If It Rains On You, I Will Shoot The Cloud.

Part of me really wants to wake up early one Saturday morning and walk up into the mountains to kill all the bears and the mountain lions. And the snakes. This, I would do so they never can bite Violet if she decides to go hiking or something. Then, on Sunday morning, I will head over to the airport and disassemble all the planes so they can't crash with Violet in them, or under them. Rivers and lakes: drained dry. Highways: jackhammer'd. If I let it, the list goes on and on.

Can't let it, though. I have to look across the room here, past my sock feet parked by my coffee cup, and over to the left of the bookshelf, to the automatic swing where she now sleeps... to the recorded sounds of the only babbling brook in the world that I know could never hurt her. I have to look over there and see her sleep slobber trickling down her little chin and I have to just be cool with the fact that there will come a day when she will lay her head down to rest in some other place than where I am. Dragons might surround her in some moonlit faraway room, but I won't be around.

But that's the way it comes down. The more you love a kid, the crazier you will get. I am starting to see that now in the newish ways I'm living my life. Slide across the floor with her in my arms. Dog toys are land mines. Stare up at the waiter in the diner, make sure he notices how cute she is. Make sure he clocks that I expect him to say so or I might butterknife his jugular with the Ninja quickness. Just weird insane impulses and cravings that all lead to bettering the world for my baby in some twisted vision I conjure up. And almost all the behavior will be excusable later on: in some Shakespearean way. Tragedy, comedy, all that. But please lord, guide me away from fist fighting with other crazy dads at T-ball games. All that amateur violence out under the sun. Kids crying. Hand prints on red faces. Heart attacks. I just can't.

So, I move forward with trepidation and absolutely no idea how to do what needs to be done. To someday offer myself up to some sinister earthquake crack in exchange for letting Violet skip away safely. But I'm a dad now and so I gotta keep brainstorming. I know the way shit stacks up. But what else can I do.

I'm A Junkie For You, Kid.

Temper and patience. There was a line for them in heaven, right? Or Pre-Heaven. Wherever that hot spot where they hand out the chiseled cheekbones to the left, triple ripple necks to the right.

Brains over here, darling...

Asswipe-in-the-passing-lane level smarts?, ....over there son.

You heard of the place. Anyhow, when they were handing out the even tempers and the patience and the chilled beach bum aura....I was over in the man tits line, all excited, thinking I'd beaten everyone to the front. Christ. Now, I am tested like never before. And I knew all along that it was coming. Every single thing you read about being a new dad, they all say the same stuff: If she's crying, make sure she isn't hungry. Check that diaper....babies don't wanna baste in their own piss, cowboy! Is she on fire?....babies HATE being aflame. Make's 'em weep every time.

What the fuck? What kind of racket is this whole new parent market? What wisdom exactly are they really selling me, besides the basic shit that you could learn from a crusty pamphlet in the pediatrician's waiting room. I have like 16 books. Last night, while thumbing through one of them (this one's supposed to let you in on all the minutiae of each week of your baby's entire first year)
I was in the middle of week 12, about where Violet is hanging out. And honest to God, I came across this sentence.

"To keep her from swallowing too much air make sure she doesn't cry for too long."

I read it again. I looked at the back of the book where the price was. $16.99. I read it again. Make sure she doesn't cry for too long? Did I miss that bit on voodoo? Did I just skip over the section on making tiny miracles happen?

What a douche, I thought. Whoever wrote this book simply copied all the other shit from the trillion other books; not that different from getting paid to write a Chinese take-out menu.

Who is going to teach me then? I was pissed. How am I going to pick up tips on controlling my mind when Violet is deep into that second hour of death-rattle bawling? Where is the secret wisdom, for fuck's sake???!!! When that "fussytime" hits in the evening and time slows and then rushes and then slows like when I used to have too much blow in my face and everything was frentic and uncool and my temples squirting open like busted jalepeno poppers was not at all far fetched....when all that wackness hits so hard what do I do, what do I do, what do I do?

Sigh. It ain't in the books, huh? I wasted my cash. Last night, I just held on for dear life, kept touching her tender face skin with my nose, kept whispering through the tempest. It didn't really do much. She freaked for a long long couple of hours. Finally she drifted off. I was proud and shaking. My mind was goose fat but I'd hung in there.

I bit into a taco. Crying came from the crib. Dear Jesus. I picked her up and we walked to the changing table. I undid the Winnie the Pooh diaper and there was a poop the size of a Yugo. Oh sweetheart, I said. Oh dollgirl, no wonder you were so sad. Some got on my finger.

I thought about eating it in some primative ritual of love triumphs over all daddy's defects. But I had cold tacos out in front of the tv just sitting there, you know?

I Miss You When You're In The Other Room.

It's pouring here this morning. I can hear the rain swish off the tires of the cars out on the street. In the morning, I drink my coffee with the tv sound down now. And I listen for the morning peeps. Violet will wake up maybe half the time when I am getting ready for work. When she does, there is no screaming or crying. Just short quiet peeps, like smoke alarms with dying batteries.

It sucks when there are none. When she lies there by her momma in peaceful sleep and doesn't need anything or anyone. Or me. I get eager to go in there with the stealth of a prowler and just pluck her up from the little Wal-Mart sleeper thingy she is dreaming on. But to do that would be to invite myself to crash nature's ball. Dudes like me should not be crashing nature's ball.

So, on she sleeps. I poke around some fly fishing sights on the web; look at fish porn. These gray shitty days bring on the good Blue Wing Olive hatches. I wish I could get out to the river today. Thoughts of a quiet stretch to myself, of afternoon hatches. Thoughts of the summer days to come and the big caddis flies that cause brown trout to explode from the water with reckless greed.

Awww shit who am I kidding?

Thoughts of MAKE A GODDAMN PEEP ALREADY !!! Maybe you don't need me just this sec, butterbean. But I need you. Again.