I’m still alive, just busy trying to keep up with the destructive forces of children. Today they knocked out all the screens on our windows with their football and randomly seeded the back yard with very large rocks (to kill the mower again, I assume). Oh yeah, they also made newspaper rafts to float, and sink, in the pool. Add that to yesterday’s cocoa powder fiasco and a few items best left unreported at this time, and it’s been just peachy around here.

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I’ve discovered my son’s secret rap star title: FlushMaster 2000. His title was earned about an hour ago when he wandered down to interrupt my breakfast.
“Dad. Daa-aad.”
“Yes?”
“The toilet’s overflowing. My poop was too big.”
Yes, from upstairs I can definitely hear the sound of water (and hopefully nothing else) hitting the tiles. A quick race up the stairs and into the bathroom confirms it: We have full blockage and overflow. As I shut off the water and yell for the plunger, he continues.
“It wouldn’t go down, so I flushed three more times, and it still wouldn’t go down.”
Great. That explains why we’re almost up to our ankles in water here. Now that’s a great way to start the day.

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I knew it was too good to last; it’s time to go back to Chicago. Chicago, you’re not my kind of town. It’s going to be hot and muggy by now, I’m pretty sure. Please tell me ita ain’t so!

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So, we had another exciting birthday celebration this Saturday. In honour of turning 38, I went to the dump, cut my finger open on a nice big rusty pile of crap (well, metal, but I’m pretty sure there was crap on it), did some basic plumbing repairs (unclogged a drain in the upstairs bathroom, put in a new spigot in the back yard) and failed miserably in getting the pool pump system working again. Somehow the whole birthday thing has lost that magical feeling. I did however read an entire dictionary in one sitting. The Uxbridge English Dictionary, so I don’t know if that really counts as an accomplishment.

I also managed to avoid cleaning my desk yet again. I have a new theory on household chores and miscellaneous “man-jobs”. At present, I let them build up so that I have such a backlog that I cannot possibly get any of them done. If asked to fix the sink, I can point out that I still have to fix the pool, put up the fence, take care of the mysterious sinking front porch, replace the facsia, etc., then go back to doing nothing. By pointing out the overwhelming number of tasks, I have so far successfully been able to avoid doing anything. Simply brilliant.

Something I should have avoided was apheresis. I was a good human being on Friday and gave up my platelets, but here it is, nearing the end of the work day on Monday, and I still break out in a cold sweat thinking of all that blood being pumped out of me, shaken around, then pumped back into me, loaded with additives (okay, anticoagulants, but how do I know that they haven’t slipped in a tracking device or two pints of nutra-sweet?). Ugh. My blood pressure shot up just waiting to be hooked up, then I spent two hours trying not to think of the needle in my arm, the creeping coldness spreading up my arm, the tingling in my face and all of the various things that could possibly go wrong. I’m certainly not doing that again for a few more days.

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I am an observer, even if I am not all that observant. sure, working remotely and having nobody to interact with in-person has made me a bit more outgoing (or is that just age?), but I still enjoy just lurking and watching people, listening to conversations.

My daughter, trying to stop an interruption from her brother: “This is an A-B conversation. Please C your way out.”
It must be great being 9, having a whole new world of bad puns and jokes waiting for you.

Obnoxious guy on cell phone, striding through Costco: “I’ve got balls!”
congratulations. So do the majority of males of our species.

Tech guy in Secaucus, yapping at his buddy while walking towards Houlihan’s: “So I told her to shut the f**k up and she f**king hit me with the f**king bottle . . .”
Where other states have state flowers, birds and crochet patterns, NJ has a state interjection.

Unfortunately, while I may be an ovserver, I suck at being a recorder. So, that’s it for quotes for now.

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Ugh. I turn 38 soon. My mother claims I am firmly entrenched in middle age. I may not be more mature, but I do notice the little differences. My hariline is making a slow but sure forced retreat from my face (although reinforcements are amassing on my chest and stomach. Fortunately, the back divisions do not seem to be showing up). I wake up much stiffer in the mornings. No not THAT, you sick bastards — knees, neck, back. And I definitely spend more time puttering than partying.

