Nathan, along with DadWagon friend PetCobra, joins forces with the video powerdads over at DadLabs to create the first episode of PopSmack, where bloggy types mouth off about whatever they feel. This week’s topic: vasectomies–love ’em, hate ’em, have ’em?

Must be said, Nathan looks a bit like a severed head in a box. Is he as braindead as a head-in-a-box? Judge for yourself:

When I first heard that the Gowanus Canal had been designated a Superfund site, I had a typical New York parent’s reaction: What will this do to real-estate prices in my neighborhood?

I mean, I suppose I should be worried about the effects that the century-plus of toxic mayonnaise leaching out into the surrounding lands might have on my crotchfruit, but it’s not like I moved here—to the edge of Boerum Hill, about a block or so from where the canal begins—utterly ignorant of the waterway’s history. In fact, I like to imagine I’ve benefited from it. How else to explain the near-simultaneous pregnancies in three of the four units of our co-op? Superfund? More like Superfecund! Boo-ya!

It’s really quite amusing, actually, to read about how a simple EPA designation will alter the fortunes of this forlorn little corner of Brooklyn. Some developers can’t get funding or insurance! Others are going ahead with their plans!

But Gowanus is already developing, as Fucking Hipsters know very well. You can go swimming in Dumpsters, watch Malaysian singer-songwriters and dance to house D.J.’s in a fake garden on the canal’s banks. For a few minutes, I even considered getting a membership to Proteus Gowanus, an art space with a reading/writing room. (In true hipster fashion, they call it a “study hall.”)

There is one aspect of the Gowanus cleanup I hope will remain untouched: our neighborhood hooker. Oh, I’m sure there’s more than one, but I’m thinking of the one just down the street, visible from my window if I use a telephoto lens, who said “Hello, honey” to me one night when I was walking over to Theodore’s place. She seemed like an anachronism, a forgotten leftover from the area’s distant past, a PCB, a toxic event, a charming outpouring of untreated sewage.

The cleanup is supposed to be finished around 2019, at which time we’ll have a lovely greenspace where Sasha—by then 11 years old!—can sip the fresh waters gushing toward New York Harbor. I hope Our Hooker sticks around till then, because if real-estate values go up, I may be able to afford more than a “Hello, honey.”

Watch your wallet around this one

First birthday yesterday! The party over the weekend was sweet; our little guy was overtired at the end and didn’t sleep well last night, but all the same: awww. And I must say that baking my child’s very first birthday cake–come to think of it, his first cake, period–turned me all gooey inside. If only he knew he was having the experience, or could recall it, we’d be able to share fond memories of it someday.

Then again, we could’ve just ordered the whole event in. Because, a few weeks ago, we received a lovely reminder in the mail from Babies ‘R’ Us. (I will save my spleen-venting about B’R’U for another post. Let me just note that shopping there is about as nice as going to the DMV. In a Soviet bloc country, around 1965. Except less clean.) Anyway, they’d sent us a super-helpful checklist of ALL THE THINGS NOT TO FORGET as your child’s first birthday party approaches. Six weeks out: invitations. Closer in: registering for gifts, decorations, various other purchasables.

Did I mention that he will be physically incapable of remembering any of this? Ever?

Did I also mention that we never gave this store his birthdate? I assume they extrapolated from a baby-shower registry, a move that, frankly, carries a certain amount of horrifying risk (for starters, some baby stores have a hard time taking parents of stillborns off their chipper mailing lists).

In any case, I clearly ought to feel far more inadequate than I do, because the only decorating we did was tie a couple of balloons to tie to his chair (which he spent much of the afternoon batting around, enjoying himself immensely). Clearly, we iz doin it wrong.

Photo by Kirk Jones (www.kirkjones.info)

And CNN has the fricking goods on him. For shame, Dadwagon Matt. Such a lovely child, too!

If you have come over here from CNN.com, welcome to DadWagon. We’ve been fearlessly covering the babies-in-bars controversy forever (or at least for a few weeks). World Famous Writer Matt Gross, pictured above with his lil’ Lush, chided the NY Post for its breathless tone on the issue, while the Moderately Famous Nathan Thornburgh opined that babies in bars might keep adults from getting laid. Christopher Bonanos was reasonable: just have a baby-friendly happy hour, while Theodore Ross (who no one has heard of anywhere) might have already been drunk, because he ended up talking about Neo-Nazis having sex.

Fortunately, we posted a poll so that you can tell us if we’re all crazy.

There are actually lots of arguments over here: the four of us have disagreed on raising geeks, whether sleep training is evil, and whether birthing classes are a Wicca conspiracy. Also controversial: sending young kids to private school, letting little boys have glamrock hairdos or watch too much TV, and whether parents should turn their criminal kids over to the cops.

We also have the good interviews: with Marxist professors, Filipino rappers, and today, with tech blogger/sexual abuse survivor Joel Johnson.

As much as we adore CNN.com (corporate cousin to Nathan’s erstwhile employers), we hope to see you around here a bit as well.