I've got it now,

a thorn in my side the size of a Cadillac. Drive it through, cause backin' up now would be next to impossible.

even with only 26 days left, the funk still rears its ugly head and thumps me on the noggin like some lowbrowed thug attempting to steal my wallet.

i awoke to screaming and crying. nos. 1 and 2 fighting over the same green-plastic gun.

the skies are gray, the kids are grumpy, i am tired, the house is a mess. the day looms ahead like a barren stretch of potholed road, empty, mind-numbing, soul-crushing.

i force myself to clean as the kids keep up the neverending litany of "games food drink" over and over, parrots on crack, attempting to obliterate the tiny shreds of my sanity hiding in the corners like refugees driven from their home. i don't even have the energy to attempt at retaliating with odes to the virtues of music.

gravity pulls harder. remaining upright is a battle. i would sleep, but the mound of clean clothes in need of folding completely occupies the couch, and laying down in another room is simply asking no. 2 to get his hair glue (for hawking his hair up) down and spray it on my guitars again.

i drink too much coffee, and get the jitters. i shuffle back and forth between dishes and the clothes and the vacuum.

i set the timer for the video games. "when this goes off, what happens?"

"it's time to put the games away."

"that's right."

but instead, it is time to say, "i'm not done." then: "but i am still not done." then: "no daddy daddy i don't want you to put the games up! no, i don't want the games put up. I DON'T WANT YOU TO PUT THE GAMES UP!!!" (if he had a working knowledge of swear words, the last shrieked sentence would be riddled with words found quite frequently within this blog.)

the games get put up. the shrieking and throwing of things shifts to a bedroom. i sit, defeated, exhausted, lost, alone.

as the tantrum settles, i sit with no. 1 and attempt to get him to understand why the games have been put up and what kind of behavior is necessary to ensure the safe return of the console:

"what is it that you need to do to be able to play games?"

he looks at me, deadly serious, bottom lip aquiver, eyes wide, wet, wipes his nose on his sleeve, and his black eyes stare deep into my own honey ones, and he says:

"is a pwivwidge, daddy."

i smile. the fog lifts. energy rushes to my limbs. the cowering bits of my brain peek out from their hiding places and venture forth, emboldened. i shake off the doldrums like a layer of dust.

shortly thereafter, no. 1 returns to his tantrum, having decided that calmly listening to what i have to say is counterproductive, but the change has already been effectuated within my tired self.

it is extended by a well-timed im from a new acquaintance (that i honestly thought would never talk to me again after some of the things i said last time), and a wonderful conversation.

no. 2 walks up, out of the blue, looks at me, smiles his smirky mischeivious smile, and says, "my wuv you, daddy."

i am still exhausted. as far as i can tell i am, barring two rambunctious and sleep-deprived headstrong punk kids, still alone. the skies are still gray. the only thing that has physically changed is the house is clean.

but the funk is gone, o my beloved non-existant readers, my droogs and only friends, driven straight out by such simple things as these frozen moments of meaning and happiness.

darth sardonic

oh my god i miss my wife...

a package arrived in the mail today. inside was a mini dvd of my wife reading the boys two stories.

there was my wife, illuminated on the comuter screen, absofuckinglutely radiant despite having her hair pulled back and being clad in her pt gear.

o my dear, patient, long-suffering non-existant reader, this was, quite simply, gorgeousness and gorgeosity as of the finest spun heavenmetal. the kind of moment that is so awesome and brilliant in its expansiveness that the human body can almost not contain it. i watched, entranced, as she began one story, mesmerized by her eyes and her mouth. i wanted to fall deep into those orbs and never climb free.

the boys sat on my lap and watched and laughed and interacted as if their mommy was seated right there in front of them, shouting "yup!" when she said she hoped they were having fun with daddy.

as you might guess, i alternated between wanting to pull her from the screen and bury her with kisses, and gulping back impending sobs.

when the fourteen-minute movie was over, my boys gave me hugs (as they had been instructed by their mom from afar) and went back to playing games.

and i broke down, and logged in here, and broke down some more. i'm still breaking down in waves as i write this (which is getting increasingly harder and harder through the veil of tears), and snot is dripping out of my nose unchecked.

i might need a fucking shower once i have posted this. hell, i might need a shower and a drink. shit, i might need a shower, a drink, and a long nap in which i will dream about holding my wife's body against mine without ever letting her go again...

