Click here for Part 1.

Day 11: Safe sex is great sex!!! What is your preferred method of protection?
Condoms, typically. When I’ve had fluid-bonded partners, we’ve relied on oral contraception to prevent pregnancy; in those relationships STIs were at least in theory not much of a concern. I’m not sure if I’ve utilized any other method.

Day 12: Gratitude. Is this a word you have ever associated with sex? Yes, no, maybe?
Definitely. I associate gratitude with anything that brings me happiness and joy. I feel gratitude for a delicious meal, even if I prepared it myself. I feel gratitude for cozy, rainy nights, as well as familiar, comforting music and the health of myself and my loved ones. I feel gratitude for my own mental well-being, and for positive circumstances that contribute to it. Why shouldn’t I feel gratitude for sex? It’s just one more thing that makes life great.

Day 13: Have you ever thanked a partner during or after sex? Try thanking them for something specific that worked for you!!!
I once heard (or more likely read) that a person should not thank their partner for having sex with them. Apparently, doing so might imply that one’s partner was just doing them a favor, and didn’t get anything out of the experience. I guess whoever posited that was suggesting that the pleasure one’s partner receives from sex is thanks enough. But I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Sure, your partner likely did get something out of the sex, but I have to think that they gave you pleasure because they know you enjoy it. You’d thank them for cooking a meal for you, or for taking care of you when you’re sick. You’d thank them for doing anything that benefited you, so I think it’s understandable that you might thank your partner for having sex with you whether or not they derived any physical enjoyment from the act.

Day 14: Today is simply a shout out to lube! The slippery, sex enhancer that resides in almost every nightside table. What’s your favorite type?
Years ago, when I might have had two or three ongoing relationships at a time, I was known to have several different kinds or brands of lube in my nightstand. My partners appreciated my consideration, and I know it made a positive impression even before we’d gotten down to the actual sex itself. Additionally, if I was talking to someone early in the relationship and we hadn’t been intimate yet, I would usually ask the person if they had any preferences. Gel versus liquid? Water-based versus silicone-based or oil-based? Any brand loyalties? I feel compelled to note that in my most recent (now ended) relationship, lube was never used, and that was at my partner’s insistence. She was a self-proclaimed masochist, and needed to feel everything as intensely as possible. To say that this was initially outside of my realm of comfort is an understatement, but a little enthusiasm goes a long way, and I quickly became accustomed to it. As far as my own preferences go, I don’t know that I have one. I don’t typically use lube solo, but I guess I’d opt for a thicker gel variety as it’s far less likely to get everywhere than liquid. During partnered sex, I leave it entirely up to the other person.

Day 15: Congrats! We are halfway through our 30 day challenge. Pat yourself on the back and tell yourself that you love you!!!
Okay. I love me!

Day 16: Safe words! Do you have one? Does your partner know it? Do you even know what that is or why we need one? Let’s chat about them!
I don’t have a standard safe word that I’ve used across multiple relationships. Granted, I am generally the dominant in any D/s relationship I’ve ever had, but I acknowledge it’s still a good idea for me to have one. It’s just not something I have ever thought to adopt. However, I’ve always been conscientious about asking my partners if they have one. My most recent relationship – the one that delved the deepest into D/s – didn’t involve safe words, though this is because we generally didn’t do scenes as I understand the concept, and my partner, though the most submissive partner I’ve ever had, was comfortable giving direction where appropriate to do so.

Day 17: Are you comfortable saying “no”? Declining sex for any reason is fundamental for your physical as well as mental well being. Consent always matters!
Throughout my life, the only time I’ve ever declined sex was when not doing so would have amounted to cheating on someone else. In theory, I am comfortable saying no to sex, but – and this might come as a huge, mind-blowing surprise – when it is offered I generally say yes. Though now that I think of it, I have politely declined sex when proposed by men. I’m mostly straight. I’m so sorry about that, dudes.

Day 18: Is there something that helps get you in the mood for sex? Music, a scent, a touch, a phrase? Or something completely different?
To paraphrase Mark Ruffalo in The Avengers (2012), that’s my secret: I’m always in the mood for sex. I could be performing a complicated coronary revascularization, but if I have a sexual thought somebody had better come relieve me because I can’t guarantee sufficient blood flow to my brain. Seriously, I really am always in the mood for sex, or at least, my mind is never far from the subject. If my partner wants to ensure I’m in the mood, the best way to do that is to express their desire for me. This can be done using words – sexting and in-person dirty talk are always exciting – or actions and/or body language. The ever-popular lip-bite is a simple visual cue that lets me know what’s on their mind. In addition, I have a couple erogenous zones, including the spot on either side of my body where my stomach meets my hip. Those aren’t the only ones, but I definitely react when attention is paid there.

Day 19: We give the word sex a lot of different names. Nookie, getting it on, sexy times, etc. What is your nickname for it? And why do you use it?
I usually just say “fucking”. Obviously it depends on my partner and what they are comfortable with, but I can’t think of a relationship I’ve had, ever, in which that wasn’t the expression we used the most. (“Can’t wait to fuck you tonight!”) Outside of a relationship, I might just say “having sex”. (“My co-worker got caught having sex with the boss’ wife.”) However, it’s not unthinkable that I would use less formal language when speaking to a friend with whom I am more comfortable. (“Randy? That asshole can get fucked with a rusty bike chain.”) A quick Google search lists an amount of English-language euphemisms for sex so great that only a society steeped in undue shame and embarrassment could possibly cultivate so many, and now I’m going to list some of them.

I’m starting with terms I have actually used, though not for years:
1. Being intimate: This one enjoyed occasional usage in my early twenties, when talking about my sex life with a platonic female friend. I considered that “being intimate” might have come off as less aggressive than “fucking”. (“I was intimate with my ex-girlfriend last night. I’m not sure how I feel about this.”)
2. Doing it: This was when I was probably nine years old. I was way too cautious to say anything sexual within earshot of my parents, so even “doing it” was reserved for the schoolyard and the homes of friends with permissive parents. (“The guy and the girl in that movie were totally doing it!”)
3. Getting busy: Early-to-mid 1990s, I think. While I had no objection to engaging in sex, I think my Catholic upbringing and various other dysfunctions instilled in me by my parents gave me the sort of hangups that led me to say things like “getting busy” when what I really meant was “fucking”. (“As soon as your parents leave, we’re getting busy.”)
4. Knocking boots: Early-to-mid-1990s as well. I didn’t use this terminology often because I thought it made me sound like a wannabe R&B singer, though it bears noting that “knocking boots” is used in country music as well. (“Tommy found out that his ex knocked boots with some other guy, so he is finally over her.”)

