is this what they mean when they say "we want a pitcher, not a belly itcher"?

Oh the things a belly can do. Mrs nice guy is not only impressively grand in size and scope, but her stomach does tricks now! As her belly grows and grows (and grows) (and also it grows), it moves! It changes color! It itches! It turns its navel inside out!

I am honestly considering renting her out for parties. Seriously, we need the cash. First, the itching: like a drum, her skin is expanding to enfold the baby burrito in its custom-fit epidermis tortilla. Yum. As it expands, the skin stretches--not unlike dead goat skin stretched over a snare drum--and as a result, it apparently itches. A lot. Alas, there is no benefit here because, unlike a snare drum, I am not supposed to pound on the skin with wooden sticks. Believe me, I've tried. and worse: poor mrs nice guy walks around digging her nails into her gut at every surreptitious moment she gets.

BUT! the baby is allowed to bang the hell out of the skin all it wants, apparently. Sure, it lives inside my wife and all, but here's the thing: I don't like this preferential treatment. The baby kicks so hard that you can LITERALLY SEE MY WIFE'S SHIRT MOVE. So awesome to visualize her in meetings with clients while her chemise is doing the cabbage patch. But the problem here is that I'm not allowed to pound on her itchy drum-tight tummy, but the kid (who, I will add, is MUCH younger and has a MUCH less developed sense of rhythm than me) is. Not. Fair.

That's ok, though, because not having a television that actually picks up anything as useful as television signals, I have nothing else to watch. So I watch her belly move. And change colors. Mrs nice guy now has a racing stripe running down the middle of her gut. it is a 'linea nigra,' which sounds like a tasty cerveza to order along with your babyskin burrito. But it's not. It's a dark line. That runs right down her stomach. Like a racing stripe or a vertical equator. It's the happiest of happy trails, is what it is. Apparently women with darker pigmentation get this a lot. However. a little research on the internets turned up this not-terrifying-at-all-enigmatic-factoid about the linea nigra: "Cancerous change of gestational trophoblastic disease. See gestational trophoblastic disease." Ah yes, trophoblastic disease. Obviously nothing to worry about at all. After all, who hasn't had their trophos blasted from time to time?

Jesus, I am not cut out for this.

baby burrito in a skin tortilla with extra guac, please

the nomadic museum is coming


watching a little telly at a friend's house the other night, mrs nice guy and myself were sprawled out on said friend's couch. this friend, who is radder than rad, she looks at us and she says: "you know what's weird? you're both on that couch, but there's also a baby on that couch with you. only, the baby is wrapped in skin."

how rad, i ask you, is that?

In the interest of setting good examples

A flapping shmata? A tangerine polling booth? Art?



An old friend of Mr Nice Guy has struck your correspondent to the very quick! Thoughtfully, he laid out the arguments for proper capitalization. Impressively, he inveighed against my liberal use of expletives. Of course Mr Nice Guy, knee jerk that he is, was initially inclined to write him off as a stick in the mud, a maroon and, not unlike the John Lithgow character in "Footloose," a smelly fundamentalist!

But then I got to thinking. WWCD? That's right: What Would Cosby Do? Ah, the crown prince of hilarity would refrain from using words that rhyme with DUCK that aren't CLUCK. He would probably almost never say on stage that word that sounds a lot like CLOCKSHUCKER--merely to get a cheap laugh. You know? (Of course, he apparently has had a hard time keeping it in his pants. That's a debate for another time, though.)



monday in the park with christo



But this is about the guppy, after all. My unborn squidkid. So. What do you think? Should Mr Nice Guy abstain from profanities? Ought not Mr Nice Guy properly capitalize his sentences? What sayest thou, imaginary readers?

