They are uncivilized, vicious little fuckers
They are almost impossible to walk
You look like a jackass while trying to walk them
They’re a stupid, disgusting form of a cat, so just get a cat
They are vehicles for attention-seeking pet owners
College girls think they’re cute for about six minutes, then you have to spend two months finding someone stupid enough to take them off your hands
FEBRUARY 20
7:45 PM
Things I learned in birthing class
No Wi-Fi in the birthing center
Bring food (this could take a while)
Vaginal birth is horrific
Stay above the equator at all times
The birthing center validates parking
Sex can stimulate labor
Don’t Google image search anything related to childbirth
Don’t go to the hospital too early or you will be sent home
Women who have babies in the back of taxis make this all seem a lot easier
We have 24 hours after the water breaks to deliver the baby
A woman’s sense of self-worth seems oddly and inexorably connected to her use of pain medication during the birth of her child
New Questions
How can we have sex if there is a sack of water waiting to be broken in the vagina?
Is an episiotomy what I think it is?
If an episiotomy is what I think it is, how the hell did it get its name?
What percentage of fathers hate their children (even a tiny bit) for what they did to their wives’ vaginas while being born?
Is it a terrible idea to Google “episiotomy”?
FEBRUARY 21
6:15 AM
Ben Franklin’s List of Virtues
TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
MODERATION. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.
Franklin’s virtues I espouse
ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
Note: Hampers are not a place for clothing.
CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
Note: Hampers of clean clothing makes my habitation unclean.
Franklin’s virtues I desperately need
RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
Note: In fairness, stress-eating isn’t the same as eating to dullness (whatever the fuck “eating to dullness” means)
Proof that Franklin had a giant stick up his ass
He wrote this list at age 20.
He tried to “live without committing any fault at any time.”
He focused on one virtue each week and kept notes on his progress.
Truth (seriously)
Writing lists is kind of the same as focusing on a virtue a week and keeping notes on progress (in that it might be obsessive and possibly crazy)
FEBRUARY 22
12:00 PM
Advantages of A BIKE!
Car can stay behind to provide alibi
Not restricted to streets
Easy to dump
Can be purchased cheaply with cash
Disadvantages
Not nearly as fast
I don’t ride very well
New questions
Where could I leave my car to establish an alibi?
Can I ride a bike at night?
Could I carry the money while riding the bike?
Is it true that once you know how to ride a bike, you can always ride a bike? Even after 15 years?
FEBRUARY 23
4:30 PM
Letters sent today
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
440 5th Ave N.
Seattle, WA 98109
Warren Buffet
3555 Farnam St.
Omaha, NE 68131
Mark Cuban
5424 Deloache Ave.
Dallas, TX 75220
Jeff Bezos
Evergreen Point Road
Medina, WA 98039
Reasons given for donation
Teacher and bookshop owner
Pregnant wife
Literal drop in the bucket for them
Enormous self-satisfaction
Visible beneficiary
Eternal gratitude
25% discount for life at A New Chapter (meant for a laugh)
Important note on language
“Bookshop” = quaint, privately owned
“Bookstore” = corporate, soulless
FEBRUARY 24
7:05 PM
Things Jill thinks but doesn’t say
Why can’t Dan fix the garage door? Or replace a flat tire? Or hang a picture frame?
He still can’t load a dishwasher correctly. Unbelievable.
His mother is a pain in the ass.
I wish my husband had a hobby.
A hamper makes a perfect bureau.
Why can’t he just masturbate tonight?
Peter was better-looking.
FEBRUARY 25
4:45 AM
Places to purchase a bike
Trek Bicycle
Craigslist
Tag sale
Dick’s Sporting Goods
Play It Again
FEBRUARY 27
4:45 AM
Favorite sentences
“But what is happiness? It’s a moment before you need more happiness.”—Don Draper
“In a world where superheroes, and more importantly super-villains, exist, being a glazier must be a great job.”—Michael Maloney
“He was the fourth of three children.”—Daniel Mayrock
“The saddest of all the ribbons is the white ribbon.”
—Unknown
“None of us marry perfection; we marry potential.”