Moving on to the short and sweet, i.e. single-verb euphemisms, all listed in present participle:
1. Boffing
2. Boinking
3. Boning
4. Bonking
5. Canoodling
6. Humping
7. Mating
8. Nailing
9. Porking
10. Railing
11. Rutting
12. Screwing
13. Shtupping
14. Smashing

And now for a few single-noun euphemisms:
1. Antics
2. Coitus
3. Copulation
4. Coupling
5. Fornication
6. Intercourse
7. Lovemaking
8. Mischief
9. Nookie
10. Relations
11. Shenanigans
[I’m not sure how widespread “antics” is; I haven’t encountered it often. But it was the preferred euphemism of a former long-term partner of mine, and it’s always kind of stuck.]

The next category are euphemisms that follow a “[verb]ing the [noun]” formula:
1. Bagging the groceries
2. Checking the oil
3. Dipping the wick
4. Doing the deed
5. Feeding the dumb glutton
8. Feeding the kitty
9. Field-testing the furniture
10. Glazing the donut
11. Hiding the sausage
12. Paddling the pink canoe
13. Piercing the hogshead
14. Riding the baloney pony
15. Shaking the sheets
16. Sliming the banana
[CW: Sexual harassment of a minor: My junior-year geometry teacher once asked a student if she wanted to ride his “baloney pony”. I believe this was 1992. Evidently the comment was made during a school Halloween event and the girl was wearing a cowgirl costume. I didn’t witness the incident, I have no idea how the student reacted at the time, nor do I know whether the teacher was interested in doing more than making inappropriate comments. I heard about the incident after the fact, and some time later I overheard the teacher talking to the student about it while I was sitting at my desk waiting for class to start. I noticed that she didn’t seem traumatized casually revisiting his lewd come-on, but it didn’t occur to me that she may have (a) have felt threatened and been trying to de-escalate; (b) been afraid of academic reprisal; or saddest of all (c) been accustomed to older men talking to her in such a manner. This was decades before #metoo, and while such behavior wasn’t condoned, there wasn’t always immediate backlash when it happened. All I can say for sure is that the teacher was still employed when I graduated two years later, and I never thought of him as anything but a creep ever again.]

To some people, sex is like a form of dance, which makes sense because dance can be very sensuous. For a lot of people, the first pseudo-sexual experience they have with another person comes when grinding against a classmate at a school dance. So here are a few related euphemisms:
1. Dancing Barnaby
2. Dancing in the sheets
3. The Devil’s tango
4. The horizontal hustle
5. The mating dance
6The matrimonial polka
7. The mattress jig
8. The mattress mambo
9. The no-pants dance
10. The Paphian jig

There are a lot of agricultural/farm-related euphemisms, too. I wonder if these expressions are (or more likely were) popular exclusively among rural folks, or if they were in general use back when they were in fashion. Actually, some of them are so esoteric that I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority or even the entirety of society was agrarian back then. Here goes:
1. Having one’s corn ground
2. Irrigating the garden
3. Making butter with one’s tail
4. Piercing the hogshead
5. Planting zucchini
6. Pulling wool
7. Taking a turn among the cabbages
[I suppose “pulling wool” could actually refer to removing a sweater prior to copulation. And I’m going to hope that it does, because any other sexual connotation of pulling wool in a farm setting is, frankly, not something I want to think about.]

Speaking of esoteric turns of phrase, the following euphemisms are particularly arcane, certainly by modern standards.
1. Amorous congress (19^th century)
2. Blowing off the groundsills (19^th century)
3. Chimney (19^th century)
4. The culbatizing exercise (17^th century)
5. The deed of darkness (16^th century)
6. Fadoodling (17^th century)
7. Giving a green gown (14^th century)
8. Groping for trout in a peculiar river (17^th century)
9. Hauling someone’s ashes (early 20^th century)
10. Playing itch-buttocks (18^th century)
11. Playing nug-a-nug (16^th century)
12. Playing the pyrdewy (16^th century)
13. Putting four quarters on the spit (19^th century)
14. Riding below the crupper (16^th century)
15. Shooting twixt wind and water (17^th century)
16. Taking a turn at bushy park (19^th century)
17. Winding someone’s little ball of yarn (19^th century)
[Are we all thinking “chimney” refers to vagina or just me?]

Just…no:
1. Bone smuggling: I can’t put my finger on what I dislike about this one, but I dislike it. However, a cursory search suggests that this term applies more to gay or bi men than straight ones, so maybe it wasn’t for me to begin with.
2. Bumping uglies: I know this is a popular euphemism, but it comes off as particularly sex-negative. Genitals are anything but ugly. Mine especially.
3. Getting two tickets to Poundtown: Awfully wordy, isn’t it? At that point wouldn’t it be easier to say “fucking”? Or, if you’re too demure for that, “Having sex”? Though I feel like if you’re too self-conscious or concerned with perception to say “fucking”, “getting two tickets to Poundtown” isn’t much of a fix.
4. Hot beef injection: There’s no way you can convince me that this euphemism originated anywhere other than Chicago. Hell, I’m pretty sure “Hot Beef Injection” is the name of an Italian beef joint I went to on West Taylor Street.
5. Making feet for children’s stockings: I don’t want to think about children when I’m getting in the mood. I don’t want to be reminded that they exist as a possible result of sex, or as an interruption to it. On the basis of that alone, this eighteenth-century expression was never going to appeal to me. Beyond that, the imagery it conjures is frankly unpleasant. I suspect it was meant as a euphemism for procreation specifically, as in having a baby. And that would be weird enough, but “making feet” suggests some sort of selective reproduction. I acknowledge that “making entire babies for baby clothes” would also be weird, so I guess this is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. Anyway, don’t bring up children while we’re fucking, please and thank you.
6. Rubbing tummies: At the risk of inadvertently shaming anyone who’s into ageplay, I find this too cutesy. Barring several years when I was raising my daughter, “tummy” isn’t a word I’ve used as an adult, so I can’t reconcile hearing it or saying it in a sexual context. Granted, I wouldn’t say “rubbing stomachs” either.
7. Taking ol’ one-eye to the optometrist: Remember how “getting two tickets to Poundtown” was too wordy? This is three whole syllables longer. Not only that, but I have to assume that this specific sequence of words is a spell that magically dries up every vagina in earshot. I know I said I almost never decline sex, and I’m not contradicting that now, but if a woman ever asked me if I wanted to take ol’ one-eye to the optometrist I’d probably have to do some serious mental gymnastics in order to remain hard.

