Fury At Flip Flops In February

Tuesday afternoon in Central New York was delightfully glorious. Okay, maybe glorious is too strong a word, but sunny and in the high forties at the end of February is always a bonus. Being so nice out, my kids wanted to play outside, so I pulled a chair out on the porch and let them play while I read. Normally, I'd try to write because I do some of my best work in the fresh air, but today I decided to read instead. At one point my son announced that someone was coming down the street and they were on a hoverboard. I looked up in hopes that it was an actual hoverboard and was disappointed to see that it was a mother, son and dog walking down the street. I was crestfallen that it wasn't a real hoverboard and was about to go back to reading when I noticed something through my squinted eyes that awoke my Hulk-like rage. The mother was wearing flip-flops.

I tweeted about it immediately:

I didn't realize it at the time, but it seems I've expressed this opinion across my many social networks multiple times. Enough for one of my friends to notice and tweet back at me. I was going to launch into a twitter rant, but decided to write about it instead. 

It's not flip-flops that enrage me. I love them. I like wearing them. But I've always been a little off put by them. I used to blanch at the Berkenstocks and Tevas of my salad days. I was slightly more comfortable with slides and only came over to flip-flops-when appropriate-recently. Even now, I will eschew from flip-flops the majority of time. But there are a lot of people that don't and I dub them "flip-flop people." 

It's "flip-flop people" that raise my ire. I know, this goes against my goalie theory of life (I don't want to stand in anyone's way of reaching their goal of enjoyment and happiness) but there is something about flip-flop people that bother me. You know the kind, the denizens of Hobbiton that feel they can wear flip-flops no matter what the conditions? And it's rarely more than a cry of "Look at me! Look at me!" or more to the point "Look at my feet! Look at my feet!" They are never feet you want to look at. Ever.

Look, I get it. I do. Shoes are so hard. They are so much work. Even loafers and slip-ons. 

Plus, people wouldn't get to ask you to tell them the story of the intricate tattoo you had done. 

Or compliment how good your pedicure looks. 

Or listen to you go on and on about you being a beach person (even though you live hundreds of miles from any real beach) or a summer person. 

Or how comfortable they are. 

We get it. We're looking at you. You have our attention. Is that what you wanted?

Sorry, I'm rage writing at this point. 

I'll end with this. If I see you in public and it's below 70 degrees, if you are wearing flip-flops, I am judging you.

A Rose By Any Other Name

Safe spaces. Weird and loathed expression that's been in the news and on the Internet a lot lately. The word carries tons of scorn and straight up fury with a certain portion of the population. I'm not going to lie, I didn't entirely disagree with them. However, over the weekend I got to thinking about the expression and decided to write a little about it. So, Sunday, at 10:15, after everyone had settled down to sleep after a busy birthday extravaganza for my son, I sat down to write while sipping a root beer float. As a writer, I realize that I should be sipping a scotch or whiskey or bourbon or absinthe, but my poison is root beet and vanilla ice cream.

I am part of a group text, as many of us are these days. It's a small group of my co-workers. A group that I've become pretty good friends with over the years and the group text is a nice distraction from the minutiae of everyday life,  be it professional or personal. My wife thinks it's funny, calling them my "boyfriends" and that it's nothing but "stupid pictures and dick jokes." The group text began as an extension of our lunches together and has been going on for three years now. Today, one sent this meme out to the group:

One of my friends commented that he'd been "triggered" and needed a "safe space" and that got me thinking. A vigorous conversation followed in relation to the meme among my friends. I abstained, not because of a lack of opinion but I was preoccupied with real life. However, I was thinking about it, letting the comment roll over in my head far more than the meme itself and came to a conclusion after thinking about it for much of the afternoon.

We've ALWAYS had safe spaces.

Really. Think about it. From what I read, safe spaces are places where people can go to talk about their experiences in a place where they fell safe and without judgement. These are places we can relax and not be afraid of who we are and what we say without feeling uncomfortable, anxious or challenged about what we think or believe. Places we can get support, love and walk away feeling a little better about ourselves. Folks, we've always had them-we just called them something else.

The neighborhood bar. Lunch. The lodge. The club. The coffee klatch. Bible study. The book club. Ladies night. Poker night. Bowling. The barbershop. The kitchen table. The rec room. The garage. The parlor. The knitting circle. I think you get the point. But that expression safe space really sets people off, for some reason. So I thought some more about it, focusing on the anger and scorn people had over the expression "safe space."

