happy birthday/father's day

today i am 40 years old. it feels alot like 39 but with a headache and an icky glenlivet residue in my mouth.

40, n while i feel i have come a long way, i constantly remind myself how much growing i have to do, and how much of that skinny, whiny little twit who thought everybody hates him still resides somewhere inside me.

i'm a lucky motherfucker. i've got amazing kids, a gorgeous, wonderful wife who puts up with my bullshit. sometimes more than her fair share. n yeah, i put up with bullshit from her too, that's the nature of relationships, it all balances out.

i miss my dad today. don't ask me why. i've no idea. but i do, and it hurts.

i thought i had more to say. i guess it just boils down to that.

thanks for playing along, better posts (and my views/thoughts/observations about aspergers) to come.

darth sardonic

lying through my teeth...

it's not really a lie. but it isn't the whole truth.

life is a rollercoaster, with its ups and downs; its highs and lows. the only sure thing is that the biggest highs are precedent to the massive lows.

not that lows are always bad. in fact, in a rollercoaster, the lows are the part that gives us the greatest exhiliration, ripping the screams from our mouths, tossing us into loopty loops and twists and turns that cause us to laugh out loud. the highs lure us into the complacency that make the lows twice as exciting. or twice as agonizing.

to say that my wife and i are perpetually happy isn't really a lie. but it isn't the whole truth.

sometimes our relationship is one of complacency. the day to day takes hold, the classes, the job, the doctor's appointments for the boys, homework and parent/teacher conferences. this is not unhappiness, it is mundanity. it is life.

to confuse my analogy a bit, i consider these the lows in the rollercoaster of our existence together; my wife and me.

these lows generally coincide with highs in another part of my life. in this case, the band, big dumb animal. in the somewhere near 8 original songs we have mastered and perfected. in the hours spent with s the drummer and s the guitarist in the garage drinking and playing through our setlist and laughing and the euphoria that follows a rollicking rock song performed to perfection when three distinct individuals read each other's signals exactly and the song thrums to its climax in such a way that makes the heart beat faster and the fist pump involuntarily, ending in a steady hum of that final guitar chord that wrapped everything up so magnificently.

even the momentary lows of a pourly-performed song are their own version of highs, punctuated with humorous and harmless ribbing: "i fucked that one up." "yes, yes you did. have another gin and tonic, lush."

and without instruments in our hands, these highs are continued in conversations only found amongst those select few who are truly kindred spirits that fate or god or the universe has inexorably pulled together to be present in each other's lives at this time.

and this is how guitarist s and i found ourselves having a drunken conversation at a cuban sandwich joint in downtown ybor city on a random tuesday night as we waited for it to be time to watch roger waters perform his legendary "wall" concert.

this is how s told me he had been talking to this old friend of his for some time, how he felt connected to her, and she to him, which was really saying something considering what they had both been through individually prior to the moment they began talking again. and he isn't just whistling dixie. i can't speak for her, but personally, i have watched s battle with himself over the loss of his wife to another man, the woman he expected to be with forever. the woman he would pine over (until this sainted friend reentered his life) and with whom he would share custody of his daughter, the apple of his perhaps tainted eye. i know how huge this confession is. i know how hard; how tentative and unsure and yet needing-to-be-there-so-badly it all is for guitarist s. i also know how much i have moved into his inner circle of closest friends as he shyly, watching closely for my reaction, admits they sleep together--

"till our phone batteries die."

in the back of my head, i hear the death knell. not of my dearest friend and kindred spirit, s. but of something that i selfishly think of as all mine, even though it involves two other individuals.

the woman who has made s believe in love again is some 3000 miles away, in arizona.

and i know that big dumb animal is terminal.

what i didn't know is that the doctors would give it such little time.

it's been months since we have met in my garage with drinks and a plan for wowing audiences. life for one or another always gets in the way. we were on the verge of playing our first gig of all originals complete the three of us on our own instruments in front of a real (and not culled from friends and acquaintances) audience.

but chances seem good that s will be in arizona, perhaps for good, the end of this month.

this low in big dumb animal's rollercoaster coincides with the high; the rekindled spark, i think is the popular phrase, between my wife and i.