With the caveat that most of them weren’t exactly on my radar to begin with, the following euphemisms have way too strong a pop culture association for me to ever use unironically:
1. Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: Were you aware that this was slang for sex before you read this? I wasn’t aware before I wrote it.
2. Makin’ bacon: This one is too closely associated with The Simpsons for me to ever use it to mean sex. But also, it’s too closely associated with bacon.
3. Making sexytime: Fuck you for this specifically, Borat.
4. Making the beast with two backs: This euphemism conjures up memories of zoning out in my Honors English class, doodling in the margins of my notes, and counting down the minutes until the bell.
5. Making whoopee: I’m showing my age here, but even though “making whoopee” is a widespread term that originated in the late 1920s, I associate it with Chuck Woolery, who served as host of the American game show Love Connection from 1983-1994. Though the salacious details of the arranged dates contestants were sent on flowed freely, “making whoopee” was the default euphemism. Also, in 2020 Chuck Woolery insisted vehemently on social media that COVID-19 was a conspiracy before recanting the following day once his son had contracted the virus. I felt compelled to share that.
6. Nudge nudge. Nudge nudge. Know what I mean? Say no more. Know what I mean?: Okay, this is part of a Monty Python routine, and even though Eric Idle’s character is referring to sex, it isn’t something I consider a legitimate sexual euphemism. Still, it came up when I did my search, so I’m including it.
7. Rogering: Spoken by Lee Evans in There’s Something About Mary.
8. Rolling in the Hay: Sung by Teri Garr in Young Frankenstein.
9. Rumpy Pumpy: This is a British expression included by Scottish comic writer Mark Millar as dialogue spoken by the very American Tony Stark in The Ultimates vol. 2 #13. And while someone as world-traveled as Tony Stark would conceivably do and say things common among other cultures, this one is such an expression that it kind of disrupts the conclusion of a satisfying comic series. Also, “rumpy pumpy” sounds way too childish for my liking, but no judgment if it’s your preferred euphemism.
10. Shagging: Austin Powers, obviously.
11. Snuggling: This is another one I’ll always associate with The Simpsons. I’ve used the word in other contexts, but as a stand in for “having sex” I’ll never not be able to hear it in Marge Simpson’s voice.
12. The old in-out: Used to great effect in A Clockwork Orange.

Day 20: Take a picture of your favorite part of you. Maybe your eyes, nose, or something a little more intimate. For an extra challenge, watch yourself in the mirror as you look at your photo. Reflect.
For this prompt, I took a simple picture of my face. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a photo taken head-on with a neutral expression. I don’t know if I would say that my face is my favorite part of me, but I am confident in my looks, even if I don’t feel I am as youthful-appearing as I was a decade ago. My salt-and-pepper beard is more salt than pepper these days, and the crow’s feet near my temples are more conspicuous than they’ve ever been. As of today, I have gone about two weeks longer than I typically do between haircuts, and the hair on my head is way too bushy. But it’s styled decently and not as unruly as it usually feels. Beyond that, there’s something in my expression, I guess, that suggests a youthful spirit. Or maybe it’s not my expression. Maybe it’s the fact that even though my life feels like a dumpster fire right now, I usually manage to compartmentalize the negativity and focus on the positive as much as I can. Or maybe it’s the Marvel Comics T-shirt I’m wearing. As for my facial features, my eyes are sexy. I’m not sure what it is about them specifically, but I think that if I saw me on the street or rang me up at a Starbucks or something, I’d want to know more about this guy with the enticing eyes. Also, I’ve got very noticeable eyelashes and I’ve been told going back to childhood that they are cute, and later in life that they are attractive and make me look hot. My smile is pleasant, warm and nonthreatening, but also playful and even mischievous at times. And my lips are extremely kissable.

I don’t have any strong feelings about my nose or my ears.

Thanks again to K-ghislaine for coming up with these prompts! Stay tuned for Part 3!

Throughout the month of October, writer and content creator K-ghislaine has been publishing a series of daily prompts relating to sex-positivity. It was my intention to post responses to these prompts every day, or at least to answer each new prompt when it was posted and publish my responses at set intervals. But life interfered and it got away from me. I intend to publish three posts by the end of the month, each with ten prompts addressed. Here’s the first one.

Day 1: What is the first word that comes to mind when you read the word SEX?
The first word is “fun”. Sex has always been a major focus of mine, since long before I was sexually active. I can’t fully explain why, but my curiosity about sex dwarfed my curiosity about any other subject. I read as much as I could, usually in the general collection (i.e. not the kids’ section) of the local library. It always sounded like fun to me, and this is years before I would have any concept of the deeper emotional implications of sex. I suppose any positive adjective would work, but “fun” is the one that immediately comes to mind. Appropriate, really; sex should be fun. It doesn’t always have to be a serious thing. Can you imagine how ridiculous it would be for two people to maintain totally straight faces while engaging in it

Day 2: Do you like your sex life? If not, what’s missing?
I never thought I’d have to say this, but no. I’m not satisfied with my sex life, to the extent that I actually have one. What’s missing is physical and emotional intimacy with another person. For the first time in more than twenty years, I suddenly find myself without a partner, as my wife and I have been separated for nearly a year, and my other relationship ended a couple weeks ago. Yes, I realize that one’s sex life doesn’t have to involve anyone else. I’m not trying to invalidate masturbation in any way – hopefully my answers to some of the following questions will make that clear – nor am I trying to further the antiquated notion that sex requires at least two people. I can get off just fine solo, and I certainly enjoy doing so. But I crave closeness with another person, or other people. That is what I lack.

Day 3: What makes you feel sexy?
I think the thing that makes me feel the sexiest is being told that I’m sexy or attractive by another person. There is so much that I do that ought to make me feel sexy, including dressing up in a flattering outfit, trimming my facial hair with Pythagorean precision, working out, and even having moments of clarity when I see myself in the mirror as I’m getting out of the shower and I realize that I am the sexiest guy I’ve ever laid eyes on. But unfortunately, external validation goes a lot farther than any of these. I don’t know why my brain works this way, though I’m guessing a psychologist could read my twelve-part blog series from earlier this year and make an educated guess. I’m working on it, though.

Day 4: What do you find sexy in a partner?
What’s on the inside. Of particular interest to me is empathy, i.e. concern for people who don’t ultimately have any bearing on one’s life. I don’t think I could be attracted to someone whose values and attitudes about the people around them skew toward indifference. Actually, empathy is what I find attractive in general, not specifically what I find sexy (though I prefer to have sex with women who have never vented their aggression at a minimum-wage retail employee who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time). But as for sexy, that’s hard to say. I don’t really have a physical type; blondes, brunettes, redheads, women with big boobs or small, women with short legs or long, women with thick asses or flat ones, curvy, skinny, tall, short – all types potentially turn me on. (When I’ve been asked for my type in the past, I generally answer “Women who find me hot”.) Again, the things that excite me the most are on the inside, namely confidence and genuine enthusiasm for sex.

Day 5: Self-Love Challenge: Stand in front of a mirror and tell yourself that you are SEXY!
Okay, done!

Day 6: Do you have someone that you feel comfortable talking about your sex life with?
I can’t say that I do. I currently have no intimate partners, and I don’t have the required level of comfort and openness required to talk about sex with my family. (Full disclosure: I don’t have close relationships with many of my relatives.) As for talking about my sex life with friends, most of my close friends are women, and although some of these friendships have been sexual in the past, none currently are, and I would hate to make a close friend worry that by bringing up sex I am attempting to violate a previously established boundary. Granted, anyone who knows me well enough to be a close friend hopefully knows that’s not the kind of man I am, but I still worry. Beyond that, I generally don’t see the point or feel the need. Most of my friends seem to be getting laid like crazy. I don’t want to complain to them about my prolonged dry spell.

