The Mad Dad Is Out Of The Closet

If you clicked on this link thinking that I’ve just come out as gay, then spoiler alert: I didn’t. You’ve just been click baited, sucker!

I did, however, recently come out as separated which is worse. Being gay would be so much more fun and ironically, would probably get me way more of thems ladies the singles keep talking about. That said, outing myself and making the separation public takes a lot of the weight off my shoulders in respect to my MDB presence. Since January, it’s been hard to feel genuine and like myself when posting. Some of the hard core followers might even have noticed that the quality of posting had gone down quite a bit. I noticed, but writing about the separation was cathartic and as a result, I feel like I can be a little more like myself when I post.

So I'm out dis closet and it’s time to make the best of it. There are a lot of projects I’ve had waiting in the wings that wouldn’t have made a lot of sense in the context that the Mad Wife and I were still together, so here are a few blog posts you might expect to see in the near future:

  • Holy shit, I got a cat!
  • I am now a wood working god among men
  • Embracing new hobbies: A return to day drinking
  • And the fucked up world of online dating

There will be more posts which will hopefully include this damn gluten free rage post I’ve had sitting half way completed since last year. I’d also like to start opening up the blog to the occasional guest contributor. I love to write and even more than that, I love to engage with my community. You guys and gals are awesome and you make pursuing this blog a lot of fun.

Oh, and stay tuned for a real live website! MDB is going full 2017 on your asses once I can secure the developer and if I can pool in enough capital I might even begin adding some god damn merchandise. Mad Dad stickers? Fuck yes, please.

The Mad Wife Wants To Be Mad Single

I keep coming back to this song lyric over and over: ‘I never wanted it to break.’ And I never did. The problem is that sometimes things break anyway.

Relationships are hard. Everyone knows that. And it profoundly sucks when they don’t work out. If you read the title of this post you’ve probably put it together… Mad Wife and I aren’t going to work out and I’m fucking gutted. This isn’t new. It’s not old either, but Mad Wife made the decision to end things in January of this year and it’s been tough. And to be clear, I’m not about to air my dirty laundry on the internet. Mad Wife was and continues to be a wonderful person despite our differences and I’ll love her till the day I die. She’s a great mother to my kids and was my best friend for 8 years, but that doesn’t make any of this easier or even palatable.

So here I am. A place I never thought I would be. Separated and hurtling towards a divorce. For me, this marriage was always for forever and looking back on it, I suppose that assumption is part of what got me here. Relationships are hard. Marriage is hard. It takes two people to keep a marriage afloat and only one to sink it. I don’t think that it’s really either of our fault exclusively, but at some point in the last 8 years I stopped chasing my wife and didn’t realize we were sinking until I was already in the water.

There’s no denying the fact that the Mad Wife gave me the absolute best 8 years of my life. She gave me two amazing boys who are hilarious and rotten and sweet all at the same time. She gave me a step daughter whom I absolutely adore and who single handedly changed my mind from never wanting kids to wanting some of my own. She gave me her friendship, support, and wit. She also gave me a kitten… more on that later.

I guess I really don’t know what I’m getting at with this post. Writing for me is therapeutic and a hell of a lot cheaper than real therapy. But I guess I’ve also been putting it off for a long time. I’ve been having trouble accepting that it’s over. It hurts. A lot. And while this post is fairly light and doesn’t dwell on anything too heavy, I’m finding it incredibly hard to write.

I never wanted it to break, but it did and here I am.

I'm Pretty Sure The Mad Wife Wants Me Dead

Don't forget this title if I suddenly stop posting. Its not because I lost interest in Mad Dad. Its because I'm likely dead. Or near dead. From poisons or something.

Anyway, The Mad Wife finally made my hat. I was pretty excited until I remembered a conversation we had about a year ago. You see, there were a dozen excuses as to why she wouldn't make this damn hat, but the one she kept coming back to was superstition. Have you ever heard of the knit hat curse? I'm pretty sure its made up, but she's Irish so what are you going to do?

