tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34930658472725085362024-02-07T21:50:13.096-08:00Moderated MayhemRandom musings from a father/husband/employee/ homeowner just trying to hold onto whatever sanity is still left!Michael Dahlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969144572797609026noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493065847272508536.post-19827537509475811912011-10-10T16:53:00.000-07:002011-10-10T19:32:53.778-07:00Hallway Sex<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Several years ago a buddy of mine mentioned, almost in passing, how for a long while after their second child was born, he and his wife had only what he called “Hallway Sex”. This is when you pass each other by in the hall and one of you yells, “F^&k you!” and the other responds with a “F&*k you, too!” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the time, I had thought he was joking.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s the dirty little secret of parenthood: The little bastards suck out all your zest for life, leaving nothing but sleep-deprived, angry zombies, skilled at changing diapers one-handed in the dark, but incapable of civil discourse. </span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most nights, after a day of work followed by an evening of feeding, watering, bathing, changing, putting to bed, putting back to bed, threatening, screaming, then putting to bed again, we’re exhausted. A couple glasses of wine, an episode or two of “30 Rock” on Netflix Streaming, and we're asleep by 9:00. Then up again at midnight, at 2am, 4am, then getting up for good at 5am. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sex? Yeah, right. That’s just not in the cards, when you don’t even have enough energy to be cordial to one another. </span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It makes me wonder how large families can possibly exist. Nobody with that many kids can possibly be getting any action.</span><br />
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</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How do Mormons and Catholic parents do it?</span>Michael Dahlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969144572797609026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493065847272508536.post-10109369619391356982011-10-05T15:47:00.000-07:002011-10-05T15:47:02.806-07:00Pelvis Day<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If I could have a do-over in life, I would go back and redo Sunday, February 2nd, 1997. That was the day I broke my girlfriend’s pelvis. And not in any exciting way that someone might be impressed by.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jen and I had known each other for about a year and a half, both of us graduate students in the master’s program in psychology at Western Washington University. I’d asked her out a few times, but like so many other men like me (that is to say, neither a bad boy, nor particularly hot), she had relegated me to her “friend zone”. But after about a year of spending time together in group activities, seeing movies, cooking vegetarian meals for her, and helping her with her statistics homework, she had a change of heart. My long game worked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We’d been dating for about six months, and things were going well. We got along, we had fun together, we had the same friends, enjoyed many of the same activities, and even the meetings of our respective families had gone pretty well. That is, until we took a ski trip together.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’m a very poor downhill skier. Don’t have very good control or coordination. I had done cross-country skiing for years, but I suck at downhill. She wanted to go, though, so I wanted to take her. In retrospect, I think I was afraid she would consider me too geeky if I didn’t want to go. This seems strange to me now; in all the time we’ve known each other, I doubt there was ever a day that she didn’t know exactly how geeky I am. But that kind of insight takes time. For geeks like me, anyway.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We drove up to the Mt Baker ski resort, about 60 miles east of Bellingham, early on that Sunday morning. My recollection of the day is that it was gray and slick. Not great ski weather and even worse for driving windy mountain roads in the tinny Toyota Tercel I owned at the time. By the time we got there, I was already nervous and a bit worn out from the drive. Of course, I said nothing. Mustn’t be a geek.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first hour or so went okay. We did several runs and I started to have fun. Too much fun, apparently, since I was paying attention to everything around me except for her location. I followed too closely behind her, failing to notice her sudden stop until it was too late. I plowed into her with my full weight, tackling her into the snow. She couldn’t get up afterwards. She was conscious and she could move her legs, but she couldn’t stand. And she was in a lot of pain.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For weeks afterwards I kept seeing the image of the crash in my dreams, replaying like a looped video in my head. I can even see that image now, if I think about it. But the rest is mostly a blur: getting down the hill by snowmobile...driving her down the mountain...getting her to the hospital...calling her mother to tell her about the accident...mostly all gone (thankfully!). