Dodge Caravan

We left Virginia around 3 p.m. yesterday, L behind the wheel of our rental Dodge Caravan, to return to New York after a weekend of visiting family with the baby. Due to traffic and the unyielding demands of an infant, it took us eight hours to get home. Because of tiresome rental car bureaucracies, L was the only one who could drive the car, so I spent a lot of time in the middle row, shushing A or rocking her car seat or holding a hand against her torso to remind her that human contact existed, even on the hellish eight-hour journey on which we had embarked.

At one point the baby started shrieking, so we pulled off at a random exit on 95 and wended our way down a couple more interstates until we found a place to park and get a soda. We ended up stopping for fifty minutes in some no-name town in Delaware, or maybe Maryland, or maybe Ohio, where there was nothing but strip malls, so the baby could eat and please stop screaming. The only fast food places were a Dunkin' Donuts and a Quizno's, which seemed like the result of some very bad zoning choices. We sat for almost an hour in the Quizno's parking lot, doors open, feeling the pleasant Delaware (or possibly Ohio) breeze brush up from the asphalt and waft through the minivan. I wondered where we were -- who lives here? In the Quizno's the woman ahead of me was wearing a t-shirt from a sociology club at a high school I had never heard of. When I was getting our drinks at the soda fountain, I overheard the teenage girl behind me explaining to her mother that "if you put too much ice in the cup, it fills the space the soda is in," or something equally weird. Where were we?

We spent another five hours on the road after that, listening to country radio and stuttering down the highway into a sea of constant taillights. The sun melted into the scrim of clouds and the temperatures dropped around us. We had to stop at another rest stop when the baby pooped with such volume and force that it eked out the side of her diaper and onto the car seat, and, on the front end, almost reached her belly button. When we realized this we were five miles from a rest stop, so I had to spend the interval patiently explaining to my daughter why she should sit quietly in her poopy diaper and car seat. "BE QUIET AND SIT IN THE POOP CHAIR," was my main argument. At that rest stop her pacifier dropped and bounced underneath the minivan. We sat there for a while, watching angry and frustrated people clamber out of their cars and into the Woodrow Wilson Service Area for some restorative Whoppers and Frappucinos.

Eventually we inched our way through New Jersey and alongside the cold glittering skyline of the city. The raucous lights of Tenth Avenue and Amsterdam seemed calm and welcoming after the long, long trip. Today the baby has been fussy and L and I have been exhausted. It will be good to be home for a little while.

Daddy time

My dear Alice,

Today is your one-month birthday! It's hard to believe you've been with us for only a month now. It seems as though you have always been here -- always cooing and grunting from the bassinet, or arching your arms over your head at the slightest stimuli, or slowly opening your big brown eyes to begin to take in the world. And yet it's only been a few weeks.

So far, I think things are going well. You have a sweet and calm side that is almost unbearably endearing. I love it in the mornings when you are calm enough to lie on my chest peacefully, eyes open, rising and falling with my breath and staring at your mother a few feet away in the bed. It's so encouraging to see you awake and alert and quiet, observant, so that your mommy and I can show you the world and how we make our way in it, so you can begin to understand.

Since I have to spend much of the day at work, I always try to make sure I imprint on you well enough so that you'll know me. Most times when I pick you up I helpfully say, "It's DADDY! DADDY TIME!" to clarify what exactly my role is. I do not provide food (usually), but I am adept at changing diapers, and I will say that I am quite good at soothing you. Swaddle you up, shush aggressively, jiggle you to and fro, stick in a pacifier and you should be nice and quiet in a few minutes. Sometimes Mommy will be holding you and jiggling you, and I will be standing next to her, shushing loudly and bouncing up and down on my knees like an idiot. But do you know why I do it? Because I'm Daddy. And it's Daddy Time.

To be honest, there are challenging times as well: your tradition of unconquerable fussiness between, say, 8 and 10 p.m. is annoying, and I sometimes take it personally. It's also uncool when we change your diaper, and then moments later you release a massive poop. Do you understand that diapers cost money, and that you are wasting both? Frankly, Mommy and I are getting sick of your sense of entitlement.

Other than that, daughter of mine, you are wonderful. If I could rewind the clock back to one month ago, and spend all that time telling you every way and how much we love you, it wouldn't nearly be enough. On my desk at work I have a photo of your mother from our trip to Hanoi, in Vietnam, before we knew you (yet not before we dreamed of you) and right next to it is a picture of you, looking cute and beseeching and dignified on the changing table. You guys are my favorites.

Happy birthday, little blabe--

love,

Daddy

Just because I love this photo

Ready to go, my love!

Surfacing

Now that our girl A is about to celebrate her three-week birthday, I feel like I am surfacing once again to look around and take a breath. I haven't been blogging in the last few weeks -- haven't been doing much of anything, really. Not a lot of emails going in or out, not writing anything, not a lot of phone calls or Facebook stuff, not even finishing The New Yorker. I haven't been on the subway in a week, since we rarely leave the neighborhood these days. Our universe only extends as far south as 110th street, as far west as Riverside Park. As far north as Duane Reade. As far east as Central Park.

