The general consensus is that Gia is going through THAT phase. It’s all about defiance. “No!!” Yesterday, I said to her, “Gia, I swore I’d never become this kind of parent.” I said this as I carried her over my shoulder to her room. I’ve resolved to be consistent with this. Every time she acts up like that, that’s where she’s going to go. She can’t seem to contain herself. She has some kind of fixation with my ears. “Nice ee-uhhs, Daddy,” she says. Then she proceeds to attempt to rip them off of my head. She smiles and growls as she does this. She also does it to Nikki and Ava. We have to watch her like a hawk. She knows when we’re not watching. That’s usually about the time Ava starts shrieking. There’s pinching, biting, kicking, the works. I’m hoping she’s just being playful and doesn’t know her own strength, but I have to say, it looks like she’s trying to inflict bodily harm. Maybe she’ll get tired of the consequences of her actions. We’ve got one more month before preschool begins, so she needs to get it together pronto. Now I know exactly what Nikki means when she says she’s tired of hearing her own voice. More and more time is spent being the disciplinarian, and it is really exhausting. She’s just lucky she’s so cute. Unfortunately, she knows it. Ava hasn’t yet picked up that attitude. She’s still too young, but considering how quickly she’s advancing, those days probably aren’t far off for her. Doomsday is coming. I can feel it.

Still busy. Maybe the word ‘business’ is partly to blame. It’s blatantly saying “be busy.” Is that really a necessity? Progress is made when people actually have time to reflect on their current situation, then formulate ways to improve things. When we say we’re really busy, all too often we’re saying that we’re working too hard, or too much. Are we accomplishing anything other than paying bills (hopefully)? Are we securing any sort of future other than one in which we continue to participate in the vicious cycle of working somewhere we’re not happy in order to barely make ends meet? Enough of this work and business nonsense. I believe that in order to be truly succesful, you need to enjoy what you’re doing. If you enjoy what you’re doing, it ceases to be work. So, being successful means you run around with a moronic smile on your face all the time, but it’s a genuine smile, because you really are happy and enjoying yourself. That’s bound to piss a lot of people off. I know how I feel when I see someone running around with a moronic smile. I say, “What a moron.” I tend towards thinking that the one thing preventing me from running around smiling all the time is my ability to think. A nice elective lobotomy could be just the thing for that. Alcohol certainly helps, but it wears off. At least with a lobotomy, I could very well wake up in the morning smiling. That would be a first. I’ve never been much of a morning person. I probably wouldn’t do much writing if I had a lobotomy, and I probably wouldn’t be very interested in computer stuff. I wouldn’t be of much use at my job anymore. Nikki would probably miss some of our conversations, but then again, she’s pretty good at holding conversations with the kids, so I should still fit in just fine. It wouldn’t be safe to allow me to drive anymore, so I’d have to be chauffered around. As I prepare to embark on my hour commute home, this concept sounds better by the minute.

Too busy. If I can’t make or find time for a blog entry, that’s too busy. I’ve resolved to be consistent with my writing, and I’ve been doing OK, but still I’ve been missing days. If I’m that busy, so busy that I can’t even write a few lines, there’s a deeper issue. That means I don’t even have time to think. I’m multitasking myself out of the picture. It’s the ‘constant partial inattention,’ or ‘attention,’ depending on whether you’re of the ‘glass is half full or half empty’ variety. I can actually sense this state of partial attention. It’s like skimming over everything around me, people, conversations, projects, whatever I happen to be looking at is on the way to looking at something else, and when I get to the next thing, I’m already moving on. It’s too easy to allow this to be the norm. It might be exhausting, but I can’t sit still long enough to acknowledge that. This definitely feels like working harder, not smarter. Change is coming. I’ll make it happen, even if my impatient nature forces me to believe it’s not happening fast enough. It’s all a means to an end.

Looks like the heatwave is over. It culminated in a series of thunderstorms last night. I wanted to drive down to the beach to watch the fireworks, but it was late and we needed sleep. You could tell that’s where the action was, just beyond the tree line over the horizon. Gia woke up, but not for long. I’m glad about that. Thunderstorms used to scare the hell out of me when I was a kid. She’s much more resilient than I ever was. She says she gets scared about some things, but we can’t figure out what those things are. She’ll be watching Sesame Street, then out of nowhere, she’ll be standing in the hallway, saying “SKAY-UHHD.” Could be she’s just looking for attention, though I have to say, Sesame Street can be terrifying at times.

