Keeblog

Who Daddies The Daddy?

2010-01-20T12:29:00.002-05:00

A recent trip to Florida to do the theme parks, plus a return to a sickness that has devoured the family made me realize this: being a grown-up really sucks.

I am "in charge" by committee. I don't have any desire to lead the family's decisions or pay the check when it comes to the table. And yet, I'm the daddy. That's what society says I do. And yes, there are times when I would take pride in doing just that.

But not all the bloody time. Especially when I'm on vacation. When everyone turns to daddy, who do I turn to?

Even when my dad is with me, as he was on vacation, he was just as guilty as looking to me for help as everyone else. I guess taking a vacation for me would be to not be a daddy for a while.

But that would be boring.

Eventually.

Crime Doesn't Try

2009-10-01T12:01:00.001-04:00

I've been getting a lot of spam phishing e-mails recently, which is surprising given that I don't give the email addresses I actually use to anyone except friends. But this morning's email actually made me mad with its lack of effort:

From: UK LOTTERY <****@sbcglobal.net>
Reply-to: <***claimsdepartment1@hotmail>
Date: Thursday, October 1, 2009 7:32 AM
To: undisclosed recipients

Subject: RE

You have just been awarded, £800.000.00 GBP in the uk Online Promo, send us yourNames.....Address...Country...Sex/Tel...

Regards,

***

Now, come on. I realize that this was probably written by someone who doesn't use English as their first language. But really. "send us your Names... Address..." How lazy can you get? The "uk Online Promo"? And the reply address is a hotmail account? (and now I'm getting picky.)

What's next?

***

From: UK Prize company awards free money association
Subject: you won money

You win. give bank account number, social security and mother's maiden name and anything else you think i will need to irritate and steal from you.

And don't tell my mom

Big John... I mean, "Prize Dept." haha sucker! oh wait... oh shit, I pressed send...! But how can I have pressed send if I typed that? Ohhhh i need to lie down.

***

Please get more sophisticated in your efforts to steal from me. This was so inept, it wasn't even funny. I kinda like those ones with the story about how I am the only one to help out in stealing millions from some African rich type. That makes me feel important. This just made me feel you aren't taking me seriously.

All Work And No Play...

2009-09-11T15:55:00.003-04:00

... doesn't give me much time to post anything but a selection of random thoughts.

* Is it wrong to wish Baby Peach in Wii Mario Kart a painful death whenever she knocks me off course in Rainbow Road?

* Fall arrived right on time. September 1, and the leaves started falling, the rain started and it dropped 30 degrees. How is it then that summer arrived only two effing weeks before that?

* Graham Crackers seem to make a fair substitute for McVities Digestives... until you have a McVities Digestive. Then Graham Crackers revert to what they actually are - crappy thin fragile things that don't deserve to be dunked in tea.

* While I am prepared to give the rookie parents, dropping off their kids at school for the first time, some kind of benefit of the doubt, that expires on Monday. Dropping off your kid at school means following a couple of very simple, clear rules and using some common sense. This morning I was held up, along with at least 10 cars behind me, by an ass of a parent who parked with a 12 foot gap in front of her, at an angle, then proceeded to have a conversation out of her passenger window with a friend of hers. Later, unbelievably, she was holding up any progress in the wet hallways at school pick-up having a conversation - with the same friend! I could (and should) have swept the leg.

* I hate making the bed. It's pointless. I'm just going to sleep in it again, and really, who else sees it but people who don't care how it looks so much as how much comfort it gives? By the same token, I'm getting more and more lethargic and things I should care about (like shaving) are becoming more and more like making the bed. I mean, I don't like shaving, and it just grows back. And who am I grooming for? Only myself, really. And I like being rugged.

* My social life would be NOTHING without my kids. All the women I know I know because of my kids. The guys too, I know through their wives who I know because of my kids. That said, I am digging the town I live more now school is back in session. I really know some great, generous, fun people who just want to help... then there's that stupid mare who doesn't know how to drop off her kid at school. But I digress.

* England's qualification for the world cup next year was marred only by the fact I didn't see it happen.

* My book's delay in moving to full distribution on Amazon.com was all my fault. It was supposed to take 6-8 weeks after it was completed, but I didn't click a certain I AGREE button. So I clicked it on Wednesday. And it will be on Amazon... in 6-8 weeks.

Longer posts to resume once the kids are actually in the swing of school for real next week.

Kelly Girl Keeble

2009-08-25T18:06:00.002-04:00

I don't which made me laugh more. The check for 22 cents or the reminder that I was once a Kelly "girl."

The 22 cent check is probably easier to explain. I worked for Kelly for just a few months when the wife was home pregnant with our second child and there was a genuine danger we would have killed each other if we spent another minute in each other's company during that cold winter of 2005. Because I worked for them, I became a recipient of a settlement given to all Kelly employees over... something or other.

But why Kelly? And what the hell did I do for them when I did work there? Read on.

The wife encouraged me (though, as you read above, I didn't need much encouragement to get out of the house) to find some paying work while she was home waiting for the chillen to arrive. I went to the city to sign up with a temp agency there, which certainly had more appeal than temping around Northern NJ, but nothing came of it. I was up against hundreds of people just on the morning I spent being assessed and having my typing speed, etc. checked. When it was clear there wasn't going to be much chance of getting anything in NYC, I headed out to Kelly in NNJ to see what was what.

I worked three gigs while a Kelly employee in about two months. I was selective of the jobs I took, but not really. As you will see when I describe them to you. The meagre settlement check will verify I was hardly in the running for temp-of-the-year.

My first job was to supervise an exam at a tech company. Eight or nine people were taking some test or other and I had to be there to make sure they didn't cheat. I forget what the pay rate was (and Kelly took some of it, of course) but once the exam started - and it was an hour long - it occured to me I didn't bring a book or anything to pass the time. I just sat and watched and listened to the scratching of pencil on paper for an hour. For less than $20, certainly.

My second job topped that. A conference at a hotel in Hackensack had been cancelled at short notice. I was the short notice. I went to the hotel lobby, and had to identify those people looking for a conference that wasn't listed for teachers, and tell them it was cancelled and that they could go home. Only one of the 20 people I sent home early did anything except say "great" and go home. She kicked up a stink wanting to speak to my boss (Kelly?) but she was very nice and was only trying to cover her back. She had me sign something to say she was there ready to attend, but was unable to. Another couple of hours doing something which someone had to do I suppose for less than $50.

The third one was magnificent. I was to assist at a conference at yet another hotel in Hackensack, this time with another employee. I forget his name, but he was a part-time Kelly temp, part-time store detective at a department store. The conference was for women, hosted by women, and was all about empowering women. And the first thing the attendees saw when they walked in to check their registration? Two men. A full day of temping netted a nice amount of cash, considering I didn't really do anything after checking everyone in and sell some materials to the women who got friendlier as the day went on. One of the lecturers got sick and cut things short, so even after helping her carry her stuff back to her car, I had worked a full day of gainful employment for the first time in two years. The highlight was eating a huge burger in the hotel restaurant at lunchtime, which probably accounted for a quarter of my pay check.

So, the 22 cent check will be deposited into the Disney saving fund and go towards a fraction of something fun, much as its source did in the cold, dark winter months and the last days when I only had one child. But the memories of being a Kelly temp will live on... until replaced by something else as surreal or story-worthy later in my life.

My John Hughes and more (bumper post)

2009-08-20T06:10:00.007-04:00

This is going to be a mammoth post. It's been too long since I posted anything, but I have three main things I want to talk about.

John Hughes had a profound effect on me. I guess I was the right age.

When I first saw 16 Candles I was much too young to understand it. I was probably 11, hanging out with my next-door neighbor (and big brother I never had - he was 4 years older) and his friends at the dawning of the VHS home video era. Girls, partying and teenage angst were many months away but it was still funny to see Long Dong saying: "Whasss happenin' hotstuff?" But even then, I was aware this was a different kind of movie. Sounds like bullshit, but why else would I remember watching a movie when I was 11? I remember every detail - where I was, the weather, who was there. Without sounding like too much of a wanker (I hope) it moved me.

But it was Ferris Bueller's Day Off that really spoke to me. I was working my way through high school when I discovered Ferris. Everything about him was so cool. He didn't play by the rules, but he wasn't out robbing banks or causing harm to anyone. He just realized that he was young, and it wasn't going to last forever. So he did something about it. Watching Ferris at work is a rollercoaster. When he shows his despair or joy directly to the camera, he breaks that wall. Ferris is your friend. I loved that feeling. I have talked before how the first real jealousy I remember feeling was towards the movie Dirty Dancing. It made the girls I hung around with all goo-goo eyed and obsessive. But, luckily for me, Ferris came along right around the same time and made me feel good about myself and, more importantly, that everything was going to be allllllll right.

The Breakfast Club... now there's a movie. I'm not sure how I managed this, but I suggested to my English teacher Mr. Tull that we should watch The Breakfast Club during one class. He agreed and also got the class next door to sit in with us. At the point we all sat there ready to watch (my own videotaped copy of the movie, recorded from BBC2), I had seen it at least six times. But there were people in the room who had never seen it before. We, all 60 or so of us, sat in silence at let it wash over us. Even more incredibly, Mr. Tull then said we could write an essay on the movie that would count towards our final GCSE result about what we imagined happened to the characters on Monday morning when they returned to school. I totally got an A. As a 15 year old, it was one of the pieces of writing I was most proud of. I wish I still had it. Maybe it's at my mum's house?

In the wake of my book I found it kind of funny that people would commiserate with me after John Hughes's death recently. It wasn't like I was obsessive about him. I was just a fan. Even though he was notorious for shying away from the public eye, I had no idea what he looked like. But - and this is a main point I make in the book - remembering how it felt watching Ferris on the verge of being caught or watching Bender sticking it to Mr. Vernon was so powerful and is still so very powerful to me 20 years on. And I have John Hughes to thank for that. But like I said at the start, I guess I was just the right age and I had very little to do with that.

Secondly, I just returned from a week away in Washington DC with the family. The weather wasn't always cooperative, but there were some truly cool moments from our vacation. The coolest without a doubt was our boat trip up the Potomac. We chugged along, pulling up at what looked like a remote dock and ended up walking in the back door of a fresh fish store. We snagged a great parking spot for our boat and landed some of the best shrimp I have ever tasted. They were as big as chicken drumsticks and so, so fresh. Another highlight was the Mall. I've seen the Lincoln Memorial before, but it was the first time for the kids. And it's still pretty spectacular. I had just read some article about how rough looking the reflecting pool is, partly due to the huge inauguration crowd, and it's looking pretty skanky when you get up close, but the WWII memorial was pristine and the sunny day made it even more of a sight to see. Then there were the many, many hours spent in the pool and at the waterpark watching the kids grow in confidence - starting out in their lifevests, hanging on to me, and then graduating up to negotiating the slides and sprinklers unassisted giving their parents some valuable R&R time.

Thirdly, there will not be many times I will succeed at beating nature, particularly when a bloody huge tree is involved, but this morning, I fought Mother Nature and smacked her sweet nose.

I can't even remember when I first noticed one of the trees in our front yard had actually rotted away at the bottom and was leaning at a 20 degree angle, resting against another tree. I just assumed at some point it was harmlessly blow over and I would cut it up for firewood at some point. But it managed to survive a blustery fall and brutal winter and increased its angle of lean to about 45 degrees. This is how it stayed for months, surviving a blustery, stormy summer. On our return to NJ yesterday, I noticed the initial rotting had eaten all the way through the trunk at its base and a beautiful collecting of fungus was rapidly spreading up the bark. It was also not connected to its roots anymore and only the support of a very thin branch was preventing it from falling on to our neighbors yard. All I could think of last night was this tree falling down and smashing into my neighbors house. It didn't make for a good night's sleep. So, this morning I went out there poorly equipped with a pick axe and a saw meant only for sawing inch-thick branches from twee fruit trees, not tackling a thick trunk of a decades-old, 30 foot behemoth.

Turns out, I was better equipped than I thought. I lifted the whole thing from its soggy stump and dragged this heavy beast far enough that the treetop cleared the branch it was resting on and it came to a controlled rest entirely on my property. The weight off my mind is absolutely worth the probable poison ivy rash I picked up during what is the manliest thing I have done in years.

So, now you're all filled in and up to date. And if you want some firewood, I got plenty now. Yeah, that was typed all smug.

This Summer Is Awesome Pt. 1

2009-07-15T10:18:00.002-04:00

Inspired by the beautiful weather of late, and the latest Keeble Mix CD in the car, this summer is now right where it should be.

I love making mix-tapes/CDs/playlists and while I have been criticized for sacrificing the "flow" for the quality of track, I have managed to create a mix currently playing in the car that appeals to myself, my 6-year-old and my 4-year-old in equal measure. Some highlights include (and this list demonstrates the eclectic qualities of a Keeble Mix):

Kids: MGMT - appropriately enough, my kids love it. But what's not to love about it?

Blitzkrieg Bop: The Ramones - one of my son's favorites, but again, the sun is shining, the windows and down, who wouldn't want to sing "Hey, ho, let's go!"?

Tom Hark: The Piranhas - this song has been with me for many a year, partly as a song that makes you move your feet, partly as a football chant from the Motherland. But my son loves it. He even says: "'olideee" like you're supposed to.

Hot 'N' Cold: Katy Perry - my ringtone. And the kids haven't asked what PMS means, so I'm getting away with it.

Sixteen Tons: Tennessee Ernie Ford - the fingerclicking is the cherry on top.

That's Not My Name/Shut Up And Let Me Go: The Ting Tings - such singalong fun, but also because we are so damn cool.

Human: The Killers - are we human or we dancer? You tell us.

This Summer Sucks - Part 107,081,407

2009-07-07T13:18:00.004-04:00

Today, amid beautiful sunshine, I made the effort (cutting appointments short, making a portable lunch for a child that only eats three foods and I only had one of them on hand, as an alternative to clearing up the wreckage of the car-making/cardboard box butchering that currently litters the living room) to take my 4-year-old to the town lake to swim. No sooner were we settled and lapping up the rays when the skies darkened and thunder rolled in, followed by a huge downpour.

I was reliably informed that it rained in our area on 23 of June's 30 days this year. What a waste of a good month. The weather forecast on every day for at least five weeks has been "chance of thunderstorms."

Come on, man.

Thoughts On A Tuesday

2009-06-30T08:07:00.004-04:00

* So, the book is out there. Very exciting. If you want to buy it, you can do so by clicking here. I hope to get my own copy today, as others have told me theirs have shown up. I am excited, sure, but to have a copy in my hand will be pretty great.

* Does anyone not see that the guy that announces what the NY Lottery jackpot is in the TV ads always covers his mouth when he says the amount so they can re-use the ad all the time? Probably not, but if they did... well, I guess I just spoiled it for them.

* My daughter has two loose teeth. Better pick up some change on my errands today. Set the bar low - a shiny quarter should do it, right Teetherbell the Fairy?

* How come I didn't see Transformers 2 yet?

* Soccer twice a week is going to hurt, but it's going to be great.

* Did I mention the book?

* July 4th being on a Saturday is a jip. That said, it will be fun, even if it rains.

*

* Don't think I'm wishing the summer away - heaven forbid - but I can't wait for football to start. Or, come to that, "football."

Brian

2009-06-19T07:28:00.003-04:00

In honor of Father's Day, I wanted to write something about my dad, Brian. But where to start?

We didn't start out on the best of terms. I was born during an England v Scotland soccer international. Even worse, Scotland won. But I was soon forgiven. In fact, my dad has never mentioned it.