UPDATE! this was perhaps my fault, titling the post what i titled it and all. the point here is not to stop swearing for the sake of my unborn (and let's face it, still largely hypothetical) child. no. the kid will swear and i will be powerless to stop it from swearing (and largely uninterested in doing so). no. the issue here is using "bad" words as cheap laugh-getters. the "clean" comics are usually the funnier ones anyway. but i digress. the main point here is that, frankly, i will type all the filth and flarn i want, but i suspect my unparalleled comedic powers will dominate even if i don't type like a syphilitic sailor.

oh and also: let's face it, i am too fucking lazy to capitalize properly.

the cramping of the style

and you thought this was supposed to be a family blog

today's entry is brought to you by muscle cramps. "A Muscle cramp," the syntactically-challenged mamashealth.com tells us, "is an involuntary, painful contraction of the muscles which produce a hard, bulging muscle." you know, i tried that line on the ladies all through my bachelor years and NOT ONCE did it work.

more importantly, these days a muscle cramp is what wakes me up at night from my kathy ireland-infused slumbers. actually, let me rephrase that. a muscle cramp is what gets mrs nice guy up--caterwauling, actually--at 1 am, launching me into the track lighting where i cling for dear life as my darling bride clutches blindly at her legs, howling like a deranged coyote and clawing with her free hand at my testicles.

apparently very pregnant women, the very elderly and a very drunk mr nice guy all get involuntary painful nocturnal muscle cramps: which of those three do you sympathize with the least? that's what i thought. i have no pity for old people either.

unfit to father at any speed

what, me parent?

i know i have expressed this sentiment before but, really, we have to toss in the proverbial spit-up towel now. someone please call child welfare services and book them an appointment for mrs nice guy's due date. we are both thoroughly unqualified to be parents.

every other parent-to-be in this city has their shit repulsively together: one week after finding out wifey is expecting, they've enrolled their uborn child in baby yoga and portuguese lessons. at two months, they're interviewing at the 92nd street Y and arranging for the proper shady stock analyses to be issued. at five months they're banging out the details of their wills, their child's trust fund, the philanthropic foundation that will bear their baby's name. at six months, they request applications from harvard and yale. you get the picture.

us? forget even coming close to competing with our type A supermommy manhattan cohort of genetic mutant freakparents. we don't have any baby gear yet. i have no idea how to change a fucking diaper. we barely remember when mrs nice guy is due. talking with mrs the wife last night i realized we both completely lost count of how far along in her pregnancy she is. i think we're somewhere between month six and seven. who knows? don't even ask us what fucking week mrs nice guy is in. forget it. we suck.

eating like gods in virginia

the inn is in

ok motherfuckers, you all asked for it. you want to know what an evening at the inn at little washington is like? the nice guys are going to tell you what our night, earlier this month, at the inn was like ... and you know what? YOU CAN'T HANDLE IT. but we're going to tell you anyhowever.

first of all. we arrive at the inn on a sunday, superbowl sunday, at approximately 3 pm. as we park our budget rental car (complete with yellow "support our troops" ribbon magnet ... sweet) next to the SUV in the baptist church parking lot directly facing the inn, no fewer than FOUR inn imps emerge, eager to help us with our bags, our perspicacity, our general orientation in life. and so into the inn we venture, where we are greeted with a flute of perfect regional sparkling wine mixed with passion fruit. my pregnant wife drinks it. yay. after a brief tour of the dining room we are guided to our bedchamber, an upgrade, the balcony of which you can see in the upper-left corner of the picture above. ADMIRE IT. the room: decidedly a monkey theme going on here. framed pictures of monkeys abound. an elaborate bed with an elaborate frame and elaborate hangings with leopards imprinted upon it and lots of many patterns -- paisley, bamboo stalks, monkeys, etc., very decadent. it is imperative we have sex in this room.

but first! the tea. we descend into the garden out back, where there is a koi pond with very large koi pond fishes in it. a tiny waterfall gently trickles. we sip tea, we laugh at each other, we eat the tiniest scones known to man, we ingest the best lemon custard filling ever concocted, shmeared onto our wee amuse bouches. it is all very good. another couple (big hair, dockers) comes out to the veranda and has tea nearby. they are nowhere close to as glamorous, sexy and wonderful as my wife and i.

we go upstairs! we nap! we shower! we don our finest finery. we go down into the dining room. even though the inn at little washington chooses to describe their dining room as "pure fantasy--a wondrous cocoon of luxury," it is nonetheless quite nice. no, we are never greeted by "a graceful dalmatian wearing a string of pearls," but that's ok since mrs nice guy promised me that if we were, she would kick it in the head. this would have been difficult to justify to the proprietor. anyway, the dining room. it was designed by your grandparents on acid. it's old-school through and through (silk lampshades, many patterns, many colors, many flowers, many fabrics) and it makes you wish your grandparents did some more decorating while they were on acid.


why are there so many fucking obelisks out here? goddamn freemasons.