I think I really like this panography thing, so I decided to give it a try. Here’s a taste of what it looks like behind me while I’m working…

Note the hanging suit jacket. I needed a jacket once while I was at work, and I heard somewhere that it’s a good idea to have one handy, so there it is. That was almost three years ago, and I haven’t needed it since. It’s a nice conversation piece.

I have a nicer jacket hanging in the back of my car. My father-in-law said it’s a must if you’re in real estate. You never know when one of those deals might spring up. I think he travels with multiple cleaned-and-pressed suits in the back of his vehicle. I haven’t advanced that far yet.

It’s hot. I slept on the floor in Gia’s room last night, under the new ceiling fan Nikki’s dad installed for us. There should be one in our room tonight. We have our air conditioner sitting in the garage. I haven’t put it in the window yet, and we haven’t really needed it. If this heat continues, I might have to bite the bullet. The kids are cranky, hence, we’re cranky. We went out to the North Fork yesterday and had lunch at the Seafood Barge, a decent restaurant on the Peconic Bay. It was nice. The ride there and back, however, was anything but. We had a nice time for the few minutes the kids weren’t screaming their heads off. Apart from that, I hardly had any weekend. The LIBOR orientation class on Saturday was an all day thing. It was informative, but not very entertaining. I’d probably feel differently if I had a couple of real estate deals under my belt, but all in good time. It’s always nice to be reminded of just how much you don’t know. At least there was air conditioning. There was also ‘official’ confirmation of the fact that the market is changing. I suppose when the the former president of LIBOR who also owns a brokerage and manages a ton of agents says that the market is changing, there must be something to it. Regardless, people will never stop buying and selling property. We hope.

The water imbibing continues. My second liter and a half is sitting here, next to my assorted salad and hard boiled egg. Again, only two cups of coffee today instead of the usual three, and I’m buzzing as if I’ve had six cups, although definitely not quite as jittery. The whole morning was non-stop crazy busy, so it could be I’m amped up from doing so many things simultaneously, but I do think I’m noticing a difference. The metallic taste was back, but this salad is helping. I’m envisioning moving to some kind of herbal tea habit, though I’m not sure what kind yet. So many options.

Nikki’s dad is in town. He checked the spot where Gia ripped the soapdish out of the wall last week. We have it patched up with plastic garbage bags and duct tape. Nikki did a fabulous job of making it look slightly less ghetto than it really is. At least we can still use the shower. Apparently, we’re looking at a bigger job than we’d hoped, somewhere in the neighborhood of a grand. That means it’ll probably cost much more. Good thing I don’t have the money right now, otherwise it would be gone, down the drain along with the little winged ants we have to wash away every morning. There are some roof issues as well. We knew that there was something going on, but it’s great to have someone point it out definitively so you can feel that much more neglectful as you let the time slip by. At least the house isn’t going to cave in. Maybe that will be the next phone call.

Ava’s trying to stand up. Last week, she just started crawling. Next week, I predict she will launch herself to some distant planet. We’ll miss her.

Took Friday off. Had four generations of family (in-laws) in town over the July 4th weekend, which was phenomenal, though we were all physically exhausted when it was over, so much so that I called in and took the day off yesterday. I would have been worthless anyway. Unfortunately, this led to an hour-and-a-half long anxiety attack while I sat in traffic this morning. I’m shot.

I haven’t had anxiety like that in a while. I think it was mainly due to an overdose of family stimulation. I’m used to my family at home, but I’m not used to having the extended family around. It’s been ages since I’ve been exposed to that. I miss it, but it’s exhausting.

Yesterday evening, Nikki remarked that I hadn’t touched my computer hardly at all over the weekend, no video games, nothing. Fact is, I could barely move yesterday. A friend of ours that we ran into during the festivities, someone we haven’t seen in a while, greeted me by patting my stomach. This threw me into a downward spiral of self-loathing that culminated yesterday, or probably this morning. I’m starting to snap out of it. The coffee helped. This would have been the wrong time to quit that stuff. As it is, it took me five hours to dig out from the accumulated e-mails. E-mail can really suck. If it weren’t for the caffeine, I’d be here til next Thursday.

