MenGetPregnantToo

My Best Friend has a New Friend. (OMG, am I Out??)

Background:
"Steve" and I met in 7th grade. Despite my tranferring to a different school after that one year,  we remained best friends ever since.
It was almost uncanny how our lives developed along similar tacks:

• Same summer camp
• A deep understanding of how, for an unrealistically long period of time "Bat Out of Hell" was the greatest album on earth.
• The acceptance that life on the various starships Enterprise was clearly optimal living.
• A deep understanding of how, for an unrealistically long period of time Rush's "2112" was the greatest album on earth.
• A marriage and two kids each. (No, our marriage was not to each other).
• Family vacations together (with the single goal of getting the kids to bed and making it through the "Godfather" trilogy before the week was up).

Etcetera.
We've spoken to each other at least once a week for nearly thirty years, though we see each other a little less frequently than we would like - I moved to the burbs, he's in the city.
And now...he has a new neighbor....a peer...a cool peer.

Less than a month ago, this guy moves in next door with his finacée. We'll call this new neighbor...actually; we will bestow no proper name upon him at all, lest he become more human to me.
Neighbor is a runner, Steve is a runner. I used to be a runner. Steve has developed into an elite runner. Neighbor is an elite runner who now runs with Steve. 
I sit on the couch and blog, wondering if there’s bacon in my fridge's deli drawer. 
Neighbor was married two weeks ago: Steve was invited to the ceremony AND the after party. Not only that, he commuted to the festivities with the best men, closest friends, etc. Why wouldn't he? Steve and Neighbor's houses are attached...attached! The wedding party was standing on the front lawn shouting "C'mon, Steve!"

Not only that, but Neighbor is...BRITISH! Like, with an accent. Like, British in the same way Daniel Craig and Pierce Brosnan and Queen Elizabeth are British. This guy definitely has some James Bond Cool in him. I've been told I have a little Queen Elizabeth in me (especially when I whine in a blog post), but this is not that kind of jealousy. I would call this more like 'concern'. Like the kind of concern one has when a mole on one's back may or may not be growing larger. Or the concern one has when the ache in one’s knee hasn't gone away despite refraining from running for....months (so you can create literary masterpieces online 500 words at a time!)  Or the concern one has when one may, or may not, be supplanted by James Bond.
(Did I mention that due to British Neighbor's Britishness he has run into some difficulty with local services who only deal in French? Don't worry, he has a translator at his disposal...Steve!) 

I began to take all the necessary precautions to protect my relationship with Steve: spy camera, long range listening post, a complaint filed with Immigration Canada and Immigration Britain, and I've forbade my wife from ever watching another episode of Coronation Street.
Then, last night, my wife and I were invited to a party at Steve's house.
I met Neighbor.
Polite, cheerful, interested in where I lived and what I had to say. He was funny, too.
S**t.  
Maybe I'll try to poach him; I like Britain, I like James Bond. I even like rice pudding and Newcastle.

Maybe I'll just relax and rely on my history with Steve and my own maturity as an adult to carry me through. 
If a worst case scenario develops, I'll just remind Steve that I was here first. In his life, and at the party last night:) 

 

 

Are You Annoying and Inconsiderate?? These Rules Might Help:

A guy was supposed to meet me at 2pm. He called at 2:15 to let me know he was running 45 minutes behind schedule. That kind of stuff really gets my goat. But, I blog, therefore I am:

1 - If you're going to be late, call before you're scheduled to arrive:

You same people are always late. If you're due somewhere at noon, you damn well know at 11:30 you're not gonna make it...call at 11:30! A phone call fifteen minutes after you're expected to arrive is just plain selfish.

2 - Email does not replace a phone call:
You know you're too embarrassed to call. You don't want to be made to feel guilty, or to have to listen to the sadness in my voice as I waste away at a Starbucks  pretending I have enough email and text messages to keep me busy alone at my table; so you email or text instead of call. Then you hope I cool off before you get here. That's just plain chicken s&*". Guilt and remorse are your punishments for not calling thirty minutes earlier. Feel them, brother.

 3 - Be courteous first, not only in response to courtesy:
When you are the last of ten people in line at a grocery store, and a second cash opens, don't trample the people in front of you. Let the line divide itself and accept your new position as fifth in line instead of tenth  (still better by half!). See the guy who rushed to be first at the new cash? He's avoiding eye contact with you because he feels guilty. Besides, it's probably that cashier who has to deal with lottery tickets and bottle returns; you'll still beat him out the door.

4- The world is not a toilet for your pet, nor an ashtray for your butt:
Read this. And this.