Day 7: What do you wish you knew about sex at a younger age?
Women can be just as depraved as men. Moreso, even.

Day 8: If you have questions about sex, where do you go?
The internet, I guess. Not Chat GPT, obviously; and I certainly don’t believe everything I read online is the absolute truth. I guess if I had a specific question about something sexual, I might post it to social media, where I would hopefully get an answer from someone I know well enough to tell whether they’re full of shit. This is all a far cry from when I was a kid and my curiosity was sated by a trip to the library. But back then, I read so much about sex that I don’t often have questions about it. If I’m seeking information online, it’s likely related to some kind of new trend or slang that I’ve encountered but cannot define. I am reminded of the time a younger woman I was seeing said I was “Daddy AF”, and I had to ask Twitter what “AF” meant.

Day 9: What is something you believed about sex, and later learned was a myth?
Perhaps contradicting my previous answer, I got a lot of conflicting information from my visits to the general collection of the local library. One book might describe a specific bundle of nerves inside a woman’s body which could be stimulated to spectacular results, while the next book insisted that the G-spot was a myth. (It isn’t.) At the time, I wasn’t aware of the possible sociological reasons for the discrepancy – a stodgy academic who sees sex primarily as a means of procreation might come to a different conclusion than a woman who knows her own body well – but it did condition me to be skeptical of what I read, and to get my information from as many sources as possible. Specific myths I encountered and later unlearned are:

The male sexual peak occurs at eighteen years of age and everything after that is downhill. I have had much more exciting and fulfilling sex in the last twenty years than I did at age eighteen, and while some of that is due to my having greater knowledge and openmindedness as an older man, I also believe my sex drive has become much greater in my thirties and forties.

Penetration is the natural endpoint of sex. This belief focuses on the male orgasm as a sort of objective, and in doing so discounts not only women’s sexual pleasure, but also trivializes relationships that don’t involve penetrative sex, whether because no dicks are involved, or because one or more people cannot achieve erection, or because they’re religious and just do hand stuff in order to exploit God’s Sex Loophole.

Sex is most exciting when it occurs spontaneously. Pop culture has tried desperately to make us believe that when a man does a “kiss lean” or otherwise makes a physical advance toward a woman, she will sort of melt into it and they’ll have sex. She will not push him away, have him arrested for sexual assault, or break a lamp over his head, chop up the body, and dispose of it in several out-of-state dumpsters. Honestly, I feel like the myth of “spontaneous sex is the best sex” needs to go already, and not just because it’s dangerously irresponsible. There are few things more exhilaratingly sexy, in my opinion, than the anticipation you feel when your partner texts you everything they’re planning to do with you after work.

Masturbation is harmful. It’s not. It doesn’t make you go blind. It doesn’t make hair grow on your palms. It doesn’t cause infertility. It doesn’t decrease one’s testosterone. It does not cause, nor is it a sign of, mental deterioration. It doesn’t make Baby Jesus cry. Hell, I’ve got to think Jesus would be 100% in favor of us using what His Father gave us in all the ways He intended. Simply put, masturbation is too wonderful a thing to warrant all the hand-wringing it has inspired. Honestly, I think this myth is nearly as harmful as the previous one. Imagine a world wherein everyone was taught the benefits of self-love. Imagine a world wherein shame was reserved for people who maliciously and unrepentantly do harm to others, and not those who jerk off. We’d all be so much happier. Remember when President Clinton fired Dr. Joycelyn Elders – his Surgeon General – for advocating the teaching of masturbation as a normal part of one’s sexual health? That’s the kind of abject stupidity I’d have expected out of a Republican president, made even more egregious by the fact that Clinton seemed to be perpetually horny, so you know damn well he was beating off on a regular basis. In addition to her views on masturbation, Dr. Elders suggested that legalizing drugs could lead to lower crime rates, pointed out the hypocrisy inherent in opposing safe, legal abortion while showing no concern for child welfare, and considered abstinence-only sex education akin to child abuse. I agree that this woman should not have been the Surgeon General, but only because she should have been the President of the United States.

Day 10: Self-Love Challenge: How do you show yourself … “Self Love”? Hands, toys, props, or maybe something else?
I usually use my hands. But I’ve got a Magic Wand, and sometimes I’ll use that. It’s not a regular thing, as I don’t want to become overreliant on any one kind of sensation in order to cum. But sometimes, when I’m tired or when I don’t have much time, light, sustained pressure on my frenulum can trigger a very intense orgasm. When I was younger, and getting accustomed to the kinds of sensations I enjoyed, I experimented more. I might use a piece of soft fabric, a feather, or something else with a unique texture that I thought might be pleasurable. I used to rub the head of my cock a lot, too, in addition to stroking the shaft. That’s something I eventually sort of abandoned, perhaps because I realized it was less direct, and stroking would achieve the desired result more quickly. Still, it felt really good. As for position – because the question does leave room for a response beyond “do you use your hands or a toy?” – I often kneel if I am pressed for time, usually while leaning against my bed. In this case, I might be completely naked, or I might drop (or even just open) my pants. If I can expect a few minutes of privacy I will probably lie on my bed on my back. In this case, I’m probably naked, though it’s not unusual for me to start out completely dressed and lose clothing as I get more and more turned on. Less common positions include sitting, as well as standing, usually in the shower.

Thanks to K-ghislaine for inspiring me to write this. Stay tuned for Part 2!

Link to Part 11

Boy, that last post sure ended on a down note, didn’t it? I’d love to be able to turn it around here, to say that things are much better now. Believe me, the last thing I want to do is compound that downer ending by denying you, the reader, a happy ending or even some sort of catharsis to give everything you’ve read perspective. But there is no happy ending. Or at least, not yet.

If you take anything from the preceding eleven posts, I hope you are able to discern that I’m not a bad guy. Or at least, I hope that’s how I come across. Despite my glaring flaws, I genuinely believe I’m not a bad person. That’s not to say that I’m a good person, though I do hope that I am. I certainly strive to do no harm, though I understand that simply not doing bad does not make one good. But at this point, faced with what I perceive to be signals from all over the universe that I’m a villain, that I’m the cause of all of society’s ills and that I should be wracked with guilt unto death, simply being able to see that I’m not a bad guy is progress. Simply declining to accept these signals has to be a minor victory.

And it’s not just cognitive distortion that tells me I’m a bad guy. Sure, some of it is cognitive distortion. Maybe most of it is. But it’s a fact that much of my family – that is, my extended family, not necessarily my wife and child – don’t take me seriously. To them, I’m still a pre-teen in short pants who can’t possibly know better than they do. That shit stings when you’re approaching fifty.

