Illuminated

How many paper airplanes must one make before the inner child is utterly raw from all the healing? Because humans are quite unlike trees in that the layers of skin below are not genesial tissue, but new cells, so that PHYSICALLY touching the child-you remains nearly impossible, that person having departed long ago.

I suppose the exception would be hair (and in bizarre cases, fingernails). I attended school with a redheaded girl whose mother, due to their brand of apostolic faith, never allowed her to cut her hair. It reached to her ankles, perhaps the loveliest sight you might ever have seen when released; the ends were there with her when she was a child. You could imagine a scientific technique for counting, like so many tree rings, lengths of that hair to determine her age; years of plenty where the color still shines vibrant, years of famine at thin points, perhaps barely perceptible brittleness if one were allowed to run his fingers through those years and those lengths and those Pentecostal strands.

Where to begin? Is what I would have asked had I been granted permission, but like so much of what endures beautiful in this world, she kept her hair tied up almost always. Nearly always.

The book, unfortunately, does not answer these questions directly, merely stating that one could potentially fold 100 planes from the paper inside.

I like this folding of paper, I've seen it enjoyed before, in other provinces. I like the repetition, though I hear the crispness of crumbling paper exhorted most often as the sugar cube motivation. I am enamored more of the routine, however. Yes, routine. Some people find it comforting.

But I will admit that following a weekend in perpetual fog, I feel like my path has been illuminated somewhat, although the path illuminated not one I can actually take. It's such a lovely vista, though, that I think I might follow it for a few steps, smell the air, maybe write a few words into one of these paper airplanes and let her fly. The world record aloft is less than 30 seconds. I can tarry at least that long.

Inner Children

In this week's installment of Day Three to a Better Me ©, I tackle mankind's ages old quest for healing the inner child.

But, again, I don’t actually want to put a whole lot of time into this.

And in searching for a suitable book on Amazon Dot Com whose Table of Contents I could browse without actually READING, I became distracted by duck factoids, namely how researchers have discovered that the world’s funniest animal is the common duck. I then became clued into a mysterious urban legend which holds that the duck’s quack HAS NO ECHO.
And no one knows why.

(The preceding phrase, of course, a requisite for any urban legend worth its salt:

Donkeys never have blue eyes, and NO ONE KNOWS WHY.
The Chinese almost never buy American-made calendars, and NO ONE KNOWS WHY.
Touching your genitals feels good, and NO ONE KNOWS WHY.)

Of course, by this time, the blue collar factory where I work blew the quitting-time whistle, I slid down the tail of the dino-crane, and by the time I hopped into the Flintmobile, I realized I had not found a suitable book.

So I had to rely on whatever stock I had at home.

Chapter 1: Choose a Weapon

Chapter 2: Build It

Chapter 3: Fuel Up

Chapter 4: Soar

Chapter 5: Destroy

Chapter 6: Find a suitable sunset

Leafhoppers

Today I recall epic battles with an unseen enemy, some 25 years past. I remember conversations with convenient store strangers about my last name and finding footprints outside the bathroom window when I was 6 and the man of the house, but the face of the counselor escapes me. I remember that moment reading from my mother’s psychology book about identity and consciousness and thinking, ‘I am alive. This is who I am.’ I don’t remember what we talked about, or if the counselor was a man or a woman. Or what the room looked like, or how I felt or what questions I might have been asked.

I remember that my sister had different sessions, and she told me the secret was to tell them what they seemed to want to hear; to cry a little, but not too much. And to hold the giggles inside until you were well clear of the car. I remember seeing such horrible things before, questions that the counselor never even asked me about, because I certainly would have remembered talking about those things. Things that I spent years waiting to talk about, but it’s not the sort of thing you bring up on first dates and cross country trips with your study abroad mates. And I wonder where this person got his or her crib sheet. Because we could have made quick work of the hourly rate.

“You didn’t really want to kill yourself, though.”

“No. I shouldn’t have said it. I was just trying to upset her. That sure backfired.”

She didn’t want attention.

Clue #1
I notice that she’s not looking at me, not with eye contact. I can only guess I’ve been acting a little strange again.

‘Was it something I said?’

There’s no way to ask this without coming across as insecure, helpless, ignorant. But it has to be determined, because it will burrow underneath the surface of the skin like a leafhopper, probing for sap.

‘Was it something you heard?’ is always the better approach. That takes the onus off of you. Collective guilt is so much better when shared.

Clue #2
I ask him to draw the house, as he imagines it.

When you're a child, apparently, you think a hallway is a tunnel to another place entirely. You don't conceive that the living room is actually right next to the bedroom, that the two rooms actually share this wall, that this is why the yelling seems so close. If you were to draw a map of how you imagined your childhood home, it would be one room separated by a tunnel, with infinite space in between.

This is how I know that recreating those memories is an exercise in spatial futility.

Clue #3
The numbers get me coming and going, like train schedules. If Amtrak leaves Seattle headed south at 60 mph and another Amtrak leaves San Francisco headed north at 70 mph, how many people will die when the trains collide ‘cause the scenery is so wonderfully distracting at Crater Lake?

She doesn’t laugh at my story, even though I am in the top 2%, and I wonder, ‘How can I be so much more vain at 30 than I was at 18?’

I wonder.

Dizzy

spiderbabies2

"Does anyone here know how to make a martini?"

And with that, the evening reached its dizzying conclusion.

The end.