My dad has always been a giant. He left high school and became a builder. His calloused hands and huge muscles, with shaved blond head saw him mistaken for a German - especially when on vacation in the Med with his blond-haired, blue eyed children. But he is a gentle giant, with a rare wit, and a creature of habit and simple pleasures.

My mother was a night nurse, so every morning my dad would wake me with a cup of milky tea and take me to the neighbors (until I was about 7 - then I would stay home and head off to school myself) before heading off to work himself at about 6:30am. I asked him when I was about 19 why the tea he made always tasted better than my mom's. His reply: "I always put three sugars in it." That will do it. When he got home, 12 hours later, he would always ALWAYS greet me with a playful smack over the head with his rolled-up copy of The Sun.

(In a side note here, my son told me he doesn't want to grow up because then I wouldn't be able to give him playful smacks on the head. I wasn't even aware that I had been doing so.)

Being a builder meant his body was old before its time. I regret not being interested in football (soccer) until he was too beat up to go have a kick-around with me. When I was at my physical prime, his back was shot and both his knees were a mess. He was still 15 years from retirement.

His pleasure - still now - comes from sitting back and watching TV, particularly football/soccer. He will watch any game at any time. He also likes action movies ("silly films" he calls them.) One of my favorite stories is the time I came back from the pub to find him watching Robocop... in German (our satellite picked up European stations.) The following conversation went something like this:

Me: What's this?
Dad: Robocop.
Me: It's in German.
Dad: Yeah... bloody good film though.
Me: But it's in German.
Dad: ... it's Robocop.

When my passion for football/soccer (I'm going to stop that now and call it football) reached his and exceeded it, at a time in my life when the majority of my salary and vacation time was spent on following my team up and down the country, I would call him on the way home from a game. It went something like this:

Me: Great game today, Dad.
Dad: Yeah... I watched it on the telly. I'm home now with a cup of tea.
Me: It was great being there seeing it live...
Dad: But it's over now, and I'm home. See you in two hours.
Me: Hmmm...

Again, as a creature of habit he would make hamburgers for lunch every Saturday and we would eat them watching the wrestling on telly. Then, every Saturday night (and I'm sure this still happens now) he would make chips. Proper chips. Peeling the potatoes and cutting them up. I would stumble home from a game on a Saturday night to find him asleep in front of the TV, and he would wake up, throw my pan of chips on and then we would sit and watch Match Of The Day (or Robocop in German.)

He has very few vices. He likes full-strength Coke ("I don't like that diet shit. It's bloody awful.") and sometimes puts a scotch in it. In a pint glass with lots of ice. He likes a beer, usually mixed with 7Up (a shandy for those who didn't know.) He goes to the betting shop, but only ever bets pennies. He taught me how to read form and work out how many bets was in a Super Heinz as a 10-year-old.

And he couldn't do enough for us. He would come home from working on the site all day, six-and-a-half days a week and spend Sunday building a vegetable garden or a flower bed or a brick BBQ. He would spend his rare, rare days off taking me into central London, to Hamleys or some other crazy toy shop, to find elusive Star Wars figures or, later, Transformers. He enjoyed doing it, just like I enjoy doing stuff like that for my kids. Like him, there's not much I would rather do. The day he walked in with a pirated version of Return Of The Jedi, I was so scared for his obvious imminent arrest (that would never come, of course)... but I watched it months before it would appear in the cinemas.

When I see my dad now, I see the same man I have always seen. Yes, he's older, and I'm taller than him now, but he's strong as an ox and sharp as a tack. I wish I could see him more often, but there's an ocean between us. We talk on the phone once a week or so, still talking about football and silly films. Like with the best of friends, we pick up right where we left off, even if we see each other less than once a year.

Part of the reason for that is because I hear him in me. When I talk to the kids, singing stupid songs or giving them little nicknames (I was "Pinky" for the longest time, because when I was born I was the size of his little finger) I hear him doing to the same things to me. I get frustrated by little things, as he did, but enjoy the good times just as he did. I don't need Disneyland to have fun with my kids. And I'm certainly as proud of my kids as he was of me.

When I was 19 I was earning more money than him in my job as a video game reviewer. He wasn't mad, or sad, or melancholy. He was proud. Genuinely proud. The fact I didn't have to wash my hands after work, like he and his four brothers and most of my cousins all had to do, was a sign that I was doing well. That said, he still didn't understand what I was being paid for. "What is it you do?" he would ask. "I sit in an office, play games, and write about them." "OK... but what do you do?" Even when I announced I was moving to the United States from London, he wasn't sad and mad - at least, not overtly. He was proud: "You're doing the right thing," he said, even if it meant going from seeing me every day to seeing me once every 14 months or so.

Here I am, 35 years old and a few days before my sixth father's day and I will accept I am, in many ways, becoming my dad. And I'm very proud of that. Just as proud as he was and is of me.

Thanks, Brian.

2009: The Year The Weather Was Shite

2009-06-09T15:01:00.003-04:00

This time last year it was, apparently, sweltering. This time this year I am being left horrifically underwhelmed by the year so far, regarding the climate.

This time yesterday, I was sitting in the park chatting it up with the moms in glorious sunshine. Last night there was a wicked thunderstorm that spawn a shorter-but-just-as-violent sibling at 8am this morning. The rest of the day has been soggy and cloudy. And it's MID-JUNE. First winter didn't want to stop, now summer doesn't want to get going.

I've been spending a lot of time indoors, either at home or at the gym. Next week I get a vacation of sorts when I get a kid-free four days, making up for the last three weeks when I've had at least one child asking me for food/help/when mommy will be home all day, every day.

Other things:

* The book should be done any day. I am supposed to be receiving a copy in the mail, which is fun. Then it goes on sale on Amazon after that.

* Going to the gym and getting in shape is paying off. I feel so much faster when I run and I know my soccer game has improved from "bloody awful" to "bloody awful, but scoring goals regularly." All my clothes are loose, which makes a nice change from Christmas when even my big pants struggled to keep it together. Literally.

* The movie "Up" punches you in the emotion gland for nearly two hours. The last shot of the movie punctures it.

* Karma is real. When something really shitty happens, that makes you lose all faith in your fellow man, something beyond coincidence happens to redress the balance and make you think "there is no way that should have happened, but I'm mighty glad it did."

My Son's Inappropriate Ode To Popcorn

2009-05-15T10:21:00.001-04:00

(to be sung while wiggling ones backside)

Poppy Poppy Poppy Corn!
Porny, Porny, Porny Porn!

Car

2009-04-22T17:14:00.002-04:00

I could have written a very different title to this post, but it would have been so expletive-ridden and filled with such venom it would have tainted what I have to write now.

Truth is, I am actually kind of over it now. Over what? Let me explain.

10 days ago, we took the car to a mechanic to fix the problem with it stalling mid-drive. They couldn't fix it. Scratch that, they made it worse (incredibly, I diagnosed they had knocked a hose off so it wouldn't idle at all - I was right.) So, we had little choice but to take it to a dealer.

Sure, they could fix it, but they mistook us for people who could afford to pay to replace everything that was broken with genuine manufacturer parts. Their first quote? Three grand.

That went up to three-and-a-half after a water pump and a timing belt and some other shit.

Then, the coup de grace. Some bolts had sheered off inside the engine... so... a new short block. Or, as I call it, another nearly two grand.

Given this news, on the back of using our tax rebate to get our finances way the hell in order, I went through the five stages of grief with clinical precision:

Denial – I can’t believe this is happening

Anger – Those crooks are ripping us off

Bargaining – It would have been OK if this new charge hadn’t totally screwed us

Depression – we are never going to have money for anything fun ever

Acceptance – but it’s only money, so... Let’s move on.

And really, if we had known the car was in such a mess, and been putting off getting in repaired until we could afford it, we would probably be happy at this point. There's no cosmic force picking on me. It's a car and it needs fixing. That happens to cars sometimes. That's how I'm looking at it. Please don't try and convince me otherwise. I might believe you and go postal on those crook mechanics.

... deep breath....

In other news (as the Yankees continue to battle hard to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the 12th inning and a thunderstorm on the way) my latest manuscript is ready for the self-publishing factory.

Yes, you read that right. In a few months, I will have a book available on Amazon because I will be putting it there with the help of lulu.com. I am looking forward to it just as much as I was 18 months ago when someone else was going to pay to have my book published. We know how that ended up, but I think this move toward self-publishing will actually help me let go of the disaster that was the first book deal falling through.

I will publish updates and will soon have a brand new www.adamkeeble.com in place. I deleted the old one today with all its references to the old book.

I am so happy to be playing tennis tonight, given the therapy hitting things provides. I will also get home late enough that the rest of the house will be asleep, freeing me up to play Star Wars: Battlefront II or watch The Wire for a couple of hours.

Love all

2009-04-06T12:20:00.002-04:00

I have rediscovered one of the fine sports I grew up playing, and it might just save my sanity.

A few weeks ago, I was unexpectedly called upon to play tennis on a Sunday night to help fill out a doubles game. Having not played in more than 10 years, it was the most fun I had enjoyed in many a month. On the back of this, we hastily assemble a four to play regularly starting next week, and the cherry on top was being called upon again to help out last night.

My love affair with tennis was unavoidable. If I ever get back to the house I grew up in, I will take the time to measure in paces the number of steps it takes from me to get from my old front door to the tennis courts across the street in the park opposite. My estimate would be about 25.

From the first dry day of the year (sometime in April) and all summer long, I would play tennis. It's the rare sport that allows you to work up a sweat but never really be exhausted, even in the many set marathons we would partake in as teenagers. Sunday mornings when I was maybe 10 or 11, I would play mixed doubles with my mum or dad too, although unlike in the games when they weren't around, when the park-keeper came along to collect the payment, my parents would pay him. When it was just us kids, we would run away and hide when we saw him coming, and then when he came back, we would run off again.

There are two misconceptions you are probably assuming at this point:

1) That I am good at tennis. The truth is, I suck. Like every other thing I do, I never bother with the fundamentals and just jump in. So, my backhand is awesome... maybe once in every four swings. I can really put back spin and top spin on the ball... apart from the majority of the time, when I will catch the ball on the metal frame of my racket, or skid the ball harmlessly into the net AGAIN. I have this one move when I will return a volley at the net with my back to the ball and it's pretty much unreturnable... on a ratio of 1:16, the 16 being the times it either hits the net, or drops to the opposing player for a lay-up smash winner.

2) That tennis is a game for rich types who are physically fit and like the straight-laced nature and tradition of the game. Not the way I play it. There wasn't any white on display when we took the court yesterday. I was wearing the same shorts I had played soccer in that morning and a grey football t-shirt, for example. Also, as with every other game I play in, the trash-talking is what made it so enjoyable, and that is a constant that goes back to my games as a teen. Some examples:

"Don't feel bad - nobody could have returned that..."

"Careful! That ball is probably still hot from the ace I just put past you."

"It's OK, I'll only need one ball [as opposed to two to serve with, implying an ace is coming]."

And so on. I'm glad I've been reunited with tennis. With some many memories from my younger years so far away, playing now with a new bunch of friends after a 10-year break genuinely feels like picking up right where I left off with nothing changed.

2009-03-26T07:32:00.002-04:00

Son: (playing on DS) "How many points does Mario have?"
Daughter: (stretched over three syllables) Ze-eer-oh.
Son: "Yeah, THAT's what I'm talkin' about!"

I'm OK with the talk being better than the talent. That's being a Keeble right there.

I Need A Haircut

2009-03-25T04:55:00.002-04:00

I also need to clear my head. The evidence:

* I am back to waking up at 4am now my insomnia has adjusted to the time change. I am going out late this Friday and maybe that will help put things back in order for a while. Some warm weather wouldn't hurt either, which brings me to...

* What is with this spring? Last year once the cold snap snapped, it was glorious. This year I have counted at least three "ah! Spring!" moments which have actually ended up being "Holy heck! Where did I put my big coat?" moments. 65 degree weekends followed by 28 degree Mondays. What is that?

* While some things on my mind seem to have eased up over time and now are almost funny where they were once concerns that had me unable to sleep, I now have fresh anxieties to bother me. The one most pressing right now is the fact I have the old country song "Blanket On The Ground" ringing in my head and I have no idea where it came from. It wasn't part of, or even relevent to, one of my two epic, easy to remember and interpret dreams (no details, sorry... other than to say neither featured Billy Jo Spears.) I feel like, if you will excuse my Battlestar tendencies for a minute, when the Cylons found themselves hearing "All Along The Watchtower" in their heads. Why this song?

* Since scoring a bunch of goals in January, and now having been working out at the gym for a month and appreciating the difference it has made to the bag of wet sand I call a torso, I have been playing like crap. Goals? Not even close. Confidence on the field? I'm confident I remember where the field is, but once arriving I'm somewhat lacking. I even staried seeing things when I thought I saw someone in the bleachers laughing at me on Sunday. I mean, someone was in the bleachers laughing at something - maybe me - but I thought it was someone I knew. Right before I chased a ball, turned, cut back and fired so inaccurately I'm not sure the ball was ever recovered.

* My writing has not been good of late. I've just pitched a bunch of stories and have things to do that will pay (always good) but creatively, this blog entry is probably the best thing I've written in weeks (not including a funny exchange with a friend on Facebook about Liverpool FC - extremely R-rated harking back to the days when he and I insulted everything and everyone, even things we liked, like one very attractive girl we nicknamed "button mushrooms" and you aren't seeing that.)

OK, it's now 5am and I've been awake for half-an-hour. The familiar pattern will continue tomorrow unless, by some miracle, I can come back to the living room after putting whichever kid I am responsible for putting to sleep to sleep and put on one of the movies sitting by the TV to take me beyond 10pm.

It's been a while...

2009-03-19T17:18:00.003-04:00

You might be surprised, considering everything that has happened in the last month, that I haven't posted anything here. Well, it's because a lot of things have been going on and I haven't had the inclination. Sorry. I would promise I will improve, but I don't want to break a promise.

* There is no book news to report. I have been sending pitches that have been vanishing into the abyss. In fact, of all the pitches I have sent, only one bothered to reply with a "sorry, but..." and that was too bad, because I looked the look of them.

* We replaced Heinz Ketchup with Hunt's Ketchup and can now be considered converts. I have taken the concept one step further and now consider Thousand Island Dressing my condiment of choice.

* After a blistering start to the soccer season with a shedload of goals, in the last two weeks I would have struggled to hit the broadside of a barn with a bulldozer. Last week was particularly rubbish.

* The fact I almost never get time to myself is frustrating. Less frustrating is spending quality time with friends, including newer friends I am still getting to know. One particular memory that will stay for a long while was when four of us got together to play tennis, taking the court time from some of our wives. We laughed loud and hearty.

* "There Will Be Blood" - can someone explain how a movie so long and so critically acclaimed can be such crap, and with such a confusing ending. The end of TWBB made the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey seem like the end of Ocean's 11 (that is, where everything was explained clearly and left the viewer feeling satisfied.)

* "Watchmen" on the other hand is amazing. As good a film as I have ever seen.

* I abuse my library often in the quest to find a book that is accessible and suits my frame of mind. The ratio of hits to misses is about 1:4. I am really, really enjoying Eat It by Kenny Shopsin and I liked the new Charlie Huston, although that was a pretty safe bet. Some of the other stuff, even friend's recommendations, just haven't done it for me.

OK, that's all I have. I'm leaving stuff out because it's half-finished and I'd rather write a story that had an end. See you in a month (but hopefully less.)