Many of the institutions listed above are the creation of white, heterosexual men. And before you think it or say it, I know not all of them, but the majority of them are and I noticed that the loudest critics concerning safe spaces are white, heterosexual men. Men that excluded anyone "not like them" when they created these institutions, so people decided to created their own institutions where they could feel comfortable and safe that are now derided and dismissed by the same people that created them in the first place. Men angry that something was being taken from them that wasn't their's in the first place. Hmmm...that sounds familiar, doesn't it?

So, look, if you are one of those people that get triggered by the expression safe space, just think of it as a man cave and move on to the next stupid thing you are going to get angry about that you really shouldn't be angry about. Or maybe you get angry about something you really should be angry about. Like guns. Or a woman's right to choose being taken from her. Or how shitty a show THIS IS US actually is.

Earning Turns

This past Saturday morning, I took my kids skiing for the first time. Scratch that, I didn't take my kids skiing but took them for ski lessons. I can't ski anymore. Scratch that, I don't actually know if I can ski anymore, I just know that physically I am unable to ski. A laundry list of wears and tears on my pudgy forty-five year old body have me terrified of strapping seventy-two inches of fiberglass to my feet and doing real damage to the fragile ecosystem that is my body. I was filled with a deep melancholy as I stood at the bottom of the hill watching my two little shadowed blobs "pizza and french fry" (or snowplow as we called it) their way down the "bunny hill," realizing that I was probably never going to feel that again in my life. Then my son, my sweet little boy, looked up having completed a twelve foot stretch of french fries followed by three feet of pizza and called out to me, waving wildly with all the pride in the world that he was doing a scary, dangerous thing without his daddy-and loving it-chased that melancholy away.

The joy both of my kids were feeling was palpable in the car afterwards as they babbled on and on about their runs. Both frantically asking, "Did you see me?" while waiting for me to confirm that I did and asking follow up questions as to why they had done something. My daughter, ever the mother hen, staying with he brother while obviously grasping the activity and reveling in telling me how she skied past the teacher while my son explained to me why he kept falling down. And that joy made me feel better, made me okay with having to give up something I loved so much.

I love skiing. Fell in love with it in 1987, when at the suggestion of my friends, I joined ski club my freshman year of high school. It was formative to me as a person. I was a pretty unexceptional high school student. I hadn't embraced my love of writing and was listless. I was a pisspoor athlete and, at best, an apathetic student. I was too wrapped up in some kind of social checklist that I couldn't possibly attain rather than trying to figure out who I was and what I wanted to be. When I joined ski club, I found something that I just loved. I couldn't articulate it then and I'm not even sure I could now, I just knew there was something appealing about it. There is a version of me, in some parallel universe, that is living in a garage in Kazakhstan, following some endless winter around the world in some attempt to "earn my turns."

However, I exist in this universe, with this version of me, busted up as it is. So all I'm left is the memories. And they are great memories. Memories of glory and shame, humiliation and triumph. I met my first real girlfriend at ski club. I made life long friends skiing. I learned that I could learn how to do things I never thought I could. I realized there was a daring streak in me, willing to move outside my comfort zone. These memories still play in my head as little movies, snippets of what I loved so much and thirty years later they are getting a sequel in my kids. Maybe it's finally time to put words to paper, like I've always wanted to about that time in my life.

As if the fates were paying attention, when I got home that afternoon, one of the stations was playing a marathon of filmmaker Warren Miller's films and it nudged me towards writing even more. So I settled down at our kitchen peninsula and snuck some words in. Much of this was written during this marathon while I should've been painting one of our bathrooms. The words and memories nudged my closer to my "90s ski epic" I've been talking about writing for years.

It's the memories and a series of short online conversations with former fellow 315er and YA/MG author Aaron Starmer that led to the original story idea, called FRESH TRACKS. I want to write a YA story that takes place in the 90s, has a 90s teen comedy vibe to it but follows the rules of an epic fantasy. It might be too ambitious a project (a problem of mine if there ever was one) and it might be unsalable. But I want to write it. It's been back and front burnered multiple times over the last few years as I struggled with what it was and what I wanted it to be. There's a parallel to my life that I'm just realizing and I'm itching to write it. For now, I have to finish GIRL IN THE PICTURE first. I'm not the kind of writer than can work on more than one project at the same time. I realize that if I have any intention of making a career of this, that will have to change but for now, it'll do and I'll have to earn my turns any way I can.

