Seven years ago, today, I got all dressed up and then proceeded to have the best day of my life. Tonight, Juliette and I are going to celebrate the occasion by getting dressed up (though to a lesser degree than we did that day seven years ago), dropping off our son at our friends' house, and going to a fancy restaurant for a nice meal and some time alone with each other, like real couples do.

The seventh anniversary isn't one that people usually make a big deal over. Traditional folk give each other gifts of wool or copper; modern types give each other desk sets. I don't know about you all, but I had to look those up. All those anniversary gift themes tend to run together for me—I have a vague recollection of paper for the first, silver for the twenty-fifth, and gold for the fiftieth, but in between it's all fuzzy.

I'll tell you what, though: the seventh anniversary does have a bit of a special note in our case. This will be our first time celebrating an anniversary when we've been married longer than we were dating.

Actually, the day we passed our dating time happened a few months ago—March 16th, to be exact. Neither of us noticed at the time, but then we'd just had Juliette's birthday and anyway, these days our attention tends to be taken up a bit too much by everyday life to notice obscure milestones passing.

It's kind of an odd feeling, realizing that we've now been married longer than we dated. I've always thought of us as having been together forever, but only recently married. Now, though, and forever after, the bulk of our relationship will have been post-wedding. Even having done the math, I can hardly believe it; it still feels like just the other day that I saw her walking down the aisle toward me.

There are still some big moments to come, of course. In 2012, we'll have been together for half of Juliette's life. In 2013, half of mine. In 2020, we'll have been parents longer than we were together without kids. And, of course, there are all the normal birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, weddings, and so on.

The past seven years have been filled with work and play, laughter, tears, time together and apart. I've come to understand that the most important part of life is the people in it, and so spending your days and nights with good people who you love and who love you is crucial. Me, I couldn't ask for a better person to spend my time with.

Happy anniversary, Juliette.

4:26 PM, June 17th. Roger Ebert says via Twitter: "Find me a person who would value any video game above 'Huckleberry Finn,' and I'll show you a fool.'

4:28 PM, June 17th. I respond: "So tell me, which movie should I value higher than Beethoven's Ninth? Or higher than 'Huckleberry Finn,' for that matter?"

Ebert doesn't respond.

6:37 AM, June 22nd. Ebert quotes a Morning news article: "Video games don't yet (and maybe never will) replicate the experience of reading a good book."

9:37 AM, June 22nd. I respond: "Movies also don't replicate the experience of reading a good book. You of all people should know that."

Ebert doesn't respond.

9:41 PM, June 22nd. Ebert links to a survey he created, asking people whether they value Huckleberry Finn or a great video game more.

10:06 PM, June 22nd. I ask him: "Which do you value higher, Huckleberry Finn or a great movie?"

Feeling frustrated and pissy and degenerating into passive-aggressiveness, I follow that with: "I'm not really sure why I bother asking, since you clearly aren't interested in a dialogue. Or even intellectual honesty."

Obviously, Ebert doesn't respond.

Why on Earth am I talking to Roger Ebert? Why do I even care what he thinks about video games? Why is it so difficult for me to just accept that he's more or less being a troll at this point, and then move on with my life? Why am I becoming the kind of guy that people feel the need to throw that XKCD link at? I don't know, but for whatever reason, this whole Ebert/video game thing really has my panties in a bunch.

Well, that's not entirely true. I know why. Here's a man who can write a sensitive and honest appraisal of race and racism, who is willing to share a wonderful and personal remembrance of his father. A man who can produce writings that are familiar, insightful, and that inspire me to be a better writer. That he can also be pigheaded and unreasonable frustrates me.

Maybe I'm looking for someone to idolize. I don't have a lot of heroes, so maybe that's a void that I want to fill. Maybe I just want people (and, by extension, the world) to make sense. Maybe this is just the family tendency toward obsession and compulsive behavior coming out. I don't know.

What I do know is that trying to get anybody to be what I want them to be is a waste of both my time and theirs. Roger Ebert doesn't know me and has no reason at all to care whether I read his blog or follow him on Twitter. It's time for me to stop acting any other way.

What about you folks? Do bloggers and Twitterers ever get under your skin this way? What do you do about it?

Yesterday, Juliette and I took a tour of the two-year-old class with the director of Jason's day care facility. His current teachers in the toddler room have been telling me for weeks now that he's ready for the two's room, that he's getting bored and that he'll do well with the more structured curriculum in the two's class. We got to see the schedule and talk a bit with his new teacher, learning about the big milestones and watching her interact with the kids.