Gym'll Fix It

2009-02-25T05:04:00.002-05:00

After doing zero exercise for six weeks straight (seriously, the most exertion I managed was walking around the Pathmark and forgetting I needed bananas when I was all the way over by the milk) I am back on track again thanks to a change in the weather and a gym membership.

The weather had conspired to freeze my "church" - the outdoor turf field where I spend my Sunday mornings playing soccer. I managed one game on the first Sunday in January when a good part of the field was still covered in ice and one poor player slipped and tore his MCL (which needed surgery, crutches, a cast, the whole nine yards.) From then until just this last week the field was either totally covered in snow and ice or I was out of town. I played this Sunday and the creaks and steam-hisses coming from all the players' joints was palpable. Still, it felt great to be out there.

A few weeks too late, we took up an offer of a free month at a local gym. I have known I've been out of shape for some time, but always believed it was fixable - just... you know, I'll fix it later. The gym has opened my eyes and got my excited about dropping some baggage and getting ready for summer.

The first trip back after several years of skipping the treadmill was a little painful and intimidating, but this gym is pretty great. Most people are normal there, give or take one or two women who are perma-tanned, boob-jobbed and hold court with four of their friends as they lift six ounce weights and sip their fat-free lattes. There's also a lot of people I know that go there, but none I hang out with other than when we find ourselves in the same place. This is a good thing.

Those of you that follow my facebook antics will know this, but an exchange took place yesterday which left my very confused. As I walked between two women working out on weight machines, one said to the other: "Do you watch Desperate Housewives?" and nodded at me. What was she trying to say? Here are some of my initial thoughts?

Q. "Do you watch Desperate Housewives? "

... because he clearly does.
... because he looks like he would get a lot out of it.
... but before you answer, let's wait until that guy walks away because it's a secret.
... because I think I look like Teri Hatcher, but I don't want that guy to hear me say that (she didn't. Not even close.)
... hey! I'm talking to you! DO YOU WATCH DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES? Ah, he's walked off.

The best situation I can come up with is that I look a very, very, very little bit like one of the male (I hasten to add) characters. But if I hadn't gone to the gym, I wouldn't have found that out. The gym just keeps on giving! I'm going back right now to learn some more and work on the guns!

Glory, Glory Aston Villa

2009-02-02T06:33:00.006-05:00

I had wanted to write a blog entry about Aston Villa for a few days now. A few minutes ago, I heard about the death of Paul Birch, a member of the Villa squad that I first fell in love with in 1989, so it seemed more relevant now than ever.

Growing up, my dad's family got together at my grandparents house every other Sunday afternoon. My dad is one of five brothers, and they would bring their families for an afternoon of poker (the dads) or knitting (the mums.) From the early days to when I was about 10 or 11, I would play with cars or Star Wars figures or whatever. From 12-14, I would do my homework or goof around with my younger cousins (much younger - they were just 3 or 4.) But when I was 15, I would either play poker with money from my paper round, or watch TV (or not come at all and stay home.) One such fateful afternoon in 1989, I was sat watching the football on the telly. Until that point, I was pretty indifferent to football. I liked to play it, and liked Liverpool to the extent that everyone liked one team or another and they were still seen as a mighty force. I even had a HITACHI sponsored shirt for a while, but my fanship was more to do with the fact my next door neighbor and best friend Chris was a BIG Liverpool fan, and I looked up to him like a big brother for many years.

Anyway, back to my nan's house. Aston Villa were playing Everton in the big Sunday afternoon game, and I'm watching, thinking how cool the Villa players looked. Beyond the claret and blue shirts, white shorts, they had some really fun players to watch. David Platt was on the verge of the England team. Tony Daley was lightning fast on the wings. Paul McGrath was so solid in defense and made it look so easy. Paul Birch probably played that day, running around like a crazy person on the opposite wing to Daley.

I got drawn in deeper when Brian Moore, the commentator on the day said: "Cowans is through, he's got Platt alongside him... IT'S A GOAL! A brilliant goal by Gordon Cowans!" The final score was Aston Villa 6 Everton 2. I was hooked. On the drive home, I asked my dad where Aston Villa played their home games. Unlike the majority of teams in the country, they are not just known by their home town name - Liverpool, Manchester United, Newcastle. They are more like a London-based team - Tottenham, Leyton Orient, Millwall - named after a smaller region within a greater city's suburbs. Turns out they were from Birmingham in the West Midlands, about 100 miles or so from where I lived.

It didn't matter. On Monday morning at school, I announced I was a Villa fan. It was cool with everyone, even though the closest league team to me was Watford, the closest top-division team was Queens Park Rangers, and the fact my dad was a Spurs supporter.

That season, Villa finished second in the title race to Liverpool. In the summer of 1990, England went to Italy for the World Cup Finals. David Platt ended up in the midfield and scored a particularly memorable goal against Belgium to take England through to the quarter finals (they would eventually lose to Germany on penalties.)

That fall I started college, and thus began a period I call my "lost years." I wore a lot of black, topped with a black leather jacket over a Villa shirt. I had stopped taking my education seriously.

By 1993, I was working as a journalist and using all the cash I had to follow Aston Villa up and down the country (despite a "home" game for me being two hours on a train. "away" games in London just meant a short trip on the underground.)

For the next few years, until 1996, I hardly missed a game. I belonged to a hardcore band of fans in London and we travelled to games together. I made some great friends, experienced some amazing times and some truly spectacular matches (including two Cup Final wins at Wembley.) I was even the head usher at a wedding between two friends of mine, Phil and Julie, (who met because of their mutual love of Villa) at Villa Park.

Then, in 1999, I moved over here. Following Villa was obviously a little harder, what with there now being 2,000 miles and a huge expanse of water between Villa Park and myself. Nobody else I worked with was going out of their way to watch games on TV at Irish pubs at 10am like I was. I can't say my passion faded, but it was harder to keep it up without constant reminders.

Paul Birch's sad death, coupled with the fresh memory of the Villa game that was live on TV this Saturday was a refreshing reminder of how much the team means to me. When the crowd chants went up, I remembered being in the middle of it, arms aloft, cheering on the team. When I was at my peak of following the team, the best chant was to one of the best Villa players I ever saw (sung to the tune of New York, New York funnily enough.)

"Start spreading the news,
He's playing today,
I want to see him score again:
Dwight Yorke, Dwight Yorke.
If he can score from there
He'll score from
Anywhere,
It's up to you, Dwight Yorke, Dwight Yorke!
De-der-der-der-der, de-der-der-der-der."

On Saturday, I got a shiver when I heard the fans singing on the return of my current favorite player, John Carew (to the tune of Que Sera, Sera:)

"John Carew, Carew,
He's bigger than me or you,
He's going to score one or two,
John Carew, Carew."

He didn't, but it didn't matter. It was a beautiful sound and took me back to the days when I would have been there, part of something that's taken place for more than 100 years and will be there when my son is my age. Yes, football is just a game, but I love it and I love Aston Villa because for all I have given to it, it has given so much back. Thank you too, Birchy.

Adventures At The Dollar Store

2009-01-22T12:57:00.004-05:00

Dollar stores serve a purpose in life. If you can get over the smell that prevails in all of them, a musty stink of bargain and old people, there are pure gems to be discovered. Photo frames for a buck? Me likey. Food and toothpaste? Not so much.

And then there's stuff like this:

I took the photo with my phone, so I apologize for the quality. However, I make no apology for the quality of the product it depicts. It appears to have once been an army commando, that would be wound up and then crawl across the carpet brandishing its rifle.

But now it has become Bat Superman, a cross between two of the world's greatest super heroes... that is wound up and then crawls across the carpet brandishing its rifle.

The Batman it depicts on the packaging is from long before actor Christian Bale took up the cowl. This Batman is the 1995 version played by Val Kilmer in Batman Forever. And consider this product is being billed as a hybrid, where is the reference to Superman (other than in the product name?) Is there a big "S" anywhere on the toy? Or a red cape? Nope, just gold flames up the thighs, a gold variation of the Batman symbol, and an M-16 machine gun (something that neither Batman or Superman would never, ever consider wielding.)

Also, consider the slogan: "COME ON! ENJOY THE PLEASURE TOGETHER!" Does said wind-up toy double as a marital aid? Perhaps just the slogan doubles as a slogan on a dollar store marital aid (that frankly would be right up there with food and toothpaste as something I would rather pay full price for, thanks) ? I'm just glad it comes with a spare machine gun, because it wouldn't be the same if the first one got lost.

Of all the things I actually did buy at the Dollar Store (gift wrap - it just gets torn up anyway, but I had to be careful to avoid the 2007 Graduation gift wrap) and two coloring books (that just get torn up eventually after they've been scribbled in), I feel the real pleasure was finding this hanging on the rack.

So, you know, I thought I would share it so we could ENJOY THE PLEASURE TOGETHER!

Quick Christmas Story

2008-12-29T09:01:00.002-05:00

This is how my Christmas morning started:

4:30am Son comes into our bedroom and asks to go downstairs to see if Santa came. Wife agrees he can.

4:31am Son comes back up to say the cookies left out for Santa are just crumbs. Wife asks if he left any gifts downstairs. Son runs off to check.

4:32am Son returns to say the stockings by the fireplace are full. Wife asks if there were any gifts under the tree. Son runs off to check.

4:33am Son heard to gasp, followed by the sound of paper being rustled and gifts being opened. Wife jumps out of bed and is met by daughter in the hallway. They head downstairs to stop son opening everything. Sister-in-law, who is visiting for the holiday, heads downstairs too. The thumping sound on the stairs means Christmas 2008 is a "go."

4:34am My eyes open.

4:35am More thumping on the stairs, this time the unmistakable sound of two adults and two children running back up them.

4:36am I am informed that, along with the gifts Santa delivered for us, our cat Luigi had left a gift of a dead mouse in the living room. A dead mouse I am now being called upon to clean up.

4:37am Christmas morning is less than six minutes old, and I am cleaning up a corpse.

It doesn't stop there. Naturally, not being dressed, I took Squeaky RIP to the backdoor and tossed him out into the yard as far as I could without going out into the snow with no shoes or pants on. Two days later, Squeaky was still laying on top of the snow, perfectly preserved as if placed in the fridge. Which he was, of a fashion. This unfortunately meant I had to clean up more, although that really just meant tossing his tiny body a little further down the yard on to a patch where the snow had melted.

Let's hope it's a good one, without any more dead rodents to deal with.

Blog Entry From The Future

2008-12-09T11:04:00.002-05:00

Holiday Greetings, and best wishes for a Happy 2029!

I hope this Christmas Holographic Message finds you in good spirits. I realize there probably isn't too much in here you don't already know - I mean, our reality show is broadcast 24 hours a day, as are most of yours! - but here's a series re-cap of sorts just to keep you all informed.

Patrick has excelled in the NFL since graduating from Rutgers and setting all those rushing records. He turned down offers from the Cyborg Football League and the Steroid Football League to stay "au naturale" and signed with the New York Giants. It wasn't that the CFL's New Jersey Microprocessors Sponsored By AOL didn't offer more money. In fact, their $38 gazillion offer was one of the lowest we got (including the SFL's Receding Scrotal Sacs Sponsored By Viagra's offer which included a plot of land of Mars for a vacation home) but we decided to go with tradition over cash in the end.

Penny has found work harder to come by since curing cancer last year. There just that many diseases around any more since Dr. Keeble-Broderick came along. Even Matthew and Sarah Jessica are frustrated when they are forever fielding calls for Penny from their Hollywood friends - even after Penny won that Oscar in the 2019 remake of Pretty In Pink.

And as for Jason... he graduates Archer next year and remains a glowing endorsement for modern day parenting science and a bitter reminder that even vasectomies performed by the very best robot surgeons aren't 100% perfect. Now pre-school has been condensed to just one year and a series of Intelligence Injections, we don't mind paying the matter transporter fees to take him back and forth from the city twice a week.

Gwen's Nobel Prize for her work transforming NYC into a city powered entirely by potatoes was certainly a highlight. The constant smell of french fries wafting over the river doesn't bother us - but we're told it drifts as far as the old hood in Allendale some days. We often wonder about the old house, but someone told us it was knocked down 10 years ago when the projects expanded. Who would have thought Allendale would replace Newark as the car theft capital of the world?

As for me, the book business has remained strong and has really boomed since my last novel "Love In The Time of Avian Bird Flu" broke all records. Who would have thought every man, woman and child alive would have bought three copies each? And those rumors about people traveling through time just to buy a copy from the past? All true!

Anyway, seasons greeting, I hope RoboSanta Sponsored By Coca-Cola brings you all you can legally request under President Clinton's tough new laws. Ah, sweet Chelsea! You used to be so cool! ... wait, no, I was just kidding around. Yes, I know it's against thought laws and I could be... yes... 10 years? For just saying... well... let me sign off at least... take your hands off me! Don't you know who I am??

AK

Shirt outta luck

2008-12-01T05:03:00.002-05:00

The latest drama at the New York Giants is my fault. Sorry.

Here's the thing. Every time I buy a new Giants shirt with a name on the back, something terrible happens. So terrible I can't really wear the shirt again. In fact, now I think of it, it's not just Giants jerseys either.

A few years ago, a friend of mine was having a birthday just ahead of his Eagles playing in the Superbowl. We decided ("we" being a group of guys that would get together and play video games once a month) to get him a Terrell Owens jersey as a birthday gift. You know, because we're good friends. As you might remember, Owens got hurt and played in the big game pretty much on one leg, the Eagles lost, Owens got mad and started pissing everyone off wanting more money and he was eventually traded to the Cowboys, making him an instant hate figure among the Eagles faithful.

Anyway, back to my shopping habits/career-ending Giants incidents. Back in 2000 I bought a Jason Sehorn jersey - my first Giants jersey. A few weeks later he was involved in an infamous play where he stopped chasing a certain opposition player because his pants started falling down. He was traded not long after that.

Tiki Barber - surely a lock, and a Giants favorite forever? Not after I bought my special edition Barber jersey. I got it just ahead of the Giants Superbowl against the Ravens. Not only did the Giants lose, but Tiki suddenly forgot how to hang on to the ball and he fumbled his way through the next few months. He soon got a reputation as a bad influence in the locker room, badmouthing new QB Eli Manning, and decided to retire young (which I don't blame him for - he got beat up for years and wanted to enjoy his immense wealth while he wasn't in a wheelchair.) That said, he managed to undo all the good will he had earned from Giants fans with his acrimonious exit and my shirt is worth half what it used to be (at its peak, people would stop me in the parking lot and offer me cash for it.)

Again, I managed to end the career of another fan favorite when I bought a Jeremy Shockey jersey. Again, everyone loved Shockey. Oppostion fans hated him, and yes, he was an ass, but he was OUR ass. Unfortunately, on the 2008 Superbowl run he got injured and the Giants kept winning without him. He didn't like that, and soon he was traded to New Orleans and became a Giants pariah.

Plaxico Burress caught the winning pass in the Superbowl. How could I fail with a Burress jersey? He played the whole of last season's SB run injured and kept scoring touchdowns. And yet, after I bought his shirt, his lax habits got worse, and following a suspension this season there now follows all this unpleasantness with a gun.

I pledge my next jersey will be a throwback. History can't come back and bite me on the Jeremy Shockey. Meanwhile, what to wear to the game this Sunday?

Getting A Grip

2008-10-28T12:37:00.003-04:00

So I'm finally in a position where I don't feel like I'm drowning. "Half-ashore" would be close. "But coughing and spluttering sea water."