when s breaks the news, i am all for it. through our many and varied (and often inebriated and uncensored) conversations, i know this is something he must do. and i want him to. and i am always a proponent of love.

i tell him, "dude, this is your fucking happiness. if you don't play this hand out, you will regret it the rest of your life."

it's not really a lie. but it isn't the whole truth.

because i am happy for him, and i really want him to go, and see where this fork of his road takes him. but in the same breath, this fork takes him away from me. and i wrestle between the selfish desire to have this friend who actually gets so many aspects of myself that no one else would, and whom i get in kind be truly happy, and the selfishness of having him here, and available, and in my garage helping me see through the boring patches of my own life with a placebo excitement that can be derived from a small group of like-minded individuals playing music together in a way that most bands only dream of.

i pass a couple days being sad to the point of tears on the inside, and smiling on the outside.

until my wife asks me about something seemingly innocuous. at ten thirty at night. as we lay in the dark bedroom, my fingers against the skin she feels is "too fat" but which my body only registers as electric and smooth and pleasurable and i laughingly say a sentence that is light and airy. that leads to a comment about s' impending move. that leads to a half-hour discussion of how happy i am for him and at the same time so unhappy for myselfish self.

it's not really a lie. but it isn't the whole truth.

and she laughs when i say that i would be lying through my teeth if i didn't say that it just plain sucks ass that he is moving, for me. but she also knows it's the truth when i say that i am happy as can be for s.

and in that simple unplanned spontaneous shared conversation when both of us should've by rights been sleeping, i worked out my issues with the demise of something that was beautiful and as ephemeral as the final big plummet/loopty loop/twisting spiral that precedes the braking, clicking entrance back into the terminal of the rollercoaster, followed by the laughing, adrenaline-fueled conversations of the individual experiences that brought the different riders to that spot at that moment.

thanks for playing along.

darth sardonic

and o thou beloved non-existent readers, thou stalwart though silent few who continue supporting me even as i myself only pass by this rusty nail in the sandlot of the world wide web on occasions when i am seeking answers only i can give, should you seek to see big dumb animal at the height of their career, performing their greatest hits as if there were no tomorrow, ask me how, and i will point you in the right direction.

if i've said it once...

i have said it before, and i will say it again: i am one lucky motherfucker. i remind myself of that daily. that is not to say that i haven't had rough times in my life. times where i wanted to cash in whatever chips i had left and call it quits. times when i wondered where god was hiding that he could no longer see me and the mire of shit i was wading through. but i have always had the good fortune to come out the other side clean and smelling like roses, and beyond a little experience, unscathed.

i see others around me. some who are in something that for me counts as a real trial. my friend melly, same age as me, battling cancer, for example. family members who have battled cancer in the past. people i never got say proper goodbyes to, perhaps, and with whom i may never get the proper closure, until the day i tearfully remind my own loved ones that, regardless of what was going on at the time, i have always been one lucky motherfucker, and then transfer from this existence to the next, where i will meet them again, and say the things i should've always said, except that you think you have forever to convey those feelings that will hit you at midnight on some random thursday a good ten years after you have missed that opportunity.

and i consider myself doubly lucky that i have this awareness of my own luckiness. now, o my beloved non-existent readers, this is not me tooting my own horn. i didn't always feel this way. there was a time when the world was fucking falling apart if the girl i loved didn't love me back. where something as simple and insignificant as that would have me throwing in the towel. i hate to admit it openly, but yes, i have matured. i have realized just how fucking precious this gift we call life is, and just how much of it i have been blessed with.

and again, it may sound like it now, but i am not tooting my own horn. i am not full of myself. if you, the beloved non-existent reader, have been here more than twice you will know this is not my style. i am just a guy, trying to make it happen, trying to be happy, on this little blue marble in the big fucking universe that looms over us every night.

i am trying to remind us that those people who make us aware of just how lucky we are need to be reminded that we have noticed. that we are there for them. that when they wade through that swamp of shit we will be the ones putting out a hand to pull them free, clean and smelling like roses; so that they too may stand on the edge of some cesspool and drag the next lucky motherfucker free with a warm hand and a smile.

