May Day Parade

From Little Britain: Linda

Worst time to fart.

Dear HR Manager.

Thank you for the opportunity to apply for the position of Corporate Assmunch.

As I hope is apparent from the attached resume, I am a self-starter who thrives in environments where managers provide no guidance or direction until it's too late and I've already fucked up.

When this does occur you will find me to be a creative problem-solver who can envision a range of reasons why it wasn't my fault it was Brian's. Or the intern's. I am equally adept at creating the appearance of doing work. I thrive under pressure, which means you can expect me to procrastinate.

I never hesitate to face new challenges in the workplace: If you give me impossible tasks, I'll be the first to say "can do!" and face them head on with a strained smile, cursing you and your ugly children and your ill-fitting polo shirt under my breath, driven by spite to do a fantastic job.

I am a team player. You can be assured my coworkers will respect, value, and seek me out for the impressions I do of you and your unctuous mannerisms.

I look forward to meeting you in person, which is when the bullshit really comes to life.

Sincerely,
Eric

ABC ABC gum.

I stole this from my lady, who stole it from somebody else.

A. Age: Biological, 38. Mental, about 12. Wii Fit Age, sometimes 25 sometimes 54. Spiritual, sometimes 3 sometimes 2,000. Guess my age, a lot older (fucking gray hair, stress lines).

B. Bed size: "Slightly too small for two adults and two dogs."

C. Chore you dislike: Skilled at finding reasons not to fold laundry.

D. Dogs: "I have a pit bull named Lydia. Plus Eric's collie, Princess Cassandra Louis LaPorte."

E. Essential start to your day: I meditate and drink coffee at the same time. For real.

F. Favorite color: The cool thing to say is black, but I sort of like green.

G. Gold or silver: This is a first-world problem. I'm not there yet.

H. Height: Not enough.

I. Instruments you play(ED): Vocals, harmonica, a long time ago guitar.

J. Job title: "Content Strategist." TCM Practitioner. Student.

K. Kids: Two boys a sort of step-daugher and sort of step-son.

L. Live: With my lady.

M. Mom’s name: Wahneta. It's Native American - named after a grandma's friend.

N. Nicknames: My friend Brian was too lazy to say the second syllable so I went by "Er" for a while. Sometimes still called "E." My lady calls me "sweetie."

O. Overnight hospital stays: Not for me.

P. Pet peeves: People wearing sandals. The exaggerated way actors eat in movies and TV. Anachronistic dialogue in movies and TV. People who abbreviate the word "sandwich" to "sammy" or "sammich." People who walk too slow. People with no original sense of humor who just quote jokes from movies and TV. People who talk to themselves. People who crinkle plastic wrappers in movie theaters. People who clap after movies or watch the credits, this usually happens at artsy theaters. People who speak too softly and wear fanny packs. People who talk about recycling. People who say "good morning" or worse just, "morning." People. The words "morning," "belly," "tummy," "yummy," and "lunch." Meetings and the stupid shit people say in meetings. Jargon. Small talk. Much of what the dogs do. Cereal milk left in the bowl, condiments left on plates. Much of what the kids do.

Q. Quote from a movie: Peanut, the way your mind works is God's own personal mystery.

R. Righty or Lefty: Right (and weirdly suspicious of lefties).

S. Siblings: Little brother.

T. Time you wake up: Too fuckin late.

U. Underwear: Ideally, but

V. Vegetables you don’t like: EGGPLANT.

W. What makes you run late: Existing.

X. X-rays you’ve had: Hand.

Y. Yummy food you make: Quesadilla and sometimes I luck out with a decent stir-fry (and there's that word, "yummy").

Z. Zoo Animal Favorites: Big cats. Apes of any kind. Bears. Deadly animals of any kind. Reptiles. The whole aquarium and seals. The "Most Deadly Animal" at the Bronx zoo. And the bats. Birds and antelopes are boring as fuck.

Springtime music for hippies and hippies in denial.

Happy Angry Easter.

Happy Beltane

We ate man-sized helpings of pot roast meat and many steins of root beer and cake and decorated the house with earth symbols and ran about the house shrieking and laughing, some of us with our shirts off and one in just underwear.

no contest

i spent all day writing an essay for a scholarship i'm going to win.

this pretty much sums up my professional life the last 10 years

So long.

My grandmother, Norma M. Crandall, passed away yesterday morning at 5:30 a.m. I'm ok. I feel worse for my mom, you should read her blog here. Hers is the most important thing to say about it.

My grandmother lived with my grandfather in a big, old house with a wraparound porch surrounded by trees in upstate New York. It snowed and snow piled up and we sledded, and there was a fireplace. I remember bouncing in the seat with anticipation on the hours' long drive to Sidney as the land got bigger, spotted with the shapes of cows, and the towns got smaller, sometimes shrinking to just a row of mailboxes on the side of the road. Much of what I was looking forward to was seeing her. When I showed up she lit up, and the quality of her voice lifted, and she hung on everything I said, and I knew she felt the same about seeing me.

The experience of feeling so unconditionally appreciated is one of the greatest gifts grandparents give. They give you toys, yes. But when my Grandma and Grandpa showed up unexpectedly during a summer vacation in Maine, the toy they brought me (a brown bear) was only as important as having come from them.

