When and if we have a child, we will need to acclimate our child to Manfriend’s bouts of loudness. Likewise, I am belligerent. The combination of these two traits means we will need to show our child that loud and belligerent behavior is not inherently negative or scary. It can be exciting!

To do this, I think we will need to become the super enthusiastic parents. Pretend our child is an athlete. Respond accordingly. For instance:

“Are you a baby? You’re a fucking baby! YEAH! Is that a kitty? That’s AN ADORABLE KITTY CAT! SAY KITTY CAT! SAY IT AGAIN! SAY KITTY CAT ONE MORE FUCKING TIME, MOTHERFUCKER! HA HAHAHAHAHA MURDER!”

“How old are you? SHOW ME HOW FUCKING OLD YOU ARE! HOW MANY FINGERS IS THAT? TWO? TWO IS THE BEST AGE OF ALL TIME!”

I anticipate Manfriend will punctuate these declarations of support and love with shouts, leaping up from his seat and screaming, “YEAH!” at the top of his fucking lungs.

1. We love where we live. We have an amazing apartment in a great part of the city, and no matter how green the grass looks on the other side, we’re really comfortable here. I would even go so far as to say we’re spoiled. The only thing that is imperfect about our apartment? No dogs.

2. A dog is a pain in the ass. Realistically, if the dog can’t come to work with me most of the days of the week, we’re not getting a dog, even if it was allowed. I won’t keep a dog in a crate all day every day, especially in a building where neighbors could hear barking. Won’t. Of course, training would be done, but what a tough situation if it doesn’t work out the way we hope.

3. Not all cats are assholes. We have first hand experience with some great cats. Some first hand experience with some not-so-great cats. We want a cat that wants to be with us, and cuddle, who doesn’t attack us or ignore us.

4. Hmm, is there like, a lap-cat breed out there?

5. Hm. There is. The Ragdoll

• Ragdolls are very social animals. They love people and get along well with gentle dogs.
• They love kids, provided the kids aren’t complete assholes.
• They’re extremely gentle and docile; called ragdolls for their tendency to go limp when held.
• Ragdolls are much easier to train than other cats – permitting baths, leashes, and car travel.
• They enjoy playing fetch.
• They aren’t big jumpers; because they are big cats (some getting up to 25lbs), they tend to be stocky and sturdy, and mostly floor-level.
• They have soft, medium length fur. They do not have an undercoat, so unlike other longer haired cats, are much more resistant to matting.
• They are actually called “puppy cats.”

So yes, instead of getting a dog, we’re getting a cat that in all respects resembles what we look for in a dog, with the added bonus of being litter / toilet trained (lofty goals!) and indoor only.

I won’t get into the details of it, but apparently it had a few issues which were ultimately solved by removing its protective case and restarting it every few days. Cut to present day dinner time in our apartment. Manfriend is microwaving a burrito and we’re idly conversing.

“I solved another problem with my phone,” he announced happily.
“Do you want to just get a new iphone? There’s no shame in calling this an interesting experiment and getting a new phone.”
“No! That’s not the point.”
“Okay. I’m just saying. I’m not going to be cocky and rub it in or anything. I want you to be happy.”
“Stop patronizing me. As I was saying before you interrupted me, I’m actually lucky, because some people…” he paused to pull the burrito out of the microwave.
“Don’t even have phones?”
“No. God damn it.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. What?”
“Some people have way more problems with their phone than I do. I mean, some of the people who own this phone can’t even use it!”
“How is that better than my answer about people who don’t have phones?”
“Whatever.”
“Dude, next week I’m going to find you in some convoluted position in the bathtub, and you’ll be like, ‘Alex, I figured out how to solve all my phone problems! If I just stand like this and call from this precise point in the house, the phone works perfectly!’”
“I won’t say that. That’s not what will happen.”
“Okay.”

My response was not hateful, so much as impressed. Only someone like The Situation could make a shirt like that successful. At the same time, a fly happened to be buzzing around us, and I grew irritated with it, claiming that a fly’s sole biological function is to be repugnant. Manfriend suggested that this too would make a great blog post in my hate blog. We decided we should record our conversations, and rehashed the ideas. So, without further ado, our lunchtime conversation about Mike “The Situation” and flies:

Do you think a blog devoted to rants and raves written by me would be a good use of our time, or should we pass on this one? More importantly, would you read it?

Also, how many times do I say “situation” in that recording?

Should we just make recordings of our stupid conversations? Manfriend is convinced that I am “very popular on the internet,” but I am not as convinced. I don’t think people find us as funny as we find ourselves.

UPDATE:
The verdict so far is that we should do a lunch podcast instead of a written blog. I like this idea, and suggested that the blog be a) a container for the podcast itself and b) provide supplementary information, such as bulleted lists, visuals, pie charts, cat pictures, animated gifs, and glitter unicorns. I call it “blogcast.”

I’m not ashamed to admit that I fled. A few minutes later after the sounds of fighting had died down, I cautiously peered out.