none of us are perfect. none of us are happy all the time. i am learning to forgive. i am learning to forget. but happy is the man who is surrounded by the kinds of people who stand ankle-deep in putrid waters (or better yet, come in to the armpits to walk a bit alongside) to cheer us on to whatever finish line awaits us. and i, for one, must say: happy is the man who knows just how fucking lucky he is; just how blessed; just how gifted and happy and cared for he has been his whole life, and how important it is, as one who is a lucky motherfucker, to pass that luck along. how important it is to be willing to wander the swamps lending hands.

i pray, o my beloveds, for i know you are still out there; still wander my way when you find a quiet moment; that you also will pass this along. that you will reach out to those around you who are in need; that you will thank your lucky stars, or god, or whatever power you submit to and in the same breath reach out to the others around that need that.

we are all in this together, and there is nothing more god-like and divine that realizing it, and sharing it.

darth sardonic

out of the frying pan and into the fire

i hate doing yard work in florida.

i have recently taken up pipe smoking.

are the two related? hmm, maybe, maybe not. you get to be the judge. but if you study your psychology to any extent, you could almost say that "b" follows "a" like a connect-the-dots (so i guess that would make it "2" follows "1" but whatever.)

as i said, i hate doing yard work in florida. here's why. but get settled in, o beloved non-existent readers, get comfy. make sure you have your coffee or tea or tom collins or whathaveyou ready. without any further delays, here's why: the "grass" on my little sandbar of florida is a grass/weed hybrid that grows well on the sandy soil. as long as it gets regular water, and an overabundance of shade. anywhere else in the world, the shade would be doable, but since the only trees that grow on this spit of land are palm trees, and there aren't too many of those, the only part of my lawn that flourishes is the part that gets shaded by the three palms that occupy my yard, and the front, which is shaded by the house.

so when i mow, i am actually doing two things besides maintaining my rampant weed grass at an acceptable height (which, i can assure you, the beloveds, is a good two inches taller than your lawn, because if we cut the hybrid too low, it dies): 1) i am further killing the areas that don't grow well to begin with due to overexposure to the sun, and 2) i am kicking up an inordinate amount of sandy dust that sticks to everything on my person, mainly because it is already 95 degrees out at ten in the morning with a humidity percentage of the same, and i am already covered in sweat at the very thought of getting the mower out of the garage.

another disadvantage to doing yard work on a sandbar is the only thing maintaining ground stability is the aforementioned weed grass. anywhere that the "lawn" is not doing well is a shifting pit of sand. so turning a heavy lawnmower in these areas is extremely hard on my hands, shoulders, hips and knees.

now, for those of you, the beloved non-existents, who have been passing by this thistle bur lodged in the foot of the world wide web for several years (which i am pretty sure is absolutely no one anymore) or the ones that read my history to get caught up to date (which is one or two of you probably), you will know that i actually really like yard work. enjoy it. one could even say look forward to it. so, having said that, we know that it is yard work specifically in florida that i hate.

the yard needed some tending to bad though. so i set out. now, because it was already like a sauna at ten, this involved weeding the beds, and then coming inside for a half hour and drinking water. then going back out and edging. then coming back into the ac and drinking water. then limping back out to mow and sucking down clouds of sand whilst sweating gallons and damn near passing out from heat exhaustion as i finished up the last of the back yard. then coming inside, sitting for quite some time without moving much except to pour water down my unwilling throat. i didn't even have the energy to eat, though i probably needed it something fierce.

again, this is called heat exhaustion.

later on in the afternoon when the temperatures calmed somewhat, i was feeling better, and sat out on the front porch with a pipeful of vanilla cavendish. i took my time, savored the smoke, relaxed, beamed upon the hard work i had done and the fruits of my labors. when i was through, i tapped out my bowl in the corner of one of the flower beds nearest my chair.

our friends q n j came over to hang out with us, and we were talking and waiting for my wife to come home from work when the doorbell rings. it is one of the neighbor's teenage sons, and he says, "is your yard supposed to be on fire?"

yes, fire. yes, though technically not the yard so much that one small corner of the flower bed, which currently has a small, 8-inch diameter blaze spiking up redly from the mulch and a defunct sprinkler head that is now a black, foul-smelling wad of goo with a spring launching like a rocket from the center.

