I Got Them CCCC Blues

I always spend a day or two in a state of discombobulation when my sometimes-pregnant wife goes out of town. My bad, I suppose, for marrying someone so brilliant and beautiful. This time, she'll be gone for five days, thanks much to the blasted Conference on College Composition and Communications, which has the nerve to take place every goddam year.

When I need a cure for the CCCC blues, I turn to a picture, taken on her 30th birthday, which we celebrated in Bordeaux in the year of our Lord twenty and aught-seven.

Throbbing with energy, passion, scepters, orbs and frenzied horses, this is undoubtedly the best picture I've taken in my life. I cannot unlock for you the many mysteries secreted herein; just know that this shot represents the lone instance in which my sometimes-mystical wife's magical powers have been captured on film. I do not know what was communicated from wife to horse and horse to wife via rainbow connection, and anyways I doubt that my feeble, unmagical brain could ever fully understand.

All I know is that, as an artist, this was my finest hour. Is it too much to call it the greatest photograph of all time? I submit that it is not.

nwb

This Is the Kind of Shit That Doesn't Happen before Having Kids

A few days ago I purchased $90 worth of groceries, placed the bags and the McBonerito into the shopping cart and made for the parking lot. After securing the kid in the McBonemobile, I climbed in, fired the engine and headed home.

Not until pulling into the driveway of McBone Outpost #1353 did I realize that the groceries were not in the car, but in a cart in the middle of the Shop Rite parking lot. After cussing my way back to the store, I found the cart exactly where I had left it ten minutes earlier. There the bags were too, though a scan of the inventory revealed that they had been relieved of several items. What remained (dish detergent, steel wool, onion), would not get us through the week.

No one to blame but myself, but the level of distraction is alarming. After all, there were only two things to remember:

1) Kid

2) Groceries

But then parental fatigue is a curious narcotic. Curious, in that it comes with a stimulating component, and just when you think you can't keep up with it all, you do. You feel as though you could take a nap at any time of the day, and yet you are strangely more alert than you have ever been. You accept that it will sometimes cost you $90 in groceries, because the tradeoff is that you aren't going to forget the kid.

But I do find myself wondering what the fuck is going to happen when this guy* arrives in July:

I suppose we'll wait and see. Until then, I'll pop open a beer and toast myself on one small victory: I did not forget the kid.

As for you, thief...cheers! I hope you enjoy the 3-pound English-cut roast, bottle of Pinot Noir, six-pack of Atwater Pilsner, olive medley and assorted nuts, among other delicacies I can't remember.

nwb

*If you ever read this post, kiddo, know that, when I placed my hand on your mother's belly today, I felt you kick for the first time.