5 - Signal when you change lanes:
Instead of slowing down, frightening the person behind you (who would just loooove to rear-end you, except for the financial and legal ramifications of doing so) and looking over your shoulder at a rate which would make a hummingbird puke: signal. I will then notice your intention to pull into my lane (always the fastest moving one), and consequently I will slow down....for three or four seconds. 

6 - Once in the passing lane, PASS!:
That's why it's the passing lane. That's why I'm tailgating you. That's why he's tailgating me. That's why she's tailgating him...(I know, trucks are scary. They're even scarier when you cruise right next to them for two miles....pass it, already!) 

7 - Turn off your phone, completely:
 At the movies, in the theatre, in the restaurant. Can we have two hours without electronic interruption? BTW: the movie is about two hours long (exact times of hundreds of films are available on thousands of websites). When-- in a dark room -- you use your phone to check the time, not only does it close my pupil and reduce the image quality being sent to my brain; it snaps me out of my Jennifer Connelly fantasy so fast it would make a goat puke.

7a - Don't let your five-year-old daughter play with your smart phone during a piano recital:
I apologize. I was devastated; I didn't know the app she activated triggered music. It will never happen again. I know: some people...sheesh.

Photo: "Sad Phone" by Ron Bennetts via Flickr

8 - Wipe the seat:
Do unto the public washroom as you would have done unto the public washroom. You know you missed your target: clean it! You know when you walk into a dirty stall you then comment to your friend about the pigs in this world: 'how could anyone leave a stall looking like that?' You're a hypocrite. ..One big I-shoulda-used-that-weird-toilet-seat-cover-and-thrown-it-away-then-I-wouldn't-have-to-clean-anything hypocrite. 

9 - Don't roll your eyes at my kids:
I know eating lunch on that dirty toilet seat would be more agreeable than standing next to my family during their current tantrum. I know you think I have a troubled home. I know I should leave the cart I spent the last two hours filling so I wouldn't have to come back to the store for a week (read: tomorrow, after I realize I forgot milk) and go home. But, trust me. I'm doing my best, and their usually really good kids. (Quick, don't analyze that last part...move on to number 10).

10 - Answer my emails:
Not the same day, or even the next day. But, I think forty-eight hours is fair. Doesn't have to be a long answer, or even the right answer, but a "Got it.", or "I'll think about it", or "Your email submission has been received; though our budget/editorial profile is not interested in new submissions (i.e. your idea) at the moment, we will keep it on file. Thank you for writing." You know, B.S. me...I don't mind. At least I won't resubmit.

11 - At least acknowledge my pain:
Whether you're a friend, colleague, or customer service agent (hello to my overseas readers); when I talk to you about how much something sucks, just start with a "Wow, how horrible for you." Then put me on hold, or discretely check the time on your phone.... 

 Any annoyances you'd like to add? In the comment section, please. I have a feeling this list is the first in a series.

Control Your Vice, Please. Part 2: Cigarette Butts.

Today, class, we focus on butts and only butts.
I don't like cigarette smoke - it stinks; but so does perfume. I don't appreciate when you smoke near me and I am forced - through sheer proximity - to smoke as well; but walking through tailpipe exhaust is no Irish Spring commercial, either.
This is why I choose to focus on butts and the indiscretion with which people discard them: out the car window, onto the sidewalk, into a plant, onto a field...I especially love when they bounce like a firecracker off the hood of my shiny used subcompact.
I know, newer cars have no ashtrays; they also have no garbage cans and no recycling bins (although the underside of my driver's seat closely resembles that pit with the moving walls in Star Wars), yet I've never chucked my kids' disposable apple sauce container at the jerk tailgating me on the highway (and I've only tossed a dirty diaper once, and it was at a Hummer).
But, butts - for some reason -  are chuckable.

What is most perplexing is: NON-smokers never reproach smokers for littering.
If I drop a french fry on the sidewalk, there is a fair chance a suddenly-Suzuki, all-of-the-sudden environmentalist would chide me for dirtying our neighborhood. (These pristine sidewalks which previously had only been touched by muddy shoes, spit, dog and cat urine and feces (read more about that here), gum, and butts.) 
But cigarette butts - with fire on one end and sputum on the other - get a free pass. Why?  

I think it's because smoking is so endemic and historic it almost seems to fall under some form of freedom of expression; like wearing really ugly clothes.
Smoking has another advantage over just plain old slobby littering: coolness. For decades, smoking was just plain Humphry Bogart cool.


People are afraid to approach smokers because, should the altercation turn physical, fewer people would rush to the plaintiff's aid. The poor soul would just end up lying on the sidewalk, the blood from their broken nose ironically washing the cigarette butt into the gutter. 
As for my discarded french fry, I'm fairly sure an unruly mob would support the plaintiff in my case, and my blood would rush over my fries...like homemade ketchup. 