These are not complaints, though. Ever since A arrived we have enjoyed this insular period as a time to recalibrate our ideas of love and family, and to welcome somebody new into the most basic unit of who L and I are and how we live. It's been so pleasant, and so simple, to think of little more than L and A. Ever since A came home everything else in the world has felt distanced and glazed over.  Stories in the news, reality TV exploits, pressing articles on issues I should care about, all seem relatively weightless when compared with the reality of this miraculous baby we've got on our hands.

So far I am really enjoying having A around. She is getting on a nice three-hour cycle of feeding, hanging out, and sleeping. Her arm movements are spastic yet endearing. Her eyes are full and alert now, she is gaining some plumpness in her limbs and belly, and she is working so hard to lift her big old head to take everything in. She settles easily with the pacifier (usually) and she can spend hours lying on your chest or in your arms, as long as her own hands and arms are free to flail about in whatever way her blazing little brain commands. In the mornings she is so calm and lovely. And today she pooped on my shirt for the first time. That was a funny moment, almost as funny as earlier today when L managed to drop an entire container of grapes on the living room floor, forcing us to shove the furniture around to retrieve all the gnarly, dirt-crusted grapes, now looking like unappetizing truffles, from under the couch.

Anyways, before A was born I was curious about how I would feel about her: Is it love at first sight? Does the floor drop out from under you? Like the rest of this experience, it hasn't been nearly as dramatic or sudden. Instead, it felt more like this new paternal love arrived full and complete at the same moment she did, that I turned around one moment and found that my life had a new foundation, solid and impenetrable. There was a new given, a new creed: love my wife, love my daughter. The idea of loving A was as obvious and undeniable as the fact of her own existence.

The Judges' Save

The first night at home with A was kind of rough.  There were three of us sleeping in that room, my wife and me in the bed and our baby in the co-sleeper beside us.  Now I had two faces to seek, two breaths to listen for.  We were ready to leap up in response to her cries, and we spent the whole night lurching violently into wakefulness whenever she pierced our sleep.  L had it worse than me, obviously, but I was up with her changing diapers and offering my sincere if groggy moral support.  Yet when I returned to bed my mind would start scraping against grim thoughts: worries about my daughter and her health, doubts in our (my) ability to raise her right, numberless questions I can't answer.  It seems like having a kid opens up new depths of love in your life, but that intense love is equally matched by worry.  I was thankful when the sun came up and we could rejoin the day, banishing our doubts to the night and leaving behind fitful dreams of babies' cries.  

The second night at home was better.  We knew what to expect and L mercifully let me sleep through a few rounds.  The funny part, though, occurred earlier.  During the entire period of A's existence -- that is, since Monday -- I have been surprisingly unemotional about all of the joyful ruptures in our old life.  Last night we were watching the results show on "American Idol," and according to their rules, when someone gets the lowest number of votes, they can perform one last time and the judges have the opportunity -- which they may use at their discretion and may only apply once during the entire season -- to reinstate that person in the competition.  This is called "the Judges' Save."

Well, last night, soul singer contestant Michael Lynche, who I really like, got the lowest number of votes.  He had one last chance to perform for the judges in the hopes of winning the Judges' Save, so Michael Lynche started singing "This Woman's Work," a song that I have loved for a long time, a song about pregnancy and and childbirth and womanhood and love and devotion and commitment, and I was sitting there listening to it, and I watched the judges conferring among themselves in the foreground of the screen, and then I started thinking about the Oprah Winfrey interview with Tracy Morgan that we had watched a little earlier, where she said that every man has a dream for his family, and then Michael Lynche was finishing his song, filling every single breath with all the passion and desire he could muster as his wife bawled in the front row, and then the song was over, and the judges were whispering, and Ryan Seacrest silenced the crowd, and Michael Lynche stood there like some testament to fatherhood itself, and then the judges bantered, and then they said -- Michael Lynche had won the Judges' Save!  He was still in the competition!  The audience erupted.  And at that point, dear reader, I lost my shit and started to cry.  I hadn't shed a single tear since A was born, and now here I was crying all over the place on the couch next to L.  We started laughing immediately.  "What am I doing?"  I said, pointing at my face.  "Why the heck am I crying?"  I said.  But I was still crying.

"He got the Judges' Save," I said through my tears and snot.  "I'm so happy he got the Judges' Save."

The day you were born

This is the story of the day A was born. In case you haven't heard, A is our new daughter, born today. Objectively speaking, she is extremely cute. Her nose and lips and ears are small and perfect. She has a funny hairline. Her skin smells warm and fresh. She has deep, milky eyes. She usually has a very placid demeanor, and she reacted to her first diaper change with an air of dignified resignation. When she sleeps her arms fly akimbo and her fingers grasp for something we can't know. Her first life lesson today appeared to be, "It's OK to sneeze." Her first sneeze resulted in tears; by the end of the day she could handle it, while her parents rejoiced at the chance to bless their lovely daughter once again.

But before A realized that sneezing was ok, she had to get born first. Here is what happened. It's rated PG-13 for language and stressful situations.

