the visitation of brother nice guy

hello. still here. i have not gone into hospital, hiding or hibernation. i did not get don knotts' kneejunk, nor did i score the remains of alastair cooke or kirby puckett. no.

without meaning to i accidentally took a week's hiatus from the computer. that's right: no(t much) computer for a whole week.

let me tell you what it was like: did you know there is an "outside" with "others" walking around? did you know there's a whole world out there filled with folks exchanging ideas and living lives? there is! i saw them! anyway, i got to know some of these Others. you know what? i don't like them.

so i have come home, friends. i have returned to the warm fold of my interwebnet browserscreen. never again shall i abandon you. forgive me.

in the past week my brother -- frere nice guy himself -- made a rare trip from los angeles to new york. he had some conference to attend where he presumably sat around with colleagues pretending not to fall asleep. you see, he (who is childless) crashed at my house two out of his four nights here. the first night we stayed out until 2 am. we drank, we bonded, we discussed our lives and loves, we drank some more, we compared notes on the people who raised us, and we did a little more drinking. so, yeah. at two i decided it was time to call it a night.

would you like to know what my biggest problem with parenthood is? when you drink until 2 am, nobody sends your child a memo telling her to take it easy the following day. she still wakes up at 5:30. six if you're really lucky. i have seen the darkness and i have lived to impart some wisdom on you: parenting-while-still-tighter-than-pentagon-security is something to be done as infrequently as possible. at least i wasn't hungover. yet. that would come later.

(speaking of tight: auntie and uncle nice guy flew in from DC to have brunch with us on sunday. they're jetsetters like that. uncle nice guy had three glasses of wine before we were seated for breakfast. ouf! i have some catching up to do.)

frere nice guy makes an excellent uncle. (gratuitous unfunny inside-jokey shoutout: it was really great to see you, brotherman. sorry G made you sit on her gay couch. say hi to Old Fattie for me.) anyway, frere nice guy is a good uncle. he likes kids -- bonus: he likes my kid. after playing with her for an afternoon he said "i want one." i said "generally it helps if you have a wife first."

so the baby and i took him on our daily rounds. he's a fancy financial analyst guy and would probably be unlikely to become a stay-at-home-mom like his older brother. at least he was unlikely to until he went with me on my daily rounds -- the play space, the park, the various cafes -- and he saw with ever-growing wonder that i spend my life surrounded by BORED YOUNG MOMS. he concealed his festering jealousy well. at the end of the day he put it thusly: "you're just one of the gals, aren't you?"

and how, frere nice guy. and how.