but wait! the menu! the missus and i opt for the chef's tasting menu because, you know, patrick o'connell is god. basically. you feel bad for the baptist church across the street because you know the faithful that attend services at the inn are WAY more devout. printed on the top of the menu are the words: "Happy Birthday to Mr Nice Guy" and we know this is going to be good. we wonder if all the tables receive this same message, or if each menu is personalized ("Happy Anniversary" or "I Want Half and I Am Taking the Kids"). we opt for the tasting menu du jour. here's how it goes:

Shaved Confit of Duck Foie Gras on Brandied Cherries with Sauternes Jelly
(with a little taste of Pierre Sparr Gewurztraminer 'Sporen' from Alsace)
thinner than a slice of Kraft american cheese, this foie gras is transcendent. it melts in the mouth before your fork even gets it there. rich but not heavy; buttery but not pornographic. and you never knew toast could be this good. toast? this is toast from mount olympus. and incidentally, the sauternes jelly is tiny cubes of transparent sex. so good.

Poached Pullet Egg in Oxtail Consommme with Julienne Ham Country Ham and Black Truffles
(mr nice guy made the INSANELY DECLASSE move of wondering aloud to the waiter why he didn't get a new glass of wine with his poached pullet, only to be informed that the last glass was for the foie gras AND the egg. oops!)
anyway. this is the most impossibly delicate poached egg that ever was laid. this quivering deliciousness comes in a slightly salty oxtail sauce that is ... hang on ... dammit, my thesaurus is already running out of synonyms for "crazygood." the luscious ham makes it worth betraying the most observant of my people. PIG IS TASTY, y'all, deal with it.

Black Truffle Dusted Maine Diver's Scallop on Cauliflower Puree
(Domaine du Caillou Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Rhone, France 2002)
yes! more wine! also. this single buttery scallop, people, easily weighs three pounds. this is the BIGGEST SCALLOP EVER RECOVERED FROM THE SEA. and it is not "dusted," it is "filthy" with truffle. and what to say about the puree? if it were footfunk puree i reckon it wouldn't have mattered, there is just so much magic happening here.

Oven Roasted Quail on Creamy Polenta with Saute of Forest Mushrooms and Green Grapes
(Goldeneye Pinot Noir, Anderson Valley, California 2001)
basically, this is where superlatives and hyperbole begin to fray. what's to say about this wine other than it rocks the casbah? and the quail? i'd eat EVERY FORMER VICE-PRESIDENT if he dripped right off the bone like this bird does.

Braised Veal Cheek with Raviolis of Virginia Country Ham
(Marchesi di Barolo 'Gia Opera Pla Barolo', Piedmont, Italy 1999)
mrs nice guy does not approve of the veal. you know what? that meant TWICE AS MUCH TORTURED BABY CALFCHEEK FOR ME. this is meat genetically engineered for people without teeth. so rich, so juicy, so tender, so x-rated. i am beginning to feel sorry for the rest of humanity simply because they aren't me.

Truffle Cheesecake
mr nice guy would happily refrain from ever perusing the internet for cheesecake again if it were even once as rewarding as eating this sublime creamgasm. the cheese lands softly before me, a sliver of truffle cut down the middle, smelling of wrestler's foot, tasting like earth and clouds. clearly, my life will be all downhill after tonight.

Valrhona Chocolate Souffle with White Chocolate Ice Cream
(Broadbent Colheita, Madeira 1995)
mrs nice guy is back in the game! she had been lagging the past two courses because, you see, she's "pregnant" and certain things are "not so appealing" to her. aha! molten chocolate lava souffle, richer than george soros, is apparently appealing. me, i like dessert just fine ... but i'd rather have some more of this madeira, sweet mother of yaweh!


the view from le balcon

anyway. the people sitting at the two tables next to us are sadly reprehensible (true snippets of conversation: "i am liberal in my heart, but conservative in my pocket book." "i live in umbria? i make wine."). what can you do? before we return to our room to sleep like pampered immortals, mrs nice guy and i are given a tour of the multimillion-dollar kitchen. it was, like everything else, awe inspiring. painted on the wall, above the entrance to the dining room, are the following words, a constant reminder to the cooks of the experience being had in their vaunted temple: Anticipation, Trepidation, Inspiration, Satisfaction, Evaluation. i think--the order might not be entirely accurate; i wasn't taking notes. but in this kitchen, the one kitchen that consistently cranks out the greatest meals in the country, there is a single glaring flaw. "Inspiration" is spelled wrong.