The original plan was for us to head into the hospital to induce labor around 9 pm tonight. We went to bed last night expecting to spend the day waiting for nighttime to roll around so we could swing into action. Consequently, I slept late, and woke up around 9 to find L anxiously pacing through the apartment. She was having contractions, and had started writing down their times. The contractions were lurching along at irregular intervals: ten minutes, twelve, seven, eleven. I briskly showered and ate breakfast and got ready for something. The contractions intensified; L was in pain. Around 10:15 we called the doctor. I explained what was happening. "She's in labor, come on down to the hospital," they said. Okay.

Except that L couldn't come to the hospital -- she was in too much pain to leave the bathroom, let alone the apartment. She was in agony and was making the kind of sounds you don't ever want to hear from a loved one. I expected her to emerge from the bathroom crazed with rage and pain, Hulk-like, like she had been ripping the linoleum out with her fingertips. After a half hour of cajoling and pleading (including one false start) I lured her out of the apartment. She was moaning in the elevator. Outside I dashed through the crosswalk, hauling our three bags of hospital-bound stuff, as L clutched her body and slowly made her way. People were looking at us but not saying anything. I ran back to get her and hailed a cab. I loaded everything up but the cabbie said, "Wait, does she need help?" L couldn't make it through the crosswalk. I guided her to the car and we got in. Before she stepped in the car, though, my delicate orchid of a wife said those magic words that every prospective father longs to hear: "I'm going to poop in the cab." "That's ok!" I said. After slinking through a few stoplights I asked the cabbie to take the West Side Highway, to make sure we could get all the way to St. Vincents Hospital, down on 12th street. We had almost 100 blocks to go.

In the cab L's contractions started out at about two and a half minutes apart. L was gasping, moaning, yelling out, arching her back and clutching onto the handrest or window frame so hard that her muscles would tremble with her pain. And then her contractions started coming at two minutes apart. During those brief intervals I would pray that we could somehow advance 40 blocks before the next wave, but L had to suffer through each crashing wave as we slowly made our way south. Later, I would laugh that she also seemed to be having a mild Tourettic episode. "Breathe through it, honey," I would meekly suggest. "FUUUUUUUCK," she would reply. Or I would helpfully say, "Just breathe, my darling," and then she would say, "SHIIIIIIIIT." It was a useful dialogue.

Finally, an eternity later, we made it to the hospital. It was around 11 o'clock. L got out and shuffled inside as I stayed back to pay. She hadn't pooped in the cab. Our angelic driver had turned the meter off early so we could dash out quickly, and he helped us get our bags from the trunk. I gave him a massive tip. We shook hands and he wished us luck. I kind of wanted to give him a hug. As we went in, someone else called out, "Congratulations!"

We made it up another elevator to the labor and delivery floor. L held on to me, buckled over, as I explained our situation to the nurses. They ushered us into a delivery room and a nurse checked L out. "Shit, there's the head," the nurse said. Our midwife, Barri, appeared, and there was a flurry of activity as they raised the bed and got L in the position to push, summoning forth piles and piles of covers and blankets and protective gloves. "What about an epidural?" I said. "There's no time -- the head is here -- it's time to push."

I started to laugh. What the hell was going on? According to our birth plan (which explicitly stated that the baby was to be born over a week ago), we were going to have a nice, easy birthing experience, including an epidural and a veritable rainbow of the pharmaceutical industry's finest painkillers. Now we had the midwife telling us there was no time, that we would just have to push through an all-natural, granola, hippie-dippie birthing experience. Well, stop the Joan Baez CD, I'd like to get off. L and I looked at each other and laughed at how things always happen to us in the craziest possible way. This was it. I was so proud of her. At that moment, stepping off the brink together, I loved her so much.

Three or four pushes later -- at 11:19 am, less than fifteen minutes after we arrived at the hospital -- our daughter was born. She arrived a bawling tangle of blue limbs, plopped on L's belly as the midwife and nurses performed their ministrations. Our girl. A few minutes later I cut the cord, and made the nurses laugh when I said it felt like a scallop. We all laughed at the utter irrelevance of our birth plan and all of our expectations. We thought about how close we came to giving birth in a taxicab. And we would have, probably, but for a few short minutes.

We spent the rest of the day holding her, feeding her, gazing at her, taking pictures of her, speaking with loved ones all over the country and the world, and introducing Hank and John and Anna to our girl. I left to get some lunch in the afternoon and ran into an old neighbor, as well as our friends at the bookstore and Chipotle. Everyone was so warm, so happy for us -- L and A and me, our little family. It felt like a holiday in our city. What a blessing. What a tremendous blessing.

Good news

Our baby has arrived!

Alice Lee

April 5, 2010

11:19 a.m.

6 lbs., 13 oz.

20 inches

L and A are doing great. My cup runneth over.

Due date

Today, March 30, is the baby's due date. Obviously, given the nature of our active yet fickle little child, nothing is happening. I woke up this morning feeling like Christmas, feeling like my day had finally arrived. We have been waiting for the last weeks of March to roll around since late June, 2009. All of the holidays and hurdles that separated us from our baby -- including the holiday seasons, all of fall and winter, trips up and down the Atlantic seaboard, a move to a new apartment uptown, the end of one job and the start of another -- have come and gone. And the trophy for our patience and fortitude is L's big and glorious belly.

