With all the new visitors in the last few days I thought I should provide a brief introduction to this journal and its author.
[Sure, I know most of the folks jumped in to sign the AOL petition and that’s that, but someone’s browser might freeze and force them to read this, right?]
The intro link on the sidebar does a fairly good job of giving you the background of how this site started and a taste of my writing. 'Trouble is, that intro was written around the midway point of 2005 so it’s not exactly breaking news. There’s plenty of good, bad, and indifferent writing that I’ve posted in the past two years. Still, I think it’s worth a look if you have the time.
As far as my biography, I’m Dan, a 33 year old who’s about two months from turning 34. I’m a married father of four and a lifelong resident of Milwaukee.
In person I stand a few inches past 6 feet and weighs upwards of 300 pounds. As always, I’m trying to change that last part (the weight, not the height) but it’s a small part of my life and you‘ll rarely hear me whine about it. After ten years of smoking I quit in November of ’06, which I thought I‘d never manage to do.
I’m Midwestern, white, middle aged (or dang near), Catholic and vote Republican, and I’m sure I fit many of the stereotypes those things inspire. Oh yeah, I’m pretty far down on the American economic ladder, although hardly destitute. I still worry about how I’m going to pay the heating bill every month and the day before payday is often spent with fingers crossed and leftovers on my plate.
But at least I can afford the plate.
I like football OK but worship baseball. I follow my hometown Brewers because I have a fondness for lost causes and the Yankees because they have no idea of what the term ‘lost cause’ means. I strongly believe Arod is the best player in the game and that the Cubs suck.
I’m one of the rare people who genuinely like all kinds of music, from jazz to rap, metal to country, but of course I have my preferences on who I like and dislike. My favorites: Artie Shaw, Buddy Holly, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Garth Brooks, Nirvana (Kurt I miss ya) and almost any early to mid ‘90’s music that involves the wearing of flannel.
For the most part I’m either goofy, sentimental, or pissy. Too much of the latter in the last few years, so I’m trying to reign that in.
I read a lot, although I’ve never met my goal of 100 books in a year. Dorky fact: since ‘94 I’ve kept a complete chronological list of every book I’ve read.
I’ve also written a book, although it was rejected by publishers.
In my life I have met, among others: Jimmy Page of Zeppelin, Jessica Simpson (a b**ch, let me tell ya), the Black Crowes (drove their drummer to the airport when he found out his wife was in labor), the guy who played Chewabbaca in Star Wars, James Lofton (NFL Hall of Famer), LFO, a handful of Senators, Congressmen, and Alderman, and I’ve seen George W. Bush on three occasions.
That list always makes my life seem more exciting than it is, trust me.
In the late summer of ’05 I earned a large promotion at work and now manage a company that employees 43 people. I don’t talk about work here except in passing, and I never identify the name of the place or even the type of industry I'm involved in. In part this is due to my respect for the business, my desire for anonymity, and the fact that I don’t like talking about the place when I’m at home.
Truth be told, I’d rather be writing for a living. Trust me.
I met my wife Lisa when she was 4 months past her 18th birthday and married her just five days past her 20th. (I was 20 and 22). The worst part about marrying young: people expect a quickie divorce so the gifts suck.
We’ve been married nearly 12 years now and it’s still the best decision of my life, hands down.
We annoy the heck out of each other at times (such as now, when she’s insistent on talking to me from another room. Why not walk over and talk to me in person? I can’t stand it when she does that and she hates that in protest I answer in monosyllables ) but she’s without a doubt my best friend and I truly enjoy her company more than anyone else’s on earth.
Plus she makes some pretty cute kids so she's not all bad :)
YaYa is my oldest child, a 1st grader born right before our 5th anniversary and just after 9/11, which means like all my children she’s lived her whole life in wartime. Man, that’s depressing.
Anyway, she’s very outgoingand into acting and performing, which means she’s got a lot of her mother’s genes. However, like me she’s turned into an avid reader and often writes a story in her notebook before bedtime.
On the negative side she has a selfish streak and can be a pretty good shyster for a 1st grader. For instance, just this past weekend, while visiting at my Mom’s, she conned her into believing she couldn’t possibly do a book report because her teacher ‘doesn’t allow us to use library books for the report’.
How my Mom bought that for even a second eludes me, but that’s YaYa.
Oh, and the name? When she was 3 or so she’d get in the car and refuse to move over for her sister, citing this reason or that. My response? “Yeah, ya, move over” which her little sister then picked up as a nickname and eventually carried over to the site.
Next in line is LuLu, a K4 student whose nickname derives from a morph of her true name and that of a store in the mall. She is a cute little cabbage patch doll of a girl who thankfully was gifted with my hair. She’s very into dolls and tea parties and quick to both anger and compassion.
Without question she is the kindest and most giving of all my children and she has always adored and doted on her younger siblings.
But she was also the Middle Child for two years. She has a strong sense of competition with YaYa and a bit of a persecution complex in general.
Add to that the fact that right now she’s 4, and at least in my experience that’s a far more emotionally draining year than the over-hyped ‘terrible two’s’.
Oddly, I can picture the grown up LuLu as both a wife and mother of four herself, and/or a rock-pop singer like Avril Lavigne. Yeah, I don’t understand it either.
Smiley is my only son, a strapping ladwhose birth was chronicled on this site. He’s going to be a giant of a man.
For a while I nicknamed him Quake, as in ‘men will quake when he enters a room and women will swoon’, but I quickly dumped that because it was nearly the direct opposite of his personality. “Maker of Trouble and Mayhem’ fit, but it didn’t ‘flow’. So Smiley he became.
You know how people brag about how friendly and outgoing their child is, and then you meet the kid and he’s a brat well on his way to being the next Krushchev?
Yeah, not the case here. He hasn’t stopped smiling since he learned how and he’s full of giggles and laughter and so much good cheer it’s incredible. He’s inherited all of my goofiness and none of my moodiness (so far, knock on wood).
He had some ear problems that seem to have delayed his speech, but tubes in both ears have corrected his hearing and we’re working on the problem.
Last but not least is the Baby, not as yet blessed with a nickname of note.
She is a mere 5 months old but is arguably my favorite baby of the bunch. For the first time I’m the primary caregiver at night and the two of us have bonded. She looks at me with love and a smile, I look at her like a living alarm clock. I jest, I jest. I’m horribly fond of her and just love the heck out of her, to the point where I don’t even mind getting up at night.
She is the loudest of the bunch, or at least the quickest to a loud shriek among all the babies, and has rapidly abandoned an early preference for solids in favor of the bottle (which we are trying to reverse again). She has a problem with spit-up and vomiting (usually on Mom) and despises being in a dirty diaper for even a moment.
Aside from the kids we have two cats, Billy and AngelCakes, a turtle named Franklin and a praying mantis eggsack I hope to have hatch in the spring.
So that’s it – a quick who’s-who of my immediate family and of moi himself.
I hope you return to the site often and enjoy what you find here.
Thanks!
The painting above the fireplace was done by my wife. She has an impressive knack for the visual arts/crafts/decorating/party-planning. I have none of her skills in that area, but I have her on one point: she has no imagination for stories or make-believe. I'm serious. If you erased all stories from human memory and assigned her, and her alone, to get the ball rolling and come up with a story . well, better luck having me design a prom dress.
Tags: Nostalgia Avenue
