Let’s say it’s a Sunday in June. In fact, let’s say it’s the first Sunday of the summer. Pretty nice out. You have some options. Which of these to do you choose:

a. You live near the Jersey shore and have some very nice beaches at your disposal. You hop on the Garden State Parkway, pick an exit and before you know it, you’re wiggling your toes in the sand while The Daughters hunt for sea shells.

b. You drive into New York City to attend the Make Music New York festival. You select one of the hundreds of outdoor performances that are part of a day that spotlights the city’s rich mixture of musical taste.

c. You have in-laws who have a spectacular built-in pool in their back yard. It’s never crowded. It’s quiet. There’s a very comfortable floating mattress. You even have a mother-in-law who will occasionally hand you a fudge pop as you float by.

d. You get a steam cleaner and you spend the day cleaning every carpet in the house. Your hands become raw from repeatedly spilling carpet cleaning solvent all over them and your back hurts from lugging a steam cleaner up and down two staircases.

Answer: It’s d, of course! What are you, a complete idiot? Don’t you want clean carpets?!

Here are all the ingredients necessary for a spontaneous, informal, very productive therapy session:

1 good friend who is willing to listen to your blubbering and has a few troubles of her own to spill.
1 dram of Balblair scotch, served in a snifter with a small porcelain picture of water on the side.
1 bottle of Hoegaarden beer.
1 plate of fresh fruit and cheese.

Serve at St. Andrews, the only Scottish joint in town, by a young Scot wearing a kilt and brandishing a Highlands accent. Mix it up. Drink it down. Pour it out. Lay it on thick. The next thing you know, not only do your troubles seem conquerable, but some of them suddenly appear to look downright silly.

6-Year Old Daughter had a play date with her boyfriend from kindergarten the other day. She carries a very Disney-fied notion of what romance is all about. After he went home, she told Mrs. Wife, “Guess what, mom! My plan worked! He’s in love with me!”

As her father, I find this to be disturbing and unwelcomed news. I don’t want her to have anything whatsoever to do with men because, frankly, men are creeps. I speak from experience. We are all after the same thing, and I can assure you that once we get it, we move on to the next same thing. I don’t want some dirty little punk pulling into my driveway in a beat up Trans Am that’s leaking oil, beep the horn and expect her to run out to the car because he’s too cool to come into the house and face me. And God forbid she falls for a musician! Those guys tend to have an endless supply of women at their disposal and a lot of their women end up disposed of.

My plan is to try and steer both my daughters into a gay lifestyle. Women are respectful to one another and have a quiet dignity. Having a woman knock on my front door looking for my daughter(s) is a hell of a lot easier for me to take than the nightmare I described above. So far, I have failed miserably but I’m thinking of taking her to the Women’s Rights Anniversary celebration or a Melissa Etheridge concert this summer. That could provide a push in the right direction.

* * *

I was standing in line at Citibank to deposit some checks and I heard I Confess by the English Beat coming out of the speakers overhead. That’s one of my all-time favorite songs by one of my all-time favorite bands! What does that mean? Is Citibank trying to raise their hip quotient or am I becoming so old and decrepit that I’m starting to enjoy muzak? I just got a chill as I typed that last sentence.

A computer is like life itself; you tend to take it for granted until it’s snuffed out. The old Dell desktop finally gave up the ghost. Imagine what life would be like if you suddenly and unexpectedly had your computer snatched away from you. The horror. I saw the blue screen of death and the next thing I knew I was in Best Buy being cradled and consoled by a chubby member of the Geek Squad. It could have been repaired, but the cost was approaching that of a new computer and the thing was already six years old. And so it goes. It’s the circle of life! That chubby bastard is charging me $160 to have the data transferred from the dead Dell to the newly-born HP. There’s nothing sadder than losing an old friend forever.

The biggest heartache is not the fact that we’ll have to waste untold hours acclimating ourselves to the power-sucking horror show that is Windows Vista, it’s the fact that I can no longer attend a critically important rare book auction taking place on Thursday at Bloomsbury. The assets that were earmarked for the auction have been deferred to Best Buy. I already have a paddle in hand and had my eye on a snappy first edition of Wait Until Spring, Bandini, by John Fante and The Man Within by Graham Greene but that dream, like the old Dell, is dead, dead, dead.

I was one of the 16 people in America who watched the Tony Awards last night. I found most of it to be mildly amusing but some of the acceptance speeches were a bit nauseating. It was like listening to the thespian dweebs from high school gush about their “craft.” Mary Louise Parker, who is my pretend girlfriend, presented the award for best ak-tor in a play. When announcing the nominees, instead of saying Macbeth, she said The Scottish Play. Now, I’ve had some exposure to that community and I knew was she was up to, but it struck me as being an incredibly pretentious thing to do on national TV. And she wasn’t backstage; she was standing front and center at a podium. She didn’t see it, but I rolled my eyes. I think I’m going to have to have a pretend break up with her.

Other winners spoke a bit too long and lovingly about New York. I mean, Jesus Christ, it’s just a city for cryin’ out loud. I was mortified to realize that I might come off sounding the same way in this stupid blog when I prattle on endlessly about living here. So now I’ve developed a creeping paranoia about sounding like a high school dweeb getting an award every time I write about the city. Image is everything. I have a reputation to protect. I’ll tone it down a bit.

* * *

Father’s Day is the most unlikely holiday for me. I never thought I’d be on the receiving end of it, that’s for sure. Particularly at my age. 6-Year Old Daughter gave me a painted rock paperweight, a bookmarker with her picture on it and a bunch of coupons. I have coupons that entitle me to a back scratch, for some help washing the car, a hug, to have a story read to me, etc. I might have her read me a Bukowski poem.

Daddy’s got a few corners that don’t get much light.