Hello, Ruby Thursday!



Ruby Meg Walker White

Our beautiful girl, Ruby Meg Walker White, entered the world, yesterday, Thursday, 30 September 2010 at 11:57 pm. She weighed 3.42 kilos (for friends and family in the U.S. of A, that's about 7 and a half pounds) and measured 51 centimetres long (20.1 inches). All we know about her right now is that she's wide-eyed and alert, placid, feeding well and healthy—which makes us lucky as hell. Yeah, we know: she's only been with us for less than 24 hours, but first impressions are lasting impressions. For what it's worth, at this point she bears a strong resemblence to her older brother, Cal. When families are fractured, a lot of stock is put in things like this.

Over the past nine months Katie made a serious study of pregnancy, the birthing process, midwifery and all things related to getting a little one into the world. She took an eight-week course that focused on mindful birthing and managing the discomfort. A pile of books grew next to her side of the bed. Her obstetrician and midwife were made aware of her birth plan a couple of months ago, and Katie wanted to have as natural a birth as possible.




We were called into the obstetrician's office on Wednesday afternoon. Katie had seen him the Thursday before and, although she was four days late at that point, he was willing to let her go another week before any interventions would be taken—but in all likelihood he was expecting her to go into labor within a day or two after that last session. Wednesday morning was 10 days overdue and steps had to be taken.




 At 4 pm on Wednesday we were in the hospital and Katie had a gel applied to her cervix. The hope here was that it would coax things along and that she could labor and deliver naturally. Early contractions started almost immediately but progress was slow. At 9 am on Thursday a second application of the gel was made after the obstetrician examined her and found that things had not moved along as he hoped. The image that remains from that scene is a strand of gore hanging from the doctor's hand while he made his pronouncement; childbirth is not for the squeamish. Three hours later a midwife broke her waters with something that looked like a hooked knitting needle.





Serious labour kicked in immediately, and Katie used all sorts of yogic and meditative techniques to deal with the discomfort. We took walks around the hospital, she used exercise balls, yoga mats and window sills for support, all the while chatting with various professionals and staffers between contractions. By 8 pm yesterday she was only 2 cm dilated after 28 hours of various interventions (bear in mind that she was also a week and a half overdue and her body, at some level, was crying out to deliver Ruby), so a syntocinon drip and an epidural were administered. A couple of episodes of fetal distress later and the call was made to perform a Caesarean section.

Katie's efforts, plans and ideals were all in the right place and she put so much work into mapping things out in a way that most harmonized with her beliefs. Each intervention that went counter to those plans... well, in simplest terms, they saddened and disappointed her. When you get right down to it, though, she just wanted what was best for Ruby, and when a C-section (doctor's orders, ultimately) factored in along those lines she was fine with it. For as old school and gruff as the obstetrician was, he praised Katie's efforts as he sutured her incision at the procedure's end.

 



Nature and science had their own ideas the last couple of days, but there's no doubt in my mind that all of Katie's exercise (she did not miss one day during the pregnancy), her admirable dietary habits and other such conscientious lifestyle choices gave Ruby the best start possible. Now that I think about it, just about everything she did during the last nine months had Ruby in mind.

A wonderful woman produced a wonderful girl. It's genetic, I guess.

Magnificent work, Katie. Welcome to the world, Ruby... we'll all learn a few things and have some fun along the way.

The Adventures of Cal and Mac, Episode II: Happy Kids, Happy Dad

Yesterday was a very typical Sunday with Cal and Mac. They woke up before me (but after Katie), wandered into the bedroom to see if I was awake and got the usual answer of "I'll be up in a couple of minutes, but keep the noise down, willya." They kinda kept the noise down and I kinda got up 10 minutes later.

Katie gave me a cup of coffee, I got the boys bowls of oatmeal. Cal and Mac then went outside and played for a while. I had breakfast, showered, dressed, puttered around the house and felt awake enough to suggest going to the park maybe two hours later.

There are a few parks within walking distance of our place: the enormous athletic field with the small dog park adjacent to it that features the great, slanted climbing tree, the park with the pond, ducks and the shorter climbing trees and then Beatty Park, which has the great jungle gym. We ended up at this last park, climbed, chased each other and made like major goofballs for a half hour or so. The game of choice was something I called The Tickleinator, which had me relentlessly marching after the fleeing kids while providing an accompanying soundtrack: "Chi-chi-chiiiih, chi-chi-chiiiih, chi-chi-chiiiih." Kids get caught, Dad tickles, kids laugh until they hate the tickling, kids are released. Repeat as necessary. Game stops when Dad gets bored.

At that point, Cal, sitting on the park's slide and looking into the sky, said simply, "I feel so happy."

The best thing a father can hear. The very best. I hope he has the ability to find such moments forever.

A moment later Mac said, "Cool! That cloud looks like a dinosaur head!" And it did for a moment or two before it became a rooster, then a guy screaming with a tongue curling out of his mouth and finally a charging ram before it dissipated into wisphood proper.

All of this was followed by a 20-min walk to Leederville and Subway. Cal and Mac split a seafood sub—I can't believe my older boy managed to talk his brother into sharing his new passion, given how picky Mac can be—and I went for a meatball sub. We ate them at one of the sidewalk tables as it was a beautifully sunny afternoon.

"Cal, slow down. You're gonna be sitting there without anything to eat and I know you'll be eyeballing our food." He chewed a few mouthfuls before going back to the wolfing. Mac is always the last one to finish eating; he gives Cal a few pieces of food once the eyeballing starts. So do I.

We walk home. Cal grabs my hand.

"Thanks, kid. I know you're not going to want to do that for much longer. But you can always grab my hand if you feel like it." He hung on for much of the walk home, until we got to the big park, and at one point Mac clutched my right hand.

Mac is a lot less affectionate and I'm often apologizing to Katie or her mother, Louise, when Mac is standoffish at hellos, goodbyes and bedtimes. In fact, I have to prompt him for a kiss when he walks into our home or he's dropped off at his mother's. That fact always gets woven into those apologies to Katie and Louise: "Don't worry, he doesn't even kiss his father that much." No, he's more likely to climb on top of me while I'm lying on the couch watching a movie, as he did yesterday afternoon during Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Mac really has a warm and good heart, but he's a complex kid. Which is understandable.

A few times during the weekend I said, "Wow. The next time you're here you'll probably have a baby sister."

The threat of not seeing Cal and Mac had been suspended over my head a few times during the last half decade. Intellectually, I knew it was unlikely that I would never see them again, but there have been times when the emotions have won that internal battle.