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fortunately, things turned out pretty well. Two months later, we ran a 10K together. She forgave me for the accident and (after several years) so did her mother. We moved to Pennsylvania together about six months later, and life went on. Now, on the anniversary of the event, I send her an E-card with a photo of Elvis Presley to commemorate Pelvis day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But I absolutely hate to ski. And my criteria for evaluating ski trips have changed. Nobody hospitalized is a good day on the slopes.</span>Michael Dahlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969144572797609026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493065847272508536.post-52048569207457669472011-10-02T20:50:00.000-07:002011-10-02T20:50:59.573-07:003 Years "Back East"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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We lived in Pennsylvania from 1997 until 2000. Our first year was the hardest, as we didn’t care for our apartment, Jen was (initially) unemployed, and we hadn’t yet made many friends. My main focus was on school, but I gave her as much time and energy as I could on evenings and weekends. I think she resented having to rely on me for so much, because she had always been very independent, with her own large network of friends. She filled some time with the occasional crafting class (jewelry making) and focused her energy on fitness and finding work. </div>
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Her first job was as a counselor at a residential treatment facility for teenage boys – essentially a private juvenile detention facility. These were boys from bad homes with few positive role models and fewer resources. She helped those she could, but most were poor therapy candidates, well on the way to becoming little sociopaths. Within six months, she found a job as the undergraduate academic counselor for the university’s psychology department. This was much better, as we were working in the same department, interacting with many of the same people, and her job conditions were infinitely more pleasant.</div>
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Things improved over time. Our second year we found a much better apartment. We brought home a kitten (a gray little imp I named Gwarsh – still here 14 years later, though slower), we made more friends, drove throughout the mid-Atlantic and New England, and gradually got used to our lives there. But Jen was never really happy – partly because she felt displaced from her home and friends, and partly because she felt her graduate training was going to waste. I felt guilty that her unhappiness was because of the choice to come with me, and I hated feeling that way.</div>
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In the winter of 1999, she decided to go back to school for her doctorate in clinical psychology. Two years of counseling undergraduates on how to pursue graduate degrees was enough to convince her to go back for another one herself. She jumped through all the hoops, wrote the applications, did the interviews, and in the summer of 2000 we were headed back to Portland, OR so that she could start her program.</div>
Michael Dahlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969144572797609026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493065847272508536.post-44831735320719216382011-09-27T20:53:00.000-07:002011-09-27T20:53:18.347-07:00Crockpot TherapyI like to cook, and I enjoy browsing the cookbook section at <a href="http://www.powells.com/">Powell</a>’s bookstore (a city block of books!). I’ve looked through every cuisine of cookbooks from Armenian to Zimbabwean but haven’t yet found any quick and easy recipes for keeping a marriage fresh where the ingredient list includes two kids, two professional careers, a never-ending list of household chores, and 14 years of accumulated baggage. Also, if possible, I’d like it to be a Crockpot recipe so I can just throw it all together in the morning before work and have it be ready by nighttime.<br />
<br />I remember the first day that Jen and I met – it was on a Tuesday – September 26th 1995. I was 27 and she was 23. It was the first day of graduate school for both of us, and I sat down (naturally!) next to the cutest girl at the orientation meeting. It didn’t take very long to realize she had no romantic interest in me, particularly when I would ask her out and she would say, “I have no romantic interest in you”. But eventually I won her over with my manly good looks, my tremendous charisma, my masterful guitar playing, and my overwhelming sense of modesty. Also, I helped her with her statistics homework.<br />
<br />We started living together two years later, when we moved from Washington State to Pennsylvania, where I’d been accepted into a PhD program at Penn State. We crammed all our junk into her 10 year old blue Volvo sedan we called Uduff (after his license plate, UTF 101) and tent-camped our way cross-country.<br />
