A perfect morning…

Face painting at the Americana, music, dancing children and a real-life fairy hunt…who could ask for anything more? This is one of those crazy-beautiful moments that makes it all worthwhile.

Eat your bluberries, sweetie. Daddy loves you…

Happy 70th birthday, Krzysztof!

Well, guess who didn’t fall asleep on her own again tonight? Yep. I sat in there with her for two-plus hours, but, she didn’t actually fall asleep for real until I left her screaming and crying in her crib and headed to my office to blog. Oh, the joys of parenting…

In any case, now that I have a few minutes before sleep completely overtakes me I can blog a hearty happy birthday message to the late, great Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski. He would have been 70 years-old today and not only did he make some of my favorite films of all time, but his unique visual style and beautifully-interwoven storytelling techniques have informed everything I’ve written or wanted to write since I first saw his film “The Double Life of Veronique” way back in the early 1990’s.

Simply put, the man was a genius who died way before his time…makes me wonder if he had kids that kept him up all night too? Ha! Either way, Kieslowski completed at least two other masterworks before his death in 1996, the groundbreaking “Three Colors Trilogy: Blue, White, Red” and his indelible, early-career masterpiece, the ten-hour TV miniseries,“The Decalouge”.

If you haven’t seen any of his work yet, today is a great day to start. Celebrate the mad genius tonight by watching one (or if you have time, all) of his films…you will not be disappointed. Seriously, there was no one like him.

Oh yeah, on their Facebook page today, the cool cats at the Criterion Collection posed an interesting question by basically asking which title fans preferred: “The Three Colors Trilogy” or “The Decaloque”? Makes you wonder if their cooking up a cool Criterion reissue or two, huh? I couldn’t chose, but if I had to, I’d probably vote for “Decalogue” just because it has the least cool of the versions already on DVD. But, wow, the thought of them both coming out again via Criterion is kind of badass too. I can just imagine the cool box art…wow!

Happy birthday, Krzysztof, we miss you…

Isolated…

Had lunch with a fellow SAHD today, one of my favorite dudes from my monthly Meetup.com Group, and he told me that he was moving back to where he and his wife came from at the end of the month. Grrr…suckage! I mean, great for him and his wife and kid, but, shitty for me and Greta and the rest of the Meetup guys who really dug him.

Anyway, he was talking about how hard life as a SAHD was and how it was even harder in a new city where he didn’t know anyone and then he used a word that I think perfectly encapsulates life as a SAHD. He said that sometimes, he just felt really “isolated”. Holy shit, are you kidding me, dude? That’s how I feel like, five times a day! And I’ve lived in this city for almost twenty years and know plenty of people.

So, I ran home and looked up the exact meaning of the word and, my favorite definition was: “having minimal contact or little in common with others”. Yep, that’s the word for it alright. There are good days and even great days, but, when the bad days hit back hard, we are all isolated on baby island, dude. And, I’m sorry, but when that happens, not even the cutest, most loving kid on earth can take the place of good old adult human contact.

And that’s why those of us who do have shit in common (namely the day-to-day upbringing of our children) gotta stick together and not be moving home and shit. Urgh, anyway, best of luck on your new adventures, amigo…we’ll miss ya.