Praise from a Fellow Father

Thanks for the props Erik, sorry I didn't find this months ago when you wrote it!

Glad you are well for the most part. Get to see your beautiful kids every now and then at school or downtown. Look forward to touching base again sometime. In the meantime, I will share the love. It feels good to be able to inspire others. Makes me feel like writing...
_________________________________
From RadicalShift:
Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Thanks Sky! (http://piratepapa.blogspot.com/)
I ran across this blog, belonging to a friend of **********'s, and got the idea that maybe I owed it to myself to write a little something here.

I have been through much in the past 3 years. I went from more-than-flirting with polyamory and being intoxicated, ruining my marriage, betraying my wife and children, nearly devastating another person who is one of the most important people in the universe to me, to going sober, jumping headlong into another relationship, filing for divorce, fighting for custody and losing, changing careers, hurting my back, rebuilding most of the muscles in my body, getting a state job, going back to school, and now getting my own place, the first on my own since august 97' when i met *******.
I think that's about it.

There is more inside that capsule of a re-living but the details hurt this person, or that one, or me to go reliving.
******* and I are getting along famously, I finally am trusting her with our children and being thankful for our marriage. I have been reflecting on something interesting since I had a particular conversation with my kids.
Long-story kept long:
##### painted a beautiful picture and gave it to ******** and I for our engagement in early January 1998 that said on the back "may your souls be forever intertwined" or something close to that. I decided after storing it all this time that I needed to double check that ******* didn't want it and then give it back to %%%%% and ##### as a belated marriage gift. I had it in the car on the way over to their house, and (one of my kids) read it and commented that they really weren't intertwined forever after-all. I started into a really nice explaination (to her and to myself) about how once two people decide to get married, and/or start a family, vacation together, pay bills late together, own a house, get forclosed on it etc, that wether they like it or not, for better or for worse, they are definitely intertwined. Also what occured to me in that Teaching Opportunity, as my father might call it, was that to reject a person that close to oneself, was to reject part of oneself, and that really hit me hard.
That wasn't the turning point for trying to accept ******* and Respect her, but it gave me a nitris-oxide boost down the path of MAKING it work by hook or by crook. We will raise these kids, We said we would, We will do a good job, We will be grown-ups about our differences, We will be flexible for each other, We don't have to be jerks to make sure we don't fall back into that aweful patttern, the past is the past, and damnit, we are family.
The sobriety part has been.. I can't say easy, but i will say it has been a no-brainer up until now.
recently I have been feeling tempted to slip into a buzz here or there, and so far I have been strong with the force. I quit using everything except caffeine on 7-11-06, and haven't so much as dabbled since. I think that helped me get through the last few years and has cleared up a lot of things for me. I think it would be foolish to go any other way.
I am looking at myself as causal in my life, and using my break for independance to push myself to be a better dad, boy, man, student, worker, and anything else I am.
Over the last few years in my relationship I have been less mindful than I wish, and had become a financial and emotional depentant. I foolishly let my ideas about parenting and who it is ok for me to be to get derailed by another persons ideas and I am determined to find myself.
Another issue on the table for me is a thing I think common to many disasterous family breakups; I threw the baby out with the bathwater on a lot of cultural influences.. friends, family, customs, celebrations, philosophies, anything that felt ******* was out and I adopted a whole new set of what it was to be me. A distinct break that made my life definitely different from *******'s. The problem with that is that it forced everyone in the family to live two distinct lives. It took away traditions that bound us together in memories and experiences and took thekids out of their element when with me. Suddenly what it meant to be with dad was a rejection of everything it was to be with mom. This has hurt everyone. I am sorry to have done it. I also understand I am not alone in it, and the job at hand is to carefully cull through all of it and decide what is a keeper and what is thrown back to the cultural river. There are people I love and care about that I literally haven't talked to since the start of our family drama.
I desire a break from being a chamelion to another person, long enough to see my own colors and decide who I am post divorce- who has emerged out there other side.
I am up to the challenge of forgiving myself and ******* for this huge misunderstanding and give her credit for being who I fell in love with. And I'm up to the challenge of not compromising my choice to be seperate either. She has a right to be herself wether I agree with how she does it or not. My job is to be here for the kids and rebuild who I am for me, and for them, and re-create the family value/culture to suit who we all are on the other side of the huge chaos we created.
I am up for the challenge.
And it is hard.
Let's hear it for more pirate papas.
Thanks Sky. Keep the faith.

