I come from a decidedly pro-nap home. My mom, as long as I can remember, has been fond of retreating for a few minutes or hours in the afternoon to “rest her eyes.” Countless Sunday afternoons of my childhood consisted of this: Mass at 12:30, begging Mom and Dad to go out to lunch, maybe going out to lunch or just getting Ruffles chips and Sour Cream ‘n’ Chive dip at the grocery store, feasting, and then everyone would kind of retreat into quiet corners for sleeping. Everyone likes naps, everyone can take them, and nobody has a problem with using any couch or borrowing anyone’s bed to do so. (We don’t get upset about dumb stuff.)

If I had my way, I’d sleep from about midnight to 5 or 6 a.m., and then again from 2 to 4 p.m. I’m worthless in the afternoons anyway — sleepy — especially if my lunch includes even a single carb (unless I combat it with tons of iced tea). Barring just the right chemical composition of my afternoon meal, I’m sort of zombielike until Afternoon Coffee saves the day around 4.

I was a gifted and reliable napper until summer 2007. That summer, I had a copy editing internship at the Indianapolis Star. It was a real sweet gig — especially because I only had one job — but the thing is, I got out of work around 1:30 a.m., then we’d go have a drink at a bar, then I’d drive home at about 3. Or stay up even later and crash at a friend’s house. Which was great for everyone else, because we didn’t have to show up until 4:30 in the afternoon. I, however, am through-and-through a Morning Person, and was physically incapable of sleeping in past 9 a.m. until the eighth week of the 10-week internship. “Fine,” I thought those first few weeks, as I read the entire newspaper and schlepped to the apartment complex’s gym. “I’ll just catch up in the afternoon.” And every afternoon, I’d lie down in the perfectly quiet house and try to sleep. But I was too anxious. I’d worry about everything, or nothing, and toss and turn, and then it would be time to get ready for work. This nap-preventing anxiety carried through much of my 26-month stint in California, sometimes even on weekends, and that was a damn shame, too.

But now I am getting my skills back. I’m taking a two-month hiatus at home. I don’t have a bed, bedroom or closet here, but I do get to use the couch in the basement entertainment room, unless someone calls dibs and has friends over. I also don’t have a job, responsibilities or deadlines, and I receive few calls or e-mails. I do the crossword every morning, spend entire days in sweatpants, and — hand to God — almost never want to do anything but talk to my parents and siblings. The items in my calendar on a recent week were “Monday, lunch with Aunt Sue” and “Friday, haircut.” Even going to a friend’s house feels a bit like a chore. So, just when I convinced myself I could live without, my naps have returned, like a lover from a long voyage at sea. And our reunion is even better than the first time around, because I’m not taking even a 20-minute “rest my eyes” period for granted.

Far and away the greatest classes I ever took were my Italian literature ones in college. I took four of them, all from the same professor, who had tiny classes (about eight students), and a terrifying strictness that was quite conducive to learning. She had two poetry classes and two short story ones, and they were required for the Italian major, which I got — mostly because I wanted to keep taking her classes.

For every poem or short story we studied, she’d ask, “What is the subject, and what is the theme?” The subject, she said, is what the poem is “about.” It’s a noun, probably one word. Don’t get all worked up, and don’t answer with the plot or anything complicated. “Love.” “Sex.” “Misery.” (You see, it was very Italian Italian literature.) The theme is what you learned about the subject. “Love overwhelms your senses.” “Sex makes life complicated.” “Misery follows love and sex.” (Very Italian.) We studied a poem by a morose man named Leopardi, the original emo kid, and I swear, in class, she said the theme was “Life sucks.” (When I put that in an essay, though, I got scolded.)

Subject and theme are a great thing to know, and like almost everything I learned in those classes, the lesson carried over into other parts of my life.

I have now been in California for just more than two years, and I have six weeks left. I’m simultaneously trying to wrap up the most powerful segment of my life so far and prepare for a thunderstorm, rock-star, whirlwind 2010. (If things go according to plan, by this time next year, I’ll be settling into New York City, having spent eight weeks reconnecting with my family, 2 1/2 months in Costa Rica learning Spanish and a ridiculously fun baseball season in Boston.) So — I’m getting contemplative.