My grandmother was smart, and creative. She worked as a drafter for Bendix Aviation, having a degree in Mechanical Engineering. As my mom wrote, Grandma has a patent for a helicopter grip that is still in use. I looked it up on Google records; there's even a picture of her original drawing submitted with the patent application. She used the same skill with drawing to hand-letter the granddaughter clock my Grandpa built for us. If you look closely at the curling leaves that ornament the clock face they subtly form the shape of all our initials. I didn't get to know this side of her as well. But kids are perceptive, and looking back, I remember the way her voice and her demeanor would change when she talked to me not just as a grandmother but as a person. Today I realize the sound and the color were hints of how sharp she was.  

(A strange legacy, but I remember her explaining to me why people got headaches, about blood vessels in the head. I've always had headaches, so this is something I remember every time I've had one since. I also remember her laughing when I asked why there was a magnet in the shape of a "Stop" sign on the refrigerator. It was to remind Grandpa not to eat too much).

The reason I associate my grandmother with her voice is that I didn't see her much after the two of them moved to Florida 20-something years ago. However, the times since that I called (rarely) or she called my mom, who then put me on the phone, her voice raised to meet me in that familiar way. She still hung on my every word. The last time I ever talked to her she told me that I, too, sounded just the same as she remembered me.

Some things do not change. It was a long time ago, but the memory of my grandparents' house in upstate New York is indelible, pristine, perfectly encapsulated, and my memories of her remain there. It was more than just a house and she was more than just a voice on the phone. What I can return to any time is the indescribable feeling of her and of them that filled that house, my impressions of the kitchen and the dining room, the fire and the stove, the sawdust in my grandfather's workshop.

I also think it's very important to say good bye. And it's true, the last ember in the fireplace in the old house has gently winked out. The last pile of sawdust is swept away and the bright wood in the scraps of the toys my grandfather made me will also turn darker; their perfect edges will soften. The lights in the windows will go out, quietly for the last time. But tomorrow is going to be something else, Grandma, indeed. 

For my mom.

more tomorrow

this was a rough one

Declare the pennies on your eyes

Opening of Pineapple Express.

Taxes

"I got a letter from the government / The other day / I opened - and read it - it said they were suckas!"

-Chuck D

Friday nite

Too fat to lumber downstairs and get his laptop computer, the man instead pecked out his blog post with one finger, then fell back under the weight of his distended gut, bested by Mexican food and movie popcorn; by ColdStone Creamery and nachos. By root beer.

My world.

The NewAgers say, "You create your own reality." OK:

In my world, anybody taller than me will be hobbled, or have a few vertebrae removed.

In this world, half-and-half will help you LOSE weight.

In my world nobody will use the expression "create your own reality," although the rule will still apply.

Every restaurant, of any kind, will have an all-you-can-eat buffet option in my world.

There will be no "skinny" jeans.

In this world of mine, you will never have to say anything twice to kids.

It goes without saying I will be rich as shit.

Notice that none of these rules in my world contain anything about feeding the hungry, or having no wars and such. In this world, I can be completely self-absorbed (by definition), and by doing so, everybody still wins.

And yes, all my friends and family will have all their desires met in my world. My mom runs The University of Higher Consciousness through Music and Also Fart Jokes. Both she and my brother are fully discovered as the most talented musicians in the world. And so is Ezra. Ambrose is an Olympic gymnast. Merry is an actress of great renown. Lucas is a hero, interior designer to the stars, and diplomat.

My lady will have a floral design/interior design/blogging/photography empire. Or she'll just travel the world. Or both. These are all guesses because the point is: She will have whatever the hell she wants. 

Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Junior Wells, Otis Rush and James Brown; Coltrane, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday; all these people are alive, and in their prime. Ike Turner never hit Tina, but they make the same music. Michael Jackson never got so fucking weird, or died.

Martin Scorsese and I collaborate on a screenplay. David Lynch still makes movies like Wild at Heart and not Lost Highway.

There is another Hellboy movie as good as the first one.

Nobody ever says "sammich" or "sammy" when referring to nature's most perfect food.

I went to art school and I learned to read music, and I get to be Mick Jagger (in the 1970s) whenever I want. I've written, I don't know, 10 books so far.

When I walk out my door, there is a salad bar that starts right there and extends the length of the world into infinity.

Meat can be reproduced in abundance without hurting animals. I have a beaded curtain of dried chorizo sausages outside my front door.

This front door of mine opens not just on a salad bar, but on the Pacific Ocean. Not hot-climate Pacific, more like Northern California.

Smoking DOES NOT kill you. In fact, it makes you stronger.

So welcome to my world, motherfuckers. (In this world "motherfucker" does not imply incest nor is it offensive unless I want it to be. Offensive that is).

Eric's Business Tips: Effectively Working from Home.

As I write this I am wearing a sports coat, and shoes. Yes, I don't have to --- I work from home. But I've learned that these and other small touches add an air of professionalism to the image I see in the mirror, and that makes me feel better about myself, and it helps me be more productive. I also make the bed and sit with my legs crossed. Another thing I've learned is to have meetings.

Meetings are one of the things I most miss about the corporate American workplace. They are an opportunity to draw out our interactions with people we don't like---to extend what could be a simple email exchange into an hour-long discussion. I only have the dogs to meet with mostly, so every Monday I reserve a cushion on the couch and we sit down, each of us with a typed agenda, and go through our plans for the day. Today Lydia offered to lick the same spot on her foreleg for twenty minutes. Cassie and I asked if we could count on her to slobber on the couch pillows as much as possible. We also need someone to follow me into every room in the goddamn house, and Cassie stepped up to the plate. Besides from having meetings, I also try to fashion my physical surroundings into a more professional environment.

