Being a Dad Is Weird Page 2

  So I have followed in my father’s footsteps. I firmly believe that hanging out with your family and friends is the key to happiness. And in this way, my father and I are the same.

  The only difference is that I always wear underwear.

  2

  It’s About Who You Know

  or Why Having Feathered Friends Will Keep Your Kids from Worrying About Your Crappy Job

  MY DAD DIDN’T REALLY have a steady job for a long time. He was the proud owner of a master’s degree in English Literature that no one cared about, and so he stayed home with my brother Flynn and me while my mom worked long hours as a social worker. My dad kept himself busy writing novels, which had great titles and tons of wordplay. My favorite titles are The Triple-Misted Mountain, The Tribulation of Benbo Jones, and The Drunken Truck. They were works of fiction, and they haven’t been published (yet). The rest of his time he spent enjoying his friends and looking for work. Once in a while he landed something, generally outside of his field, but it never lasted too long. Truth be told, he bounced around from job to job until I was about thirteen years old. He was a stay-at-home dad before being a stay-at-home dad was cool. Like most kids anywhere, anytime in the history of the universe, Flynn and I didn’t question the fact that our dad stayed home with us when most dads didn’t—we just rolled with it and hoped that he would make us a club sandwich. He was cheerful and fun to hang around with. He’d start blasting music early in the morning (he favored jazz and the soundtrack to the musical Camelot—I can recite every lyric to that musical to this day) and told the same jokes every morning. Question: “How are you doing?” Answer (always): “Any better and I’d have to be twins.” In short, even though things weren’t “normal” for that time, we had a blast.

  When I was very small, maybe in second grade, my dad got the best job yet. He worked for the Southern Illinois University Arena, running the concession stands. Though this job paid just above minimum wage, the benefits were staggering to my brother and me. Dad would bring home cases of soda, giant packs of ice-cream sandwiches, and garbage bags full of popcorn. Flynn and I would wake up in the morning, see that giant bag and smell that sweet corn, and start screaming for my mom to open up the freezer. And then there they’d be: twenty, thirty ice-cream sandwiches, and the good cheap ones they sold at the arena. Holy shit! Show the seven-year-old me something better than a freezer full of vanilla-flavored corn syrup and chocolate-like cake. There was nothing better you could possibly ever show seven-year-old me. Unless you could take seven-year-old me into space, stand seven-year-old me on the moon with a bunch of cool astronauts, and then open up a freezer with thirty ice-cream sandwiches inside.

  During my dad’s tenure at this amazing job, “Sesame Street on Ice” came to the Arena, which in retrospect seems so typically ’70s. All the characters skate around. Were they singing? What the hell were they singing? How much marijuana had these skating artists partaken of before they put on their Muppet costumes? I am not a scientist, but I guarantee 100 percent accuracy when I say the answer is a shitload. Of course I can’t remember any of the show’s actual content per se; all I can remember is that after the show, my dad took me on the ice, which was quite a thrill in and of itself, because not all kids got to do that. And that’s when it happened. Big Bird was skating around, talking to some other kids (I didn’t have that kind of luck), and my dad said, “Hey Big Bird, can I introduce you to my son?” And then Big Bird just skated over to us casually, like this was not the biggest event in my life. My dad fucking knew Big Bird. This was a big deal. I stood there, shivering in terror and delight, with my eyes bugging out of my head. I could not speak. I would not speak. So Big Bird gave me a high-five. He said, “Nice to meet you.” If I had grown up in the age of cell phones, I’d have a picture of the seven-year-old me with Big Bird. But in a very real way, I’m glad I don’t have that picture. Something about the act of stopping the moment, taking a picture, and preserving this treasured time with Big Bird to flip through every so often on a cell phone would have cheapened it. Instead, I got a high-five. From an eight-foot-tall yellow bird who was pretty darn famous to the elementary school set. And nobody can take that away from me. And my dad made it happen. And my mom, too. She drove me to the show. Interestingly, I have no idea if my brother met Big Bird. He may have been too old for that kind of thing, or hanging with his friends up in the seats eating those amazing shitty ice-cream sandwiches—or maybe he wasn’t there at all. My memory is focused on the yellow dude, and the fact that my dad was the guy who hooked me up.

  This fine occasion is one of the big childhood moments that made my dad larger than life to me. To this day, he reminds me of this childhood event, which is another thing that makes him great. He takes the time to remind his forty-three-year-old son that he created a heavenly moment on the ice for him, many years ago—in a land of cheap, delicious ice-cream sandwiches and garbage-bag popcorn. In a land where there was so much soda in the fridge downstairs that my mom didn’t know what to do, my brother and I did our best to help the crazy woman out. It was the least we could do, taking one for the team and all that. We suggested that if we each drank six sodas a day, we’d get through the stash in no time. Cooler heads may or may not have prevailed on that issue (Mom won. We were limited to one a day and however many we could sneak), and my dad kept bringing home the treats until he lost that job. I never really figured out why he was fired. I think it may have had something to do with the fact that he let everyone who worked for him bring home popcorn, ice-cream sandwiches, and soda. That was likely frowned upon by management.