posted by radicalshift @ 3:37 AM

What the fuck is Yoga, and Who Took My 40oz?

The title of this could be: "Parenting Through a Breakup" or "Overcoming Addictions as a Young Parent and Treading Water in the Aftermath" or "Having Kids, A Girlfriend, and a Baby Mama All at the Same Time" or "Holistic Therapy & Utilizing All the Resources of Your Community, Even if Part of You Hates Doing It" or "What the Fuck is Yoga and Who Took My Forty?"

Silence is a fence around wisdom. ~German Proverb

Nowadays most men lead lives of noisy desperation. ~James Thurber

Now all my teachers are dead except silence. ~W.S. Merwin

The silence depressed me. It wasn't the silence of silence. It was my own silence. ~Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

What page was I on? Why haven’t I written on Pirate Papa for a year and a half? What happened that distracted me from my ongoing project of self-documen-realization-tation? Perhaps there really are times to live, and times to write about living, as those wise-ones sometimes deign to tell us.

So... where to begin, for those of you who do not know the details of our sordid little web of worries, wants and wily individuals wreaking havoc with each others lives here on the Northleft Coast? Do you want/need to know the details? Do I want you to know the details? No, not really. So I’ll summarize to spare us all the brunt, blunt edge of truth: the details are a lot of pain and suffering, some very unhealthy violence, a dash of rejoicing, a few periods of intense personal growth, some fucking and some fucking over of good people on all sides of some painful issues, some healing, too much drinking, not enough writing, good food (always good food), tears, blood, sweat and ink.

There you have it.

Fast forward to now. I have a beautiful, doting Hannah who lives with me. I get my ladies half the time and have for the past nine months. Week on with me, week off with their mama… Someone said a few weeks ago: "You must be grieving." And I realized… I am grieving. I'm grieving and learning how to recover and balance and thinking about my posture, liver, kidneys, spleen, blood flow. "Am I standing up straight enough?" I think. "Am I clenching my butt enough for this to be better for my back than slouching?" I think. "You are standing up straight enough and this is good." My back thinks back at me. I walk taller now. I breath a little deeper in order to do so and that feels good. Sometimes I forget. I’m getting acupuncture and learning about my own body and my body feels good too and this makes me smile.

Like most other periods of my life, this past year and a half is blurred now, already, by whatever blurs our memories of things, faces, events. Evidently I have a surplus of that mysterious substance floating around in my brain, and not much else. I look at pictures and see myself smiling and my girls growing and I let the sounds and smells of what I do remember flood over me as often as I can. I try to live each day at a time and as a step towards something greater that I am trying to build and fashion from this clay of mortality I embody. I try to focus on whatever is in front of me. Nothing more. Nothing less. I give it my attention as best I can. I try not to dwell on broken hearts or fights or fanciful flights or past happenings of any kind, unless they directly pertain to what is at hand and then I try to embrace them, forgive them, gift them wings and let them fly away from my heart and disperse their bad energies back to whatever depths or heights from which they may have sprung.

