Among the many dance classes my daughters are in is a musical theatre class in which my ten-year-old Brittany is enrolled. The class is taught by the owner/director of the school, and my wife and I agree that it is the best class yet for either of our girls. Almost every week there is a homework assignment, which the teacher says is to help them develop the stage presence and comfort needed to be successful in musical theatre. These have become family projects, with everyone chipping in. My main role has been to supply the music. Her first assignment was a commercial. We went with Pepsi and used Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out", which it appears her classmates knew only from the PSP commercial, proving that was a brilliant move on the band's part. For her next commercial we went with the Firefly cellular phone, presently rivaling Jesse McCartney as an object of lust among 10 year olds, to the tune of Randy Newman's "You've Got a Friend In Me". Next was a rapped nursery rhyme, for which I supplied a beat, courtesy of a demo of a program called Hip Hop Starz (magnificent stuff), and a fresh written intro and closing to the classic "Jack and Jill". Last week, she had to do a video performance to a pop song. We selected Skye Sweetnam's "Billy S", then Brittany and her mom worked out a rebel-without-a-clue look. This week, the assignment was another video, but it had to be no longer than a minute and a half, and must have backing vocals. My wife and I thought up Weird Al's "Fat", put her in stuffed outfit, and let Brittany come up with the moves. She's performing even as I write this, and I'm certain it's brilliant.

Brittany, like all youngsters apporaching puperty, has a lot of issues in her life, of which her mother and I appear to be the most vexatious at the moment. But the kid is a performer, and she loves to put on a show. Always has, really. For a child who is grumpy more than she has any right to be, that all slides away when she starts performing. She is very sensative and quick to hurt, and I suspect a career in the performing arts would wound her deeply. But right now, she's a star when she performs, and I pray that'll be enough to keep her head on straight in the next few years.

At breakfast this morning, my seven-year-old was singing, "You're so pretty, you're so pretty", so I joined in with the "pretty vacant" at the end of the line. She asked what vacant meant and I told her, and she wasn't as impressed by the song anymore, although she kept singing it, with the "vacant" added on. I then told her it was by the Sex Pistols, and she made an "isn't that gross" face, but kept on singing. I may not be the best dad, and I might not be the coolest (although, actually, I think I am). But how many seven-year olds sing Sex Pistols songs at breakfast only from having heard their dad singing it around the house? Whatever things I'm doing wrong, exposing them to crappy music isn't among them.

I'm at home today, sick with the flu, which sucks, not only for the feeling crappy part, but also because it's costing me money. My employer has an excellent tool to encourage perfect attendance. Every year, each employee is alloted six sick days. Use 'em all, no problem. But for any of the six days that you don't use, you get an extra day's pay on your first cheque of the new year, a great bump for when those Xmas bills come rolling in. Technically, that means that there are up to six days a year for which you get paid twice. Thanks to this flu, I'm only getting paid once today. I don't expect people who aren't paid at all for sick days to be sympathetic, but I had big plans for that money. Okay, I was going to blow it on donuts and porn, but those constitute big plans for me.

The great part of this bonus system is that they don't tell you about it when you're hired. So one day, early last January, I got an email telling me I was getting a two-day attendance bonus on my next cheque. It's a little sneaky, since there were probably a few days when I could have dragged myself in to work for the extra money, but didn't since I saw no upside other than possibly infecting the very annoying, beanie-baby hoarding woman sitting next to me at the time. This year, I made every effort to stay healthy, and still I have managed to miss two days now. If this were December, I'd go in and infect the whole damned place unless they agreed to pay me for the day. Then I'd come home and suck down OJ while watching movies on cable, which is what I have been doing today.

Life is good.

I used to watch a lot of television. Well, actually I still do. What I used to do was watch a lot of television series. I had a few shows that I watched every week faithfully, sometimes even past the point where I cared what happened to the characters. Point of reference: "Friends", about which I ceased caring roughly three years before it went off the air, but continued watching because it was of the few fun things my wife and I could find to do together that didn't involve our children and/or lying down. "ER" was another one, a show I still found quite entertaining but, frankly, just didn't have the energy to stick with after Anthony Edwards moved on.

Nowadays, there are lots of shows that I dip into, all sitcoms: "Family Guy", "The Simpsons", "Arrested Development", "My Name is Earl", and others. But there is only one show that I never miss, and that is the inimitable "24". I'm a day oner, 96 episodes in, and anxiously awaiting the new season in January. I tape every episode in case something goes awry in my world, and sometimes so that I can check things to make sure I saw or heard what I thought I saw or heard. I've heard a lot of hype about "Prison Break", including from one of my best friends, a fellow Jack Bauer devotee, and he has given me four episodes to watch on VCD. But I just can't bring myself to do it. I simply can't abide by the idea of allowing another hour of my time to be owned by a TV show. I'm not elitist - I just don't have that much bloody time left over. Sitcoms can be visited occasionally, like a really hot but slightly crazy mistress. Dramas are less forgiving of your indiscretions. Like a wife. And I already have one of those.

I wander into the mailroom looking for Tylenol while humming a cheerful tune. One of our mail girls says, "I've never heard someone sound so happy while reaching for painkillers." I answer that I'm just trying to encourage them, to make the little red pills feel good about the job they are about to do, rather than be afraid of me like King Kong to Fay Wray. Everyone laughs, a genuine laugh and not the usual chuckle for chuckle's sake. Well, two people laughed, and that was everyone, even if one of those people is nice to me because he wants my business. But I appreciated it nonetheless.

And that's how my blog begins.