Being in an office means sitting in the same spot for hours on end looking like you are doing more work than others. That second part of that isn't too hard around here. But the sitting part IS hard. I have A.D.D., and it's one of the reasons I don't do well in offices. I pace, I go the bathroom more often than I have to or should, I make endless cups of coffee. In offices I am anxious all the time people will begin to question the amount of time I don't spend at my desk pretending to work. So here, I pretend for the dogs. I'm actually even more disciplined at home than I have been in traditional work settings: I belt myself to the chair.

Last, I try to talk around the house as I would in an office setting. This afternoon I asked Cassie for an ETA. Lydia offered to have a quick download with me in the backyard. I sat endlessly scratching my own deliverables until they hurt. You're only as professional as you say you are.

Hell, my friend Jack Sartre said, is other people. Heaven can get lonely, mind you, but the coffee is better, and your boss is only ever as crazy, or unreasonable, or as much of a total worthless asshole as you.

Cold or cool?

Winter is a grueling and brutal slog through an endless cold nightmare in Minnesota, but Minneapolis itself is still very novel to me. There are five significant lakes interspersed between downtown and the various neighborhoods. Here is a picture from our walk with the dogs tonight around Lake of the Isles. And it was in fact quite warm.

Unisom.

Mind is on vacation

Eric's Best of YouTube.

A real big

A guy cut me off today. He was driving a pink car, a pink Ford PROBE. Calling him a dick seemed redundant.

Psych

It's pretty insidious how you can talk yourself out of things that are good for you.

People in 12-Step meetings always talk about self-sabotage and I always thought it was bullshit. If you've worked hard for something, for a long time, why would you throw it all away?

I made a flyer and Elizabeth printed 50 of them for me. (I'm starting a new venture, a departure).

I had a lot of places to be today, and I had the stack of flyers in the car, and it was interesting to observe how many reasons I found not to put them up. Someone might actually call...

You get used to the safe distance between you and the unattainable thing, the mind adjusts to it. Suddenly the bottom drops out and the mind claws for purchase, usually seizing on insubstantial fears. Fear is dumb. 

Mirror mirror

on the wall? Whose face is most asymmetrical of them all?

Pika.

Once I had the great fortune of knowing this little dog. He is missed.

For today

I've been working on this post for my new website, so I'm sorry, I've been seeing another blog on the side.

The Fifth Element.
We tend to forget how much the change in seasons affects us. The majority of us are not farmers, and our sustenance and livelihood don’t appear to depend directly on the cycles of nature, on seed, growth, harvest and frost. Nobody is disappointed about spring, of course. But it’s easy to think our relationship with the seasons stops there: Nice weather is pleasant, bad weather is unpleasant. Our life doesn’t depend on it. The Five Phase Theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) sees the arrival of spring and of other seasons quite differently... More

Discovery

Apparently this is how you know a mermaid has died.

April 1.

The kids put salt in my coffee and hid my keys. So proud...

Russia's greatest love machine.

(This is one of the hardest/most fun songs on Just Dance 2 for the Wii. Never realized how weird Boney M was until I found this video).

The History of Chinese Medicine: Fàng Pì

"When a disease invades the blood level, then retreats to the wei level and lingers before attacking the ying and the jing successively, only to then wander unpredictably throughout the body, it is a sign the pathogen has become confused by Traditional Chinese Medicine terminology and the prognosis is good."

This is only one of the many diagnostic principles outlined by Fàng Pì (280 to 310 A.D.) in his Highly Unusual and Seldom Effective Treatment Principles: A Needle in the Dark.

"When a patient arrives at death's door, he should be asked to pay up front," and many other such treatment principles were outlined during Pì's short career.

Fàng is also known for unique variations on established methods. For centuries the theory of "mother" and "child" organs, such as the liver and heart, stated that in cases of deficiency, strengthen the mother with tonifying herbs. In cases of excess, restrict the son.

"When a disease attacks an attractive female, the principle of drugging the husband should always be applied," Fàng wrote.

Fàng's methods fell into fashion because of their daring novelty. He was soon highly in demand among the wealthy nobility, particularly the wives of preoccupied dignitaries. But most notable was his work as a court doctor to the Emperor.

Fàng had written, "When the heart has been invaded by cold, but there is mist in the lung, heart hail will result. If not treated quickly, the hail Qi will descend to freeze the intestines." When the Emperor himself contracted an embarrassingly severe case of digestive trouble, Fàng Pì was summoned in the hasty effort to recruit experts from the kingdom's top physicians. His case study throws further light on this piece of history.      

"Mr. King, age 39, suffered an extreme case of frozen bowels. Upon initial examination, a sharp icicle, 12 cun in length, was found protruding from his anus. The most urgent course of treatment was reducing: in this case, reducing the practitioner's temptation to make any cracks about it. It looked like a tail." This initial examination was difficult: None but the Emperor's top ministers were permitted to look at the monarch and Fàng was forced to carry out his examination from three houses away.

"The patient was instructed to sit in a pot of boiling water for precisely 65 seconds while facing south," Fàng writes. "Then I told him to eat a snail. Unfortunately, the treatment was not successful." The king was known to posterity as The Standing Emperor.

