I’m writing this now because I’ll be in no condition to write it after the fact. I’ll be sore, more so in my body than my pride, but the difference between the two will be negligible.

A buddy of mine, Tim, invited me to join his Wednesday night basketball team, and I have made the catastrophic decision to accept the invitation. But it wasn’t until after I said yes that Tim revealed I would be the team’s fifth player, which means I will be playing the entire game.

A year or two ago, this would have been a non-issue. I had a gym membership then. I showed up every Sunday morning at 7:00 and played full-court basketball until 11. I had my “wind” and my stamina. I had game. My body may not be built for much (see: scarecrow), but my height and freakishly long arms were quite the tools on the court. I don’t mind telling you I was pretty hot shit.

But I haven’t picked up a basketball in more than six months. In fact, I haven’t picked up anything but a laptop, a lightweight four-year-old girl and several dozen beer cans since I quit the gym. I haven’t run a single step. I haven’t taken a single jump shot. And I’m not altogether sure I’ve even lifted my hands above my shoulders.

I have become (dare I say it?) a typical American. Were it not for my genetic predisposition to thinness, I’d be nothing but a 600-pound, mouth-breathing oaf who sits on the coach and spends his days checking his belly rolls for errant snack cakes.

I have exactly six days to pull myself together. But given the fact that I have a critical deadline to meet between now and then, the odds have fallen strongly in the favor of me seizing up in a ashen, shivering mass of sweat, tears, Gatorade and bile before three minutes have elapsed in Wednesday’s game. Good tickets are still available.

I’m 37 years old. Guys my age should have long since surrendered to the laws of whatever it is that cripples people who try to exert themselves beyond the boundaries of common sense. When I was younger, guys my age were pathetic. They didn’t belong on the court. They were the codgers whose oncoming dementia made them pass the ball to the wrong team, whose frailty let their attempts at a 15-foot jump shot soar about 12 feet, and whose Achilles’ tendons would snap and roll up into their calves like a window shade and thereby drag the game to a screeching halt.

I’m that guy now.

This is going to hurt.

I was the only customer in Starbucks at the time, which is rare. I pranced right up to the register, ordered my foo-foo coffee drink (iced venti quad soy latte) (which is adjective-laden, baristaspeak that translates to “I have a vagina and you can’t use it”) and sat down to wait for the green-apron-clad redhead to make it.

I picked up an errant sports page left by another customer. And just as I open it to page two, in walks Todd Marchant.

Todd Marchant of the Anaheim Ducks.

The Stanley Cup champion Anaheim Ducks.

Only because it’s germane to this topic, I’ll tell you that I was a sportswriter for about 10 years. I’ve had breakfast with Tiger Woods, asked Michael Jordan two stupid questions, and exchanged dick jokes with a former Detroit Red Wing who shall remain nameless. My point is this: I’ve been around athletes. I’m used to them. I know they’re just regular guys, and I tend not to get star struck anymore.

I suppose that’s why I view yesterday’s run-in with Marchant as such an anomaly. My first reaction was to look away, as though making eye contact with the third line center on a small-market hockey team is the same as looking directly into the sun. “My eyes! My eyes! It burns! Make it stop! Make it stah-ha-hoppppp!”

“Large coffee, room for cream,” he said.

That was all. He didn’t speak again.

After he’d been handed his coffee, he walked over to the straw/napkin/half-and-half/Splenda packet station, which happened to be about two inches from my left foot (don’t make me tell you how I know what two inches looks like). I was still looking down at the floor, but I could see out of my peripheral vision that the man could kill me with his calf alone.

Then he left.

And a little piece of me left with him.

(Specifically, the piece that allows me to believe I’m not a big sissy in a poodle skirt.)

Go Ducks.

We are under attack.

Southern California has been overrun by a fly infestation of biblical scale. They’re everywhere – in the kitchen, by the trashcans, on the dogshit in the backyard. We have a yellow fly swatter in the house that has seen more action this week than a tin of Altoids at a whorehouse.

These are not normal flies; they’re al Qaeda flies. They come jetting right at your face – a fly playing chicken, if you will – and they refuse to be the first ones to blink. If you don’t move, you get a mouthful of fly guts. NOT part of a nutritious breakfast.

