Fairies in Piedmont Park.

So I was lying in my bedroom about noon today, watching my old VHS copy of "Broadcast News" and wondering if I was more like Holly Hunter or Albert Brooks in it, when Kacoon called me up.

"What are you doing?" she asked me.

"Uhh ... nothing," I said, half-awake and ashamed to realize that I was more like Albert Brooks.

"So do you have to work today?" Kacoon asked.

"No."

"Do you have plans?" she continued.

"No."

"OK, Benji and I just drove by your exit," she said. "And I realized you should join us for lunch."

"Um ... OK," I said.

"So where can you meet us?" she asked.

I considered a shower. I considered what dirty, wrinkled clothes I could throw on and still look presentable in.

Then, I realized that entertaining her four-year-old is, like, one of my favorite pasttimes.

"Um, we could go to the park," I said, looking toward the drawn blinds in my bedroom. "How's the weather today?"

"It's beautiful today," she said.

I've always wanted an excuse to go to the park. I live 10 minutes from it, so I know I don't technically need an excuse to go. But, hey, I don't go.

"When can you meet us?" she asked.

"Um, half an hour," I said.

Surprisingly, 50 minutes later, I was standing in the parking lot two blocks from the park, and Kacoon was pulling Midget's toys out of her trunk.

Given a choice for lunch, Midget picked Einstein's, and soon his cute face and happy demeanor were charming the staff, which included a number of cute guys that Kacoon and I both eyed.

Of course, waiters looking at me with Kacoon and her son did mental math and came up, naturally, with the wrong answer. And, to the staff of cute guys my age, I became "Sir," a decently cute hetero with a young son.

"Will you need a highchair, sir?" the tattooed, hair-gelled masses of tanned, black T-shirt-clad waiters asked. "We'll get you a kids' menu, sir."

Kacoon found that sorta funny, for she has seen the mildly flirty way that gay waiters usually treat me. As an apparent hetero, I became invisible, which was kinda cool because then I couldn't go about making a fool of myself. With the boy there, it couldn't be about me. So, yay. I needed that today.

All smiles went, of course, to the adorable four-year-old boy and his collection of rubber lizards and spiders.

"Look, mommy, that guy doesn't have a shirt on!" he yelled, eyeing a muscled jogger running past the patio.

"Yeah, he sure doesn't," I said.

Kacoon smirked at me.

Later, we went to the store and bought ourselves a whiffle ball and some scoops.

Kacoon vetoed my suggestion that we take her son into Outwrite Bookstore to see if hilarity ensued, and we hit the park.

We walked along the paths, and Kacoon reminded me of why I liked her so much when she said that the scenery was nice but that the "scenery" during Pride was better.

She wasn't dressed for the park. She was wearing jeans and a black shirt, and she said she hadn't even shaved her legs.

"We were going to the movies when I left the house," she said.

"Well, I like this better," I said. "I should come here more often."

We took Midget to see the lake. He sat on the dock, watched for small fish and tried to summon pigeons to come talk to us. He complained about the lack of skipping stones, and I told him that next time we'll have to gather them on the way.

"Like 'Amelie,'" Kacoon said. (Immediately, I knew I should put this all in the blog, for Lupo hates when I reference "Amelie.")

We sat on the edge of the dock for a bit, me skimming the bottom of my sandal along the surface of the lake.

"I love today," I said to Kacoon. "Thank you."

At the playground, Midget made friends with some older kids, and they started to challenge one another.

That's how we ended up at the big slide, where Midget's determination to climb the highest ladder left Kacoon, projecting her own fear of heights, in a near panic attack.

"He's going to fall," she whispered to me when he got about four feet off the ground. "Sweetie, do you wanna come down???"

Other kids about his size climbed past him, urging him on.

"He's fine," I said.

"He's gonna fall," she whispered again. "Oh my God ... Don't look down."

Midget looked at her, confused. He wasn't sure what to do. He's still 3-feet-tall at this point, even though he's 4.

I looked at him and prepared to climb up there, even though he was at our eye level.

"Look ahead of you and look behind you," I said. "There are less steps to the top than there are behind you. Just go a little further. It's almost over."

I reached toward another ladder, and Kacoon said to me, "No, get behind him, so if he falls ..."

So I told Midget to go up two more rungs, then pull himself to the top of the slide. Then, I got to the top next to him.

And we held hands and went down the slide, which wasn't very slippery. At one point, I was still at the top, and Midget was midway down, telling me to let go of his hand.

So I did. And down he went.

Then, I came down after him.

And he went to the smaller slide, while Kacoon, relieved, berated herself for projecting her fears.

"It's OK," I said to Midget. "You had fun, right?"

"Um," he said. "The smaller slide is faster."

"Well, now that you've climbed something that high, then you know you can do it ... whether or not you want to again," I said, realizing that I'd somehow become my father for a second.

We left the playground shortly after that, to save Midget from potential dangers or save Kacoon from further panic attacks. Maybe both.

We played ball on a field for a couple minutes, then Kacoon and I abandoned that because we were hot and tired. We spent time looking at the clouds, the cityscape and shirtless guys playing football in the sports field.

Midget pulled up dandelions and blew all their seeds off.

On the way back, Kacoon pointed out mushrooms to Midget, telling him that fairies were living underneath them and hiding in their shade.

He crouched close to the ground and tried to look at them.

"Don't get too close to them," she said. "They get scared around people."

"Why?" Midget asked her.

"Because they don't want to be sold in pet stores," Kacoon told her son.

"Oh," he said.

We walked away from the mushroom, down the path.

I snickered at her and said, "So you're saying there are fairies here in the park?"

"Yep," she said, looking at me. "And I'm with one of them."

Later, as she continued talking about how much the fairies in the park like mushrooms, she began laughing at herself, saying, "That just sounds so wrong when we're here."

When we walked past Einstein's on the way to the car, Midget waved at the wait staff on the patio, and they all cracked up.

Before saying goodbye, we capped off everything by having ice cream.

Midget and I both mixed Oreo cookies and chocolate ice cream, though mine was a milkshake.

And I need to go to the park more often.