Jessica and I are eating at the Mad Greek, our favorite place to go when she comes home from her father’s house. The evening sun is low in the sky and the mellow light glows through the window, glancing off her round cheeks, illuminating her intense focus as she tries not to drop the glass…
Month: April 2012
On why I hate D.C. subways, part 2
There was a time in my life when I was allowed to have some personal dignity. That time ended the day I went into labor and people started wandering into the delivery room and feeling me up with impunity. So Jessica and I are waiting for one of those damned D.C. subways, and it arrives,…
On how I really do like people
“So,” Jessica’s dad says as I pick up her meds and medical equipment from him. “How was the conference?” I’ve been out of town for a business meeting and he is being his usual polite self. Even at the height of our discord, when I had the butcher knife in my hand and insanity in…
On listening to Jessica
On our first day in D.C., I ask Jessica what she’d like to do and she immediately says she would like to see the White House, so we walk over to the concierge at our hotel and he gets out a colorful map and shows in very clear steps how to get there. “Maybe you…
On why I hate D.C. subways
I am standing on a subway platform in Washington, D.C., and trying to figure out how, exactly, to get to the line I want to get to, and Jessica is vibrating with anxiety next to me. “Do you know what you’re doing?” “Does it look like I know what I’m doing?” “Are we lost?” She…
On the only thing I know about parenting
People often ask me parenting questions, saying, “What would you do?” I know why they ask; it’s because I am extremely positive that I know the answer to everything except when I don’t. And yet the question always strikes me as somewhat misguided. I may be absolutely convinced that a certain course of action is…