I went to Home Depot to arm myself for a spirited defense of Evans World Headquarters, but virtually every spray, trap and fogger formulated especially for the little shitballs was sold out. I found a lady in an orange vest and asked (in so many words) “What the fuck?”

“Everyone in the county has the same problem,” she said. “The minute we put more fly traps on the shelves, they sell out.”

Although I AM the kind of person who takes no for an answer, I felt a sense of desperation about our fly problem. I sleep with my mouth open. So I looked the orange vested associate in the eye and said, “Perhaps you’ve heard of a web site called Dad Gone Mad?”

“No,” she said. “Can’t say I have.”

I chuckled arrogantly.

“Well, heh-heh. It happens to be VERY popular, and I’m the author of it. Does the store keep a stock of these traps on reserve for celebrities and dignitaries?”

You’ve never seen eyes roll so dramatically. “Let me check,” she said. “Sir.”

Someone in the warehouse must have known who I was because the orange vest lady returned with two fly traps that look like plastic bags. (See? It pays to be unfathomably famous.) I was instructed that the bags contain “fly attractant” so intense that the flies can’t resist going to it (same idea with men and porn). Once they crawl inside the bag to chase the scent, they’re too stupid to find their way out. Voila! Dead, dumb flies.

There was however once bit of information the sales associate neglected to mention (and I plan to have her fired over it): flies are attracted to a very specific odor. Can you guess what it is? No, not perfume. No, not hot dogs. It’s shit. Flies love shit. And that’s what the attractant smells like. Shit.

But I was undeterred. I hung the two shitbags outside, one near the trashcans and the other outside near the backyard door. And after 24 hours, I’m pleased to report that our fly problem has decreased significantly. The shitbags are full of dead flies. (Prediction: I’ll be getting email from animal rights groups today.)

In a moment of mania, I spoke to the dead flies tonight.

“Don’t you know who I am?” I said. “I’m the author of Dad Gone Mad. Didn’t you know I was hardcore?”

They didn’t answer.

I got an email this morning:

Hi There,

Just a comment:

You are a [sic] inspirational and quite humorous writer. I strongly believe many people with be encouraged and entertained by your blog. However: It's quite unfortunate you've decided to use foul language. This will eliminate many readers from having the privilege of receiving your witty insight and skilled writing, including me.

Thank you,
[Name Withheld]

It appears as though I owe you, my fragile reader, an apology. Forgive me for “eliminating” you from the chance to absorb my pearls of wit and wisdom.

I’m so fucking sorry.

This isn’t really that big of an issue but I guess I’m about to escalate it.

We have lived at Evans World Headquarters for nine years. We’ve conceived children here. We’ve hosted parties here. I taught the children how to do an arm fart here. Yet there is still something about the place that makes me feel like we just moved in. Would you like to know what that is?

We have no art. Our walls are as stark and bare as a stripper after a Brazilian wax appointment.

But wait. There’s more.

Hot Wife’s family has a business. IT’S AN ART GALLERY!

We’ve been fortunate enough over the years to have “borrowed” some of their “less new” pieces, which I believe to have been an act of desperation on their part – because they were mortified to be related to people who live in artless squalor. But isn’t art supposed to speak to your soul? Isn’t it supposed to mean something? Yeah, that’s where the problem comes in.

I’m done living a beige existence. I need POP. I need WOW. I need BOOYA! So this week I went online to find something that spoke to me. Shortly thereafter my search criteria were modified to “something that spoke to me for less that three months’ salary.”

I happen to be a fan of black and white photography, which you might have guessed based on the stark factual realism of the shit I write here. In my desperation, I bought a $25 print of waves crashing against rocks from IKEA several months ago and brought it home to show The Missus. I suggested we might hang it over the workbench (code for our bed). Hot Wife’s response: “That doesn’t say ‘peaceful’ to me. It says rough and loud.”

To which I obviously responded, “Perfect. I’ll get my hammer.”

I tried again this week. I found some really cool posters online and I sent Hot Wife the links in an email under the subject line "I LOVE THESE. THOUGHTS?"

Her reply: “Honestly, I don’t like any of them. I’d prefer paintings.”

Paintings. Pfft. Amateur.

