"Oh, crap!"

"What? What's wrong?"

"I totally forgot to post a new masthead for March!"

Yesterday was the day Megan was supposed to get her phone back. But just as she was turning in her orange jumpsuit and signing her parole papers, new evidence in her case came in by way of her little sister.

"Dad, Megan gave her friends my phone number and told them to text ME to get ahold of her."

Now, we don't normally encourage snitching but Megan had not just broken the rules. She had violated her sister's privacy and made her an unwitting accomplice in the caper. So Cindy turned state's evidence in exchange for immunity.

Finally, schools are teaching girls some skills they can use in life.

Objects in equation may be exaggerated due to testosterone impairment

I still have Megan's phone. Her grounding is, at this point, open-ended. But I have to admit... each day I keep the phone from her I feel a little sense of accomplishment. The same sense of accomplishment one might feel, I have to imagine, each day they go to the gym in a row. As if by keeping my word to take the phone away I am adding years to my life.

Normally, being my first-born and all, she would have manipulated me into reducing her punishment. She's very good at those kinds of things. It wouldn't have surprised me if she'd have found a way to get ME to apologize to HER and to take her for ice cream to make up for it. I can't explain my resolve this time except to say that I'm getting a quiet satisfaction out of not being coerced.

Plus, there's a hell-of-a-lot of homework getting done these days. You see, every day she makes a point to be very obvious about doing her homework. And she does it cooperatively, without the usual indignation and without waging the Math War she normally fights whenever I try to show her the correct way to solve for X.

"Oh, you should TOTALLY run against Chris Buttars in November."

"That's a race I might be able to win... but only because he's the only candidate that couldn't afford to pick a character fight."

"Wait. Would you run as a Democrat?"

Raising a teenager is a hell of a thing. The past few days are evidence of that. Not that I'm any kind of expert or anything. I'm in way over my head, frankly, and I'm just barely getting started at it.

We've had some parenting challenges over the years but until this weekend I've never been in a situation with one of the kids where I simply had no idea what to do. But then, I've never had a thirteen year-old daughter before.

It started with a progress report email Donna got from the school.

"There's too much snow to leave the house. I'll never get to work today. I need to get a job where I get paid to take pictures of my dog balancing things on his head."

"We'd need to get a new dog for that."

"And if someone offered me the job today I wouldn't be able to do it because I can't even get out of the driveway to go get a new dog."

Between the lobby of my office building and the floor where my desk lives there are eighty-six stairs. How do I know? I counted them. Then I counted them again. In fact, I count them every time I climb them.

Why? Umm... because I have OCD, maybe?

Also, while I'm walking up them, my brain is triggered into thinking about an episode of Hill Street Blues. One in particular having something to do with an evidence room and a misplaced pistol.

This email from the new receptionist was just so filled with awesomitude that I couldn't not post it.

-Hey everyone-

...read the rest...

It started like this, "Dad, can I go to the movies with Tyson?"

"You mean with Tyson and his parents?"

"Well..."

Some of the parking at the building where I spend all day on Twitter work is covered by a freeway overpass. But, despite the fact that the overpass keeps the harsh weather off of my car, I rarely park in that part of the lot because it also keeps the harsh weather off of the homeless people who like to poop there. Yesterday though, I pulled into a spot under the freeway for a minute as I took a phone call that came in as I was trying to dash away for a quick dinner before an evening of lugging computers from room to room.

So there I was, minding my own beeswax, coordinating the contractors who were coming to help with the planned server move, when ... KLUNK ... as I was saying ... I was talking on the phone ... KLUNK ... What the hell? ... KLUNK ...

"I'll call you right back."

My father and I are hardly very different at all. When people meet him it is common for them to comment how alike we are in our mannerisms, conversation style and attitudes. Even the vertical wrinkle next to our left eye is the same. So it should come as no surprise at all when I tell you that my father is, generally speaking, a selfish son-of-a-bitch.

That's why I was touched and surprised, when at the end of a small get-together at his house last weekend, he casually gave me his guitar. A 1978 Guild D25M.

Now, it's not like he's been playing it since he was a boy or keeping it stored in a humidified, bullet-proof display case or anything. In fact, it was sitting at the back of a closet in an unassuming black case with orange, crushed velvet lining. The strings were old and dull-sounding and the finish was dusty and dry. The old girl was in need of a good cleaning and new strings but not much else.