Day Three, A New Me

pseudoscorpion

Chapter 8 - Principle 4: Challenging the Food Police

When it comes to the so called Food Police, I suppose you could say I'm of the Ice-T school of thought. In short, I have little respect for the badge unless it's attached to a weapon, and then just replace the word respect with fear, and that's pretty much what I'm saying. What is respect, though, but fear? You respect someone because you are afraid they might leave you otherwise, or afraid they'll have their feelings hurt when you admit their ideas are nonsense, or fear they'll club you. Fear is no different from love. This is how A Better MeZ© (thanks, Lynn!) challenges the Food Police.

Moreover, I challenge the Food Police because I believe there should be no policing of foodstuffs. Food should be available to all. Food should be free. Most importantly, food should be exempt from regulation. People should be able to eat whatever they like in whatever quantities suit their fancies. Except for meat. People should stop eating animals. And they should eat healthy portions. And the FDA should check my fish for mercury/dolphin content. EXCEPT WHEN I CHOOSE TO EAT DOLPHIN. People should stop eating crack. Why don't the Food Police do something about that?

Telling your wife that you are on a mission to lose 1 1/2 pounds is like liberating a country that doesn't like you very much. You can agree to disagree, but really, you're holding all the bombs, and the other person isn't going to honestly tell you to go suck it, even if she knows it's for her own good. But she WILL undercook your Eggs Benedict and smile while you vomit all over the back deck.

Here are some other analogies to liberating a country that doesn't like you very much:

= rescuing a saltwater crocodile from its zoo enclosure
= handing out water balloons at a funeral
= any lesson that involves connecting a car battery to one's testes
= hiring a stripper for the Pope's birthday party
= falling in love with someone doesn’t love you back, and then donating a kidney to her alcoholic boyfriend

So, in essence, what I mean is that I was unable to lose 24 ounces (in three days) by reading (only the chapter headings) from “Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that Works.” This book, in fact, does not work (in three days). This book is a total waste of time (if followed for only three days). This book will actually cause you to GAIN weight (if followed for only three days while reading nothing more than the chapter headings).

And, yet, somehow, I feel like I’ve learned something new. What I've learned is that this book is a total waste of time (if followed for only three days), and that's gotta count for something. And I'll tell you what it counts for, it counts for A Better MeZ©.

For two years I’ve used this blog as a forum to tear myself down. I'm done with razing. It's time for raising. Let the rebuilding begin. Consider these words the cornerstone for the coming, giant erection.

carrot

I was well on my way to losing those BURDENSOME 24 ounces today (frankly, all I really had to do was skip the morning 40) when the self-help book I picked, “Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works,” decided it had other plans for A Better Me ©.

Chapter 11 – Principle 7: Cope With Your Emotions Without Using Food

Obviously, the authors of this book have never had A. Children, or B. EMOTIONS.

FOOD = EMOTION.

Hell, every kid who ever owned (or stole from the wealthy boy who lived up the street during his 7th Birthday ExtravaganzAaron) KNOWS THAT.

In fact, not only is this advice useless in terms of weight loss, IT CAN POTENTIALLY GET YOU FIRED.

/cue the ducks

Exhibit A.

SCENE: COMPANY SPEECH

Me: My wife begged me not to make any horse jokes out of respect for Barbaro, but I says, “Honey, it’s okay! I hear the horse is in STABLE condition!”

Much laughter and applause.

Me: /attempts to use restroom following speech.

Unnamed co-worker who always seems to stop me just as I reach the restroom: “Hey, B!”

Me: /tries to use mind force to implant the following thought into above person’s head: THESE AREN’T THE DROIDS YOU’RE LOOKING FOR. HE CAN GO ABOUT HIS BUSINESS.

Unnamed co-worker: /shakes head and says: ~ blah blah blah ~

Me: /tries mind force again

Unnamed co-worker: ~ inanities ~

Me: /wonders if crossing legs while standing, then collapsing onto floor will make any difference

Unnamed co-worker: ~ HISTORY OF MY LIFE, AGE 7-11 ~

Me: /spots carrot on food tray, uses it to express my need to make wee-wee

Unnamed co-worker: “Oh. Why didn’t you just say? Pfft.”

Me: /has waited too long. Must make wee-wee on toilet sitting down. Sobs quietly, but with honor.

END SCENE

Exhibit B

SCENE: HOME UNIT

Tristan: We made GAK today from starch and glue.

Me: Really? This is cool! Did all the kids get GAK?

Tristan: Yeah, except for Curtis. He was doing inappropriate things with his goo.

Me: IT’S PERFECTLY OKAY TO EXPRESS YOUR EMOTIONS WITH FOOD!

Tristan: We’re not allowed to eat glue.

END SCENE

TOTAL DAY 2 WEIGHT LOSS: 3 OUNCES

Self-Improvement

I will not allow my near-flawless perfection get in the way of partaking of that most American of traditions: commercially marketed self-improvement regimens. So over the next year month time yet to be determined, I will engage in a series of self-help projects that will undoubtedly result in a better me©.

And yet, I cannot imagine putting in a lot of time into a self-improvement regimen, because that would be, uh, dumb (“Improve Your Vocabulary” is on the agenda). So in order to avoid being dumb, I will accomplish all my goals within three days. I call it “Day 3 to a Better Me.” (If you decide to play along, you will need to call it “Day 2 to a Better You,” because otherwise it’s not as catchy. But you can still take three days if you’d like, loser).