The knit hat curse states that if you ever make a significant other a knit hat, or other knit product (I think it may extend to anything hand made), it will curse the relationship.

"That's such bullshit! You've made me stuff before and we're still together."

"Yeah, but I've never made you a knit hat. I didn't finish the hat before because I was afraid we'd break up. But now that we're married, I assume you'd just die or something. I don't want you to die."

A year later and now I have a knit hat. What did I do wrong? Hell if I know. At least I'll die with my head wrapped in wool.

Thanks for nothing, the Irish.

To be fair, it's a really really nice hat.

To be fair, it's a really really nice hat.

That Whole Knit Hat Thing...

I wrote this back in the day under a different alter ego. In fact, I think all 7 of my followers at the time read it. It was crazy popular.

2012 - Winter

So let me tell you something: it’s getting really freaking cold outside. It sure would be nice to have a nice warm knit hat. Many of you probably have a lovely knit hat already, but I don’t and here’s why.

My wife is a treacherous fiend. I could pretty much stop the blog post right here and you would have all the information that you need, but there is humor in the back story so here we go.

I met my wife in May of 2009, it was one of the best days of my life. It was a warm day filled with laughter and a lot of booze (the booze was key to snagging that first date). When I met her, I lived in a different state, a so called “Sunshine State,” so long distance was the only option. However, I was at a crossroads in my professional career. I was starting to hate my job for which I was grossly underpaid, and began looking at other options. I found an opportunity that paid almost double and decided to take a month break between the two jobs. The idea was to take a temporary break and move into the frozen north so that I could spend a month with my wife whose treachery was at this point unknown. This happened in October of 2009.

Now October is fine, not super cold, but not warm either and since I was only going to be staying a month, I didn’t bring any winter clothing. That decision made perfect sense until I found that my entry into this new job was being delayed indefinitely. So now I’m stuck in the frozen north for all of winter. Being a manly man, I did the only thing I could think of and bitched constantly about the cold. It was good natured (mostly) because my wife took to calling me her “little lizard,” which isn’t manly at all, but in her words was “super stinkin’ cute.” Wife took pity on me by the way and promised that she’d knit me a hat. This is where the story really begins. If this were a movie, the weird “some bad shit’s gonna happen” music would start playing as the intro credits started appearing on this screen. Fast forward to February; it is cold as balls, I am starting my job back in Florida and I still have no knit hat. She bought the yarn, purchased a knitting pattern, and broke her first real promise.

Even though I was back in the Sunshine State, I still wanted that knit hat. It’s nice to have something hand-made for you. But she then refused. Her argument? You don’t need a hat because it’s not cold in Florida. I’ll make you one when you move up here for good. So I moved! I moved back to the frozen north in October of 2010 with the promise that a warm knit hat would be fashioned for me post hastily. I took a job, the worst job I’ve ever had by the way, where I worked almost entirely outside. In the cold. All freaking winter. And did I get a hat? No! I moved to the frozen tundra that is the middle-east coast after being promised head wear, and instead got shafted. Here’s the kicker, I still didn’t have much winter clothing, and as a direct result of going hatless, I contracted pneumonia and nearly died.

At this point in the post you are no doubt thinking, how can this have happened? There must have been some sort of hat accident or hat shortage because wife promised! He moved up for this hat, surely there must be an explanation. There is an explanation by the way; it’s just a bad one. Apparently, the proper knitting needles disappeared. They up and vanished… or so I was told.

And so it goes, promises made and broken pass by like a poorly done 80’s montage. The messed up thing is that my head gets really cold! I tried to buy a hat once.

“Nooooooo! If you buy a hat it will make me feel bad because I promised to make you one. I’ll start working on it, I promise”

I tried bribing her with her own knit hat.

“Oh oh oh oh! That knit hat is soooo pretty, will you buy it for me?”

“What?! You want me to buy you a knit hat when, after two years you have yet to deliver a single knitted product to my head? Are you out of your god damn mind?!”

“But if you buy me that hat I will love you forever and I PROMISE that I’ll make your hat this winter.”