So here we sit, surrounded by beige (except for the wall I painted red last fall because I was feeling rebellious). When I read your sites and see the immaculate, well-decorated homes in which you live, I wonder how on earth you can do that when you have children. Are we the only ones whose children fuck everything in the house up? How do you people do it? God DAMN you!

There is only one fix for our stalemate. I’ve decided to hang my old Farrah Fawcett poster above our bed, just like when I was kid. Perhaps that can replace “rough and loud” with “perky and toothy.”

Actually, hold the toothy.

I thought we had it all figured out. I thought we had reached an imaginary black belt in parenthood – a level of experience at which we were prepared for everything. We’ve become so adept at diffusing tantrums, coercing cooperation, soothing scraped knees and wounded pride that a certain level of arrogance was beginning to build. I hadn’t seen that until this afternoon.

I thought we were infallible. Impervious. It was as if a cushion had formed around us – a shield from the world and the shit that belonged to nameless, faceless people in the newspaper. We were above the fray. We couldn’t be touched. We were complacent, safe, better.

How foolish.

Tonight we had to tell our son that his friend was killed.

A six-year-old girl. And her father. Car wreck. Head-on collision.

We never considered this. Never let ourselves go there. Kids can’t die. They can’t. Death is for the elderly. The frail. The sick. The unknown. Death is not for little girls. Death is not for children.

Death is not for children.

Our blanket of safety and infallibility and complacency is in tatters. Like the frayed edges of an American flag atop a skyscraper. Our son. His friend. Death.

“She was so cute,” he said. “And pretty.”

Death is not for children.

When you are a parent, reality is your enemy. You don’t want to believe. You can’t. Not me. Not my kids. We’re different. We’re immune. We’re better. No. We are not. It could happen tomorrow. Will it? To us? No. That’s not reality. Death is for the others. Death is for the unknown.

“I can’t believe she died,” he said. “How did she die?”

He starts baseball practice again tomorrow. He’s so excited. Baseball. Spitting. Dirt. It’s a boy’s game. It’s carefree exuberance. It’s what boys are supposed to do.

I have a son. I have a daughter.

Death is not for children.

Almost all of my personal writing lately has explored the existential somersaults and attitudinal gyrations that seem to be a natural part of fatherhood. As much as the macho dudes among us would like to claim otherwise, becoming a dad and living with children turns us inside out. We find ourselves doing and thinking things the old, bachelor versions of ourselves would view as softness or weakness, if not as a complete affront to The Man Code.

The fact is I’ve been a parent for almost seven years, and I’ve long since ceased to be surprised or disturbed by the awkward moments. You get used to it. You learn to convince yourself that this is the life you wanted, these are the things a dad is supposed to do, this is what fatherhood looks like. Still, there are times when the reality of what I’ve become comes back at me with a vengeance. It reminds me of the way it feels to walk out of the conditioned air of a Vegas casino and into the 120-degree desert heat.

Last night I (voluntarily) accompanied my wife and kids to a friend’s house to watch the world premier of oh my gah-id High School Musical 2. For the uncultured, the HSM phenomenon is to this generation what Animal House, Grease and Sixteen Candles were those that preceded it. The only difference really is that HSM is fueled by the Disney machine, meaning any retail outlet you’re near during the next month or two, be it online or a physical structure, the banner ads and end caps will scream at you to buy The Official High School Musical 2 t-shirt, DVD, soundtrack, backpack, toothbrush, urinal burger, vacuum cleaner bags, microphone-shaped lollipops and pink sex lube.

There was a sobering moment during the night where I caught myself starting to like the movie, which is completely unacceptable for a 37-year-old man. I felt as though I was in one of those medieval torture devices in which n’er-do-wells we simultaneously pulled from their arms and their feet. I was held at the top by The Man Code, which clearly shuns enjoyment of any activity involving teenagers wearing pink and singing happy songs about love and frolicking about with nary a care in the world.

But my feet were held by life as it exists for me now. The kids, the things that bring them joy, their enthusiasm for things like…like… teenagers wearing pink and singing happy songs about love and frolicking about with nary a care in the world.

