junk food

yesterday i had a long day at work. patients went long, i fell behind on the peripheral duties, and by the time i had clocked out at the end of the day i had nearly ten hours of being on my feet running around. i was exhausted, mentally and physically.

a half-hour drive home, fighting to stay awake. in the kitchen, i immediately see that no. 2 has been doing sentences. they read, "i will not use leftover money from the book fair to buy junk food at lunch." since no. 2 is in the other room playing, i am guessing he is done writing.

so my wife and i have a talk while i have a drink (she is already halfway down a drink of her own), and apparently, no. 2 was given a ten dollar bill to buy books at the book fair. when my wife asked for his change, he said he didn't have it. he told her he accidentally spent it. she said the only thing he might've "accidentally" spent it on would be junk food at lunch. he said that is what he had spent it on.

as she thinks about just how much sugary shit an 8-year-old boy can buy with five usd, she becomes livid, and makes him write sentences, then tells him he is grounded from games and tv for two weeks. he replies, "am i grounded from legos?" to which she answers, "no, you're not grounded from legos." and he cheerfully says, "well at least i can still play legos." she says, "glad you're seeing an upside to this."

"you need to have a talk with him." she tells me.

i decide i am gonna need a moment to decompress, sip my drink, and get in a calmer frame of mind to deal with the situation.

when i am finally ready, i call no. 2 in to talk with me. he stands in front of me, and i ask him why he blew the five bucks on something like junk food. with the idea of teaching him the value of money, i ask him what he could've spent the five dollars on that he might still have to show.

he looks at me with a strange sort of smile. his eyes are glittery, and his big buck teeth are on display as if they are holding back a laugh. i stare at him, waiting for him to tell me what sorts of things he would spend money on that last longer than a few minutes. he stares deep into my eyes and says, "it's in my pocket!"

and proceeds to pull a neatly-folded bill out of his pocket. "and two pennies!" and places them all carefully in my hand, while still smiling that weird smile.

deranged chuckles begin to pour out of me. i stare at the money in my palm. the chuckles roll in ever-increasing waves out of me. "go play, you're fine no. 2."

"wife!" i shout to her in the other room, "come in here and talk to me!"

we try to figure out why on earth he would willfully lie about buying junk food and then take the ensuing punishment when the key to freedom was in his pocket the entire time. the only solution we can come up with is that he was messing with us in some sort of elaborate and convoluted practical joke that is only funny to himself. all the while, the maniacal chuckles spilling from my frame.

if nothing else, it was the exact amount of the surreal to fix my day.

darth sardonic

life is unfair

sometimes i think it is unfair how deeply i feel these things. perhaps i should've never had kids. perhaps i should've never fallen so deeply in love. perhaps i should've never kidded myself about my own worth in this vast universe. perhaps i should've listened, and accepted these dark moments that well up in my life.

now, allow me, o beloved non-existent readers; allow me to wallow. if you've been listening to this discordant little note in the great symphony of the world wide web for any length of time, you know the bend in the corner is coming soon.

and no, because some of you will worry, nothing is wrong between me and the wife.

but i am feeling the stresses of my life, o my beloveds, my droogs and only friends, o thou ptitsas and malchicks who keep coming back here and tolerating my incessant whining.

the oldest, apparently, is too smart for school. he can't be fucking bothered. schoolwork gets in the way of more important things (i.e. video games, drawing, writing stories, and building lego creations that are mind-boggling in their detail.) and while all those things in and of themselves are also amazing and have their place, i have to sit across the table from a surly, glowering nine-year-old and explain to him that if things don't change, he will be repeating the third grade, and then watch him shrug like it's no big deal.

and after futilely fighting that battle, i get to drag myself, exhausted and sapped of energy, to my own classes where i was promised several hours to work on a project to find out the teacher changed her mind, and in fact, i will indeed be going back to the school for most of tomorrow to get the project where i want it to be.

it is time. it is time for the overwhelming sense of failure to bear down on me like a stone might weigh upon a swimmer's back. i will flounder. i will sink. i will accept my fate.

