this relevant in a blog post where I discuss her math homework? I'll tell you why. Going out to eat and having two martinis at dinner. That's why. That's what enables me to start with one point and veer drunkily to the opposite one. God bless vodka.

So, my daughter's homework.

Last year, in kindergarten, homework was all coloring and lettering practice. I feared for the future of our nation. Not only were our nation's children spending an inordinate amount of time coloring simple animal drawings, but they mostly sucked at it.

This year, however, it's real homework. Daisy has spelling lists, and honest-to-god-,-regardless-if-there-is-really-a-god math homework. She's doing addition and subtraction and all sort of academics that require her to bust out all 10 of her fingers. It's real school! Her reading is improving by gigantic leaps and bounds, and she's beginning to utilize the associative property and I'm falling in love again. Admit it, the associative property makes you a little weak in the knees too. 8 + 2 or 2 + 8? It's all good.

When she learns pi, my heart will burst. It will bubble out and taste like granny smith apples.

(*Update* - I am dumb! It's the commutative property and not the associative one. Those of you who have come here looking for accurate mathematics have been robbed of your time and innocence again. My apologies. Thanks to Mike Duffy!)

Room...spinning...

So, I decidididided (burp) to inventamify a new grinking dame. I decided to drink erevy time Lush Rimbaugh or Sean Hannity mentioned Bill Clinton.

Oh. Crap. Bad idea.

Drunk before lunch. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

It was estrogen weekend here at the household.

First, we hosted my wife's sister's 40th birthday party. (For blog purposes, let's refer to her as Hank Jr) The attendees mostly consisted of Hank Jr's closest friends, who are primarily independent, politically correct, and strongly feminist women. I was, for the most part, the only heterosexual male at the party, which was fine.

The most amusing moment in the party was when Hank Jr. was opening her presents. Earlier, she had used our computer to create a playlist of music from our iTunes collection. She tossed in a bunch of fun songs and they were still playing when everyone gathered in the living room for present time. Right about then, the song "Gold Digger" comes on, which, although it's damn toe-tapping, isn't very politically correct or feminist-friendly.

Several guests politely bobbed their heads while Kanye West rapped about gold diggers who ain't messin' with no broke niggaz. Yeaah!

My other favorite moment came after the party ended. My wife confided to me that one of the guests told her how handsome I was, and that she just wanted to stare at me.

Let me be perfectly blunt here. This means that I am HOT! H! O! T! !! Hot!

I could be humble, but I get this kind of feedback about once a decade and almost never from women. There's virtually no reason to suspect that her opinion was colored by the fact that I was the only straight man in the room, so I'm milking this one. Damn, I'm hot.

For the rest of the weekend I mostly just hung out with Daisy, Hank, Hank Jr, and Hank's mom, whom I guess we'll call Hank Sr. After sitting through part of Hank's quilting session, and hearing about her Hank Jr's sheet's thread count, I began to menstruate. To be honest, the blood may not have been from my period. Maybe it was just from my penis falling off. Either way, hopefully this does not affect my hotness.

And one final semi-related note. I went grocery shopping today and bought a pound of my favorite coffee beans roasted by a chain called Peet's. The name of the blend is Major Dickason's Blend. I later noticed, as the cashier rang up my groceries, that the large computer display listed this item as "Peet's Major Dick".

Sometimes life is just one big dick joke.

The phone rang. It was the wife.

"Hey, come on outside. We're having a party with the neighbors!"

"What? I'm still working. And I need to shower. And we have shopping to do tonight!"

"I'll go shopping tomorrow. Stop working. It's a neighborhood party!"

And so it was to be.

Before moving to San Francisco about 12 years ago, I had lived in suburban neighborhoods all my life (not counting college). They really defined what my idea of what a neighborhood should be. There were always rows of houses, each with a manicured lawn, and probably a strip mall less than a mile away.

When I finally moved to The Big City, I figured that was the end of my neighborhoody existence. Now, I'd be an anonymous city dweller, living amongst faceless San Francisco hipsters, business folk, and wackos.

What I've found is that I'm now a member of a more tightly knit community than ever before. When I stroll down to my neighborhood's small retail district (a couple of blocks of stores and restaurants), I find businesses that are staffed by their owners. Many of these merchants know me by name and I could probably ask for "the usual" in a few of them and get what I want. Or maybe I'd get some weird sex act. Either way, since they own the businesses, they're well motivated to be friendly and customer-oriented.

