I wish...

I wish I was an astronaut, so when you missed me, you'd at least know I was flying over you, looking down. I wish I was a superhero, so when I was gone, you'd could at least be proud of what I was doing. I wish I was a dog, I'd faithfully be at your side all the time. I wish I was an angel, and I would ever and always watch over you, and tuck you safely into bed at night, and kiss you whisper quiet on your forehead.

fine time

I hope my boys can find it in their hearts to forgive me my failings as a person, and as a father.

i handled it

i frequently (maybe too frequently) joke in here about how much my kids aggravate me. it is a fact of my nature, and the nature of a parent/child relationship in general. and my way of handling stress is to joke. and raising kids is a big stress under the best of circumstances.

but i like to think that if you, the beloved non-existent readers, have been reading here regularly for anything longer than a few months, you will know that i really love my kids and my wife. i also like to think that you know that despite being verbally very violent on occasion in this blog, i am a big softie.

you will also know, however, that i have a thick core of raw kiss-my-ass steel and battery acid.

and i will not let anyone fuck with my family.

now, a few months ago, no. 1 got off the bus very upset. crying, in fact. i asked what was wrong, and he replied that [worthless waste of sperm and egg future serial killer] was telling him that he, [serial killer], was saying on the bus that he had escaped from jail after killing a manatee and a cop.

now, i think i handled this bit of info improperly. i told no. 1 that [sociopath] was a jabbering little idiot in need of a.) attention, and b.) some good adhd medication, and that no. 1 should not believe anything he said, and do his very best to ignore him, or at the very least, not get upset at the twaddle that this puling little whelp shat out of his gob.

in a way, no. 1 took my advice, as today when he was recounting what this kid had said, he seemed almost scarily calm.

"um, dad, you know what [check the crawl space for bodies] said today? he said that on my birthday he is gonna kill mom."

the record skips, everything on the planet gets immediately cut down to super slow motion.

"he said what?"

no. 1 repeats back exactly what he had just said again.

if i had not needed to immediately get no. 2 to a therapy appointment, i would've been at this slug slime's parent's door. lucky for me, and no. 1, and them even, i had that appointment.

in the car i tell no. 1 not to sit by this syphilitic boil anymore. i tell him i will talk to his parents. i tell him i will talk to the bus driver, and make sure she knows he is not to be anywhere near either of my kids. i tell him that if this kid ever tried anything with my wife, she'd fuck his world up beyond his ability to comprehend.

the drive, and hour long appointment work in my favor in several ways. i text my friend that lives on the same cul-de-sac as the offender and his family, and make sure i am thinking of the right kid. she confirms, and even says i am not the first parent with complaints about this diseased little pustule. i also get extremely angry. something i am gonna need to tackle this situation just as it needs to be tackled. but i also get extremely calm. something that ended up working to my advantage when i finally stood on these people's front porch.

i told no. 1 to let me do the talking, and i had to remind him a couple times. i was firm. i didn't want the parents of this larva to see me being wishy washy with my own kids. when i pulled up, the dad is sitting on the porch, and it is like he already knows something is up. so do his kids, who come over from playing catch, and his wife, who appears at the door from somewhere inside the house. even the neighbor kids come over, standing around in a semithreatening semicircle.

there we are, me and my boys, like last stand at the ok corral.

when i explain why i am there, he says, "well, that sure doesn't sound like anything [jeffrey dahmer] would say." (it never sounds like something our sweet little angels would say, does it, o my beloved non-existent readers? so many parents own property on a river in egypt.) and his diseased hole of a wife says the same thing, attempting to imply my kid made it up.

i say, in a no uncertain terms kinda way, say, "well, it sure isn't something no. 1 would make up."

the putrescent womb that shat out this gobbet of rotten okra is so incensed she declares this whole conversation "bullshit" and both of them are insisting that unless an adult can collaborate my story, it didn't happen.

of course their lying pond scum of a son denies it completely. even before he knows what he is accused of (which i point out in a voice that cuts through the other chatter happening around me.) they call in the boy who sits next to [john wayne gacey], and he says that the kid talks to my son, but he doesn't know what he says. we drive down two more cul-de-sacs to find the girl who sits next to no. 1. the mom has declared my kid "fucked up" and gone inside. but the dad is gonna ride this thing to its end, either to rub my face in it, or (i like to think) because he secretly knows that this shite is, in fact, the sort of thing his cesspool of a kid would say.

the girl who sits next to my son is older, and a bit of a chatterbox. i ask if her mom can come out so that her mom can kind of chaperone the conversation, and once her mom figures out exactly what's going on, she kind of keeps her daughter reigned in.

the girl says that the only one who really messes with my son is [ted bundy], and that he does in fact say some "sorta mean things." it is clear she doesn't want to say what sorts of things exactly. but after we tell her we need to know, and without any prompting at all, she says, embarrassed, "he said like he would kill no. 1's mom."

the father says he'll handle it.

i take my kids home, and tell no. 1 good job, and thanks for telling me.

now that it is over, i stand in the kitchen fucking shaking with rage. i smoke. i text my wife. i fill in the friend that lives on that circle on the outcome.

but, o my beloved non-existent readers, my droogs and only friends, i handled it. i never swore. i never implied that their kid was "fucked up" like that female goat had done about my own son. i never implied anything about him matter of fact except that he had said this to my son, and that i wasn't going to back down in the face of their apathy and hostility.

and i still won't. not sure what the long-term repercussions of this will be, but i am ready, and i am readying my kids.

because you do not fuck with my family.

darth sardonic

more inanity and insanity

last weekend i was in my sexy neighbor's bedroom while her husband is gone, hot and bathed in sweat.

moving a bed is hard work.

just now, i had a battle of wits with no. 1 and lost. here's why though: the battle consisted of my oldest wanting to take star wars monopoly (my numbered collector's edition version of the game from the 20th anniversary of the original three (by which of course, i mean iv, v, and vi)) to school as this is the last week and they are spending the last few days playing board games.

of course i told him no way. over and over. in one ear and out the other. i went upstairs to the game closet to help him pick out something just as fun, and discovered i did, indeed, have two star wars monopoly games, both numbered, both 20th anniversary blah blah blah, both open.

then momentarily the battle of wits was with myself: relinquish control over some of my stuff that ultimately doesn't matter for shit in the grand scheme of things, and allow my boy to have a chance at some responsibility; or stubbornly stick with the dickhead dad schtick to maintain miserly control over a collector's item i bought with the intent to play and share with my kids and yet haven't opened in many many months?

yeah, so you, the beloved non-existent readers, can see that my loss was more of a victory.

and speaking of victories, i was at no. 2's end of school year party yesterday. no, o beloved non-existents, my tried and trues, i didn't cry. but i wanted to. cause the kid that fit in the palms of my cupped hands when he was born is moving on to first grade. cause he reads. cause he writes. cause he is that kid that everyone knows, and most people like. cause he smiles at everybody and says "hi!" and leaves no one out.

and i thought about it. will i ever not cry at these hurdles? will there ever come a time when each new step he takes doesn't put me right back into an unbelievably small room at the ronald mcdonald house in albuquerque, new mexico where i turned my tearstained face to the ceiling and told god i couldn't take another day of bad news and could we get just one day when the phone didn't ring?

no, o my beloved, patient non-existent readers. i highly doubt it. and god knows i will kick down the pearly gates to view the beautiful moments as it were from afar posthumously, and i will stand in my white robes on the edge of a cloud and i will stain the earth with my tears like warm, cleansing rain, for the rest of his existence until he is back with me, asking if he can sit on my lap.

darth sardonic

It's about time that you got sick of me...

