it's bout damn time

thank god and sonny jesus, poppa hilton finally wised-up.

it appears that he has (fucking finally) had it with paris, and is donating his ridiculous fortune to a charity. the charity is in the name of his granddad or father (not really sure which, and furthermore, don't really care), so the charity is probably just going right back to keeping the old bastard in big houses and fancy fucking cars, but at least it isn't funding paris' coke habit anymore. matter of fact, i think if you read the charity's by-line, it will probably say, "to help old billionaires whose kids have embarrassed them and the world, by providing the funds to keep said old billionaire in the lifestyle that he has grown accustomed to, without allowing any of that money to fall into the hands of greedy, free-loading offspring."

and i want to know how the flippity-fuck paris became famous in the first place? i mean, she hasn't done anything of note: no no. 1 box-office smash, no billboard no. 1 single, not even any decent porn. she is a sloe-eyed, dim-witted, drug/alcohol fueled white-trash tramp that could stand to eat a steak. as far as i can tell, all she has done is fuck up in such a way that all us normal parents would've disowned her/clubbed her like a baby seal eons ago, and somehow or other, this has made her famous.

the only thing i can think of that she has done that made me feel good about life at all was her jail stay, but considering she whined about it and pitched so many fucking fits about it, even that seems a huge waste of time. maybe if she had just ducked her head, done her time, toughed it out, and walked outta there a new person, i might find some table-scrap of respect for her, but no. she actually had the everloving gall to say "i bring beauty to the people of the world." your fucking kidding me, right? seriously?!?

so my predictions for the future: other than a yearly newscast, paris will go the way of oj simpson.

and coming soon to ebay: a million "dresses" (i use that term loosely), most only worn once, and many not worn at all, and paris' car, slightly dented, and unable to drive past any drug-sniffing dog without trouble, but otherwise in great shape.

other than crazy sleep patterns, the sardonics are all doing well. nothing really new to report there.

darth sardonic

I don't want to feel this way forever

A dead letter marked return to sender...

i am oddly dead, and yet so alive at the same time; empty, yet overfull; tired, but wide-awake. each of these things starting off as a lie that then gets made truth by the mere act of my brain forming the cognitive thought; a sentence of words strung on string like small glass beads: singly, ugly; but together, a beautiful thing to stir emotions better left bottled inside for rainy days. i am a god and a devil in the very same breath; evil, yet loving; coldly passionate. i search for meaning hidden amongst the very blades of grass, the glint of sun in a child's eye. there is so much meaning in this meaningless nothingness that i could not even find it within myself at the lowest of low to deny the existance of greater powers than myself and die kicking and screaming, but rather, reach to those powers to lift me from my moment. i see through the corporeal to the very spirits of beings, sedated by technology and lack of love to such a point as to care only for themselves, and find little peace in the joy of others. bitterness abounds. i seek out the others like myself who, although angry at times, and inclined to rail against things around them, still catch the beauty in the tiny dusty flower that batters its head through the crack in the pavement to feel the warmth of the sun across its dewy petals. i raise my face to the sun as it tears apart the clouds that shroud it and smile wide as it tickles my face, touches me momentarily like a lover being pulled away by harsh arms. i will not go quietly into the night, but likewise, i will not fight my fate. immortality is a pain greater than death. happiness lay in leaving something behind that others may cherish and hold dear; something that will numb the pain of my imperfections and leave only a pleasant aftertaste of the moments of laughter and sun and joy and hyperreal senses: glints of sun on the clearblue waves of a mountain lake. looming ever around me the reminders of how great we think we are and in the same breath how fragile we must secretly deep within ourselves admit to being. in these moments i am happy simply with the laugh of a child, the touch of the sun, a letter from the front in the form of ugly beads strung to create a gorgeous kaleidoscope with colored bits of love, a line from a song, sung with real feeling, that brings up the god from within me to kill the devil that bears my name and in that brief moment in the shadow and sun simultaneously i am one with myself and with all around me that breathes life and i open like a door to the universe and swallow it whole and carry myself around in a basket made from the warmth of your skin across mine.

