One of the first pieces of furniture my wife and I bought when we got married was a ping pong table. We were 20, in college, and incredibly happy. Those first years when everything is new and exciting. You remember. We didn’t have much, but we got to return home to the same place every day. That was all we needed.

I felt a weird emotion the other day. I got nervous. Not scared nervous. That happened the time my friend and I drove home through the dark woods after watching the Blair Witch Project. No, this was that childlike nervous feeling, like my first day at a new school.

I think I’ve officially started down the path of becoming an old man. The proof is what I did last night. It was Friday. It was 9:00 PM. I was lying in my bed, watching old sports highlights on my laptop. And that was 100% what I wanted to do. With the entire internet, every streaming service, a house full of hobbies, and a car that could take me anywhere, I wanted to watch an old video of Nadal winning a semifinal tennis match at a small tournament from twelve years ago. And I’d do it again.

My daughter is crying hard in her bedroom. It’s late at night and I am angry and frustrated. Somehow, in the last two weeks she has reverted from a five-year-old to a two-year-old. She won’t go to bed. She cries, she gets out of bed, she calls for Mom. Only now it is worse because she isn’t just crying; she is saying all the most painful things you can ever hear from your child. “No one loves me, no one ever does anything for me, no one cares about me.”

“Thank you for working on Thanksgiving.” That is what I said to the young woman leaning out of the coffee stand window. She had a handful of precious treats for my family. A croissant for my daughter, a half sandwich for my wife, and a mocha with an extra shot and half the chocolate for me. I used to dislike coffee. Then I started working a real job after college and realized that people are like cars - they need fuel. But I had quite the sweet tooth. So I got the coffee with all the bells and whistles.

I know, I know. You can tell that I like Robert Fulghum a lot. I won’t deny it, because it’s true. He was one of the first authors I fell in love with. I admire how simple his stories are. Sometimes they are many pages, and sometimes they are two paragraphs. Like the small bear’s porridge from the Goldilocks story, his portion of words is just right.

It’s a random Friday evening at Sea-Tac Airport, but it may as well be Christmas Eve. I’m not sure why so many bodies are passing through this port at 10:30 PM, but my comprehension won’t change a thing. There is construction, always construction. You can hear jackhammers pounding away at concrete and steel on the curb outside. Baggage screen computers aren’t working. Already tight walkways are being bottlenecked by plywood sheets narrowing every pedestrian passage.

Taking advantage of temporary residency in Houston by chauffeuring my daughter to tennis lessons. At home the only option is over an hour away, during summer break. So for one month she is getting group lessons for 90 minutes, twice a week. There is a basketball court right next to where they practice. Now I have something to do as well.

My daughter and I are on her bed at the end of the day. I am laying diagonal across the bottom half of the bed, both legs bent into upside down V’s. My daughter is lying diagonally across the bed as well, but in the opposite direction, with her head on my stomach. From above, we make a capital T. She has a towel wrapped around her head after a bath, which is slowly soaking my shirt. We are covering the day's events, which were pretty awesome. We found a new rock climbing gym, and she climbed until her fingers were good and raw. Proud dad.

We are at a museum, and it’s already been a long day. But knowing my wife, there is no way we are leaving until the security guards kick us out. My daughter and I are well accustomed to this ritual. We are prepared with patience. The kid in the stroller next to us is not. “I’m done,” he declares to his mother. Followed by another “I’m done.” What follows is between two to five minutes of nonstop “I’m done, I’m done, I’m done, I’m done.”

I had one of the most interesting conversations with a hitchhiker. I picked her up outside of Leavenworth. She was taking a break from hiking the Pacific Crest Trail because of nonstop rainy weather. She wanted a warm meal in town before getting back to the mountains. I asked why she had chosen to hike, expecting to get the same answer many of my friends who’ve hiked the PCT give. Adventure, the views, the difficulty, the unique challenge - I’ve heard a lot of answers over the years.

Dishes in the sink, blankets on the floor. Mail, half drawn pictures, coats, and an open lunch box on the kitchen table. When was the last time I vacuumed? How did the bedroom become so cluttered? Most of the time, these things bother me. I have a healthy dose of OCD, meaning I like things organized and put away. I want symmetry. I feel comfortable and at ease when life and home are in order. If my house is a post tornado scene, how am I expected to concentrate?

There’s a lot of noise about ChapGPT. Had to check it out. Turns out it is pretty cool. So I've used it off and on, here and there. Not too much, and I purposely typed like I was talking to google. I heard online, and I heard from friends that it could do more. A good buddy asked it to make a lesson plan to help his daughter learn about constellations. Was very impressed, he said. Showed me the plan and everything. Cool I thought, and went back to treating it like google.

I’ve officially lost my mind. My mental capacity is out to lunch. Goodbye to the thinking part of my brain. Now it’s just a heavy pile of mush in my skull. How will I continue to function as a sane person anymore?

One of the funniest moments in any living things life is when it stands still. That moment of pure confusion over what to do next. It’s not boredom. It’s not tiredness. It’s unplanned, and always unexpected. For me it usually happens in the living room. I’m walking from the kitchen, take a right into the living room, and before I can make another turn to my final destination I stop, and momentarily forget everything about who I am, where I am going, what I am supposed to be doing, or what to do next.

I’m at the rock climbing gym with my daughter, and we are having a good day. The ritual starts with the smelly bag of harnesses, chalk, and climbing shoes. They come out, we put them on, and head over to the bouldering wall. Today there aren’t many people, so we get our pick of the liter. This particular gym in Houston is much larger than our spot at home, so there are a lot of options.

When my daughter was young, she got a purple reclining chair from her Grammy. It's pretty plush for a kids chair, tilting back with ease while lifting your legs into a comfortable position. A kid's kind of luxury. It’s such a cool chair that I have seen a lot of adults try to sit in it. When they see it in the living room, it puzzles them. Looks too fancy for a kid, but too small for an adult. So they approach the enigma, and see that it stands well below the level of the rest of the couches. But they can’t shake that enticing feeling, and so after a few seconds of study, they sit.