It was midmorning when we came in, and there were already four kids in there, all of whom we recognized from when they were in the toddler class with Jason. Transitioning to a new class was a little difficult when Jason went from the infant room to the toddler room, so it's nice to know that he'll be among familiar faces.

The crazy thing to me was how much those kids have changed since they left the toddler room. It's been several months since I last saw them, and most of them are now potty-trained (or nearly there) and talking up a storm. They even know how to wash their own hands; it blew my mind to think that Jason will be able to do that soon.

They're still kids in there, of course. At one point one of the little boys went off to the bathroom and came back with his pants around his ankles. "Did you forget how to pull up your underwear since yesterday?" the teacher asked him. He responded with a nod, yanking up futilely at the underpants that were caught on his knees.

It's hard to believe that we're already moving to another classroom. It feels like he's only just come to the toddler room, even though cerebrally I know that he's been there longer than he was in the infant room. Juliette and I were both feeling bittersweet after the meeting, happy for him to be growing up but sad that he's going to be leaving behind the teachers that he's grown to love.

And, of course, we'll be leaving them as well and having to adjust to new people, which adds another layer to it since I feel like I'm finally getting to the point where I really know the toddler teachers and can have conversations with them beyond just how Jason's day went. When I was a kid I moved from teacher to teacher—like we all did—and at times it was hard for me, but I never considered the fact that my parents were going through the same changes.

At every turn, this parenting thing has managed to surprise me. There is always some unexpected behavior or event, or some mental angle that never occurred to me. Over the weekend I was completely caught off guard by how happy it made me to get the Father's Day card Jason made me at school. Sometimes I wonder when I'm finally going to get used to it all, but I think the answer is never.

"Youthful Dreams":

There’s a memory I have from high school, of my best friend and I staying up late one night conversing. It must have been one or two in the morning, and we were sitting on the floor of my cramped little bedroom, talking about the future, and our plans for it. We spoke in hushed tones because it was late and the walls were very thin, but even so, if my parents had been awake they would have been able to hear the excitement in our voices. Everything was so clear; we knew in the way that only 17-year-olds can that we were going to change the world.

If I were to tell you a story about an English sailor who sails halfway around the world, surviving scurvy and starvation to arrive half-dead in Japan, only to befriend the shogun, become the first Caucasian samurai, and open trade relations between England and Japan, you'd probably think I was making it up. But then, I'm not telling it nearly as well nor with as much detail as Giles Milton in his book Samurai William: The Englishman Who Opened Japan.

Milton's book recounts the life and adventures of William Adams, the title figure who, indeed, became an influential member of shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu's court, and helped establish the first English trade factory in Japan. But while Adams' life is a great story in itself, Samurai William provides a much broader view. Milton also goes into the history of the European East India companies in Asia and Oceania, the political turmoil at the beginning of Japan's Edo period, and the lives and struggles of the other men at the English factory. The complete picture is one of drama and adventure, presented with some great storytelling.

What struck me most about Samurai William was the sense of how Japan was both impressive and utterly foreign to its European visitors. It's something that you continue to see in Western attitudes toward Japan and its culture, but coming at it from the perspective of men for whom Japan was truly an unknown adds a whole new level, especially considering the relative levels of sophistication of Japan and England in 1600.

I think anyone with an appreciation for history and a good story will enjoy this book. Samurai William manages to both inform and entertain, which, in my book, puts it in the same class as all the best histories.

Started: 2010-06-02 | Finished: 2010-06-18

Purchase from Amazon

Jason really made out like a bandit on my birthday/Father's Day weekend.

He got a new tee ball set from our friends, Emily and Ari, which he loved.

He got to meet some new people.

He got his first baseball-park hot dog.

He even got his first baseball glove.

About the only thing he didn't get was a piece of my birthday cake, which, thankfully, we served after he went to bed.

The rest of this week's set:

"Raising Respectful Sons: A Father's Reaction to the 'Slampigs' Scandal":

Back in the early stages of my wife’s pregnancy, before we knew we would be having a son, people often asked me whether I wanted a boy or a girl. My response usually went something like this: “Well, I’d be happy either way, I think, and I don’t have a preference, really. I don’t want one more than the other. Honestly, though, the idea of having a daughter kind of terrifies me.” That’s the thought that occurred to me again Monday morning when I ran across this article in fellow Life As A Human author Schmutzie’s Twitter feed.