It’s funny. Earlier today I was writing about my first three months as a father, which was probably the most difficult period of my parental existence. The kids are next to nothing in the first 12 weeks; they demand to be fed and changed and to have these needs addressed whenever they feel like it, even 3 a.m. In return for your effort you get a steady diet of “fuck you”, which comes in the form of dirty diapers and incessant crying and sour-smelling spit-up in the front pocket of the shirt you intend to wear to work.

Those memories are faint. I feel so attached to my kids now, so connected and proud. We have conversations about everything, and about nothing at all, and what I learn at such times is that I’m an extraordinarily fortunate human being.

So yes, I’ll sit and watch High School Musical 2 with my children because they like it. And while I’m not quite prepared to say I liked it too, I'll tell you this: if being “a real man” means missing the chance to see my kids as happy as they were last night, I’ll gladly turn in my testicles. I’m not using them anymore anyway.

I can’t recall exactly what motivated it – although I think it might have had something to do with that dancing contest on TV where the stripper chick with the nostril piercing and the thick thighs prances around like she has habanero peppers in her ass – but I happened to let it slip out to my son that there used to be this dancer named Michael Jackson.

I can’t recall why I decided to put my son’s blissful innocence in jeopardy – although I think it might have had something to do with the fact that I haven’t done the moonwalk in 15 years – but I happened to have pulled up some old videos of Jackson from back in the day: Black or White, Billie Jean, Beat It, et cetera.

I can’t recall why he happened to latch onto this particular video – although I think it might have had something to do with the fact that Michael screams “Dow!” in it so often – but my son took a real shine to “Smooth Criminal.” We’ve watched it 50 times this week, if not more.

I can’t recall why I felt compelled to tell my son why I was once such a huge Michael Jackson fan – although I think it might have something to do with the fact that despite his becoming, you know, “weird”, I don’t believe anyone has ever put the whole “package” of dancing and singing together as well as he did – but I regretted saying it as soon as the words left my lips.

I can’t recall at what point during the video he blurted this out – although I think it might have had something to do with the scene where Michael crushes a cue ball in his bare hand (yeah, right) – but my son asked me why Jackson’s skin is so white. The question wasn’t asked with any hint of racism or disgust; he was merely curious (as we all have been, I suppose) why the guy looks so tweaked.

I can’t recall from which part of my ass I pulled this out – although I think it may have been somewhere near the part where I retrieved the bedtime story about Prince Flatulence and his rule over the kingdom called Cunnilingus – but I told him that sometimes people aren’t happy with the way they look, and if those people are filthy rich and completely loco like Michael Jackson, they have a lot of surgery on their faces – so many surgeries in fact that they stop looking like earthbound creatures and take on the appearance of, for example, someone who seems to really like little boys (and by “like” I mean if you ever see him in person, run and run and run some more and don’t stop until you hit a beach, a mountain or a border fence).

“Um, Danny?”

“Yeah?”

“The girls from my book club are going to come over Sunday to discuss the book we just finished.”

“Oh. Cool.”

“And…”

“And…you want me to vacuum? Buy a 12-pack? Shower?”

“I want you to take the kids out of the house so we don’t have any interruptions.”

“Wait. Are you kicking me out of my own house?”

“Yes, but it’s only temporary.”

“I can’t believe this. After all I’ve done for you…”

“Oh suck it up, you big baby. I take the kids out all the time so you can write in peace, even though I know all you do is look at porn when we’re gone.”

“OK. I give. You sunk my battleship.”

The winner and still Evans Headquarters Lightweight Champion…THE HOTNESS!

We went to the movies. That seems to be the default when I take the kids out alone. It’s the easiest option; I load them up with popcorn and Icees, and as a reward I get to sit in the dark and drink a Diet Coke the size of Lake Erie. A win-win for all of us.

The kids wanted to see Surf’s Up, which is the story of a surfing penguin. It has become my practice to tell the kids every animated movie we see is based on a true story, so if you ever meet them in person I urge you to play along when they tell you toys really do come to life when no one’s home and penguins totally shred the righteous boggas even when they have a killer babalas, dude.

The one real issue we confront in movie theatres is that my daughter doesn’t weigh enough to keep the fold-down theatre seats from closing in on her. It looks like a big-mouthed monster surfacing from the sticky, Coke-splattered floor is swallowing her whole. As a result, she prefers to sit in my lap for most of the movie.