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i'm better. sort of. i keep telling myself that i am not going to rewatch the dvd after the kids go to bed, but i think we all know that i will.

i realize that this is the job. i realize that thousands, maybe millions, of people do this, and not just in this country, but many others as well. i realize that some wife in afghanistan or iraq is watching her husband leave the house and wondering if he is ever coming back. i realize a spouse in another part of the world is aching for his or her significant other. i realize that my friend a's hubby's company lost two soldiers just two weeks ago in an incident that was widely publicized on the news here. i realize that my wife is so far from any danger as to almost not even feel it. none of this changes the very real fact that i am sitting here awash in a yearn to feel my wife and hear her laugh and touch her skin that i can actually feel in the pit of my stomach like a hot knife, o my droogs and only friends.

but let me have this moment of pain, and emptiness, and ache, and lust, and yearning, and bawling, and then i will be alright, and ready to again tackle the day-to-day with my sarcastic wit and aplomb, smirking like the motherfucker i am, and quirking my eyebrow in that way that lets you know i am thinking things i oughtn't to be, and no, i won't share those thoughts with you. heh heh.

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and to sorta answer your question (and at the same time, artfully dodge the details of the full answer), wuastc, usually i tell people when they ask why i was in argentina that i was on a student exchange. not because i am ashamed of going to argentina, nor of what i did there, but because the man i was when i went to buenos aires is so different from the man i am today, and yet, at the same time, so alike. so in all fairness to you, the non-existant readers, and because i doubt highly that any of you will buy some bullshit line, i offer you the truth:

at the time i boarded a plane to fly to south america, i was very active in the religion to which i belong. i believed very strongly that its tenets could help everyone. i wanted to share this with anyone who wanted to hear.

i don't regret that decision, even now, when i haven't been to church in years, and (clearly) no longer even attempt to follow the specific teachings thereof. and maybe someday, i will post as to the reasons and events that led to me abruptly switching the course of my life. for the sake of brevity (too late), suffice to say, i am much happier now than i ever was before, except when i was in argentina.

the reasons i am glad that i went to do missionary work in argentina are completely selfish: i learned so much about who i was, how i viewed the world, and what was really, truly important to me, than i ever would have if i had stayed home. argentina taught me so much more than i ever taught it, or its people.

so the reason i don't usually give the real reason i was there is not because i am ashamed, either of the choice to go or of having gone, or even of where my life is now, but because the two would appear to be on opposite ends of the spectrum, and i wouldn't want one to cloud or mar or skew the other.

but, again, bucket of contradictions, hahahaha.

and so my biggest, darkest secret is out. i could say here that i was gay, or once killed a man in cold blood, or that i have alien eggs incubating in the back yard, and in my head that would be a fraction of the deep, dark secret that the real reason i went to buenos aires is.

hopefully, that doesn't change anyone's opinion of me. actually, i don't really care, hahaha.

thanks for playing along though.

darth sardonic

ps. holy shit, the corrections i had to make to this post once my eyes cleared. and a side note: i am not gay, i have never killed anyone in cold blood (except some wasps, and sundry other nasty bugs, a few garter snakes, and a toad. i cried heavily for the snakes and toad when i got a little older and realized just how unnaturally cruel i had been. they told me to quit fucking worrying about it.), and i do not have alien eggs incubating in the back yard (that's my story, and i am sticking to it, heh heh).

ds

it's time to wake up...

am i alone in here?

so our friend a calls me about 5ish and says she is going stir crazy (her bf is also gone for a bit), and what am i doing.

and, of course, we all know the answer to that. i curve my index finger, bend my thumb, place the two tips together, and splay my other three fingers. as we used to say in buenos aires, huevo.

so plans are hastily made to lay hands on some gin and some tonic, and the fixin's for grilled cheese and tomato soup are amassed. and we play phase 10 and drink and bitch about work and stupid people and our significant others being gone. my wife actually calls while a is there, and we put her on speaker, and in an odd sort of way, it was like before she left.

comme ce, comme ca, o my patient and easy-going non-existant readers, it supplied me with the energy to perk myself up and have a better attitude for the weekend.