Today I have a wonderful woman who loves us and lends her beautiful hands to our labors of love with joy and cunning and vitality and a smile. We have a large garden overflowing with vegetables. The ladies are walking and talking with amazing multi-syllabic words and rambling sentence-thoughts and a very advanced vocabulary for their boisterous, exuberant age of four. We care for a lovely Great-Dane Bull Mastiff mix named Deezle who weighs more than I do and gets spoiled like I want to be, but that's okay. The books continue to pile up, as they have a tendency of doing in my family. My job progresses as I grind my nose to oblivion on a stone. But I like my job. Sometimes I really don't like parts of my job but I do them anyway. I sell underground books to perfectly normal weirdoes all day long. We travel a little and go to book fairs, barter fairs, anarchist gatherings. I shop at bookshops, thrift stores, yard sales, a few auctions. Every few months some combination of us goes to Walla Walla to give the girls some Grandpa time and for me to get another load of antiquarian and interesting books to drag back over and on which to work for the next two months. We watch movies and put vintage paperbacks in bags and smoke into the night. Hannah helps guide me back into myself through every day.

I went a bit crazy for a spell back there and hurt myself a lot before I could pull out. Drinking too much on too little sleep for too long. Being single for all of six months and now missing it from time to time, in some stupid sentimental way. But not liking myself when I was single either. Too self-destructive, and thusly, too destructive of others selves as well, some of those closest to me. Slept around, flirted with poly-amory, drank myself into oblivion whenever I didn't have my kids, tried to keep my journals and my wits about me and my businesses growing and my friends happy. Nothing worked. Wasn't trying to keep myself happy. And I definitely didn’t feel like the ‘real man’ I wanted to be. Hannah found me like that, in the bars, pretending to be happy and social and healthy. She didn't try to ‘change me’ or ‘fix me’ or whatever, thank god, that's such a turn-off. She just stood beside me until I didn't feel like doing it all anymore, at least on the reckless level I was before or, as my father so delicately put it: “burning the candle at both ends.” Ouch. What was that about the truth? About saying these things that stab us outloud. About release. To heal myself I had to hole up inside, cut ties to everyone and everything I could. Now I slowly have to rebuild those damaged bonds (doomed stocks?), as time goes by. What an investment friendship is.

Now I have to deal with the wreckage and aftermath and conflicts of interest and vendettas sprung from my selfishness and emotional immaturity. Now I have to reckon with the results of my own actions. And I have to learn how to do all this without tearing myself apart with guilt and self-pity. I wish I hadn't had to do it the way that I did, the way that I am. I wish I had found a better way, a way to communicate my ideas and feelings to my friends as I pulled away, to explain my self and my necessary, temporary, painful absence from their lives but not their hearts. Instead I just donned the tough-guy mask and plodded forward stubbornly. I didn't share myself. I didn't share what was in my head, what was in my heart. Those bonds take so much longer to build back up after they've been broken. So that now I have to write about it, so that others can hear and perhaps avoid some slightly similar situation in a healthy, nonviolent, creative way.

We really are the only ones who can fix ourselves. Other people can aid us, give us gentle guidance, instill us with new methods or ideas. Around me people burn bridges that were so beautiful and leave each other in the ashes. Around me people abuse their bodies and minds and push themselves into a stupor closing in on death. Around me, flames burn bright and fast and threaten to extinguish themselves or each other. As communities we must learn to band together to fend off these flames from engulfing the fragile camps we have set into this wilderness of stimulus. Through a wicked cocktail of drugs, media, and privilege we have effectively stunted our own emotional growth and development. We must learn how to voice and share and thereby re-channel our collective anger and regret and fear and hate and worry into a cohesive, constructive force to be aimed at the heart of these issues: health care, poverty, anger-management, family planning and sex education, male bonding, patriarchy, alternative resources and support networks for young parents, other options to state-mandated assistance, a fundamental revamping of our educational system and a focusing-in on systemic problems contributing to our fractured society and sense of place. Need I go on? I share myself with you and ask for nothing in return save that you listen and let my words move through you.

so...