"umm, no, no it's not."

i douse the flames, and the mulch for a few inches around the burnt patch, remove the spring and melted head, and laugh with the neighbors about my bad luck.

the neighbor says, "i go out with kindling, starter fluid, dry wood, and a grill lighter and can't get a fire started, you tap out some ash, and poof!"

exactly.

so obviously an ashtray is in order, is it not, o beloved non-existent readers?

what was funnier was that i was pontificating wildly with q n j about the bruiser of a reactionary tizzy that my wife would throw upon noting the burnt patch and discovering its origin. i opined that she would probably set an immediate ban on pipe smoking of any sort, and then proceed to stomp around the house and take several minutes to calm back down to her usual jovial self.

is it bad that i am just a little disappointed that she walked right past the still-smelly black patch without noticing, and then when i outed myself in a case of complete honesty and full disclosure her reaction was simply, "well, i guess you'd better start keeping a coffee can out there, huh? goofball."

ultimately, i am happy that no serious damage was done (though i am thinking i should buy a cap for the sprinkler head just in case anyone ever decides to turn the water back on), and that no one was hurt, and that i learned my lesson and my wife blew it off like water off a duck's back.

and thanks for letting me be the doof here and playing along.

also, my friend melly is doing as well as can be expected on a barrage of chemo, and is being well-taken care of. thank you to all of you who are out there and still read who might've sent positive energy or prayers or whatever communication with deity that you personally believe in on her behalf. or just in general, cause i believe that taking a moment out of your day to think, "man, i hope the people out there that are in need of comfort, love, health, and strength are getting their needs met" counts.

damn, now the back of my throat burns. i am such a bawlbaby.

darth sardonic

mothers day

happy mother's day one and all. normally i wax lyrical about mothers and my own mother and the mother of my children. but i am tired.

so suffice to say, that while i imagine that all the mothers reading this blog (all five of you) are probably as amazing as hell, i have been blessed with world's (and quite possibly universe's) coolest mom, and further blessed with world's (and without a doubt universe's) coolest wife.

happy mother's day again, and may you all be truly blessed with the love of your spouses, families, and children.

darth sardonic

...with fingers crossed for everything you do

i had been bugging dr d for weeks. ever since i noticed the twin "vw" (as in volkswagen) buttons he had on his corkboard in his office.

"you've got two, n my corkboard in x-ray is barren."

incessantly, almost on a daily basis. man, dr d was a laid-back guy who managed to put up with a lot of shit from me.

time passed. i bugged him occasionally about the buttons, but it never really was a big deal.

eventually, i forgot about it.

then i was having one of those days. the days when it's the little things that kill. when the morning starts off with something stupid and annoying, and then moronic coworkers exacerbate the situation, and then you get a short lunch because someone else was lazy, and an unusual amount of extra patients come in and you are the one expected to get them all situated. the kind of day where i joke about ropes or razor blades. the kind of day where my eyes sag.

by three in the afternoon, i feel the unshed tears of aggravation and frustration fighting their burning way to the surface, and i go to hide out in the x-ray exposure room. this room was perfect for this purpose, as it had a regular door instead of the revolving door most x-ray rooms have. so i can shut the door, lock it, turn off the light, and anyone that might need me would have to knock so as not to unexpectedly expose x-ray film to light and render any films i might've taken useless and subsequently face my justified wrath. and after the knock, i can say "gimme five minutes" and make sure i have washed the tears away and look normal when i come back out.

i shut the door slowly. flick the lightswitch down. sit in the beat up discarded computer chair that serves as my office chair (this little five by eight room being the closest i have ever come to my own office in my entire air force career, and i get to share it with two developing machines, a counter where i keep extra films and cleaning supplies, and a sink).

i cry. i let all the frustration out in little streams down my cheeks. i hang my head and see teardops falling, glinting red in the subdued exposure room lights.

i do what needs to be done, and decide i better clean up before someone realizes i have been in here with the door shut for awhile.