the lesson? even the best are not perfect.

we slept well that night.

itchy epidermis, touchy topic

their eyes were watching TRL


mater nice guy: so has her belly button popped inside-out yet?
mr nice guy: no. but it's getting there. her belly's all itchy and her navel has filled in, almost as if she didn't have one at all.
mater nice guy: sounds like your father.
mr nice guy: ...
mater nice guy: he's so fat.

mr nice guy hearts you

memo to alanis morissette: isn't it ironic that the tradition of valentine's day began in A PRISON? don't you think?

ah, Love, my warden. you are the jailor that keeps me in this fetid cell.


i'm lovin' it

as a token of his affection, mr nice guy has a little (non-morissette) song for you, fuzzy readers! think of this as my love letter to all three of you--please be mine. this is a new favorite ditty, and if i weren't severely mentally deficient, i would post an actual mp3 here. instead, you get lyrics and nothing more.

this song has a deep, special meaning for mr nice guy this particular year. it touches me. it's about me, really. and mrs nice guy, bless her tiny heart, may not quite be able to relate to it today, but i fear she will. oh yes. she will. it is called "my son calls another man daddy" and it goes a little something like this. a one and a two and a one, two, three:

Tonight my head is bowed in sorrow
I can't keep the tears from my eyes
My son calls another man daddy
The right to his love I've been denied.

CHORUS
My son calls another man daddy
He'll ne'er know my name nor my face
God only knows how it hurts me
For another to be in my place.

Each night I laid there in prison
I pictured a future so bright
For he was the one ray of sunshine
That shone through the darkest of nights.

CHORUS

Today his mother shares a new love
She just couldn't stand my disgrace
My son calls another man daddy
And longs for the love he can't replace.


ah, valentine's day! who doesn't love it? may all of you get a little piece of your february freak on.

a lesson baby nice guy will have to learn the hard way

i only wish my poor, sweet, doomed child were already here. i have for it (him, her, hem, whatever) a valuable lesson to teach. it is a lesson, alas, that will best be illustrated for a scant 16 days. oh, the lesson itself is immutable--the truth i wish to impart will always hold true--but this fierce, blazing example i would like to share will be gone at the end of the month. too bad. tant pis pour bebe. still you, dear gentle reader, will perhaps benefit from this slice of wisdom that i, now 30, have hard gleaned from a brutally hard existence...

lesson: to whichever floor mr nice guy rides the elevator of life, he gets shafted.

want proof? oh mr nice guy has proof for you! mr nice guy has 7,500 blazing orange mocking flags of proof! the gates are here for 16 days. thanks, christo and jean-claude. thanks a lot. oh sure, the gates are stunning. they're beautiful. the first major public art display of the new century is, in the words of the new york times, "pure joy." OH YEAH? not for mr nice guy it ain't!

look! this is the view that one of mr nice guy's officemates has. to protect my colleague's anonymity, i will call this person "titface." check out what titface sees when titface looks out of titface's window:


not my view

not bad! quite beautiful, actually. front row seat to a major happening! stunning, in fact. peaceful, yet simultaneously awe-inspiring. hell, even when the gates aren't there, titface still has a perfect year-round view of central christfucking park.

and now look at this! this is what mr nice guy, your maligned hero, sees when he looks out his grimy window (mind you he sits no more than 15 yards around the corner and down the hall from titface):


my view

gorgeous, right? front row seat to a fucking construction site. a festering, herpetic eyesore. soul-destroying megalopolitan banality.

so what else is there to conclude? if only my child were here! i would tell it this: "sweet beautiful babe. the world has it out for your old man and, let's face it, you too. it's in your genes. deal with it, loser."

ps: titface, please don't tell HR i called you titface on my interblog.

wherein mr nice guy learns one of life's magical little lessons

so you're telling me that this is not how people are made?

to even consider ever buying me a birthday present after this is simply laughable

so mr nice guy finally, officially, turned the ripe old age of 30 last week. he cannot tell you what a relief it is to be no longer in his twenties. and he would have updated this website sooner with incredibly deep ponderings about the passing of time, impending fatherhood, mortality and cialis, but he had better things to do than talk to the likes of you. you see, it has been thoroughly hammered home (as if his tiny little brain was even capable of performing a function as complex as having a doubt) that his wife is, for lack of a better word, fucking rad.