perhaps i don't deserve these gifts. perhaps i am not one to the task. perhaps i never was.

and i have always secretly held that when the drowning man accepts his fate, he reaches an enlightenment beyond our ken; a simple peace and glory in knowing that he will in fact die at the bottom of the ocean with lungs full of water. and he will smile as it happens.

but you know what? i also believe in some supreme spin doctor who is turning this universe on its axis. and i believe that that motherfucker, for whatever reason that is beyond my ability to comprehend, that bastard believes in me. that son of a bitch gave me all these goddamn gifts in the first place.

and i don't fucking believe in going down without a fight. ok, maybe the sinking swimmer reaches some fucking enlightenment. good for him. i am just too fucking thick for that shit. i am the dumb cunt who will fight it till the very last breath is ripped from my lungs and then spend the first few weeks in heaven bitching about it.

fuck these tears that course my cheeks. a means to an end, nothing less. and i am not drowning, i just need the sun to shine again, i just need to feel that this momentary lapse is over and i am standing upright and tall again.

life is unfair. that might be the whole fucking point. and i don't have anything i have without being the luckiest dumb twat who ever walked the face of this whole green marble in all its history. westley said it best, in the princess bride: "life's not fair, highness. anyone who says differently is selling something."

a few more hours of listening to codeine, and crying, and i will have sorted which parts of the stone belong to me, and which parts i need not carry, and i will kick strongly to the surface, and exuberantly shout: "look at the pretty rock i found at the bottom of the ocean!"

thanks again, o thou, the long-suffering, for allowing me to get there on my own.

darth sardonic

mathematics suck

no. 2 brings me his math homework to look over. he is in the latter half of 1st grade, and they have moved from adding to subtracting.

any time no. 2 brings me his math homework to check, i have to take a very big deep breath. i have to let it out slow. i have to consciously register my voice at a level that is tolerable, pleasant, and upbeat.

because no. 2 does not get math. he does not get math like i do not get nuclear physics, or quantum theoretics.

i have already told him numerous times that you cannot subtract anything but zero from a number and get the original number as the answer. this is a hard and fast rule of subtraction. and yet when he brings me his homework to look over, he has gone through everywhere and put the first number as the answer: 4-1=4, 6-2=6, 3-0=3. i calmly go through and erase all the answers where zero is not being subtracted and patiently tell him (yet again) that you cannot subtract one or two from a number and get itself. to help him, i say, "ok, this one here. three minus one. what is one less than three?"

he stares at me for a moment as if i have asked him, "donde se entero el cuerpo de hoffa?" then he says, "umm, three?" i sigh, and try a different tack. "what is the number that comes before three?" again, "quantos dientes tiene el tiburon grande blanco?" "umm, one?"

now he is just hitting all around the number hoping to land on the right answer. still cool as a cucumber, i go over to the whiteboard and draw him a numberline, as i have numerous times before, and explain that you count to the left in bumps however many you're subtracting and the number you land on is the right answer. i remind him (yet again) that he himself can draw this numberline right there on his paper and use it to correctly answer the problems.

then he uses the numberline efficiently, and answers the other problems correctly.

but here's the deal, o my beloved non-existent readers: no. 2 appears simply unable to understand that, for the sake of his first grade math homework at least, numbers are constant and unchanging. he seems completely unaware that three comes before four and will always come before four. that five plus five is always ten, and that one of his own hands always contains five digits, and the other always five as well.

and the reason that i must travel into some zen fugue state to help him with his math homework is this: one particularly bad bit of addition homework, on a day when no. 2 was particularly tired and lazy and not wanting to think, ended up taking us two hours to do. two. with tears. with shouted guidance that was neither constructive nor helpful. with exasperated declarations of, "fuck it, i just don't fucking care! turn it in all fucked-up, and fail. i don't give a shit!" which we all know is straight up bullshit because i would go stomping back in there within seconds to try and explain it again in a different way, to be met yet again by the same (teary) blank stare of incomprehension.

