This summer, both of the (No-Longer-So-)Little Girls Elliot and I will be living in different cities. As it happens, I will be in New York, where Number One Daughter lives, during Father’s Day, but I’m not going to New York to celebrate Father’s Day with my daughter. I’m going out there to eat.

            Oh, sure, I’ll see her; she and Hot Geek Girl and I will be having pizza in Brooklyn on Saturday. (HGG is my, in her phrase, statistically-significant other. She teaches stats.) (In a "you are the stupidest man on the face of the earth" moment, a guy I mentioned that to said, "So, she knows a lot about baseball, huh?") That’s one of the things I’m going to New York to eat: pizza. Listen, I love Chicago, far more than I ever loved New York, even when I lived on the East Coast as a kid, and certainly far more now that New York has become a Disney attraction, safe and sanitized for the tourists. (Hookers back in Times Square! Dammit!) (As a teenager visiting a friend who lived in the Upper East Side, I was crossing Times Square at oh let’s say 3 in the morning, when my friend casually informed me that it was the most dangerous stretch of real estate in the world. “Really?” I asked nervously, all country mouse. “Nah,” he said, “I just made that up.”) We do so many things well here (food, theater, music)—better, in my opinion than they do them in New York (shut up, New Yorkers)—but I’m sorry, Chicago pizza is not pizza; most of the time I don’t really even think it’s food (shut up, Chicagoans). Oh, and bagels: honest to crap, if you have not had an H&H bagel with lox from Zabar’s, you have not had a bagel. (Some might argue that Ess-a-Bagel is in fact of higher quality, but I remain resolutely agnostic; I do not get involved in debates between religious factions.) (I learned my lesson after I started the conflict between the Shiites and Sunnis. Yeah, that was me. Sorry.) (And of course, the infamous Creamy vs. Chunky riots of 2005: also me.) There is one place in Chicago that does do bagels very well, but it’s way the hell up in some godforsaken ‘burb; seriously, I’d just as soon go to New York.

            Um, but I digress.

            The point is (if I remember correctly; it was a while ago), I’m not celebrating Father’s Day this year. It’s really always been sort of a pro forma holiday anyway; the girls and I would go out to a restaurant for dinner, they’d give me a card, end of story. (Or Is It???) (Yeah, it totally is. Shut up, horror-movie-ending title.) Since I’d be paying for the restaurant, you could say that they’re giving me a gift by not being with me. Two less dinners to pay for! Thank you, girls. It’s what I’ve always wanted.

            We didn’t celebrate Father’s Day much when I was growing up. The family I grew up in always had a sense of impermanence, as if it would go flying off into space like dandelion fuzz at the slightest breath of wind. (Also, after my father committed suicide, giving him a Father’s Day gift seemed in bad taste. After all, you can’t really use cologne in Hell. It’s alcohol-based and would burn right up.) In raising my daughters, despite being a single father, I tried to give them a sense of a foundation. (Sadly, not the Gates Foundation, because nothing says, “I love you, my daughters,” like a few billion American.) What I wanted—what I got—was to raise them in such a way that they could go off, when, inevitably, they did, and know that they could go anywhere, take as many risks as they liked and needed to, but that there would always be a place for them to come home to if they needed to. My 4’10” Number One Daughter strides fearlessly through the streets of New York and Chicago; large fearsome men hasten to clear a path for her. Number Two Daughter has forced an art critic to back down by sheer force of her personality.

            Also what I wanted? For neither of them to get pregnant until they had a graduate degree apiece. They’re both lesbians, so Yay, Team Me! on that one.

            I don’t need, and wouldn’t want, my daughters to express their love on some regular annual schedule. (Actually, I would vastly prefer they express their love on a, say, monthly schedule and in the form of legal tender, but as mentioned in a previous essay, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.) In fact, were they to express their love on Father’s Day, I would immediately be suspicious that one or the other or both of them A) wanted money, 2) was pregnant, or iii) wanted money to get pregnant. (Lesbians, remember?) Mind you, I don’t hate the idea of becoming a grandfather eventually (“Oh, isn’t he cute? Oh, he just shat. Here, take him.”) (of course, I tried that as a parent, too, and most of the people I addressed—who were, to be sure, random passersby—turned me down flat), but I’m looking forward to a few more years of not being asked to babysit, after which I plan to move to Shanghai. Sure, kids, I’d be happy to watch your child, but I'm not going to travel to do it; do you have your passports?

            I will admit that I’m pleased it’s me my kids come to when something goes wrong and they can’t quite deal; I’m more pleased that that happens less often these days. (There’s a really good reason Number One Daughter hates New Jersey.) (Well, apart from it being, you know, New Jersey.) My little girls are growing up. (Except for how Number Two Daughter left the butter out a-fucking-gain last week. What, am I made of money?) (Checking...checking...no!) (I'm made of delicious aged cheddar cheese.)

            If my daughters are strong independent women (who send me money), that’s my Father’s Day greeting, and it beats the hell out of any Hallmark card. (I did like the “Life In Hell” one, though; thanks for that.) Plus the last time Number One Daughter came home she brought me a dozen Ess-a-Bagels, many—well, some—okay, two—of which are still in my freezer, and nothing says, “Well done, Dad,” like boiled bread dough. Especially the garlic ones.