DADWAGON

It’s NBA season, and my Golden State Warriors actually have a winning record, thanks to an unlikely bonhomie between Stephen Curry and Monta Ellis, who basically look like a professor and a parolee, respectively. The Warriors even have new owners who appear, in contrast to most NBA owners, not to despise their team’s fanbase.

I thought it appropriate, then, to try to explain my current misery in NBA terms.

Before the birth of his first child, a man is a something akin to an NBA player. Even if he’s not literally tall or rich or getting Escalaid in the backseat of his SUV every night, he is still the star of his own broadcast. All the cameras of his mind are trained on him. He just has to worry about getting playing time, getting his shot off, moving the ball.

Everything and everyone else is just noise, a faint buzz from somewhere in the cheap seats.

Then a child is born. And suddenly, the man has a new role. He puts on a suit, slicks his hair back, and stands on the sideline. His job now: coach. Call the plays and get the best out of this new team that no longer stars him. This sounds like a step down, but it isn’t really. If the man was like me and used protection for the first 15 years or so of ballin’ (an NBA term), then that man is already in his 30s by the time the first child is born. He’s got some experience, some ideas about the big picture he’s ready to share. It’s fulfilling to be the coach now. You don’t run the play, you tell others which plays are worth running.

But then, far too quickly, a second child is born. Sure, things are somewhat unchanged for the first year of infancy, but then that second child starts being able to talk, walk, want. That child suits up to play. But it’s immediately clear that they’re not on the same team as the first child. In fact, from tipoff in the morning to the final horn at bedtime, these two children are now consumate adversaries. And they play dirty. They are tiny centers playing Bill Laimbeer’s Combat Basketball,  throwing elbows into chins. They are twee Gilbert Arenases, sneaking guns into the locker room. And the man, who had just gotten comfortable with his Armani suits and post-game press conferences, is no longer a coach.

He’s a freakin’ ref.

The lowest, least happy lifeform in the entire NBA ecosystem, not because of who he is as a man, but because of what he has to do. Not only does he wear that striped v-neck with hitched-up slacks and comfort-loafers and communicate with a whistle. He also fights the same unwinnable battle, night after night, game after game, like Sisyphus, except without getting that killer upper-body workout. Being a ref means separating players, watching for elbows, timing players in the paint. The players scratch and flop and claw at each other remorselessly, never changing, never even trying to play by the rules. The ref, with his impotent whistle, cries again and again: cut it out! But the players, oblivious to all but their own furies, never hear him.

And here we come to the crossroads. I hate being the ref. I don’t care for the whistle, and I like even less how little effect it has on the combatants. And I honestly, truly, sincerely and with all my heart do not give a shit who took the Lego first. But the only other choice would be to hang up the whistle and let them play their game without any rulemakers or enforcers.

You might think this would have a happy result, turning our stuffy NBA arena into a liberated, if rambunctious, Rucker Park. But even streetball has its own rules, codes of conduct, and—importantly—onlookers. Sibling combat does not. It’s more like knife-fighting in a deserted alley. Last night, less than five minutes after I made a conscious decision to concentrate on cooking dinner and drinking my beer, and not on controlling my children’s escalating shrieks, my daughter launched my son off her bed. This was no Vlade Divacs flop for the ref. This was a hard foul with no witnesses. I’m fortunate that my boy is built like a winter squash, so even with the profound thump he made on landing, he was uninjured.

I, however, was defeated. I turned the stove off, put down my beer, and trudged into the bedroom to pick up the whistle and put on my silly striped shirt again.

Please tell me that at some point on this journey I get to be an owner. I’d even be happy as GM. Anything but the ref.

• Like all of you, I was excited this week to see at my supermarket checkout lane the new issue of People—featuring the Sexiest Men Alive! Squee! Of course, I immediately looked to see which of these hot hot HOT men were dads, and it turns out there’s good old Jon Bon Jovi at no. 6. Married for 21 years and 48 years old, he’s got four kids, none of whom have so far made it into rehab or porn. (Alex, can you name a “good dad” Bon Jovi tune?) Anyway, good work, Jon! Keep it sexy!

• Vin Diesel also made that list, and he has a daughter. But, eh, Vin Diesel.

