About a week ago, I was writing a post called “D-Day plus 10”. Essentially, it was a self-congratulatory note on how prepared I was for the imminent arrival of my first child, and how 10 days after the original due date, the waiting had grown tiresome.  It was perhaps one of my best – witty, poignant, self-effacing, with a life lesson for any Man on the road to Betterment.  I can tell you all of this, of course, because I’ll never publish it.  To do so would be moot, since halfway through writing I was interrupted by the arrival of this lady:

This is Ava, and she took her sweet ass time getting here – 12 days late. We’re in the middle of heat wave, so I can only imagine Baby Mama’s coochie has air conditioning or something.  The labour lived up to its name – 30 hours, ending with a suction on Ava’s head as an obstetrician tried pulling her out like she was a cork in a wine bottle.  I’m sure I’m embellishing, but I can’t shake the image in my head of Ava flying through the air like a human cannonball – arms flailing as she’s released from the confines of her “studio apartment”, landing on her face and sliding a few inches, like a runner stealing home base.

Despite her initial stage fright, Ava has turned out perfectly – she’s healthy, gorgeous, even-tempered, and lets her parents sleep through the night with minimal interruption (for now).   She is prone to what I call “splatterpoops” – from time to time, she’ll have a meaty fart, after which little brown angel’s wings will suddenly appear over her shoulders.  I can only assume that once she learns to stand it will look like a Jackson Pollock.

I’m assured this is quite normal, so about the only problem with Ava is she’s given her daddy writer’s block – not from a lack of things to write, mind you, but too many.  My head’s like a clogged drain, which is why I’m going to take a few days to figure out what it is I want to say.    However, I can share two thoughts right now, the first being I wish my dad was here. His death felt a little like someone leaving halfway through a film without finding out how it ends.  If he’d stayed around long enough, he’d know the third act starts off with a lot of promise.

The other thought, I must confess, isn’t really mine, but the Coen Brothers.  Just tonight I was watching No Country for Old Men – a movie I had trouble suspending my disbelief over, since I doubt Texans could be that thoughtful or contemplative.  One of the minor characters has a great bit of dialogue late in the movie: “All the time ya spend trying to get back what’s been took from ya, more is going out the door. After a while you just have to try to get a tourniquet on it.”

So many times, our attention is on the wrong thing.   For the first time, though, I feel I know where I should be looking.  I’ve got my daughter to thank for that.