This is Ivan Barna, who turns 63 years old today. He’s also my father. I can’t quite remember the first time I met him, but I would imagine it was in a room at Mt. Sinai hospital in Toronto on September 3rd. I was naked and crying, covered in amniotic fluid, and he was ecstatic at having brought life into this world. He looked at me with hope and promise; anything and everything was possible. But it was up to him to make me into something. Donating sperm wasn’t enough. I was now his responsibility, and it was his job to mold me into the person I would become. He did that by reading to me, showing me the world, and slapping me across the face when I deserved it. I don’t call him dad, or pops, or papa. I call him by his first name, a development whose roots I cannot trace. It’s always been that way, for as long as I can remember. That might sound strange to people, but to me he’s always been Ivan: an enlightened man of high intelligence who did everything he could for me except pass down his gift for math. I’m a fucking idiot when it comes to that. Thanks for nothing, Dad!