Rationally I knew there was no reason to expect the kid to arrive today. It's not like she received the memo that March 30 was her assigned date. In fact, less than 5% of babies are born on their actual due dates (most, especially for first-time mothers, are born after the due date). Yet I couldn't help but hope that our kid would come barreling into life on the early side. To be early is to be on time, after all. She should know that already.

So now we are winding down another day free of labor and delivery. Maybe tonight will be the night L wakes up to a strange yet not entirely unwelcome new pain. Maybe tonight, but probably not. L is convinced we will be having an April baby, and that makes sense to me.

...But it could be tonight! It's March 30, our due date! Our Christmas!

Then and now

Last night I sent a photo to some family and friends featuring me modeling all of the university-branded swag I received on my first day of work:

My parents quickly responded, to the entire group, with a photo of me on my first day of pre-school, 28 years ago.   I concede that there may be some similarities:

Two thoughts occurred to me: I am touched that my parents can remember such small, ancient moments. And I can't wait to similarly humiliate my kid in another thirty years.

Transitions/champagne

Last week was my final week at the law firm. On Thursday they surprised me, and another attorney who was about to go on maternity leave, with a champagne toast to celebrate our new milestones. All week long I heard a lot of kind words from partners, associates, and staff, which really meant a lot to me. On Friday, I labeled all of my files for storage and cleared the last lingering items from my inbox, and then sent my farewell email late in the afternoon. I talked about how I felt grateful for the opportunity to work with, and learn from, all of these colleagues. The final lesson, though, the thing that surprised and heartened me, was the warmth of the goodbyes and the sincerity (or so it seemed) of their best wishes for the new job and the new baby. I was really touched.

On Friday afternoon, around 4:30, it seemed like there was nothing else to do. My stuff was all packed up, my desk was empty, and the usual stream of emails and phone calls had dried up. So I packed up my bag, left my security cards on my desk, and said goodbye to the two grinning partners who had been hanging around my office. I gave my secretary a hug. I said a few quick goodbyes as I waited for the elevator one last time. Although there were moments when I felt very ambivalent about leaving this position, this feeling would always burn off in a dawning sense of excitement and relief for the next chapter. Once I got to the lobby I put on my headphones, selected "Imma Be," and strutted out into the clear spring evening.

Today was my first day at my new job, at the university. I saw many old friends and had some promising conversations with people who seemed warm and friendly and personable. In the afternoon there was a champagne toast to welcome me to the office. They said how excited they were that I was there. The differences between this work environment and my previous one are many, although I can't say that one is objectively better than the other. But after this first day I am feeling very confident in the decisions I've made, and grateful for the new opportunities before me. It's exciting to enter a new environment, a new culture, with a new mission to guide you. And the fact that all of my comings and goings have been punctuated by these champagne parties -- I have discovered a new depth of my gratitude, for working with kind and gracious people who have been so warm and welcoming to me.

There were three big things I had to wrangle this spring: End the old job. Start the new one. Those two are basically taken care of. Now there's only one thing left.

Not yet

This morning I was at my desk, waiting to hear back from L about her trip to the sonogram place to check on the baby's growth. Around 11:30 she called me on my office phone. When I picked up I could hear her laughing to someone else, so I thought everything was fine. "I'm in a cab to the hospital," she said. "The baby's heart rate was low, so they want to hook me up to a fetal heart rate monitor." The doctors had told her that I should meet her at the hospital. A nurse had walked L out of the office to make sure she could catch a cab to St. Vincents downtown.

I had a conference call at 12, and was supposed to attend a hearing at 2. Everything was different now. I emailed a few attorneys and my secretary to tell them I had to go to the hospital. At first I tried to be discreet but I couldn't find the words so I said exactly what was happening. I didn't care who knew. My wonderful secretary came to my doorway and helped me think of things I needed. We decided I should take the subway. I gathered a few work items, grabbed my lunch and the New Yorker, my headphones. "You know, this could be it," I said.

I was so nervous I got out at the wrong subway stop, walking briskly up 7th Avenue in my ill-fitting dress shoes at a clip that made my lower legs ache. St. Patrick's Day revelers were everywhere, laughing and plodding along in their stupid green t-shirts. A lot of green Yankees paraphernalia and orange wigs. In the hospital I remembered how to get to Labor & Delivery, but I had to stop at two different nurse's stations to find L. I thought of the other times I had made similar trips, navigating an unknown hospital to find my wife hidden in some small undistinguished room.

She was lying on her side in a hospital gown, a nest of tubes and wires snaking out from her belly. The room was filled with the constant, reassuring thrum of the baby's heartbeat. She was smiling. Everything seemed to be fine.

We sat there for almost two hours, as doctors and nurses came in and agreed that things seemed perfectly normal. We watched a little bit of TV: some CNN, some TLC, the "Full House" episode where Michelle learns to tie her shoes and Uncle Jesse admits he never graduated high school and decides to go back. It wasn't as poorly written and un-funny as I feared it would be; it wasn't bad at all, except for the unnervingly intimate close-ups. I've never seen a sitcom with such tight close-ups. It was like "60 Minutes" or something.