And that’s just the members of my family with whom I still have regular contact. I overextend myself in virtually all of my relationships. I give as much as I can – usually more than the other party does – because I am desperate to prove that I have value. I want people to stick around. I don’t want to be alone in my twilight years. Still, most people walk away. Friends get bored, I guess. Most relatives don’t return calls or texts. Maybe I’m just too weird to fit into their lives.

If that’s the case, though, I guess I don’t mind. I spent most of my life trying not to be weird so people would want me around. I tried to force myself into whatever box society said I belonged in. I denied most of the things that made me me, or at least downplayed them. I tried to be the same kind of guy that every other guy was. I pretended I gave a fuck about football. In the end, it didn’t make much difference. Maybe Trying-To-Be-Normal Jack was weirder than default Weird Jack.

Unfortunately, this means that I have little if any reliable social support, and in person I have virtually none. Not only does the inability to keep people in my life suggest that I’m a villain, but the lack of a social circle gives me time to ruminate. With no one in my corner to offer conflicting opinions of my worth, I’m free to entertain the notion that at best, I don’t have anything to offer, and at worst, what I have to offer is all bad.

If I was some sort of monster who abused his loved ones, who got drunk and made an ass of himself at weddings (or funerals), who thought himself better than everyone else, it would make sense for people to walk away. But I’m not some thoughtless husband who leaves dishes in the sink, forgets birthdays, and makes plans with the guys that conflict with anniversaries. Nor am I the sort of person who borrows money from a friend with no intention of paying it back and then hits on said friend’s wife without express permission to do so. I didn’t build a meth lab in the spare room and invite shady people over at all hours of the night to drop off cash and pick up a fresh supply. I don’t make casual racist comments and then act like a victim when everyone at Thanksgiving dinner calls me on it.

Not only do I not have these specific flaws, I’ve spent the last several months actively working on the flaws I do have. I’ve practiced mindfulness and let go of grievances I’d spent years dwelling on. I’ve learned techniques for managing my stress and anxiety. I’ve set and enforced boundaries with other people, which is something I’ve always found difficult and which those people are now being forced to respect for the first time ever. In a variety of therapeutic settings I’ve dredged up much of the stuff you’ve read about over the course of this extended series of posts. I’ve analyzed my flaws, and I’m working on fixing them or accepting that they’re a part of who I am. None of us are perfect, after all. This intense focus on my mental health may be the subject of a future post.

I almost wish I was a villain. If I was the kind of person who committed aggressions like the ones described above, then the loneliness and despair I’ve been dealing with would simply be a case of a villain getting his comeuppance. But since I’m not, none of it makes sense to me. So I guess that getting my head around the situation and accepting it – if not necessarily understanding it – is something of an accomplishment. I mean, it has to be, right?

I’m still trying to figure it out. When I do, I’m sure I’ll blog about it.

Oh, and much like The Obsolete Man, the title of this post also references The Twilight Zone. The episode in question, “It’s a Good Life”, involves a child with godlike powers and control over reality itself. Having isolated his small Ohio town from the rest of the world, he rules over the terrified residents. If you’ve ever seen the 1991 Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode where Bart turns Homer into a jack-in-the-box, this is what it was referencing. Until 2016, “It’s a Good Life” was the single best argument for keeping power out of the hands of those too immature to handle the responsibility.

Link to Part 10

When my daughter switched school districts it became clear that I needed a steady job. Though less lucrative than it had once been, my business was still running. But we weren’t sufficiently well-off that I could justify not re-entering the workforce in some way. And even if we were, I was afraid of appearing lazy by focusing on my own interests rather than what was best for my family.

There was just one minor problem, and that was that I found myself absolutely and totally incapacitated by the very thought of doing so. My inability to take action was so extreme that it felt as though something was physically holding me back. I hadn’t applied for a job in almost twenty years, and the prospect of having to do it again – interviewing, playing politics, kissing ass – was daunting. Hell, I didn’t enjoy that stuff even when I did it semi-regularly.

As always, my mental state played a huge role. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was still recovering from the major life changes that occurred – or were thrust upon me – after my daughter was born. I had been forced to put my career on hold, had spent the better part of a decade finding purpose elsewhere in spite of extensive programming telling me that my primary value was in how I made my living, and was now being expected to resume some sort of career.

And then there’s anxiety. My anxiety disorder is so all-encompassing that it is visible on Google Earth. Or rather, it used to be before I made a formal request that it be censored. Google may be an entity so evil that their former slogan, “Don’t be evil”, meets the legal definition of gaslighting, but to their credit they did respect my privacy and censor my anxiety from view.

Perhaps it was the thought of being faced with such a major life change. Perhaps it was the thought of not having some semblance of control of my daily life for the first time in nearly twenty years. Perhaps it was the knowledge that by getting a job I’d be essentially admitting that my business had failed. Sure, it wouldn’t have been my fault; I didn’t ask to give up control of my business to become a stay-at-home parent. But there was no way that voice in my head wasn’t going to tell me that if I’d worked just a little harder at it before my daughter was born, I wouldn’t be in such dire straits now.

Another reason for my inability to put myself out there was my impostor syndrome. If I couldn’t see sufficient worth in myself to make friends or even to be social half the time, what chance did I have of impressing an employer? Given the enormous gap in my resume, I was convinced that any respectable business would have been crazy to take a chance on me.

By this point, it was clear that the situation had caused severe strain in my marriage and I had to figure things out or risk losing everything I held dear. Please understand that during this time, I was not simply hiding from the problem, or hoping for some deux ex machina to intercede on my behalf. For all my faults, I’ve never been lazy. Unsure? Maybe. Afraid of making a bad choice? No doubt. But in this case, I was working hard to get my brain to a place of sufficient health to proceed.

I looked into positions related to my business, thinking that the extensive expertise I had in that field could prove useful to an employer. But I didn’t get far into my search before my efforts were tabled by the Coronavirus. It wasn’t until months into the pandemic that I managed to resume. But the process proved difficult, and before long I took a job that I found beneath me.

(I realize that that last comment sounds elitist and privileged as hell. For the record, I do not actually believe that any job is beneath me, certainly not at this point in my life. However, much like being a stay-at-home parent, it wasn’t a job I could ever have imagined myself doing prior to actually doing it.)

The nature of the job doesn’t matter. All you need to know is that it was semi-solitary, meaning less chance of breathing in somebody’s Covid vapors. This was months before I was vaccinated, and the thought of contracting the virus and passing it along to my loved ones was, frankly, terrifying. The job required me to get up at 5:00 AM five days a week, and for much of the time that I was doing it I was out of the house approximately ten hours at a time. Additionally, weekends and evenings were not off the table, especially in the beginning. It was tiring, and at times it was really stressful, but it was something I could handle.