No longer fun, and so far from interesting

let's face it, o my beloved non-existant readers, i have been failing a bit on the keeping you abreast of current sardonic events front.

it has been a crammed two weeks. like hitting all the rides at a theme park in some kind of sped-up wormhole time/space continuum meltdown thing where everything travels at the speed of sound and i barely catch my breath from one before dipping over another scream-wrenching steep hill.

but the cars are slowing down, the last ride is slowing down as it pulls back into the terminal, and my stomach is settling back down into its proper place.

whew!

no. 1 is now on adhd medication, and we are already seeing a difference. but with the better performance at school comes a few side-effects: there is a point of the evening where no. 1 has a meltdown, for the simple reason that he is coming off the meds (had to fight the urge to type "drugs" there, like my kid is some back-alley junkie), and the soft focus that the meds have put on everything goes away and everything rushes back at him in a wallop. this will settle down in another day or two, but we are already learning to watch for it, and to react calmly instead of in our (my!) usual manner of loud yelling, stomping around, and increased use of expletives.

the other is a decreased interest in sleep, which i am also hoping will calm down. but so far it takes no. 1 forever to settle down and go to sleep. we have agreed that the best we can hope for is that he stays in his room and in his bed and plays or reads quietly, which he is beginning to do.

last weekend i met up with my tattoo artist at a convention in dallas for another sitting. (yes, yes, fire byrd, i will post pics here as soon as it heals.) i also got to spend not nearly enough time with j and her knew man, r. (she and c broke up) she looks good and seems to be doing better than she has in quite awhile, though feeling the same economic pinch that we all are right now.

i'm digging obama. though it's quite funny and a bit shocking to see some people's reactions. one of the dumbshit ladies at work said she was gonna move to canada. which is funny, cause that's what i said when dubya got voted in for a second term. she is gonna fucking shit bricks when she finds out they are socialists! then she will be left with mexico, which she will probably hate cause it is full of (gasp!) mexicans.

my time is running short, and really, and honestly, that is about all there is to report. i promise to not neglect this little dried booger caught on the world wide web quite so much in the future.

darth sardonic

desperate deranged talking in my sleep again

should my family ever be required to escape from a prison camp, we would surely be shot.

yesterday, my wife and i were laying on our bed, (fully dressed, this aint that kinda blog!) half asleep and attempting to figure out what we were going to do with our day, when the sprogs came into the bedroom.

no. 2 begins to drag himself onto the bed. the top of our mattress is probably about three feet from the floor, and no. 2 is barely taller than that, so needless to say this was no easy feat. my wife says, "grab my foot." shrieking ensues. but we're no closer to having no. 2 safely on the bed. "no. 1, push him from behind." more shrieking and laughter. louders pleas and shouts. still no closer to having no. 2 with us on the bed. the whole scene quickly disintigrates into some kind of laurel and hardy skit, and i drolly observe that we would be doomed if we were ever trying to quietly scale a wall, say.

being tired, and moody, this somehow skips to that movie (several years old now) with the little italian fella that is terminally optimistic (life is beautiful) who ends up with his family in a nazi camp, who then proceeds to turn it into a "game" for his young son, in hopes they will survive and get out.

as you can well imagine, this movie made me cry. like fucking crazy. the only movie that has made me cry more is the green mile (oh my god, that goddamn movie. good for a huge purge when i am in desperate need).

and leaping quickly from this bittersweet movie to me, and my own kids (cause this is easily how my brain works) and how massive is my love for them. how easily i would trek through the darker basements of hell for them. and simultaneously, how amazed i am daily as i look into their eyes, that i am even here.

"here" meaning married, with kids. how strange. how beautiful and odd and wondrous to find myself reminding my kids that i love them after having lectured them loudly at length. how amazing to me, it feels as if it is someone else's life sometimes, or a dream. and yet it is mine.

if you had asked me as a kid, i woulda told you someday i would be married with kids. matter of factly, without hesitation. but funny how nebulous that concept was. how incredible and unreal and powerful and life-affirming and -changing the reality is.

am i the only one that finds myself wondering how i ended up here, and simultaneously pleased that i did?

darth sardonic

returning to funny

when i can, i try not to linger too long on the downer posts. mostly, i was in a good mood yesterday, but that whole chernobyl thing really impacted me, and i really needed to get it off my chest and out into the world.

so, today, a couple of anecdotes about things i never guessed i would have to deal with as a stay-home parent:

1) this happened some time ago. my wife has a toy. ummm, you know, a toy. it is one of those relatively realistic ones. it resides in the top drawer of the nightstand, where most ladies seem to keep their toys. the top drawer is big, and also holds my belts and watches and other acoutrements that i need to attire myself for the day.

on this particular occasion, i am getting something out of the top drawer, and it is open, and i suddenly hear no. 1 behind me: "oh no, daddy!!"

"hey, what?"

"your pee! it is broken! oh no, daddy, can you fix it?"

"my what?"

"your pee! did you break your pee?"

i realize what he is talking about. i simultaneously pick up on the massive amount of worry that is painted clearly across his face: it is as if i can hear his brain saying, "if daddy's pee can fall off, will mine someday? and can that be fixed?"

"it is not my pee, and my pee is not broken and what the hell are you doing in my room anyways? go on."

i didn't share this story with anyone, even my wife, for a very long time. honestly, i was a bit embarassed that no. 1 had managed to see my wife's toy while i was completely unawares. then the other night, we were sharing kid/adult toy stories, and it just kinda came out.

my wife laughed louder and longer than anyone else. not sure what i had been worried about all this time. (she is also the one that suggested i should post about it here. and the story is probably funnier when i tell it in person because i tend to act out both parts with facial expressions and such, but you get the idea.)

2) yesterday, i am getting dressed, and hear no. 1 go into the potty (and by hear, i mean he announces loudly that he needs to go potty as he is running into the bathroom and pulling down his pants at the same time). after a few moments, i hear him say, "daddy, the poop is stuck on me."

"stuck on you how?"

"stuck on me."

"stuck on your bum? or did you get some on your hand? what?"