Ultimately they discharged us; L got dressed and we staggered back out into the day. A part of me had hoped this would be it, that the day would end with a baby. But I suspected we would probably just head on home. The doctors concluded that the low heart rate had been a fluke: maybe L had been sitting in a weird way, maybe the baby had been squeezing the cord or something. Who knows. Nothing to worry about.

We stopped at the bookstore visit with our friends, and ate lunch at Subway. We both returned to work rattled. I had a couple of beers at the office's St. Patrick's Day happy hour, organized my personal emails and eventually went to hip hop. Class was great tonight; we had a sub, and he was doing really intricate, asymmetrical stuff, based on the California style of krumping. Then I came back home to see my pregnant wife and wind down this day.

Now at day's end, I'm glad we were able to go through a dry run of things. L told me she had initially gone to the wrong floor of the hospital. Now she knows which floor to go to, and I know which subway stop to take.

On my subway ride down to the hospital, I had started to get excited. If the baby was going to be born today I could just wear my suit at the hospital for the next few days, my nice starched shirt getting wrinkled and soft after a couple days of broken sleep. This necktie would always remind me of the day my daughter was born. The work I brought would have gone untouched, but I might have read the New Yorker. We didn't have a lot with us, but it would have been enough.

There was that sense, riding the train down to see my wife and my daughter, that this could be it. The question kept rising in my mind, and the realization that there was no wrong or bad answer made me revel in the asking: Why not today? Why not right now?

Eventually, soon, we can answer. But not today.

Pull the trigger

Today I resigned from my job. This was a long time coming. Last night I received word that my new job had come through, that I had found a place to land. I was nervous to tell the folks at work that I would be leaving, and that I would be leaving the firm to work at a university in a non-lawyerly way. I expected them to snicker and say that I could never make it as a lawyer, and that now I was tucking my tail between my legs and slinking off to a different and easier world.

Obviously no one said this. They were actually very supportive, and very surprised. They even said they'd miss me. I told a bunch of different people today, basically relating the same narrative of opportunity, decision, and commitment, and the reactions varied: some were shocked, or aghast, or euphoric, or proud, or even jealous. And they all wished me well.

The foundation below the happiness and relief I felt today, though, was a sense of my own autonomy. Seeking out this new opportunity, winning it and committing to it reminded me that I am a free man. Not on anyone else's track, with no one to answer to but my family; my choices are my own. And I'm making them.

To be honest, I hadn't felt this strong and burly and in control and convinced that I'm the man since I found out I knocked up L. Today I felt proud of myself for finding a way out of an untenable situation, and for finding a new opportunity that is better-suited for my family and me. I was also thinking that this is how life is -- choices and consequences, transitions and opportunities. All of it in the service of a vision that is growing clearer every day.

Looking ahead: my last day of work is next Friday the 19th. My first day at the new job is Wednesday the 24th. And this baby girl of ours is due around Saturday the 27th. At this point the only thing I'm sure of is that all of my careful little plans will most likely be blown to bits, whenever this kid decides to make her entrance. And that's all right too.

Breakdown

Well, I broke. I don't know if it was seeing all the baby loot we acquired at the shower last weekend, or else the time I spent the other night considering the mechanics of baby clothes, with all of their snaps and clasps and tiny little safety pins, or else our trip yesterday to Baby Buy Buy Buy, when we selected a mobile for the crib of plush pastel little insects -- fireflies, ladybugs, caterpillars -- all sleeping peacefully and smiling gently from their cozy orbit, or else the moment in the store when I found myself binging on onesies, pink ones, yellow ones, with their snug matching hats and bibs and burp cloths, embroidered roses or butterflies or bouquets, imagining soft tiny sleeves filled with fat baby arms, imagining the snaps and clasps and pins securing a warm tiny body, imagining my rose, my butterfly, my bouquet -- sometime in the middle of all that, I admitted to myself:

"Ok, this shit is fucking cute."

30

Today is my 30th birthday. It's been a quiet day, but eventful in its own right -- a slow day at work, a trip down to L's office to surprise her at her baby shower, and a lovely taco night at home, punctuated by messages and phone calls from people I love. I always find that the fact of my birthday becomes a secret burden to shoulder. On the subway, at work, in meetings, on the street, you want to tell everybody, "It's my birthday!" But this is not something you can do in polite conversation. No one ever asks a question where the direct answer is, "It's my birthday!" It's not like people go around saying, "Is there a reason today is special for you in particular?" But that's ok. Carrying that secret is part of the fun.

This morning L gave me my birthday gift, and it's a doozy. She compiled all of the blog entries I've posted here, from January 2005 through December 2009, and had them bound as a hardback book: "Clarity," by MKD. She had a bunch of our friends and relatives write blurbs about the blog that she posted at the front of the book. She had a little "About the Author" section at the end. She meticulously formatted the book, and selected a cover image, and the right font, and she produced a book of my blog entries that's approximately 700 pages.

I was floored when I realized what she had done. At first I thought she had gotten me some random book called "Clarity" because it had the same title as this blog. Then I saw my own name on the dust jacket and just couldn't believe what I was holding. I took the book to the office this morning (wrapped in bubble wrap to protect it) and spent a lot of time today rereading the words I wrote back in 2005, before I was in law school, back when L was just my girlfriend, two apartments ago.