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I’d had to sign a yearlong apartment lease sight unseen before leaving Bellingham (the rental market is tight in State College, PA; at least it was in 1997). Before signing, I’d asked my faculty advisor to check it out for me, which he graciously agreed to do, assuring me that the place was just fine. Unfortunately, gracious though he was, the guy apparently suffers from near blindness and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anosmia">anosmia</a>, because that apartment was the darkest, coldest, dampest, smelling-of-mildew-and-cat-pee apartment either of us had ever lived in. We got there and Jen cried for hours. We had arrived to our dingy little apartment, 3000 miles from home in a town where we knew no one, living on my $8000 per year graduate assistantship, and she was unemployed.<br />
<br />Who could imagine a better way to start a relationship?Michael Dahlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969144572797609026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493065847272508536.post-7672780827171523312011-09-26T13:25:00.001-07:002011-09-26T21:36:20.211-07:00Real Men Don’t Buy Electric Spleen AgitatorsThe other morning I tried to borrow my wife’s GTI to go to the gym (I have the responsible Dad car, she has the fun car...still not quite sure how that worked out). When I started it up, an annoying alarm sounded, along with a dashboard indicator saying, “Shut Down Engine Now. Oil Pressure 9 PSI”. I never made it into the gym, but I definitely got my heart rate elevated. <br />
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That car gets its oil changed every 5000 miles. Even use the full synthetics, so I have no idea what could be the problem. No pool of oil on the ground below the car; no advanced warning, no nothing. I called up our service guy and he just told me to put a couple of quarts in and drive it in.<br />
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I think what really pisses me off about this whole deal is that it reminds me that I am a complete ignoramus about most things car-related. I know how to jump a dead battery. I can put in a quart of oil, and 9 times out of 10, I won’t pour it down the wiper fluid intake. But that’s about it.<br />
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The service guy told me that VWs can burn a lot of oil. Sometimes up to a quart every 1000 miles. But it’s a 2007 with only 27,000 miles. It makes no sense to me that it could be burning that much oil. But what do I know? He could tell me it needs a new electric spleen agitator, and I wouldn’t know the difference.<br />
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I’ve thought about taking a basic course in auto maintenance at PCC. Probably should. But I’m just a little bit embarrassed about being there with a bunch of 15 year olds that all know more than I do, and they’re all laughing at my ignorance. How could someone get that old and still know so little?<br />
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Maybe I don’t know enough about cars to be a real man, but at least I can drive a stick shift. When my wife lets me borrow her car.Michael Dahlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969144572797609026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493065847272508536.post-66502964073448936072011-09-25T21:54:00.000-07:002011-09-26T08:43:16.719-07:00Living with a Vegetarian<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve been a pseudo-vegetarian for about 14 years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are two primary reasons for being a pseudo-vegetarian:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>1) you’re sleeping with a vegetarian; or 2) you’d like to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The third reason, my reason, is when you’re married to one.</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A pseudo-vegetarian isn’t quite like being a real vegetarian.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, we don’t eat much meat (at least not when she’s there to see), but your heart’s just not into it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sort of like the early Christian converts in Scandinavia who had to choose between conversion and death at the hand of their Christian king, "Saint" Olaf. With pseudo-veggies, it’s your love life that’s under threat of execution.</span></div><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In fairness, the lifestyle really isn’t all that bad, unless you’re living with a hardcore orthodox vegetarian.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My wife belongs to the reformed church, and they’re a bit easier going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I keep a bag of chicken breasts in the freezer for emergencies, and I still get the occasional burger eating out with friends or co-workers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the rest of the time, it’s legumes, cheese, and vegetable proteins in our house.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And ice cream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God help me, I couldn’t do it without the ice cream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d probably join a radical fundamentalist carnivore sect, and set off a Bolognese bomb at a local salad bar.