I was so overwhelmed by the kids going back to school, I don't even know where to start talking about it. Every day, my daughter's school bag has been coming home with another form asking for another check for something we know nothing about. And the dash from picking up my son and driving across town to get my daughter from a different school became akin to something out of the Wacky Races.

Now, on a day when the weather has turned from 60 and sunny to wet, windy and freezing do I feel capable enough to actually comment on just how insane the last months has been.

I am so glad, despite the ridicule and envy it has created, that I am as good as done with my Christmas shopping. During the summer I made a little money with some magazine articles, so I spent it all on stuff for the family. I might even get packages sent back to England before Valentines Day when it has traditionally shown up.

No other big news to talk of (ie. no book coming out imminently) but hopes remain high for the thing I am about to finish, and the thing I will pick up again after that.

So...

2008-08-26T09:31:00.002-04:00

... this is going to be a difficult post, because I don't want to actually say anything.

But! I am close to finishing my second (sigh!) manuscript, and some exciting stuff is starting to get underway. I have about 3,000 words to write which will bring me to a smaller-than-I-would-have-thought total, but I want to allow for illustrations and photos (shhhh!) and I should be done inside two weeks.

We have family visiting starting tomorrow, which can only hinder my already verging-on-pathetic update rate, but let's all remember that school starts on September 4 and with it comes the promise of mornings with no kids on a regular basis for the first time in months.

Unfortunately, September is a double-edged-sword as Labor Day draws in signifying the unofficial end of summer. And that prospect sucks, as I note my tan is already fading somewhat. Cold weather just doesn't work for me.

And so we came to the end

2008-08-21T07:13:00.002-04:00

So, after some craziness of a family vaction, and on the cusp of more of the same, I have a week to breathe.

We just spent a week in Maine with a lot of in-laws and kids. The beauty of the kids staying out of our hair and playing together with little supervision was unsurpassed. So was the amount of beer consumed.

This time next week, my own parents arrive for a week or so. And on the day they leave, I have to do another one of those pre-school meeting things (my first as President) and also take my daughter to her first day at "big school."

All this means my wit-well is bone dry and I feel like I am hungover, even when I am not.

Parent Paper Again

2008-08-04T12:40:00.002-04:00

Here's the article in this month's PP. It coincides nicely with everything else that's coming together about this particular project. That's all I'm saying.

What?? And yet, YAY!

2008-08-03T07:03:00.002-04:00

This is some of the dumbest, and yet potentially greatest, news I have heard in ages.

I don't mean "greatest" because either movie will be any good if they get made, but I mean greatest from a pure marketing point of view for my latest writing project, which is two weeks from completion of the second draft. This coincides with Monday's release of an essay, published in a parenting magazine, to further heat up the potential casserole.

Now, where did I put Punky Brewster's address? (I'm serious... she and two other cult stars will be getting a letter from me in the next few weeks.)

1986

2008-07-30T09:28:00.004-04:00

I posted this new photo of myself in 1986 on my facebook profile.

What with my minor obsessions with '80s music (due to the recent '80s night fundraiser I helped organize) and the '80s movie book I've nearly finished, and then seeing this photo, I wasn't too surprised when my five-year-old daughter asked me what it was like in 1986.

Well...

* I was 12 and starting high school, as the photo might imply. I also still wore glasses (they would be replaced by contact lenses three years later) and didn't much care how my hair looked (a new haircut two years later, that came with a good blob of gel a day changed that.)

* I had yet to fully discover the beauty of Aston Villa, and was something of a Liverpool fan as many kids my age were because they won everything. Truth be told, I was pretty indifferent to football at 12.

* I owned a ZX Spectrum computer. It had a 48K memory and loaded games via tape.

* For my 12th birthday, I received a whole bunch of Transformer toys - at least two Insecticons and Perceptor, an import-only Autobot who transformed into a microscope. They were the closest I had to an obsession at this point in my life. I convinced myself I would never tire of my Transformers and would have them on display in my living room as an adult. I then sold some and gave the rest away aged 13 (to buy Bacardi, probably.)

* My favorite pop group by far was Five Star. I would go to my first ever pop concert a year later - the aforementioned Five Star at Wembley Arena. The tour was sponsored by a toothpaste company. I was in the second row and Denise looked at me and waved.

* Girlfriends up until that point hadn't been anything more than a kiss on the cheek after school. It would still be a year until my first real girlfriend, a romance that lasted maybe a week.

* I had my own income from a paper round that brought in less than five pounds a week. I would spend it all on Saturday afternoon (Saturday morning was payday.) For this money I had to wake up at 5:30 and ride a bike carrying a heavy bag of The Sun and The Daily Mirror over a three mile-or-so route, seven days a week. It was a crime.

* My best friends in 1986 were Ed, Matthew, Simon, Deon, Fitzy and an assortment of supporting characters. Over the next four years of high school that hardcore would remain and be supplemented by the likes of Aaron, Marc, Desmond (who was always a friend, but moved in different circles until we were 15) and Richard/Scrapper/Bouncer (all the same person.)

Of course I was a very different person then from now. But I still laugh at BlackAdder (my favorite TV show at the time) and still stay in touch with many of the people I met that year, despite being 2,000 miles away from most of them.

I now understand what "old" people say about how time flies.

Flashbacks

2008-07-27T15:36:00.002-04:00

I'm semi-watching a soccer game on TV right now, and I am reminded of my youth by the appearance of Darren Huckerby, playing for San Jose. A decade ago, Huckerby was a great player. And here he is right now, scoring on his full debut.

What's funny is, he's from Nott-ing-ham (as in bacon) and he was last seen playing for Norr-Which in England.

heehee!

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

2008-07-20T13:44:00.003-04:00

At 6:15am this morning, Sunday took a nosedive.

My wife's office called her in to work. This meant, among other things, I had to accept I couldn't play soccer this morning (what with it being 95 degrees outside, and nobody being awake at 8:30 to even call to ask if they could take them for me.)

It gets better. About 15 minutes ago, it occurred to me that my daughter starts summer camp tomorrow. So I better go do some laundry so she has a clean bathing suit, and I also have to go to the flippin' store again, having sworn I wouldn't have to return until Wednesday at the earliest, to buy flippin' packed lunch stuff for her.

It's so hot I'm sitting in the living room with the A/C on and the attic fan roaring, and I'm still sweating (this is why my wife was called to work - she works for the NYC power utility.)

I had hoped at least one kid would nap, given they were both awake by 6:30 and that we played outside for an hour and they ought to be exhausted. No such luck.

Ugh. It's not even Monday yet, and I know this week is going to hurt. I have mixed feelings about sending my daughter to a camp that is nearly twice as long as her pre-school day. I know she will be fine, but I will have to adjust to only having my son around during the say while bearing in mind she will need to be collected every afternoon.

MJ

2008-07-18T07:26:00.002-04:00

Michael Jackson turns 50 this year. It's also the 21st anniversary of the last good album he made.

Whatever you think of MJ, at his prime he made some just awesome pop songs. Now... well, not so much. Then there's all that other business.

Anyway, he's asking his fans to choose a track listing for his latest "Best Of" CD. So, because I happen to be listening to Billie Jean right now, I thought I would help him out.

Beat It
Billie Jean
Smooth Criminal
Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough
Leave Me Alone
Bad
Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
I Just Can't Stop Loving You
Baby Be Mine
Black or White
Liberian Girl
Man in the Mirror
Ben
She's out of My Life
P.Y.T.
The Lady in My Life
The Way You Make Me Feel
Remember The Time

As good as this track listing is, I wouldn't buy it if this was the "Best Of" listing. I'd just listen to the stuff from Thriller and shrug my shoulders over the rest . Sorry "Wacko." It really isn't anything personal. But I wish you'd stopped when I'd had enough. Right after Bad.

Thoughts for a Tuesday

2008-07-15T17:18:00.003-04:00

* Sorry it's been so long between posts again, but these summer days are starting to blur. The weekdays are all hot and sunny and humid and I don't have any money to spend. In fact, I'm assuming it's Tuesday today but I'm not sure.

* Despite having to entertain the kids all day, every day, and tolerating some borderline ridiculous long days (Yesterday I was with the kids for 17 hours before my wife joined us... we were all asleep at the time) things aren't as bad as all that. I'm getting a lot of writing done, watching a lot of movies during downtime, and the soccer games I've been playing in have been really good fun, except for...

* ... the return of my ankle injury. I pushed my poor left ankle too far a week or so ago, and now it pops like bubblewrap with every step and feels like there's a rusty bunch of nuts and bolts inside it, not quite holding it together.

* I fucking hate raccoons. One keeps getting into our garage and eating the trash the morning it's supposed to be dragged to the curb. I've patched up two holes in the garage, and this morning patched up a third where the little bastard keeps digging his way in to feast on... well, crap I threw out. It's not appetizing and I can't believe it's the best food he can find, but it's so tasty it would seem he comes back every Monday night for a special slap-up garbage early-bird special.

* My lawnmower broke, which pains me for a few reasons. It was a 30th birthday present and it's awesome. And now the handles have sheered off. It was probably my fault somewhat. My estimation is that it needed some expert maintenance and eventually it shook itself to pieces. On the plus side, we have a lush, green lawn. On the downside, by next weekend it's going to be five feet tall.

* I've started growing hot peppers. How's that for random? The first shoots are due as early as this Friday. I have visions of making some killer hot sauce and giving it to people as gifts.

* I saw the movie Sweeney Todd this week. Well, I saw the first 15 minutes. What a bunch of pretentious wank.

Q. How many pens did we find when emptying out the old minivan?

2008-07-09T06:28:00.003-04:00

A. Before answering, I'm not counting the Ruby Tuesday crayons. Nor the Crayola markers. Just the ball-point pens that I would use for writing bank deposit slips at the drive-thru or maintaining shopping lists.

Wrong.

It was 14. FOURTEEN! I when I wanted one, I couldn't find one, although these were all largely in obvious places (glovebox, those hole things on the doors, the center console). One was from the beef marketing board: "BEEF - IT'S WHAT'S FOR DINNER" and I have no idea where it came from, unless I once gave a ride to Dandy comic cowboy Desperate Dan who dropped his pen after reaching his destination and then wiped my memory.

Developments

2008-07-07T16:37:00.002-04:00

This is the longest I've gone without posting for a while, but there isn't a whole lot to report.

* We do have a new car. I'm driving it very slowly and parking it Clark Griswald-style in the furthest spot in the lot.

* After playing soccer four times in a week, something had to give. It was my right quad and it hurts like the worst dead-leg-punch I ever got in middle school.

* Today was so humid and having turned up at swim lessons I knew KNEW weren't on today, but allowed myself to be convinced they were, was unhappy to be right.

* Why is Tuvok from Star Trek: Voyager on iCarly?

* I am considering drinking poison so these ****ing mosquitos will bite me, then die.

* The high point of today: I asked the cashier at the check out for some quarters in my change and she offered me $10 worth - still in the roll. That was easy!

One Year On...

2008-06-26T12:20:00.002-04:00

A year ago, this happened.

Right now, I'm pissed off enough as it is without the reminder of how happy I was a year ago, and how I bounded around telling anyone and everyone that I was going to be published.

Today, the weather is British. That is to say, it's not raining right now, but it's just finished, and it could start again at any moment but it might not. The kids are looking at me for something to do, but I'm tired and we have zero money in the bank (thanks, mainly, to both cars needing $1,000 of work two days apart, thus drying up our parachute fund.) I just spent $10 on pizza, which leaves me nothing until July 10. Even the work I finished yesterday that will eventually earn me a chunk of change won't earn me that chunk until September.

If only the weather were better OR I had a hundred bucks in the bank to spend on doing something fun, it would be all good.

SIGH!

Random Tuesday Thoughts

2008-06-24T12:46:00.002-04:00

* Having spent an hour with a cranky, sweaty miserable 3-year-old hanging on to my neck, I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that he is now asleep on the couch. He's either sick or tired - whereas I am both.

* Watermelon is like a summer romance. It's wet, messy and delicious but it's only good in the summer, and if you tried to survive on nothing but watermelon, it just wouldn't work out.

* What is the point of Coronitas? If I want a beer, I want a beer. Not "some" of a beer.

* Why do I have so much trouble letting go of things I have no control over? And why can't I sleep, regardless of whether I go to bed at 7, 8, 10 or midnight?

* While likes of Chelsea and Arsenal are fighting over the cream of Europe to bolster their squads, why can't Aston Villa find someone to play in goal now they've lost both their first team goalkeepers? I like to think I know enough about "soccer" to realize having a goalkeeper would really help win games... by not losing them.

* Talking of soccer, I am so much more excited about the prospect of playing this Sunday than watching Germany playing Spain in the European Championship final. It's bound to go to penalties, Germany will win, and nobody outside of Germany will be happy about it.

Costanza

2008-06-23T17:53:00.003-04:00

I have always loved Seinfeld, and always had a love-hate with George Costanza. Sometimes I have to change the channel rather than watch George do some of the stupid shit he pulls as he digs himself deeper and deeper into a hole.

During soccer games, if I score early on, I will often consider pulling a Costanza (that is, quit while I'm ahead.)

But yesterday I was watching the episode when Elaine and Jerry are on the plane (Jerry in first class, next to a model, drinking wine - Elaine in coach braving a blown-up toilet) and I started to agree with almost every sentiment George was having.

It was funny, then it was scary.

Ants

2008-06-20T06:45:00.002-04:00

Every summer, there's a couple of weeks when ants march through our house. But, so what? I could fill the house with poisons or corn meal which they (supposedly) can't digest and it makes them explode or something (but let the record show I have my doubts - we were told slices of lemon would deter even the heartiest scout ants from bothering us. What did we end up with? Lemon slices covered with ants. It's like the old red-pepper-on-peanuts-deters-squirrels-from-eating-nuts-meant-for-the-birds lie. We had squirrels lining up to sample our uber-savory red-peppery snack nuts. But I digress.) But they're just bloody ants. Who gives one?

Last summer, I got a little crazy when someone left a half-eaten french fry container on the couch overnight and in the morning, the couch was coated with ants. That was unpleasant, but... you know. It's just ants. They are nature's irritants. They don't bite (hard enough that you would notice.) Whatever. And when you disturb them, they scatter faster than a group of nine-year-olds they just broke a car windshield.

But this morning, I woke up, and they were all over the kitchen. Yes, someone left the top of the honey pot, which encouraged them to start sniffing around. But then we found them in the butter dish. And all over everywhere. Bastards!

I wonder if aardvark's make a lot of mess, or could be trained to use a cat litter box, because that's the best way I can think of to keep the little shitheads out of my house. Plus it would be cool to have an aardvark.

"Hey, what the heck is that?"
"(swelling with pride) An aardvark. His name is Varky."
"You rock."
"Yes, yes I do."

Hold The Front Page!

2008-06-17T08:53:00.004-04:00

As far from your face as possible!

Father's Day

2008-06-16T07:54:00.002-04:00

I'm still getting used to being the subject of "Father's Day" though yesterday was my fifth.

That said, it was a great day of low-key pampering.

Wake up, breakfast (bacon sandwich - food of the gods) and presents (handmade crafts - the best kind of gifts) before soccer (one goal.) Home, lunch, off to movies to see Indiana Jones (**** - fun. I should have seen it last Tuesday, so this made it a double-whammy of satisfaction.) Home, wine (white) and dinner (burgers, hot dogs, flame grilled red peppers.) Battlestar Galactica (two DVRed episodes) and bed.