“Did you kill it?”
“Yes, it’s dead.”
“Where is it?”
“On the chair.”
“Holy crap, dude.”
“Yeah… I really killed it.”
“It … it exploded.”

He left it as a warning to other giant bugs who might accost us.

For those of you who’ve kept up on our war against bugs that find their way into our home, this was not a house centipede. Rather, it was a huge fucking horse fly. We get one in the house every few years, and every few years, we kill it dead and leave its corpse out for a while as a message. It seems to be fairly effective.

“I just want one,” he tells me, like that somehow is more persuasive than saying “I want eighty.”

Parenthood is not defined by how many children you have, so much as the fact that you have children. One or fifteen, it doesn’t matter. You’re already a broken shell of a person. After one kid, what does it matter how many more you have?

“What if we have twins?” I asked, as I squeezed toothpaste onto my toothbrush.
“We’ll throw one of them off a cliff,” he replied sarcastically from the bedroom.
“Oh, I get it. You want to ensure that we always hold the majority votes.”

Inexplicably, he found that hilarious.

“So if we have a kid, you realize that one day this conversation will come up, right?” I studied him gravely. “You had a twin, but daddy only wanted one child.”

So I had an eye doctor appointment today. I have terrible eyes – poor vision, and I am high risk for severe vision problems. Consequently, it is critical that I see a doctor annually to ensure tragic things do not happen. Inexplicably, I developed a cold sense of dread around this particular appointment. Logically, it would make more sense to fear not seeing a doctor, as the risk of the unknown was inherently more threatening. Fear doesn’t respond well to logic, it just gets more absurd.

My malevolent subconscious had me convinced that not only was my (new) eye doctor trafficking in black market body parts and organs, but that he has designs on my eyes, despite never having met me. I was convinced that he was working in collusion with my other eye doctor (who had referred me), and that they were going to cut out my eyes and sell them for a mint on the black market.

I would either, invariably, end up with soulless empty eye sockets, destined to poverty and self pity, or my mutilated corpse would be discovered slowly, in unidentifiable pieces around the city. I then went on to think that if I had a small dog, that would somehow protect me from this fate, because the tiny, tiny dog, would somehow be clever enough to foil these villainous doctors.

Now, because you’re not completely insane, you’ve already identified the largest logical failure in a sea full of them. Yes, given your knowledge of my horrendously awful vision, what would these nefarious characters possibly hope to gain from stealing my eyes?

In actuality, not only was my doctor awesome, he told me to relay a message to manfriend:

“Stop being a dick. Don’t make fun of your girlfriend when she sneezes in sunlight.” It’s not an allergy. It’s a real condition called Autosomal Dominant Compelling Helio-Ophthalmic Outburst Syndrome (ACHOO), or Photic Sneeze Reflex. Suck it, baby.

Apparently five-seven years is his criteria for our relationship to stand the test of time and permit dog ownership. It’s like a prison sentence in many ways.

Or I could tell you how I’d been telling Manfriend that next week was going to be sad, because I’m the only one in our family who’s working on Monday and a lot of people are probably going to be out of the office, so I’ll be sad and arbitrary, and probably spin around in my chair in a lonely fashion. Manfriend suggested he come and take me out to lunch since he won’t be working on Monday. So we run into Blank and her mom in the lobby as we all return from our various dining adventures.

“What’s all this stuff,” Manfriend asks Blank, who’s carrying lots of bags and toys and so forth.
“Oh, this is for Toast,” Toast is her niece and before anyone knew what Toast was, (niece or nephew), everyone just called her Toast, rather than “it.”
“Okay…” Manfriend pretends to understand.
“I’m flying out to Portland on Wednesday and I’m going to be gone for two weeks.”
“Oh, so that’s why Alex is so sad about being alone in the office on Monday!”

Okay, so obviously Blank is not a sufficient alias for this person. I will have to come up with random, semi-arbitrary nicknames for people or just refer to them as colors or numbers. So I could tell you that I’ll need to consult Purple and Ten about what to call Blank on my blog. CAN YOU SEE HOW CONFUSING THIS WILL GET??

Of course Purple will read this and send me an IM tomorrow going, “dude, I’m totally Purple, aren’t I. I know it. I know I am.”

Edit: Manfriend is totally supportive of “Blank.”

“I can’t call her Blank.”
“Of course you can. Blank is perfect. Or you could call her Pixie.”
“Why Pixie?”
“Because she has short hair.”
“But that’s a semi-identifiable thing. People will know who she is if I do that,”
“EVERYONE ALREADY KNOWS WHO SHE IS! She lives in the building! It’s your best and only friend, BLANK!”

Oh my GOD, do you see what I have to live with all the time? All. The. Time. Also, Purple, just remember when the time comes, and you are rationing out your apocalypse water, remember that Manfriend thought that Purple was a) a stupid name for you, and b) that you weren’t worth mentioning as one of my friends. Just remember those cold facts. (I love you).

“HEY, that’s not true. Purple is everybody’s friend.” In his defense, that is sort of true. Except for that one dude on the bus who  saw all the evil inside her.

Happy three, baby.