  Today I work several jobs at once. I enjoy my work and sometimes I have difficulty understanding the fact that I earn my living working as an actor, director, and writer. I had been doing these jobs for free for so long that Melissa and I both forget that we now get paid to do what we love. It’s an incredible joy, one that I am so grateful for. This joy, of course, comes with a catch. The catch is guilt. For example, as I write this very book, for which I’ve been granted a reasonable amount of dollars to act as “author,” I feel guilty that I am missing picking my kids up from school. See—no give without take. Because I enjoy writing and it’s always been a dream to publish a book, I make the sacrifice of school pickup for a few days. I am a hard worker by nature, but if I didn’t enjoy my jobs, I would surely not feel guilty about working at them. Yet because I enjoy working and I enjoy my children, I feel terribly guilty when work has to come before my dad duties. I don’t think my dad felt guilt for working, but for different reasons. We were just trying to get by and he did what he could to help out. My mom made more money than he did back then (a situation mirrored in my own life) as he bounced around trying to get that master’s degree to work for him. He was just holding up his end of the bargain. He missed a few bedtimes. The Big Bird thing may have made him feel good, too. I have a feeling it did, which is why he still brings it up.

  When I was thirteen, my dad came into the house and told my brother and me that he had a “major announcement.” He was wearing a corduroy jacket and he looked like the kind of guy who might smoke a pipe, probably something like this . . .

  No big deal, but in this photo I seem to be getting a pretty major fucking award.

  He took my brother Flynn and me out to the front porch and sat us down.

  “Boys. I got a job.” This announcement was highly irregular. He was constantly getting jobs, and they were very temporary. So what was the big deal? Why the big announcement this time? My mom looked very happy, too, so I asked him what kind of job it was.

  “I’m going to teach English at John A. Logan Community College.”

  My brother took a long beat.

  Then he yelled, “Holy shit, Dad got a real job! We’re rich!”

  My mom and I laughed and we all gave my dad a big hug. He was very excited. He went on to teach at that college for many, many years. That master’s degree finally had a use—and the job at the college was one that my father very much enjoyed. And I don’t believe he felt guilty about that, either. He’d tried a long time to make a good living doing something he loved, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t waste his time feeling guilty when he achieved what he’d worked hard for.

  So that is something that I’m trying to remember: working hard is not a crime. And isn’t it a good thing for your kids to see you doing your best at something you love to do? It’s something that I still struggle with, and I’m sure will always struggle with. My kids haven’t met Big Bird, but they’ve traveled a lot and seen some really neat things. Yet I, like many parents in these modern times, constantly feel like I could be doing more—showing them better things, spending more time with them, making every day a spectacular adventure that blows everyone’s mind.

  Back when my dad had his job at the SIU Arena, I took a field trip with my second-grade class. We went to the student center at SIU, and thinking back now I wonder why they were taking a bunch of seven-year-olds to a college student center. To watch twenty-year-olds play arcade games while they slowly, imperceptibly flunked out of school? It doesn’t matter, because what I do remember is seeing my thirty-eight-year-old dad walking down the hallway as I stood in line with my class. I screamed out, “Daddy!” and ran up to him. He grabbed me and lifted me into a big hug. Worlds had collided. I don’t know what I thought my parents did when I went to school—I guess I figured they just disappeared until I came home, and then they reappeared like magic, hopefully with some kind of fun plan, ice-cream sandwiches, or the decision that we could stay up late. But there he was, in real life. It was sometime in the fall, the air was crisp, and my dad appeared out of thin air in a smoky student center and gave me a hug. Better than Big Bird.

  3

  Take It All in Stride

  or Nothing Is Too Big of a Deal

  LOOK AT THIS GUY. Does he seem worried to you? Exactly. From the plastic booze cup in his hand (I’m pretty sure it’s full of an inexpensive chardonnay), to his silly orange lei, to the charming foam sombrero on his head, everything in this picture says, “Hey, we’re here to have a good time.” Add my dad’s getup to the fact that he is looking at the picture taker (a picture I am sure he requested in the first place) with a look like, “What are you looking at?” and you have quite simply the epitome of a carefree man. Not a worry in the world for this guy.

  Hmmm . . . NOT worrying too much. That’s a novel concept for parents in today’s world, myself very much included. It seems like I went from a kid who never worried (or at least not that much, and if I did, it was probably about things like “Are the leaves in this cardboard box scratchy?”).

  To a young man who worried just a bit more about slightly bigger things. Grades. Money (or lack thereof). Getting laid (or lack thereof).

  To a forty-year-old who was instantly convinced that the sky was falling flat on my head.

  I am aware that I am not forty years old in this picture, but does this child not look like he will grow into someone who fears a head injury?

  Which led me to a very real fear of concussions. (Along with the fact that I once got a mild concussion while filming a fucking sitcom—really? Sad but true: I was supposed to be hit in the head with a rubber stapler, and yes it was only a rubber stapler, but the person I was acting with hit me in the head with that sucker real hard! Then I was told to improvise a bunch, as no one knew that I was concussed. I simply do not need help getting worse at improvising, gang.) So now among all of my other fears and concerns, I have a very real belief that I can get a concussion from combing my hair too hard. So I take it slow and easy with this gorgeous mane of mine.