Oh, and I'll scan the newspaper front page later today. It's going to rain a lot, so I'm going to be inside with nothing else to do.

Splash

2008-06-12T16:38:00.002-04:00

Once again, I find myself on the front page - this time of the local newspaper.

Even stranger, it's the one that I work for. The photo is really pretty good, considering it was taken in my house. I will post a scan tomorrow for those not in the Town Journal's catchment area (ie. anyone not within 20 minutes driving distance.)

Once again, I find myself pondering how many copies of my book I could have shifted on the back of this if it had been released on schedule last Friday. Once again, I probably shouldn't bother asking myself as it wasn't.

Today's Conversation With Patrick

2008-06-11T16:08:00.001-04:00

Patrick: "Yes means no and no means yes."

Me: "Is that right?"

Patrick: "... no ..."

Random Thoughts On A Tuesday

2008-06-10T09:27:00.002-04:00

* The biggest thrill of today was probably the fact I saved $20.20 with my Pathmark card after buying enough supplies to last (I hope) the next two weeks. Today was payday, and we're already in something of a hole thanks to both cars needing to be patched up in the last month. Not to mention the price of gas meant we had almost twice as much on our Shell card as usual.

* A random phone call and a nice e-mail made me smile as much as the look on Patrick's face when he saw a box of Eggo waffles with Kung-Fu Panda on them.

* Kashi cereal really shouldn't taste as good as it does.

* Given that it's nearly 100 degrees outside (at 9:30am) and that I lost at least a pound in weight every twenty minutes through my sweat glands all night long, how can I have gained weight since last week?

* A major soccer tournament is taking place, and I have access to watch every game live, but I couldn't give a toss. Although I do hope Holland win, what with my vague Dutch-ness and the fact they have some of the coolest jerseys in world soccer (after QPR and Villa.)

* Mike's Hard Lemonade shouldn't be allowed when it's this hot.

* Anyone talking on a cell phone and driving a Hummer/Escalade like they just passed their test who refuses to even acknowledge a honk because they're driving like a tit should have their phone stuck up their arse. If McCain proposed this as a law (and I was a US citizen) I would vote for him and volunteer to do the shoving.

* Why can't the zoo open at 8am on days like this? And why doesn't the local theater have matinees? Yes, school is still in session, but there are thousands of parents of pre-schoolers who now have to brave the extreme heat or stay home. Surely showing a kids movie in an air-conditioned theater at 11am or letting people out to look at the animals while it's only 75 outside would help everyone.

There Will Be Blood...

2008-06-05T09:54:00.004-04:00

So, here's one from the "couldn't make it up" file.

Penny had an appointment for a sample of Kindergarten life today, so I dragged myself, Penny and Patrick down to the school where she won't start for real until September.

After wandering around and into a First Grade breakfast or something (needless to say I didn't hang around to find out exactly what it was all about) I eventually worked out where I was supposed to be and walked over there, the kids skipping behind me holding my hand.

And then Patrick skip-tripped and skinned his knee, the gash deepened by the fact I unwittingly dragged him along the sidewalk by his hand as he lost his balance. He's crying, there's blood... and oh look! There's the School's Principal!

So, I pick him up (he's crying up a storm) and walk over to greet her. While she is sticking on Penny's name tag, I look down at my white Knicks t-shirt. It's covered in blood from Pat's knee wound. Perfect.

So, as the handful of other K-parents-to-be gather nervously and make their way into the school - many of them for the first time - I sneak along at the back of the line, naturally the only father, holding a sobbing child, and covered in blood.

I ran out before anyone could call me on it. Wonderful way to make a first impression on a school.

Big Papi (not me, Ortiz of the R S)

2008-06-05T06:09:00.002-04:00

This didn't bother me too much at first, but the more I thought about it, the madder I got.

David Ortiz, a behemoth of a man that plays for the Boston R** S** is going to stand at Yankee Stadium during All-Star Week, have a fan tell him where to hit a home run, call his shot (just like Babe Ruth may or may not have done in the 1932 World Series) and then slap one over the fence.

I have been considering a comparison for my English friends to understand. It would be like having Maradona re-enact his Hand of God at Wembley with a fan playing the part of Steve Hodge.

So, to put things right I've entered the sweepstakes to get the right to tell Big Papi where to put his home run.

And when I win, I intend to tell him: up his arse. And I hope he makes it.

The Week Ahead

2008-06-02T08:14:00.002-04:00

The following week is packed, but I'm going to try my hardest to get to the driving range and shank a few more balls over the right hand side netting.

MONDAY - Actually, this is kind of a quiet day. Unless you count laundry, cooking and cleaning.

TUESDAY - Free movie day in Ridgewood! Indiana Jones, anyone? Also I'm out for dinner at a swanky swank.

WEDNESDAY - Playdate for the kids, five irons for me.

THURSDAY - Pen has a pretend hour at Kindergarten to start the day. Nice.

FRIDAY - Birthday parties, grown-up parties, perhaps the arrival of my brother-in-law (see Sunday)

SATURDAY - Kickball, parties

SUNDAY - USA v Argentina at Giants Stadium with bro-in-law and others.

(in related news, someone asked me if I got on with my brother-in-law. I described him as "like my wife, but a guy" which sells him short somewhat, but it's a pretty good yardstick. If that doesn't spell it out to you, yes, he's a good guy.)

Link to Parent Paper

2008-05-30T06:38:00.002-04:00

OK, you can go here and look at the cover (which it will default to, page 6 (a little blurb in the bottom right), page 26 and 27 (which is the article that prompted the cover). Enjoy.

Or you can just look at these:

Parent Paper

2008-05-29T17:10:00.002-04:00

So, this afternoon I came home and found an express DHL delivery of the new Parent Paper on my doorstep. You know - the one with me and my son on the cover?

I would post a link to the PP website, but it's not up yet. I guess it will be up on Monday. But as soon as it is, I'll share it for those of you outside Bergen County.

Vacation over

2008-05-27T08:08:00.003-04:00

For those of you who don't know, and frankly if I met you in person, I told you, I was left home alone this last weekend while the family went off to D.C.

Before they left, I had visions of self-indulgence. The truth is, about an hour after I was left alone I didn't know what to do.

I was laughing with some friends about how, if I didn't have a kid in tow, I wouldn't have much of a week-day social life. I can hardly go hang with my buddies (all women) at the playground if I don't have a kid with me. That would be all wrong. Similarly, I can hardly go over to a mom's house for a playdate if my kids aren't involved. I mean, how could I justify that?

So, here's my big discovery - my life is so intrinsically tied to my kids' lives that I don't have much of a life anymore. I have lost myself and forgotten what I like to do by myself.

Sure, I could have spent the last three days drunk watching dirty movies and eating lard. I could have gone to Manhattan and bar-crawled through the old 'hood and eaten six bacon-blue-cheeseburgers (although travel was limited, as was excessive expenditure as is usually the case at this time of month.)

So what did I do? The short answer is that I tried to feed my soul.

There was steak involved (on sale at the A&P) along with beer (one six pack of Miller Light over four days.) I watched a few movies, but nothing with excessive nudity (unless you count the naked man fight from "Eastern Promises") and I sat in the back yard and breathed the suburban air. I even managed to get some work done, covering the Memorial Day festivities in A-Town and earning a little greenback.

The biggest plus, and I swear this is no exaggeration, was the eight hours straight I managed to sleep on Sunday night from 10pm through 6am. This is the longest I have slept without tossing and turning since long before Penelope was born five years ago.

And despite the lack of excitement, it was clearly just what I needed. My eyes were opened. I have to get my life back. But also I learned that being intrinsically linked to two kids is not so bad after all. Right now it's a steamy morning with very little prospect of outside play any time today. The house is a shit-tip, thanks to the pile of post-trip bags dumped in the living room after the car was unloaded. I have plenty of work to do, but also two kids to entertain - preferably without the TV. And I'm looking forward to it.

Somewhere, somehow and sometime soon I'll have to remember how to really enjoy myself given the time, but I have a fully-fed soul and some direction back in my life. I'll take that for now.

Silence Of The Rabbit

2008-05-22T04:10:00.003-04:00

From the moment we got our cat, I wanted to call him Ninja. We ended up calling him Luigi, an homage to the less-well-known Nintendo plumbing brother.

Luigi is an excellent mouser, and living in the rural suburbs as we do, that's a good thing. In our backyard at any given time one can find mice, squirrels, chipmunks, groundhogs, rabbits, deer, raccoons, skunks - it's like a zoo, but with only timid, flower-eating animals.

Which brings me to yesterday afternoon...

A friend came over to pick up her daughter who had been on a Wii playdate at my place. We were chatting on the doorstep and she noticed Luigi sitting by an open, but screened-in window, looking out with some menace - like he'd been on the catnip all morning and someone, somewhere was going to get messed up because of it. We chatted, he looked out of the window.

I opened the door to go back inside, and he bolted out, darted past me and jumped down into the garden and on top of a rabbit.

We have rabbits living under our front steps. When we found out, we shrugged. It was rabbits! Who cares? If it had been a skunk family, or even a bloody groundhog (as it has in the past) I would have done everything I could to flush it out. But rabbits? Please.

So, thanks to my lax attitude and my cat's warrior instincts, my friend Amy and I were now watching my cat mauling a rabbit. At least, that's how it looked. Luigi had the rabbit in his mouth and was walking around with it, its eyes bulging, and not sure what to do next. A little like myself. I told Amy to get her girls into the car (5 and 3 and traumatized at this point) and I went to get my shoes so I could pursue the black-and-white feline beast and his dinner-to-be.

I came out again, and before I could slip my Sambas on, Luigi put the rabbit down. And to everyone's surprise (including my kids, who were now watching from the window) - it jumped up and ran away! That's great! Except that Luigi chased after it. I threw my shoes towards the cat to try and stop him, but all that did was left me shoeless. The rabbit ran in circles, then dived back into its burrow. Luigi followed it, then dug into the burrow enough to resurface with the rabbit in his mouth again. We were back where we were minutes earlier.

Amy left, explaining to her kids that Luigi was "playing" with a "mouse" and I retrieved my shoes and went after him, sure I would soon have a blood-soaked cat and a dead bunny on my hands. Again, Luigi put down his catch... and again, the thing jumped up and bounded away. I grabbed the cat and the bunny went on his merry way. Amazing.

I took Ninja (his new name as far as I'm concerned, such is his stealth and guile) back inside and locked him in. He was wired, but clean. I came back outside, and who should I see sitting there, the very definition of "stupid" and "glutton for more near-death experiences" but the bunny. Looking up at me, a mix of "thanks, but kick your bastard cat friend for me, wouldya?" on his face.

Later, I would confront Luigi, but really, what could I say? "Don't be a cat?" We chose him from the shelter clearly because he would be a good mouser. It's like my old family dog, Cindy. She was the loudest, barkiest dog in the pound when we got her. That was the point. She was our burglar alarm. We then spent 10 years telling her to shut up. But, she was a barky dog! And so, we have a rodent-predator cat, and that's that. And it's not a bad thing. I was even able to tell my kids, 100% honestly, that the rabbit was fine and Luigi was just playing with it.

Penny's reaction was priceless: "Daddy, I saw Luigi with the rabbit in his mouth, and I was shocked."

Me too, kiddo.

34

2008-05-19T06:04:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was my birthday. The day before that was so full of stuff, I am still dealing with the trauma (it wasn't all bad, but it was taxing and I'm not ready to blugh it all out yet.)

My birthday began with presents in bed, then breakfast, relaxation time, more presents, then being blindfolded and taken to dinner (disorientated, I had no idea where I was. Turns out I was right in town, and had been paraded, blindfolded, past the our supermarket of choice. I heard at least one "Oh, there's Adam!" as I was led through the parking lot,) before watching Goldmember on TV and passing out in bed before 9 o'clock. It was truly great.

MSNBC?

2008-05-16T07:24:00.002-04:00

And there I am! And while it's somewhat shorter than my long conversation with the journalist lead me to believe, it's there!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24603016/

And here's the edited highlights:

"Some fathers, like Adam Keeble of Allendale, N.J., feel they're accepted easily into their town's community of mothers. As the lone stay-at-home dad with a British accent in the local park, he said, so many mothers would say "Hi, Adam" that he had to keep a book to remember names. He also has no trouble, he says, organizing playdates at his house.

Keeble, an aspiring novelist who's been home for five years, says the frustration of the job is similar to that a mother might experience. "It's the best job in the world, except when it isn't," he says. "On a sunny day with the kids playing in the sand, it's great. But then there's the miserable February day when they look at me and say, well, now what? And, well, it's only reruns of Dora."

About Last Night

2008-05-15T05:57:00.002-04:00

8:45 - Daughter finally falls asleep in her bed. I tip-toe into the master bedroom where the wife has fallen asleep with my son, who has been fighting night's sweet embrace. Unsure whether he is fully asleep, I return to my daughter's room and lay there, planning to wait it out.

8:59 - the phone rings. The house stirs. I leap downstairs and answer. While I'm on the phone I get another call coming in. I hurry the first caller off the phone, let the second leave a message. I wait it out downstairs for 10 minutes to ensure everyone is back in REM mode.

9:15 - back upstairs, Son is transferred to his bed, I climb into my bed alongside snoring wife.

12:00 - the phone starts making all kinds of noise - not ringing, just beeping as though it had been lost and we were paging it to find it. I jump out of bed, noting my son is now alongside me (missed that one) and turn the phone off. Turns out the cat had pressed the "transfer call" button. I lay awake for an hour.

2:15 - Daughter comes into our room. Son wakes up. Something about a trip to the bathroom.

3:00 - Wife, now sleeping in son's bed, takes son to bathroom. There is a change of pajamas (can't be good.) Daughter is in our bed.

5:20 - I am in our bed with son. Wife is in son's bed alone. Daughter is in her bed alone. Wife comes into our room, slumps on bed. I leave our bed and come downstairs. My day is underway.

Now, I'm not one to curse, but what the fuck?

On The Rebound

2008-05-12T17:41:00.002-04:00

Despite my publishing deal going tits up, I have never been in demand to this crazy extent.

As well as all the relentlessness of organizing the fundraiser this weekend for my kids' pre-school (of which I will be the president of the board starting next month), and appearing on the cover of Parent Paper next month, I just got interviewed for the first time for a feature by an AP journalist about being a stay-at-home dad. Just imagine if my book was still coming out in three weeks time! I would have shifted a bunch! Imagine!

But there's more. I wrote the splash and page three lead of my local paper last week, and will be covering the Memorial Day parade next weekend. I also believe I am going to be featured in the Father's Day issue of the paper too, promoting something very exciting I can't talk about still that I'm doing in June.

Next month will be my fifth anniversary of quitting my job and staying home with the kids (though, of course, at the time it was just the one.) I suppose I must be considered some kind of expert at this point. That said, I wonder what the AP journalist will end up saying about me. I probably should have asked that while she was still on the phone. If her story makes Yahoo news, I'll send a link.

Small... far away... ah, forget it!

2008-05-08T09:46:00.003-04:00

Oh, and while I think of it, yesterday my son said I looked like Father Ted. I was one-part happy, one-part poignant, and one-part pissed off.

Meet El Presidente

2008-05-08T07:30:00.002-04:00

If not for the fact I am sleeping so, so badly right now I might have found time sooner to mention that I am now President-elect of the board at my kids' preschool.

