This is the one about my dad.

“Wait…are you parents still married?”  Josh asked me.

Josh isn’t just a friend.  He’s a Facebook pal.  He’s a WhatSomeWouldCallLies.com reader.  He’s a twitter follower.  The point is, he knows me pretty well.  Why doesn’t he know that my parents are still together?!

“You always tell stories about your mom, but I never hear anything about your dad,” he said.

And he’s right. My mom has her own category page on this site.  While my dad is only mentioned in a handful of entries and usually in the context of “I went to my mom and dad’s house…”

My father and I don’t have the best relationship.  There’s no defining moment to speak of or any dispute to point to that would explain our at-arm’s-length relationship.  Yet since I was a child, I remember the relationship with dad as cold.

It wasn’t easy for the guy who liked watching NASCAR and fishing on television to form a close relationship with his 7-year-old that not only knew all the lyrics to Like A Virgin but could also reenact the entire dance sequence from the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards (do you remember her fabulous BOY TOY belt buckle?!?).

Many people have pointed to the relationship between gays and their fathers and said that a distant relationship could be a root or cause of the homosexuality.  But I’d argue that many times, like in my family, the homosexuality is the root or cause of the distant relationship.  My dad was ill-equipped to handle a son that wanted to be in musical theater over football and idolized Mariah, Whitney and Madonna.

I have never doubted that my father loves me.  I have just always been painfully aware that he doesn’t understand me.

And when a Lawson doesn’t understand something, we laugh at it.  Normally this works really well for us.  Each time, however, my dad playfully called me “Michelle” or said “the girls are going shopping” when I decided to go with my mom and sister to the grocery store, the distance between us increased.

So I guess this explains the relationship I have with my father.  It explains why he isn’t mentioned much in my stories here.  Our interaction is pretty limited and I don’t have much to gab about.  I will say that after I officially came out of the closet (not when I unofficially came out in 1989 by asking Santa for a VHS of South Pacific) my father stopped teasing me about my more effeminate attributes.

In 2006, dad got pretty ill.  Seriously ill.  And not knowing what his recovery would look like my dad went through a bit of a transformation.  After his week-long hospital visit he started hugging me and my sister.  I know hugging sounds kind of trivial, but when a guy that hasn’t shown physical affection to his children for thirty years suddenly starts hugging, it’s a big deal.

So we’re working on things.  And as we both age, we have started to understand one another a bit better.

And I’m aware that I’m lucky that dad is still around.  I’m lucky that we’re able to patch some things up.  And I’m lucky that I’ve been given this time to see this other side of my father.

So to answer your question, Josh…yes my dad’s around.  Yes he’s still married to my mother.  And for when he starts making more appearances on my blog, I’ve created a category called “dad.”

This is the one about the kidnapper.

I was five years old when I saw a man grab a young, kicking and screaming girl and drag her into a secluded gutter.

The first home that I can remember having was in an apartment complex called The Olive Tree Apartments in Anaheim, California.  Next to our complex was a creepy cemented gutter thing.  The photo above shows our apartments on the left and the creepy gutter thing next to the driveway (thank you Google Maps!).  I’d pass this alley every day on my way to and from Dr. Jonas E. Salk elementary school.  It was more common to find broken beer bottles or graffiti in the gutter than actual water.  I don’t actually know what the purpose of this gutter thing was…and according to Google Maps, the gutter thing still exists.  Here’s the bird’s-eye:

I’ve always been one to enjoy drama.  I don’t enjoy watching people suffer, but I will admit that the turmoil that accompanies huge disasters (natural or otherwise) has always excited me.  Just give me a fork after big disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis, terrorist bombings) because I can sit and just eat up the crap that the 24-hour cable news channels broadcast.

For this reason, when I told my mom that I watched a man pick up and drag this screaming girl into the creepy gutter thing, I’m certain I kind of enjoyed the panic that I saw seep into her expression.  I probably enjoyed the scramble that happened when she sprinted to the door in the first heroic step toward saving this young stranger.

“What did he look like?” she asked me between her already heavy breaths.  I don’t know why, in my memory, she was already out of breath since she hadn’t done much.

“I don’t remember,” I said.

“Wait…how long ago was this?”

“I don’t remember,” I told her.

