DADWAGON

As I have written about earlier, Tomoko and I got engaged, following the decision by Harper’s Magazine that it was time for her to make an honest man of me. Yesterday, as it happens, was the day of the blessed event, and as is fitting, I immediately sat down to enshrine it in the annals of blogdom.

Ours was a simple affair, held at the Louis J. Lefkowitz building in lower Manhattan, home of the Marriage Bureau of the City Clerk’s Office. It is a briskly efficient (and yes, romantic) place. You come in, they check your ID, take your twenty-five smackers, and direct you into a small chapel where all knots are tied.

We arrived fairly early in the morning, Ellie, the baby, in tow (my son, JP, was in school) hoping to avoid the nuptial rush. By the time we left a longish line at the information desk snaked nearly to the door. Just as we stepped up to the info counter to present our identification Tomoko informed me that she had forgotten to bring the marriage license. I told the clerk, and he said, “Well, now, that’s a SHOW-stopper!” (Think of Senator Clay Davis, the corrupt pol on The Wire, intoning his famous catchphrase–sheeeit—and you got this guy.)

“You forgot it?” he asked. I admitted we had. “Now, they aren’t even going to give you a duplicate for that. But…” he paused, considered some important documents on his desk, pushed a few things around, and looked up. “But if you, say, LOST the license, well, then, we can take care of it.” Again back to the papers, and then up to me, with a look of pure, blissful, innocence etched onto his hard-boiled bureaucrat’s eyes. “Now did you forget it, or lose it?”

What do you think I said?

We took our number, we waited on the nice green couches, we didn’t buy flowers, we didn’t take pictures at the City Hall backdrop, I wasn’t wearing a tie, Tomoko had no flowers in her hair, the baby was already born, the shotguns were nowhere in evidence.

A camera crew from one of the local TV stations happened to be there filming and I struck up a conversation with the reporter. She said she was there working on a story on identity theft (I don’t want to say more and scoop her), but she was also Asian, with a white husband, and two kids, so of course, she was inexorably drawn to us.

Eventually our number was called and we were ushered into a waiting room just outside of the chapel, which was a small, almost entirely empty room with friendly carpeting and a fair amount of natural light. They told us to sit, so we sat, and Tomoko began breastfeeding Ellie, and wasn’t done before it was our turn to wed. We let the nice Chinese couple next to us go first, even though they looked about six years old (husband and wife combined) and they probably could have used the delay. I killed time watching another Asian bride, this one with dyed blond hair and a white dress that covered only her pelvis and which had apparently been laminated onto her body, take horrifically staged photos with a Russian cameraman. Not entirely sure if she was there with a groom. I turned away when they began doing action shots with the bouquet.

The TV reporter approached us, showed us photos of her kids–adorable–and asked if we would mind having our wedding filmed for her piece (no implication of identity theft–she just needed some images from the marriage bureau). I asked Tomoko (I’ve been married before, so I know how these things are done), she agreed, but I couldn’t help laughing.

“We’re B-roll!”

The ceremony was quick, pleasant, Tomoko was lovely and smiling, the whole thing was caught on video, and I made the reporter pose with us in front of a glass case where they keep New York’s first marital record book on display.

I kissed the bride with great pleasure. I am a fantastically fortunate man.

Not so long ago, my wife, Jean, sent me a link to something called “Potty Training in Three Days or Less.” With Sasha now more than 2 years old and already starting to get used to the idea of the potty, both at preschool and at home, this was an intriguing link.

The basic idea is that you set aside three days in which the kid runs around the house with no pants, with short outside breaks on days two and three. And then, voilà! Your kid is toilet-trained. Or something. Frankly, we’re all too busy to even attempt to do three days, so Sasha’s move to big-kid-dom will likely progress as it has, in fits and starts, with the occasional accident and reported-by-her-teacher success. (Apparently, she uses the potty most often when her friend Katerina is around.) One day, I won’t have to wipe her ass or change her diapers.

Or perhaps we’re going about this the wrong way. Perhaps we should be following the lead of the über-insane Kelly Family, a German super-group that apparently shames its children into bladder control. Witness:

I am writing this post from the “sunport” (also known as an airport) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I’m returning from a reporting trip to interview a Catholic priest who believes he is Jewish, keeps a menorah on the altar in his parish church, refers to God as Adonai during the Mass, and for matters unrelated to his Jewish ambitions, has received an official excommunication warning from the diocese. Interesting guy, but he isn’t what this post is about.

On the way out here I had a long layover in Washington, D.C. Joining me at the gate was a group of Albuquerque high school students returning from what appeared to me to be a class trip to France. This meant my Internet time was interrupted by a screaming posse of Justin Biebers and The-Next-Female-Pop-Star-Disasters. I was bored and they weren’t too objectionable, so I actually found it rather interesting to observe them, flirting, gossiping, wrangling for attention, calling their mothers, charging their phones, working on their hair (the boys mostly), swapping secrets, and referencing TV shows.

I tuned in to one conversation, though, that disturbed me.

Two boys, of what looked to me to be the Popular Species, as far as I can still recognize it, were discussing the merits of noise-canceling earphones. The first boy was examining a pair owned by the second. They were a nice-looking piece of equipment, brand new, ruby red, battery-operated, and came with their own carrying case. These were an object that apparently both boys had given some consideration. Then the first boy brought up a pair of earphones owned by another child.

“Did you see Jonah’s earphones?” the first boy whispered (Jonah was in all likelihood nearby).

“Yeah,” the second boy replied, unimpressed.

“Exactly,” said the first whipersnapper, as if the case against the offending music-listening device had been satisfactorily closed. “And he thought it was better than [name escapes me],” he added, merely for spite.

“Really? He said that? Come ON. I mean, they’re nice, but seriously…”

“Right? I know,” the other boy said. “They were fine earphones, but not as good as these,” holding up the ruby red pair, “and not even in the same LEAGUE as [some stupid brand I didn’t catch].”

This went on for a while, as I tapped away at my email and wondered why these fucking teens weren’t staring at the tits of the girls on their trip. Young, nubile, naïve, insecure, young women surrounded these boys, begging to be asked to the prom or get tattoos or whatever it is kids do these days, and these two mooks were talking earphones?

“[Who fucking care]’s were the BOMB.”

“Yeah, I need to get me some of that.”

I decided to stare at teenage booby on their behalf, and thereby condemn myself to Hell, which is where I was going anyway as I am a bad man and a Daddy blogger, which is frowned upon in the next life.