it's not so much that i returned from work on friday (after 13,476 drinks that one of my friends poured down my throat in order to forestall my arrival home) to a bitchin' surprise party. no it wasn't just that. although, as a side note, have you ever had a surprise party thrown for you? it's very strange. you walk into a room and all of a sudden you see all these incongruous faces, from far flung corners of your life, in your living room just hanging out and having a laugh at your expense and you wonder why your mother in law is sitting in your kitchen chillin' with college mates and, sweet!, all of a sudden all these people who you like but probably don't like each other are offering you lots of free wine. yes. the party was truly a surprise. and it was fun. but wait, there was more.

the true magnificence of mrs nice guy was revealed to me when she dropped the bomb: my actual gift was that we were going to washington, dc, the following day to have dinner with friends. but wait, there was more. the following night the two of us were to drive out to virginia to dine, and sleep, at the inn at little washington.

did you just stop breathing? no? that's because you must not know what the inn at little washington is, you silly person. this, alas, is where words fail. mr nice guy shall eventually write a separate entry on the menu alone, but it was, quite simply, the best meal i have ever eaten in my life -- exactly what you'd expect from what is widely viewed as one of the top two? three? restaurants in the country, one of the singular dining experiences to be had anywhere. this is to say nothing of the accommodations themselves, which were the apotheosis of decadence. the service was gracious, professional, never obsequious, always classy. it was superbowl sunday so there were, amazingly, vacancies. so we were upgraded to an even nicer room. un-freakin-believable.

anyway. all that was to tell you the following about my lovely wife. there we were in our finest finery, drinking afternoon tea (in hot anticipation of the dinner to come) simply agog at the garden, the koi pond, the itsy scones and bite-sized niblets. we looked deeply into each others eyes. we giggled like children. we played footsie, genteelly, under the table. she sighed as i sipped my perfect vanilla tea and said to me: "happy birthday. now begins your long, slow march to death."

and so it begins

something fishy this way comes

so i am a little worried about the missus right now. the baby is a good, like, three or four or seven months from being born (what me in denial?) and already mom-to-be is FIGHTING WITH HER UNBORN CHILD. don't get me wrong, it's funny as all getout. but it's not a little bit disconcerting either.

take, for example, last night at the nice guy dinner table. i'll set the scene for you -- we are eating a splendid vegetarian chili cooked by my wife's breathtakingly gifted and handsome husband. halfway through the meal and about five seconds into a lull of conversation, mrs nice guy jolts upright and exclaims: ow! motherfucker! knock it off!

mr nice guy: what?! i didn't even touch you!
mrs nice guy: the baby keeps kicking me!
mr nice guy: oh how sweet. it brings a wee tear to my eye to see you and our child bonding in this way -- tender movements from within are truly god's gift to the pregnant woman. i envy you.
mrs nice guy (to her own stomach): CHRIST! STOP ALREADY!
mr nice guy: aw, it's kicking. i think it's cute. let me feel!
mrs nice guy (still to stomach, not unlike a raving street person with whom you would avoid all eye contact but can't help staring at nonetheless): I SAID KNOCK IT OFF, GODDAMNIT! i think it just ruptured a kidney.

basically you get the picture: mrs nice guy has gone insane. no. wait. i mean, she is becoming a mother: she appears to be totally off her rocker, yes, but her ranting does have some irresistible internal logic. she is standing her ground firmly, like a warrior disciplinarian, laying down the Law. meanwhile i, the father, duped by my child's own cuteness, remain clueless to the real story.

and what, you may wonder, is the real story? well, obviously, the fact that mrs nice guy and the squidbaby are fighting this much already is undeniable proof that we're having a girl. the mother-daughter wars appear to have begun in earnest.

ok, maybe that's a stretch. but we can definitely say this for sure: the little shit, whatever its sex, is already pitting its parents against each other. mrs nice guy yells at her stomach; i try to console her while choking back hysterical laughter at her crazyladyness; she yells at me. and here we were, convinced at the last ultrasound that the baby's kicking itself repeatedly in the head was proof of some cognitive shortcomings. how naive! we clearly have our work cut out for us.