To be honest, it made me proud to read all those old entries in a book, continuously, one after the next. I could see some themes and common ideas emerge that I hadn't noticed previously. It helped me understand what I'm trying to write about. Although I was nervous to read my old stuff I was pleasantly surprised -- there were some good turns of phrase, and some old memories which were suddenly cast in high relief. It almost felt like a real, standard memoir -- maybe with just a little work to bridge some of the gaps, you could really have something. I've read it up to March 2006 and I'm excited to follow that old trail back to the here and now. I find myself stupidly excited to read about old trips, or the marathon, or fun times with L. Like I told my parents tonight, I find the book to be a real page-turner.

One of my colleagues at work today said that L had given me the best gift anyone ever could, because she had given me my memories. This is very true. I am astounded by my wife. I am so thankful for her and for the opportunity to look back and reflect on the last few years -- it seems like a good use of a birthday. It made me almost giddy to hold this thick old book of my own words, my own report of the last five years of my life.

As I mentioned earlier, L composed a brief little "About the Author" at the end of the book. She told me she had been very thoughtful about what she said and how she said it. She wrote:

MKD is a writer. He was born and raised in Virginia and educated at the University of Virginia, Columbia University and Fordham Law School. Michael lives in New York City with his wife and daughter. This is his first collection of writings.

When I read that I felt a pang of anguish and happiness and love in my heart. I thought: What a life ... To live that life!

---------
P.S. By the way, if anyone is interested in purchasing their own copy of this ridiculous book you can order it online for about $28 (to cover production costs). Let me know and I can send you the link.

Beautiful Saturday

Yesterday was a really magnificent day. The weather was a little warmer and the sun was strong in the blue sky. It was L's baby shower, so Melissa and Anna arrived early to set up and bustle around in the kitchen for a while. I had made plans with John to head down to Benny's Burritos for some margaritas while the ladies feted our wee baby.

I was in a good mood heading downtown; the air was crisp and the skies were clear. Upbeat music in the headphones, spring in my step. The Village sidewalks were crowded with people enjoying the day, out and about with their shopping bags or strollers. I got to Benny's around 2 and went inside; John wasn't there yet. I left the restaurant to wait outside on the sidewalk, to watch the people and enjoy the old neighborhood, when who do I see coming up but -- Ashesh! I have a distinct impression of seeing his face and the bright green triangle of his scarf. Even though he's only in Philadelphia (studying at Wharton; I think he's taking some kind of evening-division part-time GED prep class or something) I haven't seen him since he left the city last summer. We stood on the sidewalk chatting when who comes sauntering up but -- Russell! Russell lives in Colorado and spends some time in Virginia, and I only get to see him a couple times of year. I hadn't seen him since Thanksgiving and I wasn't sure when we would hang out next. A little while later John arrived, brandishing a bag from my favorite bookstore and laughing at my incredulity, and we went inside to sit.

(This surprise was orchestrated by L, of course. Amid the hubbub of her shower and everything else going on, she engineered an early birthday celebration for me. I was floored.)

It made me so happy to share a table with these guys. As we were sitting there, eating and drinking, I tried to take in how it felt - a beautiful afternoon outside through the plate glass windows of the restaurant, good drinks, catchy songs playing in the background, John on my left, Russell across the table, Ashesh on my right. A table of some of my favorite people, somehow finding themselves in this old dive. I had a dumb grin on my face, feeling happy and at ease and very thankful. I couldn't believe these guys would make the time to be here and shoot the breeze for an afternoon.

To be honest, during this whole pregnancy there have been some moments of extreme loneliness. A few weeks ago, when we were at the Buy Buy Baby Maternity and Childcare Emporium, I remember feeling very overwhelmed by the sheer amount of junk and information and decisions and childrearing philosophies that seemed to demand immediate analysis and commitment. I have missed having family close by, to impart some wisdom, offer guidance, and help contextualize this new baby into the larger story and tradition of our families. True, our families are never too far away, and we speak with them often and think of them even more often, but the idea of raising our kid here by ourselves can be daunting. We have relied so much on the new community we have knitted here, but I miss the old comfort and shared history of old, genuine friends.

That's why yesterday struck such a deep chord with me. After we left Benny's we made our way to Wogie's for a couple of beers. Finally we returned to John and Anna's, where we rejoined Anna and L. John cooked up a delicious dinner, we watched the Olympics and played some poker, sipping on Old Pogue and sambuca.

Yesterday I felt contented and grateful and at peace. To be honest, I felt a kind of easy happiness with life that I haven't enjoyed in a long time. I tell you, man -- with the love of a good woman, and the kind of friends who will come up to the city on a lark for a long, late winter afternoon of margaritas and poker -- these are the days and the people I can't wait to introduce to my daughter.

"The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit" by Sloan Wilson

"'I was my own disappointment. I really don't know what I was looking for when I got back from the war, but it seemed as though all I could see was a lot of bright young men in gray flannel suits rushing around New York in a frantic parade to nowhere. They seemed to me to be pursuing neither ideals nor happiness -- they were pursuing a routine. For a long while I thought I was on the side lines watching that parade, and it was quite a shock to glance down and see that I too was wearing a gray flannel suit.'"

