If you've been holding your breath, you're probably a fish.

The news that I have changed will come as no surprise to my few readers.



That I have had adventures and dramatic goings-on, again, should shock neither of you three.



Even despite these cautions and disclaimers, I must stress that the following revelation continues to shock even me.



I recently woke up to find myself living in the suburbs, worrying about washing machines, a father to no fewer than four children, and by all evidence wholeheartedly content. I am not making this up.



This is not metaphor, exaggeration, or hallucination.



The suburban home is a three-story townhouse.


The washing machine rumbles and bucks on all but the very lowest of settings.


The children... well perhaps I am not their father in the strictest sense, but the I think the hyperbole to be forgivable. I fell in love with their mother and cheerfully accepted them into the bargain.



Indeed, I chauffeur the tykes around, apply the magic poultices that are band-aids, offer insight into the mysteries of multiplication, and am as at-home at a tea party hosted by a puppet as I once was debating existentialism with hippie bikers. The conversation is at least as scintillating with the stuffed animals as it was during the absinthe-fueled thunderstorms of yesteryear. Gone are the puddymunchers and goblins in the corners of my vision -- or if they are there I am too busy with issues such as car seats and girl-scout cookies to notice. I still 'read' insofar as I listen to books while driving, this to drown out the dulcet tones of nursery rhymes, pre-k poetry, and the very latest in kid-safe edutainment.


So if not biologically paternal, I am at least a dutiful surrogate.


I can ascribe blame regarding this change to no one but myself. When one is as wildly moody, as erraticly employed, and as haphazardly experimental as I have been, there is always the danger of plunging tidal-wavingly and (should my luck hold) irreversibly into domestic bliss.



I have not abandoned the principles by which I have lived, but must admit that a great deal of the growing-up for which I had waited so long has (to all appearances) at least begun.

xoxo
-PC