I'm addicted to good beer
I'm addicted to sunshine and gasoline and pumping my gasoline and watching beautiful women pump gasoline
i'm addicted to cigarettes and woodsmoke and smog
i'm addicted to frozen pizzas and organic vitamin supplements and
certain kinds of cough syrup
i'm addicted to writing and reading and computers and children and parents
and... did I say sunshine?
I'm addicted to a veritable plethora of colorful chemicals in my drinking water, my french fries, my rainfall, my food, my clothing, my cleaning products
I'm addicted to sex and tongues and shoulder blades and loneliness
I'm addicted to television and movies and radio
I'm addicted to the fringe, the underbelly, the counterculture crazy, the voodoo shamans on barstools and their crows that haunt our streets

Where do we draw the line between addiction and habit? How do we
delineate between physical heath and mental health and their paradoxical panacea?

Our vices and our virtues bleed into time across the same value line,
biorhthymically complimenting each other's inadeqeucies and acting together to help us hold ourselves above water. If heady dank local beer and an irregular sleep habit is what keeps you going, what keeps you sane, what keeps your family on track then
so be it. So be it if you spend enough on beer over the years to send
your kids to college... would you, would they have ever made it to the
point where they can question "which college should I go to?" WITHOUT
that beer you drank to fuel you through shoring up the foundations of your own business? Through dealing with the trials and tribulations of shoring up a nuclear family? Silly questions in my mind.

How do we attempt to justify our own ineptitudes and failures? To what extent do comments and criticisms from loved ones play into our cycles of binging, purging, being?

Look what a kiss will buy
or sigh giving
or die living

An odd day yesterday, completely unpredictable, like I like them. A blue foul funk of a mood blew over me so I bought some bookshelves and played blackjack at the casino. Sure, I may have lost money, but I bought the experience, I bought the drive home, the presence of mind it gifted me, the tips for the dealers, two beers, and an hour of pure random entertainment with older strangers guffawing at the outside world inside a dark dank cave where daylight fears to tread. It was great. And I got to smoke inside! [a luxury here in Washington State] So I proceeded to spontaneously stop at Sage Books in downtown Shelton 'cause I wanted to write and had not a pen upon me and they have one of those nifty free internet 'poo-koos' one can utilize at one's leisure. Then a drive around the island, a beer, some beach before the darkness settles. Tenses and times merge within me. I take the weekend off to winterproof the house a bit, build shelves, push books around, get some yardwork done. Today I end up sleeping until 1:30 p.m. Suppose I needed it. My inner workaholic yanks his hair out. My inner shrink taps his foot and frowns. My inner witch brews tonics. I do what I can, take some time for myself, go with the flow and forget about everything I planned on accomplishing this weekend. Fuck it. Do what makes you feel good and keeps the moss off the stone.

Addressing the almost over-powering yin of an abortion clinic waiting room while my partner gets a pap smear among other things...

from a male doctor for the first time.

The other man (a father?.. no) and I exchange a handful of eyes over the course of an hour and nearly a half and I want to shake his hand, speak openly and intimately here and now because he quite obviously seldom does and so do I and I think maybe here of all places would be a good place to start and maybe he feels something akin to that too and that’s why this is so awkward because we’ve never done it before or maybe he has but anyway we don’t and the rug is a hideously queasy pale blue and the curtains and cupboard doors are spackled and sponged a mix of teal and granite, very un-yin actually, and I think one of the plants may be real and Madonna of course looks nice atop the towers of shitty mothering magazines and it makes me really glad somewhere not very deep down at all and not really glad really that the date on the cheapo plasti-wood plaque from the better business bureau reads 2003 and the nurses here are so highly charged but somber, a mix of life and death and hope and loss and horror hovering over the place like a fog bank that you never really withdraw from but leave a little piece of yourself in for all the future patrons to perceive and when the nurse takes us in the back room and I try to wrap my mind around ’11 weeks’ while she says ‘less than a minute’ and I just blink, blink back confused tears or anger or a dust mote in the eyes of many gods and the blue rug and the mindless magazines we pore over anyways like ignorant savages must devour playboys, that strange hot cocktail of exceitement and revulsion that comes from being somewhere you’re not supposed to be but have to.

submitted by anonymous

Dear xxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Very soon we will begin the abortion.