I've been careless with my own butt in my day: I tried my first cigarette at age fourteen, and touched my last one in my early twenties. It was no more than a reason to be included with the cool gang hanging out in driveways while the rest (cancer-free losers!) of the party was inside. I was never addicted (in fact, I'm not sure they ever didn't make me  sick...how do people get passed that nausea??), and I don't miss them. But I understand why people smoke, and believe I understand (as much as a non-smoker could) why it's so difficult to quit. If it's in anyway more difficult than it is for me to stay away from potato chips, it's downright impossible.

This isn't about locking smokers in a sealed lounge; it's about a weird sense of entitlement for their butts in the cracks of my sidewalk. 
And, please, can we avoid the "your car is as polluting as my cigarette"? We all know my car is way more polluting; but the moment your cigarette can enroll in a meals-on-wheels program or ship penicillin from California to Nunavut, we'll talk. 
That's it. Now I'm butting out.

Photo Credit - American Chemical Society via Discovery News

 

 

The Way to My Heart is Not With a Power Tool! (Unless it's a Rib Spreader)

FatherDaddy is now a weekly contributor to "The Good Men Project". Every Wednesday I will have an article published on their site. There will be an even rotation between original content, and essays previously published on FatherDaddy.
The link to any original content will appear here  shortly following its publication.

Enjoy this week's original submission:

The Way to My Heart is Not With a Power Tool! (Unless it's a Rib Spreader)

Thanks for reading.

 

Dan Zevin Discusses "Dan Gets a Minivan" (read this and you may win a copy!)

The easiest thing to say about "Dan Gets a Minivan - Life at the Intersection of Dude and Dad" is that it's funny. Because it is. Relentlessly so. 

But, just as importantly, it is intelligent, sensitive and amazingly perceptive. A parent who has had their lives in any way transformed after creating little haywire facsimiles of themselves will not help but recognize their own journey at some point in this book.
Where most parent-humorists (especially men) clamber to portray themselves as incapable klutzes; Dan demonstrates a stay-at-home dad can be as hysterical and smart as he is competent.

I spoke with him yesterday:

Q: One of the things you do so well is maintain a self-deprecating sense of humor throughout the book without making yourself seem overwhelmed and incompetent (like so many daddy books do). Was this a conscious decision? 

 DAN: I find it amusing  that 'Mr. Mom' is supposed to be a cute term for men in primary caretaking roles but 'Mrs. Dad' would be an offensive term for women in management roles.
Lots of stay-at-home dads are really more "work-at-home" dads. It doesn't matter if you're a self-employed writer or a day trader. Parents with traditional jobs like to think you sit home in your bathrobe watching ESPN all day. Not that I don't look forward to that day.

*****

Dan on Not Giving a Shit:

 Q: The "Don't Give a Shit" chapter was particularly refreshing for me: a father of two little kids. When the idea for that came to you, was it as liberating as it sounds?

DAN: When the two of us turned into the four of us, there was no time to sleep much less give a shit about my career ambitions. Personally, the most important thing I think it takes to be a father is a sense of humor. Also cargo pants. They're like a filing system for your legs.

****

                                                   Dan on His Parents: 
"One of the things I find most endearing about my mother is her ability to get
sicker than anyone else."

Q: I think almost any parent can relate to the pros and cons of having your in-laws help out. How did your mom react to the "she gets sicker than everyone else" line?

 DAN: As a humorist, the cheapest thing to do is to make fun of people. I'm very careful to deliver the jokes with affection. My mother loves that chapter. Trust me, she taught me everything I know about being funny. 

****

       Dan on Marriage:

"There's a fine line between a happy, long-term couple curled up on the couch and two carcasses who've fallen asleep to the same movie they've been trying to watch for six Saturday nights in a row."

Q: What do you want people to take away from this book?

DAN: Every parent, dad or mom, tends to think nothing's going to change when we have kids, then EVERYTHING changes. I was a dude living in the coolest neighborhood in Brooklyn, now I'm a dad living in the suburbs and driving a minivan to Costco--and LOVING it, which should give you an idea of what I'm talking about. The way I see it, if life deals you a minivan, you might as well enjoy the ride. 