Meanwhile, since the housing lots are so small here, the sheer proximity of my neighbors means that I see plenty of them on a regular basis. Everytime I step outside my door, I take a quick look up and down the street to see if there's anyone to say "hi" to, and often there is. Additionally, I actually like quite a few of my neighbors, so that's a bonus.

What I've ended up with is the most satisfying sense of community that I've ever had, and it was entirely unexpected from living in a biggish city. I expected to be an anonymous cog, and instead I feel more like Norm walking into Cheers.

So, when a neighborhood party broke out, late on a Thursday afternoon, it wasn't wholly surprising, and it was totally worth blowing off some shopping. Those of my friends and relatives who were expecting birthday gifts, however, will have to wait a few more days. I am, apparently, a better neighbor than friend or son-in-law.

Day Two of the Great Media Swap is coming to a close. I don't think I've turned into a Republican yet, but I suuuuure am annoyed.

In general I have a very very low tolerance for talk radio. If I want to hear blathering uninformed idiots, I'll just listen to myself. I have a lot to say. So, conservative "Hot Talk" talk radio is pretty much at the limit of what I'm capable of tolerating without combusting.

That being said, the Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity radio shows were the BEST thing I listened today. The worst? Dr. Laura Schlessinger.

Dr. Laura is a holier-than-thou Jewish version of a Born Again Christian. She is rude, simplistic, and shrill. Maybe back when she was posing for nude pictures she was a fun gal, but now? Not so fun.

If you've never heard her show, here are some examples. Honestly, these are BARELY exaggerated.

Caller 1: Hi Dr. Laura. I need some help.
Dr. Laura: I see that.
Caller 1: It's just...well...it's just that I'm soooo lonely (sobbing)
Dr. Laura: And your question for me is?
Caller 1: I'm...(sobbing)...I just don't know how to make friends. How can I find friends? Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I think I'm boring.
Dr. Laura: You sound boring. Don't whine. I can't stand whiners. Find some hobbies or join a church group. Next caller.

Caller 2: Hi Dr. Laura. I've been married for 33 years and about 12 years ago we started attending...
Dr. Laura: Do you have a question for me?
Caller 2: Oh, uh, yes. Well, I was wondering if I should leave my husband...
Dr. Laura: Yes. Next caller.

Caller 3 (a couple): Hi Dr. Laura. We called your show a month ago wondering how to fix our marriage. You told us to court each other.
Dr. Laura: Yes, I recall. How is that going?
Caller 3: Well....um...We tried...
Dr. Laura: You tried? It sounds like you didn't try. Next caller.

That last call? Not exaggerated in the slightest. That's almost exactly the conversation they had. How this is construed as "advice", I do not know. Dr. Laura, my question for you is, "WHY ARE YOU SO RUDE?!"

Oh, man, this show totally destroys what tiny faith I had left in humanity. First, why do people call into this show? Are they unable to determine in advance what she's going to say? She will berate them for being weak and then hang up on them!

More importantly, why do people (who aren't conducting a Great Media Swap) listen to this show? It's painful. My ears bleed.

Say goodbye to the old me.

The elitist, debonair, latte-sipping liberal that used to post to this blog is gone. In his place, I proudly present a NASCAR-lovin', Budweiser chugging, good ol' boy conservative.

Yee haw!

Last November, as I despaired over the reelection of Bush, I discussed a Republican coworker of mine, whom I affectionately referred to as Bubba. I theorized that the reason that we disagreed so often in our political discussions was not because of our base differences in philosophy (mine being liberal and his being conservative) but rather because I mostly take in my news from sources that are biased to the left, whereas his are biased to the right. I suggested that perhaps we'd see more common ground if we did a media swap for a number of weeks.

Common sense soon prevailed and I happily sank back into my cozy liberal world. Listening to Rush Limbaugh? Good god! What was I thinking?!?

Until today.

Today, for some inexplicable reason, we decided to begin the experiment. For the next 4 weeks I will no longer:

• Listen to NPR
• Read Salon
• Read the New York Times
• Exercise critical thought

Instead, I will be getting my news from his sources, which appear to be Yahoo News and...shudder...conservative talk radio.

Bubba, on the other hand, will be wallowing in NPR and Salon.