and the bigger disconnect that is there can be tied to before, after, above, around. for no. 2, things just seem to happen willy nilly without rhyme or reason, devoid of connections to one another of any sort. "how many days is it till friday, dad?" "well, today's thursday, so how many days?" ("cuantos anos tenia methusaleh?") "umm, three?"

and on that day when the homework was finally in the backpack, and the kids were playing more or less harmoniously and i was outside shakily smoking, i called a friend from high school who i had been venting to about the math. a friend who struggles even to this day with dislexia. a friend who does not do her budget because she is never sure she has done the addition or subtraction right, or even gotten the amounts entered correctly in the first place.

and though i am sure that he will outgrow this, it is yet another by-product of being born early, of getting sick, of being pumped full of narcotics. here he is, 8, and still suffering delays that find their seeds in a four-months hospital stay that started at 30 weeks gestation.

i don't expect him to necessarily be a rocket scientist. or an engineer. then again, maybe he will. i just want him to be a productive, active member of society.

and i want him to one day realize without thinking that three comes before four, that one of his own hands always contains five digits, and that friday always follows thursday.

darth sardonic

"how to drop a tv on yourself in three easy steps!" and other useful items for life in the sardonic household

a lazy sunday afternoon, when from the kids' bedroom my wife and i hear a rapid series of dull thuds followed by a much louder crash.

we are halfway up the stairs like sprinters at the olympics as my lyrical "what the fucking fuck?!!?" finally stops echoing from the walls and a new sound begins: a wail. a wail that forms words. a wail that sounds like, "oooooh nooooo, i am in sooooooo much trouble!" in a rising crescendo that breaks wetly at the end.

i burst into the bedroom and my heart fires off like a dragster at the green light at the sight: no. 1 is buried under his dresser, the tv that was atop it, and the dvd player that was atop that.

he is still wailing about how much trouble he is in, his face screwed up with tears, as adrenaline spikes my brain like a white-hot sixteenpenny nail. i dive in and lift up the dresser that is lying across the instep of his right foot like it is a piece of paper.

my wife is on her knees by his head, and we are both shouting "are you hurt? are you hurt?" over his keening lament for the broken tv and the loss of video game privileges he surely faces.

"move your foot!" my stern voice, amplified by my racing pulse, cuts through the the peripheral noise, and no. 1 complies.

"does it hurt?"

"no, my foot is fine. but i broke the teeeeveeeeeeee..." he winds back into the siren of his original concern.

"fuck the tv!! are you alright?"

this seems to cut through the fog of his mental anguish, and he gulps down a sob, looks me in the eyes, and says, "i think so."

"does your foot hurt?" this is the only body part i had seen with an actual furniture object on top of it when i had arrived on the scene.

"no. my wrist does, a little. the tv fell on it..." he looks again at the tv on its screen beside him on the floor, and looks like he might be getting ready to recommence the high-pitched mourning.

"move it like this!" i command stoutly before he can.

he dutifully rotates his left wrist and hand like he is twirling bolas over his head to bring down an ostrich, and looks at me expectantly.

"does that hurt?"

he shakes his head.

i survey the damage while his mother explains to him that we are, in fact, more concerned with his well-being than that of the tv, dvd, or dresser. he seems a bit incredulous, and i feel a momentary pang that we might've misrepresented our reasons for laying down certain ground rules for existing.

"what happened?" my wife asks.

"i was climbing the dresser..." he says, again expecting a barrage of angry yelling.

"oh, honey. what have we said about climbing furniture?"

"not to, cause we might break something."

for the first time, i feel a brief flash of anger: anger at myself for having led my son to believe we cared more about material possessions than his own well-being, anger at how hard my heart is still pounding, anger at finding myself in this situation in an otherwise uneventful day. as a result of this burst of frustrated ire, what i say is a little more forceful than i intend:

"yeah, you might fucking break yourself!"

he looks abashed, and i soften some. "anyhow, it appears that the only thing that got broken is the wall plate the cable comes through. if anything else is actually broken, we can replace it. we can't replace you so easily, buddy. yeah?"

he nods.

