I wrote a little bit about my family.

And if you've only read this Web site in the last year or few months even, and you read this week's column and thought, "Huh, interesting family, what with the blind dad and all," well you're right!

He is interesting. A totally inspiring, singular guy. Any part of me that's good comes from having been his and my mother's daughter. Seriously.

So if you are curious (the piece "Eyes" I link to farther down is especially worth reading--one person told me it actually inspired him to reconnect with his own estranged father), here are a few earlier pieces about my dad.

This first story comes out of a place of real pain, written during the time when my parents were divorced (from 2001-05), a time during which my dad underwent two separate engagements to different women.

(So yes, a note to disabled dudes: Know what? You can get any chick you want. All you need is confidence and a great personality. My dad is total tribute to that. Am truly grateful he and my mother did remarry but if there's anything my father has taught me it's that all you need is charisma and the rest is gravy.)

If you read that first story, here is the original essay I wrote when I was 15 that I reference in that piece above.

And finally, here is a story called "Eyes," the one story to read if you are going to read any of this and are curious about my father and his remarkable life.

It's very important to me because as I explain in that first story, I tried to write this when I was at The Washington Post in 1997 and just couldn't bring myself to do it. It wasn't until I had quit my life as a writer, enrolled in a master's in education program at Northwestern and was going to become a high school English teacher (so had to fill a public speaking requirement by taking a "Storytelling" course) that I finally wrote the story.

Writing that piece led to everything about where I am now. I realized that I wasn't done writing. I wasn't done telling stories. I wasn't done doing what I ever had wanted to do with my life in the first place. I realized that to find happiness, to find myself again, I needed to reclaim my real cocky, joyous, in-the-moment, musical voice which had been lost somewhere along the way in my clawing attempt to make it as an adult when I was only 20something years old. Eventually, having written that one story is what led me to:

a) think about what it was I had ever wanted to do with my life. Oh: comedy, writing. Yeah I can do those things.

b) quit the master's program, start doing improv everywhere around Chicago, start doing stand-up, start writing spec scripts, start "getting a little bit closer to the things I wanted to be doing--every day, just a little bit closer," which, truly, was one of the best pieces of advice I've ever heard.

c) start this blog and end a marriage

d) ultimately get a job at The Post as an entertainment writer

e) get a gig as a columnist

f) and yeah be right here in this moment.

In other words, I'm glad I finally wrote that story.

And not for my writing. I think my writing has improved by leaps and bounds over these past two years I've been at The Post, but read it for the poem written by my father's surgical nurse when he was in Vietnam. As Gene Weingarten told me when I pitched him on my father's story: "You think it will be this roll-your-eyes poem and it's this incredible piece of writing."

I guess what I'm trying to convey to you (after you read the story) is that the saga of my father and his nurse is one where you realize no matter how wasted a life may seem, never say never.

Never say never.

And here I'm about to say the most obvious thing, something that I always avoid as I despise the obvious, but I think it's important for once.

I'm so glad my father's life was saved.

Imagine how easily it could not have been, and the agony at saving him in the first place.

Two rounds in the face, he appears this wreck of a human being, and yet, look at what he has gone on to create.

A beautiful marriage with my mother. My sister. My sister's family. And me.

So think about that if you read the story, think about how you really can't expect or judge anything for what you may think it may be at the time.

As has been my favorite saying of late to give comfort to anyone (including myself): from darkness comes light.

And my mom, well I can't even begin to attempt fully capturing her beautiful outlook on the world, but I promise to try eventually. My friend Dave Rheingold is going to be looking at some video I shot of us a year ago, so hopefully a worthy mini-documentary tribute to her shy, wry, hilarious, thoughtful, caring personality will emerge.

Finally, while I'm on this nostalgic tip, I decided to find some photos to share. Will post above. Was looking for one in particular of me and my sister as babies lying with my father and found a few others I couldn't resist sharing, too. (Also adore this picture of my father and mother in 1972, when my mom was pregnant with my sister.)

So awesome, man.

It's going to be such a wonderful New Year. I can't wait.