Fàng Pì traveled extensively after this event leaving behind extensive notes, diagrams and case stories. He eventually met up on his journey with several of the Emperor's chief army officials. Bits of Pì are still being found all over China.

Question of the day

Why is Gonorrhea called "the clap?"

Several theories posted on yahoo answers, the best place to go for completely unreliable information, suggest the name references an early form of treatment: the penis was knocked or "clapped" together with two objects while the subject bent over, hoping the disease would simply be knocked loose.

In fact, the infamous "Clapper" was intended as a wireless version of this same treatment, only the manufacturers discovered it also turned the lights off. Unfortunately, every time someone uses the since re-purposed product, someone somewhere else in the world gets VD.

This is all I've got for today

A picture of a butt:

(  |  ) 


One with a beauty mark (or a dingleberry):

(  |.  )

Help, I swallowed a traffic cone:

( <  )

A pig's:

( @ )

Pretty graphic:

(  *  )


And now the money shot:

( $ )

So little.

Blanket City.

The kids built a blanket city they've slept in for two nights.

There are three bedrooms, and, a "Meditation Room."

but nevertheless: My Impending Brilliance

but nevertheless: My Impending Brilliance: "I've been slacking here this week. I've had a headache since Monday and now I have an earache. I'm pretty sure I have a brain tumor. But I h..."

My lady is funny. I really hope it isn't just the side effect of a brain tumor.

Spring Break.

Working parents know Spring Break isn't what it was back in college. Most of us take two or three days off from the job or work out elaborate kid-sharing arrangements with other moms and dads. Mostly there's a lot of cowering under a pillow with your laptop hoping to get two minutes' work done between arbitrating fights or saying, "oh, really?" with feigned interest when your ten-year-old explains in detail his triumph on the latest world in Super Mario Brothers. But I'm proud of my boys. Yesterday, without my even needing to say "use your imagination" when the kids were looking for something to do, Ezra conceived of a sort of live-action Sims challenge for Ambrose, who went along with it sometimes reluctantly but along with it nonetheless.

The contest rules. "You will have 30 minutes to survive."

Challenge 1: The farming quiz. Ezra found the questions online. Ambrose was totally confused by some of the questions about, for example, the regulation height of chicken enclosures, but he passed.

For the Farm Plan (#2) Ambrose simply drew a farm.

At work on the #3, the shelter.

#4 Ambrose carrying water from the river and pouring it into glasses using only a spoon.

I was trying to get some work done in between yelling at Ezra to stop being so impatient with Ambrose, who was getting really pissed about what really were very confusing directions ("You want me to draw a farm?" "No! A Farm PLAN. Just show like where the building is and where the fields are and everything." "So you want me to draw a farm.") and trying to encourage Ambrose to stick it out, which he did.

My reward was to let them spend the next several hours playing Wii and shocking their brain cells to death with waves of ultrasonic grating idiocy radiating from Sponge Bob through the TV.

Teach, your children well.

Happy Birthday, Indian Style.

It was Elizabeth's brother's birthday so this is what I posted on his Facebooks.

.

.

Sunday night.

Lying in the dark I type this with one finger realizing I forgot to blog. It was a good weekend: Ruby Tuesday has a fearsome salad bar, for one thing. It can't touch my lady's pot roast however. Ok my eyes hurt now. Keep your eyes off her roast. Out.

Side effects include going blind.

Thanks to Kelly and Jeff for introducing me to this fitness sensation.

Dream on Black Chicken, Dream on White Phoenix.

Please enjoy the translated titles of these gynecological medicines.

Wu Ji Bai Feng Wan
(Woo Gee Bye Fung Wahn)

"Black Chicken, White Phoenix Pills"

Wu Zi Yan Zong Wan
(Woo Zuh Yahn Zong Wahn)

"Five Seed Abundant Ancestors Pills"

Kang Wei Ling
(Kong Way Leeng)

"Excessively Limp Effective Remedy"

Battery power at 4%

Quick post something ok a picture

me and merry making pizza

Two weeks.

I need to know all of this by next next Monday.

Goodnews.

My dad came out of surgery very successfully. I hope that today every person has an opportunity to feel as lucky as me.

For those about to walk.

And when the light flashes it appears to rock.

The burning of items.

I always hated science. I enjoy reading summary details of research that has some bearing on my life, or that The New Yorker can convince me raises philosophical implications about the way we live. The results of science can be eye-opening. The details of science, the equipment and the math part of it and many scientists themselves, are eye-closing. So when we were told in 7th-grade science that we had to do a research project and present the results in front of the class I decided to put it off until the last minute. I consciously procrastinated it.

We could pick a partner, and me and Andy picked each other, maybe by default. I had got it in my head we would build a hot air balloon. We would use rubber balloons. We would find a way to hang candles off of them. In the abstract part of my mind I could really see the idea working. That is the part of the brain where cartoon physics apply. These are the only physics I understand.

The science teacher Ms. Johnson (I can still hear the way she tried to get control of the class, "Uh, you people....") required that we show official sources of research for the project so I took a book out of the school library about building flightless model aircraft using household supplies. It was just for the grade because really, we wouldn't be needing the book. The idea was solid.

The night before the project was due Andy and I had all the supplies spread out on my mom's dining room table, where normally we used Ouija boards or spent hours drawing medieval battles. And cartoons. Cartoons that I'm guessing would still be funny to me now, because my sense of humor stopped right there, at 13.