So, I had the radio on all day today. I heard Rush Limbaugh, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, and Sean Hannity. Within minutes, I began to experience the five stages of political grief. They are:

• Denial
• Anger
• Hatred
• Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
• Flatulence

So far I've learned that the Democratic Party is beholden to the environmental extremists, liberals have been drinking Clinton Kool Aid, and my diet is methane-rich.

All in all it was a pretty unpleasant beginning to the Great Media Swap experiment. I hope that I'll be open-minded enough to gather a better understanding of my conservative brethren, or that it will be ludicrous enough to fuel a few blog posts. Either way, I'll keep you posted.

Go Dale Earnhardt Jr.!

It had been a long time since I walked into a club, past all the young ladies at the bar, heading towards the back of the venue where a band was belting out a song to an enthusiastic dancing audience. It had been so long that many of the patrons looked like kids to me.

Little kids.

Hey...they are little kids!

Doh! I'm at a bar with my daughter!

So, as it turns out, there's a rock music scene here in San Francisco (and probably any semi-major city) that caters to the younger set. Various bands have realized that there is a tiny little niche of music that is acceptable to both parents and their young children. These children must be young enough to not have developed a sense of what-my-parents-enjoy-is-uncool, yet old enough to get down and boogie. That age range appears to be roughly from 3 to 7.

There are many bands that cater to kids, the Wiggles being the typical example, but it's rare that a band can reach out to children without causing explosive nausea in the parents. It's a fine line. We saw a fun band called Ralph's World that played their own original music. The music was kid-themed, but maintained it's toe tappability.

The club was a typical dark music joint. The only accomodation, decor-wise, made to the children was a row of TVs above the bar showing Looney Tunes. My wife reported seeing the bar stools filled with kids, all staring at the TVs, with juice cups in hand. Good habits start early.

Apparently there is another band on the kid circuit, called The Sippy Cups, which plays rock classics from Pink Floyd, the Ramones, Velvet Underground, etc, but manages to dress up those songs so that the kids find them appealing. This is probably the holy grail of kid-parent rock. We have not yet seen them.

Ok, so I can take my daughter to bars, and I've taught her how to play poker. I think that's about it. That pretty much knocks the final items off of my parenting to-do list.

On one hand, ohhhhh, the painful itching and burning.

On the other hand, DAMN, it feels good to scratch. Seriously good.

Ah, the double-edged sword of jock itch.

And, yes, I am this charming in real life.

The post I meant to write the other day was about the day that Daisy was born. I'm sure my wife has a different version of this story, but she can get her own damn blog.

So, about 7 years ago, the wife (Hank) and I decided to make a baby. I spent a long while deciding if this was something that I wanted, but in the end I determined that there's no real way to know if you want a kid without actually having one. It's like trying a new food for the first time, or impaling yourself on a bed of nails. How will you know if you like it if you don't try it? So, we decided to start trying to have a baby.

Hank was pregnant within seconds.

Hmm, that makes me sound like a bad lover. Let's say minutes.

Hank was pregnant within minutes.

And so the nine month countdown began. One of the many things I learned in those nine months is that I'm kind of freaked out by pregnancy. It seems dangerous, and scary, and just plain weird.

I mean, if I want to make a sandwich, it's pretty straightforward. I get the bread, the innards, and assemble it. Ok, to be perfectly honest, I'm way too lazy to make sandwiches. I'm much more likely to just eat some deli meats straight from the fridge, or maybe a spoonful of peanut butter. Regardless, the sandwich making process seems reasonable.

Ditto for making a blog. I sit down at the computer. I make with the typey-typey and the clicky-clicky, and voila! Easy!

But babies? I'm down with the conception part. Tab A in Slot B. That seems like how something should be constructed. But the rest is totally nuts.

First, the baby grows inside Hank for NINE MONTHS. Ewww! When stuff grows on/in me, I start spraying Tinactin. It's weird that babies have to grow inside of other people and it's annoying that it takes nine months. I made this blog in 5 minutes. A sandwich takes about the same (or so I've heard).

Then, get this, once the baby gets to be about, say, baby-sized, it has to come out. At this point, it's WAY bigger than the orifice that lets it out. It's as though someone built an airplane inside of a hangar, and then when they were done, looked around and noticed that there were no airplane-sized doors. Whoopsie! This, right here, is a great argument against Intelligent Design.

