Along Came Daddyhood

 
Recently, the Wife informed me that my hair was too long. I don't remember the word she used: Puffy? Fuzzy? Poofy? No matter. The message was clear. I needed to be groomed.

So off I went to Great Clips.

But I haven't always gone to Great Clips. (BACKSTORY ENGAGE)

Once upon a time (in high school), my mom would cut my hair. This worked well. I am not Fabio or Jesse Katsopolis and I do not need a complex hair treatment. Put a guard on the clippers and let it run.

But tragically during my senior year, my mother breached my hairline with unguarded clippers. And it was the night before a dance. FANTASTIC. It wouldn't have been so bad, but this guy...


...called me "Spot" for 2 months afterwards (PEOPLE DON'T FORGET, ANDREW.).

So after that, I took matters into my own hands and was inspired to perform my own haircuts much like Britney Spears. We are kindred spirits, really.
This arrangement worked well until my nuptials with the Wife because she disapproved of my method. Why, pray tell?

Because I was, as she termed it, "trashy." How dare she? Apparently, cutting my hair on the front steps to our house in view of all our neighbors was bad form. I say it's a discrepancy in gender values, but she won and this is why I frequent the local Great Clips.

(DISENGAGE BACKSTORY)

But the point remains...why am I talking about Great Clips?

If you've ever been to a GC, you've no doubt noticed my favorite part of the trip. Seemingly, the great corporate entity that owns GC has mandated that the employees MUST greet every customer. On paper this is a very good idea. The first essence smacking a customer in the face will not be hair product or formaldehyde, but the cordiality of all the employmees.

The reality of this is very different though.

Without fail, every trip to GC comes not with a robust and hardee, "HELLO VALUED CUSTOMER!", but with a sorrowful chorus of "Welcome to Great Clips." The words spill out of their mouths like the tortured spill confessions and for a moment I wonder if I am in an establishment of hair cuttery or a torture den.

I don't like this gimmick in retail stores.

When indulging in Cold Stone Creamery, I notice some people putting tips in the tip jar for the sole purpose of hearing the employees sing "Tip Tip Hooray." The employees sheepishly look around like carnival animals and unenthusiastically perform the "Tip Top Hooray" song, while the tipping customer looks on like a buffoon.

Here's what I've learned thus far in life: When forced to do something, effort is cut 50%. We all have built in authority issues. If you say you don't, then you are lying and are probably plotting something horrendous like an Edward Cullen fan site.

Understanding the 50% cut in effort, when someone is then also forced to be enthusiastic, an additional 48% is slashed, leaving 2% effort. If you think you can legislate an employee's joy at seeing my mug walk through a door, you are SORELY mistaken, Suit.

This brings me to my real point; I encounter feigned enthusiasm all day: at Chick-fil-A (it is NOT your pleasure to get me more ketchup packets!), in retail stores, and all customer service calls. People act as though entering into a business transaction with me is a virtual Turkish Delight. I can assure you, it is not.


But all of this only serves to make the real thing that much better. Retrieving the Boy after a nap or night's rest is good, but in the face of all the faux interest I am bombarded with, his reaction makes it all the better. His giggle and laugh is the best welcome I can get.

So I've been giving The Bachelor some SERIOUS thought ever since Monday.

That's right. I'm not pulling any punches. I like the show. No, I LOVE the show. I don't know why I do, but I do.  I'm 27. I'm too old to posture. I love The Bachelor like I loved The O.C. and Dawson's Creek. Consider my freak flag flown.

Having said all of that, viewers of the show find ourselves at a monumental point.

Jake, the bachelor, has narrowed down his potential lady mates to the syrupy sweet Tenley, and Vienna, she of the darkly sunken eyes and SUPREMELY shady past.

It's a study in contrasts and it's begging some analysis. Why? Because it violates the natural order of things. And it's so much more important than unemployment, climate change conspiracies, and the Olympics.

This is what we know: Tenley is a seemingly perfect fit for Jake. Both conduct themselves with a degree of a corniness, but it is completely authentic. I imagine them both thinking Mary Murphy is funny and that Taylor Swift is profound. They are both nice people who appear to belong together.

Vienna, on the other hand, is a complete dumpster fire of a potential spouse. Assuming we didn't know what US Weekly has reported, SHE STILL LOOKS SUSPICIOUSLY LIKE A MAN. A man or a really capable CI (I've watched every season of The Wire and The Shield, people. I know a CI when I see one.) She is immature, prone to drama, and NOT ATTRACTIVE. But yet she has survived, like a cockroach after a nuclear attack, to make the final 2. How?

