SAW MYSELF IN A SNOW DRIFT: I'm just back from a family trip to Montreal and then up to Mont Tremblant, an icy-cold ski resort an hour-forty-five north of there. And I'm brimming over with stuff, like that I don't know if I really enjoy a winter sports vacation, because it's necessarily cold and it's necessarily strenuous, and that descibes most of my workaday winter life in Chicago as it is, and so what am I doing chasing more of the same? Life is busy and full and tough and freezing-ass cold RIGHT HERE, so it's not like I need to haul ass on and off planes and hurtle rental cars through snow and slush up and down mountains, not to mention put my own ass at risk on the slopes and the lifts. I spent a day indoors watching the Daytona 500 with my brother Eric, and that was a great day. And we had a hella good sushi dinner one night, although I understand our server was top notch at my end of the table and a real bitch at the other end.

I like sitting down with my brothers and their wives. It's like watching pieces of my parents' lives, with maybe less of the emotional involvement than what I had watching it as a kid. It's like being at a play I've seen before or maybe even co-wrote and yet I have no idea what comes next.

My wife is so strong. So strong. I am a genius for marrying her.

I spent the first day home with my son, took an extra vacation day so that my wife could fly off to San Francisco. Boy did we have a big day. Perhaps the highlight was when he was racing around Santullo's Pizza Parlor chanting, "Pizza, cookies, and pop!" I spoiled him, I did.

And as I'm flying home listening to New Order's "Regret" I realize this blog is the answer to a prayer and the embodiment of a dream and yet I'm giving it less attention than I give junk mail and late-night television.