"i'll take him downstairs and put some ice on his wrist." my wife says.

"'kay."

i put the room back in order. other than the aforementioned broken wall plate, which probably saved my son's life by creating negative tension to the downward trajectory of the heavy dresser and television, the only other damage i can see is a bent cable input in the back of the dvd player. i raise the dresser, place the tv back on top, settle the player atop it, and reattach all the wires. everything plays as if nothing had ever happened.

"so, what'd we learn here today?"

"not to climb on furniture."

"why?"

"i could get hurt."

"yes, buddy, you sure could."

my wife and i go outside to smoke, hands still shaking, and count our new gray hairs and the years that have been removed from our respective lives.

the next day, we run no. 1 through his paces again:

"move your foot."

he does.

"hurt?"

he shakes his head.

"move your wrist."

he again does the rotationary action with his hand.

"hurt?"

"no."

"make a fist."

he does, with his ring finger extended.

"lemme see that hand."

he holds out his hand, and i inspect his left ring finger. it is a little swollen, and i notice bruising at the joints.

"is it bad?" my wife asks.

"well, not sure. it doesn't seem too b--holy shit!"

i flip his hand over, and the bruising at the joints on the palm side of his finger is a luminescent shade of deep purple.

"bend that finger, bud?"

he does only slightly, and winces. "hurts, dad."

i sigh.

a phone call, doctor's appointment, xray, and visit with the osteopath later, and his ring finger is splinted and he has a piece of paper displaying his hand, the fleshy parts represented in smudgy gray halftones, the bones stark, the bend in his intermediate phalange glaring to share with his class on the next show-and-tell day.

"good news is, doesn't seem to be slowing him down any." the osteopath, who should switch to decaf, smiles as my son skips rapidly away. "hey, kid! no more climbing on furniture!" he calls after no. 1.

from his mouth to god's ears.

random thoughts like wounded butterflies...

i have been sick the last few days.

anytime i go through a big climate change or the weather plummets and then rises again, i get sinusy stuff that then drains down the back of my throat, coating it in sandpaper and lit petroleum and making me exhausted every few hours.

the other night as i was making sure no. 2 bathed properly (you have to be on him or he will just pat soap suds onto his hair, face, armpits and crotch) and no. 1 was waiting (naked already, for some inexplicable reason) to bathe next, i look over my shoulder and no. 1 is going potty behind me.

only he's not. he's is examining himself as if he has just discovered this dangly thing between his legs and can't for the life of him remember how it got there.

"what're you doing?"

his answer should be set to beautiful print on colored cardstock and framed, to be given to new parents at the birth of their first son for hanging on wall of their bathroom:

"sometimes i am curious about what it looks like."

as if it hasn't been with him, available, so to speak, for the last eight and a half years.

"well, don't pee in your face."

a few days later, the same boy is in the bathroom, with the door open. i thought the kids had, yet again left the light in the downstairs bathroom and went to shut it off. he didn't see me, but i saw him.

he was seated, with my wife's victoria's secret catalogue open across his lap. he turns a page and says to himself, "oh, i guess mom wouldn't want anything in here."

mainly, i am guessing, because all the ladies are lithe, tall, nordic-looking mannequins with oversized eyes and long flowing hair, and mom is a short, sexy spitfire with stout body n legs and boobs that push the larger edge of vs' rather limited size range. i dunno.

we have a new addition to our clan. over the christmas holiday, we brought home ponyo, my oldest's class fish, to care for.

and nearly killed it.

well, actually, it was sick before it ever entered our care, but we thought we were going to deprive no. 1's class of their mascot through our complete well-meaning ignorance of betta fish.

so we bought medicine, and a replacement.

good news is, ponyo survived. this means, however, that we now have our own lovely turquoise and blue betta.

we passed on the names mercury (mine) and nemo (no. 2's) and chose the name "7" (my wife's) because he is the seventh member of our family. i am number 1, wife is number 2, no. 1 is actually number 3 (confused?), no. 2 is number 4, pepper the demon cat is number 5, pele the helmet cat number 6, and 7 is, well, 7.