It wasn’t the greatest job out there. It wasn’t the most glamorous, or the highest-paying. But my ability to do it wasn’t affected by the psychological barriers that had inhibited me for so long, and that was the only thing that mattered in that moment. I got the hang of it quickly, and I was really good at it. Reviewing my work, a client said I was a god. And that was maybe two months into it! Further praise from satisfied individuals followed, and would have proven one hell of an ego boost if I’d not been too exhausted to appreciate it.

I held the job for several years, and the sense of accomplishment I got from it made a huge difference in my mental health. Sometimes when things feel particularly dire I try to remember how it felt. It’s been a long time since I experienced that sense of purpose and pride, and I’d very much like to again. Plus the money I was making may not have been what I made when my business was at its peak, but it gave my self-esteem a needed boost. As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m unable to shake the notion that I’m only as good as the last time I got paid.

Right now I can’t get past the fact that everything I did – every 5:00 alarm, every late night, every $50-to-$60 tank of gas, every bit of stress I experienced on the job – ultimately counted for nothing.

Up next: Conclusion, wherein I conclude this long, unwieldy mess.

Link to Part 9

(cw: child abuse)

Okay, I lied.

Despite the promise I made in the teaser at the end of the previous post, there is no way to completely undo the mistakes your parents made. Sure, you can take steps to correct these mistakes; taking your mental health seriously and seeing a therapist seems to work wonders, although I don’t recommend you wait until your forties like I did.

No, as I’ve stated previously, the closest you’ll actually get to a do-over is to be aware of what your parents did wrong and strive to not make those same mistakes. Of course, you’ll make your own mistakes, because parenting is in no way an exact science. There is no definitive instruction manual, nor do children display error messages one can type into Google in order to find solutions. Plus, kids are always growing and changing, installing new software updates if you will. All you can do is parent them to the best of your ability, accept that something you did might someday inspire your kid to seek therapy, and hope it’s more “embarrassed them in front of their friends by being uncool” and less “carelessly caused easily-preventable harm”.

My father raised me as best as he could. He never beat me, never threw household objects in the direction of my head with intent to injure me. That’s what his father did. And while I have no basis for this assumption, I’m going to guess that my grandfather, miserable and abusive though he was, didn’t terrorize or physically injure his kids quite as abominably as his own father did him and his siblings. (Which is not to excuse any of it.) But whether it’s physical or sexual abuse, neglect, gaslighting, narcissism, or even just gross negligence that we suffered, I like to think that most of us are capable at some point – maybe not while it’s happening, maybe not for years after it stops, and maybe not without the help of a mental health professional – of recognizing that what we went through is not normal or healthy, and then find it in ourselves to do better.

Even before I realized just how many missteps my parents made, I had already identified problematic child-rearing behavior in my extended family. Long before my daughter was born – hell, before my wife and I had even met – I saw things that made me say, “Okay, I’m never doing that.” And yeah, people without kids talk a big game about the compromises they see other parents making, insist they’ll never make the same ones, and then immediately backpedal once they have kids and realize some of the compromises they previously condemned are part of an ongoing negotiation that comes with being a parent.

At the end of the day, who cares if the kid wears Spider-Man pajamas out of the house? They’re fun and they’re comfortable, and besides, you’re just going to the grocery store. Let them wear the pajamas so they can pretend to be everyone’s favorite friendly-neighborhood wall-crawler or you’re never going to leave. Plus, you have given your child agency – I got to choose what I wanted to wear! – and you’ve allowed them to use their imagination, because any kid wearing Spidey jammies in the car is probably imagining they’re swinging on webs from building to building as you drive to the store.

Sure, when my daughter was a baby I hoped that when she was old enough to pick her clothes she’d opt to wear something other than a princess dress, a reflective construction worker vest, or last year’s Halloween costume when we ran errands. But suddenly she’s three and her whole universe depends on her being a princess at Target. You learn to pick your battles.

Beyond that, I was giving my daughter the freedom to be herself. In that moment, for reasons I can’t fathom, wearing something batshit crazy allowed her to do that. Ultimately it does no harm, and if anyone at Target judged me for letting her do it, they were either not a parent, or else they were the sort of parent whose kids currently resent them.

(Also, don’t shop at Target if you’ve got other options. Fuck them and their racist, anti-LGBTQIA+ garbage.)

But the aforementioned problematic child-rearing behavior I saw in my extended family is nothing as innocuous as superhero jammies. I’m talking about demonstrating in front of an impressionable child just how tenuous your relationship is by arguing vehemently in front of them, or even fighting. I’m talking about using the child as a pawn in your petty marital conflicts. I’m talking about being so suffocatingly overprotective that you install iron bars on their windows and then insist they sleep in your bed until it’s years past the point of being acceptable, thereby instilling in the child a sense of fear so all-encompassing that it makes me look like Daredevil. You know, the Man Without Fear.

Every time I consider that my parents may have screwed me up somewhat, I usually feel gratitude that I’m not the cousin who went through everything I described in the previous paragraph. Still, I don’t let them off the hook. Beyond the aforementioned “something to fall back on” line, I was also told that while my parents loved me, I shouldn’t expect anyone else to. Now, that’s not necessarily the exact wording they used. I don’t even remember it being said, but my mom does. And as with the other line, I understand her reason for saying it; she was trying to keep me grounded and create realistic expectations so that I didn’t go through life with delusions of grandeur and expect that people were going to fall down at my feet and worship me.

Or was she trying to further my dependence on her and my father? I suppose it’s possible. Maybe it’s even probable. Honestly, I don’t want to know. It’s not like I’m going to confront them and tell them what awful parents they were. I’m sure they already have a pretty good idea; I doubt either of them look at me and think, “Damn, we really knocked it out of the park with this guy.” But you know who does have thoughts like that? Me, every time I think about my daughter. And that’s what I mean by a do-over childhood.

Oh, is this where I’m supposed to mention that the reason my daughter is so capable, so high-functioning, and so successful is that I analyzed my own damage, learned from my parents’ mistakes, and did the opposite? Any praise of my daughter is praise of my parenting skills as well. As I said previously, I mention this a lot.

Up next: Back to Work, wherein I go back to work.

Link to Part 8

(cw: child abuse)

Once my daughter switched districts, I couldn’t discern my purpose. I didn’t even know who I was, really. Maybe I should have spent some of my stay-at-home Dad years figuring it out because obviously that era was destined to end eventually. My daughter was nine years old; though I had been taking her to school in the mornings and picking her up in the afternoons right up until the switch and would have continued to do so had she remained where she was, the fact is that she was less dependent on me than she was when she was five. So it was inevitable that there would come a time when stay-at-home parenthood ended for me and I segued into some other phase of life. It was necessary for my daughter’s independence.

In other words, I had to put my own needs aside for the sake of her well-being. And I hate to keep beating the “my parents didn’t know what they were doing” dead horse and I hate to suggest that the reason my daughter is so well adjusted is because I learned from my parents’ mistakes and vowed to do better than they did*, but I really wish my parents had the same foresight and the same consideration for what was best for me and for my independence.