in the train running parallel to this track, my kids have scattered games all over the floor, the sun is shining beautifully, my kids are running around naked, i am mostly happy, no. 2 makes massive steps forward in the potty-training department, no. 1 has shown great progress in the listening and complying with direction department, and it is a mere 40 days until the time that chunks of me that have been displaced find their way back to my side.

darth sardonic

barking mad (the tat FAQ's)

to even know what i am talking about, one must check out the pic, post, and comments to my last post, entitled the tat.

pixie, i love that, yes, i am gonna go with barking mad. i always say certifiable, but i think i like barking mad even better, and may even put that on a t-shirt (i already have a t-shirt i had made that says: NOBODY CARES now get the fuck away from me and another that simply says pathetic, so i will simply add barking mad to that, wooooo hoooooo).

yes, it hurts. while doing it, and off and on during the entire healing process. not nearly as much as you might think, and i usually do a bit of the ol' ed norton in fight club while he is getting that nasty lye burn and kinda ignore it and focus on it at the same time (i actually see a penguin that turns into helena bonham carter with bad hair and tells me "slide" followed by pretty trees and flowers being desecrated by fire, heh heh). the healing part usually feels like a really bad rugburn or roadrash. after one of the sessions awhile back, i actually stuck to the sheets in the middle of the night and when i rolled over woke myself up with a jerk and then had to peel myself free, slowly. however, it doesn't hurt nearly enough for me not to continue going through with it. as for brave, not hardly, ref. above the whole "barking mad" conversation.

queeny, ibid. and laughed my damn ass off at steely ones.

bel, it is going to be full color like a painting. all my other tats are black with shading when necessary, but this one i wanted a complete color. and considering how fucking great the shading is turning out, i can't wait to see how the finished product looks.

it has taken a total of 12 hours so far (four three-hour sessions) and i suspect it will take at least another three hours to finish the shading (maybe more), and then at least that much again to color it. i figure over 30 hours total, at least.

wuastc, i did the peeking-undies thing just for you.

as i get more questions, i will edit in the answers here.

darth sardonic

the tat

so here it is. you know the chinese say be careful what you wish for lol. scott, my tattoo artist, is amazing. each and every little bit he does i get more jazzed about how the whole thing looks.

we're having a good day otherwise, here. kids are happy, and i am pretty rested and hence alot more fun for them to be around. he he.

that is all for today, o my beloved non-existants.

darth sardonic

rain rain go away,

come again another day,
all the world is waiting for the sun...

i don't want to build a fucking avatar, i just want the fucking lyrics! i'm not even sure what building a damn avatar has to do with lyrics of songs anyhow.

it should be a requirement for people planning on moving to western washington for any length of time to take a course on driving in the rain. fuck me sideways if i didn't see people nearly fuck themselves up about a million times on the trip out to my mom's house today. one of them was a single car accident. i think he didn't slow down while trying to powerhouse through an intersection and he fucked his car up on the opposite curb. the standard washington manoeuvre of trying to speed through the ass-end of a yellow light doesn't work when it is rainy.

why is it that the kid who can barely keep his eyes open at 4 p.m. will then play noisily in his room after his regular bedtime until about 8:30 p.m. before passing out on a stack of legos, and then pop from bed like a mongoose ready to kill the cobra at 4:30 a.m. and want to tell me at top volume about how grand it is to be alive and how much this new day means to him?

i believe i told him from the cocoon of my warm bedclothes: "foodle shagga obb, figgle nappa 'k, nenn wanna b' sappy, wigga?" (if you don't shut your gob, i'll fucking snap your neck, and then you won't be so happy, willya?) (early morning darth is an evil bastard and should be left to his own devices until he crawls from bed like the first fish to pull itself gasping from the primordial ooze.)

i'm ready to go back to hot and humid any damn time. i have been loathe to close the windows and turn off the fans, cause i know it is coming, but the house is a frigid 60 degrees most of the damn time now, and anyways, it is fucking july! i mean i know it is western washington, the gray, dreary drizzle capitol of the known world, but c'mon already!