Admittedly, I’ve become quite good over the years at succeeding when I set my mind to self-improvement. Some time ago, for example, I decided I needed to lose some weight. So I came up with a diet based entirely on beans and rice, one of my favorite dishes. The trick for me was that I could ONLY eat beans and rice…

/cue the ducks

1999

Day 1: Eats 8 bowls of beans and rice. Bloats. Total weight loss: -2 pounds.
Day 2: Eats 8 bowls of beans and rice. Contorts. Total weight loss: -3 pounds.
Day 3: Eats 6 bowls of beans and rice. Grimaces. Total weight loss: -2 pounds.
Day 4: Eats 1 bowl of beans and rice. Blech. Total weight loss: 1 pound.
Day 5: Won't look at anything resembling beans and rice. Total weight loss: 3 pounds.
Day 6: Sleeps all day. Total weight loss: 5 pounds.
Day 7: Tries to eat spoonful of rice alone to recover rapidly fading strength. Vomits. Total weight loss: 8 pounds.

Cumulative weight loss: 10 pounds.

Success!

Day 8: Eats four roasted chickens.

/end dream sequence

Since that time, however, I have eaten enough to where I am technically 1 ½ pounds overweight for my age, height and geographical proximity to the Ford Modeling Agency. So I have decided that my first self-help project should be to shed those burdensome 24 ounces.

I believe in myself.

But again, I’m not going to spend more than three days on this.

So the first step was to identify a self-help book, and the one I selected was one titled, “Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that Works.” The first thing I noticed about this book was that I LOVED the title, because losing 1 ½ pounds will require NOTHING SHORT OF BLATANT HYPERBOLE. I think the only other titles that could have rocked harder would have been something like, “How Dropping Your Added Weight will End the World’s Child Sex Slave Industry,” or “Meatless Tuesdays: How Americans Defeated the Nazis by Losing Weight.”

Unfortunately, while I’m sure “Intuitive Eating” is indeed REVOLUTIONARY, I don’t actually have time to read it, so I’m really basing my regimen on the Table of Contents alone, and then only the first page, because I used up all my previous Amazon.com ‘Search Inside!’ clicks on another book (“A Passion for Lingerie” – lame).

And, of course, since I only have time to follow three steps, I will base my regimen on only three chapter titles.

Chapter 9 – Principle 5: Feel Your Fullness

Pfft. No problem.

I feel the fullness in me, the throbbing, writhing, shiny fullness, and know that I am well on my way towards a better me ©, but I also feel ashamed and filthy. I never knew being 1 ½ pounds overweight would be such a heavy burden, a dirty secret, and now the fullness is gone, replaced by the bitter emptiness of a failed Day One. An emptiness that can only be filled with boxed wine.

Monday Tuesday Filler

I would never tempt fate with irony too delicious to pass up.

For example, I would never try to raise money for drowning prevention programs by swimming the San Francisco bay, or money for burn victims by setting myself on fire, or money for PETA by dowsing myself in bacon grease and sticking my head into a lion’s mouth.

Well maybe the last one, ‘cause PETA makes a damned fine pair of sandals.

But I would tempt the fates by engaging in a three-day self-improvement plan. Because self-improvement that takes longer than a week offends fate with its oxymoronity. Tomorrow, I will begin a weight loss program.

* * *

The season of inspiring the top 25% of Americans upon us, I have this to say to those legions of semi-renowned glitterati whose commencement fees did not but barely break the speaker’s fee budgets across campuses nationwide: Find your own humility.

Find your own passion, learn from your own mistakes, overcome your own goddamned adversity, honor your own heroes, and for Christ’s sake, LEAVE YOUR BOILERPLATES AT HOME NEXT YEAR.

Although who am I criticizing? My one creative goal in life is to be respected as a blog writer.

* * *

And, of course, to indulge in the occasional stick figure porn.

The Struggle to Make Naya Clean Her Room

Me: Naya, is your room clean, yet?

Naya: When I left you I was but the learner, now I am the master.



Me: Seriously. Your room. Clean it up.

Naya: YOUR POWERS ARE WEAK, OLD MAN!



Me: Naya, don't make me get your mother.

Naya: DON'T MAKE ME DESTROY YOU!



Me: Alex, our daughter has been replaced by a monster!

Naya: NO! I AM YOUR DAUGHTER!



Alex: She von't leesten to me, either. She eez more machine now than baby.



Me: Naya, I'm serious. I'm not going to fight with you

Naya: IF YOU WILL NOT FIGHT, THEN YOU WILL MEET YOUR DESTINY!



Me: WTF? That's it! Get over here, you little sh--

Naya: Time out, daddy. This mask is itchy.



Me: Mmm. Alex, I told you this little girl was evil.

Naya: You were right. You were right about me. Tell my brother, you were riiiight...

Lipo Sucks

Two weeks ago we took our little dachsund/shi-tzu mix, Mila, into the vet to remove two lumps from her belly. As I was writing the vet a check for $587, I asked,

“So, how soon before we know if it’s cancerous?”

“It’s not cancer. She’s fine,” he said nonchalantly.

“Zat’s good news!” said Alex. “Vut vuz eet?”

“A lipoma,” said the vet, handing our dog to us and walking off.

“Lipoma?” Alex asked when we got into the car.

“Fat,” I said, rolling my eyes. “We just gave our dog liposuction.”

Mila wagged her tail.

“Awww! Look how happy she eez! I vonder if she had poor self-image?”

“Poor self-image? She licks her own cooter! She doesn’t have an esteem problem!”

“Maybe she lick cooter because she feel dirty and ashamed.”