She fell asleep on me about 15 minutes into Surf’s Up. An important note about that is my daughter is one of those kids whose slumber knows no bounds; her limbs spray out in all different directions and she snores like a drunken, narcoleptic sailor with a deviated septum. And she slobbers. You can imagine how comfortable this made me. But I guided my brain to that responsible, melancholy place where we tell ourselves they’re growing up so fast and who knows how many more chances there will be to have her fall asleep on me. So precious. So beautiful. Sleep, child. Sleep.

(I’ll pause momentarily while you puke.)

So we’re sitting there, my son and me, really enjoying the movie, laughing at the stupid chicken and snarfing down popcorn like it was the last thing we’d ever eat.

Then my daughter farted on me.

It wasn’t one of those harmless little puffs either. It had sound and rumble, very much like those relentlessly unleashed by her mother.

Then she did it again. And again, the final salvo coming in a deadly one-two combination: frapfrap.

Her brother, who happens to be a connoisseur of all things gaseous, heard the carnage and began to giggle. His giggle made me giggle, and my giggle made my stomach bounce up and down in convulsion. This created a bit of a waterbed effect for the poor girl and woke her from her drool-drenched slumber. She was not pleased.

It occurred to me then that this is why I love being a dad.

Is there anything more perfectly human and real and awesome than a little kid laughing at a fart? Maybe I’m just a seven-year-old at heart.

I’ll never say this to her face but I’m actually kind of glad Hot Wife kicked me out of the house that night.

I don’t dance often but when I do, I don’t really know what to do with my arms. Perhaps each of these realities is the cause of the other. Yeah, probably.

Growing up a nerd, you don’t get invited to too many parties – unless by “party” you mean sleeping over at your grandparents’ house with your sister and waking up to discover she’d puked in the bed. For the record, I never considered that a party. I wanted to go to the “keggers” all the cool kids in high school threw when their parents went to their time-share in Palm Springs. I heard there was under-aged drinking there, and girls dressed like sluts there. I hadn’t yet discovered the pure magic of beer yet, but I knew I liked sluts. Well, I figured I would if I’d ever met one. At a party.

Rumor was there was dancing at these parties too, and I suppose that was enough of a deterrent. Worse than being a nerd, I was tall and awkward (I said WAS). My arms were long and my hands were big and I schlepped around high school like a gangly mess of limbs and nose. But sometimes in my room, late at night, I’d pop a Night Ranger cassette tape into my Walkman, take off my headgear and pretend to be a rock star. It didn’t occur to me then, but it’s kind of ironic to see an uncoordinated Jewish kid lip-synching to “Sister Christian.”

Very shortly after Hot Wife and I started dating, we went to something called the WOMAD Festival – a concert that featured, among other performers, Peter Gabriel and PM Dawn. The music started and you could just see the beat in the way Hot Wife moved her body. It was coordinated and contained and it looked as though she might have done it before. I’m not sure I can adequately express how terrifying this moment was to me. I was going to have to dance. IN FRONT OF A GIRL!

P.M. Dawn was playing the extended superfly dance remix of “I’d Die Without You”, and the song seemed to go on for an hour. I suppose I could have stood there motionless like a dead fish, perhaps pretending to study the singer’s dreadlocks in consideration of growing some myself. But I decided to just go for it. I decided to go all Footloose and shit.

I started to bounce up and down on my knees. Safe. Basic. Low risk. I looked at the other guys around me and tried to mimic what they were doing. They closed their eyes and tilted their heads back a lot. Looked to me like they were trying really hard to hold their bladders, which made sense given how close we were to the beer garden, but it turns out they were “feeling” the song. Weird. All I felt was clumsiness.

I persevered, bouncing and swaying and closing my eyes in 1-2-3 succession – bounce, sway, close, bounce, sway, close. It couldn’t have been less rhythmic. It was like a seizure in three acts on a perpetual loop.

But the real problem was my arms. I just could not find anything to do with them. I tried crossing them. I tried putting my hands in my pockets. I tried bending my elbows at a 45-degree angle like everyone else, but that made me feel awkward and exposed. I felt like a moron – like hot dog with pieces of cooked spaghetti sticking out from each side, just flapping in the wind. Dancing would be a whole lot easier if I didn’t have any arms (although it would make it a lot harder to hold up a lighter at concerts).

