Offbeat Dad

This should come as a shock to none of you at this point, but I’m not exactly a “color inside the lines” kinda guy. 

I’m eccentric. And that’s likely putting it mildly.

But hopefully these idiosyncrasies are part of what make me a decent daddy… Or, failing that, at least an entertaining one.

Take, for example, my time spent as a nightclub DJ. (Yes, really.)  While late nights spinning Underworld, Chemical Brothers, and Roni Size did a number on my hearing, it also made me very comfortable paying attention to two separate sources of sound, entering two different ears.

*Man, this new Mudhoney album is pretty fire. I wonder– Wait, that was the curtain string being pulled.*

Or perhaps consider the many years I spent as a Dungeon Master for my friends, back when we played D&D. While I’ll grant you that’s unassailably geeky, it did work my chops as a storyteller, and forced me to come up with a wide range of distinct voices for my characters. Both of these practices have translated pretty well into the hours and hours (and hours) of reading that I’ve done with Daphne.

Like, for example, this BumbleDad rendition of Eek, Halloween! by Sandra Boynton.

(Yes, the fall books have officially moved into rotation.)

Now I’m not saying I’m Superdad (hell, I don’t think I rank as a competent one most days), but every so often the weird things I’ve done in my past bubble up. And they become peccadillos that make my daughter furrow her brow at me and giggle.

And when that happens, just for a moment, the world lines up and it feels like the parts of my life gone by are still somehow relevant today. Like, the things in my past that make me, me, are things that my daughter happens to like too.

I don’t know if I’m doing a very good job describing this. But I truly hope you other parents out there know what this feels like.

Because it’s pretty awesome.

Okay, enough of this nebulous sentimental stuff. I promised you some new swimming videos of Daphne in the big pool, didn’t I?

And there you go. 

Okay folks, see you next week! Thanks for coming by.

j.s.

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