Writing, Yes. Fame & Fortune, Maybe So.

While cycling through my morning reading of my favorite blogs and online news outlets, I came across a post by my friend Brian Fay and it got me thinking. I spent a good portion of the last few days writing this post, spending an inordinate amount of time starting it, trying to figure out what I wanted to say about his post. I want to talk about writing, but I couldn't exactly figure out what I was trying to say. It's been a while since I've actually written a blog entry about writing. It could be because I'm actually writing and that's always good news. But Brian's post had the wheels turning and I decided to write. And boy did I write.

Now, if there is an approximate to a writing guru in my life, it's Brian. We met at a teacher's writing institute in Cortland, NY. Brian was a facilitator and I was a participant. It was one of the most amazing experiences in my life. It made me a better teacher and a better writer. It was the closest thing to my "dream writing summer" I've ever experienced. Three weeks where I did nothing but write for at least three hours a day. No kids. No wife. No distractions. Just three hours of me, a laptop and a pair of ear buds with Billy Joel in my ear. (Billy Joel was a phase that summer. I can't explain it but Billy Joel-Live at Shea Stadium was played ad naseum for those three weeks.)

We worked, wrote, shared, ate and listened. I had the misfortune of following the SCSD version of Maya Angelou, Viola, during one of our extravaganzas where we shared our work with one another. Viola is a stunning storyteller with a hypnotic voice that still warms my heart almost four years later. It was here that I met and worked with Brian, a ridiculously talented writer that humbled me and an active blogger.

I love reading his posts. They are insightful. They are inspirational. they are soothing. They get me thinking about writing and teaching, sometimes independently, sometimes at the same time. And it was the latest post that got me thinking. Actually, it was one sentence in the post that moved me to write this time:

Let me tell you two things this isn't going to be about: getting published or getting rich.

It stuck in my head for a while and took some time to wrap my brain around so I could synthesize it and write something about it.

If you've read my blog, you know that my aspirations of becoming a published author aren't a secret. Hell, if you've met me in public, it's likely that you know this about me. I've dreamed my whole life about it. From my earliest days of dreaming that someday I'd be the head writer for the Marvel run of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero to the arrogant boasts of the twenty-one year old me telling everyone in the Wegmans' Grocery Back room that'd I'd be on the New York Times Bestseller list by the time I was twenty-six. Well, I'm now on the precipice of 45, so that obviously didn't happen. I'm not here to lament, as I have in the past, about my failed dream. I'm here responding to Brian's post.

This isn't a rebuttal, because I 100% agree with what he said in his post. You have to "write for you" first and it's absolutely right to say, "Don't even consider anyone else." These are wise words, especially to a neophyte. Hell, they are wise words to any writer. It's the first step and sometimes it's the millionth step. I've been writing forever. Since high school. (Obviously!) Looking back, I wish that I'd been more diligent, both about the craft and hanging on to what I wrote. (If I'd only met Kelly Chandler-Olcott earlier to convince me of the worth of sturdy, old school composition notebooks!) You always write for yourself. But then what? And that becomes the interesting question.

I pursue that question daily. Am I not enough of an audience? Why do I feel compelled to get published?

I don't know. I just know that it's something I want. And maybe that's enough. But it can't be that simple can it?

Is it validation?
Ambition?

Maybe.

Ego?

I can't say for sure. But I know for sure it's something I want.

It's not to be rich, though that'd be nice for sure. I don't think it's to be famous. I think that would be exciting for a week then get old.

Maybe I feel like I both deserve and need to be heard. But that comes back to ego, doesn't it?

Other people manage to write without the compulsion of being compensated or published. Brian does and I think he's a vastly more talented writer than I am. My friends Mark, Sara and Jen are at least my equals, though likely it's my own ego downplaying their writing talents to make myself feel good. My buddy Neil has been vastly more disciplined and equally as talented in his blogging with no intention of trying to become rich or famous (though I say that without certainty...maybe he does). Each of them is, however, satisfied just writing for themselves. But for me, it's not enough I guess. I share this dream with Mike Winchell, an amazingly talented writing and editor well on his way to fulfilling his dream. We went to high school together, though we never met. (Easy to do in a building with 3,000 people in it.) Yet we've become brothers in arms thanks to the internet. I'm rambling a bit and maybe because I don't have a satisfactory answer to why I want so badly to be published. In the end, I guess it just boils down to the fact that I just do...and maybe that's enough of a reason for me. And maybe it's not reason enough for someone else. In the end it doesn't matter the reason, I suppose. All I know is that in the end I write because I simply can't not write.