“I just paid $600 to give my dog liposuction! I’m the one who feels dirty and ashamed! You don’t see me licking my own cooter!”

“Eet’s not for lack of trying.”

You Turn, I Turn, We All Scream

tern

I used to hate myself in my writing in a manner I've somehow lost, a self-deprecation that bordered on obnoxious and regularly crossed that frontier in search of illegal labor called sadism. Yet I've taken lately to criticism of others in a way unlike that former self, whose heart once bled roughshod over the imagined recollection of a croquet game played by step-sisters and half-sisters, emceed by my old man, everyone dressed in white. You can recognize the throes of this fantasy if you pass me on the way to work, driving a little too slow for those with jobs to do; I begin to mouth an apology for some crime I never committed, but then the part of me that controls keeping my food down intervenes.

And so I've been better, and surer, and aware of some previously unrecognized talent, and that distresses me, because self-esteem has always eaten holes in my psyche before, like so many renegade prions. But I'm not quite ready to return to those depths, the laughter of late far too effective a veneer, good GOD IT KEEPS OUT THE COLD. The best laughter at others' expense, except I've a history of jumping to the defense of offended parties, unless those offenders are friends of mine a-betting. Not a double-standard, I tell myself, a GOLD STANDARD.

Razor-cut lines of laughter, HO HO, a little numbing of recent dreams. Funny lines, like this I still don't understand, “Have we developed a material immune from heat? I would think we could land it on the sun, a prism with our flag. So that all the world would have to be reminded of our light,” followed by a wish. One wish, but once that wish expires I must dive headfirst into Satan's koi pond, to sink to depths of God knows how deep, never to reemerge. The dream always ends with me waking, the sensation of drowning in warm sand. I guess I know how my subconscious decides.

I remember that feeling where you don't know whether to grasp with all your might and take control, or fall into yourself and surrender, let your face be smothered in kisses until you're so hot that force is finally the only option, and light filters through clouds, through skyscrapers and finally through curtains to find you even in these depths of only God knows how deep.

Please Don't Eat the Allium

It’s not like I’m a complete neophyte when it comes to older women, but only now, with the gray very nearly on even terms with the brown has the intimidation waned instead of wanted.

I hate remembering this.

She motioned towards a photo. Her, apparently, almost obviously, several years back. I nearly blurted out what I was thinking, 'Wow. Is this you? You were gorgeous.'

But it’s a trap. Because if I say what I’m thinking, it means I’m implying that she's less so now.

She’s not, though.

Dawn still broke behind her eyes, as Dylan Thomas once wrote, of those remaining places where no sun shines.

So instead I said, “Who’s the goat sack?”

* * *

I’m getting better at hiding my alcohol addiction, though, in fact, the problem grows, the pace much faster, as Ogden Nash might quip, candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.

Sure, you don’t NEED alcohol, I said. But there are plenty of things with which you’re better off dead. Clothing and shelter and food, to name three. Indeed, too much of the second and you’ll live, die or flee.

* * *

We sing sin. We thin gin.

But we don’t hang with our wild doppelgang.

Turkeys and horses and pigs, dogs and cats and even figs,
Each with versions domestic and wild, wicked when old and precious when child.

But when you’re through singing songs of sin, let me in on the secret Gwen, how come there ain’t no feral hen?

* * *

Earlier in the day, I tried to find the Sheraton in town, and so I stopped and asked a little guy on the sidewalk for help, who told me,

"Pacific is the path to the Sheraton. Pacific leads to 15th, 15th leads to Broadway, Broadway (dramatic pause) leads to the Sheraton."

I think his name was Yoda.

Past Time

When my dad left back in ‘76 or so, around the time of the great American Bicentennial (DOUBLE THE PLEASURE DOUBLE THE FUN, MY FRIENDS), I went out in search of new paternal inspiration, still being highly imprintable (sic), and the new parent I found a couple years later beat me up ten times as bad as the original, and that old man's name was baseball.

But baseball got right to the point, not fucking around with a tearful Christmas here and there, a sober moment at a birthday gathering, a tousling of the hair during some lesson about how to tie your shoes. Baseball knocked me flat on my ass right from the get-go, sparing the pretensions.

The very first time Coach threw a ball at me, I wound up with a bloody lip. The very first at-bat resulted in what’s known as a 'brushing off of the plate,' quite a remarkable pitch for someone who was 6-years-old. The next pitch smacked me square in the helmet. ‘Head hunting’ they called it, and still they do.

I got up, woozy and crying, though I wasn't unhappy. The hit was like an awakening, and I hate to admit my deviant tendencies but what the hell, I once spent an entire day talking about teabags, but I LIKED it.

Baseball isn’t the father who taught me pain, but he’s sure as hell the one who taught me to ENJOY it.

And when I stood up to complete my at-bat the umpire told me I got to go to first base, and it was like that sugar pill in the mouse maze (I have come to find since then that life has so many sugar pills and that there are so many mouse mazes and some pain is so delectable and precious that you would do well not to regret the valleys in my presence, unless you’re looking for a Lincoln-Douglas SMACKDOWN).

In short, I was smitten.

And by ’86 or so, around the time of the great Texas Sesquicentennial (A PARTY AND A HALF, MY FRIENDS), I became the guy who always got hit. I would watch kids ducking out of the way of the high and tight fastballs and I would think, WHY?

I never jumped out of the way in 13 years worth of ball.