Somewhere around 10:30 or so every evening, my dog, Cooper, lets me know that he has to go out. By this time, Jason has been in bed for several hours, and usually even Juliette has said her goodnight. I will be sitting alone on my living-room couch, the room dark except for the one dim lamp on the side table. Sometimes I'm writing and sometimes screwing around on the Internet. Sometimes I'm just putting off going to bed. The house is quiet, except for the sound of Cooper breathing, and the occasional smack of Jason's foot against the side of his crib as he rolls over in his sleep. I'm usually oblivious to the world, ensconced in whatever it is I'm doing on my computer. Then I'll catch a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye, and I look over to see Cooper staring at me expectantly.

"Do you have to go outside?" I ask? He responds by running to the back door and sitting, his nose pointed at the door handle.

I unlatch the door and slide it and the screen open. "OK," I say, and Cooper rushes out, his fur tickling my leg as he brushes by me.

As I step outside, my yard is a featureless shadow—my eyes haven't adjusted yet, and not much light makes it out from the lamp in the living room. I step over to the edge of the patio, feeling the cool grit and cracks in the concrete under my feet. I cock my ear toward the side yard where Cooper does his business, listening for the telltale trickle. The evening air is cool but not cold, and has that subtle scent that I can never quite pinpoint or define, other than "Southern California on a summer night."

In front of me is the fence that separates my yard from the neighbor, which reaches to just below my eye level. There are never many stars out, and never any really bright ones, not like the ones I used to see back home. But when I look out over the tops of the yards in my neighborhood, south toward the shops and movie theater, eventually toward downtown and then Mexico, there's this soft orange glow that warms the bottom of the marine layer fog, silhouetting the rooftops and palm trees and eucalyptus that surround my house.

Looking out at that light, the surest sign that I live in a city now and not the little country town where I grew up, I sometimes feel like I ought to feel resentment or disdain. After all, this is another part of what we call "pollution." I never do, though. I just can't deny the beauty of it, different from what I ought to be used to, what ought to feel normal and right. A sense of peace, calmness comes with that sight.

I've been realizing that this moment has become one of the high points of most of my days. I rarely think about it until it's happening, and my immediate reaction when I notice Cooper looking at me is annoyance at being interrupted. Then I step outside and my attitude shifts.

It's a lonely time, though. I always find myself wishing that someone were still awake to share it with me, someone other than the dog, who, well-meaning and affectionate though he is, can't really appreciate the spectacle. At least he can't tell me about it.

It's usually not long before I close up my laptop and head to bed. When I slide under the covers, the sheets are already warm from the heat of Juliette's sleeping body. It's not as familiar or fulfilling as a hug, but I don't want to wake her, so it will do.

Friday morning when I dropped off Jason at day care, one of his teachers took me aside and said she wanted to talk to me. I got a sinking feeling, because I was pretty sure I knew what this was about. As I mentioned before, Jason has been whining and crying a lot lately, and although we've been working on it and he is showing some improvement, it's often two steps forward, one step back. This wouldn't be the first time a teacher had mentioned this behavior, but every time before it had been a more offhand comment, often delivered with a conspiratorial grin. This time, though, the teacher was making sure to catch me before I left the room so she could have a discussion with me—not a good sign.

Just as I feared, the teacher wanted to talk about Jason's crying. It actually wasn't so bad. Mostly she told me about some strategies they use to manage him when he's being difficult (my word, not hers), and asked me to try them out at home. She felt that he was responding well to these changes, and wanted to make sure that we kept them up so he didn't backslide over the weekend.

For the most part, we were actually already doing a lot of what she said, with just some minor tweaks to how we would need to phrase our corrections. And she was really quite pleasant about the whole thing, not complaining or making it sound like he was a huge pain—which is to her credit, since I know he can be a pain. Even so, Juliette and I both felt horrible about the whole thing. The last thing either of us want is for Jason to be that kid.

The weekend ended up being a mix of high and low points. Sunday was a lot of fun, what with the trip to the splash park in the morning and a very good nap in the afternoon. Saturday was a little rougher, with a couple of screaming breakdowns, though I think those may have been exacerbated by tiredness. We tried to be consistent with what his daycare teachers recommended, though it's hard to know for sure if it worked.

Talking it over with Juliette last night, she said that if there's one bright side to this, it's that we know that the day care staff is seeing the real Jason, which means that he's very comfortable being around them and the other children. I actually think the reverse is also true: it means that we are seeing the real Jason.