but at the same time, while i was hanging out, chatting a bit before going to bed, i was listening to music. the kinds of songs that keep my energy up: alkaline trio, deftones, casualties, on and on.

but without even knowing it, i started a slight glacial shift towards songs that might make me sad: looking back on today, by the ataris, one lonely visitor, by chevelle. it didn't make me cry, maybe because i was so perky as to almost be annoying, and most definitely tipsy.

but i'm feeling it a bit this morning. in the back of my head, like. like i ought to listen to the songs again and get it out of my system before i venture out and enjoy my weekend. like i might actually be able to relax more and have more fun for having done it.

worry not, o fearless non-existants: i get sad, i get depressed, i cry, i rail against god and dubya, and anyone else i think i can get away with blaming, and then i fucking smack myself, tell myself to lay off the fucking moaning, pick myself up, dust myself off, and right back at it.

cause that is just the way i am (said with eyebrow acock, and smirk on full alert).

darth sardonic

this is me breathing

ok, this time with my wife overseas is going to be nothing if not interesting:

today, upon arrival from school, and as i was setting up the video games so that they might play them for a bit and i might finish laying down a guitar track on the computer that was giving me an unfair amount of headache, no. 1 says, "welcome to da no. one show. dis is my friends daddy an no. 2. dese are video games."

shortly thereafter, i am sure i hear no. 2 say "fug it."

i say, "what?"

"fug it, dada, fug it in."

no. 2 is pointing at the controller that i am getting ready to plug in to the console.

"oooooooh." (remind me to share a story of no. 2's actual usage of the work fuck. in the story, he's cute and i am an asshole.)

no. 1 is all set for college dorm life, having pulled out my wife's larger glass measuring cup, putting in a rather overdone amount of lucky charms, adding apple juice to it, and eating it with one of our biggest wooden spoons. if i can get him to eat pizza that has been sitting out on a desk for three days, he's all set.

early thursday morning, i drive my wife to the airport. we had this agreement not to cry in front of each other, and despite occasionally noticing red, watery eyes, we held pretty true. but i got a little gulpy telling her i loved her as we hugged at the drop-off.

"don't cry don't cry." she says.

this has been percolating within me for three days, easily. i gulp it down, hold my breath, and dive into the car, waving frantically from within the safety of tinted windows, the tears spilling down my cheeks despite my efforts to hold them back.

the whole ride home is accomplished in a wavey haze of tears, the radio drowned out by the sound of my own sobs.

by the time i walk through the door, i am tired, mopey, but ready to take this challenge on. then i get dealt the parting shot: a note in front of the computer; "i love you! miss u already!"

after another five minutes or so, i calm down again.

but, in the midst of all this crying, o beloved non-existant reader, i have the image of all the crying we will do when my wife returns. so yes, i am sad. and yes, i will miss her like i would miss my eyes or arms if someone took them away, and have already experienced about a million things i would normally share with her when she arrived home from work, but i know that these months shall pass rapidly, and we will have so much to share.

and baby, i love you too, and i missed you before i even knew i was missing you.

and no, i am not crying. though my throat seems a little tight. hmmmm, odd.

darth sardonic

ps. i tagged krissie (no doubt to be added to my pals list soon) but in the meantime go to the comments and click the link, i am too fucking lazy to add html links or whatever fucking thing it is. that makes four, we should assume that is the best you are to get from me.

18 months feels like fucking eternity...

damn, i am hit-or-miss at best when it comes to posting lately.

i have to say, as the date of my wife's impending deployment looms nearer and nearer, my emotions become a bigger and bigger jumble.

it's not to say that i am not going to tackle this running, and do well, and survive and all of that. and i know my friends will "rally 'round the forces" so to speak, and make sure i am getting regular breaks, and adult human contact, and my mom has a number of summer odd-jobs to keep me busy and in flash money, but it is going to feel like someone is taking a chunk of me and flying it to points east for four (possibly six) months.

and i know that that is all sappy and silly, but i really can't help it, that is how i feel.

so, even though the chronological number of the song is wrong, the sentiment is the same: i won't breathe for 18 months.

as a funny aside, and to boost my mood a bit, i think i am going to begin adding labels for my posts, in the way that only darth sardonic can.

darth sardonic