as i rinse my face in the sink, i look up. on the bottom of my corkboard, oddly-colored in the red lights, a single "vw" pin is tacked into place.

i cry more, but not from frustration this time.

the other day, when i hit the cat, as i was still feeling wracked with grief and guilt, i got a text from j, my buddy from autocad classes:

what kind of coffee u want? at panera

it seems that invariably when i feel lowest, some show of support and love appears unexpected.

truly, i am one of the luckiest motherfuckers ever to tread.

darth sardonic

student of the month

the trick is not thinking about what we have been through to get to this point. the trick is to keep my arm around him and beam proudly and be wholly immersed in the moment. because if i think about the hospital, the tubes and machines, the appointments and doctors, the therapies, the first year of kindergarten, i will tear up in the middle of the auditorium and i will be unable to disguise the fact that i am crying, and then he will ask, "whazmadder daddy? why you cryin?" and i will sob even more, and i would really prefer to maintain my composure amongst all these teachers and students and their parents.

no. 2 received student of the month for september.

darth sardonic

this is a true story...

i promised something happier and with laughs, and i am about to deliver in spades.

but the details of this story are so outrageous that you, the beloved non-existent readers, will be tempted to say, "bullshit!" or "bollocks!" if you're from across the pond.

as would i, if it hadn't actually happened to me.

but let me assure you again, the details of this particular blog are true, actually happened, and i am even attempting to turn off my usual knack for exaggeration to bring it to you, my droogs and only friends, as uncluttered as i possibly can.

my wife was off work today, and the weather was nice, so we decided to go as a family to the beach.

we wanted to get there early, beat out the crowds and the unnatural florida heat, so we left the house tennish and headed over.

we spent some time waist-deep in the waves, enjoying the sheer emptiness of the beach.

we spotted the occasional dolphin snacking on fish about a quarter-mile off, popping in and out of the waves, and i was half-tempted to try and swim out there so i could honestly say i had swum with dolphins in the wild without it being a huge over exaggeration, but i was a little tired and not sure how dolphins feel about being interrupted whilst they dine.

seemed to me this would be the pinnacle of my day, easy. sharing the same site-distance ocean space with a small group of hungry dolphins. yeah, not quite.

then we went on a walk to collect some nice seashells. looking for unique ones, while the kids insisted on filling the bucket with the generic, run-of-the-mill white clam shells. i take my seashelling very seriously. i look for those really cool shells that would look amazing in our collection.

i see something dark and of odd shape that attracts me instantly.

as i get closer i let out an involuntary shout of excitement.

but i am pretty sure it is already dead.

then as i get closer, it jerks and tries to get away.

"hey come here check this out come here come here!!" i call excitedly to my family.

but the poor little fella is knackered, and the waves catch him and wash him back and forth and he is at their mercy, so my wife catches him back up, and we go back to my original idea that he must be dead.

until he tries to swim out of her hand.

now we are carrying him rapidly back to our sandcastle stuff and blankets. my wife fills a small bucket with water and goes to call someone she works with who is one of the wildlife people at the cape.

when she comes back, the boys and her and i sit around watching the little baby turtle float leisurely in the bucket, occasionally swimming some to get some air. over time, he perks up quite a bit, and by the time linda, another wildlife lady, shows up, he seems pretty pleased with his existence.

she assures us that one of two things will happen, if he is unable, for whatever reason, to return to the ocean, then sea world will take him. otherwise, they will bring him back at 6 am when the predators are all asleep and let him swim out to sea.

if i hadn't happened along when i did, he would've been a meal for something. or if we had just assumed that since he was in the ocean he was fine; ditto.

so today, i saved a life. and i am pretty proud. but credit where credit is due: if my wife hadn't known some numbers to call, and if i wasn't ably assisted by my two ignatz, things might've also turned out differently.

whatever the case may be, best of luck to baby turtle turkelson (i didn't name him, the chitlins did, lol).

darth sardonic

catch these moments as you would moonbeams...

i've gotten some hours back at work. at the same time, i am still in school and winding my way towards finals followed by the summer semester.