We tried several different ways of getting the stems of the balloons to stay open long enough to let the heat from the candles get through. I tried using toothpicks to stretch them open. Nothing was working. We turned to the library book for inspiration. Andy flipped to a chapter titled, "Build your own Hall of Fame."

For the next several hours, every time we hit an obstacle in planning our project one of us would say, "Maybe we should just, you know, build our own hall of fame." As the hours left to work on the project shrunk we were reduced to finding more ingenious ways of slipping that expression into the conversation. (Andy and I became Facebook friends about two years ago, 21 years later. His first message to me read something like, "Hey, Eric, you know what you should do? Build your own fucking hall of fame.")

We finally had something rigged together, a paper cup with a tea light in it suspended by strings from a balloon with its stem cut off. Someone lit a match. The balloon melted instantly. The next day we presented the results of our research titled "The Burning of Items."

Referencing a piece of oak-tag with columns labeled "crayon," "pencil," "potato chip," "action figure" Andy and I stood in front of the third-period science class in safety goggles holding tongs and a Bic lighter, marking down the time it took for various items to burn. I was the MC. "And now, a crayon... 20 seconds."

Kim Gambin, an angry little girl with red hair, freckles, and a penchant for calling people "faggots," was sitting in the first row of lab tables. "This project sucks!" she screeched.

"Uh... you people," said Ms. Johnson, still trying to restore order. But Kim was right. The project was scientifically proven to suck.

Mother's daughter.

Took the kids to the specialty toy store. Out of everything, Merry wanted this.

Cassie.

Look at my pretty doggie.

This is how we talk around the house.

Good bye, balls.

Dear balls:

I am drinking herbal tea as I write this. Herbal. Fucking. Tea.

If God existed and came down out of the sky and said I could do it without getting sick, dying or hurting anybody, I would not drink herbal tea. I would start the day off with a joint followed by the first of two packs' worth of Marlboros. I might have a bloody mary, or just some Baileys in my coffee for breakfast.

I'd take something to keep me awake until noon when I'd smoke another joint, finishing the day off with beers until evening. A nice stiff scotch after work, and a cigar. Another joint before bed. At least once a month, eat some mushrooms. If I could.

Can't. When I was forced reluctantly to quit drinking and taking drugs I held on to coffee and cigarettes with white-knuckled hands. I held on to you.

After I quit smoking (a few times) all I've really had left is caffeine. And now my very sensitive and delicate constitution has made it impossible for me to drink much of that anymore. I'm getting sledgehammer headaches every day if I don't drink coffee soon enough in the morning, or have it five minutes too late, or just because my body feels like fucking with me. There's the term "free buzz." I get free hangovers.

So here I am drinking herbal tea and mourning the loss of you, my balls. I'm putting you on the shelf in a little box along with my 20-year-old cassette tape of "Live Fast Die Young" by the Circle Jerks. It's time for James Taylor now, or some other neutered folk singer. Now it's Live Slow Die One Day at a Fucking Time.

Lo, It's time for the Dad Shorts and the fanny pack, the socks with sandals and those threadbare tee shirts that Dad Frumps, who are usually old, always seem to wear, promoting long-past and forgettable charity sporting events --- The Race for Rickets or something. The Mumps Walk. Canoeing for Cholera.

So good bye, balls. It was great while it lasted but it wasn't meant to be. It's not you, it's me.

2tired

Lloyd Christmas on love.

Sunday.

Merry was in rare form tonight. We went out to eat and on the way, I was telling one of my made-up stories (about the origin of the expression "full of baloney"). "Bo-ring" she interrupted from the back seat. At the restaurant I leaned down to tell her a secret. "Hey, watch the beard!"

Saturday.

Shamrock Shakes are back. Get one! This is not a sponsored post. I just want everybody to experience it.

Why to have children.

Hair today

A new challenge of sorts: She is getting bangs. I shall grow my hair long.

What's happening to me?

Since I cut down dramatically on caffeine I've noticed a very alarming thing happening to my body. My mouth keeps opening involuntarily and sucking in big gulps of air. There's an embarrassing vocalization as well. Someone told me this is called a "yawn."

I quit?

I had a headache all day and I'm pretty sure it's because caffeine and I no longer agree. However, looking up "caffeine addiction" has not been very encouraging. This fellow needs some.

I love the shirt.

Acceptance speech.

I am overjoyed, overjoyed, overjoyed, overjoyed to receive this award! I can't stop jumping! I almost dropped the microphone! It's hard for me to hold! Hold on a minute, I need to run around in circles. Happy! Happy! Happy! Ok excuse me. I hope you don't mind if I sit down a minute. Ok I'm done.

When I was first nominated for this award I --- sorry, hold on; goddamn ITCH ITCH ITCH --- well I didn't understand it. I still don't really understand it. Can I eat it? Is it a toy? Who cares!

Where were we? I'm hungry. Oh yeah. Award! So, thank you thank you thank you to the Academy. I'm tired.

What's that music. Is it time to go? OK. Let me just say there's a lot of other talented individuals who should've gotten this... this treat. Some of these individuals really have tremendous butts. I've, well I've smelled them. I won't lie. And they haven't hesitated to smell mine.

(Speaking of which, I hope you won't mind if I just scoot mine across the floor for a minute here. SOMETHING is stuck in there. Ok).

