Trailer Trashed: My Dubious Efforts Toward Upward Mobility (38 page)

What? Last year that costume garnered me God status in Milly's
eyes. She showed me off to her classmates like a prized captured spider, and my heart shot like a rocket right out of my chest. Realizing
now that the double-butted baboon costume has lost all its power
makes me want to groan like the torture victims on the Halloween
sound track.

Instead I look at all the Halloween pictures taken since Milly was
born: the ladybug costume at age one, the sparkle princess at two, the
mermaid at three, and so on. I look at her face in those photos, and I
go over my other checklist. Did I hang her pumpkin drawings? Check.
Have I laid out her costume? Check. Does my soul widen like the open
sky when I look in her eyes? Do I cry with pride at the sight of her? Does
my heart happily break every day she grows and makes her way? Check,
check, check.

I want to thank Kim and Eddie, Cheryl and Jim, and of course, Daniel, Grant, Lary, and Keiger. My daughter deserves thanks, too, as well
as the acknowledgment that she is not fatherless.

Others to whom I owe gratitude are Lynn Lamousin, Suzanne Van
Atten, Ken Edelstein, Doug Monroe, David Warner, Carlton Hargro,
Besha Rodell and Charles McNair. My gratitude also goes to Jay Leno,
Mike Henry, Jolie Ancel, Bob and Lu Steed, Patrick Best, Rebecca
Burns, Liz Lapidus, Jackie Mitchard, Karin Slaughter, Tim Dorsey,
Jim Hackler, Michael Benoit, Laura Geraci, Thomas Meagher, Jim
and Anna Llewellyn, Michael Alvear, Randy Osborne, Polly Biasucci,
Amy Paradysz and Himeka Curiel ... and Dave Barry, for his influence and the fact that I reliably rip the hell off of him.