let's do the time warp again

christ it's like i never left this place. i've got the same seat in the same location. all the same shit is on my walls. most of the same people still work here. i just picked up a conversation i was in the middle of having with someone ... nearly a year ago. it's like i stepped through a bizarro space-fabric time-vortex wormhole -- i've emerged from the other side nine months older and fatter, a father, with excellent sideburns; but as far as everyone here is concerned, i've only been gone for the weekend.

by the time i was leaving at the end of the day, i was no longer sure that the past year had actually happened. had i really just spent the past week in a sun-dappled playground, hanging out with my drooling gorgeous lunatic daughter and hot young moms? or have i been at work all along? was it all a dream?

and then, after being jostled for 45 minutes on the subway, i walked through the door to my apartment. mrs nice guy had returned home first and was playing with our daughter. she put the baby down. the baby squealed and frantically crawled over to me. i scooped her up, squeezed her and smelled her head -- i was a desperate chapped-lip junkie, jonesing for just one more hit off the babycrack pipe. i didn't realize it before i got home, but i had the shakes. the DT's. and then i refused to put the bambino down or hand her over to mom for about half an hour. i needed my fix.

this morning, before i headed out to work, the child refused to go down for her nap. she was tired and it was time. but she fought it. she had had her bottle, rubbed her eyes and yawned. when i went to put her in the crib she stretched out, apparently on the brink of oblivion, and then sat up and began howling.

"waaaoooogh"
"fuck. no! go to sleep!"
"make me, traitor bitch"

finally, after an epic nap-battle, i got her to fall asleep.

i glanced at my watch. the nanny would be coming in 15 minutes. thank god.