introducing: TOMNGPFSBACSWOLPE

mr nice guy realizes he is very, very fortunate. how many people do you know who get to take 5-plus months off from work to stay at home with a child that (at least in theory) sleeps most of the time? i mean, this is unprecedented in my life! i have a sweet brown sugarmama and all i have to do in exchange for an extended vacation from office politics and groveling is change a few diapers. people! i must make the most of my time because before i know it, my leave will be over and i will be sitting at work, wearing pants, with nothing more than a handful of regrets. why didn't i spend my time more productively, i'll ask myself. there is so much i could have done to improve the house, my intellect, my body, my spirit. i could have written a book, built homes for the homeless, picked up jogging, mastered mahjongg, achieved total enlightenment. if only i had the time to do over again!

no regrets for me, people! i am a carpe diem kind of mr nice guy. so heretoforthwith allow me to present to you a simple plan, The Official Mr Nice Guy Prospectus for Self-Betterment and Community Service While on Leave Project Experiment (or, for brevity's sake, you can use the catchy acronym: TOMNGPFSBACSWOLPE). behold productivity inaction ... er, i mean, "productivity in action":

1. i swear to you, readers, i will grow the deadliest sideburns known to man. this project is already underway, actually, and although mrs nice guy has taken a page from Lysistrata and threatened to withhold sexual favors until i shave my inchoate muttonchops, i refuse to stand down! my sideburns will be known far and wide as the greatest, most feared sideburns of all time. they shall have their own area code! they will have healing powers for the pure-of-heart! they will steal from the rich and give to the poor! they will be so insidious that my enemies will not even know they are upon them until it is too late. they will be silent, but exceedingly violent when necessary, sideburns.

2. i will cultivate the greatest ipod on earth. i shall achieve the rank of 33rd degree grand master ipod-mason, undefeated in all categories: best playlists, best songs, quickest on the draw. word of my iProwess will spread through the land and pilgrims will come. rich and poor alike will travel many miles, braving pestilence, famine and charges of heresy, to pay homage to my ipod, to perhaps catch a glimpse of it on the subway and maybe -- just maybe! -- see me plug it into my bose sounddock (tm) and take it for a spin, its gleaming whiteness a testimony to the purity of every single one of the lovingly hand-picked songs therein.

3. figure out how to never work again and yet become independently wealthy, primarily by pimping off my child either to modeling agencies or black market organ-harvesting mobsters.

4. i will ponder the most inscrutible of mysteries: surely there must be a way to not feel completely sexless and incapable of delivering a single frisson of dangerous erotic intrigue to the ladies while walking down the street on a sunny afternoon with a baby hanging around one's neck. i could be Pierce Fucking Brosnan but when you strap a baby bjorn on me, instantly i become Eunuch McDoucheboy. do you know what this does to one's id, burdened as it is already by one's tiny penis?

5. get knee surgery. i have had a torn meniscus for about two years but keep putting off the necessary arthroscopy because ... well, because i have already had five knee surgeries on various ruptured parts and i don't feel like having number six. still, if i hope to be able to dance at my daughter's wedding (although, let's face it: it'll be a miracle if she ever manages to hold down a long-term relationship with anyone given the fact that she wakes up screaming and farting every 20 minutes), i better have my knee fixed. as it is, it is impossible to sit through an entire movie or flight or car ride without standing up and straightening my knee--a flaming knot of fire and pain and flaming firepain--which is greatly annoying to the person driving.

6. think up more things to put on this list while i grapple with the sudden bout of self-loathing that has descended upon me.

there you have it! the top six paths to mr nice guy's self-betterment and community service in the coming months. watch this website as i grow.