http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zQY8pykWgg

I made a silly video with Dyson to commemorate the whole Mayan calendar turnover thing because hey, the end of the world is a once in a lifetime event, right?

One thing I’ve learned when making videos with a baby is that you can’t really “direct” a baby. You just kinda have to play with them and hope that you end up with something useable. Then it’s a matter of coming up with appropriate responses to work with it.

Also, it helps to have a cute baby.

Dyson didn’t know why I came home a little earlier today. He had no idea about what happened in Connecticut or why I was holding him so tightly. I didn’t want to explain it to him.

I want so much to protect him from the bad, from the things that would hurt him. But the events of today show that sometimes, you just can’t. I want to think that if we passed the right laws, had better mental health support, listened to the right experts … I want to think that somehow we could guarantee that this would never happen again. And I want to think that as a society, we can work towards making this a better place. But in the end, you can’t make it perfect.

In the end, you can’t do anything about the basic fragility of life. Maybe that just makes it that much more precious. We are already so very lucky to even be alive, to have this chance to experience life. Maybe the best we can hope for is to appreciate the brief moment we have in it.

This picture was from a few weeks ago, when I took Dyson into San Francisco. We had lunch on the top floor of the mall. We bought some toys for his cousins. We saw the lights on the domed roof. He fell asleep on the train ride home. It was a good day.

I recently heard about “Men Against Assholes and Misogony” (or “Ma’am” for short). I wanted to contribute so I submitted a short post about the importance of listening and they recently posted it.

It’s kinda funny because I occasionally do get mistaken for a woman and get called “Ma’am” in real life. But now it’s official.