"stuck on my bum."

"use some toilet paper and get it off." (you may or may not already have an idea of what is to come, but let me just say right here, before we go any further, that i have never pretended to be the quickest at the draw.)

"i can't, daddy. i need your help."

"man! ok, let me see if i can help."

so, one shoe on and one off i go in there.

no one could've prepared me for what i saw, and if they had tried, i woulda said, "bulllllllshit!"

there is about a foot of string hanging from no. 1's bum.

"is that in your bum, or just stuck to it?" i ask, with my eyes popping and my brain reeling.

"in my bum, daddy."

oh fuck no. i think, no fucking way. i didn't sign up for this. i have been puked on. i have been pissed on. i have been shit on. pulling fucking string from my kid's backside was NOT part of the deal.

what can you do, o my droogs and only friends, my beloved tireless shaking-your-head-in-barely-disguised-disgust-and-humor-whilst-pointing-your-finger-at-me non-existant readers?

i grabbed a large amount of facial tissue, and set to work.

after i had about three feet of string, i think it broke off, much to no. 1's relief. we had a long discussion about eating foreign objects in general, and specifically string.

then i searched the internet for anything i might further be able to do to aid in the permanent removal of remaining string.

i found a vast plethera of help. if it was a cat or dog instead of my kid. i finally found one site that said chances were good that if it had made it this far, it would pass on its own.

i just hope i don't have to help it anymore.

darth sardonic

no rest for the wicked...

right back in the saddle today with no. 2's therapy early in the am, and school, and i restart hauling pizzas like the ferryman on styx tonight. i am paying for my tatt, i am paying for my tatt, i am going to my happy pla... dammit, i am paying for my tatt.

lady macleod has passed me another award, blogging that hits the mark. thank you so much. i really can't get past all this attention you non-existant readers are lauding me. i would try and say i am not loving it, but we all know that would be bollocks, so again, thank you. as to five bloggers i feel should receive this award in return, i would have to go most definitely with snuffleupagus, i am quite amazed how she can hit the issues extremely hard, and still geek out about a hot new teacher. so cool. i think jenny deserves this one as well, while not everything she writes about is necessarily globally impacting, she really helps when it comes to issues related to those with "disabilities." likewise, dj kirby and blogging about her son. prada pixie regularly leaves posts that i feel hit the spot on a wide range of issues, from surviving cancer to love, and death. and mother hoodlum, i think, deserves this one as well, as she posts about being a single mom and radio shack goddess in such a passionate and humorous way.

a new pic for me (from our trip to long beach) since the other was several years old, and i think i need to remove a few people from my pals list who haven't posted in a very long time.

i have at least one new non-existant reader that has come over here from sg, and i wanted to give a nod to my faithful non-existant readers who don't necessarily blog, or appear in my pals list, i know you are out there, and i appreciate that you read.

if you haven't already, don't let this post make you forget to read about the silliness from vegas, yesterday's post.

darth sardonic

gi joes are barbies for boys

last night, the kids were battling sleep like wwii heroes played by john wayne and gregory peck. frequent return trips on my part to hurl obscenities and threats were mounting. blood pressures were rising, as well as eyebrows, hell, and caine.

bang, crash!

as i am running down the hall, i am already shouting "oi!"

an aside: being of a punk persuasion, and also loving many things british, i got into the habit of saying, "oi!" we had no. 1 right around the time i saw lock, stock, and two smoking barrels, and i loved how big chris says to little chris, "oi! you talk like that again, and you'll wish you 'adn't!" so i started very young with no. 1, and continued with no. 2. you know how some parents use full names? i shout "oi!" as an example, no. 1 was watching tv. to illustrate to others seated in the same room, i say, "no. 1? no. 1?" nothing. i say, "hey! heya, no. 1!" still as a statue, he. then i belt out "oi!" his head snaps around like it was spring-loaded.

the kids are on top of the dresser and trying to get to the top shelf of the closet.

i go off. i am mid profanity-laden tirade, complete with fiery eyes and pointing finger jabs, when no. 1 says:

"aww, daddy! you spit on my yip."

"...if you don't fuckin--aah hahahahaHAHAHAHAHA HAAAAAAA!!!!!!!! hehehehehe!!!! oooo hoohoohooooo. just lay down and go to sleep. jaysus."

yes, the governor came through with that stay-of-execution, warden.

brooke no longer works at s' and my favorite watering hole. we love that place, but it is possible that we will attempt to find out what place has hired her and start drinking of a friday evening there.

however, last time we were getting faded at the pub, i lean over to s and say, "hey, i'n't that t.z., from school?"

he looks, and replies, "it sure is. she put on weight."

we look each other up and down, and burst out laughing. "who didn't?!?" i say.

"yeah, well, i know."

"we should go talk to her."

"i'm not ready to get up. i am enjoying my rum and coke."

t.z. was always cool to me in high school. we sip our drinks, watch her talking with her friends, s tells me who she was dating in high school, but i can't picture him in my mind at all.

i get up and walk over. i do it so quickly and decisively that s is left sitting with a semistunned look on his face, and his drink in his hand.

"are you t.z.?"

"depends on who's asking."

"darth sardonic."

"oh my god! oh my GOD!"

i love it when i get this reaction.

it is safe to say that i am a late-bloomer. i am no longer much like the scrawny, dorky twerp i was in high school. i don't mind that i only slightly resemble the mopey kid with the smirky smile who wished nearly daily that he would die.

we went on to share family pics from our phones (aint technology grand?), reminisce a bit. she married the kid that i couldn't picture from our senior year and they had a couple children. like me, she is a stay-home parent, and her hubby owns a logging company. she wants to bring a couple of her friends from our class over one friday night so we can all hang out.

i think it would be fun to get that reaction a few more times.

darth sardonic

pomposity is when you always think you're right...

arrogance is when you know.

i didn't begin to live until i began to love: myself, my wife, my kids. as i think of the times before this, it seems as if i was wandering back and forth, trying to find myself with maps poorly drawn in smudgy pencil.

there are instants when i look at my children, and i see the men they will become. they are handsome, and smart, and funny, and respectful and respected.

in these moments i am open to god, who, oddly enough, still loves me. he and my father are side by side, smiling, proud of me; and i am proud, not of me (i will never not feel like i am faking it and soon someone will out me), but of my incredible children, who make me feel both immense and small at the same time.

today was, barring unforseen complications, no. 2's last day of physical therapy. his occupational therapy will most likely soon draw to a close.

he's been seeing his pt for well over two years. of course, it's business as usual for him, but i've no doubt she went to her office to have a moment, and i know that the only thing keeping me from smiling and bawling at the same time was the public nature of the venue.

i am happy. my kids are getting bigger, growing up. this is so very bittersweet for me. i am so happy, but it hurts so much. why does each one of these little hurdles crossed open me up like a flower to the very nature of god and life and everything so tiny and yet so magnificient and gorgeous and wonderful.

