I think there is a time in every man's life when he finds himself in a quiet place and he gently puts his hands on his face and lets them drip down his skin as he thinks "Oh God, what does my father think of me?" It is this very thing that happens to me every day, and I find it difficult to release myself from the idea that finding a quiet place on a daily basis for this ritual is not far from destiny. I remember when I was a child I had such a marginally religious fear of thunderstorms that it would cause me to turn the television to the weather channel so that I could reverently temper my dread according to the forecast ahead of time: this is the same horror that washes over my heart when I see my father slowly approach the picture of my life to make his first appearance of the day. He is both ghost and man: a man that I know now as someone who lives teetering on the fence-post between acquaintance and friend, and a ghost of the person from my childhood that was once in a marriage to my mother that was full of teeth and rage who was not my father, but rather an incarnation of shame and disappointment.