friday night, as the antibiotics for licking the sinus infection that had been stomping a mudhole in my ass for over two weeks were starting to kick in proper, s the drummer came over with s the fill-in-while-my-real-guitarist-is-gone guitarist, and we jammed a bit on some songs with the intent of recording them.

things were going along swimmingly, and i was into it and jumping some.

until i did a jump and my knee exploded into a blinding flash of pain shaped like a darth sardonic and i crashed onto the floor in agony.

the funny thing is that neither of my counterparts realized i had fallen out of the frame for a full 40 seconds after i did it. (a buddy of mine watched the clip over and over, trying not to laugh when i go from jumping to sprawled out on the floor, and then announced "they don't quit playing for 40 seconds" cool, thanks.)

pain etched on my face like the erosion of a cliff face, i am on the floor trying to keep playing the bass part though i don't realize that i have dropped my bass on the cable, and bent it to a point where the contacts no longer meet, so nothing is coming out.

we stop playing, i get a different cable, pop motrin, one-legged drag a chair over, and we play the song again, me seated with one leg draped over the arm, an angry look on my face (it is actually a mix of anger (at myself), concentration (on the bassline and away from the firepit that is my knee socket), disgust (again, at myself), and pain--but on the video clip it just looks like i am pissed.)

then i put my leg up with ice on it while we rewatch all the clips. i actually feel a shadowy empathic flash in my knee at the moment i see myself go down on the tv.

the next day, i am stiff and sore, but the swelling is down, and we take the kids to kennedy space center.

we are all fascinated by the rockets, launch modules, the space suits, the shuttle explorer. we watch an imax movie about the trips to the moon made by nasa, and at the end as i look into the stars and the fanfare plays around me i am almost choked up by the sheer vastness of space and the universe, and just how fucking tiny and insignificant we really are while simultaneously fighting so hard to leave something behind.

today, as i am thinking, "my kids would make job fucking kick a puppy!" alkaline trio's "jaked on green beers" (more commonly known as the goodbye song amongst the smaller of the sardonic household) comes up on the stereo, and myself and no. 2 sing along lustily at the top of our lungs, unanimously agreeing "Now all I have left is this heart in my chest,/Your dishonesty helping me cope./I hope this is goodbye." and that it is the coolest song ever.

not much later, as i am making a sandwich to help me get through my autocad class without starving to death, and the boys are watching "schoolhouse rock," no. 1 dashes into the kitchen and says, "this is our favorite song!"

and simultaneously, we burst into: "conjunction junction, wha-hat's your functiooooon?" as i even throw in some disco finger points that would make mr. travolta proud.

yeah, my kids might be hellions, but was i so different?

man i love my family.

darth sardonic

if I give you everything you'll ever need...

...and it all comes down to/your half smile, country mile, angel child

no. 2 seems bound and determined to continue on his "learn fake spanish through the language menu on your favorite movies" deal, as no. 1 and i were forced to watch "the fantastic four: rise of the silver surfer" in a version of spanish that seemed to be a meld of mexican and spain spanish, that actually cracked me up because they used a word which in spain means "to grab" and in argentina is one of the most vulgar and offensive ways of saying "to fuck."

no. 1 explains to me at length how the "chopper janner" he created with his legos will cut through trees and is also equipped with lasers and crystals and a gun, so that the driver, "qantas" (who's cover is the ceo of a major australian airlines apparently) can shoot the "villians" ((a tangent: it's an odd turn of events that my son has gone from referring to the ones who end up dead in all his play as "bad guys" and switched over to calling them "villians." strange. and as far as i can tell, it happened as quietly and incrementally as the holocaust. wish i could trace this shift to some one thing. anyways...) oh, and why exactly do the "villians" have to end up dead? really. i mean, he watches superman, spiderman, batman. these guys don't kill anybody. they beat fuck out of 'em, yeah. i'll give you that. some of 'em probably wish they were dead. but still. again, anyways...) as he travels at high speeds across some fantastical landscape that exists only within the brainpan of my oldest child. i am momentarily sidetracked from the demostration of how the saw arms swing out by no. 2 stomping up and down the stairs, a goofy smile on his face as his head bounces around like one of those springy-necked dolls and says, "dolopo atto. khee ganam? apodo dolodo."

i got yet another chuck palahniuk book from the library (i am working my way through all of them) and was laying in bed reading it when i realized my wife was no longer watching tv and all the lights were off but mine.

