I am in front of the stove making pancakes. I’m not sure why I am making pancakes. I should say I’m not sure why I asked the kids if they would like pancakes. I should not have asked because I am stressed out about a work meeting early this morning that made me get the kids up early. I didn’t sleep well for many reasons and it’s effect is apparent. I am blessed and cursed with self awareness so I use the stress to focus on getting the kids ready and out of the house. But I also know that stress and lack of sleep and dehydration tends to make me less smart. Ok, stupid. ...

Lydia (12) is the first of the kids to arrive at the taco bar. She sits down next to me and says “nice haircut. You were aiming for 20 and got 70”. This a Lydia zinger, of which she has many. She means it as playful and it mostly is and every now and then crosses the line into harsh. Just like me. And her grandpa. Lydia’s gift for language goes beyond my kind of sharpness and just a pure multilingual fluency. It’s much more advanced than I had expected given I’m pretty much the only one besides her English teacher who speaks English with her. She gets that from her mom. No one knows where she got her gift to draw Elisa (8) is the next one to come through the taco bar doors. Elisa is caring, loving, sneaky, and outgoing when restless. I like to say she got the caring and loving from me but more like the caring and sneaky. When in turn I got from my mom and dad respectively. She will put her hand on my belly, call it her “pillow”. She will put things on the wall and deny it later or she will poke around my girlfriends things. When she goes to the playground, she is like her mom, always making friends especially with the boys. At lunch on this day, after we order, she asks to go outside and walk around. This is in part because she is that restless extrovert like her mom. It is also because she is sensitive to smell like her uncle and grandmother on her mother’s side. Aidan (13) is the last to edge his way down the chair. He is a snowboarder and wakeboarder. At once hip and cool and at once cautious. When I remind him of something – be careful where you leave your bicycle – he will be agreeing and slightly defensive with me. “I know, I know”, is his mantra. Aidan’s origins are perhaps the most complex to dissect. He is so close to his mom that sometimes it’s difficult to know if he is like her or if he is trying to emulate her. Like me, but at a different time, he was hurt when his mom found a boyfriend and stopped payed less attention to him. Like me, I believe he always wants to do the right thing but sometimes get tired of always having to be good and things come out in an unintentional way. Like when he ordered a full size basketball stand and shipped it to my small apartment. He really wanted to play basketball with me and thought it would be convenient but didn’t think though that I don’t have storage for it. ...

Aidan, Lydia, and I are walking towards a Singapore hawker center (local food stalls) when Aidan says to me “you know that sound in Beijing..the ones cars make?”. It takes me a beat and then I realize he doesn’t know the word “honking” so I tell him, yea, what about it. Aidan says the cars don’t do that here. The kids and I spend a week in Singapore and Bali. A bit of a rushed trip as we could have spend a week in either place. The kids particularly liked Singapore and our all day tour there. Sea Aquarium strangely reminding me of IKEA with it’s massive size and never ending switchbacks. The cart racing. The tram to and from Sentosa island. The night safari. ...

