FINE BOOKSTORES EVERYWHERE

Dear Spike:

I’ve avoided mentioning it, so far, because I know how these things work.

In the movie business, it’s called the cutting room floor. In the sports world it’s called getting cut from the team. In the publishing industry, I suppose, it’s just called “the edit.”

But today I received in the mail a clean, crisp check and a copy of a signed contract, so I suppose it’s safe to assume that you and I are about to find ourselves in fine bookstores everywhere — and between hard covers, no less.

I get published nearly every day, of course, but as newspaper journalism is about as ephemeral an exercise as has ever existed, this experience feels just a little bit different to me. And I guess, more than anything, it was simply a very nice compliment to have been asked to contribute to a book about fatherhood.

Truth be told, of course, I didn’t feel I had much to contribute. After all, you hadn’t even yet arrived when this whole thing was proposed to me. And even after I began writing, shortly after you were born, I felt nothing that remotely seemed like being qualified for the task of being a father — much less the task of writing about being a father.

But then, who ever has been? I mean, there’s not exactly a handbook for being a good dad — everyone is pretty much just left to figure it out on their own.

And I suppose that’s kind of the point of “Things I Learned About My Dad (In Therapy,)” which is edited by Heather B. Armstrong, a fellow Salt Lake City inmate who writes an endearingly funny and exceptionally popular blog called “Dooce.” The book features Heather and a bunch of other bloggers in (and here I quote from the promotional materials) “a unique, no-holds-barred glimpse into the quirks and candid moments of modern dads.”

It goes on sale in late April and, on that day, I thought you and I could sneak into the local bookstore early, buy all the available copies, then return later and make a big, loud, stinky ordeal about how disappointed we are that the book was ALREADY SOLD OUT.

I suppose that wouldn’t be a very good fatherly lesson for you. But then, you know, there’s not exactly a handbook for being a good dad.

And it sure would be fun.

Love,
Dad

Dear Spike’s friends:
Should you so desire, you can order the book here,here,here,here and here.
Love, Spike’s Dad