that is more or less it on the sardonic front for now. i predict some yahtzee against my mom in my near future, as well as drinks and dinner and brooke-ogling with s, but much beyond that i can't really say.

darth sardonic

woke up to my daily headache...

and the realization that you are gone

at the thrift store, no. 1 picked up a small (100 pieces) star wars puzzle. i got all excited, with visions of the three of us sitting around the table, bonding, spending time together, quality time.

when the kids finished their yogurts, they quickly cottoned to the fact that putting a puzzle together is not as exciting as one would hope, and begged off to play video games. i stuck with it with the puzzle, which was good, because they still ran in to check on the progress and spend a few seconds with me, and even placed a piece here and there.

so while it wasn't the domestic bliss i had imagined, it was still a bonding moment, and it was good for all involved, giving us each the pleasant time together that we needed to continue beating fuck out of each other the rest of the week.

it's been cloudy and rainy this week, and this has settled in to make us all quite a bit grumpy and sleepy. can't we just have 80 degree, sunny weather with just a hint of breeze? damn, either hot and humid or cool and humid.

received another dvd of the wife reading the boys stories. they loved it, and danced around excitedly. i smiled at their antics, and watched her read the stories and appear to interact, but it wasn't the gut-wrench that it was last time.

and that worries me. because, while i might be getting used to her being gone (it has been over two months--oh, but is now less than 50 days until she arrives again! yay!), i don't fucking want to be used to her being gone. i still want it to hurt, at least a little. i still want to long, and yearn, and pine for her, cause that is as it should be.

then a line in a song in the car yesterday set the front of the inside of my skull on fire, and i secretly breathed a sigh of relief as i beat back the tears.

the latest work on my tat is healed, now i just need someone i trust to take a photo, and then i will post it here.

no. 2 is finally showing steady progress in the potty training department. this is soooo wonderful. we have been getting relatively steady poops in the potty, and i am spending less on pull-ups. i am looking forward to being able to buy a packet of brand-new spiderman underwear, probably even more than no. 2.

darth sardonic

a word to my pals...

i want to take a moment to assure the prodigious writers of my pal's list that i do, indeed, read
your respective blogs regularly. maybe not every day, but at least weekly, and sometimes more.

what i don't do, and it has nothing to do with anything really, is leave regular comments. when i have a comment to make, i make it. i love love love receiving all of your comments. but i just don't leave comments on every post. in the past this has bothered some of my pals.

i also now have about three times as many blogs in my pals list as i ever have ever had before, so it takes me longer to read them, and were i going to post comments on every new post of every blog that i read, damn, all my time would be spent commenting.

but it is just the way i am, and i hope you will forgive this flaw in my character.

in other news, no. 2 is sposed to wear an eyepatch an hour each day. having figured how to get it off himself, he has gone a total of maybe 15 minutes before i find him running around off with the patch removed and have to chase it down, lecture, and then reapply.

after the kids went through a gallon of milk in 24 hours (repeated unregulated forays into the fridge for another drink, and overpouring every time (tests have proved that the calcium content of my carpet and linoleum are more than sufficient)), i began using the fridge locks again. no. 1 knows how to get them open, but not how to turn off the alarm that sounds when he does, and the alarm causes him to leave off trying to raid the fridge, and to come find me to turn it off. i swear, in that sense he is like master from mad max beyond thunderdome. should i ever need to battle him to the death in a steel cage, i hope to christ i have a whistle. and so i have controlled in this manner the juice and milk intake of my children.

of course, no. 1 got me up at five this morning to turn off the alarm by saying, "what is dat noise? can you turn it down?"

the three-dollar leather chair has received a wound that renders it, in my opinion, of no further value in the sardonic household.

i caught no. 1 picking at a tiny imperfection in the worn leather of the arm on friday, and told him sternly to "leave it the hell alone." later, exhaustion overtook me, and i dozed on the couch. upon awaking, i discovered that no. 1, or "knitpicker", had worked a hole into the leather the size of my fist. this occured in about 15 minutes' time.