I was fairly certain my catastrophic rhythm deficit would motivate Hot Wife to kick my flopping arms and the rest of me to the curb. But she’s a sucker for a good laugh at the expense of others, so she kept me around. Sometimes, when she’s feeling down or blue, she puts on an old song from Motown or the disco era and watches me try to resist the urge to shake what little bootie I have.

I remember someone saying a good marriage is one in which the spouses can laugh at each other. If that’s true, Hot Wife is the most happily married woman on the planet.

His name is Enzo, which strikes me as the perfect name for someone who makes his living singing songs about choo-choos and frogs and Polly Wally Doodle (whoever that is). Enzo is a regular topic of conversation when I talk to Wondersis, partially because the two are friends and partially because my sister knows I have some sort of mental block that prevents me from properly speaking his name. Since she’s known him, I’ve alternately referred to him as Emo, Elmo, Uzo, Gonzo, Bozo and Bob.

I finally met Enzo last weekend. In fact, our visit to San Francisco was a chance to get acquainted with a small army of Wondersis’ friends, and I must tell you that while they are a collection of lovely and friendly people, they have no idea what they’ve gotten themselves into. If you’re reading this, Bozo, run for your Polly Wally life.

Because we see one another so infrequently, there’s a strange dynamic when I’m with my big sister. Specifically, we become goofy, highly competitive idiots. We tease each other relentlessly. She says she’s smarter than me. I say she’s a fart-knocker. She says she’s stronger. I say, “Yeah. Stronger ODOR, you big shit-lemur!” And so on. (I suppose it goes without saying that I completely dominated her in the smackdown. Let this be a lesson, Wondersis: don’t start a fight you can’t win. Have you forgotten that I have a BLOG?!)

We had pizza with Uzo Friday night and chicken Saturday night with some other Wondersis friends, Phillip and Rachel. I have very fond memories of each night, especially Saturday, because Phillip and Rachel are Canadian Jews. I didn’t know that had Jews in Canada, but the convergence makes so much sense to me. The Chosen People always need something to kvetch about – and where better to find such fodder than in a country famous for cold weather, hockey fights and consistent butchering of the English language. So easy to find something to complain “abote” up there. I felt especially comfortable with Phillip because he and I both have the classic Jew body. His arms are harrier than mine, but my nose is bigger. Neither of us could make it two steps into a Mormon church without being accosted and told Temple Beth Bumblefuck is two blocks down.

Phillip has an iPhone, which to those of us who can’t afford one is like saying, “I can make my nipples switch places right before your eyes.” Everyone wants to see it. Phillip, my brother-in-law Ben, and I huddled around the iPhone and ogled it like it was a Playboy centerfold and we were all 12 years old. Even Hot Wife, Our Lady Of If My 15-Year-Old Cell Phone Ain’t Broke Don’t Replace It, was dazzled by the iPhone. On the drive home we discussed renouncing our Judaism and joining whichever church holds Steve Jobs as its Lord, Savior and Chief Technology Officer.

(As an aside, since Phillip is Canadian, I need to know if he has a brother named Terrance. Because...)

Saturday, after Gonzo’s concert in Bernal Heights (which I have officially renamed as Butthole Heights), Wondersis developed a hardcore jones for some new ice cream joint everyone in the city is talking about. So intent was my sister that we drove around for 30 minutes, finally found a parking spot four blocks away, and dragged four exhausted kids to this store. If you’re ever in San Francisco, the killer ice cream is across the street from that one park where the locals go get a hummer through a glory hole in the handball wall to bury their hypodermics in the sandbox. Travel Dangerously Magazine rates it as the best place in the world to confront death. And what better refreshment could there be after an a morning of gay sex and intravenous drug use than a big scoop of roasted turtle dick ice cream?

You learn early on that there are taboos – certain issues a blogger isn’t to discuss, certain specifics that must remain under wraps lest the revealer of such information show too much of himself or appear ignorant. Sophomoric. Braggadocious. One must never reveal the specifics of his site – its readership statistics, its ad revenue, its potency in its readers’ eyes. But I’ve been writing this shit for more than four years now and I feel confident enough in the site and those who frequent it that a brief foray into the unmentionable will be tolerable, if not altogether welcome.