Subject and theme are as good of frameworks as any for contemplation, and considering them has helped me stay calm in the pending shitshow of a transition. If my subject here is food, the theme is that spicy food is good. If it’s family, the theme is that mine is one of the best ever. Or that you can create one anywhere. If it’s faith, the theme is that you can always come back. And if it’s love — it’s that I’ve got a long way to go, but I’m good at it.

For that, I have to thank every inch of my experience. The sunshine and weather put me in a fine mood to love everybody. My girlfriends taught me that I deserve to love myself. My roommates taught me courtesy and generosity. Love is a choice, and traffic taught me that I have the ability to choose calm. More than anything, my students taught me how to love. That it requires superhuman patience and constant giving. That it’s sacrificial, and that it’s listening. And that it is borne of gratitude.

I thank every inch of my experience — that’s where my thunderstorm, rockstar, whirlwind 2010 begins.

Editor’s note: for the next two weeks we’ll be running the best of our This Ordinary Day pieces. We’ve enjoyed working with so many great writers and wonderful people and felt it was high time to take a look back at some of what they’ve brought us. If you’d like to see more pieces, please take a trip over to our archives page — it’ll be well worth your time.

— — —

My dad loves all aspects of fatherhood, but I think his favorite is scaring his children.

As a young man, Dad was a prankster. He has countless stories of playing tricks on his brothers and friends as a teenager and twentysomething. As a dad, Dad had a few more things in his favor: His victims were young, innocent and believed everything he said. Also, “The X-Files” was on when all but I were of prime scaring age. Our TV was in the basement, which was unfinished in the ’90s. The basement had a cement floor, was freezing cold and its back room had several creepy closets, including one with the furnace and pipes that quivered and made abrupt noises.

Dad proved to be adept at mimicking the sounds of the X-Files monsters, a skill he loved to employ as my siblings would be trembling up the stairs to go to bed. One night he mock-rampaged up behind them, making the sound of the Fiji mermaid, a monster that sounded like a cross between a banshee and a Tyrannosaurus Rex. After that, they were scared to go into the basement and upstairs, leaving just one-third of the house fear-free. Luckily, it was the third with the kitchen.

But monsters were nothing next to doctors. Dad is famous for the line he’d utter whenever one of us would have to go to the doctor. “They take a needle THIS long,” he’d say, holding his index fingers about a foot apart, “and as thick as a pencil.” Here he’d pause, re-emphasize the imaginary needle with his fingers, and speak slowly: “And they stick it … right … in … your … eye.”*

The doctor thing was classic, but Dad’s legacy is his stories. He has a knack for describing things to kids with captivating brevity and such simple but compelling language that they completely understand and are petrified. I remember being at dinner and him pointing to a plate and saying that in Africa, in banana trees, there were spiders that big, which would jump out at banana pickers. He didn’t even need to say “RIGHT IN THEIR FACES,” because he knew that the picture we had in our heads was of some cheery farmchild reaching up for bananas and a fierce werewolf of a spider leaping on his head and sucking out his blood in two gulps, probably through his eye.

Dad’s warning before we went to the pool used a different kind of fear. “Water. Doesn’t. Care,” he would say — and that was all, a little seed of a warning. But on the way to the pool it had time to grow, and by the time we got there, we imagined cruel, uncaring water rushing around a flailing, shrieking child — and suddenly, the deep end didn’t seem like such a good idea.

And that was just the nonfiction. His top two bedtimes stories were “The Man in the Wall,” about a person who becomes a homicidal maniac after his construction buddies brick him into a wall; and “The Witch of Eastborough Lake,” whose title character kidnaps children and keeps them in her underwater palace.

I thought that I was a lot better than that, that I had evolved. Then one day a student pointed to a switch. “Can I turn off the light?” she asked.

“No,” I said. And then it fell out of my mouth: “I don’t want the zombies to come out.”

She laughed, but a little nervously. “Zombies?”

“Oh yeah, as soon as you turn off the light, they pour in through the vent,” I said, tapping the metal slats. “And then they collect in a pool on the floor and rise up as zombies, but by then I’m usually out of here.”

She wanted it to be a joke, but her face was hesitating. She was scared.

“That’s why, if you ever see me leave, I lock the door and run,” I said. “Now, here, let’s color.”

*Tables really turned on Pops, though, when he had a (don’t worry, benign) brain tumor a few years ago and endured a footlong syringe before surgery.

Note: In honor of Father’s Day, I am doing all pieces this month about my dad.