Although records like this weren't kept, I'm pretty sure I was hit more during my junior year of high school than anyone in the history of the Southeast Missouri Bootheel. I'm pretty sure that's why I was named captain of the team. I’m pretty sure that’s why I didn’t quit the team when I got by at home on a series of Texas leaguers and sacrifice flies.

I quit two games into my senior year, instead, after a summer where I turned my traveling team coach into a genius, where I made the paper every week with another game-breaking RBI, another multi-hit game another streak unbroken.

And not a single HBP.

* * *

The other day I brought my gear out for a picnic and Tristan picked up a glove and started playing catch with someone or another and I noticed he couldn't really catch the ball all that well. And I thought, well that's the double-edged sword of custodial fatherhood. It really gets in the way of a young boy's game. I mean, what the hell does he have to prove? I love the ever-living Christ out of him.

So I took him out to the diamond near our house and with a REAL ball and a REAL mitt and REAL determination, and I put a little pepper on that first toss, and it smacked him square in the face.

I still feel awful about this but I laughed when it happened, and he screamed 'DON'T LAUGH AT ME!' and then my heart sank, and goddamn my central nervous system but I kept laughing, INVOLUNTARILY, MIND YOU, even as I tried to give him comfort and encouragement, all of which was negated by my MAD INCESSANT SADISTIC LAUGHTER.

But I LIKE TO BE HIT, I wanted to say, realizing how sick this sounds. It's flat out bizarre is what it is.

Secret: It's not just baseball. No woman has ever slugged me in the shoulder and not had me fall head over heels in love with her, even if momentarily. If you want to win my heart, all you have to do is get about a three or four foot running start and put your entire weight behind your tiny fist and plow it into my arm and you will see the cartoon hearts coming out of my head. I bet I’m not alone. You should try it with that guy you're interested in. Next time you see him, don't say 'hi' and curl a lock of hair around your finger coyly. Get right to the goddamn point. Just flat out deck him.

Nine times out of ten, you’re golden. EVERY now and then the person will press charges, but that's a good analogy.

Sometimes love, no matter how well intentioned, is little more than a Class C Misdemeanor.

The microwave is not simultaneously a heating/storage unit. Please remove your 'food' items, ho-bag.

ho-bag

Like all office imbroglios, it started with a can of diet pop.

Human beings were not intended to share kitchens.

I know this because as someone who does not actually eat, I have plenty of time to observe those who do. Specifically co-workers. In several of my last places of employment, the most passive-aggressive behavior I ever witnessed took place not in the boardroom, but in the kitchenette.

/cue the ducks

Passively, aggressively, covertly, Co-Worker A (We'll call her Anne) began to exact her revenge upon Co-Worker B (We'll call her Anne, too, because that was her name) by taking, once per week, on nonspecific days, Anne's Diet Pop from the communal kitchen refrigerator.

People, this story will eventually prove that refrigerators are bad ideas at work, because honestly, adults do not play well together. Adults, particularly American adults, are among the world's biggest babies. They are, too, dummy.

Anne responded to that first theft with as much restraint as I've ever seen, "WHO'S THA SKANK THAT TOOK MY DIET COKE?" she asked during the benefits meeting.

One person snickered, but Anne couldn't locate the source among the 150 staff members present.

Anne then responded by labeling her diet pops with little stickers that at first said, "Anne's," then slightly bigger labels marked "ANNE'S," and then finally duct tape with the letters scraped out by an exacto knife, "I"LL MURDER YOUR FETUS, BITCH."

But the thefts continued to the point where Anne was practically a roving office, never at her desk for more than a minute at a time, always walking past the kitchen to check on her diet pop.

It really didn't matter. Anne always had one diet pop stolen until she had become fair worthless as an employee, and not much better as a human being.

By this time, pretty much everyone was taking sides, participating in the carnage. Teams pretty much fell along union/non-union lines. I'm pretty sure I became a suspect when I quit the union, but by that point I was pretty much drunk every day by noon-thirty, and no one steals booze from the refrigerator, in any case.

The funniest incident was when someone complained via the company intranet about how filthy the refrigerator was and how people needed to remove their foodstuffs, particularly those packages of Wrapples and Waffelos, since both products stopped being made in the late 1970s.

(Other items in the refrigerator that I’m not sure are still manufactured include:
Scooter Pies
Hydrox Cookies
Koogle
Underwood Deviled Ham
Tab
Steak-Umms
Mug O' Lunch
Hot Fries
Hoots
Lik em aid
King Vitamin Cereal)

Anyhoo, after the complaint, someone decided this was the green light for emptying the refrigerator of all its belongings every Friday at 1, and the first week people had to dig entire Tupperware sets and thermoses emptied into the trashcan.

Teachable moments abounded.

Which makes perfect sense being as how we were all educators.

For Fun and Profit

cock

One of the nice benefits of having published a book or two is that drunken friends and family look to you as an expert of sorts, willing to adhere to any and all prescriptions that tickle your fancy.

Unnamed Relative, Twice Removed: Brandon, you wrote that book about paying for college, right? How do I get a grant for my nephew so that he don’t have to pay for learnin’?

Me: Oh that’s easy. All you gotta do is write a letter to the Undersecretary of the Interior claiming that the Clean Water Act resulted in your nephew developing webbed toes. It’s our hidden code-speak for all those free-ride scholarships that go unclaimed every year.

Relative: Really?

Me (Too drunk to say ‘No, I’m kidding.’): Yeah.

HOWEVER, HAD I KNOWN THE POWER OF SELF-HELP AUTHORSHIP, I SURE AS HELL WOULD HAVE PICKED A LIVELIER TOPIC.