This is obviously a fun thing, and not one of the things causing me to wake up at 1am and stay awake until 3 or 4am every day this past week. Those not-fun things fueling my insomnia don't bother me so much during daylight hours, but I think it's fair to say I haven't slept this badly, this often since Patrick was a new born.

I am also well aware that my feet are killing me since a particularly vigorous soccer game nearly a month ago. It feels like every bone in both feet has been shaken loose then replaced somewhere close to where they ought to be.

This is also the fifth time in two weeks where The Pre-School's First Lady-elect is going to be super-late home (ie. after 10pm) which is taking its toll on my sanity. A 12-hour day is a cinch. A 14-hour day is a stretch. But when she leaves at 6 and doesn't come back until 11pm - a 17-hour day - it can get a little... much, depending on how easily the kids go to sleep. Mix crippling exhaustion with crippling insomnia, and my face starts to look like Droopy the Dog's/a contour map and the light twinkle in my eyes is dimmed to a birthday candle in an Olympic stadium.

Good Things About Today

2008-05-05T16:15:00.003-04:00

1) A Mariano Rivera signed baseball in the mail.

2) Portishead's new CD arrives from Amazon

3) Along with the Tim and Eric DVD

4) Sunny, 75 degrees

5) Two beers in the fridge for the last 24 hours, icy to the touch

6) No nap from either kid today, but plenty of running around. Early nights all round.

7) Seven DVDs sitting on top of the TV waiting to be watched - all of which are too violent for the kids to watch (300 Days of Night, War) or childish... but adult (Balls Of Fury) and no wife around tonight, so I can take my pick.

8) Isn't seven enough?

Marlon Brando, Jimmy Dean...

2008-05-01T06:13:00.002-04:00

What? You're still reading this blog, even though the book is kaput?

Well, good for you. Because I have something fun to share.

Last year I wrote a funny article for The Parent Paper. I wasn't paid, but I got a lot of props. If I can be bothered, I'll find the post about it and link it here. It was about Patrick being left-handed, and therefore obviously a sporting legend in the making. I was paid in books and DVDs. It was fair.

The PP editor then asked me if I would submit another article for last year's father's day issue. I did, and it was funny. I don't think I even got the books and DVDs this time, but I didn't care.

This year, I was asked to write a lengthier, more substantial piece - and I would be paid with Yankee dollars. Once again, I did so.

Then, last week, I was asked...

TO BE ON THE COVER OF PARENT PAPER, THUS BECOMING THE FACE OF FATHER'S DAY FOR THE WHOLE OF BERGEN COUNTY!

So, yesterday, Patrick, Penelope and I went to a photo shoot and goofed around. Pat and I were wearing the same clothes, right down to the shoes, and we will be on the cover - and throughout the June issue - of the bumper Father's Day edition.

The PP is also interested in more work from me - funny stuff, not stuff about serious medical issues or parenting dilemmas. You know, stuff about Darth Vader being a good role-model for new dads. Yeah, heavy stuff like that.

Now, call me a self-publicist if you will, but: up yours. I couldn't get a book published even after I signed a contract to do so. If this helps me make a living as a writer somewhere down the line, I won't care how it looks to any potential haterz. Fact is, I'm about to be on the cover of a magazine, and you aren't.

And when I get recognized by a stranger at the park and asked to sign her PP, I'll do it. In fact, I'm going to ask for pens for my birthday so I always have one on hand.

Fun, no?

The Fulham Dray RIP

2008-04-25T14:30:00.002-04:00

I'm sad to find out one of my favorite pubs, The Fulham Dray in SW6, London, is no more. I'm probably the last person on earth to find this out, as it actually closed its doors in 2002.

Shortly after I was employed by Teletext, The Dray opened right around the corner from my office. It became a favorite spot for our traditional lunch hour drink (and traditional lunch two-hour drink on Fridays) as well as a favorite on the way home. It was only the second pub I can really call a "local" after The Railway in Hatch End, where I drank heavily (in both quantity and frequency - I was there almost every day between the ages of 17 and 20.)

I would walk in and be greeted by the landlord, Ollie, who would pour my usual before I asked for it. We played pool, put the world to rights, and even did some work aided by the Fosters lubrication. The fact it was a Chelsea supporters pub mattered very little to me. On an average weeknight the crowd was a mix of the locals propping up the bar, the Teletext louts, a bunch of teachers (who taught at the school Tony Blair sent his kids to) and some postal workers who had probably been there since their shift finished. It was always friendly (apart from one night when... well, I wasn't involved but it all got a bit nasty in the street outside) and I have many, many fond memories of the old place.

The writing was on the wall shortly after the unpleasantness that one Friday night, and Ollie (wholly unrelated to it) moved on to take charge of another pub. I'm not sure I went there after Ollie left, as I was soon after to move to Manhattan, but I'm sure it was a bit rubbish without him there. I hadn't actually vocally ordered a drink there in more than two years, so it would have been like starting again.

Following its demise (assisted, I'm sure, not only by Ollie leaving but by Teletext moving to a new site miles away) it turns out it re-opened in 2004 as a trendy bar. Gone was the "burger in a basket with chips" and the pool table. In came a variety of fancy fancy and, in an effort to be a bit hoity-toity, a credit card only policy. Behold - a pub that doesn't take money!

Anyway, a little after the event, I ask you to raise a glass to The Fulham Dray. God bless all who sailed in her. Especially during Euro '96. Magnificent times.

Almost there....

2008-04-24T18:29:00.002-04:00

So, with one day to go of Spring Break it has been a 100% pleasant experience.

Today's playdate left me kid-free for a couple of hours, so I went to the driving range and hit a few dozen balls with an frustrating slice. Got to work on that grip. I then had a magnificent Buffalo Chicken Wrap that was so hot, my ears stopped popping temporarily (and that's a whole nother story.)

After the kids were returned, we hung out and I mowed the lawn before going back to the park and hanging out for an hour or so. I now have a Bombay Sapphire and tonic on the go and all is right in the world.

Both the interested publisher and interested agent are leaving me hanging, but it's all good. Come Monday morning, school is back in session and I have to worry about my annual stand-up-in-front-of-100-people-and-make-a-speech thing as well as the '80s party I've been planning for months.

I also have lined up something so very exciting, I am going to shock the entire community. But that's still a while away... Plus, it looks like I am doing something else only slightly less exciting in June. I am some kind of excitement monster.

And, and on May 18, I turn 34, thus out-living Jesus. Yip. Eee.

Halfway There

2008-04-23T06:46:00.002-04:00

Midway through SB and all is going well enough.

The downside of getting a little extra money in the bank is that it's never enough. Our tax rebate is holding up well, but it's clear we can't do everything we want with it. In an ideal world, we could pay off AmEx, resurface the drive, fix up the basement and take a vacation with Mickey Mouse... and still have the money in the bank for things like... oh, I don't know... the mortgage? Food? Clothes?

All that said, my recent mantra has been: "Nothing is ever as bad when it's sunny" and sunny it certainly is. We've been in the 70s and I've been wearing Banana Boat, my prescription shades, shorts and not much more all week. Nothing has changed in our situation other than the weather. That's enough.

Another playdate today, then I've got to get back on the phone to get through Thursday and Friday. I have a couple of leads, so it's all good. An (adult) party this weekend - we even have a non-family-member as a babysitter for probably only the fifth time ever.

Spring Break! Woo-hoo?

2008-04-21T08:38:00.002-04:00

The words "Spring Break" mean a lot of things to different people.

Growing up, my spring break was spent wandering around shopping malls, playing tennis and, in my high school years, doing anything except revising for my end of year exams. I know US-based teens can take spring break to near mythical status with their ventures to the sunniest climes and going buck wild.

But to me, right now, SB means I have two kids waking up and asking me: "So, no school today? What else you got?"

I've been in a funk for a few days, but I'm starting to see that I can make this work in my favor by lining up a week of fun for them that doesn't involve me - and at low cost. I'm talking drop-off playdates.

The beauty of a drop-off playdate is that it works either way. If I drop my kids off, I don't see them for a couple of hours and it's all good. If I have someone else drop their kids off, the new arrivals take on my role as primary entertainer, and I'm free to do other things in a distraction-free environment. As long as I don't just drive off and leave a five-year-old in charge of my own kids. That would probably spoil the possibilities of another drop-off playdate happening. And probably come with jail time and my kids going into care.

So, five weekdays on the horizon and only one planned item on the agenda (today, library story time) means I have to get a grip on this week or get overwhelmed in an amazingly short amount of time.

Here's the plan:

1) Call friends for playdates.
2) Cook meals for quick, easy service later this week.
3) Stock up on kid-friendly snacks. A well-fed playdate-ee will want to come back.
4) Pray for sunshine. A trip to the park is low-maintenance, high-yield.

What's the opposite of "curb?"

2008-04-15T06:52:00.002-04:00

My enthusiasm for all things book-related was recently revived by, of all things, a book signing I attended on Sunday.

Apart from one of those "it's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it" stories where the author of the book (that I was meeting for the first time in person but have "known" for more than a year thanks to the internet) turned out to be the sister of a guy I have been playing soccer with for the last five years, I ended up having an email exchange with an agent. Regardless of how that pans out, I think it's safe to say I have my groove back.

Publishers are certainly more interested in IGYB when they hear it's all done (proofed, copy-edited, type-set) and a few have shown some interest in the things I am writing now (one in particular) which has provided the proverbial carrot on a stick for me, the proverbial donkey (or "ass") to chase after.

However, I'm certainly not getting too excited this time around until I have the book in my hand. As the news continues to filter out through town and across my network of friends that the book isn't coming out in June after all, it's getting harder to tell the story again and again. I feel like months ago I announced I was pregnant and now as we near the due date I'm having to tell people it was just indigestion.

Still, it is with a renewed lusting that I'm back in the saddle and the stuff I have been writing recently (yesterday in particular) is still pretty darn good. And a little ego-massage from the semi-interested parties has only plumped up my creativity feathers.

This...

2008-04-09T14:08:00.002-04:00

...cheered me up so, so much.

He's just being a goof on a slide, which is what I needed to see because, aren't we all just goofs on a slide?

"You're kidding me..."

2008-04-08T12:17:00.003-04:00

Sometimes my faith in humanity is pushed to its limits.

I don't believe people are naturally good. I think people are naturally indifferent. And then some shithead comes along and has me start to doubt even that.

At my kids' pre-school, we had an empty water bottle where people deposited their pocket change. All the money collected in the bottle was to be used to buy books for the classrooms. I say "was" because at some point in the last two weeks, some shithead emptied the bottle of the collected money and made off with it, putting the empty bottle back where they found it.

Listen, times are hard for all of us, but there was probably $40 in this thing, made up of nickels and dimes, and it was all to spent on books for pre-schoolers. It was advertised as such.

I have a few hopes about this situation. To hope for someone to get guilty and give the money back? Not a chance. If you're enough of a turd to take it in the first place, you have no remorse. What I hope is that $40 in change was taken by an opportunist, and not someone (God forbid, a parent at the school) who knew it was there and what it was for. And I hope whoever took it really needed it, more than the three-to-five-year-olds they stole the money from.

And I hope karma kicks the living bejesus out of them. In front of their girlfriend. And shits in their shoes.

* The title of this post is a direct quote from everyone at the school I have told about this. I discovered the theft last week, but wanted to be sure there was no mistake/miscommunication. There wasn't.

To Nap or Not To Nap

2008-04-07T06:31:00.003-04:00

Sometimes it feels like my wife is wishing my son's nap away. She constantly reminds me that it won't last forever, and "wouldn't it be better if he slept through the night instead?"

I'm no fool. If his sister is anything to go by, I have maybe six more months of naps from him before he no longer needs it. But that nap time is fast becoming my favorite time of the day. It's almost irrelevant if he sleeps through the night anyway. I never do.

People say I'm lucky that he still naps for at least three hours a day. But put it this way - if he didn't, we would be living in a rat-infested hell hole with no food in the fridge and I would be wearing dirty pauper's rags as clothes. Not because I spend the time when he's asleep cleaning, shopping, cooking and doing laundry. Far from it.

When he closes his eyes at about 1:30 every afternoon, I do what I have to do. This is often:

Watch SportsCenter
Watch Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law (thank you, DVR)
Watch the Yanks in a day game
Write
Check out hot photos of Natalie Portman, Julia Louis Dreyfus and Sarah Silverman
Play card games with daughter
Play Wii with daughter
Eat a big sandwich

But it is because I spend his naptime doing this self-pampering stuff that I can spend time during the time when he's awake:

Cleaning the kitchen (twice a day - upon waking, then after dinner)
Carrying dirty clothes down to the basement, bringing clean ones up, folding them, putting them away
Shopping
Reminding my son he needs to go potty (to avoid making more dirty clothes)
Read (Madeline books and anything with big trucks in)
Pouring Cheerios into bowls
Making a big sandwich

The day his nap dries up will mean a whole new outlook on my day. And I'm not looking forward to it.

Long Story Short

2008-04-02T18:43:00.003-04:00

For the last month or so, the future of my novel "I Got You, Babe" has been in question. This week I found out it won't be published this June after all.

To cut a long story short (as Tony Hadley once sang) my publisher went into liquidation on Monday and my book rights have reverted back to me. This doesn't mean it's all over - some of my fellow authors with my former publisher have already been snapped up another house.

I haven't lost anything, except a little enthusiasm - and that will come back. And, as you will know if you read this blog, I have two more projects that will be done by this summer.

Sure, it's not good news - and the launch party BBQ in our back yard is now just a party BBQ in the back yard - but it's not terrible news either. And I'm not just saying that to soften the blow. I was pissed off and feared the worst when I first got wind of what was going on at my publisher. Since then the not-knowing was far more taxing than finally finding out I wasn't going to be published after all. In the end, it was a relief.

Sure, I'll take your sympathy and well-wishes and "what bastard luck!"s, but I'm fine and if I never find a home for it I (almost) won't mind, because if you read between the lines, IGYB is MY story and I needed to write it so I could write everything else I've written since.

That said, you can bet your left nut I'm going to push to get it published because the hardest part for me is that I feel like I've let a lot of people down. People like you, reading this now, gave me the energy to get the story written and keep pushing when I felt shitty. I'm sorry this happened. I'll put it right if I can.

This year's April Fool e-mail

2008-04-01T18:01:00.001-04:00

Names have been omitted to protect the 80% of recipients who are SUCKERS.

***

Hey all -

I have some awesome news about “Sub-Urban Sub-Species!”

After the successful pitch following the You Tube thing (when the “pilot” episode got more than 7 million hits last month and was named the NYT Buzz Worthy Video for March), CBS have officially commissioned a TV series to air in Fall 2009!

I know I’ve sent the link to the You Tube thing to everyone I know at least six times – but the plot for the series will follow a pre-historic time traveler who stumbles on a murder plot to kill the Queen of England. The format is a little like 24 in that every episode follows one day in Ugg’s life, but it gets complicated because at every commercial break, the time period changes, just like in the pilot when it jumped from 2012 back to World War I when Ugg used the crystal rune amulet.

Filming starts this summer in Allendale, Paramus (pending a permit to use Paramus Park after hours) and in North London where I grew up. The casting is kinda top secret still for another week or so, but Laura spotted the Variety story and... Well, I can’t deny Patrick Dempsey is interested :) However, Natalie Portman is filming a sequel to The Other Boleyn Girl, so she was unavailable (which was too bad for two reasons...) - but please keep that to yourself. We don’t want our second choice to know she was second choice :)

Here’s the extra exciting news – we will need extras for filming! Like when that sitcom “Ed” was filmed in Allendale, Paul and I will try to use local people as “in-jokes” during episodes. The Pettinato house will be the main base of operations for the MHWAH (the group hunting Ugg through time) while the exterior of the Fell House will be used (the interior will be in a studio) for the female lead’s house.