Turbulence gives way to growth, things move on, and we manage to find a lot of happiness in clouds, chasing, climbing and typical Sundays that start with a grouchy father and his noisy sons.

The Birthwatch

Katie and her beautiful belly

If you enter "deathwatch" into Google you get 318,000 results, yet "birthwatch" yields a mere 3220. I guess we're a glass-half-empty species by nature, huh?

Anyway, Katie and I are on the birthwatch right now. Last Friday was her last official day of work and she's now on maternity leave. Any twinge below the ribcage might herald the arrival of the Little One, the slightest wave of nausea cause for extra vigilance. 

It does my heart a lot of good to see the woman with the admirable work ethic finally taking a bit of time for herself, though her social calender is full of coffee catch-ups. Honestly, I don't think she has the ability to do nothing.   

"You are definitely going to have to paint my toenails soon," Katie said a moment ago. I made the offer a few days back, and I better make good on it soon, lest she put unadorned tootsies into stirrups. Wonder if she asked the hospital about it's policy regarding bling in the birthing room? It's something she was curious about. 

She's doing a few floor exercises right now... I guess carrying the 3-kilo child plus placenta, amniotic fluid and other such baby-building equipment isn't enough and she had to throw a kilo of ankle weights on each leg. My commando babe is a glutton for punishment, but she claims the exercise is more meditative than anything else at this point. She sits up and rubs her belly, absentmindedly watching the contestants of Deal or No Deal on the screen... she looks fantastic.

Little One, you've won the Mummy Lottery. See you soon.

On Juicing, Part I

A few days ago, while doing some reading on the movie The Hurt Locker, I stumbled upon an excellent blog, Army of Dude. The blogger, Alex Horton, started his writings just prior to being deployed to Iraq, where he saw combat, and he managed to capture the humor, horror and honor that's experienced during wartime and in the military. He made it through the gauntlet soul and body intact, though he lost friends and comrades in action, and has gone on to college. Excellent and eye-opening stuff.

Anyway, as I was reading the blog, it occurred to me that Horton could describe the sound of a bullet flying by his head before he experienced a pub crawl. He did his first bar hopping while on leave in Europe and I recall him writing something like, "I've never been much of a drinker," in that entry. If memory serves, he was 21 at the time. This got me thinking about my relationship and history with alcohol.

Pondering my relationship with booze

By the time I was 21, booze had been with me for a third of my life. I got drunk for the first time with my stepbrother, Bruce, precisely a month before my 14th birthday: 20 February 1979. Bruce was 26 at the time and had been a widower for over a year. Many entries could and may be devoted to him; he's been dead for just over 20 years now, largely a result of substance abuse. The substance that February night was very cheap Andre champagne. My stepfather always had a case of that super sweet stuff around at the time. I think it was, like, $2 a bottle, and I drank about $3 worth.

So, that first outing with the koo-koo juice had me puking in the sink the next morning. My sister, Meg, does a pretty nice impression of me hunched over the sink, "Oh, no! Not again! Buuuuiccck!"

Mum and Harry were pretty liberal about alcohol, and during those early teen years they'd allow us to have a bit of bubbly during celebrations, but I avoided that particular poison for a couple of years. In the meantime, Bruce would often give me a little bottle of Jack Daniels so that I could play the tough guy in front of my buddies. And, as misguided and pathetic that it is, I did feel tough. The early high school years found the gang and I in the woods or behind the cemetery on Route 53 drinking a case of beer, most likely procured by someone else's older brother, if not the mighty Bruce himself.

During my last year or so in high school I was borderline serious about exercise and worked in a health club, so I drank much less than many of my buddies, though I still had the occasional beer on a Friday evening as we were closing the club. Similarly, I didn't drink that much early in my enlistment. In fact, I had nothing to drink the weekend I graduated from bootcamp, traditionally a time for a monstrous piss-up.

In 1986, when I was first assigned to my ship, USS Dahlgren (DDG-43), I went through a wine cooler phase... which put me at the opposite end of the Testicular Scale from my Jack Daniels days. Caught plenty of shit for that, trust me. Anyway, I started ascending ("descending" might be more apt) the slippery slopes of Mount Hooch during my own military-funded adventures in Europe during my first Med Cruise. From that point on, I was a pretty typical young GI boozer. Nothing too serious and all in good fun. Anyway, I had no real responsibilities or worries and nothing to escape.

One could argue that the drinking I did while at college was pretty typical for a 20-something-year-old man. While studying full time, I always worked two—and often three—jobs, and every Friday night, which I made sure I had off, I made a point of getting nice and fecal featured. That's not that big a problem. When I took a semester off for lack of motivation, though, and started upping the efforts after I broke up with a girlfriend... well, that wasn't good.

Waking up in an emergency room with a broken nose, really wasn't good. Time for reflection.

It's Been a While, I Know

There's really no good excuse for my absence from these pages. Well, May and June were a bit tricky because finishing uni was commanding a monstrous chunk of my attention and then my practical teaching experience commanded a monstrous chunk of everything during the latter month. So much for capturing this important time of transition for posterity! Lazy basstid. I did become a qualified teacher in the meantime, though.

Okay, time to atone for things. As it's the first day of spring in Australia (they base things on the calendar here rather than the celestial event—go figure), it's a good day for it. Spring cleaning, you could say.

The big news is that Katie is wicked pregnant. Having said that, she still seems to have tons of energy, though her sleeping has been shallow and broken for a while. A few weeks back we had our pre-admission meeting at the hospital and the midwife asked her, at the meeting's end, "Do you have any other questions or do you want to tell us anything about your pregnancy?"

"Nothing that I can think of—I've enjoyed it." Wow. 

Anyway, the pic above is from about three weeks ago. My mother had sent us a kit to make a cast of Katie's belly and other bits, and that's what we did that Sunday afternoon. It's no mean feat for a woman who is almost eight months pregnant to sit still for 1.75 hours, but anything in the name of family artifacts.  

It needs to be noted that the baby (working title Ruby Meg, a name that people love in Oz but not so much in New England) is very, very active. If memory serves, much more so than her brothers. Always on the move. Takes after her Mum, I suppose. The little one is slated to make her entry into the outer world in 18 days. Katie feels as though she's had some movement at the station and that things will happen earlier, yet her sister and mother delivered their babies late. At any rate—even if she's really late—she'll be in our arms by the end of this month.  