this was followed by a near-top volume lecture, and a tantrumpallooza thereafter, resulting in the removal of toys, radio, and legos from the offender's bedroom, and the once-proud three-dollar leather chair from the living room to the shed. come trash day, i will place the chair alongside the road, and no doubt some enterprising individual will notice its residual worth, and not care about the hole (or will maybe have the know-how to repair it), and will remove it to the comfort of their own abode.

in pace requiescat. or something like that, i can't really remember offhand, and certainly can't be arsed to look it up. heh heh.

and so, eh, up, lads.

darth sardonic

pope says there is only one true church...

and it is not his.

sorry, i couldn't help myself, when i saw that headline on my online news thingie, and the picture that they had of the pope, this was the first thing that popped into my head.

how arrogant is it to think that there is only one true church?

i think they're all right. i think there is a heaven in space for each and every one of us (well, except the ones who are happy to just switch from living to worm food), seeing as the universe is a vast and unfathomable space, with infinite possibilities.

and in my travels, i have discovered that there are good and bad and misguided (because the misguided aren't necessarily good, per se, and certainly not bad, by my definition, but quite possibly in need of further enlightenment) with each and every different belief system that i have come in contact.

my heaven is going to be a big party, with revelry and joy and laughter and happiness, and everyone there will love everyone else, and we will all be close. no one will drink too much and get stupid, clothing is optional (we will all be perfect and enlightened, so nakedness will simply be a pleasure to behold, and won't cause jealousy or lascivious thoughts amongst the others), and everyone will have a good time. you are all invited to leave your respective heavens, and pop by for a gin and tonic, wine, or whatever drink or food you prefer, swap a story or two, and head back home.

i even told my atheist friend that i was going to pull her out of the ground, breathe life into her, and drag her up there so we could have a couple of drinks and laughs together, and if she changes her mind about the worm-food thing, no doubt we will have a spare room.

see you there.

darth sardonic

do you ever...?

do you ever sit down cause you had this really great blog post idea, and end up staring at the screen for several minutes while all those good metaphors leak out of your ears like chlorinated water after the pool?

no, of course i never have. i mean, c'mon! i'm darth sardonic.

i think i broke some kind of damn sitting-still-with-my-mind-a-complete-blank record. (while the monkey scribbled on little pieces of paper. can i have a banana? eek eek.) like the site of the posting screen on my computer is linked to some subliminal memory-erase dealy to render me senseless and dim, as if i have entered some piss-poor 1984 rip-off or something. the thought-police are going to kick in my door and find me seated in front of my computer with my eyelids at half-mast and drool dribbling down my chin.

"heh heh, we got 'im. never fails, that ol' subliminal blogger memory-wipe thing big brother 'as set up, yeah?"

i have been listening to a song alot in my car as me and the wee ones toddle around, the little blighters joining in from the backseat for the choruses, with much fist-pumping and head-banging. i have alluded to it before, but the more i listen to it, the cooler it is. i want to dedicate it to several people in my recent past:

"Jaked On Green Beers" (alkaline trio)

It's been a long time since I've been close to you
It's been a long time since I've been sad.
It's been a while since I've really spent time with you
Wish I could take back the times that I had.
The only thing that you ever really did for me
Was make me oh so miserable.
And the hope that I never see your face again
Is anything but questionable.
I hope this is goodbye.
I hope this is goodbye.
There was a time when I thought you were a friend to me
I think those times I was probably just drunk.
And if they offered a test about being a good friend
I'd put money down that you'd surely flunk.
The only thing that you ever really took from me
Were my records to sell them for dope.
Now all I have left is this heart in my chest
And my happiness helping me cope
I hope this is goodbye
It's been a long time since I've been close to you.
It's been a long time since I've been sad.
It's been a while since I've really spent time with you.
Wish I could take back the times that I had.
The only thing that you ever really did for me
Was make me oh so miserable.
And the hope that I never see your face again
Is anything but questionable.
There was a time that I thought you were a friend to me
I think those times I was probably just drunk.
And if they offered a test about being a good friend
I'd put money down that you'd surely flunk.
The only thing that you ever really took from me
Were my records to hawk them for dope.
Now all I have left is this heart in my chest,
Your dishonesty helping me cope.
I hope this is goodbye.
I hope this is goodbye....