My relationships with my friends are a big part of my success. We have a hierarchy I guess, but not the usual pissing contest you see in Hollywood.

So thanks again to them. I'm happy to share. Grrrr not too much.

In closing I want to thank the Academy. Did I do that already? Winning Best Supporting Dog has always been a dream of mine. You like me! You really like me!

An Interview with the Author.

...Asked about the source material for his "blog posts" as he calls them, the infamous writer and society darling Eric Martindale said, "I guess it's the profound moments found in everyday life that strike me." Martindale takes another sip of his jasmine green tea and adjusts his monocle, an accessory he has inexplicably brought back into style.

"Just the other day, for example, I made a really good sandwich --- I mean a world-stopper of a lunch --- and I thought 'Hey, this is a story that needs to be told.'"

Through the open window I hear activity in the courtyard three stories below his apartment, which overlooks the trendy 3rd Arrondissement. Seeing the troupe of journalists and photographers arrive this morning a crowd had gathered, hoping for a look at Paris's favorite ex-pat.

"It's that kind of stuff that nobody, I mean nobody in the world, writes about. Or perhaps even understands the importance of caring about. For example one of the kids shit his pants last week. I wrote 20 carefully-crafted paragraphs on this poignant moment, the still frame in a living allegory of modern life. Nothing but silence from the critics." Martindale, however, settles comfortably into the role of misunderstood genius.

Quick with a tortured pose, staring intently at a blank page in his Moleskine for example, the lines in his brow like the battle scars of countless hours spent waiting for inspiration, waiting as the specter of human history's untold chapters whisper at his shoulder, begging to be born, we see a premonition of countless book-jacket photos to come. The world waits.

Quote of the day

"I hate this weapon! It hits me in the nuts. I'm gonna do it again."

Zuo Gu Shen Jing Tong Wan

Desperate, still studying up to the minute before the mid-term, I asked E to make up a mnemonic for this Chinese Patent Medicine formula (pronounced roughly "zwuh goo shen jing tongg juan"). It treats sciatica so I was especially interested in remembering it, not just for the test. Because she gets that sometimes.

"Zephyrs go sailing just to Washington?

My sciatica was acting up at the Zoo.
I sat down to rest in a pile of Goo
The shen of the sun
and the jing(le) of bells will always remind me
of borrowing tonggs from the Zookeeper named Juan.

Fuck. I don't know."

In the end I went with "zoo goo" and it helped. The formula happens to be made with monkey shit, so even better. (Just kidding. But there really are herbs made from cicada shells [treats aphonia], squirrel feces, a bear's gall bladder, even plants soaked in baby urine).

To Mom, Love All of Us.

My mom.

This covers about half of it:

Happy Birthday to my awesome mom. For those that don't know her she is: kind highly articulate funny delightfully dramatic the best storyteller musical inquisitive a true teacher and writer deeply spiritual takes great care of people she loves VERY smart. She's your biggest fan and best friend. You can't forget her. Thanks for keeping me afloat in more ways than 1 often thanklessly. Happy Birthday to my awesome mom.

Childhood Nightmares: Now in Traumavision!

Some idiot babysitter let me watch this movie as a kid and the thing that happens 1 minute and 13 seconds into this promo clip haunted me for years.



I wouldn't look through binoculars for the longest time. I remember staying up late at night in bed running the sequence over in my mind, trying to comfort myself that maybe it wouldn't be so bad learning to live with NO FUCKING EYES. I kept revisiting it, hoping if I faced it head on it wouldn't scare me so badly. I never knew what the movie was called because after seeing that part I hid under a blanket. I only just hunted it down recently. Turns out, from people's comments, that generations of other kids were totally fucked up by it too. We should form a support network. Guaranteed, group activities for our community would not include birdwatching.

Something's got to give.

When there's just too much happening at once, such as now, mid-terms, work, kids and three cub scout events three nights in a goddamn row, the chorus of this song always runs through my head.

You can have my heart - when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

I was going to write about my Valentines' Day present, which was a trip to the shooting range, but Elizabeth covered it better than I could. With as much accuracy as her target shooting. See here:

The only detail she left out of her superior writeup was the weapon we used, a  It was a Glock 9mm pistol. Oh and my own targets. Not as good as hers, but I got the job done:

Really this dude doesn't have anything to be smiling about. When I took a picture of this target tonight I realized just how creepy it is. Look at the slight tilt of the head.

If you know me, you know how I feel about zombies, and about shooting them (i.e., my obsession with Sega House of the Dead, which is largely what gave E the idea to go to the range). I was thrilled to find out you can buy zombie targets at the shooting range. You can also get Osama Bin Laden. And a combination of both: Clearly I need more training for the real zombie apocalypse, when only brains will count, but at least I would've shot the jaw off this zombie/terrorist.

Her heart, my head. Isn't this romantic?

We're looking at 20 inches right now.

Oh yeah, and there's also a blizzard.

Unlike some people i blog on saturdays!

From in between.

In American Gods there's a sequence where Wednesday and Shadow step behind the scenes to escape the bad men who pursue them. Behind-the-scenes as in behind the reality in which we play out our lives. Behind the scenes is a barren, alien landscape of smooth stone where rules don't quite apply. Reminds me of a dream I had.

In the dream everyone I knew was on a train, but I had somehow fallen through the space between the cars. Far from being on land, the silvery train in fact rocketed through a howling expanse of empty sky, a sky which was blindingly bright, and pale, and through which only a hint of the world below was visible in bland patches between insubstantial wisps of streaming cloud.