One of the other big events during the last few months was my cousin Andy's visit back in May. So awesome to see the guy. We last saw each other about a dozen years ago, when he was in his 20s and I was in my early 30s and had no kids. We laughed a lot and sort of caught up on things. Katie was amazed at how quicky we fell into natural rhythms of conversation. I told her that some cousins see each other rarely, but there were a lot of holidays and weekends in the 70s and early 80s down at Gramma White's, down The Cape, at Stock Steet in Dorchester, East Dedham and in Norwell. Lots of major goofiness, childhood bravado and crazy laughs with Frankie, David, Andy and Gregory. Throw in the similar experiences in the Navy and there was no way we weren't going to have a good time. 

On top of that, it was wonderful introducing both Katie and the boys to a family member. Although Cal knows many of the people back home, Andy was the first member of his father's family that Mac met. Six years old. I get really bummed out if I ponder that one too much. Enclosed is the money shot from Andy's visit: someday I hope my sons will say, "Here's that picture of us with cousin Andy when he was in the war." Yeah, I suffer from terminal nostalgia, for sure. 

At some point in another entry I'll write more about Andy and my family in general. I had some notes about how proud I am of the family's tradition of service, in the military and in health care, education and the trades, but I'll get to that later. Suffice it to say I had a huge feeling of pride while hanging with my cousin who's made good on his lifelong passion for aviation and who has served his country so well.

What more can I say? I work full time at Kitchenware Direct now, though I am applying for teaching jobs. Lots of red tape to deal with, like getting a registration number through the Western Australian College of Teaching (done) and another official number of some sort and salary figure from the Department of Education and Training (not so done). A few private schools have me on their lists for relief/substitute teaching, but no calls yet.

Cal and Mac are doing well. Getting so big... Mac's front teeth, which he seemed to lose mere weeks ago, have come in. Cal is putting on a whisper of weight, slowly gearing up for latency and then that big push towards puberty in the next few years. They both love to climb trees, draw, fart and wrestle with each other. Mac recently got a free ice cream at school for receiving nine good conduct tick marks. He needs to exhibit more of that behaviour at 15 Kadina Street, I think. Okay, I'm being a little hard on the kid. He's generally quite good, but can be a bit obstinate from time to time. And he's not exactly nice to Katie. While she'll never be unaffected by his generally cool and sometimes cruel distance, she has a huge amount of patience there. Thanks, Sweetheart. Trust me, things are likely to get better over the years.

Cal, on the other hand, really does make an effort. With everyone. While Mac won't give his Old Man a kiss when he gets dropped off at his mother's house—you really can't blame the conflict he must have over his allegiance there—Cal will give me two. He's also pretty warm towards Katie. Anyway, he can make his own bowl of oatmeal and recently I had asked him to go to the store next door to buy a half gallon of milk. I crept out of the house half a minute after he left, followed him and watched him from the far side of the parking lot, but he completed the mission in fine style. Seems like only yesterday when he could be held in one hand and balanced on a forearm.

Everyone is growin' or growin' up nicely down here.

Happy Birthday, My Boy!

My Pal Cal was born a decade ago today!

If memory serves, he came onto the scene at about 9:30 on a Friday evening. He took the emergency C-section option because he gave the docs the impression that he had a distressed heart rate, most likely due to his clutching the umbilical cord. Given that he was so well formed (I remember the doc saying, "This one's a Gerber baby!"), I like to think that he was just letting everyone know he was ready despite what the calendar said.

Of course he cried as a baby, but he honestly didn't cry a whole lot... although I have a picture of him during his first Halloween with a big, fat tear on his cheek. I had put a few wrappings on him, you know, so he could be a baby mummy for the holiday. I don't remember him wailing during that time, so I'm guessing the tear is evidence of his quietly enduring this weird seasonal humiliation. Selfish, I know: I was dying to share my own childhood passions with my kid as soon as possible.

I've slept poorly since 1993 and fatherhood didn't help things there but, although this is not a blessing for anyone and is a curse proper for the highly reflective, it did yield a gift once. Lying in bed late one night when Cal was not quite a year old, I heard him from his crib across the hall, in a baby's sing-song, say "Da-da." It sounded like total happiness! I got up to check on him and discovered that he was still asleep. Maybe he was dreaming, but I like to think that it was his way of saying, "The big guy is okay in my book." Anyway, it was his first recognizable word.

I think our first conversation, when he was maybe a year and a half old, was something like this:

Cal (pointing to a drink on the table): Dat yours?

Me: Yes it is, Cal.

Cal (pointing to his drink): Dat mine?

Me: It sure is.

And one of his other early questions was, "You got gas?" It's par for the course, but Cal and Mac still talk about gas a lot. I suspect it'll continue for, oh, 70 or 80 years.

I said to Katie the other day, "Despite how things turned out, I do have really good memories of those early years with Cal as a baby."

Some of the memories are very simple. Like standing out in the yard in Framingham on a cold autumn evening and showing him the full moon and stars. He cried out, "Moooooooon" and pronounced the sparklers "shtars." Maybe he was trying out a Sean Connery impression.

A year or two later, sitting on the porch up in Campton, New Hampshire, I pointed west and said, "Those are the White Mountains, Cal."

A small look of confusion. "But they're blue, Dad." The kid has always had a good grip on reality!

Sometimes on the weekends I had the kids after the divorce, I would wake up to have Cal standing there and giggling. He was only five years old, so his face would be at about the same height as my head on the pillow. Maybe he'd be poking my face or making goofy noises. At the time I probably thought the kid was being pesky, but the memories age really well.

  

Then there was the adventure in America back in 2007. Cal loves the fact that he was born there and he's gracious enough to let me know this all the time. You know... he really does make an effort to say things that will please me. I know he's doing this, and I often tell him, "Cal, you don't have to say that just to be nice to Dad."

"I know that, Dad."

What can I say... he's been a great kid and I like to think he's made the world a better place just by being a good kid in a world that's full of not-so-good kids and not-so-good adults. I know I'm awfully biased and I'm not going to make any apologies for that.

Enjoy your day, My Boy! And thank you.  

You Can Be Proud, Little One

I felt my daughter kick this morning! She doesn't make her appearance until mid-September, but she made her presence known through Katie's stomach. "What's happenin', Daddy?!" Bam! While there's a touch of anxiety regarding finances and some of the logistics involved, I'm really looking forward to the arrival of my baby girl. I have no preconceptions about how our relationship will unfold over the decades, and that's kind of liberating.  