i can still remember sitting in a tiny room at a ronald mcdonald house in albuquerque and staring at the ceiling and telling god we simply couldn't handle another day of bad news. and i remember his reply.

and today, as no. 1 was in his speech therapy, and no. two played with the spiderman swimming goggles his pt had bought him and drank his chocolate milk in the front seat of our car, god poured the sun down on me, and the leaves were greener, and the breeze fresher.

i am amazed: at my kids, but most importantly, with myself. each time i think i've fucked the whole rig up, and should quit while i'm ahead, i am reminded of the bigger picture.

and this bigger picture is a beautiful fucking masterpiece, o my patient and sympathetic non-existant readers, with the sun shining, and kids playing with a ball in the background, and somewhere in there, i am sitting; crying and laughing at the same time, and smirking my silly smirk, and cocking my eyebrow, and my kids are sitting with me, but fully grown at the same time, and with kids of their own who are also handsome, and smart, and funny, and respectful and respected.

and all the stupid shit that seems so fucking important in the moment melts away like a monet background and only beauty and happiness and love remain for eternity.

daddy, why you crying?

how odd, then, to answer, "cause daddy is so happy, buddy."

darth sardonic

a bit of the randomness that swims around in my skull...

no one, and i do mean no one, should wear sweat pants with their shirts tucked into them.

some good advice afforded us by some of my favorite musicians:

Just some words of advice
Maybe you've heard them before but here goes
Just be true to yourself if it lands you in hell
Well, at least now you know

(alkaline trio, if you had a bad time)

Being grown up isn't half as fun as growing up:
These are the best days of our lives.
The only thing that matters
is just following your heart
and eventually you'll finally get it right.

(the ataris, in this diary)

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

(baz luhrmann, everybody's free (to wear sunscreen))

i can remember being a jabberjaw as a kid. i can remember my mom telling me to "shut up!" i can remember coming home completely covered in mud like the swamp thing. i can remember my parents' reactions. i try to apply this kid-memory to my grown-up-reaction and find some happy medium. this is hard.

i swore as a youngster that i would always listen to everything my kids said as if it was the most important thing to me. (this as a result of hearing alot of "mmmm hmmm" and "mmmmm" and "interesting" from my mother as i would talk incessantly at great length about some cartoon or movie or comic book that i thought was beyond interesting and which, no doubt, was about as much fun as watching mushrooms grow to everyone else.) fast forward to today:

no. 1: daddy daddy daddy look at thimbledubblerabbledrazzledroll...

me: mmmm hmmm

no. 2: daddy daddy daddy why he faddlewaddlegramppumpernickleslammawamma...?

me: mmmmm

nos. 1 & 2: daddy daddy daddy you gotta slartibartfastwacklydacklyrammalammadingdong...!

me: interesting

i have thought about changing my official title from "daddy" to something a little more difficult to utter, like, say "purveyor of food and drink to locust-like progeny, cleaner of messes, grumbler of epithets under breath" for the simple facts that the kids wouldn't be able to say it twenty times in a row rapidly and in a high-pitched grating voice that is like a sonic swarm of angry killer bees set free within my brainpan, followed by me saying a very exasperated
"wha-haaaat?!?" followed by, "ummm, i dunno." repeat over and over again until daddy eyes the bottle of gin longingly and licks lips.

the phrase "this is neither the time nor the place" is so cool that i think we should use it all the time. anytime someone wants to talk to you about something you don't feel like discussing: this is neither the time nor the place. have a coworker who annoys you and suddenly wants to discuss a project? this is neither the time nor the place. telemarketer? this is neither the time nor the place. family reunions? this is neither the time nor the place. not only is it an intrinsically cool line, but imagine the odd looks you would get damn near every time you said it. (i also seem completely incapable of using "near" in a sentence without "damn" in front of it. let me try again: but imagine the odd looks you would get damn n-- shit. they always told me if i swore it would take over my vocabulary. fuckers, i hate it when they are right.)

notes and replies to recent comments:

krissie, the movie actually does a great job of capturing the absurdist humor of the book, definitely see it.

lady macleod, i would be so honored to have you over for tea sometime. if you're ever in the area...

pixie, i just toss in random stuff that strikes me funny about life out of the blue because this blog is stream-of-concious like that. it is also perfectly acceptable to leave rant-comments at this site, i love it.

i will send over a package of adult diapers, sparx, to wear whilst reading my posts.

thanks for playing along.

darth sardonic

imagination hurts everyone's face

sometimes my kids come up with something that is initially absofuckinglutely brilliant in its surreality and apparent nonsequitor qualities, and yet shows the connections being made on a larger scale inside their head.

my boys love the hitchiker's guide to the galaxy (the movie, not the book. we are far from past reading anything that doesn't have a large and brightly-colored picture every 5 words), which is wonderful cause i am a fan of both the books and the movie. their mom is consantly saying, "they are your kids" to which i reply, "god, i hope so" followed by exposing them to more star wars or mst3k or something else equally as cool and good for their bodies and souls.

there is a scene in the movie where the main characters go to the planet of the vogons, a race of giant slug-like creatures who are not smart and lack independant thought, and for this reason are masters of the administrative side of the universe, hahaha. yes, the books and movie have an incredible sense of farcical and tongue-in-cheek humor.

anyways, i digress. the characters discover that any thought, idea, or imagination is rewarded with a swift smack to the face by creatures resembling flyswatters. my kids think this scene is one of the best ever in cinematography, and really, i tend to agree in many ways. so we were all laughing uproariously as one would say, "i think we--" followed by fwap! and "ooh, ow!"

then my oldest turns to me, and quotes the line i have used as the title of this post. and i was tickled, and pleased, and amazed. after being beautifully awed, i was quick to point out that it was only on vogsphere that this was the case. (sometimes imagination is the only thing keeping us together, and i am far from gonna make my kids feel like imagination is a bad thing.)

mere minutes later, we were all buckled into the car to mail off the wife's last care package, full of love and concern and ready-made asian food, (31 days, o beloved non-existant readers, a month. one month. one motherfucking month! i dance a little jig and pump my fists in the air, even adding some john travolta finger-points. i think i can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel.) and i turn the key in the ignition and...

nothing. no click, no whirr, absolutely nothing.

the backstory: friday, we were at my mom's. the boys played games. late friday night, upon arriving home after food, drink, and a healthy measure of brooke's boobs, i carried my sleeping bairns into their beds, left everything else in the car, chained the doors (we have chains installed on the inside of every door that leads oustide. this as a result of no. 1 going on walkabout on his own once when he was much younger. the kid really is a regular houdini), and chatted for a time to my wife on the computer whilst drinking, and finally went to sleep.