When I was little, when we would go spend summer weekends at my grandparents' place in Rehoboth Beach, I was always drawn to the few old hardbacks on the bookshelves. I distinctly remember two of them, always found in their same alcove every year, next to an old photo in a plastic frame and a few hardy seashells: Sloan Wilson's "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit," and a book by Ian Fleming on Jamaica. The Wilson book in particular stood out; the cover was old and tatty, a relic from the 1950s or 60s, and featured a man in silhouette wearing a fedora, hands clasped behind his back. Why didn't he have a name? Why was he in shadow? Like most objects and events of my childhood, I was vaguely afraid of this.

I was thinking about this book recently and bought it online on a lark. I found an edition from 2002 with an endearingly ugly cover -- preserving that iconic silhouette man -- and featuring a new introduction from Jonathan Franzen.

Reader, I loved this book. I don't know if I've ever read a book that so closely matched my own life and circumstances. I was expecting another typical post-war suburban angst book: man and woman in bitter marriage, loathed or ignored children, drunken escapades, casual violence, sullen train rides into the city. And yet: the protagonist here was a decent young guy with a smart, beautiful wife. He changed jobs in an effort to find meaningful work that challenged him yet allowed him time with kids. He was loyal to his old grandmother. He treated people fairly. He was honest with his boss when he could have been a yes-man. He struggled with his past in World War Two, with the violence and infidelities that had somehow made sense in a senseless place. Ultimately he reconciled his shameful past with the future he wanted to build for himself and his family. He did it with integrity.

I found this book to be so inspiring and appropriate for me right now. The author's afterword from 1983 highlighted how young people have always been very responsive to the novel; how they have understood, unlike the critics who caricatured the book as yet another backhanded slap at postwar life, that this is actually a story of unironic aspiration and resilience. I was surprised by the sourness of Franzen's introduction which highlighted some of the weaknesses of the book (notably its rushed, pat conclusion).

I consider it a real gift, and a funny little curlique of life, that I happened to read a book I've been toying with since I was a little kid at this particularly apt moment of my life. The edition that I just read was published almost 40 years after the original hardback I eyed for all those summers, yet the man remains, waiting to be read, waiting to be understood. The passage I highlighted above really bowled me over, and the lines that followed resonated as well:

"'I needed a great deal of assistance in becoming an honest man. If you hadn't persuaded me to play it straight with Ralph, I would be thinking differently now. By a curious coincidence, Ralph and a good deal of the rest of the world have seemed honest to me ever since I became honest with myself...I would have gone on, becoming more and more bitter, more and more cynical, and I don't know where that road would have ended. But now I'm sure things are going to be better. I've become almost an optimist.'"

Hey, thanks for your help

Speaking of work, today a secretary copped some major attitude with me for no reason at all. Since my assistant was out, I went to ask her to turn some documents into PDFs for me, since she works with the associate I was helping. Being the polite, professional, chivalrous dude that I am, I said, "Could you please help me? If you could turn these into PDF's and send them to me, that would be great." Note the use of "please," as well as that weird past imperfect subjunctive -- that was not accidental. This is my go-to grammatical construction to ask people to do things without sounding like a jerk about it. Feel free to try it, it will probably work.

In response to my request, she glared up at me and said, "Don't you have your own secretary?" Oh, snap. No, you did not. Being the unfailingly polite dude that I am, I sort of backed down, hemming and hawing about how I could do it myself. "No, give it to me," she sighed, and I gave it to her. Then I backed away meekly and returned to my office.

I sat in my chair for a minute and thought about what happened. And then I realized, this secretary is not older than me -- she is my age. And excuse me, but I thought one of the general ground rules around here was that if you're going to treat me like crap, you need to be significantly older than me. Filled with righteous indignation, and with a solid plan in my head (no more polite questions - only statements), I went back to her. No more Mr. Nice Past Imperfect Subjunctive Guy.

I said, "please give me the documents back." She was getting up and she said, "No, I'm making the copies now." She started walking towards the copy room. I followed her, saying, "No, give me the documents." She said, "No, no, I'm doing it." I said, "No, stop, give me the documents, I need them." I was looking for someone else in the hallway to make eye contact and share my facial expressions with, since I was almost yelling at this point, or at least someone who could maybe pin her arms back so I could retrieve the stupid documents.

Finally she relented and gave me my papers, and then I asked another secretary to help me, and she did so in a completely courteous and thorough way. It took her about ten minutes to do the job. I told a secretary friend of mine about this little fiasco, and she gasped and said, "But you're an attorney!" Yes, I am. But I never even thought about it like that -- I was more focused on the fact that this chick was my own age and was treating me like crap, and this time, for once, being the hierarchical and authority-fearing dude that I am, I didn't have to sit back and take it. But it was a pretty hollow victory, let's keep it real. My major triumph was that I got my papers back and didn't let her make my PDF's! Ha!

Why the face!? What is wrong with people?