You see, if we all have a major theme or issue to deal with in our lives—you know, something preordained by the universe—then I know mine focuses on fathers and sons. I did not know my father... that's not to say that I do not know who my father was or that there's some great mystery there, it's just that Charles Gregory McNeil, Sr. ceased to be a part of my life after my parents divorced in 1969. Everything else in my life has been viewed in the context of his absence. My stepfather loomed larger. Mentors like my Uncle Jim and Lou DeLuca and their teachings became all the more important and appreciated. When my own sons came along I felt I was repairing the damage from the earlier generation. Then the divorce and their having a stepfather... history repeated itself and everyone took their appropriate roles. A slow-starting career and any associated setbacks somehow seemed genetic. And what will my sons think of their father? Will they curse the connection? Have any sort of admiration or think me pathetic? Feel that I wronged them? There are just too many comparisons with the same-sex parent, I guess.

My daughter, though... it seems I can just be a parent without old ghosts floating around. As the late Lou DeLuca would have said (okay, some ghosts are benevolent), I can approach our relationship with an open hand and just let things be; nothing needs to be wrestled into place.

Don't get me wrong: I love my sons dearly and am thankful for them. Cal has the beautiful soul I could only imagine having; he is a kind boy, and I was not nearly as kind as a boy (and not as a man, for that matter). Right now it appears that Mac may harness his piss and vinegar, a trick I have yet to master. In varying measures and proportions they are both soulful and spirited and I could not be prouder. Every moment they are with me feels like a stolen gift, each hour just a bit more assurance that we won't forget each others' expressions, connections, quirks... which should not be the case but, hell... divorce. In the resigned words of Tony Soprano, "What are ya gonna do?"

At this point, all Katie and I really know about our daughter is that she has relatively long toes. Katie was concerned here because her toes are kind of short (well, the last three are wicked short). So, it looks like the girl will have at least something in common with Daddy. And that's another thing... I can call myself "Daddy" in context with her, but I tend to think of myself as "the Old Man" in the context of Cal and Mac. Jesus Christ... rumination always yields more baggage! "More issues than Time magazine, more baggage than Denpasar Aiport."

Anyway, a man looks at his sons and it can be like looking into the mirror—especially if certain family patterns repeat themselves. With a daughter things are just a touch alien and we don't know what to expect.

I can, however, tell you what I hope for my daughter. It would be a blessing if she had her mother's way with people, talent for kindness, generally sunny disposition and amazing work ethic. She'd be lucky if she got my mother's common sense, gift of doing things nicely and reverance for the family's traditions and elders. From Katie's mother she'll hopefully get great senses of curiosity and humor and conscientiousness. Perhaps Auntie Meggie's talents for friendship, conversation and the hard act of bringing equal parts wisdom and great humour into this life. Aunt Martha's hugely warm spirit and gracious soul. Kathy's appreciation and deft practice of a great many arts, from healing to folk. Debbie's sense of community, empathy and sentimental nature. Auntie Sal's entrepreneurial sense wouldn't hurt, that's for sure.

Going back, I know I was blessed with two amazing grandmothers, though I only met my mother's mother. A talented seamstress, she ran her own business out of the cellar, spoke Italian beautifully, loved to dance and play cards and was tough without being harsh.  My paternal grandmother died about six years before I was born, but from all accounts she was a vivacious and glowing soul... the kind of woman who would buy her Godson a puppy. There's no doubt she was the warm heart of that family, and her untimely death had huge repercussions on that family. Huge.

Katie's mother, Louise, describes her mother as formidable and Katie has a long line of wonderful memories that center on her grandmother's warm and protective nature.       

This is all just a long-winded way of saying to my unborn daughter that she has a lot of remarkable women in her bloodline. She can be proud of all the wonderful role models she has in her little community.

Hell... even her ghosts are good ones.

Growling, Cooing and Nyuck-Nyuck-Nyucking Through the Generation Gap

Katie and I went down to the Margaret River area over Easter. There we spent a bit of time with her sister, Sal, and three-month-old nephew, Jacob. At one point Katie had asked me if I wanted to hold the baby and my response was, "I don't know... I'm okay with my own kids; I don't feel funny cooing or growling at them, but not other kids."

Maybe it was a case of jitters prior to our own baby's arrival, but I started wondering if I had lost my touch with babies. Now, given the villain I have become post-divorce, I'm sure my ex-wife would say that I never had a touch with babies and that I was much more of a growler than a cooer, but when I was growing up I seemed to be pretty good with babies and people would say things like, "You'll be a good father some day."

Being entirely candid, I know that I was, for various reasons, quite depressed when my younger son Mac was born and I had offered up a spicey soundbite or two in regards to fatherhood and my tenuous connection to him. Thankfully, I grew close to him after I found a job and started settling on the new continent, but the pangs of guilt are still there. I figured if I held Jacob he'd pick up on my failings with babies in the past and would just wail.

Don't get me wrong, I like many babies, and I certainly don't dislike them on principle. My stepfather, Harry G. Nicoll, on the other hand, would often make the pronouncement, "I. Don't. Like. Babies." In a movie, you might have a central character say such a thing several times throughout the flick only to see him awkwardly cuddle-up with his grandchild during the last reel, but Harry's story, as far as I can tell, didn't have such a moment. My mother had the whole situation nicely pegged: "He just hates the fact that babies take the attention away from him." In his defense, Harry was great with older kids, teenagers and young people in general. But he really didn't like those beings that, in his words, "did nothing but eat, shit and squawk."

Getting back to me and babies and away from the digression, some babies I like and some are just okay. I certainly don't view all of them as adorable little angels, nor do I view them with the passion that some have for, say, a specific breed of dogs. Although you can't accurately say that a baby has a personality, you can say the little one has a presence. Some harmonise with us, others not so much.

Anyway, Katie is very persuasive. I held Jacob for a few minutes. He's too young to be bounced or tossed (to name just a couple of stereotypical guy-baby activities), but he was pretty cool with make believe dancing coupled with a mild invisible elevator sort of movement. I even got a few smiles out of him and a proto-giggle. In my book, that counts as bonding with Uncle Greg. We're pretty cool with each other. All of this bodes well for September and the arrival of Little Walker-White (whose sex is to be discovered in five days, by the way).

Moving up a few stages in the life cycle, last weekend Firstborn Cal and I were cruising through YouTube. Somehow we got to The Three Stooges.

"Oh, Cal! You're gonna love these guys! I used to watch them all the time when I was your age."

I explained to him how they were known for their particularly violent brand of slapstick. "But it's not the kind of violence you see in your video games or in, like, The Lord of the Rings." The clip we watched (linked above) was described as the "most violent sequence ever," but I knew no one was going to be killed and that it would be bloodless. Certainly it wouldn't be as bad as The Itchy & Scratchy Show, which he's seen tons of times on The Simpsons.