After the second “I don’t know” my mom pretty much had me figured out.

“I’m about to call the police because the story you just told me is very serious,” she said.  ”Are you absolutely sure that what you told me is something you saw?”

And then I started editing.  Since age five, I’ve been a horrible editor.  Maybe it wasn’t a man.  Maybe the girl wasn’t screaming.  In fact, I think this entire episode might have just been a dream.

To this day, this is a Lawson Family Favorite.  ”And then Michael said, ‘maybe it was just a dream.’” And everyone laughs.  As Thanksgiving approaches, I’m incredibly aware of and thankful that my family is still intact…and therefore so are the stories of my youth.

I’m thankful I have a home in which I can sit and type these stories out…with ten fingers, two eyes and a brain.  And I’m thankful people come to read my stories.

Another Lawson Family Favorite is about when my mother overheard me singing the schoolyard rhyme Miss Susie to myself:

Miss Susie had a steamboat
The steamboat had a bell
Miss Susie went to heaven
The steamboat went to…

Hello operator
Please give me number nine
And if you disconnect me
I’ll kick you from…

Behind the frigerator
There was a piece of glass
Miss Susie fell upon it
And broke her little…

Ask me no more questions
Tell me no more lies
Miss Susie told me all this
The day before she …

Dyed her hair all purple
Dyed her hair all green
Dyed her hair all purple,
And washed it down the stream

I wasn’t aware that my mom was listening, and I was frightened when she came up behind me and demanded to know where I learned the song.  I knew the song was naughty…so I lied and said that my teacher had taught us the song.

“Oh really?” My mom questioned.  ”I don’t like that song at all.  I’m going to call up your teacher tomorrow and have a talk with her.”

I played hardball.  ”You’re right mom, that song is bad.  You should call her.”

My mom called my bluff.  The next morning she pulled out her telephone book.  Opened to the page with the school’s phone number.  Picked up the phone.

“Wait!” I had stomach cramps.  I was slightly delirious because I had stayed up all night worried that my mom would actually call the school.  ”Maybe it wasn’t my teacher.”

This is the one about writing.

I wrote this many years ago; it’s a monologue told from my mother’s perspective about my interests in writing.

Michael…Michael…Michael.  You always amaze me, Michael.

You are going to be the next Stephen King. Don’t doubt me – your mom is always right.  Where do you come up with these offbeat ideas? You know, Stephen King probably started just like this…then, he probably thought “hey, I can do more than just write newspaper articles, I am going to write a book.”  Then he wrote Carrie.

I’ll bet that Mr. King probably laughs at some of his writing when he wrote newspaper editorials like this. Not to put down what you’re doing at the newspaper…I meat its great practice.  I mean, baseball players hit balls in batting cages…see where I’m going?

I don’t know why you’re laughing at me, Michael. I’m serious here. I know you keep saying you don’t want to write books like Stephen King…but that’s probably what John Grisham used to say.  Until he got big.  As soon as you get a taste of what real writers taste, you’ll be begging for it.  Just you watch.  Your mom is always right.

Do you remember when you were in high school and you did that report on that Truman man?  Truman Capter…oh yeah, Truman Capote. Do you remember that, Michael? You did that report where they made you write a true-life story like that Truman man did? Since that day, I knew that you were going to grow up to be my own little Stephen King.

Did you know that this Truman man was gay? I’m serious…he was. I saw something on the Bravo Channel about him. He was. And, I think that he lived a really hard and horrible life because he chose that route. I don’t feel that God told him to choose that route.  But…well, if any of my children told me that they wanted to be gay I would still love them.  Because they are still my children.  But, I don’t think that it’s right.  And your mom is always right.

This is the one with an email from mom.

My sister forwarded the following email exchange she had with my mom [I've made minor edits]:

—–Original Message—–
From: My Mom
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 3:03 PM
To: My Sister
Subject: Fwd: Fw: CHRISTMAS CARD . . . .
[EDITED OUT LONG ASS LINK TO A LAME XMAS CARD]  Let me know if you see the card and it works? What size shoe do you wear? Mom

——Original Message —–
From: My Sister
To: My Mom
Sent: Wed, 8 Dec 2010 16:07:01 -0600 (CST)
Subject: RE: Fw: CHRISTMAS CARD . . . .