If you are going to be around the week of July 7-11 and would like to be in the show, please let me know BEFORE NOON TODAY. You will need an Equity card if you want a speaking role, but I can help speed that process up. You can get the details of applying for a card at http://www.actorsequity.org/Benefits

Thanks for all the well wishes – I will be in London starting tomorrow to assist with casting there, but I will be able to check my e-mail, so please let me know ASAP!

Adam K

Friday

2008-03-28T17:26:00.002-04:00

It's well documented that there are certain things I can manage on a Monday that I just can't do on a Friday. I tend to leave all the major cleaning to Tuesday, because Monday needs to break the week gently. By Friday, I'm just about done. The kids are sick of me. I'm sick of them. And then, once in a while, I get a call at lunchtime saying "I'll be late tonight" that just puts the cherry on top. In short - I'm effing exhausted, and Natalie Portman covered in Bird's custard couldn't stir me from my funk.

But, here's a fun game for all of you. Can you spot where I went wrong in the following story?

With our new bulging bank balance (thank you, tax rebate) we've been letting our hair down. Red Hot sauce AND Tabasco? You got it! Paper towels AND tissue paper? It's a deal!

So, for dinner tonight, I did a double. What with it being Friday, and my reserves pretty much empty I went for Chinese food - my kids favorite - and ice cream for dessert. So I went to the Chinese food store, put in the order, went next door to the Dairy Queen and picked up the ice cream cups - two kids sized scoops - and then back to get the Chinese food and then home.

Where did Adam go wrong? The parents of you probably already know.

Here's how my kids' minds work. The prospect of Chinese food was outstanding... until the ice cream came into play. This meant trying to get them to force down their FAVORITE chicken and broccoli was like pouring pepper on a urine stain on the carpet and then trying to rub the dog's nose in it to teach it a lesson.

"You like this! You were dancing around the kitchen, jumping with delight when I said we were having Chinese food tonight!"

"I don't like it"

"Well, just eat the rice then."

"I don't like rice."

Now, if this was a Monday I could have dealt with it better. But this is Friday. It wasn't pretty. Needless to say, they got their ice cream after negotiating a three-mouthful deal. The upside? I had a jumbo helping and there's plenty left over for the weekend.

No More Diapers For Me - For Real

2008-03-25T11:58:00.002-04:00

Looks like Patrick is done with diapers. This is verging on excellent news, and it's no exaggeration to say that it is life-changing for both he and I.

The impact on the family finances is not so noticeable as the lack of drama when, at 5am on a Sunday, we realize we're out of real diapers and we'll have to find a swim diaper (which doesn't actually hold the water in - that's the point of it - but it will stop a poop from becoming a floater at the pool) until the stores/my eyes are open.

Today was the acid test - I sent him to school in underpants, and gave the teachers a heads-up that he might need a reminder or two about going to the bathroom. When I went to pick him up, and he was still wearing the same pants I sent him in, I knew "we" had cracked it.

There will be accidents in the next month or so - hopefully very few (ie. none) at school - but the bottom line is, I am done paying for, strapping on, and changing crappy diapers until I become a grandparent. And that is worth a drink.

Petty Chew: update

2008-03-21T15:14:00.001-04:00

50 pages, 10,000 words. And it's good, even though I do say so myself.

Reasons today is a "Good" Friday

2008-03-21T11:55:00.002-04:00

* It's sunny outside, although the wind is whipping along at mach 12. Even my hair got ruffled, and it's three-quarters forehead.

* Good news from the accountant (something I thought I would never hear!) Tax rebate in a week, anyone?

* Hot cross buns - six for a dollar - and PG Tips, lots of milk, two sugars.

* Weather forecast for Sunday morning - soccer, with the potential for wind-whipped crosses to the near post for Keeble to nod in from three feet.

* Villa certain of victory against Sunderland on Saturday morning (my time.)

* Kids agreeing to be babysat by Pokemon DVD, enabling me to write this.

* One particular line in the novel I'm writing making me giggle every time I think of it. ("I don't know. Can't we... piss in it or something?")

* No mail delivery today, so no mail-delivery anxiety as I wait for the mail carrier to arrive and ultimately disappoint me by not bringing me the things I've been expecting since December in some cases.

* Golf membership card dues in the mail. I'll be swinging for the pin in just a few weeks.

* Two words - candied ginger.

The Stories Wot I Am Writing

2008-03-17T10:58:00.003-04:00

I am so excited about the novel I am writing now, I cannot contain myself anymore.

Provisionally titled "Petty Chew" (a butchered version of the French term of affection "petit chou") it's a coming-of-age story involving a group of 15-year-old boys from North London who go on a school skiing trip to the French Alps. The main character, Shawn, arrives in France in a melancholy mood after being dumped by his girlfriend of three weeks, Mel, just days before his holiday is set to start. Things don't improve as the school bully sets out to make Shawn and his friends as miserable as possible - and not always on purpose. Guided by the dream vision of Carol Decker (lead singer of T'Pau) and gallons of cheap French beer, Shawn has to take a stand and dig deep to find some self-esteem in the snow-capped mountains before going back for his last few months as a high school student, with or without Mel at his side.

"Didn't you go on a skiing trip with your school when you were 15, Adam?"

Well, yes I did. And it is obviously the inspiration for this story. The story is set in Easter, 1990 - a time period that I will long remember in real life as the start of the peak period of my teenage years. I'm about a third of the way through the first draft, and I really like it, for what that's worth.

I'm writing it alongside "Don't Put Baby In The Corner (and other parenting lessons I learned from the 1980s)" and they are both very fun to write, so hopefully will be fun to read for you all collectively.

Hmm....

2008-03-17T08:16:00.001-04:00

... is that a subtle hint of coffee I can taste????

Tasteless

2008-03-16T16:59:00.003-04:00

I can think of one person who might take issue with what I am about to claim (I'm married to her,) but I would say I am pretty low maintenance.

I clean up after myself, let the wife do pretty much what she wants, I cook a little, and look after myself to some extent. My only weekly request is that I be allowed to play soccer on Sunday mornings. I like the odd drink, but can do without it just fine. Sure, I like a few TV shows and I like to watch sports, but you know, not obsessively.

But when it comes to food, there is my Kryptonite. Which is why, whenever I pick up the particular strain of virus that I have now, I get very, very frustrated.

For some reason in the last decade, when I get a cold I lose all sense of taste. I remember the first time it happened in 1998. I remember eating and drinking at the time and not being able to get that quick fix sensation. Then, all of a sudden when my sense returns, I am almost overwhelmed. It is nothing short of wonderful to be able to taste again.

So, this weekend my wife was out partying and doing all kinds of pampering for her birthday while I stayed home watching the kids. No big deal there. The only change was, normally I am home with the kids while she strives to earn the money to clothe, house and feed us. But last night, as she was at the Viceroy in Chelsea, NYC, I was watching an iCarly marathon on Nickelodeon and wishing I could taste the beer treat I bought myself.

Right now, my family is out at the town bar and grille eating buffalo chicken wraps and blue cheese burgers. I opted to stay home, not because I feel bad (I do, but not so bad that I can't think straight and function well enough) but because I don't want to spend $20 on a dinner I can't taste.

In short, why can't I just throw up a few times instead of this week-long (and it will be a full week) taunting when nothing is as it seems because I can't experience it, despite popping it in my mouth and chewing on it?

The End

2008-03-14T06:32:00.002-04:00

Today is the last day of a run of tough days that began a month ago.

February is always a kick in the nuts, what with the weather and the lack of funds. But this March has been a bollock-stomper from the school of Dr. Marten's own Academy of Nuts-Crushing. And we're not even half-way yet.

Today is my wife's birthday. It's a big one. What with planning this, planning a fundraising event, and just planning what the eff I will be serving for dinner that doesn't cost anything and is somewhat warm (old leaves from the backyard held over a lightbulb, anyone?) has been hard. But after today, at least I can cross something off the list.

In other news, by way of a mental distraction and a way of staying out of the cold, I have watched two classic movies this week. The Manchurian Candidate, starring Frank Sinatra, was great. The Omega Man was utter cack. But both achieved their aim as far as I was concerned - I got three-and-a-half hours of escapism, although with Charlton Heston in TOM I was also in a state of disbelief that such a good concept could look so rubbish.

False Positive

2008-03-11T07:43:00.002-04:00

Again, the early false dawns have proved to be just that - false.

It's now frosty, with the promise of more snow and crappy rain all weekend long. However, most of the current downs have a considerable upside. For example ...

... despite the fact my kids school is closed today, the fundraising committee (fronted by one A. Keeble) had the foresight to arrange a movie playdate at a nearby cinema this morning. We're off to see Ratatouille in a couple of hours.

... the fact that we now have mere pennies left in the bank mere days after payday is offset by a bumper payday next month, and then our tax rebate the month after that.

... the fact that, despite the current rubbish weather, spring is so close you can almost smell it. I will be completing my golfing due membership form today.

... the fact that I remain very pleased with both my current writing projects, despite the fact neither has made me a dime so far.

... the fact I will have a pretty spectacular photo in the local paper this week - complete with credit, I will only be paid $0.50 (approximately)

... the fact my daughter is now all signed up for FREE (well, if you don't count taxes) education for the next 11 years starting in September, despite the fact we still haven't paid for my son's pre-schooling.

... no eggs in the fridge, but a whole pack of bacon.

TerrifiK Day

2008-03-10T06:45:00.003-04:00

This morning sees my daughter take her first step towards moving out.

OK, so I'm probably getting ahead of myself a little, but today is the day I sign her up for Kindergarten - and for everyone involved, that's very exciting.

For me, primarily, it means "we" (meaning "my wife") can stop paying for pre-school, which was getting increasingly less affordable as we progressed through the school to her final year with its mandatory four-day plan (not to mention this year we were also paying for my youngest who's in his first year at the same place.) It also means I can start my fantasies about her whipping through to high school, earning a full scholarship at NYU and becoming the very best whatever the heck she wants to be.

For her, she is excited at the prospect of "big school."

I have enclosed a begging letter with my registration forms in the hope we get Penny into the morning sessions as opposed to the afternoons. It is the most important thing I have written in the past two weeks.

Fairly Unfortunate Translation

2008-03-08T07:19:00.002-05:00

Not only has The Fairly Odd Parents jumped the shark with the addition of the new fairly-odd character, but fans in England must be wondering how they got away with it.

Emergency

2008-03-07T19:04:00.002-05:00

I always assumed it would be my son's antics that would drag me to the E.R. at the local hospital first.

Alas, this afternoon as I was relaxing and putting my innocent three-year-old boy down for his nap, I heard a coughing and a spluttering from my five-year-old girl downstairs. I came down to see if she was OK and was told: "I just swallowed a jewel."

She had indeed swallowed a plastic jewel about the size of a nickel and, according to her, it was stuck in her throat.

Ten minutes (and a frantic phone call to the wife) later, we are at the hospital. I am filled with visions of my daughter being given some vomit-inducing drug to make her throw up or, even worse, surgery.

In fact, it would seem, the jewel had shifted and was on its way "down" to its eventual destination. Since returning home there have been several explanations of why the jewel will come out as poo-poo and not pee-pee.

All in all, it's been a really shit day, despite the humor I'm trying to inject to make myself laugh.

And tomorrow, my wife leaves for a weekend away with the girls. Needless to say, in the effort to make the weekend without back-up go smoothly, pizza and take-out food will be on the menu. Plastic jewelry will not.

False Dawn x 2

2008-03-05T11:56:00.003-05:00

Today sees the second false dawn that winter has gone and spring is here. It's somewhat sunny and warm enough that I just opened a window.

It will be at least another week before I start believing it myself, but I cannot wait for some sunshine and some heat. It wasn't a bad winter - some good snow, about two weeks when going outside was intolerable, only one big spell of sickness for the kids, but now the teaser is here I'm so ready for warm weather.

The first sign that spring was coming, aside from the rain this morning taking the last of the lingering snow with it, was our first trip to the town playground and my first re-encounter with one of the many moms I socialize with for 9 months of the year.

As with so many of the people I meet randomly at the park, I knew her kids names, but not the mom's. Unlike myself, who people remember easily (only guy at the park, English accent) I didn't recognize this mom at all for the first five minutes of arriving. Only when I asked her if she could identify the tokens in my pocket - were they video game tokens from the gym? or carousel tokens from the mall? - did the penny drop that we had actually met before.

One of the truer parts of my book is that the hero, Dean Allen, and myself both keep a book to remind them of the many, many moms we meet at the playground. More than once, I've been met with "Hi, Adam! Hey, Penny!" by a total stranger... so I look in the book at my notes and compare them to the subject in question (that might be - Debbie, mom of Dan and Ethan, drives White Explorer, lives in Waldwick, husband is a Mets fan) and identify who I'm actually talking to.

The other reminder that spring has nearly sprung is that the pre-school nominating committee met today ahead of the May General Meeting and confirmed that I have been nominated as the President of the board for the next school year.

My first order is to dissolve the Old Republic and order the Stormtroopers to crush the Jedi uprising!

Bwah-ha-ha!

Just kidding. My first order is to make myself President for life. Then the stormtroopers with the Jedi thing is next.

Still here...

2008-03-03T10:49:00.001-05:00

... but reeling from a rough few weeks. Watch this space.

Terrible Twos RIP

2008-02-12T16:13:00.000-05:00

It's almost hilarious that my son's "terrible two" period ended the day he turned three.

That sounds silly, but honestly, overnight he has become a different person.

The terrible twos are hard to really define unless you've been there as a parent. The closest I can come to describing it to non-parents is thus: remember when you were a teenager and were miserable and hated everything and everyone and sulked in your room? Imagine that, but with screaming instead of sulking, and destruction of property instead of listening to The Smiths.

I have just spent the day with my son without my daughter or wife around - a rare thing. And it was great. We woke up, scratched, stretched, had breakfast, watched a little ESPN, went out to the store, went to the barber shop for haircuts, made crafts at the library, came home for lunch, I did a little work while he played with his Planet Heroes (another post will surely discuss these toys and how great they are), then he took a quick nap while I worked some more, he woke up, we went out again, played in the snow for a while, and now we're sitting home, the laundry is done, dinner is on its way home with the girls, and all is good in the world.

Compare this to a fictional hour - just ONE hour - that may well have happened six months ago (based on fact): I wake up, 10 seconds later he wakes crying, I have to restrain his arms to change his diaper, I ask what he wants for breakfast - he says toast, I make toast, it is pushed away as though I have served him a poison burger, he then asks for Cheerios but pushes that bowl away too as there aren't enough in the bowl to satisfy his hunger, I add more, he leaves them too long before declaring they are soggy and he won't eat them, he refuses to wear the clothes he chose to wear shaking his head at everything else in his closet before crying as I put on the first selected outfit yelling "ouchy!" with every tug of fabric.

To say the least, what a difference a birthday makes.

I will be sooooo glad....

2008-02-08T08:06:00.001-05:00

.... when this week is over. I've had both kids in varying degrees of sickness during the week before payday. It's been raining pretty much all week, we've missed two days of school and one was cut short. I've done little to no work and I'm a week behind on a fundraising project for school. The highlight of today is going to be a trip to the doctors - on my son's 3rd birthday. The only thing that could make this all much worse (and I'm tempting fate by saying it, but so what?) would be for me to get sick. That will probably happen when the kids are well again, thus I will take their place on the couch sleeping in front of TV shows I've seen a million times before.