Additionally, I’ve also come to realize that adding ‘FOR FUN AND PROFIT’ to the end of a book title is like GOLD, only better, because people will do all sorts of crazy things FOR FUN AND PROFIT whereas most folks pretty much balk or call the authorities when I try to pay in bullion.

/cue the ducks

Relative’s Suddenly Mature Niece: Hey, didn’t you just write a new book?

Me: Yes. Yes, I did.

Relative’s Suddenly Mature Niece: What’s it called?

Me: ‘Show Me Your Boobs: For Fun and Profit.’

Relative’s Suddenly Mature Niece: Really? Can that be profitable?

Me: Don’t forget fun!

SCENARIO TWO

Niece’s Girlfriend: You wrote a follow-up, too, right? What was that book called?

Me: ‘Teabagging: For Fun and Profit.’

Niece’s Girlfriend: What’s teabagging?

Me: There’s a diagram on page 38.

Niece’s Girlfriend: /flips to page 38, disgusted look

Me: Well, those aren’t MINE.


Kinks: Still a few to work out.

Mother's Day Post

Preface:

I’m the son I fear to raise.

The first poem I ever wrote, all of 5 years old, was to my mother. We were the poorest family in the neighborhood, but happy, so the poem spoke of flowers and puppies and endless, sunny fields.

This has always been a difficult time of year.

I gave up poetry years ago, trading in that old anthology for journal notes, lost counseling sessions. And tickets to faraway lands. I could string my Christmas tree with train stubs alone.

This weekend Katie asked me to participate in a Mother’s Day event. For each comment, we will each make donations to a specified charity. I have chosen this organization, as a way of returning a gift to a very dear friend. But I would hope you would also find it fitting to leave comments over here, as well.

When it was lightning-sparked, mass of single cells, and splitting in primordial seas, perhaps one came too close to those oxygen-enriched rays, and forgot life’s formula for solitary conferment. Until blinded, intoxicated, unsteady, collided into another, so that the secret was shared. Nature’s first conspiracy. Our first true child, an image of co-creators. A trinity, of the father, the son and a mother.

Mankind’s day, moment of shared secrets, whether stolen or coerced. A missed opportunity, I think, the lost chance for peace. But there is both God and Heaven in the newborn cries. I’ve heard husband reduced to silence when bearing witness to those delivery room cries, or perhaps lost ascension to a throne that should now be shared.

I came thus, they think, their wives bowed under pain, the oldest of covenants. I came thus, they faint, sometimes, the light of energy bares every dark corner of the room. I came thus, they even cry, salt water in the corners of their eyes, no different from that first sea of consecration. I came thus, and they often forget, or ashamed, and strike out against both the secret and the alibi.

What have I done?

Not life, an art yet mastered by single cells, where division remains the only path to creating life in one’s own image.

But something more, some impossible burden, an agreement. And one not so easily torn.

E Pluribus Unamused

When you’re middle-of-the-road electorate, you run the risk of becoming frustrated when members of Congress from “different sides of the aisle” can’t just do the right thing and vote for the national issues that matter to YOU, like an itemized deduction for malt liquor expenditures.

‘Cause really, aren’t we all on the SAME isle? And no man, Democrat or Republican, is an aisle unto himself.

So imagine my sheer, girl scout glee when I learned that the Senate finally came together on an issue of vital national urgency and passed a resolution proclaiming that the Star Spangled Banner should only be sung in English!

TAKE THAT TERRORISTS

But as long as we’re on a productive legislative streak, shouldn’t we take a few more steps and address some other ‘linguistic’ subversions? After all, the reason most congressmen don’t know the words to the National Anthem is because it’s laden plumb full of archaic verbiage (olden words).

So I’ve done my patriotic duty and written a NEW anthem that the terrorists can go suck on.

Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, football!
Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, guns!
Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, Jesus!
Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom, bombs!
Freedom, freedom, freedom, freedom burgers (sounds too German) barbecue (French) bacon!

MONEY WELL SPENT

Furthermore, I’ve also instructed my kids to burn anything in the house that includes languages other than English.

Unfortunately, I’m now about $200.

Viva Bodegas!

Before Cinco de Mayo, Lucia Alderete met boys at the dances held on the Diez y Seis de Septiembre celebrations. Commemorations of military victories, so it’s no small irony that she found her husband at another dance, July 17, 1952, one celebrating returning war veterans, among whom was her brother, and a very handsome boy from Crawford, Jose Anaya.

These are my grandparents, and as a small child, after my father left us, I was raised and cared for in the Anaya house, a home to whites and blacks and Mexicans and the great creeping Texas outdoors, crawling with horny toads, earth snakes and Siamese cats. I wasn’t always proud, childhood jealousy of privilege, perhaps, or the nascent tendencies towards self-loathing that would have afflicted me regardless of the tones of my skin, the pitch to my voice.

So in adulthood, with the wisdom that comes with maturity and emotional scarring, I relish the fact that I can honor the limbs and roots of my heritage. Last week was Cinco de Mayo, some might argue no great reason to celebrate, but nevertheless, a reminder of who I am.

On Friday, then, I made margaritas, one for each member of my family, and toasted to my heritage. And then I made another, just for me, to allow myself a bit of forgiveness and pride.

And then I made another, but I think I was just thirsty.

Er, and then I just tapped the bottle, for no apparent reason at all.