We got ants. Little ones.

First it was termites, so we called in on our termite warranty and had the man come out. He drilled holes around the foundation, sprayed something in there, then filled the holes back up. He told Nikki all about subterranean termites vs. swarmers. The swarmers are the ones you see flying around. They’re the ones that were squeezing themselves through the shower tiles. They get food from their underground counterparts. The treatment is supposed to cut the swarmers off from their brothers down there, so they’d eventually starve to death. The Man also informed us that we should expect to see them “coming out,” maybe for months. This was very comforting.

We called Orkin to come out a few weeks ago. Something about this bug situation seems really out of hand. We’re not too into the bugs to begin with, but we both agree that something seems off. I think the bugs are pissed. I think nature wants humans dead. The bugs are looking at us like their enemies, and they all want to kill us, from the inchworms to the spiders. I really can’t deal with spiders.

The Orkin Man said we should expect to see whatever bugs there are continue to “come out,” for an indefinite period. Clearly, no one knows how to get rid of these things. It’s 2006, and we know how to nuke an entire country, but we haven’t figured out how to get insects off your property. We’ll pay people good money to come out and spray chemicals around, and they’ll essentially tell you to your face that they’re really not doing much of anything. It’s like hitting the button at the traffic light, the button that’s really not connected to anything, but it gives you something to do while you wait.

Maybe I’ll start a placebo company. Why whitewash it? We’ll sell things that don’t do anything, and we’ll be completely honest about it. I can build all sorts of contraptions. I’ve always wanted to build a computer pull-start. That would actually do something, so maybe we couldn’t sell it at the placebo company. The device would connect to the power supply, and you’d have to literally pull-start your computer. It would require at least 70 lbs. per square inch of pressure and three-plus pulls to get it going, and it would make an insane amount of noise. The cost of the device: $199.99 plus local sales tax. For an additional fee of $300 per hour of labor (with a two hour minimum), we’ll install it for you.

So I ran out to the store and bought a can of Raid the minute we discovered the ants under the kitchen table. I sprayed ‘em, then vacuumed them up with the insanely loud hand vacuum my father-in-law swears by. Supposedly he has two of them. This thing’s got some major torque with a gyroscope or something inside, so that when you turn it on, it literally tries to rip your arm out of its socket. It makes Ava cry hysterically. It makes me cry hysterically, but I cry on the inside. Need to be strong for the kids. A few minutes later, ants are crawling out the back of the vacuum. At first we thought they were after food remnants, considering where they were, but we also found them in the bathroom. They came back yesterday.

I know they’re related to the termites. They’re not-too-distant cousins, I’m sure of it. They’re all related, and they all want to kill us.

Here it is, Hump Day. Rained all night last night into this morning. Gia crawled into bed with us at some point. We woke up and she was standing outside the half-closed bedroom door, so we told her she could come in. She was half asleep. Silently, she came in, crawled up next to me and went to sleep. It wasn’t too hot, but it was kind of sticky, which didn’t make for a restful night of sleep for us. This all bled into a hellish commute in bumper-to-bumper traffic pretty much the whole way.

It’ll be a short week at least. Family coming in over the Fourth of July. I’m looking forward to a nice, long, extended weekend with lots of laughing, great food, and, of course, the wine. I’ll be raiding Fairway tomorrow for sure.

I’m feeling like I haven’t spent enough time with Gia in particular. She had a rough one last night, which is probably why she got lonely. I usually spend more time with her when I get home, before putting her to bed. I realize she needs not to be overly dependent on this routine, but it’s difficult to pull myself away. I miss her, and the more she develops her communication skills, the worse it’s getting. I can hear my friend at work laughing at me right now. I’m just a big sucker.

Just brought some food back from the sneaky Mexican joint. She said the Enchiladas do not come with sour cream or guacamole. Sure enough, after already eating a few bites, I discovered some sour cream on those suckers. I hate sour cream. So much for my lunch. I’ll be taking the rest home.