for meathead, dickhead, the ex, and a handful of other twats and cunts still running around thinking they didn't fuck me over and wondering why i am such an asshole, heh heh. good riddance.

and i know, i know. this is a complete cheater post. but hey, i have already established that i had this incredibly clever and well-thought-out post that the evil totalitarian government has stolen through some kind of ethernet subliminal mind control thingamabob that is completely beyond my ability to grasp or combat.

in other news, the kids are well, the days have been lovely, the members of my family are all coppertone, we are swimming in grammy's pool later, i have gotten back into working out and eating right after a break due to illness/pissiness/tiredness/over all whininess, and today bought a pair of levis 501's that are a 34 waist that actually fit! this is pretty significant. because even back in the day when i was a scrawny-assed loser who wore 32 waist jeans, i had to buy 34 waist 501's for them to fit. these are, i will admit, a bit snug still, but fuck yeah motherfucker!!! i would pat myself on the back if i wasn't still sore from the tat that is still healing but coming soon to a blog post near you.

in the meantime, thanks for playing along.

darth sardonic

58 ...and counting

lest you, the o so supportive non-existant reader, begin to think that everything in this blog is doom and gloom and the slow descent into insanity (too late), a post in a lighter vein:

yesterday, we needed to get out of the house. all of us, the kids were going stir crazy, and if i spent another day moping around the house, i might have to put the sharp objects up to remove them from myself.

and since none of my friends had contacted me to see what i was up to, or what we had going on, i decided that a drive to long beach would be good for us. (long beach, washington, on the mouth of the columbia, not long beach, california) so we loaded up the car, and off we went. the kids passed out before we were really even on the road, and the drive was pleasantly therapuetic for me.

the sun was shining, the day was clear, the traffic was relatively mild. i had my eye on the clock, so that we could be back in time for me to exchange emails with my honey whilst she "worked."

since we got a late start, and long beach turned out to be further away than i had anticipated, and for the aforementioned reason, we decided not to plug full on, but stopped at a park on the columbia where people were fishing and laying out.

we found a quiet spot a little ways from the fishermen, and staked a claim.

no. 1 soon waded in deep, soaking all his clothes, and then laid down in the warm sand, turning himself into a largish ball of sticky dirt.

i tried to teach the kids the art of skipping stones, but they seemed more interested in simply throwing large rocks as far out into the water as possible. we watched in awe as a tug pulled a much bigger trade ship along, about a hundred yards out from shore. then no. 2 and i laughed at no. 1's efforts to return a heavy chunk of driftwood back to the river after the waves caused by the passing ships cast it ashore. the boys found a lovely green irridescent dragon fly, and we watched it quietly for several minutes as it fanned it's wings and ignored our existance.

we packed so much fun into such a short time, that if it hadn't been for bad traffic, we would've gotten home a half-hour before i had planned on.

of course, the big nap the kids got in the car assured they didn't go to bed until ten. despite that, they still woke up at five this morning and got crackers, cereal, and cheese (yes, cheese. i don't know either) all over the floor before i pulled myself like a wounded soldier from bed at nine.

but the house is clean. yes, clean. completely. not just like i put the dishes away. or just vacuumed. but all of it. dishes, vacuuming, watering the lawn, laundry (washed, dried, folded, AND put away), and i am thinking that a nap might be in order, or maybe just a good read on my book while the kids make a mess of the backyard and themselves. after they go to bed, i am going to work out, watch movies, shower, shave, chat, email, and god knows what else, considering that the cleaning i would normally do after they go to bed is already done.

why is it that the return trip from somewhere always seems to go faster than getting there in the first place?

and since there seems to be a bit of interest, if i can figure out how, after this last shading session heals, i imagine i can post a pic of the tat work so far. my wife hasn't seen it since the outline and one wing anyhow, and she will need a pic to show her how cool it is coming along.