  All of that pales in comparison to the worrying I do about my kids. I worry—oh how I worry—about my kids. Is all of this worry a product of today’s world being so connected through the Internet and social media, which I barely understand? Do worries compound and grow exponentially, like some kind of math calculation that I also barely understand?

  Let’s compare my very real fear of concussions to my dad’s attitude toward anything medical. Several years ago, my dad had surgery to remove a mole on his back. This wasn’t one of those slice-it-off-quick, Band-Aid, in-and-out sort of things. This was a deep drilling, where they get rid of the mole and the area around it, then send it all to the lab to be analyzed. And guess what? My dad didn’t even tell me. If I were going through that kind of procedure, trust me—everyone in my path would have known. Friends, family, strangers. Why? Because I would keep them fucking updated. Because that stuff is scary and by sharing it, it’s less scary. My dad didn’t even bother to tell me. And neither did my mom. Why? Because they didn’t want me to worry? Nope. They didn’t tell me because it was no big deal to them. If something had become a big deal, they would have let me know. But it wasn’t, so nobody even mentioned it at all—UNTIL A YEAR LATER!

  Thing is, they’re right on this one. And I’m wrong. There’s no need to sweat all the small stuff. When my older daughter was two years old, she poked herself in the eye while running with a stick (yes, I was telling her not to do that, but she was so damn fast) and it got all red and weird and she was crying at 5 p.m. on a Friday—of course, right when the doctor’s office was closing. As we raced there, I spoke with a soothing voice to her as my blood pressure skyrocketed. I imagined every worst-case scenario possible, including the idea that as we received heartbreaking news about the eye from the doctor, Los Angeles would be hit by a devastating nuclear strike in an ironic double whammy. Anyway, her eye turned out to be just fine and my panic was unwarranted. I make an effort to be less fragile around my kids, and to instill in them a healthy “this is not a big deal” attitude when they do something like skin their knees, and my acting challenge is to not panic when they get an injury. I have also told my kids that chocolate cures wounds. I am sort of scared that they’re going to start hurting themselves on purpose just to get a piece of chocolate, but it’s the cost of doing business.

  Lately, in an effort to emulate my father a bit more, I have been making some efforts to take things less seriously. And I think that I am making some real progress. Here’s some evidence:

  Doesn’t this guy look like he doesn’t sweat the small stuff?

  4

  The Big Sky Theory

  or Sometimes It’s Okay to Lie to Your Kids

  (Bernard Jaubert/Getty Images)

  I WAS PROBABLY FOURTEEN years old when I realized that my dad is full of shit. We were taking a road trip together in his red Honda CR-X. Look at this sweet beast:

  (Jarretera / Shutterstock.com)

  It was the ’90s, and I thought this car was the very definition of cool. It had no backseat, which never stopped my dad, brother, and me from using it for long road trips. I would usually straddle the non-backseat and say over and over again, “It’s not that bad. Pretty comfortable,” while my nether regions became more and more tender with each mile. It was a small price to pay to ride in a chick magnet such as this.

  My dad had a history of buying pretty shitty cars, and once he was secured in his job as an English teacher at John A. Logan College, he went ahead and splurged on this, the most awesome of all sports cars in the history of sports cars. The Honda CR-X and Mazda Miata will forever battle for the sacred place on top of the mountain of snazzy sports vehicles. He made his choice, and the CR-X was ours!

  Once my brother left home for college at the University of Chicago, my dad and I would take this cherry-red CR-X all over the country. We had many adventures while I was in high school, like the time we went to Greeley, Colorado, to hang out with an acquaintance whom my father referred to as “Dr. Bong.” Dr. Bong was teaching some classes at Colorado State University, and he lived in a small apartment filled with coffee and weed. He spoke fondly of the “synergy” that he felt when he had lots of good coffee and weed. He never seemed all that stoned to me, and I have no idea what course he taught. I probably smoked some of his weed, which I don’t recall, but I remember I was not fond of his coffee.

  My mom was curiously absent from these adventures, which usually involved sleeping on someone’s couch and long drives through the night. The strange thing is, my mom can drive longer and farther than any other human on this earth. All she needs is the most coffee that any human can drink and good weather, and she can actually drive forever. So in retrospect, it must not have been the length of the trip, but rather the quality of the accommodations that kept her saying “maybe next time” when we invited her. I would have given her the passenger’s seat. But, my mom is smart.

  The trip when I discovered my father was full of shit was when we decided to drive from Carbondale, Illinois, to Key West, Florida. One of my father’s many passions is Hemingway. And Key West is where Hemingway had spent some time. So off we went.

  My dad and I had some great long talks on the road, as you may imagine. He is a great conversationalist, far better than me. In fact, he barely needs another person to respond. He can just keep talking. His conversations/monologues are somewhat legendary for their length and entertainment value. On one road trip, we wrote a book of dirty limericks together that seem just as good or bad as every other book of dirty limericks that has or has not been written. One I can remember off the top of my head: