Sunday, August 28, 2005

playing catch-up on the sardonic homefront

alright, it's been nearly a week since i have written, and a shiteload of stuff has happened. (and i know that using shite in conjunction with "load" is probably an affront to all things gealic, but hey, if i'm not creating my own personal idiom, i'm really not happy).

the greatest and absolutely coolest thing is that no. 1 has begun going pee on the potty. about three times today he informed us that he needed to go, shucked his pants and diaper, and pissed. not much, but still. there have been times when i have been changing a particularly rank shitty diaper and thought that no. 1 would attend college in depends. but not so. and he is quite proud, and so are we, by god!

we have made out like bandits lately at garage sales. some of the incredibly cool shit we have purchased this month alone: a lawnmower for $5. it needs a gas cap, and eventually, i will want to get a bag for it (i hate raking), but otherwise runs like a dream. a papa san chair for $10. we got a surround sound stereo by sony, yes, sony, for $60, and now can pipe our tv through it, and hence, have more volume and such. i got something like 15 star wars action figures for $10, and a large (like a foot-and-a-half long) helicopter for no. 1 (who is insane for anything that flies) for $2.

we're also getting a new computer, because this ole busted joint has about had all it can handle. and when we do, i'm going to be buying a program for recording music and mixing it and all that fancy-schmancy stuff. and my buddy m and i will be collaborating on musical projects, and maybe some free diy cds will be made available right here, in your very own favorite website of all time. (boy, am i a pretentious fucker!)

today is my wife and i's sixth anniversary. we went out for thai food, and picked out a kitten at the pet store. the cat has incorporated herself well into our family, cause she's been hiding since she got home, and she does it so well i can't even find her. she's most likely sleeping, cause the boys gave her so much attention at grammy's house that she's gotta be completely done in. the cat shall heretofore be referred to as: Pepper, the Wonder Cat, and my paduan apprentice. would that make her darth pepper? not sure that really works. maybe we'll just call her pepper.

the real shindiggity doin's for our sixth will come on the ninth, when my wife will get her first tat (a drawing of a cat), and i get my third (the symbol, comprised of my initials stacked one atop the other, that i use to sign my original artwork). after that i will change my name to the artist formerly known as darth sardonic.

and on that note:

the artist formerly known as darth sardonic

Monday, August 22, 2005

i'm not afraid

if you're like me, last night you were bawling your eyes out at the series finale of six feet under. now, admittedly, i'm a bit of a pansy and a crier, so you may not have actually been bawling, but my wife and i have watched this show from day one, some four years ago.

the finale made me think alot about death: mine, my loved ones', and in general. now, death is something that occupies a bit of my thoughts at any given moment. it's not that i am morbid, or i enjoy death, i guess it's just that death is part of life, and i don't think of it as an end. matter of fact, i think that i will see all my loved ones upon dying, regardless of what version of heaven they are hanging out in (it's fucking heaven, right? we can do whatever we want, including hanging out with our loved ones, regardless of whether they are in christian heaven, or valhalla.) that even goes for my atheist friends who think they are just gonna feed the worms. i figure i'll see them somehow or other as well.

when i was a teenager, i felt i had no real reason to hang on to this life. if someone had come up to me and told me i needed to be shot cause i had worn the wrong gang colors, or if i had seen a russian nuclear warhead heading in my direction, i would've smiled, and the only thing i might've said is, "quick and painless, please".

but now i have a family, i have a life i love. i look forward to things like first dates, tenth anniversaries, roadtrips to godforsaken places like new mexico. so i think, as i mentioned in my one-year anniversary post, i'm not afraid of dying, i'm afraid of the things i'll miss out on when i have left. and i take it further than just my own children, but my children's children, and their children, and those children. so many first dates, and weddings, and first steps, and so on and so on. and the sheer magnitude of the things that i will not witness first hand makes me sad. oh, i think i'll get to see it all. i think there are probably all kinds of incidents that i will witness as a spirit or whatever. but it won't be quite the same i think, and that is sad. and yes, i'm crying a bit now as i write this.

an infinity of familial incidences that i will be involved in from afar.

and if i could make a few requests for the moment when it happens, i would ask, first, that it be quick and painless. i would ask that i will not have left my wife and children wishing they had known me better, as my own father did. i want amazing grace played on the pipes at my wake or whatever (there's just something about amazing grace on the bagpipes that i cannot even explain.) i would hope that all harvestable organs are healthy so that the clay-ey part of me left behind when the real me takes off will help others to enjoy their time on this marble. i hope i'm not a burden to my loved ones. i want everyone to get completely shitfaced at the wake, and dance and kiss and fuck and cry and laugh and be alive. or i'll haunt your sorry asses. i would hope that my loved ones would remember the good times in vivid detail, and that the bad times would blur to a dull, out-of-focus photo. but most of all, i hope that i will have left an indelible imprint of happiness and goodness upon those who i love.

i'm not afraid of dying, just the things i will miss out on.

and, anyways, in the meantime, i've got years ahead of me to savor the day-to-day and the sensory impulses that comprise this life.

now, if you'll let me, i gotta go wash my face before no. 1 asks me "wha' happeen, daddy?" in that intensely sincere way that will only make me cry harder.

darth sardonic

Sunday, August 21, 2005

a contest for everyone...

adam sandler has a song about them. lately in a commercial for some cell phone, they make a comment about them: lunch ladies.

alright, so i got to thinking, is there no such thing as a hot lunch lady? are they all old, and scary and antisocial?

then i thought, you know, i haven't done some stupid meaningless contest in my blog in a really long time.

so--pics of your hot lunch ladies. extra points if they're naked. (i am a perv after all). hotness to be determined by me, and my guidelines for who's hot are pretty lenient. hotness is not just limited to maxim, bikini-model, porn-star standards.

the prize is to be determined based on whether anybody participates at all (which i doubt), so go out there and find em, o my beloved nonexistant reader!

darth sardonic

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

live live with your wind wind

the english language is an intrinsically fucked-up language. take the word "live". what am i talking about? "live" as in what we do on a day-to-day basis by respiration and the consumption of proteins and carbohydrates, or "live" as in opposed to pre-recorded?

i had a teacher who said he saw a sign selling "wind winds". he couldn't wrap his head around what the fuck they were selling until he saw one. a thingy that twists in the breeze, or "wind" (as in the movement of air currents across terra firma) "wind" (the verb used to describe the wrapping of twine, yarn, whatever, around a central core).

recently, my mom sent me a forward about the word "up". boy, does this word get misused, overused, and abused. why do we say something is "used up"? when we replace a used-up item, we don't "use it down". the question, "what are you up to?" think about it. detach yourself from a life-time of english usage and look at that sentence.

and that one brings me to "to" "too" and "two", as well as "there" "they're" and "their". or "when" (what time) and "wen" (a lumpy thingy on your eyelid). just to name a few. (actually, i didn't name them, really)

some phrases and the actual pictures they conjure, for me. "i'm just chillin" (i see my buddy trying to cram himself into a fridge). "the president danced around the issue" (who was his partner, was it his wife, or one of those instructors they paired with celebs on that recent reality tv show?) "quit beating around the bush" (what fucking bush?) "have you seen my shoes" (what, ever? or more recently?) "can you give me a hand?" (no, i only have two, and i need them both, and since i am a stay-home dad, i think if i ever found an extra one hanging around (picture of a hand with a rope tied around it dangling from tree), i would keep it. might come in handy (holy shit, i'm almost short-circuiting here!) (short circuit is another--i have wired some of my guitars myself, and in at least one, a few of the wires are a mere half-inch long. but they still work. er? eh?)) you get the picture. (right? cause i sent it off weeks ago, should've arrived by now.)

"tomb" and "comb" ( i know this is a gallagher joke, but he's right--or left, or rather, he's probably where he is at any given moment, oh, fuck it--he's correct).

the verb "to be" does not get conjugated in any way similar to the word "be": i am, we are, you are, they are, he/she/it is. how do we go from "be" to "am/are/is"? maybe in the past tense: i was, you were, they were, he/she/it was. now i'm even more confused. because in the present, i had my own conjugation, but in the past i'm lumped in with almost everyone else. let's try a different verb, shall we? to have: i have, you have, they have, he/she/it has. wow, we almost made that insanely easy, then at the very end we had to go and fuck it up.

and the word "fuck" itself. my buddy s says it's funny that an acronym (For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge) could become offensive. stay tuned (even though this is not really a tv or radio, you know, but just to turn a phrase (turn it where, i wonder? shouldn't it just keep going the direction it was headed in originally? where was i? oh yes, sitting right in front (or more correctly, directly in front) of my keyboard the whole time. and don't even get me started on what "keyboard" implies)), when the word nasa is banned by the fcc, followed by the word fcc being banned by the , oh, er, well then. but don't fall in. to the well i mean. er, it's not that i am mean, i just was saying, that is, what i wanted to convey to you, is not that i am a mean person, nor that you as the reader are a mean person, but i mean to say, oh bugger it, i give up!

and there you have it. oh, well, (damn! there's that well again), rather, you don't have it per se, that is, you should get it now (cause i did send it off weeks ago.)

anyways,

darth sardonic

Monday, August 15, 2005

there but for the grace...

my shift is over. i am finally getting out for the night. as i run back out to my car to grab my topper, i notice a young fella with a bike painstakingly going through the garbage cans in front of the strip of shops.

almost immediately, something occurs to me. sitting dejectedly under our heat lamps is an order of breadsticks and a pepperoni and green pepper pizza that somebody didn't pick up. at the close of the shift, these two boxes will end up in a dumpster out back with smelly, rotting mushrooms, dough that has fallen on the ground, and dead crows.

almost without thinking, i approach the young man and ask him, "are you looking for cans, or food?"

he cups his hand to his ear and says, "wha?"

"cans, or food? are you looking for cans or food?"

he hestitates a moment. he was hoping to remain anonymous, invisible, now here's this tall, big, noisy bastard bothering him with just the exact question he'd meant to avoid. it pains him to say: "food"

"hang on a sec."

i return shortly with the two boxes that would otherwise be wasted. "a bad order." i say, passing him the boxes. "someone didn't pick it up. it's been sitting under our heat lamps for hours, but it's still good."

i get a good look at the kid. he's clean, with bright, clear eyes. he could be any young guy off for a late-night bike ride if i hadn't already seen him sifting through other people's trash. he looks me straight in the face as he says, "thanks", and i smile a bit and say, "yeah." and leave.

growing up, i had friends and acquaintances who were near-homeless or homeless. if nothing else, it's part of the punk subculture. you can't move through those circles without coming across kids like yourself who, for one reason or another, find themselves living by their wits. frequently, they're not really proud of it, but there they are. and there was this kid.

and it's possible that someone may find out what i did, and i may get reprimmanded (we've got a strict rule that frequently we turn a blind eye to). or that a legion of homeless start camping out on our doorstep hoping for handouts. but, fuck it, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. and this kid wasn't hitting anyone up for money. he was quietly relying on himself to get by.

and sometimes i just can't help but think, "there but for the grace go i"

thanks for listening,

darth sardonic

Thursday, August 11, 2005

if you're looking for cleverness here...

i have been at this blog thing for right around a year.

what have i learned? not much, really, but i have learned these things:

i suck at clever titles. most of my "pals" are sporadic posters at best (a couple of them seem to have dropped off the face of the earth altogether). most people who blog are only interested in what they have to say, and aren't really interested in using this forum as a means for sharing ideas, making friends, or touting the literary ability or cleverness of other bloggers. i'm not as sarcastic as i like to think. i miss my dad, occasionally. i whine alot about shit that other people would give their left hind leg to have, but at the same time, i realize just how lucky i am. i am a big bucket of contradictions (though not as big as when i started posting). i will eventually finish my book, as long as i'm patient with myself, and i try not to expect too much from myself. the secrets i hold within myself because i feel they would be too "shocking" for the world are being openly shared by others in their blogs. i love the pacific northwest. i've got wonderful children who occasionally piss me off to a point that i have never reached before. this site is a good place for me to vent my spleen. i actually believe that other people read this, at the same time that i'm calling whatever readers i do have "nonexistant". i am a big bucket of contradictions. i'm not afraid of death so much as afraid of what i will miss. things are never as bad as they seem. every so often i get filled with a big love for the universe and everything in it, and an overwhelming feeling of hope and goodness. i hate people in general, but love several of them individually. i am a big bucket of contradictions.

i'm glad a few of you have stuck this out with me for a year, and here's to many more.

darth sardonic

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

no comprendo, understand?

just got back from delivering pizzas around the greater lakewood area, and have a funny to share tonight.

i had a particular run that i wasn't sure i had found correctly on the map, so i decided to call them and make sure. so i dialed the number (incorrectly, as it turns out), and waited for an answer.

"bueno"

"uh, yes, um. this is the driver from [insert name here of your fave pizza place, and we'll pretend that's the one i work for]"

"who?"

"the driver from [world's greatest pizza place]"

"i'm sorry i don't understand english"

"okay, soy el manejo de [un gran lugar para comprar pizza]?"

"i don't understand english"

"usted ordio una pizza?"

"i don't understand english"

"y! por eso le hablo en espanol."

"bueno, sigue"

"usted ordio una pizza?"

"oh, no"

"bueno, gracias. disulpeme, por favor"

"esta bien"

now, granted, i don't speak the form of spanish most popularly used around this area (i still have strong castillian, porteno tendencies), but come on! it's not that bad!

also, this little piece would be cooler if i could add all the little goodies commonly found in spanish (i.e. "~" and upside-down question marks), if someone knows how to do that, i'd love to find out.

just thought i'd share.

darth sardonic

Monday, August 08, 2005

ocean shores

yeah, not really so much shores as a sand-covered road that has been overpolluted.

so, we wanted to go to the coast, someone at my wife's work said that ocean shores wasn't really that far away, so we went last weekend and took some friends from portland.

now, prior to showing up in ocean shores, my beach experience in the pacific northwest has been limited to salt water state park, which is pretty nice as i recall, and lincoln city, newport, and bandon-by-the-sea, all in oregon, all calm, not overpopulated beaches where one can spread out and there isn't an overabundance of trash.

we get to the beach, and you can actually drive your vehicle, and park, on the sand. which means you have the water, and, no shit, and i'm not really exaggerating, another ten feet up, you have a "road" being used by rented horses, rented mopeds, rented four-wheel bicycles, and cars that are looking for parking spaces. a mere six feet or so from that is the actual "parking lot", dotted everywhere with vehicles. past this towards the grassy dunes is a fairly long stretch of sand, heavily interspersed with leftover fireworks from the fourth, and sundry other trash that has been left behind by the less-than-caring beach goers. at one point i was sitting in the sand, and looked over, and about three feet from me was a large pile of broken beer bottles that had sunken into the sand. chasing no. 1, to keep him out of the "road", i actually kicked a broken glass bottle bottom, and after that we were outta there.

the only fun we had was watching some dipshit get his car stuck in the softer sand because he drove too far up the beach, and then dug the tires free, only to get it stuck again a second later. he finally had someone with a jeep and a winch come and winch him out, but we enjoyed that little bit of life's rich pageant for awhile.

so i do not recommend ocean shores. hell, i would say if you want to go to the coast, drive the extra three hours to go to an oregon beach, as they seem to appreciate the fact that people just want to hang out unhindered and enjoy nature and the sand and the surf.

darth sardonic

Saturday, August 06, 2005

i'm a shitty friend, apparently

i guess i'm a shitty friend. what i mean is, i regularly get anywhere from 5 to 10 forwards in my email from my mom. most often, i just delete them. occasionally, i read them, if i have spare time, or one of the subject lines seems particularly intriguing.

but here's the rub: everytime i do read them, at least one of them is one of those sappy "friendship" ones that tries to guilt you into forwarding it to others ("if i don't receive this back from you, i will get the hint"), or con you into believing something great will happen if you forward it to ten more people ("if you forward this to ten or your friends, something you've been hoping will happen will occur between 1 and 4 pm tomorrow"). i delete them without a second thought.

cause i like to think that my friends would start counting me as an enemy if i was to forward each and every little bit of tripe that i receive that is in this vein. i think all of you might agree with me.

tomorrow: why we shouldn't go to ocean shores.

darth sardonic

Thursday, August 04, 2005

quote for the day

"some days you fight the good fight, others you're hunkered down in a muddy foxhole surrounded by mangled bodies hoping you don't die before the reinforcements arrive."

oh, and if someone could just come up and tag me right in the back of the head with a baseball bat, that'd be greeaaat.

i'll hang in there if you do,

darth sardonic

Monday, August 01, 2005

hippie olympia

before i get started, let me add one more thing about our trip to missouri (i know, i know, i promised, but i remembered this one thing that struck me as funny and i had really wanted to include in my blog). there are no billboards off of the major thoroughfares in washington, oregon, and the more liberal places for adult bookstores and strip clubs. but once i got into the midwest and bible belt areas, there were numerous. utah had several for a "lingerie" superstore. kansas had a number for an adult bookstore, that, when we passed it, made the ones off of south tacoma way look high class. missouri advertised for a couple of video stores, and like three strip clubs, and one of the video stores had a big billboard proclaiming "jesus is watching you" right near the entrance. and of course, once you enter illinois, you see the big signs for larry flynt's hustler club, which we actually passed, but did not visit, as we went to visit our friends at scott. funny, eh? these are the same states that are most outspoken about the morality of nudity and pornographic sex. hmm, odd.

so saturday we went to olympia for the farmer's market there. if the dynamic between seattle and tacoma is odd, you should check out the seattle/olympia dynamic. olympia actively eschews anything that seattle embraces. and yet, if you stripped the glam and the glitz and the trappings away, the average seattleite, and the average olympian are exactly the same. neither would like to hear that, but what the fuck do i care? i'm from tacoma, and everybody hates tacoma, even people from tacoma make fun of tacoma.

so the olympia farmer's market was full of hippies. but not real hippies. not birkenstock-wearing, tie-dyed hemp, dreadlocked, hirsute, pot-smoking, living 20 to a camper van on public property and following the dead for 9 months of the year hippies, but what i call jetsetting hippies. cause the seattleites are jetsetting corporate night-clubbing mountain-climbing martini-drinking backyard barbequing types. and olympians are embracing nature getting in touch with our inner cloud vegan buying overpriced all-natural organic skin care products types.

that being said, it was great for me, because i've never seen so many naturally-beautiful-without-makeup, lightly tanned, braless-in-a-light-clingy-summer-dress women in one place before in my life. but it did make pushing the stroller in a straight line rather hard, as i was staring while trying to look like i wasn't even interested (the sunglasses helped some, as i would point my head somewhere in the vicinity of their right shoulder, and then rotate my eyes dead center, and stare away my droogs and only friends), but again, the stroller kind of went all wonky while i was doing this, as i wasn't really looking where it was going.

what can i say, i'm a perv.

darth sardonic