So as Brian says, "Do the work."

Let's go write.

2017: A Year in Review: The Reading

Well, 2017 was an amazing reading year for me. I cranked out book after book this year and I have a lot to talk about. I planned on reading 70 books in 2017. I read 154. No, seriously. 154 books. Pretty amazing, huh? Of the 8 books that I really wanted to read this year, I read 4 of the 8. One wasn't released and the other I got out of the library multiple times, but never got around to reading it. I've been doing microreviews of everything I read over on Twitter if you want a full recap using the hashtag: 150in31. I'll be done with them tomorrow.

So, let's talk some data first. (Hey, I'm a teacher, we need data, right?) Here's a breakdown of what I read:

• Novels: 65
• Graphic Novels: 58
• Writing Books: 14
• Nonfiction: 8
• Art/Design Books: 4
• Biographies/Autobiographies/Memoirs: 2
• Plays: 2
• Picture Books: 1

Phew. That was a lot of reading. And it felt like it. So, here's what you really read this edition of the blog for: my year end best of list. 

• ROYAL BASTARDS by Andrew Shvarts: Probably my favorite read of the year mostly because I tried to write something just like it and can see all my mistakes because Shvarts does everything nearly flawlessly from characters to the world building to the all important voice. It's brilliant and earned the top spot of 2017. On a side note, this book got me through a very tough time in my life since I started reading it right after our house fire, so thanks Andrew for giving me a needed distraction as I dealt with my entire life crumbled around me. (Or singed around me.)
• RIVER OF TEETH by Sarah Gailey: The only competition that ROYAL BASTARDS had for top read of 2017 was this book. Hippo riding cowboys, riverboat casinos and a thrilling caper...excuse me...operation make this book an instant classic. 
• MARCH: BOOK ONE by John Lewis: Moving and appropriate at this time in our history as Congressman John Lewis looks back at his involvement in the Civil Rights movement. We are a better place because of men like Mr. Lewis. 
• LUSTLOCKED and PRIDE'S SPELL by Matt Wallace: I love this series. It's flawless. Utterly perfect. Great characters, fascinating world, terrific plots and amazing voice. I'm going to finish this series this year. 
• WHITE TRASH by Nancy Isenberg: Put a terrific spin on this last election: the promise to "white, working class voters" of taking back a country that was never theirs to begin with. Fascinating and enlightening. 
• THE REST OF US JUST LIVE HERE by Patrick Ness: A few years old, but just the brilliant execution of a brilliant concept with the right amount of emotional moments. What happens to the kids in the background of the YA fantasy/dystopia novels and movies we know and love? Their lives are just as epic. 
• THE IMPOSSIBLE FORTRESS by Jason Rekulak: An fun YA book loaded with tons of nostalgia for someone like me. Part romance, part coming of age, part heist novel, it does things you don't expect it to at all the right spots. 
• THE DUKE OF BANNERMAN PREP by Katie A Nelson: A great retelling of THE GREAT GATSBY with enough of it's own to not make it a straight retelling of THE GREAT GATSBY. 
• SEARCHING FOR JOHN HUGHES by Jason Diamond: Remember when we could love what we love and not just defend what we love? That's this book. The things we love are important to us and they drive us.
• A TORCH AGAINST THE NIGHT by Sabaa Tahir: Everything that is good and right in YA fantasy. Great execution of a great idea with great characters and interesting world building. 
• SOUTHERN BASTARDS by Jason Aaron: Blew me away. Just an amazing, moving story about the deep south. Just unputdownable. 
• BULL by David Elliott: The story of Theseus told in rhyme. Reminded me of HAMILTON in its presentation. Loved it. 
• THE LEGEND OF ROCK PAPER SCISSORS by Drew Daywalt: An instant classic that takes the simple game of Rock, Paper, Scissors and turns it into an epic tale of champions seeking to prove themselves. Just delightful!
• MYSTIC RIVER by Dennis Lehane: An older book that just shook me to the core. Amazing, brilliant and a study in 3rd person omniscient among other things. 