The wind and the sound of the train roared as I floated above, limbs thrown back, lifted and pinned and buffeted in the sky by roiling air, struggling so hard to dive back down again into the train for safety, having slipped out from between the cars.

Now I ask you: which life is real? Is it the train, with the appearance (or the fact) of a bottom, of sides, and of a top, a train traveling on a determined course? Or is it in fact the expanse of directionless, limitless sky howling imperceptibly outside? Hmm?

Angry birds, angry children.

I let Ambrose play Angry Birds on my phone when he was home sick today.

"Die pig!
I'll put revenge on you!
Uh oh... I have company."

Straight from the nothingness' mouth.

Stressful day. There were seemingly more things to do, all of them imminent, than I could possibly get done, and I'd been up until 2:30 last night after a 14-hour day.

Thoughts were moving fast, listing all the tasks and scrambling for clarity on getting them done. I decided to quickly consult Lao Tzu for an answer. I emptied my mind of thoughts and flipped to a random page in the Hua Hu Ching. Here's what it said:

"...Agitated effort is not necessary. Just be aware of the great Great Tai Chi."

It was calming to the point where getting things done no longer mattered. All was as it was. I settled into myself. It so happened that I got them done anyway.

FAIL.

I am posting this Wednesday with the date of Tuesday because I should've blogged Tuesday. Was up until 2:30 doing actual work-related writing, so...

Valentines Day.

Pho, Psych, gelato, zombies, Spartacus (blood, and sand) samoas.

"Mario Melodies:" An Original Arrangement of Themes from Super Mario Bros. by Ezra, Age 10.

From his public debut, February 12, 2011, for Chris Jones' Benefit for MacPhail School of Music at Butter Bakery Cafe, Minneapolis.

Clarification.

My mom was totally confused by the last post. It was about a faux pas. I originally posted the faux pas story as a comment on mommywantsvodka. I feel cheap reposting comments I've made. It's like when people say "I said the funniest thing yesterday" or forward you the hilarious email they wrote to someone else. But I wanted to tell the story. So if you think I'm cheap, or self-aggrandizing, well, so's your mom. (Not you Mom).

Faux pas: the comment repost.

It feels cheap to post comments I've put on other people's blogs on this blog. But I wanted to tell this story that made me laugh and cringe, so suck it.

Aunt Becky at Mommy Wants Vodka (one of my favorites) posted this bit about foot-in-mouth moments and some 70 people weighed in with their own stories, which I've been enjoying. Here was my own:

I hesitate writing this one because nobody will like me after but WTF right?

In college 2,000 years ago I had a group of friends who loved to play “The Dozens,” e.g., sling mom jokes. We graduated. (Not from mom jokes). Email had just been discovered and there was a chain going back and forth about, I dunno, getting together for drinks or something.

Background, there was a personal rivalry between me and “J” which sometimes got heated. Lately he had been at my mom (and no, I don’t mean “AT” my MOM) and I was out for blood.

The email chain was going back and forth. Someone pointed out the bad spelling in one of J’s responses. My fingers flew:

“J never learned English correctly because his mom used to staple his tongue to his forehead so he wouldn’t scream when she fucked him with her big, purple, cock.”

I got an email from just one friend seconds later: “Dude! My PARENTS were on that list!”

His parents were very Catholic and in their ’70s.

Perhaps they violated him with rosaries instead? Anyway. My foot has teeth marks from many subsequent faux passes. Thanks for sharing.

Which is a worse faux pas, reposting comments or commenting about purple cocks? I don't know. Go ask your mom. (If moms are a sensitive subject, and right there I've committed a meta-faux pas, PLEASE forgive. ALL moms are awesome. Especially yours. She's so enormous that...)


*One time we were on a road trip and a car pulling a speedboat passed and someone said "Hey Dave. Is that one of your mom's bath toys?" That still makes me shoot Mountain Dew out my nose.

The Zen of Wii.

You reach your weight goal, only to discover it was not the goal. The goal is another ten pounds lighter.

Tonight driving home

we passed "Dick's Sports" and Ezra said "Ew, dad don't ever shop there." Ambrose corrected him. "No Ezra," he explained quite earnestly, "that's just a place where they sell nut cups."

Blogging award.

Give it to someone else or to yourself. You know who you are.

The I Have Middle-Class Problems award.

A Latin word for balls?

"If my balls offendeth thee, cut them off," I said.

The reply was that balls always were offensive. I think this is the balls version of misogyny, the hatred of balls, and I set out to find a Latin word suitable. Misandry, Boboli, Misanthrope (since "humankind" has typically been referred to as "mankind"), Misorchiny, all these ideas were submitted. My favorite is my own. "Misotesti." It sounds like me so testy.

If this post offendeth thee you can suck my balls.

Philosophical question

A baby gorilla with his dad.

Can dads be as affectionate and physically nurturing of their kids as moms can?

(I hate the word "nurture" but it's too late for the fruitless myopic slog through the pages of the thesaurus).