"you going to sleep?"

"yeah, baby."

"what time is it?"

"ten-thirty."

"holy poop!" i say, and slap the bookmark into my book and shut off my light (ten-thirty is late for us old farts who spend all day mentally and physically wrassling two overactive boys).

my wife is cracking up.

cause somehow or other, i managed to say "pooewuph" or something along those lines.

"did you just turn french in the middle of that word?"

now i am laughing.

"no, i just kinda messed up the pronunciation!"

"it's like when you say 'jewLAH' instead of july." making fun of the redneck way i say the seventh month sometimes when i am not thinking about it.

"i told you, my dad was from texas!"

"jewLAH."

"july, july, july."

"pewup!"

we have both graduated from snickers to all-out laughing, in bed, in the dark, which i am pretty sure counts against you if you were making a case for your ongoing sanity.

we are cracking up now over completely silly things that aren't really funny, but we are already on a laughing jag, so what the hell, right?

i laugh so hard and fast i am not actually making any sound, just sitting with my eyes squinched together and my mouth open and my shoulders rocking, the tears rolling down my cheeks.

my wife on the other hand, is snorting between guffaws. her face approximating a grimace of pain almost, tears welling up in her eyes in the corners next to her nose as she winds down to a "*snort* kahee, tahee, tee hee."

i have said it before, and i will say it again, o my beloved non-existant readers: i am one lucky motherfucker. truly blessed. somewhere, somehow, i did something right.

cause i have the fucking coolest fucking family ever, and there aint no two ways about it.

darth sardonic

father's day

like many things that might thrust me into the spotlight and place me centerstage of which i don't necessarily feel deserving, i managed to completely forget all about father's day until about two days ago or so.

i had to work, followed by my wife having to work, so it had the feel of a mostly normal sunday.

but you know how my brain works, o my beloved non-existant readers, and so i present to you, my views on being a father:

being a father is a constant battle. you are on the frontlines for your children, protecting them from mediocrity, stupidity and ignorance, and the common cold.

being a father means you know when to talk softly, and when to yell. being a father means you will fuck up the difference at least once a week. being a father means when you fuck it up, you will shuffle your happy little ass up the stairs, look your kid in the damp eyes, and say, "daddy fucked up. i'm sorry."

being a father means you can fix anything. and if you can't fix it, you will make it magically disappear when no one is looking. being a father means you will sometimes agonize at great length over the things that cannot be fixed.

being a father means you will dive unheeding into traffic to pluck your unsuspecting child from danger. it also means you may do that for someone else's child.

being a father means you will revel at the incredibly simple and beautiful things your child points out to you: the path of an ant, the magestry of a blade of grass, the grandeur of the moon. each and every day will be discovered anew and afresh through a child's eyes as if it is the first day ever of all time.

being a father means you will hurt beyond your wildest imagination. the kind of hurt that can neither be explained, described, or fixed with medications, deep breathing, or alcohol.

being a father means you will never again not be tired.

being a father means you will stand on the edge of the unending abyss, curl your lip into a sardonic snarl, and say, "fuck you. it's not time yet, motherfucker."

being a father means you will feel the deepest sadness, the greatest heighths of joy, wild elation, crippling depression, bitterness, silliness, frustration, giddiness, and open to the very gods that reside in each and every thing around you. sometimes you will feel all these things in the very space of a single day.

being a father means you will be humbled constantly. the greatest humility will come at the simple and beautiful and heartfelt and true things your child will say to you when you have reached the very bottom of your lowest pit and have abandoned all hope of ever getting out.

being a father means you will never have laughed the loudest or cried the hardest before in your life, and you will often wonder what you did to feel alive prior to having children.

being a father is realizing that your life, in and of it's tiny and insignificant self, doesn't matter so much anymore as anything but a guide to the lives that you have helped create and that god has entrusted you with.