I’m no theologian, but I think that one trait of a virtuous person is a lack of hesitation when it comes to making good choices. The people I admire do the right thing with speed and directness — as though the wrong thing isn’t even an option. It’s bold and it’s heroic — think of the firefighter who plunges into the burning building to save someone. Think of that scene in Forrest Gump when he beats up the guy who hit Jenny at the Black Panther party. My dad, so far as I can tell, has this lack of hesitation in spades.

When my maternal grandmother was ailing and couldn’t live alone anymore, it was Dad’s idea that we build a room on the back of our house for her. He knew it would be expensive, and he didn’t know how long Grandma would stay or what that stay would entail. But it was done, and he never expressed an iota of concern about his convenience, wallet or anything else. Why does that stuff matter? he would have said, if we would have asked. It’s the right thing.

When our parish priest called in the middle of the night for help because there was a plumbing problem and the church was flooding, dad hotfooted it up there with a Well duh, it’s my church mindset. He and some other parishioners worked for hours to fix the problem. He batted away praise with that same Duh, what else would you do? mentality. To be sure, Dad’s hairtrigger decision-making trait bleeds into a frustrating tendency of saying unbelievably offensive, violent or politically incorrect things. But his actions speak louder.

This isn’t to say that he’s careless or overly impulsive. I talked to him on the phone a few days after the laziness of my brothers and sisters had elicited a scolding of Biblical proportions from Mom (Literally — she canceled Easter.). He was saying how one of them had left a dish in the sink nonetheless, and his first impulse was to throw it at the back of the offender’s head. “But I didn’t do my first impulse,” he said. “You never do things when you’re angry.” (Not that Dad ever would have actually thrown a dish at anyone’s head. Except a Democratic legislator, maybe.)

I’m also no sociologist, but I think that a lack of hesitation dwindling in my generation. A friend once said, “The fault of the human psyche is overanalysis.” I don’t know if it’s true, but if so, the world these days has that fault in spades. Many times I’ve on-the-one-hand-but-on-the-othered about a decision that, deep down, I knew was easy. Try thinking out loud about a decision, and see if your listener will give you an excuse to do the thing you feel like doing rather than the thing that’s right. As often as not, she will. I have.

This isn’t to say that thought should be banished from the decision-making process. Life is complicated, love is complicated, jobs and families and finances are all complicated. You can’t shoot first and ask questions later. I read the other day that a week’s worth of the New York Times has more information that the average person in the Middle Ages was exposed to in a lifetime. More information can mean better — although more complex — decisions. But in a world going grayer and grayer, there is some black and white left. And we could all learn a little from my Pops, who, when it comes to the right thing, doesn’t even let the wrong thing have a say.

Note: In honor of Father’s Day, I am doing all pieces this month about my dad.

My move to California was one of the best trips I’ve ever had, and that’s because it was with my dad. I packed nearly everything I own into the back of my 1994 Volvo, and early one September morning, Dad and I set out. We had some great conversation. We listened to my iPod, which is full of music from his youth. He humored me and listened respectfully to a Barack Obama speech. The first night we stayed in Santa Fe and ate at a Tex-Mex place we remembered from a family vacation years ago, on the rooftop, relaxing with beers. The second night we stayed in Flagstaff. We ate at a crowded, noisy Outback Steakhouse. We stopped to take pictures in Texas; we stopped in traffic in Los Angeles; we stopped everywhere for gas. Dad paid for everything. And finally, when we made it to Oceanside, Calif., he took my new roommate Ashley and me out for sushi. It was the turning point for me and sushi.

I liked the trip then, and I like it now, but I expect its importance will only grow with time. Not very many women get the chance — or would want — to drive across the country with their fathers. Not a lot of fathers would cheerfully pay for the whole trip. And I bet precious few dads would be so supportive of a firstborn daughter moving 1,700 miles away to a pittance-stipend, no-security, lousy-benefits, temporary volunteer job with gangster kids. But I got to, and he did and he is.

There were a lot of lessons in that trip, and I’m sure I won’t realize all of them until/unless I have children of my own. I’ll spare you the saccharine, and focus one one profundity that resonated right away:

We were in the hotel in Flagstaff, and I was turning down my bed. I mentioned the pillows were soft, and, joking, that it would be really easy to steal one and have a nice addition to my new bed in my new room. Dad knew I was kidding, but got that annoying look that means he sees an opportunity to teach a lesson.

