I've Got a Crush On: Michael Lewis and Tabitha Soren

I'm 35, the perfect age to remember and adore Tabitha Soren as an MTV dj: plucky, intelligent, cute and never trying too hard when surrounded by the uber-cool. When bought the memoir Home Game from Borders, I quickly realized it's author, Michael Lewis, had made 2 uber-cool moves: married Tabitha Soren, the erstwhile MTVdj and recent photographer, and written the book The Blind Side which was made into a movie and another crush of mine- Sandra Bullock- had starred in. And then I read his book.

The first rule of fatherhood is that if you don't see what the problem is, you are the problem.

I get her ( daughter Quinn ) to school and enjoy a brief feeling of self-satisfaction: I am coping manfully with a big mess.... This cheering thought lasts until I get home and find my wife in tears. Often I try to hide, but usually she spots me, and when she does, she will usually say something poignant. " I feel like I'm going through this alone, " for instance. Or, " I don't know how much more of this I can take. "

The other day on the way to school Quinn demanded, unusually, that I shut off the nursery rhymes. Then, even more unusually, she sat silently, staring straight ahead and ignoring my attempts to engage her in conversation. I tilted the rearview mirror to make sure she wasn't choking on something and was greeted with a gaze of what can only be described as mad intensity. Finally she said, " My daddy is dead. "
Four weeks ago, before the birth of Dixie, this would have shocked me. Now it's almost pleasantly familiar.

This book ( culled from Lewis' column on parenthood at Slate ) brought praise but also took a lot of flack for it's man-cave mentality, but I am here to tell you it's laugh out loud and wake your family funny, more than worth it's 14$ paperback price. Of course he drives the points home harder than necessary, of course he pushes the edge to get the laugh, but there is a frank honesty about this memoir- which chronicles the birth an first year of their three children- Quinn, Dixie and Walker- and the marriage that is immensely appealing and sweet. I read it and Mr. Curry read it and we both still quote from it, grinning.

What a cool family.* love children's names!