Yeah, I saw it – thanks.  I wear a size 9 or 9 1/2 – why?

—–Original Message—–
From: My Mom
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 3:27 PM
To: My Sister
Subject: RE: Fw: CHRISTMAS CARD . . . .

Cute card huh? Why did you send me your shoe size?

This is the one with a mom voicemail.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything about my Mom…so here’s a little voice mail I received recently that will hopefully keep you loving her:

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This is the one about my mom’s band-aid.

One evening last week my mom told me that she was clipping her fingernails earlier that day cut one of her nails too short.

“It hurt so bad, Michael,” she told me.  “I had to put a band-aid on it because the skin under your nails is really sensitive.”

She walked over to me and started taking the band-aid off.  As I’m writing this, I’m realizing that this is kind of gross…that my mom would walk up to share with me a wound of any sort, but in the Lawson family, this is normal.

She peeled back the band-aid and stuck her ring finger out for me to see.  It looked normal.

I think that the quizzical look on my face confused my mom.  She bent her finger so she could take a look.

“Oh,” she said.  “It was my middle finger.”  And she held out her middle finger for me to inspect.
“But you were wearing a band-aid all day on your ring finger?” I asked.

She laughed.  “I guess so.”

This is the one with misc. updates.

I wanted to blog today, but couldn’t think of something substantial enough to fill an entire post.  So instead you get pieces of me:

* I finished my 20th book in 2010.  I read A Good And Happy Child by Justin Evans – it’s the story of a crazy kid that thinks he’s possessed by demons.  Or is he a kid possessed by demons that everyone thinks is crazy?  Kind of a long read…about 100 pages too long.

* I received my latest a1c results, and I’m quite happy with myself.  Approximately one year ago my a1c was 12.3.  Seriously.  And this week it is 6.2.  Seriously.  If you’re not diabetic, these numbers might mean nothing to you…but to me it shows that I’m on the right path.  Regardless of how bad some people make me feel about my chronic illness, I’m getting closer to control.  Sure, it might not happen over night, and there will most definitely be mistakes…but I’m not a bad diabetic like some lead me to believe.

* Mother’s Day is on Sunday, and I really want to make my mom a blog as a present.  I doubt that she would have (a) the discipline to blog regularly (b) the technological knowledge to do anything creative with the blog and (c) the brain power to remember a username and password.  But a boy can dream.

* In one short week I accomplished all of my Foursquare goals…additionally I became the mayor of my gym, and I’m battling it out with some guy named Fadi and I can’t let him re-gain the mayorship.  Now I need a new Foursquare goal.

* I’ve downloaded about a dozen new podcasts that I’m auditioning.  So far I absolutely love Pod Is My CoPilot and the iTunes Celebrity Playlist podcast.

* Have a good weekend, bitches.

This is the one where I’m not ashamed.

I’m finished with my Christmas shopping.  This past weekend I went with my Sister and we finished buying for my parents.  For each of my parents we included one package that is kind of a funny gift…but still something that they’ll use once or twice.

My Dad’s funny-but-useful gift is a branding iron for his steaks.  Now when he’s out back grilling he can brand his initials onto the slabs of meat.

And for my mom, we got a Snuggie (also known as a Freedom Blanket or a Slanket).  And where we were shopping they had a buy-one-get-one-free offer…that was impossible to refuse.  So:

I’m always wrapping myself up in a blanket while watching TV.  So it made sense to get the comfy brown one for myself.  Now I have sleeves.

This is the one where we visit my parents.

So Dan and I are going to have lunch at my parents today.  This will be the first time I’ve hung out with all of them together for an extended period, and I am kind of afraid of how my mom will embarass me this time.  Updates to come.

This is the one where Olive is a ‘SHE.’

Today, Mother’s Day, me and Olive took a trip to see my mom and dad.  It was a long one-hour car drive for her, but she handled it okay.

And in the past I’ve always rolled my eyes when I would call a female dog a “him” or visa versa, and the dog-owner corrected me.  But now, after spending a day with my mom, I can see why it bugs dog-owners.

For some reason, my mom kept saying, “Where is he?” or “He is so cute.”  And I kept correcting her…eventually just giving up.

Why do you think it bothers dog-owners so much?