The following are the realistic possibilities behind why Vienna is still on the show:

Scenario #1: She's an agent of drama.
Realistically, the producers knew that in selecting Jake, they were also selecting a modest, low-key dude. He doesn't really have tramp-taste and thus would quickly winnow the selection of girls into a subset of similarly-minded and modest girls. This would be good for Jake, but HORRENDOUS for ratings. After all, does anyone really think that the American public wants to watch a reality show where tact and tastefulness win the day? OF COURSE NOT.

Enter Vienna. This Hooter's alum is as much of a match for Jake as Lisa Turtle was for Zack Morris. She is profoundly shallow and there is a feeling that she is holding back a dam of malevolent intentions and secrets (my money is on STD and credit card debt. She looks like a spender.).

But she has provided the show with a boost of drama. Excerpted conversations: Who's here for the wrong reasons? Vienna. Who talks trash about other girls? Vienna. Who caused the earthquake in Haiti? Vienna. WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BLACK EYED PEAS AWFUL MUSIC? WHY, I THINK IT WAS VIENNA!

A lightning rod for drama is putting it mildly. If she had a patronus, it would probably be Lindsay Lohan.

If this scenario is true (and I believe it is), then at the finale, the selection of Tenley will vanquish once and for all the diabolical Vienna and the American public will be none the wiser. Vienna will have gotten her time in the sun and the producers will have gotten their ratings. Alls well that ends well.

Scenario #2 - He really likes her.
This scenario isn't realistic. I tricked you. Move on to the next scenario.

Scenario #3 - Jake is a closet deviant, and thus he really likes her.
 This is the only other plausible scenario.

On the surface, Jake appears to be an upright and essentially moral person. But if this scenaro is true, then lurking under the surface of Jake is a deviant. This would explain why Vienna has advanced so far and it gives her a realistic chance at winning. If this is true, then the finale represents a deeper conflict of good vs. evil. Tenley vs. Vienna. Jake's pure nature vs. his deviant nature.

Let's be clear though: if Vienna wins, the unlikeliness of her win will be more about Jake's either stupidity/or closeted freak than it will be about her.

I wish I wasn't excited about the 8-hour finale in two weeks. But I am.

Ok, so I'm the Tiger Woods of domain infidelity. A thousand apologies. This is really it though. Same name: Along Came Parenthood. Different address: www.alongcamedaddyhood.blogspot.com.

But there's a bigger issue here. It's bigger than you, it's bigger than me, and it's bigger than the actress who plays Precious in Precious.



It's my unconditional surrender to social media.

I've tried to fight the good fight of avoiding Facebook and other social media destinations, but it isn't realistic. And I hate that. No seriously, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE DEPTH OF MY FURY.

I think there comes a point when you have to consider the reality of a situation versus your preferred reality. I want to write. That is clear. Ideally, I would like to be writing in, say, a nice bourgeois coffee shop when a big time publishing executive crashes into me. Naturally, my completed manuscript spills into their lap. Moments later, after the cookie shrapnel and coffee carnage has cleared, I have a book deal.

How great would that be? I don't think that's asking too much.

But it is asking too much. What I am learning is that to be in the mix, you have to have something of a pulse in this brave new world of the socialized internets. 

I've been filling out query letters to send to literary agents and a major point of every letter contains questions about your platform.

My what?

I don't have a platform. I have a son, a wife, and a job. I have a book collection. I have a huge hat collection. But no platform.

My unabomber approach may be noble or pure or something else that's overblown and lame, but it isn't getting me any way. Literary agents prefer to represent writers with more social media savvy than the average Amish patriarch (Amish neckbeard optional).

And so, I cry uncle to the unyielding grip of myface, spacebook, and whatever other avenues I'll be familiarizing myself with in the not to distant future. I guess Desire is matchmaker of unlikely bedfellows.

My son struts. It is not purposeful, but this is factual.

The new found skill of walking has him traveling all around our house and into every room his little fingers and feet can gain access to. And it is all done with a sense of bravado that only a 15-month old can know.

It’s not a strut in an urban – Staying’ Alive – John Travolta – way. It’s more pure and honest than that. And he isn’t strutting for strutting sake or so that people will notice him.