darth sardonic

roll out those lazy hazy crazy days of summer

it's funny, how i could say something one way, and you would take it completely different than how i might mean it. for example, if i was to say:

hydrogen peroxide is wonderful for getting bloodstains out of carpet and clothing

you might reply with, "oh, fuck!"

now, if i said it like this:

the other night, no. 1 decided to sleep on the floor of his bedroom because it is a little cooler. no. 1 also gets frequent nose bleeds when it is dry and there is a high pollen count (he can't, for the life of him, keep his finger out of his nose), and sometime in the middle of the night, he got a nasty nose bleed and woke up with dried blood all over his face, blankie, and the floor. luckily, i remembered from my days as an oral maxillofacial surgery assistant that hydrogen peroxide does a fine job of breaking up the protiens that usually keep a bloodstain permanent in cloth.

then you might brush your hand shakily across your nervous brow and say, "phew."

not that the thought of killing my kids didn't cross my mind for a fleeting moment just before i threw the kitchen chair.

but i am getting ahead of myself.

the house was kind of hot on the third. on the fourth, it was damn near insufferable: a full 15 degrees hotter inside than out. this, combined with a high levels of sleep deprivation and argumentativeness in no. 1, and whininess in no. 2, resulted in what i like to refer to as the "jack nicholson/shining effect" or how a perfectly sane and normal fella could slip rapidly into the deep vaults of homicidal/suicidal insanity.

(all this is, you, the beloved non-existant readers, should probably know at this juncture, is extreeeeeeeeemely overplayed for dramatic effect.)

but no. 1 did break the dvd player we have in our bedroom whilst throwing a bit of a tantrum, then proceeded to argue with me the whole time i attempted to fix it, while no. 2 whined about not being able to watch the movie he wanted, and the in-house temperature creeped up on 95 degrees farenheit (and for my canadian and european non-existants, that is about 35 degrees centigrade) with a relative humidity of probably about 80%, and as a result the already-broken dvd player was further damaged by a rough-ish fall and my foot and its own power cord. then the kitchen chair was accidentally broken during this time (our kitchen chairs, it should be noted, are very flimsy and cheaply made), and then found itself flying across the back patio. and i am sure there was no kind of volume control on my voice at the time all this was happening, so no doubt the neighbors five blocks over knew someone was getting their ass chewed. i am, to put it plainly and frankly, one lucky motherfucker that no one called cs or the cops or anything. most likely out on the lake in a boat drinking beers and enjoying the sun while i was losing my mind.

so we loaded up the car, and left for my pals m&g's wedding early, since i figured it was cooler outside, and a bit of a breeze was blowing. and the wedding was nice. i calmed the fuck down, and the kids ran around with other kids and were able to be boys without dad fucking in their shit every split second.

the next day, i bought a ceiling fan for the boys' room (there is one in our bedroom, and it makes all the difference), and installed it, and patted myself on the back, since no one else was there to say "good job" except the boys themselves, and believe me, they did say it.

"good job, daddy, you a deneeus."

which is really all it takes sometimes. like saying,"it's cool, i forgive you." without having to actually say it and watch dad burst into tears.

i also called maintenance and found out why the house wasn't cooler and they told me what i had forgotten to do to keep the fan running without blowing warm air, and today, the living room is a few degrees warmer than outside, and the bedrooms are downright frigid. (no. 1 put on a windbreaker before falling asleep last night. he is crazy.)

the weather has been gorgeous. we went to the lake, and the boys got bronzed, and i got a little pink (it is a beautiful tan today, thank you for asking), and i got more work done on my tattoo, and the angel girl is nearly all shaded in and i suspect that after the next appointment the majority of the shading will be done, and we will near the color stages of this huge project. my mom tells everyone proudly that i designed the tat myself, and i am just too lazy to bother correcting her, or reminding her it is based on a vallejo painting that probably inspired my original idea in the first place. every time i think that the kids are going to push me right over the edge, they do something colossully cute and grown-up and lovely, and i calm a bit.

