Tonight I am grateful to Dr. Seuss for bringing this extreme level of joy to my daughter.
Frankly, I think the book is kind of stupid, but Clara loves it (and on Dr. Seuss’ birthday no less), so the man was clearly onto something.
Tonight I am grateful for the opportunity to eat lunch with my wife. Elysha and I work together in the same school, and a few times a week, our lunch schedules coincide, allowing us to sit down together.
Today was one of those days.
In June, our second child will be born, and with that baby will come an end to these lunchtime meetings. Elysha will take the following school year off to stay at home with our new baby, and there is a good chance that when she returns to work the following year, we will no longer be teaching in the same school.
Elysha and I have worked together for nearly a decade, and I have loved every minute of our time together. It’s hard to believe it’s coming to an end. As a result, I cherish the time that we still have together, even as I am ever cognizant of how quickly it is slipping away.
An early dismissal from daycare because of snow convinced my wife that there would be no afternoon nap today. And 99 out of 100 days, this would be true.
Then this happened.
First time for everything. Probably the last time, too.
My wife brought my daughter to school today for a surprise visit, appearing about five minutes after the final bell had rung to end the school day.
I can’t tell you how much this reenergized me for the rest of the afternoon. A flying-leaping-death-defying hug from that little munchkin can completely change my outlook on life.
Tonight I am grateful to time zones, which are usually a pain in the ass but have been a blessing to me as Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend begins publishing around the world. Thanks to time zones, I can spend my early morning hours before work speaking to my editor and publicist in the UK and my evening hours answering questions on Australian radio.
I can spend the late afternoon exchanging emails with SEO experts in Uzbekistan and still have time to chat with my agent, who is on the west coast and is therefore still working even after I have finished dinner.
If everyone was operating on the same schedule, I don’t know how I’d ever get anything done. Time zones manage to spread my work throughout the day and night, which means I never really stop working, but it also means I can at least get the work done.
Most of the elliptical machines that I use at the gym are equipped with televisions. I often spend my 30-45 minutes of cardio listening to podcasts, audiobooks and music, but occasionally, AMC, Spike, FX, or even ABC Family will run just the right movie to watch while working out. And sometimes that movie will be in just the right spot when I start working out.
Today the movie was Coach Carter, the true story of coach Ken Carter (played by Samuel Jackson) and his decision to bench his undefeated high school basketball team for academic reasons.
I’d never seen the film, but I’ve seen enough sports movies to understand the formula.
Sports movies make for an excellent workout.
Even better, I began working out during the last 45 minutes of the film, which features the Dead Poet’s Society moment when the team stands up for their coach, followed by the final game of the team’s season.
Well choreographed, well scored, nail-biting hoops with more dunks, alley-oops and three pointers than in a week of NBA games.
It could not have been a better moment to step on that elliptical.
David Brook’s book The Social Animal makes reference to a mental condition known as koro.
Koro is a culture-specific syndrome from Southeast Asia in which the person has an overpowering belief that his penis is shrinking and will shortly disappear. Also known as shrinking penis, the syndrome is listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
The world is such a strange and frightening place.
Almost without fail, my favorite moment of every day is moment I step through the door after work and hear my daughter shout “Daddy!”
Most of the time she comes running to greet me, but even when she doesn’t, the words are always enough to make every day perfect, at least for that minute.
Tonight I am grateful for my job.
Earlier this evening, I was offered a teaching job at a different school that included an increase in pay, an opportunity for advancement and an allegedly lighter workload. And while I was honored to receive such an offer, I never thought for a second about leaving my school for more money or potentially better working conditions.
Not for a second.
I feel extremely fortunate to be working in a school with students and teachers who bring bring me enough happiness on a daily basis to render an offer like this moot.
In our ongoing efforts to improve our dog’s behavior comes this minor miracle: Following the advice of our outlandishly affordable behaviorist, I set up a crate yesterday in hopes of crate training our nine year old Lhasa Apso. We’d like to be able to put the dog in the crate when little kids are visiting, since her ongoing back problems cause her to have little patience with unsteady, untrustworthy children with big feet and limited coordination.
We were also extremely happy to hear that when Kaleigh snaps at these children, Clara included, she does so without the intent of biting them.
According to our behaviorist, if a dog wants to bite a human being, it will bite a human being. People do not have the reflexes to avoid being bit. Snapping is a dog’s way of warning a person to stay away, and it does not mean that the dog will ever follow it up with a bite.
And since our dog is nine years old and has never bitten anyone, we are most likely in the clear when it comes to actual biting.
This was a great relief to us, but still, it would be nice to be able to put the dog in a crate when friends are visiting with their little ones.
Growling, snapping and barking all suck, even if the dog doesn’t plan on biting anyone.
The behaviorist told us that 95% of all dogs will accept and ultimately embrace the safety and security of a crate.
I didn’t think there was a shot in hell.
The dog is nine years old and stubborn. I didn’t think she’d even enter the crate on her own.
During the first week of training, we were told to set up the crate in a spot where should would normally lie down, place a couple treats inside and leave the door open.
Allow Kaleigh to enter at will.
Less than 36 hours after setting up the crate, with no coercion on our part, this is the result.
Damn that behaviorist is good.
Tonight I am grateful for the fifteen minutes that we spent driving to the dealership in order to pick up my wife’s car. Clara, who refused to nap this afternoon and went to bed extremely late last night, was strung out, altering between maniacal laughter and blithering, teary eyed nonsense as we discussed the probability that she might be a goon.