The immigration officer smiles as Elisa exits the gate. She says my kids stack up one by one, like stairs, and that I have my hands full. I tell her that they are good travelers, at a good age. She smiles again as she stamps my passport, says something I can’t quite make out about another family. I smile back, pleased in the moment. The young woman at M-Mart convenience store in Bali greets me as I enter the store behind my kids. I had been in the store alone earlier and exchanged a smile with her when she asked me if I wanted “cigs” which took me a while to understand before saying no. She asks me if these are my kids, and I say yes, and we exchange another smile and I feel at ease. I spent a week in Singapore and Bali with my kids for a summer vacation. I travel alone with them as a single parent. Most of the time I want to make sure they are having a good time and that I don’t mess up any of the logistics. My emotions subjected to their emotions in some loosely coupled way. It dawns on me that while the vacation is fun and the kids are great, that my needs are not being met (as if I know what those needs are beyond the primal). This is why I highlighted to two interchanges with the immigration woman and the convenience store clerk. In those two interactions, I was fully present and with a warm heart. I felt like me. I also had some other interactions where I also felt like me, but these were of the unpleasant, frustrated, anxious, variety. The long check in when we arrive late and hungry to Singapore. The long checkout from our hotel to Bali when we needed to get to lunch before heading to the airport. Angling to cut off a woman trying to nudge her way past us in the airport security line. Getting angry at the Bali Airport porters who acted like they were part of the taxi service and then asked for a tip. It is that last one that I will highlight. We exited the baggage area in Bali and walked past the hawkers to the Taxi stand. I had read that it was a fixed price depending on what part of the island you were heading too. When I asked they said it was 200,000 Indonesian Rupee (about $15 USD) which was more than I had read so I went immediately into “they are ripping me off” mode to which I am gene adverse. The porters asking for a tip when we got into the taxi got me more tweaked. I didn’t yell or anything but I stood up to them and said sharply “I didn’t ask for your help. I already paid a lot” as we climbed into the cab. The kids were quiet in the backseat, feeding off my anger, waiting for it to smooth over. Or was it me – projecting myself back in time. My dad driving the station wagon with us kids in back, our excitement slammed shut to silence in response to his anger at our anticipation. Was that me; I am not having that same effect on my kids, am I? Or is it a good thing that my kids see me in different moods. In any case, I felt bad for the tension in the car, then and now, real or imagined. As we made our way to the hotel in Bali I made some small talk with the kids. Compared to Singapore they were not impressed with the small, crowded, chaotic streets. Suddenly we pulled into our hotel which felt out of place. Into our rooms and the kids spirits started to lift when they saw the size and in particular the stand alone bath. But what really changed things was when the restaurant. Thanks to tripadvisor I found a decently rated one 100 meters from the hotel. The staff was friendly, the pizza and steak had the kids happy and enjoying Bali. The next day would be our big tour day of Bali but it was that moment over pizza that I will remember most. Not for the peace or frustration of the real me slipping through but for me the parent doing my job. The fact that I could separate the two gives me hope. Hope that one day, with time, with work, and with luck the two sides can coexist like surf on a wave. ...

Aidan says to me “we can eat at home more often” as Lydia reaches for her second hot dog and Elisa by some miracle digs into my version of 白菜. The July 4th dinner which we had on the 3rd is a success. We don’t really live where there are many American expats nor am I very close with Americans that would have a fourth of July BBQ. Back in my early days here I did attend a couple of independence day celebrations with other newish American expats. It felt weird to celebrate the fourth with expats since they are not known to be the most patriotic of folks (some of course are, especially the execs placed here with packages). For me, the fourth was mostly a day off in the states. I never felt super patriotic. At the same time, I don’t harbor any ill will. It’s just a day. But I do want the kids to understand and embrace that they are American so I keep up some traditions. ...

(a slightly sanitized version of a diary entry) Experience robs me of hope and then returns it anew. I am reminded by love that I am a two time loser. It makes me sad and angry and angry and sad when someone tells me I failed my first wife since I abandoned the marriage. And then her illness got worse and then she died. Died while I was on my honeymoon with wife number two who when the news broke told me “you deal with this”. ...

I wake up, alone, and in a light sweat. I debate getting up and turning the AC on so I can sleep another hour. I check my phone. 7am. I slept through the night for the second night in a row after three weeks of insomnia. I get up and wash out my eyes which are recovering from an infection. I feel my sore throat is coming back. If 70 is the new 50 then it’s really going to suck to turn 70. ...

I’m on the subway on my way home from work and my brain feels fuzzy. It’s been a hard week but not as hard as it feels. I check my wechat moments and see my ex is at the airport board in hand, ready for a weekend trip. On her other hand is a man which upon closer inspection looks to be her boyfriend. While I know she has a boyfriend, it’s been hard to tell from the pictures which one he is because she has her arms around so many. But this picture is different for the man has that boyish look of holding his woman. ...

Since I wrote Thought on Turning 50 I’ve had a few more thoughts which I guess is a good thing. At least the brain is still active. Some of my thoughts are direct results of experience. The experience of how my knees feel in the morning coming down the stairs. The experience of having a millennial co-worker see a picture of me from seven years ago and exclaim “wow, you were so young”. The experience of waking up on Sunday morning alone and spending the day alone. The experience of playing basketball the previous sunday with my 13 year old son. The experience of wondering if I should put sunblockt on the spot that has appeared on my head or if I should just avoid escalators. The experience of being the old guy at work. ...

When I grew up my schools had team sports which I participated in from the second grade through my senior year of high school. In Beijing, my kids, at least through grammar school have a “sports day” every Spring which I’ve for the past eight years. My typical attendance consisted of arriving at the school playground around 9am which is later than work so I tended to stay up a little longer the night before. During the sports day I would sip my coffee while waiting for one of the kids to do something. It could be an opening performance, a game of soccer, or a three legged race with a parent. It was a chance to nod at other parents that I may have or may not have nodded at other such events. It was a chance to see my kids around their classmates and how the acted with each other. ...