January 14, 2005

Dear Mr. Bush,

I remember waking up hung over on a friend's couch in a city thousands of miles from here and blearily watching their dog walk by with what was clearly a child's toy in its mouth, followed almost immediately by their young son swinging a dog toy wildly above his head. And I remember lying there laughing and rubbing my throbbing head and thinking "This is going to be my life someday--a life where the dog toys and the kid toys all just meld into one."

And today as Lucy, our dog, sits begging for me to toss the soft-sculpture crab we just got as a gift for the baby, I realized that soon enough that foggy-minded thought will become true. I think there are two kinds of parents: the kind that keeps the dog toys and the human toys clearly separated and the kind that lets everything just kind of drift into a single pile.

I'm glad to count myself among the latter.

Dan