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That's me and my dad from a few years back. A Christmas or another. Oh, don't worry, he hasn't died. This isn't a lovely ode to dad, may he rest in peace. I just ran across this picture and thought it would be cool to post.

I don't wear those glasses anymore. I still wear glasses in general, contacts really, after I've been up for an hour or so. But those wear an old pair of wire frames I had for many years. I don't have to goatee thing, either. And I don't remember my hair being that long after I shaved it originally (there is a long hair pic in my pics folder.)

Oh, right, my dad.

So, my mom was married young, got pregnant with me, then got divorced before I was born. She met my dad after I was born and he adopted me when I was 1 or 2. My sister was born when I was 2 or so.

Labels demand that I say adopted father or half sister or any number of other things. In truth, the only reason you'd say those things in my case, would be to clear up the genetics. 'Cause, really, he's my dad and my sister's my sister and that's that.

I mean, look at that picture. If that doesn't say father and son, I don't know what does.

My sister has two kids, each with a different father. So, my niece has a half brother. Her father has two kids from a second marriage, so there she has a half brother and sister on that side. Here brother has three halfs from his father's side. Two of them have the same mother, but one doesn't.

Whew.

As I was growing up I never had an urge to find my biological creator. I am curious now, have been curious in the past; but never enough to make more than a cursory glance. Not to make anyone feel bad, but I never related to the kids that would try to hunt down their bio parents. It always seemed like the only reason they were bothering was because there was something wrong with their home life. Maybe their birth parent would magically fix whatever teen angst was gripping them.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I wanted to tell you a story about my dad. About his work ethic, his bad assery when he was younger. His quietness now. All in celebration of no reason at all, other than I found that picture. But maybe the picture is enough. Maybe this half finished, fairly unintertesting journal entry just needed a pic. Or maybe I stayed up too late watching my tape of the Battlestar Galactica finale.

So, no chicken stories. No stories about my Japanese school girl posse that has formed around me in the last couple months. Of the two different ways you can say Yuki and it ends up being two different names. Or why it took me so long to add Juliana and Cassiopeia to my favories list even though they've been friends since before they were SGs and are both the bee's knees. No stories about school and the animation project that's almost done. Or why I thought Crash wasn't very good. No descriptions of food or musing on why Aquarian women seem to want to be friends more than lovers. No new design images in my pics or riffs on why I still like the band Boston. I will say that I now eat a chocolate chip cookie from a coffee shop in Seattle every single day as I come home from school and that I had to pay $200 to squeeze another year of life out of my ancient cat. But I won't mention how much D&D I've played recently or about the hole in my mouth where a tooth used to be.

All those things would distract you from my dad and the time he kicked a guy's teeth in for hitting on my pregnant mom, or how he used to clean up jumpers off the Golden Gate bridge when he did harbor patrol in the Coast Guard. Or that time his shotgun exploded in his face when he was duck hunting with me ( I was 5) and he had to lead me out of the woods with his face full of wood splinters. Or how he had three kidney and lost one drinking. Or that time when he spent a year in Alaska (as punishment for busting his evil CO over the head with a wrench) and was attacked in a tiny tin storage shed by a grizzly bear. He still has the claws, after he sent the 12 foot tall bastard straight to hell. Once he fell from the rigging of a ship, 30 feet down to the deck. When he was a kid, him and his brothers would break into contruction sites, steal dynamite, and shoot it to blow up their tonka trucks.

See, all my stories pale in comparison to my dad and his badassery. Most of yours do, too.