</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The hardest part is deciding how to raise the children.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Should they be raised as veggies or gentiles?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We haven’t had to choose yet: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our older daughter is basically a carbivore, and the younger one only has two teeth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hopefully a burning bush will speak to us soon to lead us out of the desert.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The question is, will we be led to the land of milk and honey, or will it be the golden calf for them?</span></div><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Mmmmm…..veal.</span>Michael Dahlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969144572797609026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493065847272508536.post-6983523892396740172011-09-20T08:00:00.000-07:002011-09-28T09:53:37.026-07:00Man Crush<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A facebook friend recently posted a link to a youtube video proving that Tom Selleck’s mustache improves everything. And I’ll be damned if it’s not true. I showed the video to Jen, and she didn’t get it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“But it’s Tom Selleck’s mustache. It makes everything look better”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“If you say so.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Aw, c’mon. Don’t you think Tom Selleck’s ‘stache makes everyone look better?”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I think someone has a thing for Tom Selleck”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Yeah, right!”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“You do! You have a crush on Tom Selleck!”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I don’t have a crush on Tom Selleck, okay?”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“You totally do. You want him to kiss you with that mustache”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“No...well, if I had to kiss a guy, maybe it would be Tom Selleck. But I don’t want him to kiss me. I just want him to be my poker buddy...and maybe take me for a ride in his Ferrari.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“So, that’s what they’re calling it these days.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Women don’t understand anything.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here’s the link in question. Tell me that mustache doesn’t make everyone look better:</span><br />
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</span>Michael Dahlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969144572797609026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493065847272508536.post-10015734012809549322011-09-19T18:24:00.000-07:002011-09-19T21:25:46.433-07:00And Baby Makes Four...<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is my first new entry in almost two years. I enjoyed writing the earlier ones, but somehow I stopped making the time. I need to be more disciplined. Anyway, some things have changed a lot, others things not so much. We had another girl last year...Victoria Karsten...born on Christmas day. She’s lovely, and possessing an easier disposition than her sister. But, Jesus Christ, two babies are a lot harder than one. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Both girls are lousy sleepers: Neither my wife nor I has more than five, maybe six hours of sleep on any given night. At least half the time, I wake up to find both girls in bed with us. In my youth, I used to dream about sleeping with three girls<sup>1</sup>, but the reality is nothing like what I imagined. Who knew there would be so much crying? By me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">With two children under three years old, you don’t get many breaks. Tori takes two short naps in the mid-morning and late afternoon, while Viveca takes one long nap in the middle of the day. So it’s hard to get out of the house much. We sometimes split them up, but then it’s hard to get chores done around the house when you’re also entertaining a baby/toddler. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Before, when it was just Viveca, we used to spot each other when the other person was ready to lose her/his shit. That person would go to the gym, go to drinks with co-workers, catch a movie, or just get the hell out of Dodge for awhile, while the other one took over. But that doesn’t work with two kids, unless one is left alone with both kids. Then, when you come back, the person left home is so exhausted and pissed off that it almost isn’t worth it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It would be nice if we could afford some extra help at home. I was thinking a cute little au pair from Sweden or Brazil might be nice. Jen agreed, but her stipulation was that he had to be under 25, with a nice ass. The hell with that shit. We’re not getting no stinking au pair.</span><br />