Elysha and I suspected that we might be getting a sneak peek into what Clara would act like if she were drunk.
It was hilarious.
Even though we had a great day, filled with laughs, lots of play, great spurts of productivity and a dinner at our place with several friends and their children, it was that short ride to the dealership that remains the highlight of my day.
It was one of those tiny, precious, you-had-to-be-there moments in the life of a parent that you never forget.
Tonight I am grateful for the Bissell SpotBot, which has saved our cat’s life on numerous occasions, including today.
Owen is prone to vomiting, as cats are wont to do, but he chooses to vomit only on soft, easy-to-stain, difficult-to-clean surfaces.
Our bedroom rug.
Our living room sofa.
Our bath mat.
The SpotBot removes all traces of the vomit from any of these surfaces with the press of a button. Simply fill the tank with cleaning fluid, drop the SpotBot on top of the stain and turn it on. The machine does the rest.
In all sincerity, it is one of the best purchases that my wife and I have ever made, and it might be the only reason that our cat continues to be allowed to live in our home.
Clara loves him, which helps his cause as well, but without the SpotBot, it would be dicey to say the least.
Tonight I am grateful for the general lack of sensitivity amongst my closest friends. I have not always been the most careful person when it comes to my words, and yet I have very few friends who become offended by anything I might say.
I’m not sure if this is because all those who might become offended have left for greener pastures, but either way, I’m fortunate to have friends who can handle plain spoken honesty and the occasional disregard for sensitivity altogether.
Eventually I would like my three-year old daughter to become a more than proficient reader, but tonight I found myself exceedingly grateful that she could not read a single word from the two books that she chose for us to read before bed.
The Little Golden Book versions of Lady and the Tramp and Noah’s Ark have an enormous number of words. Far too many for a little girl who was already twenty minutes late for bed. But we had no idea about the word counts when we agreed to read them. This was the first time that Clara had chosen them from her bookshelf. We assumed that these Little Golden Books would live up to their name.
They did not.
So when she insisted upon the books, my wife simply invented a story that contained considerably fewer words but still matched the pictures on each page.
Had Clara been able to read, this would not have been possible.
So hooray for my daughter’s illiteracy. I won’t be able to say this often, but tonight, I was happy that she is still unable to read.
As if she knew that it was my birthday, my daughter’s behavior was angelic last night. With my wife in class, Clara and I went to dinner with friends at a local restaurant, and she was damn near perfect for the entire time.
She played with her toys, chatted with my friends, charmed the waiter and ate all her food without complaint.
Then we came home and she happily got into her pajamas, joyously brushed her teeth, and screamed with excitement when it was time to go into her bedroom and read books.
Clara is normally a well behaved child, but I have honestly have never seen her so agreeable, easy going and enthusiastic about things that she does not normally like.
Tonight I am grateful for my daughter. She gave me the best birthday present that I could imagine.
And the only one, by the way. My wife went shopping for me this afternoon and came home with a maternity blouse for herself and nothing for me.
But she says she’s still working on it, so there’s hope.
Tonight I am grateful for the arrival of our new set of Tupperware. Few things make me happier than disposing of mismatched plastic containers and lids and replacing them with a brand new, fully matched set.
And no, it wasn’t a bad day for me. I had other things that I could have been grateful for. I just really like Tupperware.
Tonight I am grateful that my dentist appointment is behind me.
I had a small cavity in need of filling that required three shots of Novocain. Being a person pathologically afraid of needles, this was quite an ordeal for me, so I am incredibly relieved that it is over.
Even better, I had completely forgotten about my dentist appointment until an hour before it was to take place. I received a text message at 3:00 today, reminding me that I had an appointment at 4:00. This required a bit of scrambling about in order to cover an after-school class that I was scheduled to teach, but it also meant that I did not worry about the appointment all day long, as I most assuredly would have if I had remembered to put the appointment in my calendar.
I am forever grateful for the endless possibility that exists in my life. Perhaps I will always be a slightly-less-than-midlist author who publishes a fairly well reviewed novel every year or two, and if that is the case, I will be a happy man.
I am doing what I love.
I have often said that I would like to someday write for a living and teach for pleasure, and while I am certainly not ready or able to give up my teaching salary salary, I am closer to this dream than I ever thought imaginable.
Really, really far away, too, but still closer than I ever thought possible.
But with every book comes the possibility for greater success. A larger readership. An opportunity for more prolific career. The dream of a best seller.
In short, possibility.
In addition, all three of my books have been optioned for film or television. This does not mean that anything will ever happen with any of them, but once again, it represents possibility.
Then there is a rock opera that I have co-written, a small business that I run, and another business opportunity that looms on the horizon.
My life is filled with many unlikely ways to make my fortune. Retire young. Travel the world. Give my family everything they want.
None of this will probably never happen, and that is okay. I love my job and my students, and I feel incredibly lucky about the life I lead.
But I feel blessed with the ability to genuinely hope for so much more when so many cannot.
This is what I am thankful for tonight.
Tonight I am grateful for the ability to now upload entire documents to Google Docs rather than cutting and pasting from one program to another.
I know. It doesn’t sound like something worthy of a gratitude journal. But for a writer who uses Google Docs all the time and is constantly losing paragraphing and formatting while cutting and pasting, this is a big deal.
I’d say that it’s about time, but Google Docs is a free service, so it’s hard to complain if it lacks a feature that I might need.
Still, it’s about time.