Poor design aside, pregnancy really scared me. It seemed like so many things could go wrong, either to the baby or to Hank. My wife doesn't skydive, bungee-jump, or play Russian Roulette, so having a baby is pretty much the most dangerous thing I've seen Hank do. I realize that the majority of the time, all goes well, but it still scared the bejesus out of me.

We went to parenting classes at our hospital that tried to make us feel prepared. Part of the class material included videos of babies being born. These were like poorly produced versions of Alien, with babies ripping out of their mothers, bloody and screaming, but with cheesy Muzak in the background. One nearby woman in class took great delight at how I turned green during these videos. I never thought I was squeamish until that day.

So, after about nine delightful months of this, my wife turns to me one afternoon and says, "I think I'm having contractions."

Show time.

I remained outwardly calm (I think) as I drove Hank to the hospital. We got there at around 6:00pm and the next 23 hours are a total blur. I think they basically went like this:

• Wait.
• Cringe while wife has painful contractions.
• Repeat.
• Play Scrabble.
• Watch while inept doctors repeatedly fail to correctly inject Hank with epidurals, turning her lower spine into a pointilism portrait of incompetence.
• Cringe.
• Pretend to sleep.
• Repeat.

Nothing was going life-threateningly wrong, but things weren't going very right either. None of this was assuaging my fears. Labor was brutal and I wasn't even the one in labor.

After about 23 hours of this, the doctors suggested that it was time for a cesarean. The baby was sideways or upside down or inside out or something, and Hank or the baby or somebody was coming down with a fever. I don't recall the details, but it was all very alarming. The doctors urged Hank to have the cesarean, noting that she'd then have her baby in about an hour.

That phrase "about an hour" was the first soothing thing I'd heard in 23 hours. It sounds like how long it takes to get eyeglasses made, which isn't scary at all. Plus, having an actual schedule was immensely appealing to us. Hank agreed.

All of a sudden, things began to happen very quickly. The nurses started to prep Hank for the operation and they also gave me instructions: "Mike, grab your camera. Mike, put these scrubs on. Mike, follow us into the operating room."

I dutifully followed the instructions and soon Hank was on the table and I was...holding my camera??? What the hell did they tell me to bring a camera for? I couldn't imagine what I'd want pictures of, so I promptly ditched the camera.

A curtain on the operating table prevented Hank from looking down and seeing the doctors slice into her abdomen. I crouched down on the far side of the curtain, as far away from the abdomen as possible, explaining that I was keeping Hank's head company. She was partially drugged, but was appreciative of my presence, making my excuse seem plausible. I did my best to ignore the tubes siphoning blood out of Hank's body.

After a few minutes, or maybe a decade, the doctor said, "Mike, your baby is about to be born. Would you like to see?"

Oh, man, what a horrible question to ask. No. No, I do not want to see this. I already saw the previews and they SUCKED. But, what kind of man doesn't watch his daughter being born? This was it. My one chance. Just once. Do it. Do it, Mike. STAND FREAKIN' UP NOW!

I stood up just in time to see the doctor reach into Hank and pull out...was this a magic trick? Would he yank a rabbit out of there? No, a baby!! My baby, presumably! Damn, it was totally gross. I know, miracle of birth, blah blah blah, but that was seriously nasty.

After the doctors poked at the baby for a bit, they swaddled her up and offered her to me. A baby! Weird. I gingerly held her and was relieved, petrified, amazed, and exhausted. Little did I know that the previous 24 hours were probably the most restful day I'd have for the next year or two.

Welcome to the world, Daisy!

After deleting 6 comments today from spambots (who wish to sell me cock rings!), I have enabled the word-verification feature for comments. My apologies for the inconvenience. Please don't stop adding comments to the blog. I need those regular doses of cynicism and ego-deflating.

First off, I'm suddenly getting a bunch of comment spam. This is very annoying.

It doesn't happen on all posts, only those that have certain spam-related keywords. One such keyword seems to be...hmmmm, how I say the word without triggering the spambots?

Ok, one such word seems to be enis-pay. I know this because I'm suddenly getting a lot of spam comments about enispay enlargementay, and they only appear on those posts that mention my enispay or, oddly enough in this blog, more often, someone else's enispay. I have, as it turns out, a lot of posts like that. A lot of posts. A quick search of my blog indicates that I mention enispays twice as often as I mention software. Highbrow stuff here.

So, I'm wondering how annoying it would be if I turned on that nasty feature where commenters are forced to type in that crazy-font word.