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<sup>1</sup>This is pure conceit on my part.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my youth, I would have been thrilled to be sleeping with even one girl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The possibility of three at once would have been utterly beyond comprehension, like Sanskrit or trickle down economics.</span></span>Michael Dahlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969144572797609026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493065847272508536.post-47019585505091210102009-12-04T08:46:00.000-08:002009-12-04T08:54:53.962-08:00Movie NightThe mail at our house consists mostly of grocery store fliers, a few bills, credit card applications, and the occasional letter. But about once a week we'll receive a Netflix mailer with a new movie or television show in it. My wife and I don’t always have the same taste in entertainment, so there is usually some negotiation involved. We can usually find something we’re both interested in, but there are some film genres she simply cannot abide.<br />
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Last week saw the arrival of the new Star Trek DVD, and I couldn’t have been more excited to watch it. Her reaction, however, was less enthusiastic:<br />
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“Well, I guess tonight is Geek Night”, or something to that effect.<br />
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Well, yeah. I’m a geek, but she knew that before she married me. She didn’t mind so much back in graduate school, when she needed help with her with statistics homework. Thing is, you don’t get the Statistics Help without the Star Trek Love. It’s the Full Package. I think she understands and accepts this, up to a point, but when I asked her to watch Star Trek with me, no dice.<br />
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“C’mon. You might like it. There’s some really good looking actors in it. You know that guy who plays the villain in ‘Heroes’? He's Spock.” <br />
<br />
Stupid me, but “Heroes” wasn’t helping my cause. She’s more the “Ugly Betty”, “Grey’s Anatomy” demographic. If only they’d cast America Ferrera as Nurse Chapel, I might have had a shot. <br />
<br />
And Grey’s Anatomy? Now there’s a show I <em>should </em>like, but no. It’s set in my native Seattle, in a hospital staffed primarily with gorgeous women, and I enjoy medical dramas (ER was a mainstay with us for years). But the vapid, soap opera melodrama just leaves me cold. Maybe if they performed all their surgeries topless, I’d watch.<br />
<br />
This week, “Terminator Salvation” came in the mail. I’m a little worried that someday my wife will realize she can log into our Netflix account and modify the queue any time she wants to. Then it’ll be “Made of Honor” and “Julie and Julia” for me. Oh well... I wonder if Julia Child ever cooked in the nude?Michael Dahlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969144572797609026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493065847272508536.post-65456028508360213552009-12-03T08:44:00.000-08:002009-12-03T08:44:30.372-08:00Social TransitionsThere was a time when I used to pride myself on my punctuality. Now I’m happy when I’m only an hour late, and with relatively few visible puke stains on my clothing. This is just one of the ways that parenthood is like being an alcoholic. Unfortunately, such tardiness has put a damper on our social lives. Movies? Plays? Drinks? Fine dining? Fuggedaboutit! (Hmm…which sounds dumber? White boys from the Pacific Northwest trying to sound like NJ Mafia or LA Gangbangers? That’s a quandary, fo’ shizzle).<br />
<br />
<br />
These days, it’s mostly 4pm get-togethers with other parents of infants. These are folks who aren’t turned off by discussions of diaper services vs. disposables, swimming lessons, teething, and who understand that socializing must end by approximately 7pm, at which time our precious little bundles of joy turn into levitating, head-rotating, pea-soup spitting little demons. <br />
<br />
These are good people, and I really enjoy their company. It’s just that I see myself turning into a kind of person I never wanted to be – someone incapable of carrying on a conversation about anything other than my own kid. Oh, sure, my F.W.K.s (friends without kids) are very polite, and some will even add sweet little comments to my endless stream of Facebook photo albums depicting “Baby’s Latest Bowel Movement”. But somewhere in the back of my mind I can’t help but wonder if they’re not just a little bit turned off by this new me.<br />
<br />
And so I make it a point to try to keep up on current events and to discuss interesting adult topics with my friends whenever possible. Take the senate health care debates, for example. This is an important topic. I can’t imagine how bad off my family would be without health care insurance. Every American family should have coverage, regardless of employment status. Our daughter has her one year well baby check up tomorrow afternoon. She was at the 60th percentile for height and the 80th percentile for head circumference at her last appointment. Hopefully tomorrow she’ll hit 90th percentile. I feel sorry for all those poor tiny head babies with no health insurance. Congress needs to get their acts together.Michael Dahlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969144572797609026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493065847272508536.post-30781495189820395082009-11-02T19:57:00.000-08:002009-11-03T07:19:36.167-08:00Voldemort LivesThere are certain words for dads that don’t fit together comfortably within the same sentence. “Daughter” and “vagina” come to mind. It’s not that I’m a prude, exactly. It’s just that I’m not entirely comfortable with the fact that she has one. <br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Recently I was giving our 10 month old a bath, and as usual, I was talking to entertain her. This has become our routine.