Englewood Cliffs, NJ

No Internet Access in New Jersey!!

I'd like to say I can get used to this, but . . . not. I'm glad I'm only here for a week.

Just kidding, I don't know why I only planned for a week trip. Coming all this way should mean a two week minimum stay, but something about being nervous about missing so much class, but in retrospect – stupid. I don't care about classes, classes are useless and frustrating.

Family is great. With the 'rents it's nothing special, they don't treat anything any differently, which is expected and fine. It's mostly been about my brother, sister-in-law, and niece who is almost one year old. She's the star of the show.

July 25, 7:27 p.m.

July 26, 12:20 p.m.

I've made the call that she was a model in a previous life. She knows her angles, she knows how to work the camera, and she's a really picky eater. And my damn brother and sister-in-law keep trying to ruin her figure by stuffing Cheerios in her mouth.

I go to Philly this weekend to visit my other brother who has a 3 year old and also a daughter who just turned 1.

It makes me wax philosophical that your life ends when you have kids. In a good way. Your life becomes their life. The journey that was your life becomes their journey (also not, but that's a different discussion).

It reminds me why I'll never have kids. I think of my childhood, which I'm not going to say was bad, but just the fact of it, and I just don't want to participate in it. I just don't have the heart to create that journey for another being (what a long arduous road that was), and I think about my parents and I don't want to be on that side of it, either, even though I know I could do a much better job than they did, and enjoy it.

I don't know why, but it makes me queasy, thinking of my childhood and upbringing and superimposing that experience on these kids, and I just feel sorry for them. All the details. Just to end up like I am now? Or my brothers? Or sisters-in-law or parents? None of which is bad, just the fact of it.

I don't mind not being around for these kids (although I should also say I don't mind being around for these kids). I don't mind being the mythical uncle they never knew, but people talk about, or is a shimmer in their infant memories. I remember people like that from my childhood, and when people ask me later on if I remember them, I sort of do, but only vaguely.

But then my brother would bring them to visit me still living in my parents' basement, and ruin the effect.