—Elder Robert D. Hales
FEBRUARY 27
8:20 AM
Shopping List
Always goddamn dog food
Raspberries
Toilet paper
Bingo stamper
Goldfish
Diet Coke
Little Debbie Snack Cakes
Kettle ball still
Powerball tickets
FEBRUARY 27
8:45 AM
Why raspberries are a bullshit food
They last for about 14 minutes before devolving into mush
Less than two dozen berries in a package
Only fruit that needs to sit on a diaper
The silent p makes them impossible to spell
FEBRUARY 27
8:55 AM
Products that I’d better get the brand right when shopping or Jill will kill me
Toilet paper
Shampoo
Bar soap
L
aundry soap
Tissues
Milk
** Basically milk plus anything that touches her body
FEBRUARY 27
9:23 AM
Deep thoughts related to food
There is no way that anyone can taste the difference between 1% and 2% milk.
Little Debbie Snack Cakes last at least 500 raspberry lifetimes, and that’s a good thing.
Everyone complains about preservatives and processed food until the apocalypse, and then they’ll all be on their knees thanking the food industry for canned creamed corn and Twizzlers.
I don’t believe any human being has ever purchased a can of creamed corn.
If you’re going to more than one grocery store in a week, you have too much time on your hands and have somehow elevated the quality of your heirloom tomatoes over time spent with your family.
FEBRUARY 27
1:10 PM
Three hours with Bill Donovan
I’m apparently going to be “Danny.” I’m afraid to correct him.
It oddly doesn’t bother me.
Same clothes as last time. Exactly same clothing. Tweed pants. Blue button-down. Brown loafers.
“Bingo is bullshit. A lot of shit is bullshit.”
Angry, but not nearly as angry as he’s trying to be. Funny. I think he might be funny.
“I like bingo because it’s mindless. Sometimes you just don’t want to think about the things you’ve done.”
I think Bill played bingo for the same reason people are still watching Friends.
Still coughing
Thinks that people who eat lobster are “fucking morons”
His father died of cancer. “It started in his gut and ate right through him.”
“No, she didn’t die of fucking cancer.”
“Don’t apologize. I’m the asshole. Not you.”
My father is was the only other person who calls me Danny.
“The problem with bingo is that the waiting to win is better than winning. I sit here, hoping I win, but it’s the hope I want. Not the money. You know what I mean?”
Don Draper and Bill have the same definition of happiness.
“Who chooses whiskey over beer? Guys who drink the hard stuff don’t like themselves. They’re either trying to be something they’re not or running from something they don’t want to be.”
His wife was murdered in a carjacking gone wrong. Shot three times. Just said it plain as day after getting another beer. Fuck.
“After Vietnam, I never thought I’d want to die. But I wish I had died first. April could’ve had a life after me. I’m not a second act kind of guy. I’m still stuck in my first act.”
Bill is exactly my father’s age.
“When your wife dies, people look at the space where she used to be instead of at you.”
“Fuck me. Bingo!”
FEBRUARY 28
6:30 AM
Greatest Hits
Spring 1992: Caught my one and only fly ball in a Little League baseball game
Summer 1996: Walked the beach with Melissa Zarizny. She definitely liked me. I definitely fucked it up.
Spring 1997: Track and field district championships: fourth place in the pole vault
Summer 1997: Lost my virginity to Kami Norris in New Hampshire in the Bat Cave (her closet/bedroom)
Summer 1997: Completed Dragon’s Lair at the Half Moon Arcade in Weirs Beach, New Hampshire
July 4, 1998: Beat Jake in arm wrestling at the family picnic at Candlewood Lake
August 1998: Sex with Jenny on 18th green at Quarry Ridge
May 1999: Full scholarship to University of Connecticut
April 2001: Second place, student council presidential election, University of Connecticut
October 2002: Op-ed in Hartford Courant on the truth about the 98.6 degree “normal” temperature
June 2006: Hired by West Hartford Public Schools
September 2006: Made Jill laugh in a faculty meeting
July 4, 2009: Jill says yes to my proposal
July 1, 2013: Open the bookstore
Thoughts on Greatest Hits
Quite a few of my greatest hits involved women and sports, even though the two things I have never excelled at are women and sports.