<br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj9efs5XzkHPPDx7ZtRftqZWoUA2aHnXMjr4XfTd7FeWEPi2xGKG_svsRAQe3Ps8xpzoJImu4qc8c0_fSdpbdGo_ztoiEyUUQpoEXwoSc_CKPnbpPOKEQfbTbicEMCsM1JcEd9Ljxai6A/s1600-h/7816_127168586444_571681444_2296453_3090341_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="cssfloat: left; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhj9efs5XzkHPPDx7ZtRftqZWoUA2aHnXMjr4XfTd7FeWEPi2xGKG_svsRAQe3Ps8xpzoJImu4qc8c0_fSdpbdGo_ztoiEyUUQpoEXwoSc_CKPnbpPOKEQfbTbicEMCsM1JcEd9Ljxai6A/s320/7816_127168586444_571681444_2296453_3090341_n.jpg" vr="true" /></a><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">“Okay, now it’s time to wash your hair…”<br />
</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">“And under your chin…”<br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">“And your tummy…”<br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">“Now your little bottom…”<br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">“And now that place that Daddy can never mention…”<br />
</div><br />
My wife overheard this process, and gave me quite the hard time about it. Our daughter doesn’t need to grow up with some hang up or shame about her anatomy. And I couldn’t agree with her more. But the baby doesn’t have the hang up…it’s her father.<br />
<br />
I think it’s because for men, the vagina is such a sexual organ, and most fathers aren’t too comfortable with the notion of their own daughters as sexual individuals. Of course I want her to grow up to be a happy, healthy, strong woman, responsible for her own orgasm, and all that jazz. I just don’t want to have to know about it.<br />
<br />
So my wife and I reached an agreement. Now, when giving my daughter a bath, it’s no longer “that place which may not be mentioned”. It’s her Voldemort.<br />
<br />
But a buddy of mine pointed out that this may some day make for awkward conversation at the doctor’s office:<br />
<br />
Doctor: “Well, Baby’s all checked out. Everything’s healthy.<br />
<br />
Dumb Father: “What about down there?”<br />
<br />
Doctor: “Where?”<br />
<br />
Dumb Father: “You know, doc, what about down there?”<br />
<br />
Doctor: “Oh, her Voldemort? Yep, that’s fine too.”Michael Dahlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969144572797609026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493065847272508536.post-11431603991573419112009-10-18T07:32:00.000-07:002009-10-18T07:32:31.779-07:00Have you heard the one about the traveling salesman and the missionaries?I don’t know whether it’s God, Allah, Jehovah, Gaia the Earth Mother, or just the universe in general, but I do know that somebody up there has a twisted sense of humor. Why else would innocent, well-meaning people with incompatible objectives be set upon colliding trajectories, if not for the sadistic amusement of a bored deity who just likes to watch?<br />
<br />
<br />
Case in point: I was flying home from a work meeting in Chicago this week, exhausted and overtired, and as I waited to board my plane, I noticed a small group of young men and women, all of them about 18 or 19 years old, overdressed, and being shepherded around by a couple of older women. They were clearly part of some organized group, probably religious, and all of them looked excited and a bit overwhelmed for their impending travel.<br />
<br />
Shortly after the group sat down to wait for their flight, another young man approached them. He seemed a little older and more experienced than they were, but not by much. I imagined him as a salesman of some kind, maybe 23 or 24 years old, new to his job, but clearly not anxious about flying. He caught my attention because of his amateurish, peacock-like strutting, obviously meant to gain the attention of two of the prettier girls within the group. But these girls were too excited about their impending trip to notice much else, even as he sat down right next to them.<br />
<br />
These were beautiful young women, in an innocent, girl-next-door kind of way, and seemingly oblivious to his machinations. And the young man seemed far too inexperienced to realize he would have no chance with them. But as the dramedy began to unfold, I put down the Ian Fleming novel I’d been reading. This was much better.<br />
<br />
It turned out that these girls were part of a Mormon Mission bound for Hong Kong. Their obvious anxiety about flying made me doubt they’d ever left Chicago before, but here they were, ready to start saving souls in the Far East. And what better feather for them than to have one in the bag before the plane had even taken off? And this boy was only too happy to listen to everything they had to say.<br />
<br />
“Why sure, I’d love to see your copy of the Book of Mormon. Oh, you don’t have a spare? Well, let me give you my address so you can send me one. Here’s my phone number, too. Will you be stopping over in the San Francisco area? How long is your layover? Maybe you’d like me to show you around?”<br />
