my careless contagion

Face mites! I have the strangest conversations with my 5-year-old son. One of the latest involved face mites.  I’m not even sure how it happened, but one morning we woke up and (after talking about banana sandwiches) started talking about face mites, which are tiny parasitic arachnids that live on nearly every human being’s face. I told him they eat dead skin (they do not; they eat sebum) and come out at night (which is true). Normally, they hide in our pores, gorging on the oil from our glands. They can live up to two weeks, and the reason they come out at night is to mate. Also, they are very good house guests, leaving no mess in their wake.  I showed my son a photo of a face mite, to which he exclaimed, “Oh, how cute!” At this point, I suggest readers look up photos of face mites themselves (or click here ). They are decidedly not cute. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder. To me, they look like tiny, though harmless, monsters. When a baby comes into the worl...

The above photo was taken when I was pretty young. I'm the one on the left and my oldest brother is next to me, and then the middle brother on the right. This was taken in the first house we lived in on Minnekahta Ave.  I don't know when my family stopped celebrating major holidays like Easter. I think some of my family still do celebrate. Maybe we stopped after realizing we had a million eggs to eat. I remember eating hardboiled eggs days after Easter, their flesh unnatural colors like pink and blue and green in spots.  This photo is funny for many reasons. I am particularly taken with that egg I'm holding. I'm also half-dressed in what looks like a sort of tutu. My oldest brother is wearing an animal print robe, which no child should ever wear. My brothers look like they are so over decorating those eggs (was it early in the morning?). I look like I want to marry mine.  I recall the little cubes or whatever we dropped into the cups that had the spoons in them...

I always wanted to be a father. I remember working with people who said they wished I had been their dad. Let's face it, dads are in the doghouse these days. So many men have reneged on their responsibilities at home to their wives and children and, most importantly, to God. I thought I could be a good dad. My son sometimes feels like the easiest person in the world to live with. He's smart, vocal, clear about his opinions, and wants to do the right thing. The flipside of that is a monster I cannot even see around. It fills the room and all I can see is that beast staring at me — immobile, resistant, defiant, foul, and hateful.  Parenting is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Doing it alone is even harder. My heart hurts for all the single moms and dads trying to make a living, trying to raise good kids, and trying to have a life (if that's even possible). It is the single most humbling task I've committed myself to. I never go to sleep at night thinking...

My grandmother fell yesterday and broke her hip. She had surgery to repair it. As far as I know, she'll be fine. She was doing exercises. For the record, my grandmother is 101. I hope this will be the end of her living alone. Maybe this will be the moment she realizes it's okay if she lives with some sort of assistance. It's hard to acquiesce when you've lived by yourself for so long. I'm nearly 41 and my grandmother has been retired as long as I can remember. But, she's always been busy. She volunteers a lot. She was a founding member of a church that's not even a quarter of a mile from where I live now. She won't be there this Sunday, though. It seems like most people have a sweet little thing of a grandmother. My grandmother is a tough little shit. I don't think I've seen her be soft too many times. She had a favorite among us brothers, and it wasn't me. I can remember her picking me up from school ...