Honorable Mentions: RETURN OF THE JEDI: BEWARE THE POWER OF THE DARK SIDE by Tom Angleberger, FORGET ME by KA Harrington, THE GRENDEL'S GUIDE TO LOVE AND WAR by AE Kaplan, ASTROPHYSICS FOR PEOPLE IN A HURRY by Neil deGrasse Tyson, THE LEGEND OF LUKE SKYWALKER by Ken Liu.

I'm not doing disappointments this year. We need more positivity and I'm not going to do that.

So, what about 2018? I know I'd like to read more. Well, if you read my writing post...and why wouldn't you have...you'll know that I'm not setting specific number goals this year, so maybe I only set a vague number that I can adjust. Here's some random musings:

• Read some more epic fantasy and study what makes it work. I say this every year and fail at it. Maybe this year is the year that I finally do it. I'm going to set a goal of 25 total epic fantasy books in 2018.
• I want to read more middle grade. I'm going to set a goal of 2 MG books a month, so 24 MG books by year's end. 
• Read more nonfiction with a goal of one NF book a month, so 12 NF books this year. 

So, by those raw numbers alone, I'm looking at 61 books. I tend to read a ton of graphic novels each year and also find other YA books that pique my interest while getting the occasional ARC to read along the way, plus I listen to a ton of books during my commute, so I'm going to set a goal of 90 books this year. As I read, I'll adjust accordingly. 

What did you read? What was your best of 2017? What are you looking forward to in 2018?

2017: A Year In Review: The Writing

This was a weird year writing. The best word I could come up with to describe it was impotent. I just never felt like I could get moving on something and at times I was completely schizo in deciding what I was going to do. My buddy Mike, always the port in my writing storms, can usually talk me down and get me in the right state of mind with sound, practical advice. But even then I struggled in focusing on one thing as my mind raced from here to there. It's really got me thinking about my approach and the way that I do things. Or it could be that I've been reading a lot of books on writing lately. So, let's look at 2017 as far as writing is concerned.

I set out to accomplish the following:

• Finish THE PENSIONER'S BROOCH
• Write the first draft of MAGICAL GATSBY
• Finish CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD
• Write the GENDER SWAPPED ARAGORN epic fantasy
• Write 360k total words.

What I did accomplish:

• Finish first draft of THE PENSIONER'S BROOCH (34k)
• Started FRESH TRACKS (7k)
• Rewrite of WINTER'S DISCORD (135k)
• Started GIRL IN THE PICTURE (55k)
• Started a rewrite of LOST SCIONS (24k)
• Started CHLOE (3k)

So, as you can see, schizo. Too many plates. I fell well short of my 1k a day word count goal. Rather than lament about my lack of discipline or need for a routine, I'm looking at each of these projects and what to do with them. I need to make a run at finishing something again, so, what are these projects?

BROOCH: Prequel to SCIONS. It needs another pass and it may be what I need to fix what I see as the issues with SCIONS.

TRACKS: I was just rereading what I wrote of this while writing this blog and I like it a lot. It's kind of voice-y (something I desperately need to work on) and I think there's something there, I just have to find it.

DISCORD: Done. Forever and ever. Until someone buys it, I'm not doing any more with that-at least for a while.

PICTURE: This was a story I fell in love with out the gate and threw out all my normal practices as I wrote this. And that became part of the problem. I didn't know what I was writing and tried pantsing the book. It didn't exactly work. It turned into two different books fighting one another. On one hand it wanted to be a procedural-esque mystery like MYSTIC RIVER (which I was reading at the time) or a supernatural thriller. I feel like I have to decide on one and pull the trigger on it.

SCIONS: I still believe in this project. I'm working on paring it down into something less meandering and tighter.

CHLOE: A working title. A MG/chap book idea that I'm writing for my daughter. Very early in this project and I need to study a bit as I plan this. 

The aim for 2018 is focus. Focus on skill, focus on execution. Mike preaches these things and I need to listen to him. He's not just saying these things because he likes hearing them, he's being the good teacher that he is. So, goals? I don't know. I don't know if I want to set goals for myself in terms of what I intend to write. I've never achieved them. Not even close. My tastes and moods change. My interest in projects wane. Inspiration comes from strange places (see PICTURE) and I have to learn to run with it.

So, maybe be a little less word county and concentrate more on my skill as a writer. What does that mean? Write every day. No matter what. At least an hour. As my friend Brian Fay does: 3 pages a day. It's not so ambitious. I can do this. And then at the end of year I can take an inventory of what I accomplished. I'm a planner as far as my work is concerned, but I'm not going to lock myself down to any plan. I'm going to write what comes to me as it comes.

