doo

Two things I will tell you (or "doo", as the french would say if they'd thought of it). The first is to remind you to read Juanito's blog, so he'll feel good. Also, I love it. Anya makes fun of me, and says Juanito's my hero. But c'mon - he was my highschool neighbor who made mansions of paper when I was five - how can you not worship that?!?

It's: http://ozerik.homeip.net/

Also, there is my book. Did I mention I decided to write a book? Well, I did. It's for Mateo. I'll read you the concept-slash-intro (with my fingers, that is).

- - -

Dear Mateo,

Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem entitled "If" in which he listed a bunch of things for his son to do, concluding that if he did them all, he'd be a man. I love lists. I make lists of things to and not do, Pros and Cons lists for future decisions, and lists to define this, that, and occasionally the other.

But as I reflected on that poem - on all the genuinely manly things proscribed therein - I wondered if perhaps to make such a conditional list is to set the bar too high; to doom one's son to inevitable failure and its attending guilt and self- recrimination. Who could, after all, measure up to such a list? If a boy must do all these things to be a real man, does failing in one make him less real, less a man?

I don't think so. To be a man is also to fail, and although it is cliche to write this, it is what you do with those failures that matters. I made my own list then, my son, not as a standard I require you to attain if you are to measure up, but rather as a letter of love, outlining what my hopes, prayers and dreams are for you as I watch over you in the middle of this night, a month from the day of your birth.

These are my desires, not my achievements, and more often than not are included not because I feel that I have in any significant way attained them, but rather because I hope that you will be spared some of the heartache I bear over the ways in which I have failed in them.

I love you, Mateo; not in some Hollywood string quartet way, but in the real guts and gristle of the everyday, and if time or fate or God or those weasels in the White House should take from me the chance to help you grow to manhood, perhaps this short list will guide whomever has that privilege, and inspire you to the greatness into which you are already born.

- - -

That's it. That's your teaser - it's all you get. The final item will have stories and illustrations and paintings and possibly even glitter. That's all I'll tell you, for real. Go away now.