Why didn’t I write another op-ed after “98.6 degrees is fiction, just like carrots are good for the eyes”?
My mother’s most common question in 2002 was: “When are you going to write another thing for the paper?”
There’s been nothing close to a greatest hit since I opened the store.
Listing my greatest hits did not make me feel as good as I had hoped.
FEBRUARY 28
8:14 AM
Addendum to Thoughts on Greatest Hits
It only took me 14 years to ask myself the same question my mother was asking me in 2002.
FEBRUARY 28
8:30 AM
Addendum to the Addendum on Thoughts on Greatest Hits
I hate when my mother is right. Even more than a decade later.
MARCH
MARCH 1
4:30 AM
Finances
Savings: 2,803
Income
What I tell Jill: nothing
Reality: 930
Jill: 2,900
Expenses
House: 2,206
Toyota: 276
Honda: 318
Car insurance: 175
Student loans: 395
Cable and Internet: 215
Electric: 132
Oil: 446
Phones: 180
Gas: 101
Crib: 479
Goddamn armchair apparently required for nursing: 689
Infant car seats (because we apparently need TWO): 622
MARCH 1
5:23 AM
Changes Since Jill Became Pregnant
Doesn’t ask about the store’s finances at all
Clarence not allowed on the bed anymore
A lot of steamed vegetables at dinner
Antimicrobial everything
MARCH 1
7:15 AM
Financial Solutions
REALISTIC
Bingo
PIPE DREAMS
Begging billionaires (letters sent)
“No Thank-You Note Required” greeting card
“No Thank-You Note Required” To-Do List
Design a prototype
Make a prototype
Worry about everything else after I have a prototype
MARCH 1
8:00 AM
DAYS WITHOUT
Chocolate glazed doughnuts
20 (approximate)
Gum
31
Little Debbie Snack Cakes
0
Flossing
67
Retail rage
2
Regret over quitting my job
0
Dad
5,759
MARCH 1
4:30 PM
3 reasons why I am a terrible man
I’m jealous of the time Jill spends at Peter’s grave on the anniversary of his death
I’m annoyed about the money she spends on flowers for his grave
I secretly wish each year that she’ll forget about today
MARCH 2
9:05 AM
A New Chapter Picks of the Month for March
Underground Airlines by Ben H. Winters
The World According to Star Wars by Cass R. Sunstein (Star Wars shit always sells)
Rules for a Knight by Ethan Fucking Hawke
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance (even though I didn’t finish … He made his point halfway in)
If This Isn’t Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young by Kurt Vonnegut
The Baker’s Daughter by Sarah McCoy
MARCH 2
11:00 AM
People who I hate for being too accomplished
Ethan Fucking
Hawke
That actor/comedian from The Office who was also a writer for The Office and that book of short stories and that perfect kid’s picture book with no pictures (I really hate that guy)
Adele
Matt Damon
Anna Kendrick
People I should hate for being too accomplished but can’t because I love them too much
Bruce Springsteen
Carrie Fisher
Nora Ephron
MARCH 2
5:50 PM
Unexpected things I did today
Didn’t eat a Little Debbie Snack Cake
Spoke to Peter while alone in the office
Cried while speaking to Peter
Called Jake
What I said to Peter
I’m sorry.
I’m trying my best to take care of Jill.
Sometimes I wish you were still here to take care of Jill.
MARCH 2
5:55 PM
Things Jake said on the phone call
“Are you okay?”
“You never call. That’s why.”
“Is it Jill?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yes, I’m happy.”
“Did you really call to ask me this? I’ve got barbecue on the grill.
“No offense? How can that be no offense?”
“Here’s the thing: When you’re a kid, you dream about your dream job because you can’t see anything else. But then you find your dream girl, and the job isn’t as important anymore. Not even close. It’s just the thing that lets you get back to your dream girl. Then you have a kid and forget it. You just want to get home to those two people.”
“I grew up. We all do.”
“I don’t know if you can do both.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
Twenty-one Truths About Love Page 9