the wife is counting the days, even though she is only half done, and i have to say, so are we.

darth sardonic

how many are going to st. ives?

round two:

the kids are clearly ready for bed a little early tonight, and so i grant them my wish. then, around 11, i head to bed too. the mugginess of the house had made it a little hard to lay down and settle in, but it wasn't too much later before i was right out.

i awake to every light in the house on and the demonspawn laughing and shouting with glee.

it is 1:45, a.m.

apparently the things for which kids awake in the middle of the night are: games, sesame street, yogurt, and the four riders of the apocalypse (you may know them as the teletubbies), and there is nowt for it but to make coffee, turn off all the lights, and hope what tattered and tiny shred of sanity i was harboring like a fugitive manages to hold out longer than their ability to stay awake. somehow, i doubt it.

we have played this game before. it was many many years ago, before no. 2 got tubes in his ears to help prevent the all-night painful infections he would get on a regular basis. (of course, back in those days, i had a huge overstuffed rocking chair firmly implanted in front of a tv equipped with several movie channels, so that i might find something i didn't mind watching all night long.) in my experience, we will be up until around five, when complete and utter exhaustion will finally wipe us all out.

the cats, who more or less slept all day, are smart enough to stay away from me this time around. (most likely, they are asleep somewhere, much like they did all day.) the kids, who did not sleep all day, are not that clever. no. 1 finally was told to "shush!"

to which he replied, "don't tell me 'shush'."

followed by my quit retort, "i telling you shush! and if you don't, i will smack your face."

in a rare moment of brilliance, he listened.

darth sardonic

kits, cats, sacks, and wives...

first of all, i want to know what the hell a concert is supposed to do to help the degenerating ozone? and for the unlucky sods who are slated to play on antartica, i hope they aren't using their most prized equipment. i also predict that will be the shortest concert in recorded history: "fuck this is cold!" followed by about 46 seconds of song, followed by all the guitarist's strings snapping as he lays into a heavy power chord, followed by "thank you, antarctica, you've been great! (now get us in the fucking quansat hut before my fucking fingers freeze off and i never play again.)

at 6 am this morning, i awakened quite abruptly to the sound of no. 2 shrieking in anger (somewhere in our family tree, a howler monkey is grinning his fool ass off), followed by no. 2 crying quite noisily.

i throw the covers off and stomp out to the living room. i have to dodge pele, who is convinced he hasn't eaten in weeks, and thinks that if he trips me up and i break my leg, he will get the food faster.

in a split second i have sized up the situation: nos. 1 and 2 are fighting over whether they are going to watch a movie or play a game.

i lose it.

i inform them in no uncertain terms that it is too early to be up, that they need to get back in bed. i rant, i rave. i inform them that it is six in the morning and they wouldn't even be up this early for school. i stomp around. i advise them that fighting at this time of the morning has been proven by the surgeon general to be hazardous to their health. i pace back and forth angrily, and pele is right behing me, caterwauling the entire time. due to my general lack of sleep, coffee, and the earliness of the hour, i lace my tirade with words i shouldn't be using with my children.

i am, in general, greeted with blank stares from my children, as if i have donned a fur cap and boots and am shouting in russian like a vodka-soaked cossak. ("you guys need to get back in bed!" is greeted with, "it's light outside, daddy" this because a few weeks ago, i awoke to noise at 1 a.m. upon investigating, i found no. 1 in the living room hunched over the video game controller playing games like william lee getting his fix in a tangiers apartment. i informed him that if it was dark outside, it was too early for video games. of course, it is summer here, and we are a bit northerly on the map: it's light here until nine p.m. and is probably light again around 5 a.m. (though i cannot confirm this, not actually having seen it for myself).)

all the while, pele is glued to my ankles like a cancerous growth, whining and mewling for his food. by the time i give it to him and free myself from my white-and-orange-shadow with a deathwish, it is apparent to me that any dream i might've had of returning to bed for a few more hours' sleep should be ground, placed in a corn cob, lit afire, and inhaled.

is there a looney-bin in st. ives?