*Okay, no. I don’t actually hate this. I’m proud of it, and I bring it up in therapy as well as in casual conversation as often as I possibly can. Keep an eye out; I’m sure to mention it again.

My mother lives to be useful. My father too, to an extent, though in a more misanthropic way than my mother does. I don’t believe I cooked a meal for myself until I was a legal adult, or at least until I was in my late teens. This is either because my mother needed to have purpose more than she needed to know I possessed basic life skills, or because she thought I was too stupid to figure out how to microwave a TV dinner according to the package instructions, and she figured it would be easier to do it for me than to try and teach me to do it myself.

If it’s the latter, I realize it speaks more to the nature of my upbringing, or at least to their inability to guide me, than it does to my actual intelligence or capability. Either way, it’s a moot point; I was never as helpless as they assumed – or perhaps hoped – I was. But I can admit that I’d be a lot more well-adjusted at age forty-eight had they assumed instead that I was capable of doing the things they insisted on doing for me, and perhaps of doing even more than that.

`When I was a child and a teenager, my parents were overly protective and somewhat controlling. They raised me with an unhealthy amount of fear – not only of them, but to an extent of the world at large – which conditioned me to be dependent and compelled me to pass up many of the opportunities I was given, but also led me to take risks and make bad choices in order to prevent them from finding out when I rebelled, or to evade the consequences if they did. It took me years to purge myself of as much of that fear as I’ve been able to; I know I haven’t gotten all of it.

I don’t know their motives. Maybe they weren’t deliberately trying to raise me to be dependent in order to further their sense of purpose. Maybe they did what they thought was best but fell short because what they thought was best was based on antiquated and unhelpful advice handed down by similarly uninformed, wrong-headed relatives and friends. I’m talking about an era when it was considered perfectly sensible to throw a child into deep water in order to teach them to swim. (No, this never happened to me.)

Moreover, my father – and perhaps my mother as well, but definitely my father – was raised in an abusive household by a man who terrorized his wife and his children to an extent that one day my grandmother gathered up all five kids and, in the words of Raekwon, bounced on old man. She raised five kids on her own in the 1960s when unmarried women had significantly fewer rights than they do today. Until 1974, women in the United States could not open a bank account or apply for loans or credit cards without a husband or other man to co-sign for them. Until the same year, landlords could refuse to rent to single women. To suggest that my grandmother had a difficult time once she and her kids left would be a colossal understatement, but she had to either find a way to make it work, or continue living in the same house as the violent and manipulative man she married, and my grandmother had no time for that bullshit. She worked her ass off to support herself and her kids, all of whom turned out far less screwed-up than they would have been if they’d stayed. Twenty-five years after her passing, I still miss her, but not my grandfather. Fuck that guy.

The point I’m trying to make with all of this is that in childhood my parents – my father especially – suffered the kind of trauma that makes me hesitant if not ashamed to use the word “trauma” to describe my experiences. While they may not have been the most effective or efficient parents in the world, they’re considerably better than the parents who raised them. I believe it is the job of every parent to improve upon their own upbringing, which leads me to the obligatory reminder that I learned from my parents’ mistakes and ultimately raised my child better than they raised me. Look, I warned you that I was going to mention that again.

Up next: The Do-Over Childhood, wherein I impart to you my sure-fire method of completely undoing every mistake that was made by your less-than-qualified parents as they were raising you! You do not want to miss this!

Link to Part 7

I think some of the reason that I de-prioritized my needs – or at least my wants – after my daughter was born is because when we found out my wife was expecting, people – my mom, mainly – impressed upon me that the purpose of my life was now to provide for my child, and that making sacrifices for the good of my offspring was the only accomplishment I had to look forward to. (That’s not verbatim, but it’s definitely the lesson I retained.) No one said this to my wife, just to me. Maybe the people who knew me best saw me as a selfish manchild who was likely to trade his baby for a mint-condition copy of The Incredible Hulk #180 or a life-size replica of Han Solo in Carbonite. Granted, I don’t think I’ve ever come across that way, but there had to be a reason that multiple people felt the need to tell me this.

I’ve always been pretty easygoing, the sort of person who goes with the flow and tries not to make waves. I suspect this behavior was modeled by my mother, with whom I spent a lot of time growing up. Additionally, while my parents were good providers who made sure I had everything I needed and much of what I wanted, there were no promises or guarantees made about anything in the latter category. I grew to not like asking for things.

To be clear, my parents didn’t scream at me or physically abuse me if I asked for something. They didn’t send me to my room for not being happy with what I already had. In fact, it wasn’t unusual for me to get the thing I was asking for, though depending on what it was I usually had to wait for my birthday or Christmas. But again, I didn’t like asking.

The lesson I should have taken away from my upbringing is that parents need to see to their own emotional and financial needs before indulging their kids. When you’re on an airplane listening to the safety demonstration, they tell you that if there’s a change in cabin pressure you must put on your own oxygen mask before assisting your children with theirs. If you don’t take care of your own needs, you’re not going to be able to see to those of a child.

(More than a decade before I became a parent, I remember trying to impart this very lesson to a much-older cousin who found himself in a similar boat. This was a person who, while raising two young children solo and in an isolated setting, regularly found himself overextended and couldn’t make time for self-care. We were close, but I doubt he appreciated the unsolicited (but sound) advice from a kid twelve years his junior who had barely started living.)

Unfortunately, the lesson I actually took from my upbringing was that my needs are less important than anyone else’s, and this programming came back when I was told that my own life was essentially over once I became a father. I guess I shouldn’t be too hard on myself for not learning the other lesson. It’s not as though the messaging I received once my baby was born – not just from people I knew, but to some extent from cultural osmosis – was anything but “Your own journey as a person stops here.”

In the years since then, I’ve tried to justify it by convincing myself it was for the best. “My own journey wasn’t leading anyplace good [though in moments of clarity I know that this is 100% untrue] and the most important thing I’ll ever do is raise my daughter to be a strong and successful adult [this is probably true].”

In that respect, I seem to be succeeding.

Up next: The Parent Trap, wherein I consider that my parents might be partially responsible for the mess that I currently am. More than I have thusfar, I mean.

Link to Part 6

Last year, my wife and I took our daughter to San Francisco overnight. It was nearing the end of Spring Break, and she wanted to do something out of the ordinary. We got a hotel room, and spent a couple days doing touristy things that we generally take for granted. We went to Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf. We ate dinner at Ghirardelli Square. We played indoor mini-golf, and went to the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory in Chinatown.

Before heading home on the second day, my daughter wanted to take part in some sort of creative activity at the Japan Center Mall in Japantown. It was something she’d heard about on YouTube or wherever kids hear about things these days. The nature of the activity is unimportant; just know that it was a fairly extravagant indulgence, though not exactly break-the-bank expensive. Something frivolous but apparently fun. She enjoyed it.