Hmmm? Raise your hand if that seems draconian.

Or should I just get the enlargement?

Secondly, I had an argument with a coworker today about whether Kelly Clarkson or Christina Aguilera is a better singer. My fervent insistence, combined with strategic use of the word "octave" may have won me the argument, but at what price?

What kind of a world is it when two grown men have an instant messenger argument about pop stars? I feel ashamed.

Sometimes other men who are considering fatherhood will ask me what it's like. I generally have little to offer them. I have no confidence that my experiences or my reactions to those experiences will shed much light on what it would be like for them.

It's hard. And great. And horrible. And achingly bittersweet.

Does that help?

There are a lot of things that I've done poorly in my life, but being a parent is the first one that magnifies my mistakes for me on a daily basis. I can forgive myself for the work projects that were poorly designed, or the marathons where I just gave up. It's substantially more difficult to shrug off the parenting errors.

I see my daughter's fears and I wince, wondering how many obvious mistakes I've made. What is she so scared of? Should I have read more parenting books? Asked for more help?

When she says she has no one to play with, and cries for someone to keep her company at nighttime, I feel ashamed that I haven't given her a sibling.

But then I see her skip down the sidewalk, or gleefully greet a playmate with a tight hug, or purr contentedly when she snuggles up with her mother, and I am temporarily consoled. If you met Daisy, you'd probably notice that she's a great kid, and you'd tell me that I couldn't have screwed up that much. I'd acknowledge the surefooted parenting of my wife.

Every single day I regret the mistakes I've made and cherish the fact that my daughter is healthy and happy regardless.

I guess I'll say that next time someone asks.

This is not what I intended to write about today. Sometimes the fingers have a mind of their own.

We walked out of the baseball park after watching the Giants lose 2-1 in an 11 inning game.

"Daisy," I said, while we strolled down the street, "You know why the Giants lost? You didn't cheer hard enough."

Daisy has heard all this before. She shot me a you-say-dumb-crap look. Meanwhile, a bystander whipped her head around.

"That's awful!" she screeched. "How could you say that to a kid!?"

It's pretty easy, actually.

The bystander walked on, repeating my comments to her posse in disbelief of what she had heard.

I get this type of reaction a lot. Other parents will ask some question about Daisy, and I'll give a blunt answer, something like, "Yeah, she's still playing soccer, but, boy howdy, does she ever suck at it." Usually the other parent's eyes will bug out a bit and they'll laugh nervously.

There's an unwritten rule, apparently, that you're not allowed to speak ill of your children in seriousness or jest. I'm not so good at following that rule. I guess I'm suppose to spray out the superlatives when describing my super-duper talented and marvelous child-genius.

Note that I don't give Daisy rude criticism to her face, (excluding the obviously joking kind). It's really always just between me and some other adult. And now you. And hopefully not Daisy at some future time if she decides to read this blog. (Hi Daisy! Go play outside!)

I make a concerted effort to give Daisy praise every day. Although she will hear constructive criticism from me, I'm aware that saying "Hey, you SUCKED at that" would not be appropriate.

That being said, I watched Daisy's second soccer game of the year today, and, boy howdy, did she ever suck.

Of course, most of the kids suck at soccer. When the players surround the ball, as they do most of the time at this level, they turn into Keystone Cops, landing more kicks on each other than they do on the ball. Most of the kids end up tumbling to the ground, often on top of, or more humorously, beneath the ball. It's like watching kittens and a ball of yarn. The rare child who can dribble the ball downfield stands out like a miniature Pele.

Daisy, however, stinks in a different way. It's like there's a weak force-field around the ball and she's propelled away from it. When she does approach the ball to kick it, her efforts are timid and generally ineffectual.

She played goalie for a while today, which is her favorite position due to the lack of running, and that position brought on a whole new way of sucking. Generally, if the ball didn't approach her at a snail's speed, she shied away and let it roll into the goal. Really, her best chance of blocking the ball was only if it was kicked so hard that she was unable to flee in time. Unfortunately, kicks of that strength rarely occur on a field populated with six year-olds.

Her main strength as a player is her enthusiasm. If she sees a teammate score a goal, she pounces on them and gives them a fierce hug. It's cute.

After the game, Daisy said, "Did you see those 2 great kicks I made?"

Unhesitatingly, I said, "I sure did."