I very much appreciate the support you have given me so far, and I hope to learn more from you about your perspective and how to help you to cope with it. It is a delicate subject that we are both haunted by, but I feel confident that we can use this experience to turn those ghosts in to guardian angels. What I mean is that I am approaching this very difficult experience as an opportunity to grow, and I hope that we can embark on that process together. I sincerely feel that this spirit was sent to my womb to teach us how to come together, to greive together, to support one another, and to persevere in the face of something we cannot buy our way out of. At times during this next couple of weeks as we go through the abortion process, we will probably cry. At times we will probably be angry. At times we will think, “this is too fucking much, I cant do this.” But we have to, we have no choice. We have learned that from having children, and we will put it to practice again as we let go of another.

I have researched herbal abortion and have made a plan. You very graciously told me that you would do anything that I needed you to do, and I am going to accept that offer. I thought that I might tell you how to best do that, what I need from you so that you don’t have to guess about anything. It is tremendously difficult, yet entirely monumental that I am saying this, but I need for this time to be about us and me, and not you. Period. When this is over, everything will be different, we as people and as a family. And then we will begin the process of talking about your vascectomy, and I will be sure that you get the same special care. I have already begun to be able to visualize the person that I am going to be when I come out on the other side. I know that this is it. This is the next event in both of our lives that will determine who we are. Because we really are still becoming who we are, and it is beyond critical to our love that we manage to get through this together.

On the first day, I will make the arrangements for a clinical abortion in case this one fails. I have faith in my body, my will, your will, the earth, plants, and the synergy of the universe to provide the right outcome. However, there are unknowns, and once I have ingested the abortifacient herbs, the embryo will be at the very least damaged. I will need to go to have a pregnancy test at a clinic to have the pregnancy confirmed so that I can start the process to get a DSHS coupon, and then I will make an appointment at a clinic. With blessings, I will not have to keep the appointment, but then at least I could be sure that the pregnancy is terminated before it is too late. I will get all of the herbs for the abortion, and we will need to talk a lot. Probably more than you want to, but it is important that we stay together, and remain bonded and present for each other.

The first day, I will start taking Vitamin C at hourly intervals. This both stimulates my immune system, and tells my glands to stop excreting progesterone, which the embryo needs to survive. I will use a tampon soaked in parsley and evening primrose oil as a vaginal suppository in order to get the oils to my cervix, in order to ‘ripen’ it and ask it to let go of the hold it now has in order to keep everything in my uterus safe. This will be very uncomfortable, please be tolerant of any bitchiness that results. I will start to drink cotton root tea, once and then five hours later, and then four hours later, and then two, and then at regular intervals of two hours until the bleeding starts. This will shut down progesterone production even more, and will probably result in the death of the embryo. This rapid change in hormones will be very weird, Im not quite sure what to expect, but please be respectful, listen to me cry or leave me alone or hold me, and bite your tounge if you have to. I promise I will appologize later. I will promise to tell you what I want and not expect you to be a mind reader.

The next day, I will continue to do all the same things and begin taking the Blue Cohosh tincture (thirty drops in warm water) every four hours for five days. This herb has two chemical properties that are abortifacient. First, it stimulates oxytocin, which contracts the uterus. I have read that the oxytocin release from orgasm enhances this function quite a bit, by establishing a rhythm in uterine contraction. We should talk about sex. We should see if this is an option for our program, but we (I’ll help!) would need to make sure that I had an orgasm (oh darn!). After the first dose or two, I should do some physical excersize to get it pumping through my system. This would be an excellent time for me to take a brisk walk in the woods, it would also be very good for me to talk to the trees during this time. I don’t know what the effects of this herb will feel like, it will be at least very uncomfortable and at most excruciatingly painful. We’ll see.