I keep coming back to the surprise that one of our good friends expressed after hearing us talk about our struggles with his behavior. "It's so weird to hear you say all this," he said, "because I just see him as this wonderful kid." We do too, as we hastened to explain. We love how curious and intelligent he is, how articulate he can be and how funny, and even how generous and empathetic. It's just that he can also be stubborn and willful and just plain difficult, and those aren't behaviors that he usually displays around other people.

Hearing our friend's surprise, both Juliette and I felt a little guilty, and I started to wonder whether the stress of parenting wasn't coloring our perception a little too negatively. So, in that respect, knowing that Jason's teachers see this side of him too is a bit of a comfort, a little validation that, as great as Jason is in many ways, yes, he can also be a pill sometimes. As I think more about it, I think I'm finding that having that confirmation is making it a little easier to focus on Jason's good qualities, and hopefully these behavior strategies will have an effect, because the more time I can spend with a happy Jason, the more time I can be a happy Daddy.

I have three guitars. There's the crappy classical that I picked up for $21 at a dorm auction when I was a freshman in college. Then there's my Danelectro U2. And last year my family gave me a Washburn steel-stringed acoustic for my 30th birthday. That's kind of a lot of guitars for someone with my level of skill at playing the guitar. Which is to say, not much.

It's not that I'm uninterested in playing guitar. On the contrary, I would love to be able to play. Actually, I'd love to be able to play just about any instrument. The problem is time—I just don't have enough of it. This is always my problem: I have way more interests than time to pursue them. Heck, even if I didn't have a wife, child, dog, and full-time job, I still wouldn't have time for all the the writing, learning, music playing, listening, games, movies, TV, books, photography and all the other nonsense that intrigues me.

Which brings me to the subject of Rock Band 3.

One of the things about music games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero that always seemed a little odd to me is how disdainful some musicians and music critics were of them. You'd see stories in the gaming (and music) press with people saying things like "It's nothing like playing a real instrument." But that really misses the point, since what matters is whether or not the games are fun—and they are. Moreover, I think it's obvious that some people who might never have picked up an instrument are now taking lessons and rocking out for real because of games like these. Aside from which, any opportunity to appreciate music seems good to me, whether or not you're able to play it.

Interestingly, the folks at Harmonix seem to have taken that criticism to heart, because one of the big changes coming in Rock Band 3—along with the addition of keyboards and harmonizing vocals—is the new "Pro" mode. Unlike previous games, which reduce the song-playing to following a simplified rhythm, Pro mode is designed to much more accurately emulate the real activity of playing the drums, bass, guitar, or keyboard. By the time you work your way up to the Expert level playing as a Pro, you will be expected to play every single note, just as you hear in the real song.

In order to enable the new mode, they're adding more new controllers. If you already own Rock Band, then you're familiar with the amount of space that the drum kit and guitars take up. To play as a Pro, you'll now be adding a two-octave mini keyboard; three add-on cymbals to the drum kit; and a six-string, 102-button guitar. That's right, 102 buttons—the new guitar controller has one button for each of 17 frets along six strings down the neck. And if that isn't real enough for you, Fender is actually making a real guitar that can be used with either the game or a normal amp. There's also a converter box that can be used to connect MIDI keyboards and drum pads.

What's appealing to me is the idea that I might actually be able to kill two birds with one stone. I often find myself bemoaning the sad state of disuse that my game consoles have fallen into—almost as often as I think to myself "I should really sign up for some guitar lessons." The idea that I could conceivably become a better guitarist (or keyboardist or drummer) by playing a video game is wildly exciting to me.

There are certain impediments to this dream, though. To begin with, there's the price tag: even though I already have the original guitar, drum kit, and microphone, the full set of new game plus add-on peripherals will run $320. That's not exactly chump change in the Sakasegawa household.

Then there's the issue of space and hassle—setting up the first game already involved moving furniture and a mess of cables. This one will only be worse.

And over everything else, there's still the question of time. Mastering an instrument takes daily practice, and between work, writing, photography, and wanting to spend time with my family, the only thing left to give up is sleep. I'm probably giving up too much of that already.

The solution, I guess, is finding a way to combine even further. Maybe some day when Jason is older, we'll be able to pick up this game (or its successor) and play together. Hopefully there will be enough time in the gap between him being too young to handle the controls and being too old to want to play with his dad. (To say nothing of actually being in a band with your parents. The memory of my teenaged self shudders at the thought of such staggering lameness.)

Maybe it's all just a dream, but as dreams go it's pretty nice.