7 is fiesty. he'll be lazing at the bottom of his tank, but if you get near he perks up and swims around, dashing back and forth almost like a dog waiting for you to throw the stick. needless to say, we like him.

i am back in school, and enjoy my two autocad drawing classes, but am rapidly becoming not a fan of my pictorial drafting class. the teacher is disorganized, and half the class has absolutely no drafting experience whatsoever, but rather than spend a couple weeks catching us up on the basics of hand drafting, she is instead dumping our first project on us (a cardboard chair we are to build in groups of five) that is due in another week. like all the other classes with which i felt overwhelmed, my goal is to do my best, pass it with a c or better, and move on to something else.

little else is happening on the sardonic home front of late, o my beloved non-existent readers. i hope to be better about posting this semester, since my writing creativity won't be getting used up to write essays.

but as the song says, "if you don't expect too much from me you might not be let down."

darth sardonic

Safty tips

Safty tip 1 Never StanD on a Swivil Chahr.

(i wonder laconically if this is from no. 1's personal experience getting into the halloween candy as i see the above sentence on a piece of homework. the rest of the "paper" is more standard fair: don't sit "wonG" on a chair, don't touch "ElatCraty" or you will most likely be shocked. then he finishes up with "StN4 NeVer Be a thieff." seems like good advice to me. the drawing of his thief has abnormally large ears and no mask, not sure what that means exactly.)

darth sardonic

finally, a funny (well, i hope so anyways, guess i will find out from your comments) post about my kids...

"what are you doing?!?"

my oldest stands in the middle of the living room, watching wile e. coyote and roadrunner in their eternal struggle (a quintessential piece of both my wife's and my childhood onto which we have recently turned our children and to which they have taken a great liking, much to our enjoyment) with his recently-shorn head shining in the light leaking through the blinds (there was an "accident" between a pair of scissors and his bangs at school, the result of which was daddy with a set of clippers on the lowest setting on the front porch with the wind blowing away the tufts of liberated locks and daddy using a passel of his favorite words with his voice set to "stern") and fully a half of his arm crammed down the back of his pants.

"what are you doing?!?"

"my butt itches."

i hear my wife choke off a laugh behind me and turn to mean-mug her for one second whilst also trying to maintain my military bearing.

"does it itch on the outside? or between the cheeks?" she asks, as i marvel at the things we find ourselves saying as parents without a trace of irony that we would never have in our wildest dreams guessed we would ever say before having progeny.

he stands, round face blank and brown eyes wide, his shoulder nearly dislocated and (i can only figure in some sick and twisted inner room of my ridiculous imagination) his hand working overtime, and replies: "between."

more spits and sputters from behind me as i say, "well it just means you didn't do a very good job of wiping. come with me. and get your hand out of your pants!"

we march up the stairs, and he heads off to his bathroom, assuming of course that that is where i am going to aid him in fixing his situation.

"no, over here."

a look of wonderment crosses his face. it is rare that the boys get to enter our inner sanctum of a master bedroom, but he is about to cross the threshold of the holiest of holies, the master bath.

"now," i say, "just because you now know where these are, and because i am giving you one now does NOT mean you are allowed to sneak in here and use them willy-nilly. got it?"

"got it."

and i break out our special stash of medicated wipes.

he is still standing taking in what must appear, to him at least, to be the lap of luxury when it comes to toilettes: brightly-colored bottles containing a plethera of soaps, the nice towels, make-up, beard trimmers that look sleek and shiny like a muscle car, shelves lined with glass jars containing q-tips and make-up removal pads.

"drop your pants and sit on the potty."

it seems ludicrous to refer to such a porcelain shiny work of art as our commode with such a juvenile word as "potty" so it takes him a moment to comply.

"now, use this to wipe your bum."

he does, and then holds it out and looks at is as if he is shocked at what he has found.