Half a lifetime ago I still wanted to be a writer. I can’t remember if the dream of being a famous writer was still alive, or if it had already been crushed and replaced by the dream of being a well-fed writer. Eventually, even the struggling, kind of pissed and usually hungry writer dream failed as well. Now I just dream of having someone else to mow the lawn, trim the hedges, prune the orchard and fix up stuff around the house so that I can go back to puttering. I am a good putterer; I putter well.

I do blog, obviously, which, while providing neither fame nore a living, at least lets me pretnd to have readers. As an added bonus, I do not have to worry about spelling, grammar, trademarks and copyrights, or even forming a coherent sentence. Yay, blogging!

I felt my age at the movies the other day. The wife and I went to see American Dreamz because she is a big Dennis Quaid fan and I am a big mock GW fan. The audience was largely teenaged and incapable of shutting the hell up. the little turds tossed food and wrappers at each other in the lower seats and yapped throughout most of the movie. Directly in front oof us sat the doubleblimp halfwit twins, whipping their cell phones out to text-message friends throughout the film. I couldn’t remember if etiquette required me to talk to them before smacking them in the back of their heads and grinding their cell phones into small piesces, so I stayed quiet instead and sent out a small prayer to any listening gods to have them choke to death on their popcorn. I was even willing to settle for them being run down in the parking lot, but as usual, the gods failed me.

With age, my standards of beauty have changed as well. Sure, Fairuza Balk still occupies a special place in my heart and loins, but I now tend to consider personality as the dominant trait when considering a woman’s attractiveness. I am still as deep as a wading pool, but at least now there is an inch or so of water in the bottom of that pool.

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Five more hours until I visit the vampire. I’ve never given platelets before, so this ought to be interesting. Giving blood is bad enough; I spend the entire time vividly imagining the needle snapping off and traveling to my heart. Now I’ve agreed to letting them take it out, then put it back in again. What in the hell was I thinking? Couldn’t I just not kick a puppy or something and consider that to be my good deed for the week?

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I finally got the riding mower fixed today, so I can spend the weekend mowing and feeling my ass widen. Oh joy. The old blades were pretty impressively tweaked — thanks, kids, I really appreciated the rocks in the yard. Oh, and judging from the vast quantities of mouse poo, I’d say a family of twelve must have overwintered on the mowing deck. It (the feces, not the mowing deck) went flying everywhere when I flipped the deck over to get at the blades, so now I am covered in mouse droppings, grass clippings and air tool oil. Yum. I think I need to go shower now. Maybe tomorrow I’ll manage to sit down and finish writing some of the pointless crap I’ve compiled all week!

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How come they never covered this stuff in Sunday school when I was a kid? I too want to be able to resurrect a smoked fish. I’d provide the Miracle of the Flopping Lox daily at Costco sample tables nationwide — a great boon for both Costco and Christianity.

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“End of gridlock possible in Iraq”
— Washington Post (this weekend I think, but who the hell knows? It’s been a long few days)

Oh good, Baghdad’s finally solved its traffic problems. Since people and things keep exploding all over the place, I’m sure this must make for a much nicer commute. Seriously though, it is nice to know that maybe something will finally go right over there, even if it has cost us Head Start, most social services, education and the future indentured servitude of our children (yes, thank you, Mr. President. I hope you have some time in your busy schedule for some more tax cuts, because we certainly don’t want a government that is actually functional here in America). To all those underprivileged kids our federal government is so busy crapping on — if you wanted a better life, why the hell weren’t you born rich?- it’s your own fault, you whiny little bastards.

Oh yeah — good morning. More news (although it is a bit old by now, since I’ve been forgetting to publish this POS post for days now) — the woman who brought us news of secret American prisons throughout the world has been fired. yeah, we wouldn’t want to show any integrity there and maybe admit that freedom and democracy are good things, secret prisons and the suppression of basic human rights a bad thing. Just fire the stupid cow and get back to throwing ten billion dollars a month at Operation Clusterfuck.

I remember a Republican friend gloating and claiming that Ronald Reagan, “the greatest President ever!” had single-handedly destroyed the Soviet Union by bankrupting it with the Arms Race. Hmmm . . . maybe that’s Bush’s goal — single-handedly destroy America (other hand busily jerking off Halliburton executives?), because look how good things have turned out for the Soviets. Yep, I’m cranky today.

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