Pretty soon, I was looking for more tequila, or reasonable facsimile thereof. I drank to the entire Mexican army. Which one, I’m not sure, because my history wasn’t so hot at that moment in time BECAUSE FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES TIME HAD CEASED TO EXIST.

Alex recalls finding me at roughly 4 AM on SEIS de Mayo snoring, wearing nothing but my knitted boxers, on the floor in the guest bathroom.

Apparently dreaming of battlefield conquests.

BEWARE the danger of national pride, amigos.

Boxes

Unhappy contrast with these easier times, simply shifting from left foot to right, hands in our back pockets, enough to remind me that you occupy that space in my chest called murmur, enough to remind me that things weren’t always so tortured and dramatic.

This probably makes no sense, but I tend to purge the pleasant memories first, meaning my life’s not been so bad, but the storytelling’s disheartened. I have to change the tenor, because driving home the long-shadows have returned with spring’s sunlight, fluttering through the pines across your eyes, creating the illusion of a film’s countdown leader, 8…7…6…5…4…3…2…

And never before had I felt it so palpably, the flipping of the switch, the immediacy of the bottom dropping out. After so many days of flippant glee, the skies turned gray. I've never known it so physically, so clearly. Though unrelated, the plunge was preceded by a story on terrorists held in custody in faraway prisons that can never be brought to trial because we’ve tortured them. That all this torture would come to light like so many cockpit recordings.

There was a time I could use this for motivation, to skip through the halls of old memories, rapping on the doors of the demons with a witching stick, waking them and inviting them groggily out to play. But I’m interrupted momentarily. “You okay?” he asks, climbing onto the chair. “Can we go to Canada? Cameron showed me his rock collection. It had amethyst and pyrite. He got it in Canada. Can we go?” He scratches my back as I write.

Returning to back pockets. He asks so many questions about why I wasn’t happy. I don’t want that to be his impression. So I tiptoe through the halls, susurrate, reach the other end, and tell him about a trip we once took to Kansas. I sat in the back seat and watched the trees gradually disappear into a long, endless field. He leaned over the steering wheel so that she could tickle his back. They sang silly songs to make us laugh. When we reached Leavenworth, they took us to an old-style soda shop, and sat us on naugahyde bar stools.

They bought us toys at the grocery store, and we stood in line behind a man with a grocery cart full of coca-cola. We liked the new stuff better. It was sweeter. For five days we lived off ice cream cones and walks along a dusty street back to a hotel with a pool, and during the nights, we watched old movies and loved each other for the first time, albeit so quietly that we didn’t know it was happening. But we did try, and none of those attempts should count among the overall failure, but measured and remembered independently. I have no good reason for not visiting those rooms in the hall more often.

“You lived in Kansas, once, too,” I tell him. I pull out a box of old photos.

“I don’t remember. Was it nice?”

“You were very young. It was so sunny.”

TequilaConPacNW07

First things first, the trope referenced in yesterday's post ('...by x, i mean y,' where 'y' is intentionally humorous, sarcastic or ironic) is clearly a form of distinctio or dystinctio as the very clever Scott offered. However, in this form, 'x' and 'y' have vastly different meanings. So I feel comfortable referring to it as faux distinctio. I understand that since many suggestions were offered, this may cause some controversy, and by controversy I mean people will remember it about as well as they remember Harriet Miers. Moving on.

Okay, so I realize that the bruises haven't yet dissolved from yellow to brown, the rashes haven't quite faded from plain view, and the paternity tests are still INCONCLUSIVE, but the city for TequilaConPacNW07 has been decided, and if you spent your lunches from 2001-2004 drinking Steel Reserve on a park bench, you probably realize that the photo above is a hint.

Drum roll...

The host for TequilaConPACNW07 is - PORTLAND, OREGON! Yay, Stumptown! I believe Portland will uphold the values and principles of TequilaCon, just as Chicago and NYC have done, but with 15% more groping.

TequilaConPACNW07 will take place the weekend of February 17 (February 19 is a Federal holiday), which gives me and Asia plenty of time to scope out the two remaining bars where we have yet to be arrested.

So mark your calendars, emigos...

And by X, I Mean Y

"Leonard Nimoy: Good evening, I'm Leonard Nimoy. The following tale of alien encounters is true. And by true I mean false."

The above line comes from an episode of The Simpsons called ‘The Springfield Files,’ which aired way back in 1997 before many of you were born, and by born, I mean before you got your MySpace accounts.

Okay, someone please tell me what this ubiquitous rhetorical device is called, because it’s frickin hilarious, and by hilarious I mean enough already.

/cue the ducks, and by ducks I mean blog retrospective

From “My Proud and Diverse Heritage,” January 11, 2006
John Williams. I love John Willams! He’s the guy who did all the music to Star Wars, right? It is an honor to be compared to him, and by honor I mean OMFG, WTF?

From “Father Timing,” June 15, 2005
But as I’m getting to the good part, and when I mean good, I mean the part where I assume the happy place curl, the phone rings.

From “On the Event of Your Seventh Birthday,” June 08, 2005
I merely shut the door on the Witnesses, not because I don’t respect others’ beliefs, but because it was just so damned tiring trying to love you and your mom and to a much lesser extent a dog and cat while I concentrated on finishing college so that we could have a better life, and by better life I mean cable.

From “Anatomy of a Speech,” October 24, 2005
And the last thing I want to do is start insulting you, especially since many of you come from disadvantaged backgrounds, and by disadvantaged what I mean is that many of you grew up without songs from the 80s.