This is kind of a home stretch. Nikki and I are planning on embarking on some dietary adjustments some time after our long weekend. I’m not sure what these adjustments are going to look like yet, but they’ll be healthy adjustments, whatever they are. I heard Jack LaLanne on the Jay Thomas Show this morning. He called in with his wife. He’s 91, and he sounds great. He’s selling some “Power Juicer” which looks kind of cool (there’s a picture of it on Amazon). We already have a juicer, but with this one, supposedly you can juice the entire fruit rather than having to cut it up. Sounds pretty convenient. Mixed reviews for it, though. Anyway, I hope to make it to 91, and I hope to sound as good as he does. I have a ways to go. I’m sure he can kick my ass right now. It’s time to turn that around. No time like the present. I’m about to turn 40 in less than two months. I’m feeling pretty good these days. Something about having children feels like it’s revitalizing me. Maybe it’s being forced to look at things from a child’s perspective, something I really haven’t done in a few decades, or maybe it’s the push-ups (or “fuff-upps”) Gia forces me to do with her. She’s getting to be quite the tyrant. She makes a great laughing barbell.

Ahh, Monday, in all its glory. Relaxing over the weekend is exhausting. I’m in a fog; my brain is simply not functioning, mainly because I’m not overly motivated to get it in gear. I’m becoming increasingly resentful of my daily grind: commuting 40 miles each way, every day, sitting in traffic, whatever. I’ve decided on becoming independently wealthy. Apparently, it’s been done before by many other people. I don’t think I’m particularly unworthy of this. It’s time. I’m watching my daughters grow up before my eyes, and I’m spending precious little time with them, sharing in their experience. It’s just not right. Gia can say “I miss you” now. Every day she gets more and more capable of tearing my heart out of my chest. She’s an expert at that. Ava’s got some skills in that area as well. I’m doomed. I’ve surrendered. They own me. The only upside of this daily grind is the coming home part. Gia has her little routine, when I pull up, she leans out the front door and screams, “Daddy’s home!!” It’s just about the cutest thing I’ve ever seen or heard. She’ll look up at me and ask, “Home?” I’ll say, “I’m home!” That makes her smile and get all mushy. On the one hand, it’s adorable, but on the other, it kills me, because it implies that I’m not home a lot of the time. I just read some of this guy’s blog. I even threw a comment up there. He has a book, which I’m considering purchasing, but I think I should finish the other two books I’ve been trying to read: The Seven Day Weekend and The Art of the Start. There’s definitely an ongoing theme here: entrepreneurship. Am I an entrepreneur? I’d like to believe I am. I’m certainly reading up a whole lot on the subject. I’m determined to generate additional sources of income, preferably many of them, or at least a few really solid ones, as long as they’re directly linked to things I enjoy. If I could pull this off, now that would be a legacy I’d be happy to leave to my family. I can’t bear the thought of them being subjected to a typically cubicle-laden existence. Having their creativity stifled is not a fate I can allow.

Ava is rolling around on the floor. Right now, she’s by the entertainment center, next to her big stuffed chicken. She’s just started crawling. Nikki and Gia are out getting bagels and Starbuck’s. They don’t get to spend much exclusive time together, so we take the opportunity when it presents itself. Weekends are too short. That’s my stock answer when someone asks me how my weekend was. I just say, “Too short.” I started reading The Seven Day Weekend. If I wasn’t writing right now, I’d probably be reading that. I’m only a chapter or two into it, but I agree with this guy’s point completely. The old tradition of the five day work week is history. There are people working around the clock always. We’re always working, or doing something. Why even call it work? We should be striving to enjoy ourselves every moment. There’s plenty of crap which is bound to happen in our lives. We need to spend our valuable time, that time when there’s not crap hitting us in the face, enjoying that time. That includes the time we spend at “work.” People need to wake up and realize that work is just a word. Sure, we need to support ourselves and our families, but there really is no law that states that we have to be miserable while doing it. I don’t know where this trap got set for everyone, but it’s there, and I see it daily. People running around like mice in a maze. Their weekends are too short always. I’m striving to make my weekend just the right length. The five day work week is an antiquated notion. It’s an unnatural way of looking at the world. People are simply not built to conform to such boundaries. We need flexibility. Give us some freedom and we’ll do great things. Restrict us and all hell breaks loose. It’s everywhere, just look at the signs. I won’t get into politics, but it’s obvious that restriction is evil, and it begets evil. People get killed. Innocent people suffer. Our children deserve better.