"keep going, do a good job."

"k."

again, he seems surprised, as if he has discovered a small beetle in what would otherwise be an antiseptic and pristine hospital room.

"think you got it?"

"yes, i think so."

"toss that in there and wash your hands."

dreamy-eyed, he runs the tap and puts his hands under it, and almost giggles as i dispense some liquid soap that smells of lavender from an old-time apothecary looking bottle into his damp palm.

"what's that?" he asks in amazement.

"soap."

"what kinda soap?"

"just pretty-smelling hand soap."

"oh, it is pretty."

"dry off your hands."

he giggles some more as he says, starry-eyed, "look at all the bubbles."

and indeed, there is a small pile of soap bubbles slowly popping and working its way down the drain.

"dry off."

who knows what stories he will relate to his younger sibling of what the bathrooms in heaven are like. who can guess what magical and fantastical things he can't even begin to comprehend currently dance around in his head. what avarice, what luxury, what dreams made flesh.

and all because a small bit of shit didn't get properly wiped up.

darth sardonic

ps, happy veteran's day to everyone. thanks to those that serve, regardless of what country you may have served.

the expedition to the pole has been rerouted...

my oldest gets off the school bus, and after a few pleasantries, i look him up and down and ask him:

"why, in one of the hottest states in the country, are you dressed like you're going on an excursion to the antarctic?"

"i don't understand what you mean."

"it's, what? 97, 98 degrees outside, and like a million percent humidity with nary a cloud in the sky, and you are wearing shoes, socks, jeans, a t-shirt, and a jacket like you're gonna race in the iditarod."

"it's in case it gets cold."

"like through some freak accident the temperature is gonna plummet some 60-odd degrees, just like that [snaps]?!?"

"ummm, i just-- i dont' wanna feel cold."

"ok, man, but drink some water when you get inside so you don't die of heatstroke."

darth sardonic

jabberjaw

my oldest can keep up an ongoing litany of imaginary adventures, seemingly without pause for breath.

mostly, i filter it, like a spongelike material removing debris from water. gleening the basic idea of the narrative from captured snatches and snippets.

today, i was in the rare mood to tackle the story full-on, with the occasional insightful question to try and make sense of the inner workings of no. 1's mind.

apparently, his full name is no. 1 jedi sardonic (well, i mean, it's not, any more than my name is really darth shiteyouup sardonic, but within the scope of this blog, for all intents and purposes, he tells me that his name is the same except his middle name is jedi, and is included in the proper usage of his full name) and he is not our kid.

his father was president of the planet mon jupiter for 12 days before he died. i didn't quite get who or what killed his father, but apparently there was a bit of skullduggery going on.

mon jupiter (quite like, shockingly like actually, in truth, almost exactly like a certain other famous planet including one single famous and youthful survivor) was doomed to implode.

so my son (for he really is my son. he looks like me. his expression when he has been caught doing something he ought not is identical to my own. i watched him come out of my wife, and rarely has he been out of my sight since, at least sufficient for the kind of massive swap we would be talking about here) informs me that his mother put him on a space capsule, and launched him out of there before mon jupiter became fragments of shattered imagination.

he likes me and my wife alright, but sure misses mon jupiter and his family there.

i wonder, would it be possible to launch him back?

darth sardonic

a quick note...

no. 1 was in the psychologist's office the other day (appointments to figure out how to best deal with his adhd and behavioral issues) and as part of some test the therapist asks him "why do policemen where a uniform?"

no. 1 quickly replies, "well, they don't wanna run around naked!"

laughs all around, and when the therapist re-asked the question, no. 1 gave the appropriate answer.

damn he is a smartass. wonder where he gets it from?

darth sardonic

four by one hundred medley

no. 1 decides today that underwear is unnecessary. he's been doing this quite a bit lately, and i am not sure why. i only rarely go commando, and i don't think it has ever been the kind of thing that no. 1 has noticed.

