This is my second Father’s Day without a father. It still seems weird and wrong even now, a year and a half since his death. From time to time I still sit up with a start thinking, “Oh hell, I have to call Dad!” just like I used to because I wasn’t very good about keeping in touch. Then I remember that those days are gone.

I don’t feel sad that he’s gone, really, it’s sort of a sense of… Emptiness? Misplacement? I feel sort of un-anchored without my dad in the world. I miss him. I’ve been thinking of having a memorial tattoo done for him. I have a vague idea for a design, I know where I want it, I think I know who’s going to do it. I’ll probably have it done on or around his birthday at the end of July.

This is me and my Dad the last time I saw him in July of 2006. I think I knew then that it would be the last time. I think that’s why I brought my camera with me.

With my dad gone Father’s Day is now about just me, and I celebrated it with my family. Beth and Zoe gave me a motorcycle helmet I’d been wanting, and Zoe gave me a copy of Richard Bach’s Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. I had given her a copy of Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull recently and we talked about how reading it when I was her age had led me to Illusions and how much that meant to me when I was younger. So it was a really good gift. I’m halfway through it already and it’s holding up well.

Then Zoe and I went out for a ride along the coast. We took this picture in Malibu.