• It’s hard enough to decide whether to keep your own fetus, so why not work up to that decision by choosing for someone else? Now, with BirthOrNot.com, you can! An insane couple named “Pete” and “Alisha” are taking “Internet votes” on whether to keep (or not!) the 16-week-old fetus they’ve nicknamed “Wiggles.” Finally, people surfing the Web to avoid work can enjoy every part of the agonizing dilemma—without bearing any of the responsibility! I have no idea whether it’s real (or not!), and it certainly feels like a political stunt, but I think we can agree on two things: 1. This is good for no one. 2. If they do have the kid, well, better hope some sort of zombie-cyborg apocalypse destroys modern society, including the Internet, because boy, would that be an awkward day when the kid discovers his parents put his existence in the hands of people like this guy.

There are, undoubtedly, a great number of things that I like about my job. For reasons not necessary to go into here, however, this is a rather dark moment at my publication, as it is for many others. I’ve been unhappy at work for some time now, and the independent projects I’ve been working on—my book, this blog, hell, my baby—are in certain ways a reaction to that unhappiness.

But like I said, there are good things about it, too. It’s completely deadline-based, which means the hours are what I make of them. For me that translates into arriving at work earlier than my lazy-ass publishing colleagues and, conversely, leaving work early as well (while my drunk-ass publishing colleagues get liquored up and edit articles). This scheduling freedom has essentially made it possible for me to be an active parent, particularly during the period of divorce. Without it, I doubt that I would have joint custody of JP.

And yet, and yet, and yet. Lately, it’s been a struggle to come to work each day. I’ve come close on several occasions to simply walking out. Then yesterday, I was offered another job. Their would be a major drop-off in the prestige of the publication, and the creativity and cultural relevance of my work, but the pay would be considerably better, the title would be an improvement, and I wouldn’t be in the same environment.

The major obstacle surrounds the time I am able to spend with my children. My potential new employer would very likely not give me the same freedom I enjoy now. As a result, I’m probably going to turn down the offer.

But it won’t be easy.

There are many emotional milestones to experience as a parent, from hearing your child’s first utterance through to the day when the training wheels finally come off and they’re able to cycle steadily down the street all by themselves. And the genuine joy and pride derived from watching your children grow, develop skills and conquer obstacles is almost intoxicating. While it can be bittersweet to watch them slowly shed the trappings of toddlerhood, there are few sights that rival watching your child meet and eventually master a challenge. It was a fleeting one, but I managed to witness just such an instance last night.

As a lovely expatriate and devout Royals-watcher, my wife, Peggy, spent much of yesterday afternoon glued to the tube for details about Prince William’s proposal to Kate “Waity Katie” Middleton. In the thick of the media frenzy, Peg was sequestered in the kitchen (where we have no television), making dinner for our two children, Charlotte (age 6) and Oliver (age 4). As CNN’s Richard Quest boomed zestfully from the living room, Peggy—a remarkably resourceful cook—slapped together some homemade cheese quesadillas (made with whole grain and flax tortillas) for our frankly unenthused little kids. The dinner preparation complete, Peg plated her ersatz Mexican meal, served Charlotte and Oliver and summarily repaired to the living room, lest she miss a minute of the pomp and circumstance of impending Windsor nuptials.

As I was walking in from a long day at the office, I encountered my little Oliver creeping tentatively into the living room, evidently only moments after he’d been served his meal to relay a message. “I’ve finished my dinner,” he informed my wife, “…but don’t look in the garbage” (actually, given Oliver’s small years and tenacious habit of confusing his “r,” “l” and “w” sounds, it came out more like, “I’ve finished my dinow, but don’t wook in the gawbage!”) Curiosity piqued, I strolled into the kitchen to find Charlotte poking at her quesadilla as if it were a science experiment. Oliver’s plate, meanwhile, was pristinely uncontaminated by any semblance of food. Peering into the afore-mentioned garbage, however, I found my little boy’s dinner completely intact.

While sloppily executed and far from well-advised, my little lad’s first forays into the muddy intricacies of dishonesty made me stir a little bit with pride. With all due respect to my lovely wife, I didn’t blame Oliver for looking for a way out of consuming a whole grain and flax tortilla. He gave away his own hand, of course, but in time and with further practice, I’m sure he’ll sharpen his lying skills to finely honed edge. Once again, while it was a botched endeavor, I couldn’t help but smile at his attempted ruse.

My wife? Not so much.