Go Ask Daddy About Soda Bottles, Laws of Tanning, and the Ultimate Greenback

Court, over at Baking in my Bathing Suit, had an idea.

“Have you ever done a ‘Readers Ask Coach Daddy”? She asked in comments on my most recent Go Ask Daddy post. “I bet you people have some good questions for you.” So I aim to find out.

Send me your Go Ask Daddy questions this week.

Put “Go Ask Daddy” in the subject line and email to bloggingeli@gmail.com. If I get five or more, I’ll pick five and answer them. If not? I’ll act like this never happened.

I’ve had similar bad luck when I asked for questions for my short-lived Ask a Boy feature. Maybe this is different.

Seeing the World Through Grrs and Greats

Some ideas are so great it’s great to use them more than once.

(Using the same word in the same sentence twice isn’t a great idea. Oops. I did it again.) Think about some great ideas in history. Playing football on Thanksgiving? Great. Let’s do it again. The beautiful and comedic Elizabeth Banks on a real estate commercial?

Yes, great.

You can’t have greats without grrs, however. A grr is … playing football in a stadium like Heinz Field in Pittsburg, where it’s impossible to kick a field goal on one end. Ever. Or … persistent ads on Pandora for problems of men my age.

Go Ask Daddy About Vocabulary, Liability, and Rad 80s 3D Puzzles That Forever Stump Me

Competition wasn’t a problem for me as a kid. It was the success I had a problem with.

No bother. I embraced a life of green and white third- and fourth-place ribbons on field day as part of my DNA. (I can’t remember which was for third, which for fourth.) I toiled on the second level of Donkey Kong and Pac-Man, even.

I made the Detroit Lions look like the dynasty to end all dynasties.

Imagine if I’d been able to compete in something squarely in my wheelhouse. Alas, there existed no competition that involved eating tacos (that I knew of) or throwing a plastic football on the roof of my grandma’s house and catching it at least 20% of the time.

Go Ask Daddy About Utility, Emergency, and Conservation Opportunity

This might be a good time for a history lesson.

Go Ask Daddy has been a Friday feature around here for years. My girls ask lots of questions. I know your kids do too. It felt derelict of daddy duty to answer with look it up or I dunno. I don’t feel right, not at least putting down my grilled cheese and giving fatherhood a good try.

I wrote the girls’ questions in a notebook, and then feared I would leave the notebook in the cafeteria and not have a thing to write on a Friday.

So I started a Word doc, on my work computer, and I try really hard and follow the rules at my job so I’m not fired and would lose the entire list. This motivates me at work to avoid criminal activity and also to try good like I would with being a dad.

Go Ask Daddy About Spherical Worlds, Housekeeping Tips, and the Truth Behind Democrat Food

I argued with a friend about politics while she waited for her egg, sausage, and cheese English muffin at work on Thursday.

I know. I’m so far removed from politics since my media purge in October, but now and then, a news story works its way to my attention, between audiobooks and Matchbox 20 on Pandora and Yahoo! Sports updates on Colorado Rockies games. Much of current events are foreign to me.

The subject of our disagreement isn’t the point.

It’s the fact that our belief systems can feel right as rain and can change and sometimes can’t be changed. Where does belief even come from? It’s in conviction, what we know to be right, but what if others know it to be wrong? That doesn’t change it for us.

Alphabet Recap, Mindfulness Challenges, and 7 Random Smartphone Photos

Seems as if there’s room for just one challenge in this coach’s bag at a time.

Those of you not participating (and probably a percentage who are) probably turned the calendar to May with a touch of gratitude. We’re cultish, we A to Z knuckleheads. We flood your inbox and social media feeds with sorcery and daily posts and crazy rules.

And who the hell blogs every dad-burn day? We do.

The cleverest among us have compiled posts of their favorite posts from each of 26 days of the challenge. Others have shared their most viewed and commented-on posts. I’m not among those cleverest, but you can bet 10 publish buttons I will next year.

#AtoZChallenge: Z is for the Zen in Building Chances

Man – sometimes the shots just don’t fall.

I mean the shots, tactically (as in soccer) and philosophically (as in life) – and this is coming from a dude who sometimes sits and thinks. It can be a bombed test you studied for or the girl who says no (even when you stand up straight and comb your hair).

You might not get that handful of Skittles or promotion at work or the C- to raise you GPA (was that just me?), but in the building those chances, well, there’s a Zen to be found.

Zen (the term) gets as much overuse as Beethoven’s music in TV ads for toilet paper. It’s in those perfect moments, with full bellies and full beer mugs, in 70-degree bliss, bills paid and the trash out at the curb. It’s a good book and a better glass of wine, right? Zen.

#AtoZChallenge: X is for Xenogenous

I love women.

Let me rephrase that. I love the female spirit. I mean, yeah, I love Elizabeth Banks and Kesha and also that woman who plays Jack’s wife in the Jack in the Box commercials, but I am also an appreciator of the work and substance of woman.

X is for xenogenous, which means, of an outside cause.

Writing on courage – that’s what I’d like to do now, and I’ve considered spelling courage X-C-O-U-R-A-G-E so I can get down to it. Instead, I’ve chosen an X word – xenogenous – which I bet no one else has, and I’ll use it like a rebound romance to get to where I want.

My status as a man means that I must appreciate the courage of a woman from a xenogenous perspective. (see what I did there?)

#AtoZChallenge: V is for Vague Differences Between Protecting and Sheltering

I might be prone to excessive examination at times.

Especially when it comes to the philosophical, or soccer, or cheese. So many moments as a dad, acting in the moment and considering the impact later, at night, when I should be writing or sleeping or at least eating graham crackers.

Who am I kidding? I’m eating graham crackers anyway.

As I vacillate between the college kid soccer girl and the high school soccer girl and the budding musician/soccer girl, happy to have spots in their worlds, I think about how I parent, vague (or subtle?) differences in what we do.

#AtoZChallenge: U is for Unconventional Loves

I’d wanted to write, during this A to Z Challenge, about my girls’ stuffed animals.

All three have one that has meant something to them over the years. Haven’t we all? I had a stuffed dog I found in a park when I was a boy. I named him … boy. I loved him until he fell apart.

One of my girls loved a German Shepherd, so big she could use him as a pillow.

Another slept with a bear named Daddy. I last saw him tucked behind her headboard. Unceremoniously. A third girl kept a rasta monkey I won her at her bedside. I scrapped the idea, although to read the first four paragraphs here, you wouldn’t know it, right?