On the next day, I will begin to taper off the cotton root and start to drink Angelica tea. This is a blood thinner and a uterus relaxer. This is when most of the blood will come out and I will have to catch it in a menstrual cup and pour it in to a glass of water to look for the fibrous tissue. This might be really difficult, and maybe something you can help me with. I want to pour this water to the fern outside our front door. I will continue this routine until the bleeding begins to wane and the yellow branch-like structure that is the part that connects the embryo the uterine wall is found. This means that the abortion is complete, and that I can begin to restore the dramatic depletion that my body has undergone in terminating the pregnancy. During this time, I will need lots of water, mineral-rich (especially iron) and protein-rich food, help taking my tinctures and teas at regular intervals, to be held and kissed and loved, time for contemplation, and rest. I will need to wake up a couple times in the night to take tincture. I will need a well-cleaned bathroom to take baths and meditate on the emotional aspects of this detatchment and to preform the more gruesome parts, as well as a peaceful sanctuary in the bedroom to retreat to.

I know that this is all a lot to ask, but it is what we have to do. In many ways, you will have to bear the same degree of burden as I do, just in a different way. Through all of this, I will do whatever I am able to make it as easy for you as possible. I know that we can do it together. When the abortion is complete, I will have to spend the next few weeks repairing. I will start taking echinacea and astralagus to stimulate immune function, and get back on a Multivitamin routine. I will need to eat really well, drink Nutri-tea, and plenty of water as well as take it easy and get plenty of rest. I will need to drink teas to contract my uterus down to its normals size. Most importantly, I will need to repair the damage to my liver and kidneys that the abortifacient herbs made. The silver lining is, I will be forced to take care of myself in the way that I know is best and have been wanting to start doing again. This would be a really good time for you to make any lifestyle changes that might make you healthier, and to start to research what you can do herbally to prepare for sterilization, because we will be able to support each other now in our changes, perhaps better than any other time, because we will both be in transition.

This will be a huge transformation for us, for me, and I think for you. I think that a lot of the problems we have now will be resolved by the growth that will take place through all of this. I will feel stronger, and the negative feelings that I still hold on to from our last pregnancy will be replaced with trust, mutuality, connectivity, and love. I love you so much, and I know that this is going to make us better. This child, this life of ours that is growing inside of me, cannot go to waste. We must take that energy of life that we created and transform it into something that we do want right now. I want a garden, a happy family, good food, beautiful things to look at, and you there with me as I look at them.

submitted by anonymous
[tags: herbal abortion, alternative abortion, d.i.y. abortion]

Weep (it is frequent in human affairs),

Weep for the terrible magnificence of the means,

The Ridiculous incompetence of the reasons,
the bloody and shabby
pathos of the result.
Jeffers,Robinson.EagleValor,ChickenMind.TheDoubleAxe.Pg.127

it's fucking hard

sometimes but you've just got to do it. you can't quit like you did with every other thing you didn't like. at times you want to scream or drink the world. other times you're just plain old-fashioned lonely. take time to write. take time off from everything when you can. take time out for a beer, just the two of you, and remember that you are still free. and so are the one's you love. your wings may at times feel clipped or caged but that's just because you haven't spread them in awhile. you've been too busy admiring other angels.

divergent paths and harbored guilt

we are capable of inflicting the worst possible pains on those we hold most dear. time, patience, distance, space, wants, needs, plans, dreams, desires, self-consciousness, self-confidence. these things tried and true and tired and rude and rhythmic. we dance around our alter-egos, pretending we care more about this than that or me or you or them. we lead each other on in order to test our limits, see what we can get away with. the health of our partner is not always in the forefront of our minds but we still and always care like a river flows. anger and madness are our sometimes bedfellows and occasionally we make pacts with peace or slumber. overall our shock at the flying hours only leaves us room to shrink back into ourselves, our shells, our foxholes.