i slept in, of course. the kids woke up at their usual 5, 5:30, of course. somehow or other, they undid the chain, remembered the games were in the car (i did have enough foresight to put the actual console up in my room before going to bed), and raided the car like huns led by genghis kahn ransacking a village.

when i woke up a little later, both back doors were open on the car. grumbling and rubbing my head, i closed them both and thought i had taken care of the situation.

now back to today. i realize that lights had been turned on and left that way for a few days. who needs fucking reading lights on the damn rearview anyhow? like i am going to tackle fucking war and peace as i barrel down the freeway at 60 or something, and if they feel the need to provide us with tiny lights cleverly hidden in the back of the mirror, then there should be some kind of alarm or flashing light to warn one that you have left these lights on, because they are completely invisible during the daylight hours.

i push my car down the driveway so that it is alongside my friend a's car, which is occupying space there until she returns from her own time in the desert. i lecture the kids soundly on getting into the car unattended, and "messing with shit" and other tidbits of fatherly wisdom. the driveway slopes, and my car rolls a bit further than i wanted, but i get the e-brake on and pop the respective hoods.

the jumper cables won't quite reach.

i set my shoulder in the doorjamb of my car, release the brake, and shove. i grunt. i strain. i curse the car (which is easily the best i have ever owned), the manufacturers, my kids (inaudible to them of course, as they sit trussed in their safety seats and watch daddy kill himself, barely containing their amusement at how fun all this is), and my rotten luck, and all i manage to do is hold the car in place. when i relax my hold a bit to reengage the emergency brake, it rolls down the driveway another few inches.

i am loathe to do much maneouvering in a's car, because mine has already ended up with only about six inches between her driver's side door, and my passenger side door, and i consider myself lucky already that my suv didn't shake me off like a fly and run uncontrolled straight into a's front grill. so i make a few more (miserable) attempts at rolling my car up the slope, including chocking the tire and rocking the entire vehicle back and forth while my thighs and buttocks scream in pain and viens pop in my temples in an attempt to shift the bastard a foot forward.

i succeed only in bathing myself in sweat.

so i run around to a's car, get in the passenger side, climb over to the driver's side, say a small prayer to the patron saint of befuddled stay-home fathers with battery-draining kids and the fear of damaging vehicles not one's own (i think his name is mortimer, st. mortimer), and slooooooooowly back up until the fronts of both vehicles align.

back over the storage bin, grinding my thigh against the steering wheel, and out the door, attach the cables to a's battery (having horrible visions of the cables falling into the fan and being yanked in, seizing the engine, and bursting into flame with the kind of explosions only hollywood and my own face-hurting imagination can concoct), stretching them across only to find that i need just two more inches to reach from one battery to the other. i pull, i tug, i rearrange the way the cables lay across everything, but nothing. suddenly, i feel akin to harold lloyd and buster keaton.

i climb back over the bin, prang my knee against the shifter, turn the steering wheel towards my car, and, holding my breath, inch even closer, pulling ahead some, straightening out, and backing up so close that a's sideview mirror nearly hits mine.

back over, and out, sweating, cursing, a knot made of steel cable forming between my shoulder blades, attach the cables at both ends (thank the lord), and rev up my car.

both of my sprogs throw their arms into the air and shout "it's working! yay, daddy, it's working!" as i leap out and undo the cables, drop two hoods, pull my car forward so i may remove the rock i was using as a chock, and reposition a's car so it isn't occupying more than its fair share of the driveway, and we drive off to mail the wife's package.

again i lecture my children, blank stares greeting me, and silently add locking the car to the checklist of things i must accomplish before going to bed so i am assured to wake up to less of a disaster every morning.

after a long nap on the couch, feel i ought to clean the house (yet fucking again. i spent all day yesterday cleaning, and yet, somehow, my children have returned it to the state it was in yesterday. do they set some alarm? do they wear protective gear? "hey, no. 2, it's time to wake up. dad's completely out. if we're gonna trash the place to the same level it was yesterday, we really gotta get going. here's your orange vest." i picture my kids with hardhats and steel-toed boots, dutifully tossing cereal all over the carpet and carefully dumping out stacks of dvd's and video games, calling back and forth to one another: "don't cut any corners with that peanut butter, you were slacking a bit yesterday" or "where did you leave the wheelbarrow we were using?")

fwap! ooh, ow.

now my face hurts.

darth sardonic

the sun is shining, the tank is clean--

*GASP* the tank is clean!

the wife got her official fly-out date, and if you tack two more days onto that (which is about what getting back takes), that makes the new official countdown 36. 36 days. slightly more than a month. am i getting excited? nah, cool as a cucumber me... (the word you, o my beloved non-existant readers and droogies, are searching for is bullshit (or bollocks would work if you hail from across the pond as many of you do).)

what brainiac decided housepainters' outfits should be white? seems their purposes would be better served if they were clad in some of those atrocious multihued prints from the 70's.

if one's progeny wake up at 2 am to play video games loudly until 6 am, it might be time to reassess one's approach to parenting. cleaning dried raw egg off of kitchen surfaces will help put one in the proper frame of mind for doing what must be done.

that is to say, the video games now reside on a shelf too high for anyone except myself to reach (yes, that includes the wife. she would need a step-stool), and only come down for limited amounts of time, and only as a reward for compliant behavior.

it is also handy to come up with a game plan for dealing with no. 1's repeated whinging about not being able to feed his habit ad infinitum. being the rat bastard that i am, and being endowed with a sick sense of humor, i came up with a great one that--well, i will just give you a sample conversation:

no. 1: i need to play games! i gotta play games all day!

me: i love music. music is cool.

no. 1: no, not music, music is yucky (silly, stupid, etc.). i want games.

me: i think music could easily be the coolest thing ever.

no. 1: no, not music. games. i want to play games all day.

me: i need music all the time. i want music all day.

no. 1: [exasperated] no, not music, daddy. games, i neeeeed games.

me: [hums a tune to self whilst an evil glint glows in eyes]

now, multiply that by a gozillion, and that was my day yesterday. today, he just didn't seem to fight it as much. though i expect it will get bad in the next few days when the visions start happening. (hahaha. i have a mental image of renton in his bed screaming at things he sees climbing the walls/ceiling. i know, i know, sometimes the connections of my obscure references are just too thin to follow. it is ok. no, i am not seeking help.)

in other news: the sun is brilliant, my tan is fucking rocking! (i know, i know, the possibility of skin cancer. i know. i am as careful as i can be. but sun is my element. sun recharges my batteries. sun keeps me sane. sun tells me not to kill the kids as i had previously decided to do.) the house is full-on clean (except the vacuuming, which, i have discovered, is just wiser to be done after the kids are in bed), and i continue working out as much as can within the confines of my own house. i continue slimming up, and am thinner than i have been in some time (not to worry, o my beloved and worrisome non-existant readers, i still look very healthy. i am not going for scrawny, i am going for toned. and getting there. yay.) during the allotted video-game time, i did some kind of jetski race with no. 1, my character looking like something straight out of an anime movie with insane hair, large eyes, and pointy chin, and got soundly trounced by my soon-to-be six-year-old son. i have never been a huge video game fan.

that is all.