Well, was I surprised by Cal's reaction (picture at left)! Not only did he not laugh, but there were a few times when his eyes widened in disbelief. When Moe put Curly's nose to the grinding wheel he said something like, "Oh, my God, Dad! That is so violent!" He was really taken aback! At that point, I was more amused with the difference in tastes between the generations than I was the video clip. This kid (and all of his peers, lest I come off as the least-discerning father in Australia) has seen Orcs beheaded, Indiana Jones bloodying Nazis, Luke Skywalker have his hand amputated by his own father, King Kong chomping on Skull Islanders, hordes of the Na'vi wiped out on Pandora and Spider-Man receive plenty of graphic ass-whippings by deranged supervillains—but he was slapped out of his complacency by Moe Howard!

Honestly... I'm guessing it's Moe's bullying ways that did it. The guy really does have a nasty attitude and his expressions are genuinely mean when he whacks the other two. As far as I know, Cal has never been slapped before, so maybe that has something to do with it. When I was growing up, bullying was a fine art during recess at Avery School. I should be grateful that my boys are growing up in an age when grabbing another's nose is worse than decapitation, right?

Note to self : For pure entertainment value, invisible elevators have a greater shelf life—across generations—than The Stooges. You oughta know that by now, you chowdahead—crack! crunch! boink!

Finding Innocence

There are plenty of stories about the loss of innocence. As a genre, it's pretty stale. When I was a teenager, I figured The Loss was one's virginity, and not too long after that I thought that it must be when one has their heart broken. At any rate, that's what the movies usually depict... the one-two-three punch-kick-slap of getting laid for the first time, falling in love (the order can be changed there) and then heartbreak. You can probably think of five movies or novels that follow that formula—15, if you add a vampire into the mix.

In my later 20s it became clear to me that the real loss of innocence is when you actually do the heartbreaking. Power is being exercised and maybe misused and you're not the innocent party anymore. This is where emotional callouses are really developed. I mean, you can have your heart broken a few times and still be plenty wet behind the ears. Soaking. In fact, retained innocence is likely why you're still getting your heart broken. As far as romance goes, my stepfather was always trying to drill a certain amount of worldliness into me when I was a young man. He might as well have been yelling, "Lose that stupid-ass innocence and wise up, moron!" Most likely he'd punctuate all of that with a "Jesus H. Christ!"

It took me a while, but I eventually wised up, and this was followed by years of guilty shenanigans, reckless romancing, nuptials, fatherhood, grinding through a failing marriage and then divorce. Then came the rebounding and rancid ruminating. Loss of innocence and innodollars and my innocredit rating was horrible, too. Emotional pockets were waaaaay empty. Or "wicked empty," as we'd say back home.

If we're very, very lucky, though, we find innocence again. I did.

This is how I found it—and I can be very specific here. I met Katie on Friday, May 16th 2008 at The Subiaco Hotel. My imagination was nabbed like never before. Label me superficial, but, yes, beauty and style caught my eye. My buddies kept telling me to go over and talk with her or I'd freak her out with all the staring. Must've been that sleek, black hair cut across the brow and that gorgeous coat with the faux fur collar that did it. Maybe the way she really listened to her friends and smiled. There were a lot of things, actually, but I didn't feel I could approach her until I saw that she was kind enough to help a struggling waiter clear off a table. Lust at first sight was then spiced with fondness; that's a potent combo.

All of this is just a quick background to the specific moment. Bear with me. So, I introduced myself, we hung out that evening and I spoke with, texted and emailed her in the week leading up to our first date the following Saturday. I had my kids that night and she came over to my place in Fremantle after I put them to bed. We shared a bottle of red on my back porch, had the obligatory deep and meaningful and, according to Katie, I gave no indication that I was genuinely interested. We moved the conversation inside eventually.

The moment: after talking for a few minutes in my kitchen, Katie leapt up into my arms. I mean she jumped up onto me and latched on with her legs and arms. Wow. Talk about gutsy! My sister Meg would have to agree with me that the "chumpiness potential" is frickin' huge there. Honestly, Katie's move was a very real leap of faith.

That leap went against everything that I had read or heard about in the popular press, in books like The Game or shows like Sex and the City. Here was a woman who had plenty of options and attention—in fact, the night after we met she had a date—yet she was so open, free and generous with her spirit (which is probably why she had the attention and dates to begin with). There was nothing calculated. And Katie wasn't a jump-into-the-arms kind of woman. She just went with the moment, and that allowed me to be open and free with my better self.

Innocence found.

Meeting and sharing my life with Katie has been an enormous blessing. I could go on and on about how Katie is so good to me, but that's not the really wonderful thing. I mean, when I was younger I'd spent time with partners who were, initially, pretty nice to me. There were even times when it seemed like the person was especially nice to me despite having problems with or little time for others. I thought, "Wow, I must be a really wonderful person." Eventually, though, things would turn and the special treatment I'd been receiving disappeared. I'm no martyr and I can be awfully reactive, so things would run a predicatable course.

Here's the thing, though: Katie is kind to everyone. To put it plainly, she's simply kind. Her  being kind to me isn't a case of her knowing which side her bread is buttered on (not that I can afford lots of butter). She's good to her mother, stepfather, sister and friends. It sounds like she's always been a wonderful coworker and colleague. It's a running joke now, but when I look at pictures of her as a child or teenager, she's almost always beaming at the person she's standing with and her expression says, "I just love my Dad/nanna/stepsister/best friend/next-door neighbor!" Katie will also tell a stranger how beautiful a dress looks on her. The woman is as generous with compliments as she is with good deeds and warmth.

Here we need to make the distinction between kind and nice. A good synonym for nice is "unoffensive." I say that because it's just become too much of a cliche to say "nice = boring." Nice can indeed be boring, but that's not always the case, and the term certainly indicates someone who does not offend. Now, my Katie might be offensive to some, because her capacity for swearing can make this former sailor blush. She used to smoke and could drink pretty well, too. As a high school student she was a habitual truant. I guess what I'm trying to say is that she doesn't have a sterling track record of bland niceness. This flawed fellow can relate to that.

Katie will often say that her sensitivity makes her a "pain in the ass," but I find her transparency refreshing. Here's an oxymoronic idea for you to mull over: she's fearless about her insecurities. Yes, we all have them, but many will fight tooth and nail to keep them hidden. What they might do is offer up some idiosyncracy as an insecurity, and that's a pretty good start, but the real worries are locked away. Festering. Katie gets it all out there, though, and that allows this peasant to voice his long-held worries, too (another big no-no according to some popular writings on the man-woman dynamic). Our mission now is to handle each other's fears gently, and I have every confidence that we'll do just that.  