<br />
These girls wanted nothing more than to save a gentile’s soul, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep with one, or possibly two pretty girls. But neither side was going to get their wish, not through any fault of their own. It’s just that life is like that sometimes.<br />
<br />
My plane boarded before theirs, so I never heard the end of the affair, or which side tired first. The optimist in me would like to imagine they all got their happy endings. But life is compromise. Perhaps those girls are in Hong Kong now, doing good works for their church. And that boy has learned that the missionary position rarely involves real missionaries.Michael Dahlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969144572797609026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493065847272508536.post-31193524020474936932009-10-16T14:08:00.000-07:002009-10-16T14:08:47.438-07:00"Do these pants look too small on me?"My wife asked me this during a recent weekend string of errands that (unknown to me, beforehand) included a stop at the local Anne Taylor. <br />
<br />
It's a deceptively difficult question, since the correct response is so obvious: <br />
<br />
"No, Honey, you look amazing"<br />
<br />
Knowing what to say is easy. The hard part is figuring out how long to pretend to think about it before saying it. Answering too quickly sounds condescending, dismissive, and will surely land you in trouble. But answering too slowly is worse. She'll assume you really do think she looks fat, and that you're struggling to find a diplomatic response. In which case you can forget about sex afterwards, which is the only reason straight men ever go shopping with their wives/girlfriends. Unless it’s for a new Weber barbecue at The Home Depot, but how often does that happen?<br />
<br />
Personally, I prefer the tactic of deflection:<br />
<br />
"Hmm… I don’t know. How do they look to you?"<br />
<br />
This has the virtue of lacking any substantive evidence that might be held against me, yet still sounds sensitive and engaged. Women dig sensitive men, so it’s important to know how to fake it convincingly.<br />
<br />
Better still is to arrange a date for her to go shopping with her friends. Buy her a gift card for a massage/manicure, arrange lunch for her with her girlfriends, and then off to Anne Taylor or whatever Godforsaken place they want. <br />
<br />
You won’t have to be there, AND you’ll still be building sex creds.<br />
<br />
Win and Win. Probably the best of all possible worlds, at least until the corporate merger between Anne Taylor and Home Depot.Michael Dahlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969144572797609026noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3493065847272508536.post-80938212564160971372009-10-16T10:36:00.000-07:002009-10-16T10:36:36.935-07:00Baby needs a new set of clothes<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">My daughter turned ten months old this week. Our first child. Parenthood at 40 is a lot more work and a lot less sleep than I imagined, but it's so worth it. Sure, we could have opted for the 60 inch HDTV and the condo in Cabo, but no tv will look at you with a big smile and say, "I love you, Daddy". Not without pay-per-view, anyway.<br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div>Being an older firsttime parent does have its advantages, though. Friends and family were eager to give us their outgrown, but perfectly good baby gear: clothes, cribs, carseats, binkies, boppies, breastpumps, we have it all. But the strange thing about baby clothes for girls is that they're mostly always pink. Pink dresses, pink pajamas, pink shoes, pink socks, pink, pink, pink. <br />
<br />
Now don’t get me wrong…I’m very grateful for their overwhelming generosity. But somehow I hoped my daughter's indoctrination into societal gender roles wouldn’t have to begin from day 1.<br />
<br />
The Rules:<br />
Boys wear blue. Girls wear pink.<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Boys play with trucks. Girls play with dolls.<br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Boys are aggressive. Girls are passive.<br />
</div>Boys are rational. Girls are emotional.<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">I don’t think so. I want my daughter to wear any color, play any game, pursue any interest, and be whoever she wants to be, regardless of tradition. <br />
</div><br />
Daddy's little rebel.<br />
<br />
Just so long as she does all her chores, gets a 4.0 GPA, plays varsity tennis and basketball, makes editor of the school paper, first chair in marching band, wins student body president, and never drinks or goes out on dates until she’s 21. <br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV8IwGnGNcMSIADQR2zlp8m4CxkuvHa64kVWay_q8UQ5nVwOYSSwiKPjIhCRzIr5Wb3OdCEWVvs0Oni9diST-1ZDOeu8EOWc5rp7lfwjI2vrNfrsTWJcyM-ZAboSOcYGErg-8MzO-lSqg/s1600-h/7816_141802901444_571681444_2449200_3373977_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV8IwGnGNcMSIADQR2zlp8m4CxkuvHa64kVWay_q8UQ5nVwOYSSwiKPjIhCRzIr5Wb3OdCEWVvs0Oni9diST-1ZDOeu8EOWc5rp7lfwjI2vrNfrsTWJcyM-ZAboSOcYGErg-8MzO-lSqg/s320/7816_141802901444_571681444_2449200_3373977_n.jpg" vr="true" /></a><br />
</div>Michael Dahlinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14969144572797609026noreply@blogger.com1