That’s My Dad.

I was going through the dumb iPhoto album on this dumb laptop, looking for a dumb picture that apparently is in my old laptop’s dumb iPhoto album, though it’s likely it could be in either my dumb desktop iPhoto album or my old desktop iPhoto album, which is also dumb. I have sworn that when this laptop dies, I am switching to a Windows Surface thing. Seriously, I am doing that. The Mac cloud has failed me too many times and Steve Jobs is dead. These are facts, and I never found that picture I was looking for.

Another fact: that guy up there is my dad, and this was a picture that I didn’t mean to find. There aren’t many pictures of my dad on any of my computers. There are barely any on the Internet; I found two. Now there are three.

Dad and Jane were traveling through California while I was visiting my favorite Auntie in Sacramento some months ago. I got nervous when the prospect of them dropping by came up; I hadn’t seen my dad in over five years. But I agreed. What was I gonna do? Say no? No, because that just isn’t my style, even if my stomach hurt terribly that morning and I bit my thumb cuticle on my left hand till I drew blood.

Aunt Leesa and I made muffins; the meetup was going to be brunch at her house. We made strong coffee. My auntie knows how I feel about my dad (complicated) and she knows the early story of my family (lousy, complicated) but she’s not a Ground Zero Crewmember so she’s about the best person on the planet to sit next to at brunch if you’re me and Dad’s across the table. She also grew up with the guy, so she knows when he’s, you know. Full of muffin. Which he is.

I could write a novel about how that two-hour brunch went, what with all the labyrinthine thought processes running through memory and curiosity at the same time, trying to result in conversation not emotional but still genuine, not slow-burn rage-y but not without bite. You want those who have hurt you to hear a little bite in your voice, don’t you? We all want to punish, even while we eat bacon. Especially while we eat bacon.

You know what’s weird? Writing PaperGirl.