Translating for mama and other tales of trying times

Spending the bulk of time with our girls has made me somewhat of a resident expert on their indiosyncratic language traits and signs and squeals and sounds. I even have to act as interpreter for Stephanie from time to time and have been unsure as to how to approach this. I don't want to be nit-picky and butt in every time she doesn't understand what they're trying to convey but what am I supposed to do? I know the answer to the problem and can solve the tension with a few words but I feel like Steph needs to build her own understanding and relationship with them. But then it starts driving me subliminally crazy and I end up just blurting out the translation in the form of an almost-order sometimes: "I think she needs a diaper change honey." We only say honey when we're mad or dripping with sarcasm. So oh well, playing catch-up is a part of life when you have to sacrifice one thing to gain another. And we all learn our lessons the hard way sometimes, walking a path before we realize we don't belong there.

me play all day and me work all night

scarleht swept the kitchen floor with my mother this evening. lyli wore a dastardly pink collared button-up tee. i drank some moosedrool and pored over old books when i wasn't reading goodnight moon for the twenty-thousandth time.

time here at "home" is strange. my folks work most of the time and my mother is obsessive compulsive enough to waste what little time she has cleaning instead of hanging out with her grandchildren. my father is tired and detached. one of my dogs is dead and my old grey cat is on her last leg. it is as if the sand inside the hour glass has eaten away at the mummified memories I left here entombed in a self i thought i past.

a tiny cry from the basement rouses me from reminiscing. that room down there filled with the trinkets i infused with meaning once, now less. i thought that maybe i could escape the cliche, you can never go home, but it seems that even i must fall victim to time's ambiguities. i, who used to scoff at schedules, am now wrapped tight amidst them.

like a pair of pancakes i flip my girls and they fall back to sleep. two wrinkles ironed out in the clothing of this night.

mama's job stress, a live-at-home papa, a cold beer and daily life

steph is stressed out by her job and the fact that she only sees our girls for a couple hours a night. as soon as she walks through the door they turn from angels into little whirlwinds and all the patience and process and progress I have helped them foster these past 18 months goes out the window. it's hard for me too even though I try not to show it. Even though they've been cooperative with me all day long it's tricky, part of me gets instantly fed up with both them and stephanie for their lack of patience and understanding with each other. i know it comes down to a simple time thing and the mere fact that i have spent a much more significant amount of time with them shines through in the relationship we have. and so, after taking care of them for 10 to 12 hours straight i usually opt to postpone my break a little longer and help steph slog through the rocky evening.

my days are long, 16 to 20 hours on average. lyli and scarleht usually read anywhere from 5 to 40 books a day, so sometimes my eyes are swimming by 2 pm. we've been trying to make the switch from one long nap to two medium length naps and have been fairly successful with only a couple slip-ups. it's strange being a live-at-home papa in a society that totally supresses and rejects fatherhood but i also like the fact that I am having aunique experience and value the time I am investing with my children. sometimes it feels like i am a single father being magically assisted economically by friends and family and businesses. selling books online is an excellent way to work out of your home by the way and a topic for an entire essay on how more radical fathers could get away with living and working at home. alas, the unnecessary separation of labor from love in this world is devastating across the spectrum.

i do have fun but i also get absolutely worked. from chasing twins to washing dishes & floors to splitting wood to the chainsaw and stroller and other random chores coupled with carrying multiple 50 pound boxes of books every day from here to there and back again... by the time 11 pm rolls around I enjoy settling in to a movie and a little book-looking-up. steph usually falls asleep with the girls and sleeps until morning. i guess she just requires more sleep than me. i've always been able to sacrifice that for productivity or personal space and relaxing time. who knows? maybe in 30 years it'll come back and bite me in the ass and my health will go down the tubes a touch too quick. but i don't think so. faith in oneself is the most important part.