being a father is being daily amazed that god had that much faith in you in the first fucking place.

dad: i still think about you sometimes.

darth sardonic

8 years ago today

in a park, outside of portland, under an enormous tree, i stood, nattily dressed in my three-piece suit, waiting for my wife's father to walk her down an aisle that was more a gap in the crowd of our friends and family.

she was stunning, her black hair piled in curls on her head, eyes alight, her cream dress showing off her beautiful legs.

i don't remember a word the jp said, so lost in her dark eyes was i, smiling like a fool and awash in sun and love.

the actual wedding was short, maybe a half-hour, all told. we moved quickly to my wife's friend's restaurant for all-you-can-eat mongolian barbeque. we worked the room, saying hi, making introductions. at various points, i would find myself standing, watching my new bride as she schmoozed the crowd. she exuded life. she was vivacious. she was funny, and engaging, and fucking sexy as hell, and she and i were now officially married. i knew right then just how lucky i was.

little has changed in 8 years. yes, we have two kids, a mortgage, a different car. we are older. but my wife still exudes life. she is still funny and engaging. she is still fucking sexy as hell.

and i am still the luckiest motherfucker ever to tread.

this is, i sadly admit, a little tough, because it is the first we have spent apart.

but i know our love is still strong. i know we will make up for all the kisses and touches and caresses and mushy stuff that we are missing tonight upon her return.

8 more days, o my droogs and beloved non-existants, 8 more fucking days. barely more than a week. it's barely sinking in, actually. will zip by so fast.

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

did i remember to keep your beer as full as mine?

i am 36 years old today.

i should point out that i don't feel, look, or, for that matter, act like a 36-year-old. well, that is, if there is even a way that a 36-year-old should look and act.

i'm a bit pensive today, though i think it has little to do with my birthday, it is just something i do every so often.

i am happy. right here, right now. with things just the way they are. that is not to say that i don't have some regrets, and that there aren't things i might like to change about our current situation, but overall i am extremely pleased with my life.

actually, i think it is better than i could've hoped when i was, say, 16. or even 26.

on a different subject, i have some great friends. i have, during this time my wife has been gone, tended to keep strictly to myself. i don't want to be the kind of fella that calls everyone hoping someone will keep him entertained. i don't feel that it is anybody else's job. i don't mind being by myself, and i enjoy my own company, particularly when i am feeling down. no one else should have to put up with me when i am being whiney and mopey. at least that is my attitude.

well, despite all that, i get regular calls from a few of my friends. checking up on me. seeing if i need anything. only just now, one of our friends called and sang me happy birthday, and although she was sick, said she wanted to try and make me dinner this week. she's already planning on coming to my birthday shindig this saturday, but on top of that wants to make me dinner. my buddy s instists he is paying for our regular friday night's food and drinks, even though he, too is coming to the party on saturday. my other friends, a&m, will also be at the party, despite the fact that m is having hernia surgery tomorrow.

this group of people, along with a few others, have made regular contact and made sure i am alright, physically, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally.

the joke about "friends will help you move, good friends will help you move a body"? i think i could easily call s, e, a&m, m&g, and probably my mom, and by christ, they would turn covering up a homicide into a big party, complete with h'ors deouvres and entertainment. not saying that i will kill anyone, but they would help me if i needed it.

i have to say, i am a little overwhelmed suddenly to become aware that finally, after having discarded numerous "friends" over time, i am surrounded by people who care about me easily as much as i care about them, and show it openly.

everyone in the world should be as lucky and as happy as me.

a few notes: yes, a winged unicorn. so that i might fly around, and could stab people who ask too many questions. hahahahaha. mainly, i was coming up with stuff that seemed as unlikely as me getting a weekend to myself.

"off" was my nice way of saying that my sister-in-law is "not right in the head" or "slow" or "not all there."

the father's day bbq wasn't as bad as i thought it was going to be, and it was nice, considering how i have been feeling about my own kids lately, to see them calmly sitting and watching a movie whilst their cousins tore around the house getting into everything they could reach and nearly ending up in the er numerous times. by comparison, my kids are sweet, cherubic angels, and i just needed reminding.

darth sardonic