More esteem.

Somebody liked Corned Beef and Cabbage, and I'll be darned if they didn't say so in the coolest manner possible.

(Everyone votes for their top 5 songs, and then the votes are tabulated after the 1st of the month. This is the first vote I've gotten, but it's a number 1, no less!)

Esteem (thanks, Stephanie).

Need to feel liked?

Look at that there participle a-danglin' there!

Below, I wrote:

Occasionally I designate a "personal day," where I resolutely refuse to make lunches, play with them, etc.

It's a sad day indeed when a father refuses to play with lunches.

Listen to my works, ye mighty, and despair!

Here's Corned Beef and Cabbage (1.9 MB mp3), an entry in the KVR monthly song contest. Naturally, the first month I entered set the record for number of entries: 87. I'll be lucky to make the top 80.

Trials.

Being a professional father is not a hard job. I know, according to the prevailing zeitgeist, I'm supposed to say, "Parenting is the hardest job in the world," but you know what? That's not the case. Shocking, I know. Here you were all thinking that I had it even worse than a commercial fisherman, a sweatshop worker, or an Iraqi policeman, and I ruin your preconceptions. (I have very few friends with kids, and now the ones without 'em will no longer buy me drinks after I've had a hard day with sick children, like today.)

Nonetheless, being a full-time parent (what a silly idiom--who isn't a full-time parent?) does have its own set of trials and tribulations:

• Sloth. When I was working outside the home, I would religiously shave and brush my teeth. (Which religion? I'm an atheist.) Now, I sit here typing this blog with three days' growth of stubble on my face. What's worse, I only brush my teeth in the evening now, even though I think it's disgusting. There just doesn't seem to be a reason to take care of myself.
  
• Leisure (or lack thereof). I have it pretty cushy, I know. Many people would kill to be able to stay home with their kids all day. But there's a flip side to this: I never really have a day off. Sure, on the weekends I get a hired hand, also known as my wife, to help out. But seven days a week I do my job, except under rare circumstances. Occasionally I designate a "personal day," where I resolutely refuse to make lunches, play with them, etc. Unless things are really bad, I make sure that doesn't happen when K is at work.
  
• Self-esteem. Everyone thinks they should be in a different place than they are, so I can't really claim I'm unique in saying that I didn't expect to be a full-time dad. But the Big Lie of the western world--or maybe I should call it the Big Expectation--that the man is supposed to bring home the bacon--well, that's ingrained pretty well into my soul. Especially since I basically grew up in a bachelor household, and my father's identity was and is bound up in his work. That I don't hold a "paying" job is sometimes a source of great shame to me. Even if you factor in the cost of day care.
  
• Temper. Regular readers--yes, you and you--know that I have trouble keeping my anger in check at times. So do my kids. And when we both holler at each other, which happens more often than I'd like... well, it's nasty.
  
• Time management. Uninterrupted blocks of time are so scarce that if I have personal projects on which I work, I inevitably wind up sacrificing the kids--or getting angry at them if they interrupt me (see Temper, above). But more than that, I can never budget enough time to just get out the door; no matter how hard I try, we're always five minutes late for everything.
  
• Lust. Some stay-at-home fathers, I'm told, are so bored during the down time that they just surf the Internet, looking at porn. Not me, of course. I would never do such a thing.

ooo-WEEE-oo-oo!

God damn it. I recently got into the Beach Boys (K got me Pet Sounds for Christmas, and I bought a compilation off iTunes after I got my iPod) and I had been meaning to blog about it for a long time now. I just never got around to it. Now, though, I can't, because it'll seem like I'm stalking Laura again. Stupid cosmic coincidences.

Bloat.

I've had to battle "gigabyte creep" on my laptop's hard drive. Not a big surprise, really, for someone who works in video as much as I do. Them movies is expensive. Anyway, I deleted some of the usual suspects: animations which I had finished, old versions of WAV files that have been replaced, and I got rid of a couple gigabytes that way.

Then, I cast a baleful eye on my applications folder, and in particular my cherished WWII first-person shooters. I mean, I love Battlefield 1942 (2.8 GB), Call of Duty (2.2 GB), and Medal of Honor (1.7 GB), but this machine (our only one powerful enough to run them) is after all supposed to be my work computer. But doesn't all work and no play make Jack a dull boy? Ah, the pain! My mouse pointer hovered over the games...

I took one last look around my home folder, and saw a nondescript directory labeled "Final Cut Express documents." Ah, yes, the detritus of my video editor. So how much is that, I wonder?

Click. "Get Info." Oh, 17 gigabytes.

Seventeen gigabytes?! What am I doing, editing Lawrence of Arabia?

At least now I know what to get rid of. That is, if I can archive all this stuff.

How can I justify buying a musical toy when all my training, interest, and skill was left at college over ten years ago? I better stop writing this entry before the pity party starts.

Today is my wife's birthday.

Happy birthday, K. May you live another [undisclosed number of] years, and may I get even halfway to deserving you.