While she did the activity and my wife waited nearby, I wandered around the mall. It occurred to me as I browsed the Kinokuniya Bookstore that I’d love to engage in some sort of frivolous activity that makes me happy without worrying about how much it might cost or feeling like I haven’t earned it. Is that an ability that died with my childhood? It had been so long since I considered doing such a thing that I had no idea whatsoever what sort of activity I might do, nor how I’d put myself in the proper frame of mind to believe I deserve it.

Every few years, we go to Disneyland. (Before we were parents, we’d go several times a year, but that’s beside the point.) Whenever we find ourselves at Galaxy’s Edge, the expansive Star Wars-themed area of the park where guests can hobnob with Star Wars characters, ride kickass Star Wars-themed rides, and drink mind-altering intoxicants in a genuine wretched hive of scum and villainy, I see people walking around in their Jedi robes carrying lightsabers and Astromech droids that they built themselves at shops dedicated to that purpose.

I’m not saying that building a lightsaber is necessarily the sort of indulgent activity I’d take part in – I was always more of a Han Solo fan than a Luke Skywalker fan, to be honest – but it always looks like fun. Everything in Galaxy’s Edge is basically what little Jack – and young adult Jack – daydreamed about. Even though I’m nowhere near as die-hard a Star Wars fan now as I was in my younger days, I suppose that if I could have gotten past the whole “I can’t do things I enjoy without feeling like I’ve earned them” mindset, I might have been so caught up in the Star Wars of it all that I would have built a lightsaber, bought a Rebel Flight Crew jacket, or gotten Darth Jar Jar tattooed on my bicep. That’s a thing you can do there, right?

I know that part of the reason I simply can’t indulge myself in such a fashion is that that it’s hard for me to spend money because I don’t make enough of it. Granted, I can’t say for sure that if I made three times as much as I currently do I’d allow myself the occasional pricey frivolity; it’s possible I still wouldn’t believe I’ve done enough to earn it. At any rate, I don’t want to be a burden to my family. I don’t want them to think that I spend money with reckless abandon on stuff that isn’t necessary for my continued survival. And I’m sure that for the last fifteen years I thought that showing that kind of restraint would save me from some sort of metaphoric guillotine – or Rancor pit, to stay on-theme – when my usefulness was depleted. It didn’t, but I’ll get to that later.

Sorry, as I write this I’m very much in Star Wars mode as I’m still reeling from last night’s three-hour Andor series finale (around three weeks ago by the time this post is published). Fucking amazing.

The thing is, I wasn’t like this before I became a parent. I had no problem indulging myself, whether in the form of a once-a-week trip to the local comic shop, the latest video game console, or some sort of expensive collectible. I didn’t feel like I had to justify doing so; I worked hard running a business, and I guess that was all the justification I needed. You may recall that I used to have a pool room; it might not come as a surprise to find out that one of the bedrooms in that house was used as a geeky sitting room where I could relax and read comics while surrounded by high-end statues and busts of my favorite characters.

After fifteen years spent storing much of this collection in my parents’ garage, I’m currently in the process of selling it off. Nothing lasts forever.

Up next: Life Ends at Parenthood, wherein I try to shake off yet another shitty life lesson.

Link to Part 5

One day I woke up and I wasn’t a stay-at-home Dad anymore.

In the interest of allowing our daughter to realize her full potential, my wife and I decided to pull her out of the elementary school she’d been attending since kindergarten – a school that did not challenge her at all – and enroll her in the district where my wife taught. It was my suggestion, and it was not made without significant inner turmoil. I knew that if she switched districts, I’d no longer be needed to drop her off and pick her up. I’d have to figure out a new day-to-day purpose.

While I’d initially been hesitant to embrace the role of stay-at-home Dad, for ten years it was almost all I knew. It had been the largest part of who I was for nearly as long as I could remember. I deeply enjoyed forging a close relationship with my daughter that I otherwise might not have. Above all, I was very comfortable in that role. It suited me. But suddenly I found myself once again at the precipice of a complete overhaul of my identity and my very life.

I recall the day years earlier when my wife and I went to something that can probably best be described as a preschool fair, i.e. a place where representatives from various preschools promote their institutions to the parents of prospective students. I went through all the expected emotions and had all the expected thoughts, most of them along the lines of “I can’t believe my baby girl is already starting school!” There was also a trace of “Am I really okay leaving my child with strangers?”

But there were also feelings of dread related to my sense of purpose. For the first time ever, my daughter was going to be out of my custody on a regular basis. Granted, the first year she was only in school two hours a day a couple days a week, but in my mind I needed to immediately find some means of justifying the oxygen I was drawing into my lungs during that time. If I wasn’t actively parenting my child, what good was I?

I had four hours a week to myself. After three years spent parenting a young child almost around the clock, this level of solitude was unfathomable. I couldn’t imagine how many weeks it would take me just to get used to the idea of being alone for that long. But I knew I couldn’t afford to dwell on it; I’d need to find a part-time job that could accommodate my limited schedule. Otherwise my family would surely resent me for being a freeloader.

I know none of this is realistic. Two hours of solitude a day twice a week isn’t enough time to handle laundry, dishes, and the myriad other things I couldn’t get around to on the typical weekday, let alone steady employment. Hell, two hours of solitude twice a week wouldn’t have been enough time to catch up on the sleep I lost since becoming a parent. But in my mind, if I wasn’t with my daughter, I needed something to show for my time more significant than clean bathrooms, spotless dishes, and folded laundry. Remember what I said about my parents inadvertently conditioning me to equate my worth with my income? This is how that lesson manifests itself.

Obviously I didn’t get a four-hour-a-week job. But over the next few years I helped out in my daughter’s preschool class as often as my social anxiety permitted. It wasn’t always easy, but it allowed me to feel good about myself and to feel like I was contributing in a small way. In addition, it allowed me to see her occasionally on school days, which mitigated the separation anxiety. Also, helping out in her class made me truly appreciate the solitude I experienced on days when I didn’t, because anything beyond like four or five kids at a time is overwhelming. I don’t know how my wife does it.

While it is in my nature to overextend myself for the people I love, and while I enjoyed and continue to enjoy spending time with my daughter simply because she’s wonderful, it has occurred to me that I might have helped out in her classroom and chaperoned almost every field trip specifically because I knew the situation was finite. Perhaps on some level I was banking credit, doing as much as I could with her even when she was in school because I figured when she started getting rides from friends or otherwise didn’t need them from me, I’d have a tough time justifying my existence.

If that theory is accurate, I kind of wish I’d known then that all the good will I’d tried to accumulate over the years didn’t last.

Up next: Treat Yourself, wherein I examine a possible root cause of my loss of identity and geek out about Star Wars. It’ll make sense in context, trust me.