It is involuntary.

His style is natural as though it is an organic celebration of what he is doing and the excitement that comes with it.

Sometimes when in our laundry room or bathroom, I will leave the door in a tremulous state of limbo; not totally open and not totally closed. My son is drawn to just such a door.

He will work to pry it open, grunting all the while because it’s hard work for little hands like his. But when he gets leverage on the door, he swings it open triumphantly and always, always stares me down.

He stands in the doorway like a bandit from the Wild West appearing defiantly in the doorway of a silenced saloon. And like a bandit, he slowly walks in and takes whatever...the hey... he wants.

And then he struts away in search of the next door to pry open and the next room to pilfer. Such is the life of a young bandit.

Photo Credit

I love late nights. I am productive and creative and everything is quiet. This is a good thing.

But the inherent flaw with late nights is that they are late and morning always follows packing a potent punch.

Why do I only now realize what I want to do with this time late at night? I guess the arrival of perspective always has the companionship of regret.

Now, when there is a full family to love and interact with and when late at night is when I should be resting so I can ably do it all again tomorrow.

I guess what I’m really saying is that I shouldn’t have played so much Halo in college.

So Rowe is teething...Not just teething though. It's more like TEETHING.

Something I've realized over the last year is that for all their linguistic limitations, babies are particularly adept at expressing their emotions. Perhaps they don't meet our expectations of speech clarity, but they do put forth an unrelenting effort to convey their needs. It's as though they realize their inefficient speech and to compensate, they escalate the volume and intensity of their protestations.

This week has been full of said protestations. Loud, angsty, temple-throbbing protestations.

I don't begrudge him this because I suppose that if I had shards of teeth slowly descending through my gums that I probably would be similarly unpleasant.

Which is where we find our problem.

Essentially, this process provokes frustration and stress. Ingredients like a shrieking child, profoundly poopy diapers, poor appetites, and late night rampages are the fundamental elements of stress.

In and of themselves, these are not overly problematic things. But when intermingled, they work to undo our sanity. Justified as the descent into sanity might be, we still feel guilty.

The guilty feelings are so potent because we know that our ideal reactions would be those of grace, sensitivity, and calm in the frenzied face of his screaming mouth and swatting hands from 2am - 4am nightly. But those ideal reactions are generated from equally ideal behavior from Rowe.

Realistically, I'd like to say that our temperament is unconditional and not dependent on his interactions with us. It should be anyways. Maybe it will be one day.

But for now, under the influence of sleep deprivation, that notion is naive and dangerous, particularly if said by someone without kids.

So how do we reconcile how we feel versus how we should feel?

I don't know. Endurance I guess?

Someone smarter than me once said that stress and money don't make you a different person. They just make you more of who you actually are.

While we don't have money, we do have a surplus of stress and what we're finding out is that we'll never be able to pull off the idealized concept of the perfect parents.

But who can? There's this notion that you have to have everything figured out to be a good parent. You don't. You just have to be consistent, loving and resilient. Mistakes will be made, but love is always an effective elixir.

Besides, we get like four years before they remember anything right? Right??

Ok so, a couple of things:

I'm wired with the euphoria that typically accommodates the vanquishing of a migraine. I went to bed at 9:42 with a massive migraine and am now WIDE awake. Awesome.

For anyone that may care, I did not get my Tennessee Titans internship job. Long story short, I spoke with a friend at bleacherreport.com and he informed me that I was the clubhouse leader after the application process ended. Unfortunately though, CBS was approached by some out of work NFL beat writers who had gotten wind of the contest. They offered to work for significantly less than what I would have made, so I got cut out. Sad times.

The good news is that the people at Bleacher Report felt pretty crappy of how everything shook out, so they are sending me a check for $500 and they've offered me a featured columnist position with their website.

Even though the gig pays exactly $0.00, I'll take the exposure. Though it all feels like a consolation prize, Ashley and I are pretty happy with how everything turned out. I won't have to be away from her and H.R. for 7 months and I still get to write for a larger audience.

Not only that, but I even made my first $$$ from writing. Is it enough to buy a beach house? Not exactly, but I guess Rome wasn't built in a day, right?

With all that being said, I've decided to begin posting links to the articles I'll be doing for Bleacherreport.com. I'm sure that this is incredibly exciting news for the 4 people who read this blog regularly. Feel free to pinch yourselves.