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

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

saturday fezzle

i am always amazed that as a race we survive past the age of five. humans are clearly the exception to the survival of the fittest rule.

i am further amazed that people who live in one of the wettest areas of the united states are scared to drive in the rain, and clearly don't have any notion how to do it safely.

and if kids were dry-clean only, i would need a second mortgage to afford my laundry bill.

i needed to get a certain amount of grocery shopping done today. bleary-eyed and only half-awake, i got dressed, and somehow convinced the kids to accompany me to the the store, after which, i had decided, in my brilliance, i would take them with me to a local used bookstore to trade in a largish box of books i no longer wanted for items i did want.

overall, at the grocery store, we did well. we only needed a couple of things (kitty litter being the utmost: i had only just run out a day or two before, but apparently we own two felines who crank out enough piss n shit for eight), which, of course, got expanded by a few more ("we need coogies, daddy!"), and constant reminders to "pay attention" and "listen to daddy and do what he says" combined with threats of losing videogames had the desired effect of maintaining obedience.

until we were outside and i was laden-down by a 35-pound bucket of kitty litter, and no. 1 decided it would be a good idea to run into traffic without holding my hand or even bothering to look or heed my shouted warnings. he was narrowly missed by a van (that was, to avoid being overly melodramatic, coming to a full stop near their almost-encounter anyhow), and even this, combined with gasps of surprise from the onlookers, and my bellowings, was not enough to wake him up to the sheer magnitude of his utter stupidity at this maneuver. having my fists bunched up in the collar of his coat while my eyes were inches from his and i was using the stern voice magnified by five (and i hope i had bad coffee breath, too) also seemed to do little to sink it home for him, which enraged me more.

threats of loss of games illicited repeated "i'm sorries", to which i could only reiterate that sorry would do him a fat lot of good if he were in the er instead of getting into the car, and that it is hard to play video games when you can't use your arms. (i try not to be, but i can be quite fantastical and melodramatic in the scenarios that play in my head sometimes.)

since it is western washington, it is raining. combine that with the drivers who are unable to actually drive in the rain, and the trip from the grocery store to the bookstore was fraught with danger (well, i was still very shaken from the whole kid vs. van incident, and further angered by no. 1 still being blase about the whole thing), but we managed to arrive unscathed though nearly rear-ending a lady who clearly didn't know which lane she wanted to be in and thought coming to a complete stop in the middle of a major thoroughfare to decide might be a good idea.

into the store, and it quickly became clear this would've been a better trip sans kids. i dropped off my box of books at the counter where they would decide how much they were going to offer me (which would be a fraction of what i thought they ought to offer me), and peruse the cd's and books while they took their time coming to that conclusion.

now, o beloved non-existant readers, i had, in my head (which has not been the most reliable source lately), a rather longish list of cd's and books and such that i wanted. but the noise of my two sons battling each other for the title of "most disruptive and destructive in a book store" drove most of what i was looking for right out of my grey matter, which, i imagine, looks a little like swiss cheese from overexposure to my children, lack of sleep, and overindulgence in the imbibing of spirits.

while trying to remember what exactly it was i was hoping to find here, my buds a & m texted me saying they were going to the store and did i need anything?

to which i texted back, nah.

"stop poking me, no. 2. i gonna smack you!"

"nooooo."

u sure?

"no, no. 2, don' pay wif dat."

"leeb me 'lone. owwwww."

maybe some gin?

i did remember to look for a few cd's i had wanted (that they didn't have) and a few william burroughs books i needed (that they didn't have) and anything by bukowski (that they didn't have), all while playing human tug-o-war rope between two increasingly rowdy kids, who finally drove their father to the breaking point:

"owww, you're hurting my arm!"

"let gowa meee!"

(whispered harshly through clenched teeth:) "i am going to hurt more than your arms if you two don't stop messing around right now! ("messing around" being said with the same inflection that i would say "fucking about" when i am really pissed) and i am sick of reminding you to listen to me and do as i say, to no avail, so you can kiss the games goodbye, for today. if you continue as you are, you can kiss 'em goodbye for tomorrow as well."

"noooo, i need my games!" (says the junky)

"well," say i, all cold-hearted carved marble, "you shoulda thought about that when i told you before to behave and listen to what i was saying, instead of deciding a wrestling match in the comic books section would be a good idea. it is, sad to say, way too late now."

i locked my face and heart against the wails and pleadings that followed, dragging my spawn around by their arms. i find one book, out of the entire store, that i am interested in. i spend much time wandering aimlessly.

finally, they call me back to the desk, offer me the pittance they think my large stack of books is worth, and i am so fucking eager to get out of anywhere with other people around that i take it and run.

my future world dictators are completely rude to another young fella who wanted to be their friend whilst waiting in line to cash in my chit and pay for my book, and i am forced to stand between them as mine tell him to "shush" loudly, and try and tell him how to live his life, and he looks like his feelings are hurt, and his father chuckles good-naturedly.

on the way home, i discover that my stomach has eaten itself and is tugging on my spinal cord to drag the brain down to be the main course in a feeding frenzy, so i decide we better eat. the whole drive, i battle in my head: "sit down meal with the possibility of more disastrous behavior from my little hellions, or drive through, which leaves me the choices of grease, deep-fat-fried, or gutbomb?"

"you guys want pancakes?" (my kids are suckers for pancakes)

"yeah!"

so into the international house of pancakes, which, i have no doubt, is familiar to all my foriegn non-existant readers as well. it is, after all, the international house of pancakes. no doubt reformed bolsheviks enjoy a "passport breakfast" on red square, the bohemians eating crepes below the eiffel tower, punjabi's laying aside their nan in favor of french toast? has to be, right?

so my little mad scientists pick the "smiley-face" pancakes, and juices, and a rasher of bacon (which i actually have to remove from their grasp, because no. 1 will eat greasy bacon until he chunders it an hour or two later. i know, we've been there. on a road trip, no less), and then proceed to eat the whipped cream, chocolate chips, and maraschino cherries off the flapjacks without so much as breaking the surface of the griddle cakes, much to my chagrin. next time i will just ask them to bring two juices, a side of crispy, oily pork fat, and a large bowl of reddi-whip sprinkled with chocolate-flavored sugar gobs and do away completely with any attempt at healthy eating habits.

so back home, where i stick to my guns and make the kids play with toys or watch a movie while i begin my new book (read: fall asleep on the couch), until it is bedtime.

and now the monsters are asleep, and i think i am going to watch a movie and in general be an uninteresting slug, followed by going to bed early.