“It would be the most expensive pillow in the world,” he said.

He was baiting me. He does this a lot. It drives Mom nuts. But he had paid for everything, including the steak I’d just eaten, and he’s my dad, so I bit.

”Most expensive? Why?”

His answer, for once, was simple: “You would be selling yourself for it.”

Dramatic, I know. The Life Lessons of my Pops are nothing if not dramatic. But this one stuck with me, and it became a cornerstone in my work with my students. When they steal, when they smoke, when they drink or cheat or do graffiti or lie, I tell them — it seems like this is free, fun actions. But you are selling yourself for it. And if they’re paying attention, I tell them the story of the pillow.

That line has affected my actions too: I’ve walked back to return incorrect change. I’ve (sometimes) held back on saying bad stuff about people. I’ve dragged myself to church on Sundays… even if Saturday night was rough. I’ve thought about the ways I don’t want to sell myself — not to be a thief, or have attention or be lazy.

I doubt I’ll ever be able to give as much as my parents have. But lessons like that, on trips like that, certainly compel me to try.

My dad loves all aspects of fatherhood, but I think his favorite is scaring his children.

As a young man, Dad was a prankster. He has countless stories of playing tricks on his brothers and friends as a teenager and twentysomething. As a dad, Dad had a few more things in his favor: His victims were young, innocent and believed everything he said. Also, “The X-Files” was on when all but I were of prime scaring age. Our TV was in the basement, which was unfinished in the ’90s. The basement had a cement floor, was freezing cold and its back room had several creepy closets, including one with the furnace and pipes that quivered and made abrupt noises.

Dad proved to be adept at mimicking the sounds of the X-Files monsters, a skill he loved to employ as my siblings would be trembling up the stairs to go to bed. One night he mock-rampaged up behind them, making the sound of the Fiji mermaid, a monster that sounded like a cross between a banshee and a Tyrannosaurus Rex. After that, they were scared to go into the basement and upstairs, leaving just one-third of the house fear-free. Luckily, it was the third with the kitchen.

But monsters were nothing next to doctors. Dad is famous for the line he’d utter whenever one of us would have to go to the doctor. “They take a needle THIS long,” he’d say, holding his index fingers about a foot apart, “and as thick as a pencil.” Here he’d pause, re-emphasize the imaginary needle with his fingers, and speak slowly: “And they stick it … right … in … your … eye.”*

The doctor thing was classic, but Dad’s legacy is his stories. He has a knack for describing things to kids with captivating brevity and such simple but compelling language that they completely understand and are petrified. I remember being at dinner and him pointing to a plate and saying that in Africa, in banana trees, there were spiders that big, which would jump out at banana pickers. He didn’t even need to say “RIGHT IN THEIR FACES,” because he knew that the picture we had in our heads was of some cheery farmchild reaching up for bananas and a fierce werewolf of a spider leaping on his head and sucking out his blood in two gulps, probably through his eye.

Dad’s warning before we went to the pool used a different kind of fear. “Water. Doesn’t. Care,” he would say — and that was all, a little seed of a warning. But on the way to the pool it had time to grow, and by the time we got there, we imagined cruel, uncaring water rushing around a flailing, shrieking child — and suddenly, the deep end didn’t seem like such a good idea.

And that was just the nonfiction. His top two bedtimes stories were “The Man in the Wall,” about a person who becomes a homicidal maniac after his construction buddies brick him into a wall; and “The Witch of Eastborough Lake,” whose title character kidnaps children and keeps them in her underwater palace.

I thought that I was a lot better than that, that I had evolved. Then one day a student pointed to a switch. “Can I turn off the light?” she asked.

“No,” I said. And then it fell out of my mouth: “I don’t want the zombies to come out.”

She laughed, but a little nervously. “Zombies?”

“Oh yeah, as soon as you turn off the light, they pour in through the vent,” I said, tapping the metal slats. “And then they collect in a pool on the floor and rise up as zombies, but by then I’m usually out of here.”

She wanted it to be a joke, but her face was hesitating. She was scared.

“That’s why, if you ever see me leave, I lock the door and run,” I said. “Now, here, let’s color.”

*Tables really turned on Pops, though, when he had a (don’t worry, benign) brain tumor a few years ago and endured a footlong syringe before surgery.