Also, unrelated to my writing (or maybe related to my writing), I'm going to work on being healthy and happy, two things I've neglected frequently in my life. It's come to a head recently. I'm a lucky man and sometimes I forget to enjoy that happiness. And I need to take care of myself. I have too much good in my life not to. 

Partying Like It's 1994? (Updated 2019)

Tonight is the night before Thanksgiving. Every year I put up a post on Facebook asking who wants to go to Chuck's tonight. [2019 Edit: I'm doing a Faux Chucks From Home Night!] A little background. In my (and many of my friend's) salad days, we went to a bar on the SU campus called Hungry Charley's. We called it Chuck's. Wednesday nights were buy one get one pitchers and we'd go. But the night before Thanksgiving was a special night. People returned from college or visit from out of town and we'd wind up at Chuck's. (I've written about Chuck's before.)

It was a dive, in the basement. It had a horrible ventilation system, only served shitty beers on tap along with a few bottle choices and had assholes for bouncers (I know, I got my ass kicked by one). It also had decent prices, pretty good sangria and a Star Trek: The Next Generation pinball machine that ate almost as much money as the beer. (I also liked their chicken fingers, but maybe that had more to do with the beer than the chicken.) My beverage of choice was either Killian's Red or Honey Brown with Honey Brown being my favorite. I was reminded of that tonight.

Like just about everyone else in the free world, I had to go to Wegmans this afternoon. I had some errands to run, including picking up my dog's ashes (I'll write about that another time...I can't now, I've tried and I just can't) but I was going to try to avoid a trip to Wegmans. But my wife, who works at Wegmans, slipped and fell at work, hurting her surgically repaired knee. I brought her to the doctor and she got a thumbs up to go back to work, so I took her back. And she gave me a list of things I needed to get. No problem. I made good time and, having joked about Chuck's, perused the beer corner at the big W.

Now, something you need to know about me, I am not a big drinker. I put my time in during the early to mid-90s and that was enough. I'll crack open an occasional hard soda or a beer once in an almost literal blue moon. Honestly, in 11 months of 2017, I've had maybe 5 beers. Tonight I decided to make six. I walked by the craft beers, the hard sodas (which I love) and the ciders, finding a sixer of Honey Brown. But I was worried. I was worried about my daughter.

She seems very aware of when I drink and, for some reason, it bothers her. A few weeks back, we went to a family birthday party and I ordered a beer. My daughter was very upset and I have no idea why. I don't drink very often and I don't drink enough to alter my behavior. Okay, there is only one time I can think of where I drank more than usual (limoncello and something called Strega was involved, it was as fun as it sounds) [2019 Edit: I have three jars of homemade limoncello doing their business in my basement as I write this!] and I don't remember her being upset about it. So I wondered. My daughter and I talk, so I asked her about it during the week and she said she just didn't like me drinking alcohol, though she was still evasive. This is a continuing conversation between us and I'll get to the bottom of it.

I waited until well after dinner was digested and cracked open a Honey Brown. And the first sip transported me back to 1994. No, really. (The good 1994, not the bad one I've blogged about before.) Now, Honey Brown isn't "great" beer. Hell, it's not even "good" beer, but Christ, it was delicious. It has been literally 20-something years since the last time I drank a Honey Brown. It was everything I remembered and more. I've had some good beers over the years. High quality stuff. But they couldn't hold a candle to the Honey Brown I drank tonight. Maybe it's the nostalgia of one too many nights in a dive of a bar filled with too much smoke and floor muck. Maybe it's the memory of having over 30 people show up, unannounced or uninvited, at my house some summer nights back then. Who knows? But it was the best beer I've had in years. And like I said, I was 21 again. And it was glorious.

[2019 Edit: I bought another sixer tonight and I'm waiting for A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving to come on at 8pm to crack one open.]

My daughter noticed the bottle. She was okay with it, but did ask if it was the only one I was going to have. (I haven't had more than one beer in one day in easily over ten years!) When I assured her that it was, she didn't bother me again. But my son on the other hand, was despondent, but not for the reasons you think.

"Daddy, my gosh, why does your breath smell like that? What did you eat?"
"What does my breath smell like?"
"Garbage," he says, "like you're eating garbage."
"I'm drinking a beer, buddy."
"Well, I want you to stop, your breath smells like poop."

So, at least we know why my son doesn't like me nursing a beer.