darth sardonic

the larch

today dawned bright and beautiful. my wife called from the second buy-in of a base sponsored poker tournament, mostly to see if she could afford to buy back in. we had a nice conversation for a bit before she insisted i lay back down since the kids were still asleep.

yeah, easier said than done.

no. 1 was up not much later, feening bad for his games that he had gone a full eight hours without. that boy is on the nod bad.

after he got his fix, i decided to head up to snoqualmie, a mountain town, in search of a collectibles shop i suspected might have vintage star wars toys and the like, hopefully for very reasonable prices. (d & k, if you're reading this, it was spur of the moment, and i forgot to put your phone number in my cell. or i would've at least called.)

so we left the house in a state i believe most people refer to as a shambles and got in the car to head out and have some fun on the road, even if the store was no longer there.

we had a great time in this little town whose big claims to fame are a still-working train line where one can ride on antique passenger trains, logging, and some beautiful falls. the building that the collectibles store used to be in was in a state of condemned-to-be-rebuilt-as-a-historical-monument, so we popped into a local garage sale, and i asked what had become of it.

"oh you mean the flying frog, it's across the street now. it's expanded too. you'll see it right there, across from the depot on main."

i thanked her, and we headed to the flying frog. we found it, and indeed, they had a plethera of vintage star wars collectibles, as well as real fossils and geodes, other sundry collectibles, and--

"oh my god, space 1999."

the owner pops his head up with a surprised chuckle and says, "yeah. do you remember what the name of the ship was?"

"oh man, ummm. alpha 1?"

"the eagle."

"the eagle?"

"yeah, the eagle from moonbase alpha."

"ah, that must be where i got the alpha thing from. i was what? 5, maybe 6. i had some of the action figures, but never the actual space ship."

i stood for a few moments, basking in fond, though vague, memories from my childhood while staring at the object that i had no doubt ogled and fantasized about whilst looking at a jc penneys catalog near christmas time.

my hope of very reasonable prices was a bit misplaced, but the proprietor did have a largish box of star wars figures, and i decided to go ahead and buy a few i didn't already have.

the boys were beyond well-behaved.

as we were heading back to the car, we passed a cafe, and popped in for hot dogs and sandwiches. we sat at the old-fashioned counter, and i asked the soda jerk for two of his finest kid's hot dog meals, and two of their finest root beers. i plunked my two bits down, only to discover that we've come a long way, baby, and whipped out my card instead.

the boys devoured their dogs, mowed through their chips, slurped their root beers, and made a huge mess (much to many of the patrons' delight) of their ice-cream cones, while boba fett kept falling off into the sarlacc pit, a power droid nearly lost his legs, and the death star commander kept reminding them that if they weren't well behaved, they weren't going to get to play video games when we got home.

the day was wonderful, my kids were angelic, the sun was bright, and a good time was had by all.

and i noticed something about western washington: it is full of hot, scantily-clad minas, just add sun.

darth sardonic

and the stars align...

(wait, what the hell? align, sign. jesus, the english language is all kindsa twisted and silly. now, if something is in a row, we say it is in a line. so the verb of that ought to be aline, right? not aliGn, dammit. somewhere early on in the development of the english language, some dippy git ran through with just random letters tossing them into the middle of words. through would be another example of this. so would would. fuck's sake, this could take all day...)

it is amazing what a full night's (again, there it is) sleep will do for a family of rowdy punk boys. nos. 1 and 2 were much more cooperative and listened better, and actually got to play games for a bit, and didn't even fight (again) when it was time to turn them off and do something else.

and we did. we went outside to "wash the car" again, cause honestly, that was pretty damn (again) fun. i actually sorta worked on flower beds while (again) the sprogs blasted me and each other with the hose at close range. laughter (again) ensued and we all got soaking wet.

now, in the past, when i have been rested, i have had a tendency to not be as harsh or "stick-to-my-guns" as i am when exhausted. but not today. i was, no doubt (yeah, i aint even trying anymore, shit), much more pleasant than i have been, but i still made the kids listen to me on the important things, and they still lost some priveleges. by god and sonny jesus, i am gonna make this thing work if it kills all of us! it won't, but, you know, i like to be all melodramatic.

all is currently quiet from the bedroom as well, so i am thinking (and hoping) that tonight will be another like last, and we will be again pleasant and listen and chipper and whatnot.

now, i am going to clean a bit, and cook myself a steak (yes, a steak. yes, me cook. oh, stop your bloody snickering!), and have a nice salad (i mean it, knock the damn guffawing off!) and maybe watch rebel without a cause, have a drink or two, and toddle off early.

and now i am going to go off on a rant because the phone just rang and this is really starting to piss me off:

before my wife left, i stood in the kitchen as she answered the phone as "toll free" popped up on the caller id, and watched as she proceeded to tell the whorey sonsa bitches on the other side that she was not interested in what they had to offer, and that she had told this to at least two other syphilitic operators, and would they please take her number off of their list, as we would not ever be interested in their product, thank you. (a note here, she didn't call them names or insinuate that they were disease-riddled or any such thing. that is being added here by me. she was very polite but firm. however, if they could've seen her eyes they would've crawled under their desks as if a nuclear blast was imminent. woo, got shivers just thinking about the look, glad it wasn't aimed at me.)

now, after she has left, we still get regular calls from "toll free", which i tend to not answer. but a mere week after my wife left, i am in the shower, and i have just put the shampoo on my hands but not into my hair yet, when the phone rings. at this time, my wife wasn't on some sort of set schedule, and hence would call at strange times of the day. i quickly rinse my hands, bark my shin on the side of the tub, curse the tub, and the installer of the tub, and the creator of bathtubs, nearly turf it on the tile floor (cause my fucking wife is calling from fucking turkey or something, i don't have time to even grab a towel!), and then stand dripping and shivering as i see "toll free" on the caller id. i do not answer it. i do not answer it because the ensuing barrage of obscenities and filth and foul would misrepresent the person that i attempt to be.

now, "toll free" has called at least once a day, mon through fri, since.

today, i answered. "may i speak to wife sardonic?"

"she is not home."

"thank you."

a few hours later, again, same voice. "may i speak to wife sardonic?"

"sorry, she isn't going to be home for several months."

"thank you."

and just now, o my beloved, and surely enraged (as i am) non-existant readers, the same successful brain-donor just rang back and asked me yet afuckinggain if she could speak to my wife.

i took a painful deep breath, and calmy said, "wife sardonic is not going to be home until september at the earliest."