When it comes to affairs of the heart, I tell anyone who will listen that they're enormously lucky if they have a partner who is kind, makes them hot and is easy to talk with. Anything else is gravy. If you have someone in your life with whom you can be your unarmored self, you've got dessert, too. But it takes so much courage to lay down one's arms, drop the guile, and fly in the face of the prevailing wisdom.

My arms, though, will always be there to catch you, Katie.

The Adventures of Cal and Mac, Episode I

I had my sons this past weekend. Always good to see them although, as a half month passes between their stays with Katie and I, I'm often taken aback at how much they've changed since our last time together. According to the markings on the study's door frame, both of them have grown about three inches during the past year. Each time I see Mac I notice a tooth is missing or one is coming through. Cal's sense of humour becomes more sophisticated, he picks up more in general and displays a lot of the behavior we associate with tweens.

Specific things? Well, this last weekend Cal read the whole of The Call of The Wild within a few hours. Mac, I came to discover, had won a merit certificate for language a couple of days before. He's only in first grade, but he's a standout in the basics of reading and writing. I figured he was pretty bright, but it's great to see it made official. So, they're both ticking along pretty well in terms of intellectual development. Along those lines, they'll be starting at a good private school in a couple of weeks.


It's fantastic that their mother and stepfather can afford to give them a superior education, and I believe that Cal and Mac (right) will thrive in such a setting. I'm grappling with my inability to pay for such things, though: as a fledgling high school teacher, half of their annual tuition would cost me just a touch under a quarter of a year's salary. What's the right thing to do here? Should I get a second job and forget about ever owning a house? Please bear in mind that Katie and I have another child to think about now and that I've not been involved with any decision-making processes regarding the boys' schooling.

Hold on a minute... I need to put the brakes on the guilt reaction here. I am not the only working class father of two in the Perth metro area who can't afford to send his kids to an exclusive private school.

What can I offer my kids? What do I offer them?

The Goofy Stuff

While the hour of tennis we play on Sunday mornings is a nod of the head to respectable activities, Mac, Cal and I spend a lot of time drawing at the kitchen table. This is a throwback to my own childhood: one of my earliest and fondest memories is of my Uncle Jim and I, back when he was dating my Aunt Kathy, circa 1970, sitting at the breakfast table drawing cartoon characters. A few years later I would develop a callus on my middle finger from my hours of drawing superheroes and monsters. My mother's brother, Uncle Frank, also a talented sketch artist, would often ask me, "That's pretty good, Gregory, but when are you going to draw something like airplanes?"


Most of my boys' drawings are of The Incredible Hulk, weird faces, pirates, King Kong and Star Wars characters, but the late Uncle Frank would be pleased to know that every now and again Cal will draw WWII era soldiers. Oh - I almost forgot! Lately both boys have been drawing Sasquatch quite a bit. My interest in the cryptid (please note that I am a hopeful skeptic with an accent on "skeptic") has been reawakened recently and I've shared this with them. They've seen the Patterson-Gimlin Film and are familiar with its famous Frame 352 (see Cal's photo at right). For a while they were both doing various Sasquatch calls around the house... but they eventually spooked each other so I had to issue a cease and desist order.


As you can imagine, we watch a lot of movies, too. They've been so steeped in the Star Wars canon that any prolonged periods of misbehavior are blamed on The Dark Side. Cal and Mac have also seen the original King Kong (1933... Cal used to call it "the gray one") and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), so they'll have a jump on things if they should take a film studies class at the private school. Action figures go about their business to an urgently hummed Indiana Jones theme or an obscure motif from any of the Star Wars films. For a couple of years now they've both been able to pick out the Wilhelm Scream from a movie. The fact that I'm proud of this probably says something about my questionable values.


Then there are the adventures in the real world. A big chunk of this past Saturday was devoted to making a sculpture out of sticks in the park. You see, Perth experienced a hellacious storm last Monday and the grounds were strewn with tree limbs, bark and branches. We had a great time doing this and Mac really threw himself into the task... he imagined the kinds of creatures, both real and mythical, who might live inside. Cal grew bored after an hour or so, but it didn't tower over him like it did Mac, so you can understand. That's when he started perfecting Sasquatch's characteristic arm-swinging walk. I guess the twisted pile of branches made a good backdrop for the imagined antics of the Pacific Northwest's elusive beast.


The headmaster of this really private school gives its two creative students As for their efforts and talents.

Now It Can Be Told

Certainly there's a reason for this blog, right? I mean, other than it being another The World According to Greegor website, there has to be some theme propelling things. The future English teacher in me thinks, "There better be." Well, now that I've told my mother and the world (thank you, Facebook) the news, I can finally get to the point here.

In a sense, I've been given a second chance: my partner, Katie, and I are expecting a baby. Katie's first, my third. Wonderful news and definitely a planned-for pregnancy, although I thought it would take a while for the alchemy to happen. Why do I consider our baby a second chance rather than a third blessing (which it is)?

I have two sons, Callum and Cormac. I spent five years under the same roof with Cal by the time my ex-wife and I called it quits; Mac was 14 months old. When Cal blew out his candles on that day, I remember thinking, "Wow, I lasted a year longer with Cal than my father did with me." I'll be the first to admit that I harbored a defeatist mindset there. That's a failing in itself. The old apples, gravity and trees thing at work, I suppose. Always aware of most of my shortcomings—I have no doubt that I have my blind spots—I just assumed that the marriage wouldn't last. The bank account of resentments starts off with a big deposit when two hemispheres factor into the young union.

Let me quickly put the brakes on things: I can pillory myself here, but not the boys' mother.

Anyway, after the divorce I wrote up a list of things that I felt I did wrong and areas in which I might want to improve. I carried it around with me for a while and it soon had me thinking that maybe I didn't deserve to be a father. Sure, I paid my child support, had the kids on a weekend night and, initially, a night or two during the workweek. I did my best despite having a virtually non-existent support system but I wasn't really a father... I was Uncle Dad.

That feeling persists to the present day. Mac had his sixth birthday four days ago but I was not there. If he wants to come over this weekend, we'll do something to mark his special day. Hey, he's a little kid and knows that cake and presents are waiting, so it's a safe bet he'll be over. Another safe bet is that, when he first gets here, Mac will slip-up once or twice and call me "Papa," something I'm almost numb to after three and a half years.

Two weeks ago, when I was dropping the boys off at their mother's house, their stepfather was out front washing the Volvo. At this point Mac almost ran in front of a car while crossing the street, and to steer him off of what could've been a tragic trajectory I yelled (admittedly, my voice gets big and scary), "Mackie! Mackie! Mackie!" Screeching brakes and nasty thump were avoided, but not tears, wailing and a cry of, "No! You're not the boss of me!" All of this was within easy earshot of Papa, who probably is the boss of my son Cormac.

Uncle Dad.

Phoenix Fathers

No, I am not the only Uncle Dad in the world. What makes my situation a bit spicier, though, is that I too was raised by a stepfather and had my own you're-not-the-boss-of-me moment. I guess I was about 15 years old and it was Christmas Eve over at my Aunt Martha's house, sister of my natural father whom I had not seen in... maybe six or seven years. At one point in the evening, Aunt Martha handed me the phone and I spoke into the receiver, "Hi. Who's this?"

"It's your father."

"You're not my father. I have a real father now." End of conversation. Ouch.

Truth be told, I don't remember the incident. I think my sister, Meg, relayed it to me years later. But it certainly seems characteristic of me back then.

About 15 or 16 years after that call I had started feeling like the loser he was supposed to be. So I called him to apologise for my callous remark. Wow... it just dawned on me that the apology call is temporally equidistant from the remark and the present day. At any rate, we both apologised during that short phone call. Never saw each other again. Charles Gregory McNeil, Sr. died in subsidized housing in November of 2000.

We've heard time and again that being a parent is the most important job in the world. How many of us have screwed up that job royally or at least feel like we've botched things? How many of us toil under and try to escape the shadow of a bad parent? Are we ever allowed to say, "From this point on, I am indeed a good father"? Or shall we pay for those sins, real or perceived, forever?

When can we rise from the ashes of our failings, take wing and approach that job with a renewed purpose, confident in our good intentions and become a phoenix father, if you will?

Sure, if you go to any orchard you'll see that apples really don't fall far from their trees. Last time I checked, though, apples can be shiny but they're not reflective.

I have not wronged my sons in any significant way and probably not any insignificant ways, now that I think about it. They have enviable and privileged lives and I will again contribute to those lives financially when I'm finished at university and working full time. But I'm here for them, have a comfortable room for them and deny them nothing during their fortnightly stays. Hey... at least Mac has someone he can shout "You're not the boss of me" to! There is indeed value in that. Trust me.

Katie, thank you for telling me that I will be a good father to Little One. And for continuously reminding me that I'm good to Cal and Mac. Someday I'll get the message.

Little Moments with the Big Screen

I had a wonderful weekend with my older son, Callum, whom I see two weekends a month. Sometimes Cal is accompanied by his younger brother, Mac. Lately, though, almost-six-year-old Mac often doesn't feel like coming over. I can't blame the little guy for this; he was only 14 months old when his mother and I divorced and he started calling another guy "Papa" not too long after that. My guess is he's a little confused. I'll leave it at that.

Upon arrival, Cal said something about almost seeing Avatar earlier but the idea had been nixed in the other household because it was felt that the aliens in the movie might scare Mac. Fair enough. Since Mac wasn't with us, Cal and I had our opening to see what's being likened to a similar cinematic experience many of us had in 1977.

A great many people are going to catch the reference to '77 without any explanation—and I tend to get along with those people very well—but for the rest of you, I'm talking about Star Wars. Star Wars before there was anything about episodes or "A New Hope." Magic that's been talked about and referenced so much in pop culture in recent years as being magical that a lot of the magic has been washed out. I was 12 years old in '77 and I was one of the target audiences. Another member of another target audience would have been my 50-year-old stepfather-to-be Harry G. Nicoll. Harry read tons of science fiction, worked on some of the early space projects and could remember the Flash Gordon serials of the 1930s.

I'm almost certain that we saw the movie in early September of that year. Either that or late August. At the time the flick was just becoming a phenomenon and no one knew enough to keep and frame the ticket stub, but I can pretty much nail my initial viewing of Star Wars to the three-week window of late August to the first half of September. As a kid who spent a lot of time drawing and zero time playing baseball or other such sports, the movie hit me hard. I was Darth Vader for Halloween that year, collected the cards and kept a Star Wars scrap book.

That was the superficial stuff.

Three years later and the Empire Strikes Back comes out. When I discovered that Vader was Luke's father, the mythology knocked me for a loop and I found myself in a subset target audience of the original target audience: I had not seen my wheezing (he died of emphysema years later), villified and absent father in many years... and I would not see him ever again. All I can say is that I felt Luke's cry of "Noooooooo!" when he discovered his parentage. To put it simply, no one wants to be of bad stock; you feel damaged from the git-go. With that flaw, bullies and empires are hard to defeat.

Okay, let's get back on track. Harry didn't take my sister, Meg, and I to too many movies, but we saw the three original Star Wars movies together. I was not athletic like Harry and I'm sure I was generally pretty pesky, but we shared those movies. For me, they were honest-to-goodness father-and-son experiences (or, more correctly, stepfather-and-stepson experiences).

Every now and again I will try to kick the Aussie Rules footy around with my sons, but talk about feeling like an imposter. That's a sport that's indulged in the other household. I tried tennis with Cal yesterday because he had just finished a tennis camp and my amazing Katie thought it would be a fun thing for all of us to do. Still, my kid isn't coming away from our hour on the court knowing something about what his Dad does or likes.

Dad takes him to the movies and draws with him. A lot of the time we draw stuff from the movies. I'm sure to many it's not as worthy or authentic an experience as playing catch, experiencing the great outdoors or riding a bike. I can see the merit in those viewpoints. But it's also nice to see a kid's imagination fired: after the movie, Cal was wondering about the lives of Pandora's animals, the cryosleep required to travel from Earth to Pandora, having an Avatar, imagining a sequel.

When the house lights came up Cal said, "Thanks, Dad." I don't have a snappy and tidy way to end this entry. I just felt great when my boy said that, that's all.

The Magic Dipper

My old friend Lou DeLuca visited me the other day. The fact that I live in Perth, Western Australia and Lou had been living in Norwell, Massachusetts made the visit pretty special. The fact that Lou has been dead for two and a half years made the visit really special.

Let me tell you about Lou. I met him in 1979 during my early high school years. The father of my buddy, Johnny DeLuca, Lou had a vending business and he'd often take us on his route to service the machines. Johnny and I would do the hoisting and Lou would reward us with a meal at an honest-to-goodness diner or hole-in-the-wall ethnic restaurant and then a cultural outing of some sort: a museum, historical landmark or a film like, say, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

A first-generation Italian, Lou could still speak the street's language and related well to Johnny and his friends. His beard, unkempt hair and... well, I was going to say "considerable girth," but that just sounds too antiseptic and polite. Look, Lou loved the beautiful food that he cooked so well, and he often spoke of his addiction here. Suffice it to say he looked like a working-class Pavaroti (interestingly enough, they were born and died during the same years) or an intelligent version of the late Captain Lou Albano of wrestling fame. His clear and powerful speaking voice coupled with his colorful language completed his formidable presence.

The teenager in me had him boiled down to this: funny fat guy who sells Cokes, candy bars and cigarettes, likes science fiction and still says "Fuck!" like he means it.

So, one day Johnny, who had a kind of nasally voice, tells me that he had to go to some talk with his parents that night and thus couldn't hang out with the rest of us behind the cemetery.

"What kind of talk?"

"Theosophy."

"You mean philosophy." Amongst the group of guys who hung out around Washington Park, I was the motormouthed kid who could've done pretty well academically if I wasn't such a clown in the classroom. John, like the rest of my buddies at the time, ended up in the region's vocational school. Maybe I suffered from a certain arrogance when it came to language.

"No, theosophy."

"John, it's pronounced phil-osophy." I guess I was trying to help Johnny, given that nasally sounding voice and all.

"Theosophy!"

"It's philosophy, trust me. Just drop it."

I ended up going to one of those talks, if not that night then during the next month or so. Johnny was right, of course: Lou, his wife Carole, Johnny, and daughter Jasmine would go to the monthly meetings of the Theosophical Society. They had a shop and meeting rooms on Bay State Road in Boston, on the BU campus. Nice real estate. Johhny and I would, at that age, get a bit antsy during the talks, but liked the fact that we could walk to Kenmore Square.

Well, not only did Lou and family attend those lectures, but Lou was the president of the Boston chapter and often led the talks.

Yeah... I seriously shortchanged the man in my teenage estimation of him.

If you're not familiar with the Theosophical Society and don't have the time to visit the link above, the short version is that they've been around since the late 1800s, are interested in comparative religion and the brotherhood of man and "investigate the unexplained laws of nature and the powers latent in man." There's also a heavy "search for truth" element at play.

Over the next few years Lou and I became very good friends. After I returned home from the Navy to study, I lived in my parents' house for a little while and my relations with my stepfather, Harry, were often strained. Lou and Carole were the friends who understood things, understood me and were straight shooting enough to tell me what I might have done to raise Harry's ire.

I last spoke with Lou in early 2007. Diabetes was doing its nasty job on him, but he still had that youthful voice that never sounded anywhere near 70+ years old. Most likely I was seeking his advice about a particularly bad relationship or something. At the end of our talk he said, "Always a pleasure, Greegor."

I could and will talk more about Lou in the future, but I need to get to the point here.

Every time I walked into their little house on High Street, Lou would greet me with the nickname that he bestowed, "Greeeeeeeee-gor!" More often than not, I'd head over to their kitchen sink and open up the tap. There was a window over it and hanging from the window's frame was an antique water dipper. You know, the kind with the enamel worn away in a couple of places. The DeLucas had well water, and it always tasted so good and cold from that dipper.

It was through the dipper that Lou visited me the other day. Carole had sent it to me, most likely following the phone call I made to her on Christmas Eve... as if hearing her warm Kentucky drawl wasn't enough of a gift. The dipper now hangs from a cabinet handle over my stove, an arm's length away from my sink. I don't have well water and the City of Perth's water isn't particularly cold—especially during the Australian summer.

But it's a magic dipper and the water tastes wonderful from it.

Always a pleasure, Lou.

I've Made All the Mistakes... Now It's Time to Get Things Right

A good chunk of my life is over. In fact, if I'm at the midpoint, then I'm going to have an enviable lifespan—and the guys in my family generally don't have enviable lifespans. Divorced, laid-off and living far from my New England homeland, I've reaped the fruits of my errors over the last half-decade. Several months ago I said to myself, "I better get serious in a hurry." So I decided to become a high school English teacher.

I'll be qualified to stand before a classroom in about five months. One semester to go. Although I make a bit of money by writing copy for a few Australian websites in the retail space, I'm burning through my savings. The local press says that there will be a great need for secondary-level teachers in a few years, but it'll be competitive for a while; finding a permanent teaching gig isn't going to happen quickly.

But I feel like I have a fighting chance in education. That's a new feeling for me.

Truth be told, I stumbled into my career in marketing. After high school I joined the Navy and became a military journalist; my dream at the time was to be a filmmaker, and my recruiter told me that journalists worked around cameras quite a bit. So I ended up reading the news for the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. The military seemed like the adventurous thing to do and, besides, I was way too much of a cut-up in high school to go to college—and I had the grades to prove it. After my hitch, I went on to the University of Massachuetts to pursue a degree in English. I earned good grades there.

While at UMass I held all sorts of odd jobs: bouncer, barback, courier and emergency room clerk, to name just a few. After I received my degree I simply went on to a slightly better administrative posting at the hospital where I'd been working. Children's Hospital, Boston, to be less vague. Got married. Then went from that slightly better admin job to a start-up internet company that one of the hospital's physicians had founded. Amongst a dozen or so M.I.T. and similar computer hotshots I was woefully out of place and got laid off for the first time since I started working in high school almost 20 years earlier. Ouch.

Not long after that my ex-wife and I discovered that she was pregnant. Yes, it was pretty scary hearing that I was to become a father while there were no paychecks coming in... especially since my biological father, whom I had not seen in almost a quarter century—nor would I ever see again—had been a huge failure. A massive failure. Colossal. We'll talk about that later. Anyway, I got lucky and landed a job that actually made use of my degree about two months after I was shown the door at the internet company. I would be working as an editorial assistant in the marketing/communications department of a large consulting firm.

A few years later I quit that job when my ex-wife and I decided to move to her native Australia. It took me the better part of a year to find a job once I hit these shores. Blessings were counted when I successfully landed a marketing manager gig six weeks after my second son was born. Yes, it was good to be working again, but marketing in Australia, I soon discovered, seemed to have more of an accent on sales rather than communications. The marketing job I had before I left the U.S. was pretty rare in that it was primarily focussed on the written word, so I always felt like an imposter when asked to do anything business-development related in Australia.

Fast forward a year after getting that job and my marriage is over. Three years after that and I'm thoroughly burnt out. I get another marketing job. Nine months later the Global Financial Crisis is in full swing and I fall in its path. Add another 11 months and half a Graduate Diploma in Education (Secondary) and here we are.

There's ad copy that needs to be written right now, and a book that I've been trying to birth for a few years. My writings here definitely fall under the "Procrastination" banner.

It's time to get things right.