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From: Grand Prix Europe 2014 Cool! I am good at cars. Especially European cars. Subject: Last places available for Barcelona Dance Award! There are still some places at your disposal to participate in the Ultimate International Dance Competition 2014 Easter SpringSeason in Spain! All Division,  Any Level Welcome! Oh, the Grand Prix Europe is a dance thing? I am even better at dance than I am at cars. But not nearly as good as this email is at subject headers. Me : Babe, hey—gonna head over to Spain to enter the Ultimate International Dance Competition 2014 Easter Spring Season, so I won’t be home for Easter. And also spring. And also ever if I win. Wife : What are you even talking about? Me : STOP TRYING TO STIFLE MY LOVE OF DANCE, dag! This thing is Ultimate, babe. Besides, any level is welcome! I am going to enter this dance: (tries to do Kid n’ Play leg dance with wife; move is not reciprocated) You’re just jealous you didn’t get invited. April ...

Note: This column appears in the 2/9 issue of The Glendale Star and the 2/10 issue of the Peoria Times. Already having mastered soccer by age 2—and by “mastered” I mean “proven her lack of interest in”—our daughter recently began dance class. I am, so far, the only dad who attends these weekly Saturday morning classes. (At her first class, while our family was still in town, we showed up with a party of six adults, and everyone was forced to leave the room after five minutes because our daughter, who has the attention the span of a spinning top, was too distracted.) I promised myself I was there only to observe, but last weekend I was pirouetting and bear crawling on the floor. The reason I was doing this was to coerce our daughter to actually participate in the class. One of the most confounding aspects of parenthood has been, for me, the transition from the unabashed joy of home life expression to the reluctance of organized participation in those very same endeavors. Our daughter l...

Note: This column appears in the 12/23 issue of The Glendale Star and the 12/24 issue of the Peoria Times We have a really good friend who is like a modern day saint. She is so insanely kind that it naturally exposes my own selfishness, yet being in her presence somehow makes me feel like a better person. She has adopted eight children out of foster care, and was the driving force behind our own decision to get involved as well. In that respect we have her to thank for our own family. Her younger girls are all enrolled in dance school, and they had a big Christmas recital last weekend that ended with an all-important daddy-daughter dance. For this, the men of their family were employed for service, including our friend’s own dad and the girls’ oldest brother. Another brother was supposed to take part until it was discovered that this year’s dance included a lift. He was out, not yet big enough to lift up his sister. So … I agreed to be the dance partner for our friend’s five-year old d...