I have a folder in my email entitled “Positive Feedback.” Anytime a reader sent me an email supporting or congratulating or (gasp!) praising what I do here, I filed it away in this folder and subconsciously pretended it never came. I didn’t dare internalize these comments, these warm fuzzies, because doing so felt uncomfortable, awkward, self-indulgent. But there has recently been a surge in such reader feedback and for the first time I felt safe enough to really read it and feel it.

I’m overwhelmed. I know that word is cliché and hyperbolic, but it’s genuinely how I feel. One can’t read the things you have said to me without wilting under the weight of it all.

From Arizona: “My mom is a huge fan of yours... HUGE! You can check your stat counter for someone from Hereford, AZ… and I'm betting it's her. She reads you everyday - and your blog is the subject of a lot of her conversations. When they went on vacation this summer for 4 weeks without Internet, she'd drive up to get cell service and then call me to find out what your blog was about that day.” She asked me – gave me the OPPORTUNITY – to send her mom a get well message, and while her mother was being wheeled into the operating room for a craniotomy, she told me she eased her mom’s nerves by talking about Dad Gone Mad.

From someone with a very sick child: “Life around our house has been pretty crappy the last four months. I happened to stumble onto your blog and it is the one thing I can always depend on to make me smile. Thanks.”

Two weeks ago from someone who writes for Letterman: “I recently discovered your writings. Holy smoke, they are so funny and right on (me being a tall, pasty father of two, as well) that it's making me want to ditch my own attempts to write comedy, as you are doing it to perfection. Brilliant stuff. Keep it coming!”

In September: “I can't believe I am writing this, I have never written a fan e-mail in my life. Can I gush for second? You are freaking awesome. Love your site, love your writing, glad to hear that you are going to be starting a new job that will kill a little less of your soul. I look forward to reading your posts everyday, and when you don't update a little piece of me dies a tortured death.”

From Andrews AFB: “I really enjoy your site. I’m in the military and work very long 12 hr days/nights. I find your site so funny. It helps me get through my days, which aren’t exactly walks on the beach. I wish you worked here, this place would be so much more tolerable.”

From Robert: “Danny, your daily writings have helped me in so many ways. Most importantly, you help me to see that the little things in life that most of us ignore can actually be very special moments. Reading about your life experiences raising your kids has really opened my eyes to the fact that even the not so good days for a parent can be cherished and memorable. I am not yet a father but I hope that when I am, I can be at least half the dad that you appear to be... I would like to thank you and the rest of the DGM gang again for doing what you do. You really are an inspiration to people.”

Last April: “Thank you for writing a great blog. Thanks for sharing a little bit of your life with us. Thanks for making me laugh. Thanks for helping me through some lonely times. I am making space on my bookshelf for what will surely be a fantastic first book. I might even spring for hardcover.”

From my perspective I’ve done nothing but serve myself with this blog. I’ve tested creative avenues and boundaries of decency. I’ve endeavored to make a profit. I’ve satisfied my own needs, personally and creatively and in measures of ego strokes. Believe me when I tell you that when I “do” this site my mind is on one thing: me. What can I get? What can I try? How can I find catharsis?

But the colorful, passionate, perplexing revelation that by taking care of my needs I have indirectly had an impact on others is nearly beyond my comprehension. I’m proud. I’m stunned. I’m grateful. And as I said, I’m overwhelmed.

It seems feeble and insufficient, but thank you.

Thank you for your candor and impassioned outreach.

Thank you for validating me and what I write and for feeding that desperate little voice in me that begs to be appreciated.

Are there turds out there? Naturally. There are plenty of folks who take shots under the shield of anonymity or technological evasiveness. There are legions who interpret my statements of pride or self-reflection as narcissism or arrogance. Yet despite those characters, I’ve never felt so creatively fulfilled or so personally accepted by so many.

It appears we’ve developed quite a mutual admiration society.