Big lights will inspire you

Sarah's post about music and driving and "Empire State of Mind" definitely struck a chord with me, and reminded me of watching Alicia Keys perform "Empire State of Mind (Part II) Broken Down" on SNL a couple weeks back. This song shares the same chorus as the Jay-Z anthem, but Alicia's sitting at the piano for this one, singing verses about the city and its people until the drums kick in at the tail end. When I saw it on SNL the song gave me chills, over and over again, listening to her sing about the struggle of the city, how tired it can make you, but then turning on a dime and singing that sense of striving and urgency that draws people here like a magnet. It's a song that describes the place I've chosen as my home, and it seems like a challenge too, something to live up to. Even the way her voice swoops upward on that chorus, veering perilously close to cracking but finding that note and holding it -- somehow that captures it all, too.

It's been awesome to see the city adopt this song as an anthem. It makes me think about what I'm doing and whether I'm living up to it. It makes me feel like I spend too much time watching TV and eating Chipotle when I should be doing other, greater things. Like how the fact that I work in 30 Rock, just a few floors above the studios where they make SNL, can be such a bitter pill to swallow sometimes. What dreams I had for myself.

But hey - I'm still in New York. These streets will make you feel brand new.

"Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters"

I just read a really interesting book that was recommended to me by Ryan, husband of L's cousin Kristen (thus making him basically my brother): "Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters" by Meg Meeker. I have thought a lot lately about the kind of family life I want to build for the three of us: a specific architecture of values, traditions and habits that requires some purpose and forethought.

I was excited to read this on Ryan's recommendation, even though he warned me about some of the God stuff in the book. I felt like the author was writing from a very solid conservative Christian background, which is not exactly the environment in which we will be welcoming this kid. The approach to sexuality was drenched in horrifying statistics about HPV and other sexually transmitted diseases, as well as earnest hypothetical anecdotes about one day discovering that your own daughter is the centerfold model in your hunting buddy's new issue of Playboy. Statistically, this is very improbable. They only have 12 centerfolds a year!

On the other hand, though, nothing riles up my inner social conservative like the prospect of guiding my daughter through the next 20 years of our increasingly degenerate pop culture. I think about the TV shows L and I thoughtlessly watch, the winkingly obscene music I enjoy (see below), and I wonder how you can protect a child from that stuff when she sees the world innocently and genuinely, without that shield of irony and cynicism that we adults grasp instinctively. The book had some excellent instructions and reminders about a father's role in his daughter's life: his centrality, his moral authority, his modeling of the way men and women interact and how a young woman should expect to be treated. I found myself agreeing with much of it, and feeling a renewed confidence in my own instinct and the way that L and I can complement each other in raising our girl.

There was excellent stuff about the need for fathers to say "I love you," to show affection, to establish boundaries, to make yourself known, to truly listen, to take your daughter on special outings. I particularly loved the chapter on humility, which really resonated with me and seemed to go hand-in-hand with the value of empathy. The book made me excited to raise our girl and thankful to be able to look back and see so many ways that my parents did all of these things, all of these traditions and simple ways of living that I can't wait to pass along.

As expected, the book hits hard with the God stuff, which I did not really enjoy. One big question L and I are grappling with is the role of religion in our kid's life, and in the life of our family. We're not actively going to church these days, and I'm struggling a lot to find a resolution that seems to carry some integrity with it. I want my kid to have a firm moral grounding, but I have so much doubt and anger towards the church's own moral authority. I don't want my daughter thinking she has to submit to a church that doesn't treat her as an equal. I don't want her assuming some of the chuch's toxic attitudes towards women and sexuality. On the other hand, I think the church has done a lot of good in the world, I think it maintains a strong intellectual tradition that I want to pass on, and I think its message about love, charity, sacrifice, forgiveness, and devotion is fundamental and something that a kid should begin to wrestle with. I don't know. Doubt is a part of faith, I know that. I'm just trying to reconcile all of this so that we can figure out what to do with our girl with some measure of integrity. Integrity, and not superstition.

Anyways -- "Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters." I really enjoyed it and I gave it to L to read, too. I mentioned architecture before and I think that's really what I'm trying to do: I want to think about this purposefully, to enter fatherhood with an idea of our compass and our goals for our life together. Now I'm just working on the blueprint.

D*** in a box

Man, I still love this song. It has been rumbling around in my head for the last month or so, and then I realized that somehow this saucy little number has entered my mental canon as a legitimate Christmas song. I can look forward to this chestnut every December for the next fifty years.

Of course the true power of the song was only realized a couple weeks back, when L's cousins Kristen and Ryan were in town and we wound up capping off a day of casual but sustained drinking with a three-hour bout of karaoke at a second-floor dive bar in K-Town, glued to the pleather benches until 2:00 in the morning, maintaining a steady flow of O.B. and generously sharing the tambourine, belting out "D*** in a box" as well as many other timeless classics. That was one hell of a night, although we paid the price the next day. Thank God they didn't have sake.

Anyways, I bought "D*** in a box" on iTunes the other day, and it isn't as good. It's a little more extended, and there's no laugh track. Although I can appreciate the production a little more, the song seems a little removed from the scrappy video that was so good a couple years back that I still can't get it out of my head.