we go to get some lunch, and when we are about eating, no. 1 needs to go potty. i ask no. 2 if he needs to go too. "nope, i'm just eatin'."

so i take no. 1 to the restroom, where he keeps up a consant chatterbox litany of alice-in-wonderland cum star wars stream of conscious stuff as he pees. now, i should mention here that my oldest has a manlier pee stance than even i have, and it cracks me up. he pushes up the seat with his left hand, holds it, and rests the weight of his body against it, then either a) without touching himself, goes pee in the toilet, or b) holds himself between first and middle fingers like a cigarette, and pees. either way, it is a very cock-forward (no pun intended) way of peeing, as if he is quite proud of peeing, and of the equipment he uses to do so. i pee hunched over as if i am embarrassed both of the process and the equipment with which i accomplish said process.

we get back to the table, and now no. 2 has to go. of course. off i go again to the bathroom. no. 2 doesn't talk as much, but is easily sidetracked from the task at hand.

back to the table. i still haven't sat down when no. 1 says, "i have to go potty."

wife/me: (in unison) again?!?

no. 1: "i have to poop."

back yet again to the restroom, where the litany picks up where it left off as free-ballers sits on the toilet.

"i fell to earth-"

"ok, david bowie."

"-my x-wing crashed and i landed in a place called roosevelt [the name of his school] cause the bad guys had a bomb. when i am seven can i watch star wars: royal n chef? in two weeks is grammy gonna buy us lego indy? i am one of the kids that beats up nanny puffy-"

"p diddy's sister?"

"-cause she is mean and has a wart. i just ran through the forest and had all the elfs help me. then we-"

"are you done going poop?"

"yes, but i am talking!"

"wipe your ass and let's get out of here, jaysus!"

back to the table where i ask no. 2 if he happens to need to go back to the potty. but he, luckily, has had the foresight to finish the job the first time through.

darth sardonic

i am such a lameass

no. 1: "daddy, why do we have pee-pees an' butts?"

me: "so we can go potty."

no. 1: "why do we have school?"

me: "so you can learn to read and write."

no. 1: "why do we have potties in da house?"

me: "so we don't have to go outside to go potty."

in my (failed) first year of college, i often thought my roommate might be a vampire. he had early classes, so would be gone when i would wake up. if the day was sunny (which it was alot), i would throw the blinds up to bathe the room in sunlight. (i love the sun!) when i would come home from class, my roommate would be at his desk studying, the blinds pulled down tight and the room plunged into a dusk that made it hard to see at all.

it is an absolutely gorgeous day out today, so i run through the house throwing open blinds like a crazed maniac. by the time i return, the living room blinds are redrawn (i have a mental image of a piece of paper, eraser crumbs still scattered across it, and a blind penciled in where the original blind had been sketched. english is stupid). i ask no. 1 why he closed the blinds.

"i didn't want to get hot."

this from the kid who wears long-sleeved shirts incessantly. go figure.

a short short (and unfinished and likely to remain that way) short story i concocted the other day when i was bored:

"can i lay down with you?"

"huh?" dan opened his eyes, blinking hard against the sun, to see the owner of the female voice standing over him with a towel and a book.

"can i toss my towel down here next to yours?"

she was standing near his head, and his eyes noted the pink toenails before working their way up her long, tanned legs. she was standing with the classic soft s curve in her back that women employed to thrust the three things that they thought men wanted directly into vision, so his eyes were drawn next to her pudenda, wrapped unabashedly in a triangle of pink cloth, followed by the pink jewel in her navel, and then perky breasts, similarly clad in pink triangles, and finally full, pink lips and his own dual reflection where her eyes would normally be when the sun went down.