“Ok.”  And then I pulled out my credit card like a loser.

And so this has happened every winter since I’ve met my wife. Every winter I sit idly by as she spins her web of lies. She’s knit booties and hats for babies, scarves, and blankets, but my head remains cold and unadorned. Nearly every member of my family has a knitted product from her except for me. The current excuse is that there is a knitting curse which states that if she makes me a hat, or any other knitted product, we will break up. I asked her if she had considered the similar consequences of not making me a knitted hat and she had, but she was ok with it. Why do I put up with the lies and betrayals? It’s probably because that even though she is a treacherous hat fiend, I still love her. In the spring, summer, and fall months, I love my wife. She’s beautiful, funny as hell, and a lot of fun to be around. But every winter I am faced with her darkest side. The side that refuses to make me that hat even though I really really want it. In the cold and unforgiving winter months, I must learn to accept that I will likely never get my hat, but at least I’ll have a hot, persistent rage to keep me warm. Oh, and Lovely Wife, if you’re reading this, it’s winter time and I want my hat.

For the love of god, before it’s too late. 

Mad Resolutions for 2017

New Year’s Resolutions are stupid. There. I’ve said it. For almost everyone, new years resolutions are an exercise in futility resulting only in broken promises and people snickering behind your back as you smash donuts into your face two weeks after preaching that you're going to lose weight this year. With that said, here are the Mad Dad New Year’s Resolutions for 2017!

Drink Better

I already drink enough, but I need to drink better. Some might say that I’m slightly resistant to change. Others (coughTheMadWifecough) might say I fight it fervently. This attitude might be why I’m a solid scotch drinker and have been in the anti-bourbon crowd for no other reason than I don’t know much about bourbon. Well this year, that’s going to change. I’m going to break out of my delicious scotchy shell and drink some bourbon. A lot of it. I’m going to get to know the great American bourbons out there and maybe even write about it. I’m also going to branch out and try new beers. Lots of beers. So if you have any suggestions, let me know in the comments and I’ll give it a shot. If you want to send me some of your favorites for free, PM me and I’ll get you the shipping info.

Write More

It’s called The Mad Dad Blog mostly because The Mad Dad Facebook Page sounds stupid. But did you know that this page was originally intended to be a supplement to an actual blog? I like to write and some have even said I’m good at it. If you follow my page, though, you probably know that I don’t write at all. I guess this needs to change, too. I even have ideas! Stay tuned and you could even find yourself reading about fun topics such as gluten, why Dora the Explorer needs to be deported, and why the fundamentals of parenting are built upon a throne of lies. I’d even love to start doing some more product reviews. Hint, I’ve got one coming that I’m pretty excited about so stay tuned.

Get With the Times

With each passing year, it gets harder and harder to blow off technology and social innovation. I fucking hate Twitter, but I need to get with the god damn times and actually twitter some things. Maybe I’ll even get some followers although I’m not sure if the 17 I have now would get jealous once I “make it” on the Twitter. Another thing I need to do is to make some videos. People are all about YouTube and Facebook Live now and I guess I need to get on board. This blog post was originally going to be a video. Then I got lazy. And for no reason! I have the equipment (iPhone) and video editing experience. What more do you need? Oh… a quiet house without a screaming children? Hrm… that might take a while.

Grow the Base

Listen, I’m going to say this as nicely as possible. I love you all, but I need more. I’m super stoked to have nearly 13,000 people that like this page and it’s a ton of fun, but we need to boost those numbers this year. I can’t just sit around and wait for The Mad Wife to come up with another alcohol innovation that goes viral. It’s going to take hard work and something like that. Grumpy Cat has 8.7 MILLION likes and he’s a god damn cat. I should be able to beat a stupid cat at Facebook.

So there it is. My resolutions for 2017 aren’t impossible and I might actually keep a few. If you think I left anything out or have a great idea of how I should improve myself this year, keep it to yourself. Don’t tell me how to live my life!

-Mad Dad