With a bump

2008-02-04T09:24:00.000-05:00

After last night's incredible Superbowl, in which "my" Giants beat the Patriots, then spoiling the Pats perfect record and causing one of the biggest upsets in recent football history, this morning has bitten my ass.

My daughter has NEVER, NOT ONCE asked to stay home from school. Until this morning. She's obviously in some gastic distress (I just lit a scented candle) and is lethargic on the couch, but when asked: "Would you like to go to school today?" her reply: "Not really" had me checking the medicine cabinet for painkillers. For her and myself.

This also comes in the wake of my youngest's birthday party that took place yesterday morning. This means the house is full of new toys, most of which make noise.

And then, the cherry on top? Yesterday was warm enough that you didn't really need a coat. Today? It's shitting well snowing.

Snow! Two kids home all day! One sick, one armed with a pack of roaring dinosaurs, a talking basketball hoop ("Good job! Two points!") and a motorbike that plays the refrain from Born To Be Wild over and over and over...

This may be my last post.

Blah, Blah, Blurb

2008-02-02T06:23:00.001-05:00

In the process of e-mailing celebrities and authors, to try to get them to "blurb" a quote for me for the back of my even-sooner-than-yesterday to be released book, one of them replied to me that this stage was the "worst!!!"

Are you kidding me? It's great!

I had a handful of people agree to help out right when I signed the deal last July. So perhaps there was no intimidation in for me - the hard work was already done. Since then I have had some big name refusals (Sanjeev Baskar is out of the country filming) and one big name who is reading it now ("big" in my world - I love Red Dwarf... and that's all you're getting out of me,) and a lot of "Congrats! But I'm sorry...." from some largish names in the industry.

But even the "sorry, buts..." have been encouraging, to the point where one lovely writer provided me the e-mail addresses for three other people who she recommended I get in touch with to help out. And one other handsome stud of a writer was so generous is his decling, I hope to go out drinking with him at some point in my life - and I'm buying.

I think for me, the hard work is done. But then I also enjoy "hunting" down celebs and getting signed photos from them, mainly to use as gifts. If all goes well, my kids could be getting signed photos of Dora the Explorer to go alongside their Elmo, Laurie Berkner, Tiffany Millbrett and Alexei Lalas.

The best things said to me over the weekend

2008-01-28T06:37:00.000-05:00

"Xzibit really doesn't like the look of that car!"

- Penny, 4, while watching Pimp My Ride.

"That was the best lunchie EVER!"

- Patrick, 2, after dinner at AB&G.

"Do you need help getting it up?"

- Wife, 27. She meant getting a box into the attic. I think. Either way, the answer was no.

Desert Island Sanity Saver

2008-01-25T07:43:00.000-05:00

This January is proving particularly frustrating, thanks to the sub-zero temperatures and the number of events coming up in the increasingly-frustrating-still-a-week-away February. The parenting tales I am coming up with all involve me staying inside because it's too bloody cold to go out, and the kids being semi-sick for the duration of the month.

Therefore, I present my most self-indulgent post yet - my Desert Island Disk selection with a brief explanation of why I chose these particular songs ahead of, say "Star Are Blind" by Paris Hilton.

1 Unfinished Sympathy - Massive Attack

The chord changes are beautiful and I once told an ex-girlfriend that listening to this song in the dark made me feel like I was floating - and it wasn't just B.S. to get her to turn the lights off. It's a rare combination of stunning sound with lyrics that mean something to me.

2 Hot Love - T-Rex

I can't think of a more fun song. Plus the nostalgia that comes from the memories of listening to it, windows down, in the infamous Flirtmobile (my first car - registration number FLT...) make it a mainstay.

3 Leave In Silence - Depeche Mode

I could have picked one of a dozen DM songs, what with them being a huge influence on me and my favorite band ever, but this is the one song that changed their direction. They could have continued on their "Just Can't Get Enough" route that was making them lots of cash, but they put out this moody beast instead.

4 Ballad Of Dorothy Parker - Prince

Another artist that has provided the backbone of my musical taste. Anything from Sign O' The Times is majestic, but this sprawling tale is the most special.

5 Tainted Love - Soft Cell

It was either this timeless classic or "Love Is The Drug" by Roxy Music. This won because whenever it comes on my stereo, I just can't bring myself to skip past it.

6 Subterranean Homesick Blues - Bob Dylan

I'm no hardcore Dylan fan by any means, and this choice is certainly helped by the Jools Holland version taken from The Young Ones, but this song is great.

7 Somebody Told Me - The Killers

The personal weight of this selection brought it into my top 8. In early 2005, when I was back and forth from various job agency gigs while my wife was on maternity leave with my son, this was a constant on the radio. "Breaking my back just to know your name" became something of a mantra after he was born, because we couldn't decide on his name for 48 hours. Plus it's a three-minute classic.

8 Everybody's Talking - Harry Nilson

Yeah, yeah. Even my picking this puts me up there with the guy from Seinfeld who was obsessed with "Desperado", but the main reason I like it is because I would love to be where the weather suits my clothes.

No more diapers for me

2008-01-23T16:53:00.000-05:00

Today I bought the last box of diapers I ever hope to buy. My 2-year-old son is so close to being potty trained. This last $20 box of 68 size sixes will be the last I ever buy, and therefore the last one in the box will be the last I will ever need to change. And that, dear friends, will be sweet after five years of changing them daily.

Super

2008-01-21T07:19:00.000-05:00

Last night, the New York Giants earned a place in the Superbowl on February 3. I LOVE it. Kids, grab your coats! We're going to the Sports Authority to buy Giants stuff!

Swearing

2008-01-17T17:52:00.000-05:00

As bizarre as it sounds, this evening I am being sworn into a position of local office by the town mayor.

I was approached to volunteer on the Board of Trustees at the town library, and considering I spend a whole lot of time there with and without the kids, I was flattered to accept. I've been serving for six or seven months now I think, maybe more, and I've enjoyed it greatly, not just on a social level, but it's another "job" (like my serving on my kids pre-school board) that makes me feel like I'm doing something positive for things I care about. Tonight is my actual swearing in, for reasons too complicated to explain here.

It's not an exaggeration to say that without the library, my book would not have been written. Thanks to the library I was able to read all the already-published books I would be competing with, several books on writing style and theory (the best by far was "On Writing" by Stephen King, for the record) and borrow enough DVDs and kids books to satisfy the whole family. Not to mention that my next project, one that involves watching a lot of movies from a certain decade, would have been absolutely impossible without the services of my local library - and it didn't cost a dime (unless you count taxes.)

In fact, today has been good for my cosmic karma all round. I would normally spend Thursday mornings kid-free, what with them both in class, and can usually be found stretched out watching Entourage on the couch, drinking too much coffee. Today I sacrificed that luxury and volunteered to help out with an open house at the school, and in doing so I *think* I recruited one couple who were very interested in signing up for next year.

So, come on, universe. I'm due.

Living in an Old Age Era

2008-01-14T13:08:00.001-05:00

Before I start, I do not consider myself old at 33, but here is a list of things I can't do anymore.

* Play soccer all day. From the ages of 15-21 I would play every chance I got for hours on end. On my first run out in my once weekly, two hour sessions this year, I couldn't get the taste of blood out of my mouth for the first half-hour and couldn't walk for 48 hours afterwards without extreme effort.

* Ride my bike for more then two minutes. Sure, I can pedal at the gym for 20 mins and work up a sweat, but I decided one humid morning in the summer to ride my mountain bike to a friends house to drop something off. It's a two minute drive, and while I didn't need to stop during my trip and the last quarter mile is up a steep hill, I couldn't answer my wife's "where have you been" until my lungs had recovered. It took a while. Between the ages of 12 and 16 I would ride a bike carrying two bags full of newspapers (three bags on a Sunday) and ride probably three miles on my paper route EVERY DAY. I was paid about 20 quid a week ($35.)

* Drink strong beer. I can drink Miller Lite all day, but give me three or four bottles or pints of the good stuff and I am overwhelmed. This from someone who once drank half a bottle of Bacardi, partied, walked home, woke up, did his homework and got to school on time the next morning without so much as a slight headache.

* Eat whatever I want. I am not eating buffalo wings ever again. Some colors are not natural. I will not elaborate.

* Stay up late. Yes, I wake up early to get a jump start on the day, but even when the family are asleep and I do manage to drag my ass back downstairs to do something, I cannot last much beyond 10pm. I used to wake at 5am (see the paper route stuff above), go to school, come home, do homework or whatever, then bum around until 11pm every day. Six hours of quality sleep was more than enough. These days, if I get any period of solid sleep lasting more than two hours at a time, I'm astonished, what with my racing mind and restless children.

* Spend money like there's no tomorrow. I used to regularly go out and spend a hundred quid, just to "cheer myself up." Now, I count every penny and regularly buy coffee with coins from the change jar in my bedoom. If I don't need to take the whole change jar to the bank and pour into the penny counter to deposit into the bank to stop a check from bouncing.

(OK, so that one isn't to do with the physical, but I'm whining so you can stick it if you don't like it.)

Back away from the daddy...

2008-01-11T07:36:00.000-05:00

I am in a foul mood to say the least. Yes, it's Friday, the end of a long week and I'm very tired, but it's more than that. We (that is, my wife) got paid yesterday - and every dollar is accounted for 24 hours later.

That's not good. But it's not that either. Not entirely.

It's raining in classic London-style (not hard, but enough that if you went out it in, you would get wet in no time) which is enough to dampen (oh-ho!) anyone's spirits. But it's more than that. When I wake up in a mood like this, very little can snap me out of it, and the slightest thing can make things much worse. I just stubbed my toe on something lying on the floor in the kitchen... it was my daughter actually. Immediately I am furious - I'm in there making her breakfast and there she is lying in ambush trying to kill me. The outburst was controlled, I'm proud to say ( "Penny! Get out of the kitchen!") but I'm seething, all really down to a poor night's sleep, a miserable start to the day with both kids upset mommy is going to work and that Dad is staying home with them AGAIN, the prospect of no school to ship them off to today, and about 34 cents in the budget for my daily expenses. And of course the X-Factor that makes me mad rather than "ho-hum, better get on with it."

It's not a morbid, self-pity. Nor is it a accepting shrug of reluctance at the Friday morning funk. It's a simmering anger, and it's already boiled over a couple of times at the stupidest thing (the first was an e-mail that was not written in any particular tone to wind me up, but wind me up it certainly did.)

I better get some more coffee down the gullet before the sun comes up and I can't afford the luxury of letting the kids play by themselves.

See, this is the kind of shit the working parent doesn't get to see. The teetering on the edge of losing it for no single indentifiable reason.

I was just shopping at K.B. Toys....

2008-01-08T10:41:00.000-05:00

... and was staggered to hear The Clash playing throughout the store. Fair enough, it was "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" but - Toy store! The Clash!

Anyway, happy 100th post to me.

Me vs. Monday

2008-01-08T07:03:00.000-05:00

I fought Monday, and just about won. But at what cost?

After Sunday's first soccer outing in weeks (one goal, hit the post twice - once with a header, one disallowed for a foul) I spent Monday morning aching. This didn't bode well for what was always going to be a busy day, but the first attempt to get back into the swing of normalcy following the craziness.

I got so much done yesterday, which is doubly astonishing as my 2-y-o son decided to make it the first day he didn't nap. Triply astonishing as the wife called at 6:30pm to say she was still in her office in Manhattan. He finally crashed out at 7pm. I was asleep at 8pm. This early night was followed by the worst bout of insomnia I've had since we brought the first kid home from the hospital. I was wide awake at 2:20am and finally got back to sleep sometime after 4:45am. I got up at 6am, feeling as though I hadn't been to bed at all, but left with no choice as the kids and wife were all awake and someone had to distract the younger ones so she could go back to the office.

Tonight, we are going to see Alvin and the Chipmunks at the movies. I am bringing a cup of hot cocoa and fully expect to fall asleep once the lights go down. At 6:15.

This is me....

2008-01-06T07:58:00.000-05:00

This is me on Amazon.co.uk.

Any questions?

Everybody Hurts

2008-01-03T09:59:00.000-05:00

Unbelievably, I have developed two Wii-related injuries. The first is a physical one, from my amateur (though somewhat effective) baseball stance and swing. I swing like I'm wielding a rounders bat rather than a two handed one, and my neck and biceps (you know... muscles under my flabby arms) are pounding. The second is mental, thanks to the bowling on Wii sports. Why won't the effing ball go straight? Lucky for the wrist strap, or at least one controller would have gone airborne, powered by my frustration by now.

What a great Christmas gift. As good as any other I've ever been lucky enough to get. Thanks, Santa!

Get It Done

2008-01-02T15:26:00.001-05:00

Most days, especially when I only have one child in pre-school (that would be two days a week,) it's very hard to get things done.

I am all about writing lists, but some days the lists are just so much fluff to pretend I was at least trying to do something on a day when my major achievements include eating and watching Battlestar Galactica.

Today was very, very different.

I dropped off my daughter and was out of the school parking lot at 9:05 - a big deal in itself. I am prone to chatting outside the classroom, inside the classroom, on my way back to the classroom after dropping off, then standing beside my car. I rarely make it home before 9:20. Today, by 10am, I had finished a to-do list that involved all kinds of horrible stuff.

* Return pair of shoes and exchange for some that fit.
* Buy birthday present for three-year-old boy with OWN three-year-old boy in tow.
* Call and arrange babysitter for rare night out with wife
* Clean kitchen after chicken/wok incident
* Find new doctor for kids, then call them and make appointments

And so on. I was so astonished to see it was only 10am by the time my list was complete, I celebrated with a cup of coffee and a ten-minute abbreviated viewing of Saturday's Aston Villa game (2-1 Villa, rock on!)

All that said, although today is Wednesday, it feels like Monday, so by Friday, I will think it's Wednesday and still be going strong. Right?

Right?

Yeah, right.

Runaway Year

2007-12-31T13:11:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posts here, but as December picked up speed I didn't have time to brush my teeth, let alone sit here and think of something witty to write about life in Chez Keeble.

Needless to say, I still don't have a lot of time. Since Christmas we've had two ear infections and all the inconsolable crying that comes with them, not to mention the doctor and chemist visits. And we got a Wii, so as a family we've been playing on that an awful, awful lot.

Thinking back on 2007, it was quite an adventure. I learned a lot. I signed a deal to get my debut novel published. I scored about 100 goals on Sunday mornings throughout the year. I got a year older, as did my kids.

2008, of course, will be the year my book is published, and will also be the year my eldest start kindergarten, her first steps towards "real" school. I'm excited about the coming year for lots of reasons.

Lastly, I hope you all have a cracker tonight, and every day afterwards for the next 364 days in a row. If you're reading this, thank you for your support, friendship, or anonymous visitations here. I appreciate it all.

Almost there...

2007-12-24T05:54:00.000-05:00

Every year, Christmas "arrives" at a random time - sometimes before the 25th, sometimes during. As of now, despite all the snow, it still isn't here yet.

I've done the wrapping, the music, all that jazz. But I'm still less than in full swing. It's going to be a very fun couple of days, with the hints of some surprises in store for everyone (but Gwen - I honestly didn't get you the Shark. Maybe you can borrow Amy's again?)

So, while I'm here, I'd like to wish you all a fun 25th. I will post again to do an end-of-year recap in the next few days.

Don't drink too much!