The jig is up.

Back in August 2002, when I found out about my pending fatherhood, I quit smoking. I had been smoking about a pack a day since 1988. I did a damned good job of it, too. Three days on the gum, and then nothing.

Well, I can't really say nothing. I did have a cigarette every once in a while. Like one every couple of weeks. And when I was out of town on business, I'd break down and smoke a packe over the course of three days. But when I came back, it was back to normal.

So the new year comes closer, and I finally get down to finding a psychiatrist, so I'm not a total wackjob by the time the kid comes out. That was a complete ordeal, getting passed around from operator to operator, asking them all to find me a shrink, and each one saying, "We don't really do that ..." What the fuck do you do then??

But I struggled through, and found someone and made an appointment. There was a wait of about six weeks between my making the appointment, and the appointment date. But okay that's done. I have that to look forward to. I even did the math on when the meds would probably start kicking in; I was cutting it close, but they should be taking effect by the time my son was born.

On the day that I was all ready to head in for my first appointment, I get a call from the doctor's office saying that they had to reschedule it for two more weeks out. Well that just fucked everything up! I was livid, after all I had gone through to get this set up in the first place. I was panicking. I bought cigarettes.

Just a pack, and smoked them over the course of those two weeks. That did it, though, and I've been smoking a couple of packs a week since. Am I proud of this? Not at all. Do I think I can quit again? Yes I do. Has this been a difficult thing for me? Yes it has.

Could I tell Bridget? No; she'd made it perfectly clear that if she found out I was smoking, she'd kick my ass. And this was before Caden was even born, so I certainly couldn't tell her then. She'd have gone ballistic on me. So I hid it. I would be able to reel it back in at some point, now that I'd be on a regular schedule with meds and doctor's visits.

That didn't work out as well as I'd hoped, since every single appointment I make with the shrink gets rescheduled for two more weeks out. Once I ran out of meds and had to chase around to get the prescription refilled. Add to that the fact that the guy I'm seeing doesn't ever really ask me anything about how I'm doing, and I'm basically on my own plus meds.

So last night, after class, I come home and she smells it on me. She asked if I had been smoking and I came clean. I got the silent treatment, she went up to bed with Caden and I slept in my chair downstairs.

I'm sure she's upset because I hid this from her. I can think of several times when I outright lied about it. Her: "Can you even imagine being a smoker now that you're a father?" Me: "No." As time went on from the beginning, my failures only multiplied.

When I woke up in the morning, I went up to bed first and lay there next to Bridget and Caden, who were both sleeping very soundly. Caden was completely snuggled up with her. This was 6AM, about the time he usually starts to stir, and she asks me to go change his diaper and then we have happy, smiling awake time. Or I carry him around in his bouncy seat with me while I take a shower and get dressed.

They were sleeping, and stayed that way. Caden made a couple of noises, and I tried my best to peer over the top of his head to see his face. But he was turned in towards Bridget, and I didn't get very far. I could see his long eyelashes, and the tip of his nose, and I wanted to stroke his fuzzy head.

I didn't. I went downstairs and took my medicine, then headed back up to take a shower. About halfway up, I sat down on the stairs crying. I'd been down since the night before, just like I used to be all the time. I had tried to be a good father and failed. I was separate and distant from my family that I love so much. I had been voted off the island, and the remaining contestants had decided to share the grand prize between themselves.

Bridget has had a brief conversation about my paycheck with me on IM today. She goes to work at 3:30 today, so I won't see her until late tonight. I'll be picking Caden up from her parents' after work. I expect that she'll have told them all about all of this, and that I'll be voted off their island, too.

I'll drive him home, and he won't remember anything about any of this. He'll be the same baby he was yesterday and the day before. I'll have to feed him at least once, which means I will have to hold him, and he will probably be smiling and happy at some point. I really don't feel like I'm responsible enough or good enough to hold him and play with him. I don't deserve to be a father.

I will very definitely do all of those things that need to be done with babies, because I am a father, even though I don't deserve to be one. I will also cry.

I have caved. I have made the background image on my work computer's desktop a picture of Caden with his arms out, smiling.

I have always hated those people, with the pictures of their kids all over their computers and desks and everywhere all the time. Now I am one of them. I still hate those people, the other people, who set the background to "Stretch," so that the tiny picture is now huge, out of proportion and grainy. I have not done that. I have only sharpened the image in Irfanview, and left it on a black background. Not some crazy, twisty, make your eyes freak out and cause remote control sessions to behave erratically crap. Just plain black.

I went to the shrink again on Friday. I'm less than satisfied with the level of service I'm getting from that office.

First, they called my house early and told my wife, "We've had a couple of cancellations, so we need to move the appointment to 2:45." It was originally scheduled for 5:30. Whatever. I do not understand how other people cancelling their appointments cause my appointment to have to be moved, unless the doctor wants to leave early for the holiday. This on the heels of all three appointments I've already had being rescheduled for completely different days.

So I get there at 5:30. Only the doctor is left in the office. He talks to me for a while, and I say, "Yeah, uh-huh. Yeah," a lot. I actually had to interrupt him to say things, which he then moved right past anyway. He gave me the title of a book he wants me to read.

Then, while bidding me farewell, he said I'd have to call on Tuesday to make another appointment, because there wasn't anyone left in the office to make appointments.

I'm starting to wonder what I'm paying for. So I'm going to look for another doctor's office. The prescription I have now actually has a refill on it, so that gives me a little time.

We went to Madison this weekend to see David and Vanessa and teeny Max. Bridget was telling them what to do, and they enjoyed receiving those suggestions. Still, I felt it necessary to temper Bridget by telling her to stop telling them what to do. We had a good time, going for a walk, eating bagels, cooking out, watching Cops. Watched a lot of Cops, so I got that going for me.

The Cops episodes were real old, too. Like over ten years old, gauging by the cars. But apart from that, hardly anything has changed. Criminals are still doing the same stupid crap now as they did then. Cops still have the same cop haircuts now as they did then.

It's good to have some stability in your life.