Everybody Out of the Pool

I've said it before: My wife hates blogs. She really, vehemently hates them. It is a hatred that she and I shared right up until the time I started writing one. And while writing a blog has made blogs-in-general somewhat less abhorrent to me personally, it has only made The Mom's hatred of them stronger. Which would make our dinner conversations awkward if we ever had dinner conversations.

I started this blog in 2006 because of a Microsoft Word document. When I chose to be a stay-at-home dad, I entertained the idea of spending all my anticipated free time writing a book about the experience. Don't laugh. If you are a stay-at-home parent then you understand, and if you aren't, go find one and ask them what outside activity they had planned to do when they chose to stay at home. We all had grand aspirations, every one of us, fools that we were.

So my grand plan took the form of a word processing file. Whenever something interesting happened, I stole a minute and wrote a few words about it into the file. Poop on the wall? Into the file. Projectile vomit? Into the file. Poop and projectile vomit together? That could be a whole chapter! Into the file! As the weeks and months passed, it became clear to me that a book would not be forthcoming for a while, but I kept adding to the file, albeit my entries grew shorter and came with less frequency. I never kept the document open longer that it took to add a new entry, and I certainly never reread what I had written previously. That was reserved to sometime in the future, when I had more time.

Then, about 18 months ago, for some strange reason, I stopped and read what I had entered over those many years, and it should come as no surprise to you that it made no sense whatsoever. It was like reading every fourth word of the diary of a non-English speaker with an astounding case of Tourette's syndrome. "Spit up shirt wife break," was one line. "damn pj school me damn DAMN!," another. Sometimes the words did come in complete sentences, but with no hints as to why they were written at all: "The eighth graders at TC Wileman Junior High had to take a class in spelling." I'm sorry, but what? Spelling? Where the hell was that going?

After reading my bizarre document, I knew I needed to do something better or all of these memories would be gone faster than you can say, "a beer and a shot." The next day I started a blog.

And today I end it. Well, not end it, per se, but I am taking a break. A month off, let's call it. A short month: February. Just to collect myself and get a few things done that I've been putting off for a while.

And to have less awkward conversations with my wife about what I did all day.

See you in March.