"thank you."

and now, my droogies and only friends, if "toll free" calls again, o the beautiful tapestry of the deepest, foulest, murkiest filth i shall weave for their listening pleasure. i will no doubt dredge up words they may never have even heard before, whilst explaining to them that they are harassing me and that i have been nothing if not civil to them up to that point, and ending with the number they should direct their next call to (my lawyer's) because i swear to all that is good and holy in this shited-up world that if they call me again after i unload on them, there will be harassment charges being filed.

darth needs a new drumset.

i did say i was going to have a drink or two, did i not?

thanks for playing along.

darth sardonic

darth's vallejo back

yeah, so i made an attempt to post about round number three of the back piece. the shrieking of the kids and their repeated attempts to ignore anything i said that wasn't "by all means, play video games until the end of creation." or "here is food and drink, sup until thy sides burst." made it virtually impossible to focus on what i was trying to say.

so i saved it to draft.

well, the long and the short is, o beloved non-existant readers, it sucked ass.

so the cliff notes:

"hey, ready to get started?"

"yeah."

whirr whirr clackity clackity whirr whirr. (while zoning.)

"i need to go get rid of some taco bell."

"cool, i am gonna stretch my neck and check out what you've done so far."

[never, ever ever ever do this: before i stood up i was happily in the zone. i would even go so far as to say that the tattoo didn't hurt so much as it was just aggravating.]

whirr whirr clackity clackity whirr whirr. (oh my fucking god, is this appointment over yet? what happened between then and now that this hurts so damn much?)

and that is pretty much it.

nine hours into the cistine fucking chapel that is my back, o beloved (and no doubt snickering behind your hands) non-existant readers, and i think i have decided that i will still be working on this blessed thing until the roaches (and keith richards, whom they will worship like a god) have inherited the earth.

the last couple days, the kids have been experimenting with what happens when they ignore daddy completely. they have discovered that not being allowed to play video games at all, as well as being banned from movies altogether, really sucks. i have discovered it sucks for me, as well. the whining increases in frequency and volume. they have also discovered that daddy's stern voice can reach a volume and gravelliness that could be said to be hard on the eardrums. they have also discovered that increasing the amount of whining whilst not playing games or viewing movies also increases the potential damage to their eardrums. they have discovered that bothering daddy over and over again while he is napping on the couch is both hard on the book he was reading prior to dozing off, and their eardrums. they also discovered that after books learn to fly, daddy expands his 6'1" 200 lb frame to something that would rival the giants of old, as well as shooting lazers out of his eyes and emitting a sonic barrage that would fragment lesser beings. they learned that all of this causes an odd reaction within their own tiny frames: the instant appearance of copious amounts of salt water combined with the need to flee to the safety of their room. throwing their own toys around while in the safety of the room only causes the giant, lazer- and sound-wave-emitting daddy to come down the hall at a high rate of speed while the collossul sound waves that precede him reach an even louder and deeper frequency.

so after therapy (and the loss of nearly all priveleges allowed a young boy), i got the great idea that we would wash the car when we got home. i figured this would keep the kids entertained, and that i would be accomplishing something at the same time.

this was a good idea for about five minutes. five minutes is not enough time to wash a car. it is, however, enough time to soak daddy. it is also more than enough time to add dirt to the soapy water several times. five minutes is enough time for the oldest to bogart the hose, and to have it forcefully removed from his grasp a few times. it is plenty of time to get wet, dirty, and then parade in and out of the house, against express orders to remain outside, over and over again. it is enough time that had anyone on my block been home, children's services would no doubt have arrived to cart away my kids. (i say that completely in jest. i never laid hands on them at all, and i actually even overexaggerated the forceful removal of the hose--it's called creative license.)

doggedly, no, no. maniacally would be a more appropriate word, i continued to wash the car. this was completely stupid, as it looks worse than it did before. all filmy and dull and it is clear i am going to need to take it in to a car wash place and pay others to have it done properly.

i am competely unsure how two boys who battle sleep until nine at night before passing out on the floor of their room can wake up chipper and bouncey at five am. i go to bed an hour or two after them, and then am forced to search for binkies at ungodly hours of the morning, and remove toddlers with scratchy toenails that they use to take skin off of my thighs and hips from my bed, and finally drag myself like a half-dead slug from sleep when the alarm goes off a full hour-and-a-half after they have already been up and into shit.

however, this might explain the dark circles under their eyes, and maybe even the loss of hearing that they are both exhibiting.

darth sardonic

carrion birds

first, let me say, yes. yes, i listened to sad songs after posting yesterday. and i cried. i cried almost as heavily as the drive back from the airport where i was sure cars passing by on the freeway could hear my sobs, or at least tell that i was bawling. (i am not, repeat not, a very tidy or quiet crier.) got it out of my system, washed my face, and hey, presto, ready to go.

chantay, i too believe in the healing and cleansing powers of crying. you shoulda been reading around this time last year. shit. '06 was a bad year for the sardonic household, and i was fucking crying all the damn time.

i guess it could be said i am a frequent crier. and i collect frequent crier miles, which i can cash in to upgrade from economy cry to first-class cry, or on complementary beverages.

i want to know why the owner's manual for a shaver that is designed specifically for removing hair from some of the, ahem, more tender areas of my anatomy will expressly forbid me to use it on my face? am i the only one that doesn't get that?

i pull out a bag of chips (guacamole flavored--boasting "real avocadoes" on the outside of the package, but judging by the "best if used by" date of 3010, i'm guessing there's less real avocadoes in my chips than cheese on the moon), and without warning, no. 2 appears by my shoulder.

"whatcha doin?"

"uhh, dunno, i wan' chiss."

"of course you do."

i can always count on no. 2 to help me with whatever meal i eat anywhere near his presence. he alights on my shoulder, tucks his wings under, and stretches out his long, thin neck to get a better look at what is on the plate.

i usually grumble about this, saying, "it's my ruddy lunch, and just once i would like to eat it unhindered!"

today i just poured him out a pile of chips and shoved the dip over to where he too could reach it. this, predictably, didn't stop him from standing so close to me that i actually elbowed him in the head when pulling chips out of the bag. (it's ok, later, on the toilet, i am trying to get him to go poop, and ask him if he went poopy, and he replies with an excited shout, "nooo, ppppeepee!" and spit right in my eye at close range.)

after getting a message from the school telling me that everyone but the developmental preschoolers had school on friday (make up snow-day), which matched the letter they sent out, i got an automated call later on friday from the school informing me that my kids weren't in school that day and that i would need to call during business hours to settle that up with the office. what? what?!? you mean to tell me that i could've sent my kids to school and gotten some cleaning and what-have-you done around the house? boy o boy.

i think it is possible that my mom is beginning to show early signs (what a bizaare word, signs. whose great idea was it to toss a g in the middle of that? english is crazy.) of senility. i was talking about my back tattoo (oh shit, i still have to post about that too. man, i'm all over the damn place), and quite unexpectedly she says she wants me to draw her something representing the "eternal mother" so she can get it tattooed. this combined with the amount of times she says/does something that she then promptly forgets... all i'm saying is sometimes she worries me. she can still beat fuck out of me in a game of misery. so who knows?

certainly not me.

darth sardonic