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dad againDad AgainNotes on fatherhood.2NA=1154&NC=31297&DI=4098&PS=58311&PI=7315dadagainfalsefalsespacernotembeddeddad againDad Never AgainMichael LewisThe Nutcracker Suite.noDad Never AgainThe Nutcracker Suite.noSplayed on the operating table, staring at the back of a nurse scrubbing her hands, I was struck by the possibility that, in addition to its other challenges, a vasectomy might be a socially awkward experience. "Do you need to empty your bladder?" asked the nurse, who clearly found hospital English the safest language in which to address a stranger's genitals. The clinic walls were undecorated, save for a lone medical drawing of the male sex organ, flayed to reveal its sober inner logic.truenotochyperlinkno200811720134PMThursdayJanJanuary141/17/2008 7:01:34 PM633361752940000000200811720134PMThursdayJanJanuary141/17/2008 7:01:34 PM633361752940000000dad againThe HospitalMichael LewisDaddy gets a guilt trip.noThe HospitalDaddy gets a guilt trip.noI'd driven an hour from home to give a talk, and was up on a stage with my cell phone off, when Tabitha left three messages. In the first, she said Walker was having trouble breathing and so she was taking him to the doctor; in the second, she was on her way from the doctor's office to the emergency room; in the third, she was on the emergency-room pay phone, either crying or trying not to cry. "He has RSV," she said, mysteriously, and added that he was strapped to a gurney and waiting for an ambulance to take him to a place that handled infants with RSV, whatever that was. Her cell phones wouldn't work there, she'd been told, and there was no number on which I could reach her.truenotochyperlinkno20074622653PMFridayAprApril144/6/2007 6:26:53 PM63311466413000000020074624647PMFridayAprApril144/6/2007 6:46:47 PM633114676070000000dad againDad Again, AgainMichael LewisNotes on fatherhood.noDad Again, AgainDad Again, AgainnoMichael Lewis began his "Dad Again" column in 2002, after the birth of his second daughter, Dixie. The story resumes now that Lewis and his wife have welcomed their third child and first son, Walker.truenotochyperlinkno200711845112PMThursdayJanJanuary161/18/2007 9:51:12 PM63304735872000000020074622653PMFridayAprApril144/6/2007 6:26:53 PM633114664130000000dad againMoral EducationMichael LewisQuinn and Dixie go to Mardi Gras.noMoral EducationQuinn and Dixie go to Mardi Gras.noThe last time I'd visited the Fairgrounds in New Orleans was the spring of 1977, when I was 16 years old. A classmate of mine had a gambling debt of $8,000 that he couldn't pay off—$8,000 being the equivalent today of roughly 27 grand, real money for a high-school junior back then. In what seemed at the time like a sensible strategy, he hocked the coin collection given to him at birth by his grandparents and came up with $2,000 cash. This he handed to me, along with instructions to go to the Fairgrounds and lay it all on Albo Berry to show in the sixth. His nerves couldn't take it, he said, and besides, he had math class. Albo Berry was racing on a school day, during seventh and eighth period, when all I had was film history—which could be skipped safely. And so I grabbed another friend and drove to the Fairgrounds to lay two grand on Albo Berry to show.truenotochyperlinkno200731222652PMMondayMarMarch143/12/2007 6:26:52 PM633093064120000000200731222716PMMondayMarMarch143/12/2007 6:27:16 PM633093064360000000dad againMonstersMichael LewisHave I screwed up my daughters forever?noMonstersHave I screwed up my daughters forever?noOne afternoon I find my wife standing in the kitchen preparing, once again, to cry. The pills they gave her instantly silenced the brain screams. She's gone from being terrified that she's losing her mind and that everyone she loves is going to soon die to being, occasionally, sad. I'll come across her getting dressed or sterilizing baby bottles, standing as still as a lady in a Vermeer painting, with tears in her eyes. There's no point in asking what's the matter—you might as well ask a flat tire why it doesn't have air. She's enduring this strange hormonal postpartum deflation that has nothing, really, to do with her. She's gone from needing to be rescued to wanting to be comforted. Which is, in theory, where I come in.truenotochyperlinkno200721525406PMThursdayFebFebruary142/15/2007 7:54:06 PM633071480460000000200721525406PMThursdayFebFebruary142/15/2007 7:54:06 PM633071480460000000200311442855PMTuesdayJanJanuary161/14/2003 9:28:55 PM631781585350000000200311442855PMTuesdayJanJanuary161/14/2003 9:28:55 PM631781585350000000falsetruetruetruetruetruetrue2002329121106PMFridayMarMarch123/29/2002 4:11:06 PM6315300066600000002002329121106PMFridayMarMarch123/29/2002 4:11:06 PM631530006660000000