marriage and the hot, sexy dad

requisite photo for post about love and marriage

This is not about Brad Pitt. Or our hot dad at home. Aaron Traister is the hot, sexy dad I'm referring to in the title. He wrote this very raw, funny, honest ode-to-marriage for Salon, where he even went as far as over sharing about his sex life. He says he had to because apparently, married people are considered baduy these days. But no way he says. Not ALL married people are lying about being happy, or doomed to a life of misery because bad marriages exist. I have to thank him for so eloquently speaking for the happily-marrieds. Here's a taste of Aaron Traister's piece, It's Hot! It's Sexy! It's... marriage!

My wife and I have been married anywhere from seven to 150 years (I'm not good with dates). During those years we have moved six times, and each move was like an exotic gift that happened to be covered in shit. We have each had multiple jobs, and multiple uniforms with name tags. We've been broke, we've been well off, we've been broke again. We've bought our first house together, and it has a giant hole in the kitchen ceiling and sparks come out of the third-floor outlets if you hold anything metal too close to them. We have fought, raged, nearly cheated, and been totally out of sync with each other during chunks of our time together. We've also produced two enormous redheaded babies who are as terrifying to us as Mothra and Godzilla were to Japan in the '60s. We have been depressed, we have wanted more, we have wanted different, we have wanted out. The years since we got married have been the most challenging and at times most frustrating years of my life.

They have also been the most productive, happiest and most hilarious.

This part made me go awww...

Nowadays when my wife looks in the mirror all she sees are stretch marks and soft spots. I don't see these things with the clarity or critical eye she does; if I do notice changes in her I chalk them up to a life full of laughter, good food and fat babies. In my mind, my wife wears those marks with as much style and beauty as she wears everything else. In her mind it is a different story.

It gets better. Read the rest here.

This also made me wonder if any Dads/Married Men actually read this blog? If only they did, I think even full-blooded martian men can get sexy dad's sentiments. Martian.. because men are from Mars, women are from Venus...

Traister's essay is also my official male-voice-version to Barni's classic Love in the Time of Marriage. And you're right Barn, Salon rocks!

kids, kids, kids

A little trip down memory lane.

Kids posing above are (from back to front) my baby brother Matisse looking kinda gangsta, and cousins Niki and Paolo. There's a big age gap between them and me, so I was their big cousin babysitter. They were sort of like my practice kids before I had kids.

They're not kids anymore though. These photos were taken years ago by our Tito Cholo, which I stumbled upon while sorting through old family pictures. Reminded me of when I used to take care of them when they were small, during my summer visits to New York or LA and thereabouts. They're my Fil-Am family.

Tito Cholo lets go of the camera to join this picture.

I think Matisse did the shooting this time, which is why he's missing in the shot. These days, Matisse - the young man - is pretty nifty with the camera himself. He's turning out to be quite the artist too.

They were a handful as little people. Loved them! Love them still. Flashback to an entire stay in Martha's Vineyard, a toddler Niki would only go potty with ME. No one else could put on her shoes but ME. Memories! Look at that cheeky little girl....

I really miss them. Now I can never huggy-wuggy and kish them or zerbert their tummies like I used to. That would be weird. Kids just grow up so darn fast.