Having to ask this question is one of the very few bad things about being male. No offense to the ladies, but it's not bad enough that I'd jump at the chance to switch genders. The number one reason for staying male is of course 1) My lady is not gay. But there are others:

2) I can not imagine carrying a squiggling organism around in my stomach for almost a year. I grew up watching Alien. 3) is the idea of that organism sucking on my nipples after it came out. For me nipples are one of those seldom-touch zones. If reincarnation exists I was some kind of political dissident in a past life who got this nipples shocked with a couple of clamps and the battery from a blown up Jeep. 4) I jumped ahead: between carrying and nursing this organism is pushing it out through a very small opening in my body in what, I'm sorry, I still can't think of as anything other than a screaming bloody mess*. And I've watched two of these things now. 5) Being pressured to have grown up playing with girls' toys. Along with the images of horror that stuck with me watching Aliens is the serial-killer's-dungeon image of the bedrooms of my friends' sisters growing up. Nude, armless Barbies lying face down on a dirty rug, their dead, dry, straw-like hair dyed shocking colors and pulled straight roughly from the holes in their heads. But I do envy the connection between mothers and their children.

I guess I can't get over the insecurity or self-doubt that parenting will always be a leap for me because it is not in my nature. As if really, I'm programmed to kill things and wander off in the woods, and being a dad is like being a dressed-up monkey.

I am affectionate with my boys. Ambrose is still so narrow and tiny his round-apple shoulders stick out over his skinny little arms, and he is likely, at random, to get crushingly squeezed many times throughout the day, perhaps even tilted back nearly upside down and kissed. Ezra retracts his shoulders so he can shrink as far as possible from my arms and makes his body dead. But he will still remind me if I forget to give him a good-night kiss. I don't hug my kids because I am especially kind or loving. It is as much a part of my nature as I suspect would be throwing spears at a boar.

I tell myself cave-men were softer and kinder than we think**. I think of those Emperor penguins where the dads take care of the babies. And I think of what a male Silverback gorilla would do if you tried to hurt one of his kids. Maybe the idea that fathers are less emotionally available is not something from nature. Quite the opposite. Maybe it's just a primitive idea humans made up.


*When my mom was pregnant with my brother she was going to Lamaze classes. One time she couldn't find a babysitter so I had to go. She told me we were going to watch a movie. A movie! I liked those. She said the movie was about childbirth, and that childbirth was the most beautiful thing ever. Movie, beautiful, Disney. I pictured technicolor birdies and butterflies. I got a woman screaming, sweat-streaked hair plastered to her anguished face, and so much blood.

**This picture materializes when I have this thought, of a caveman with his arm around his wife leaning down to pat his little mogwump affectionately on the head. He has this soft expression. But when I was little and it was the 70s I sneaked a look at that Joy of Sex book once, and around the same age I took a lot of trips to the Natural History museum with its primitive man dioramas, and the memories got mixed up in my confused childhood mind so I have to stop the diorama caveman from turning into the hairy Joy of Sex dude in my imagination because I don't want to be that guy. He was enough to put me off procreating altogether.

A caveman and his lady.

My childhood impression of childbirth.

Actual childbirth.

The Joy of Sex dude and his lady.

Kris Kristofferson.

Saturday 2/5/11.

Made a fire with this morning with E, played House of the Dead and earned enough money to upgrade my gun, cleaned the house, took the kids to a Chinese New Year celebration with lion dancing, kung fu demonstrations, a tai chi story activity for kids, fortune telling, fan making, the kids got their names translated into Chinese characters on bookmarks they got to take home, had Thai food with E and her mom, sat in front of the second fire of the day talking, and now it's time for bed good night.

The wisdom of Kanye West.

I thought I should listen to some Kanye West because I'm behind on popular culture and I do like the hip hop genre. On eMusic they have My Beautiful Dark and Twisted Fantasy. I just listened to a sample now and then I had to check on Google to see if I had misheard the lyric "No more drugs for me / PUSSY AND RELIGION IS ALL I NEED." No, I heard right. I... just don't know what to say.

Ding.

A point goes to me, being very Tai Chi about angry text message from children's mother.

2:18 pm.

(This country needs less prayer and more breakfast).

2:15 pm.

If you are a politician and you attend something called a "prayer breakfast" you must be pandering to somebody because that sounds awful.

Do NOT let prayer get in the way of eating your mutha fuckin pancakes.

This is getting old, and so am I.

Last night I cried out like a girl* and snuggled up against Elizabeth because I had a nightmare**.

In the nightmare I was looking for my dog's dog dish and this person I couldn't see said, "It's in here."
"Here" was a dark room. All of a sudden I was face down and the disembodied person had put the dog dish on my back. I couldn't get it off and I woke up screaming.

*I am a sexist. Last night I told Elizabeth the only reason she won Wii Boxing was because she threw "pussy punches," which apparently Nintendo favors over the brutal, swift and punishing force I meted out in a hailstorm of blows which in real life would have won the fight. She got mad. I told her I was sorry, it was insecurity. How would SHE have felt, I said, if I had beat her at, I didn't know, Wii Flower Arranging?

**Who gives a shit about someone's dreams? I'm sorry. This is the third post of one and another posts about the midnight slurry of my mind.

But back to the dream. A dog's dish? Really?

Third life.

"I am the dreamer, you, are the dream."

What if life really is one big giant video game. My kids play video games. They're always looking for things called "cheats" they find on YouTube, tricks letting you transcend a seemingly impossible level in Marble Blast Gold.

The following is a philosophical question, I don't have an answer: Are there cheats in this life?

In a dream, realizing you are dreaming is a cheat. There must be a waking equivalent...

On the subject of dreams, I can't wait to fall asleep tonight.