Four hours into our drive to San Francisco, we came upon an enormous cattle ranch. It appeared almost out of nowhere from the dull nothingness of California’s central valley, but once it came into view it stayed in our sights for what felt like a mile, maybe more. Thousands of cows, right next to northbound Interstate 5, all milling about and doing whatever it is cows do on a late Thursday morning.

We’d left home at six in the morning, and the kids had seen nothing but corn stalks and grapevines since we left L.A. County two hours earlier. The vision of something different – something alive and mobile – was almost more than they could handle. In fact, my son was so inspired and enlivened by the sea of cattle that he felt compelled to roll down his window and yell something to them. “Yo! Wassup, cows?” he said.

A fraction of a second after he yelled, the odor flooded the minivan like a rogue wave on the ocean. He tried to close his window in time to block it out, but it was far too late. The stench of unfathomable nastiness had invaded our space and immediately rendered the poor kid a flummoxed little spaz. He began to cry and act frustrated, and my trained parental eye could see it was time for immediate evasive action lest the boy continue downward spiral, thereby making the last two hours of the trip unbearable.

“Think, Danny! Think!” I told myself. “Distract the boy before he kills us all.”

And suddenly, like magic, it was there. Right in front of me. One cow mounting another from behind.

A funny thing happens to a person when he’s been driving for four hours and is desperate to keep his child from freaking out. He forgets social norms. He ignores simple parental decorum. He says things that shouldn’t be said to six-year-olds.

“Ohmygodlook!” I blurted, pointing at the “adjoined” cows. “They’re DOING IT!”

I knew the moment the words left my mouth that I was in for a world of hurt. I turned to look at Hot Wife in the passenger seat. Her face was blanketed with shock. Or was it repulsion? Or was it the look that says, “Try to weasel your way out of this one, smart guy.”

The obvious question: “Daddy, what does ‘doing it’ mean?”

(But at least he wasn’t crying anymore.)

“Think, Danny! Think!” I told myself.

“Well,” I said, “they were obviously doing SOMETHING back there, right?”

“Uh huh.”

“And what did it look like they were doing?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Wrestling?”

“Wrestling! Exactly! Or maybe we should call it ‘rough-housing.’ So, yeah. That’s what ‘doing it’ means. It means rough-housing.”

“Oh,” he said. “OK.”

Two hours later, we pulled into our hotel parking lot. The sign above the entrance said COW HOLLOW INN. If they could just have dropped the second N, it would have been perfectly serendipitous.

Pray for me because by the time you read this I will be hurtling toward Northern California to visit Wondersis and her spawn.

Pray for me because said hurtlage will be hurtled in a minivan.

Pray for me because there will be two children in the minivan with Hot Wife and me, one who will be seven next month and the other age four.

Pray for me because the estimated time of hurtlage from Orange County to San Francisco is sixish hours (elevenish if Hot Wife's driving), which allows plenty of time for the children to do the kinds of things children are supposed to do when they’re cooped up in a hurtling minivan. For example, throw a DEFCON 1 spaz because we won’t stop at every rest stop between The Grapevine and the In-N-Out Burger in Bakersfield.

Pray for me because when I talked to my little niece (Wondersis’ daughter) on the phone last night she told me she couldn’t wait to show me a new game she and her brother invented. It’s called Fire-Poo.© To play this game, one needs a plate of nachos with a big dollop of sour cream. As I understand it, you’re supposed to scoop up a glob of sour cream with your right index and middle fingers, hold it high in the air as though you’re about to throw it at someone, and then scream, “FIRE-POOOOOO!”©

Pray for me because a drunk Wondersis is a very scary Wondersis indeed.

Pray for me because when my son and nephew get together they get all fired up and loopy, and in such times they like to release their combined aggression all over my crotchial region. Could be a very long ride home.

Pray for me because my son has been sick for the past couple of days – fever, malaise, etc. He’s better now but you just KNOW that same little asshole germ is floating around in one of our bodies, just waiting for us to head out on the road before it attacks. If you’re reading this, Mr. Little Asshole Germ, don’t even fucking start. I’ve killed meaner germs than you and I’ll kill again. Do you feel lucky, punk? Well do ya?

Pray for me because we put a new tire – yes, just one – on the minivan last weekend. We bought the tire at Costco. Membership does have its privileges, but here’s hoping one of them isn’t vehicular manslaughter.