All day long. All day long in the passport office. Four hours in the morning and then back for another hour in the afternoon to pick it up. The place looked like the fall of Saigon. Families of all hues, speaking all languages, camped on the floor, asleep on each other in fiberglass school chairs. All this because the government didn't get me my son's passport before we leave for vacation. They only had eight weeks to get it back to me. The kids had to miss their last day of school and cried and cried.

The highlight was Chet, however who said this to his sister. "You are the meanest sister in the world but I still want to marry you."

Posted by Trey Ellis at 07:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

My daughter has been planning her ninth birthday since she turned 8 and a quarter. If I heard the word, "Build-a-Bear" one more time I was going to scream. Her real birthday is in July so we just celebrated last week while school is still in session. I flew her mom up from Atlanta and we took Ava and four friends and her little brother to the biggest Build-a-Bear in the world, on the corner of 46th and 5th Avenue, the center of the universe. I have to say they treated her like a queen and she was so thrilled to have her parents together again. Chet has said that he wished, "you and mommy got un-divorced." I asked if he even remembered a time when we weren't together (she fled when he was six-months-old). Still, that was his wish.

Walking down Broadway I hold Chet's hand and their mom holds Ava's. There is a new hostess at my favorite French restaurant around the corner who is spectacularly beautiful. Whenever I pass by I try to make her fall in love with me with some variation on a magical glance. When we passed by, the four of us, the other day I dreaded that she will assume that we our marriage is still in tact. I wanted to go up to her and say, "Don't let appearances fool you. She left five years ago."

Her best friend from LA, Maddie, had come in for the party and spent the night. I had thought that she could go to school with Ava the next day but PS 87 didn't allow it, forcing me to play hooky. I took them and Chet to see a matinee of Nancy Drew, which was actually pretty good. Then, continuing my desire to visit New York like a tourist, we had lunch at the Hard Rock.

Posted by Trey Ellis at 04:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

The publisher wants to change the title from "Father of the Year" to something that conveys how much the book is also about my (mis)adventures dating. Ideas that I've been tossing around are

Playdate

Cad Dad

Chutes and Ladders

Bedtime Stories, a memoir

I loved Playdate but both they and my agent hate it. For now I'm leaning toward "Bedtime Stories." The book really is about trying to balance my love life with my life as a single parent.

Speaking of dating, I have been going out a bit these days. I'm forty-four years old and I still feel like I'm sixteen when I'm out on a date (though I didn't have anything resembling a real date until I was around twenty). I can't write about any of these experiences now in these pages but my journal is full. I'm already starting to see the shape of my next book.

Posted by Trey Ellis at 11:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)