I had puke on both shoulders and running down the leg of my shorts. I lost my patience many times that day. I kept mumbling and murmuring towards the changing table. I was sitting on the couch endlessly bouncing the baby on my knee, cursing my wife, with a rotary of hatred behind my longing for her to get up and over herself.

I feel like I’m watching my dream run away from me, I tell her.

All of the time that used to go into writing is being buried by family. She doesn’t work anymore. The baby cries forever and requires two hands to hold. She never wants to go to sleep. You put her in her bassinet, hoping to release yourself from the torment, only to find that you’ve got another hour on your hands of screaming as you move the pacifier back and forth in her mouth.

It’s the day after my birthday, or the day after that. My brother in law and his wife have arrived into town. They flew in last night. My mother and father-in-law picked them up at the airport. They are staying with my mother-in-law and Violence while they are here, and they are already getting frustrated with them–especially my brother-in-law.

Are they always like this, he asks, after having been up since seven and finally leaving the apartment at four.