From “Signs of Life,” January 16, 2006
For Alex's birthday I rented out a suite on the Ocean for us and 4 of our friends, so you may have noticed I haven't posted much in awhile. I've been busy, and by busy, I mean I've been drunk and without a reliable wi-fi connection, and by without a reliable wi-fi connection, i mean, thankthesweetlordsheonlyhas1birthdayperyear.

From “TequilaCon06: Le Sigh,” April 25, 2006
That was because most of the planning, per usual, for TequilaCon05 was handled by Jen. And by MOST, I mean ALL.

Okay, so any suggestions? I couldn’t find any appropriate neologisms on wikipedia, so we may have to INVENT a word, which as you know, I never do, and by never…ad nauseum.

The closest I could find was distinctio. So would adistinctio work? Cause the whole idea is to be contrary. Pseudotrope, perhaps? Faux dire?

Prize goes to the winning suggestion, and by prize I mean VLAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Alex Buys a New Hat, and We Discuss This on Sunday with the Children

10 AM, Sunday, Kitchen
Me: What’s that on your head, Fidel?
Alex: Eet eez my new hat.
Me: It looks like a Cuban trucker cap.
Alex: Eet eez new style. I alvays vanted hat like dees.
Me: Ten pesos says eet’s buried in your closet next month underneath the jean jacket and theme-park sized sunglasses.
Tristan: Can I have some bacon?
Me: Sure, but after you’re done you have to kill a puppy.
Alex: Leave heem alone. Just because you are vussy vegetarian.
NAYA: THAT’S NOT FAIR!
Me: Fine, shoot me for modeling healthy eating habits.
Alex: You are dreenking tumbler of rum!
Me: I said healthy EATING habits. Besides, I already said ‘yes,’ he can slaughter all the muppet babies he wants for all I care.
Tristan: YOU EAT FISH! FISH ARE LIVING CREATURES!
Me: They are NOT, you big dork! They’re plant life! That’s why they need so much water! Besides, JESUS ate fish, and he was the biggest vegetarian of them all!
Alex: Jesus ate lamb in Bible.
Me: ONLY IN THE COMMUNIST VERSION, YOU BIG COMMIE!
NAYA: I’M NOT DOING NUFFING!
Tristan: You ate a whole turkey last Thanksgiving!
Me: Hey, after you’re done MAULING that piglet, you should probably call her parents and let them know she’s NEVER COMING HOME. heh heh.
NAYA: I’M GOING TO MY ROOM!
Alex: Maybe Daddy should go to room, too.
Me: HOLD ME CLOSER TINY DANCER!
Tristan: Oh no, don’t look, Naya. They’re gonna kiss!
Me: You just better be grateful I like kissing supermodels and drinking rum straight from the bottle OR ELSE YOU WOULDN’T EVEN BE HERE, YOU LITTLE BABY KILLER!
Naya: EVERYBODY!
Everyone, in unison: EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE A CAAAAT!!!!

NEVER TALK ABOUT WORK

6:00 AM
On the way to work, I notice a trailer for sale outside the community gate where we live, with these words scrawled on the side, in that white paint damn near impossible to scrape from the glass:

“EVERYTHING WORKS”

‘Well that makes ONE of us,’ I think, right before I’m filled with the urge to flatten one of its tires.

* * *
6:40 AM Thoughts
In short, I see only that which I covet, and as I know, to covet is to sin, and unlike to grope, it is a mortal sin, and not a class C misdemeanor.

Oddly enough, to covet is not punishable by any mortal laws.

* * *
7:15 AM Out Loud, At My Desk, Before Anyone Else Arrives
What I covet at the moment, however, is a hairy chest, since it gives the appearance of pinker nipples, which somehow seem so much dirtier than my own inconspicuous buttons o’joy. And I covet the co-worker who broke the copier yesterday, because one of my secret thrills is finding the paper jam. Following the step-by-step instructions, opening the various compartments tied to numbered schematics, hearing the harsh, plastic clicks, allowing the overheated parts to come dangerously close to contact with my bare skin. Tugging at accordion-shaped 60# White, smeared with toner dust. I covet these office adventures and victories.

* * *
10:30 AM
She: “I’m so discomboobulated. Is that a word?”

Me: “I think you mean discombobulated.”

She: “Oh. What’s discomboobulated?”

Me: “It’s a movie I saw in college.”

* * *
1:07 PM
He: “You wrote some books, right? What were they about?”

Me: “College stuff. Pretty dumb. One was called…”

He: “Hey, do you think you could help me publish a book? I’m writing a historical novel about war.”

Me: “Oh, like Catch-22? That’s probably my favorite book! God, it was funny.”

He: /silence

Me: “You did say hysterical novel?”

He: “Historical.”

Me: “Oh.”

* * *
2:18 Lunch
I was so proud because I kept from biting into the hard candy the entire time. And when I sucked it all the way to a final remaining sliver I felt oddly unsatisfied.

So I ate an entire tin of altoids at my desk.

* * *
3:49 Upon Leaving
Oh, you thought your dad was bad, HA! I don’t even know how we SURVIVED. I remember driving down the road, my old man had a beer in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and the wheel between his legs.

Yeah, but at least you were old enough for seatbelts.

Pfft. We stood on the seat and played. Whenever we stopped too fast he stuck his arm out to keep us from hitting the cracked vinyl dash. THAT was our seatbelts. If we were lucky, we landed on a (word edited out because i'm a moron).

* * *
6:15 Home

Whatcha eating?

Butter cookies.

That just looks like butter.

We were out of flour. I improvised.