*****

"Dan Gets a Minivan" invites you not only to enjoy the ride, but insists you get comfortable. It offers everything a literary road trip should: laughs, music, strife and those proverbial flat tires when parents feel stranded, wondering what to do next with themselves and their kids. Dan Zevin pulls us all over and says: "cool it!" - there are worse things than following your gut and plunking yourself into a big fat car, a few longitudinal lines away from the nearest subway station.
This book reminded me I have a sense of humor, and insisted I apply it more to my parenting. It made me a better father (for the next week or so, anyway, until I morph back into my crotchety old self); it also split my sides (or as his mother might say: Ribious Crackopenus).
Intelligent, sensitive, funny. I don't think it's a man crush I have. Maybe a book crush. Either way, I understand why Dave Barry wants him dead.

       Dan on Percocet:
 

"My surgeon implanted donor tissue. Donor tissue, In other words, "dead guy" tissue. So: who was he? Or: who was she? Holy Shit. What if I have a she-knee? What if I went in for knee surgery and came out a hermaphrodite?"

*****

  All readers who comment will be entered into a draw (once I find a hat) to win a copy of Dan's book.
Contest closes Canada Day 2012 (that's July 1st, people). 

 

 

 

 

Control Your Vice, Please. Part 1: Dogs

I love animals; I grew up with them.
Our pooch, Smokey the Wonderdog, was acquired two years before I was born; he passed away in our basement more than sixteen years later.
During that period, and in the years since, I've been a human father to: hamsters, guinea pigs, fish, cats, lizards, and even rescued a Vietnamese Pot Bellied Pig from a farmhouse before relocating her to a sanctuary eighteen months later.
I dogsit for my sister regularly.
I love animals. I eat them; but when I'm not eating them, I love 'em.

My sister, Me, and Smokey the Wonderdog

 

That being said, when you remove a creature from its natural habitat and make it a member of your family, there should be certain constraints put on it. It this case, it's called a leash.
If you own a dog, and the two of you are neither in your house nor frolicking in a dog run, whoever of you has more than two legs should be restrained. Period.
It doesn't matter if (you're under the impression) your dog never bites; this guy's dog doesn't bite, either: 

 

But stuff happens.
There are fellow earthlings on this planet who are fearful of dogs; who don't want a wet muzzle in their crotch; who don't want their children knocked over in the park by your bitch. Whether you are offended by their sensibilities or not, they are in the right. Period. 'Ruff!' End of sentence.
You purchased a wild animal; you are responsible for this wild animal as I would be if I owned a rodeo bull. Period. 'Snort!' End of sentence.
If I want to pat your pooch (and I generally do), I will approach slowly, with my hand out, and ask if your dog is friendly and likes to be patted. 
If you are proud of your four-legged friend, and would like to show him off, feel free to approach me and ask: "Would you like to pet my dog?",  then live with the answer.
As for using my lawn as a toilet: we all own ceramic, indoor toilets; we urinate and defecate in them - not around them or elsewhere in the neighborhood - for sanitary reasons.  
My lawn is not disguised as a lawn. It is a lawn, not a toilet. I don't pee on it; my kids don't pee on it. When your dog pees on it and then my children play on it, I'm kinda grossed out.
When your dog moves his bowels on my grass, or the sidewalks of the city, please understand: s*** sticks. Unless a pressure washer accompanies you on your walk, there will be residue of this s*** everywhere. When I picnic in that residue...I'm kinda grossed out. 

I know the retort to my arguments is often: dogs are like children to their owners. Some parents having really annoying kids; owners have 'exuberant' dog. 
Granted. 
In that case, let's make a deal:
1) If my children ever sniff your crotch, let me know; I will explain to them (again!) the  concept of "inappropriate".
2) If my child ever bites your face, let me know; after insisting that is very unlike a child of mine, I will tell him 'No!'.
3) If my child ever defecates on your property, or the sidewalks of your neighborhood, let me know; after insisting he was toilet trained years ago, I will wonder where I went wrong.
4) If my child is ever wondering around without his owner (me) - with or without a leash - call Child Protective Services; they'll let me know. 

As pit-bull owners are fond of pointing out: there are no bad dogs, only bad owners.
I agree.
That's why I love animals; it's their owners that drive me crazy. 

 

 

How to Not Lose Yourself in Your Role as a Working Parent - via Voiceboks

Trying to handle a successful career while simultaneously being a meanigful contributor to family life is one of the greatest challenges facing an office-bound parent. Finding time for yourself is as important as dedicated time with your spouse and kids. Here are some ideas about how to better strike that balance:

How to Not Lose Yourself is Your Role as a Working Parent

It's None of Your Damn Business That I'm Not Gay.

FatherDaddy is now a weekly contributor to "The Good Men Project". Every Wednesday I will have an article published on their site. There will be an even rotation between original content, and essays previously published on FatherDaddy.
The link to any original content will appear here  two days following its publication.

Enjoy this week's original submission:

It's None of Your Damn Business That I'm Not Gay

Thanks for reading.