"of course, it's a free beach."

the end, sorta. maybe she flirts with him before robbing him blind? maybe he flirts with her before her huge biker boyfriend beats fuck out of him? maybe they fall in love whilst getting caught up in an international plot involving espionage and subterfuge, and rife with double-crosses? most likely, it advances no further than that, because dan is too shy to attempt a play, or even a good line, and she just wanted a quiet place to lay out without being bothered in the first fucking place, and dan seemed just the kind of quiet shy fella to leave her in peace.

why are the whos down in whoville in the old chuck jones cartoon singing to the late great surrealist, dali? i swear, they are singing "salvadore, salvadore, welcome christmas, bring your light."

as far as the interview goes, i couldn't have done it any better and still be yours truly. that is to say, i said a few things that most interviewees probably wouldn't, but then, i am not most interviewees, am i? they said i should hear back in a couple of weeks.

but i will tell ya, o my beloved non-existant readers, between my "impressive resume" and my old supervisor and friend putting in a good word, and me doing the interview to the absolute best of my own (skewed and warped) ability, if i don't get this job, it will be because the time/space continuum would otherwise be fucked and humanity as we know it would cease.

not much else to report so far at this, the last stop before falling into the ocean and being eaten by sharks.

darth sardonic

my oldest is a little intense...

no. 1 gets off the bus yesterday after school, and begins right in:

no. 1: "a is coming over to play."

me: "who's a?"

no. 1: "she is coming over to play, can you call her?"

me: "i don't know who a is, and i don't have her number, and i have never met her parents and they have never met me, how is it you think she is coming over to play?"

no. 1: "a is coming over to play. can she come over to play? can you call her parents?"

me: "no, for the love of christ! i don't have her number, which means i cannot call. and since i have never met her, her parents, and they haven't met me; it seems unlikely they will let her come over here in the first fucking place."

no. 1: "can i play video games? i need to play video games...."

this morning, i meet a. she is one of the other kindergarteners on no. 1's bus. as it turns out, i have met her mom. we had a brief conversation on the first day i took no. 1 to the bus stop that went something like this:

mom: "hi, did you guys just move here?"

head: no, i have always been here, even before you, it was just that i used to be invisible until the joker tricked me and lex luthor shot a lump of kryptonite up my bum and ever since then everyone has been able to see me. of course i just move here, for fuck's sake!

me: "yes, just got here a day or two ago."

mom: "where did you come from?"

me: "washington."

mom: makes face like she has smelled icky poo and says: "eeeeewwww!!"

me: "not really, i am from there."

mom: "eeeeeewwww!! wait, dc, or state?"

head: if i was from fucking dc i woulda said maryland, virginia, or dc, not fucking washington, god how i hate that as soon as i say washington everyone assumes that it is that tiny little fucking scrap of a shithole (most commonly referred to as our nation's capital) and not that huge fucking state full of apples and evergreen trees and mountains with snow on year-round and cool people and fucking microsoft and starbucks that occupies the whole fucking northwest corner of the country in which we live!

me: "state."

mom: "eeeeeeeeeewwwww!!!!"

and because i felt my grade level dropping rapidly, i declined to offer anymore information or views.

back to today.

no. 1: "this is a, daddy. now you have met her. can she come over today?"

a: stands there with a mildly perplexed look on her face.

me: "i dunno, buddy, i mean, that is up to whether she has things going on after school or what her mom says."

no. 1: "your mom says it's ok, right? you don't have anything going on?"

a: "well, i kinda--"

no. 1: "she can come over, daddy. we can play."

no. 1: more or less drags a by an elbow a little way away from me.

no. 1: "do you have video games? i like to play one called [annoying game with men in giant robot suits that beat fuck out of each other in a mind-numbingly and not very clever way]. do you have that one? it is my favorite. do you have games?"

a: "we err umm."

no. 1: "we can play video games. i love video games. we can play video games at your house or my house. daddy, can she come over?"

me: "ummm."

no. 1: "you can come over, and we can play [robotic penis compensators] and you can play too. my daddy says it's ok."

a: "well i aaahh."

no. 1: "video games are so fun."

a: looks like she is contemplating chewing her own arm off and bolting.

i take consolation in one thing: he won't date until he is like, 20.

if then.

darth sardonic

timing is everything...

the latest edition of "my kids want to do themselves in early on in life": today, at the store, when no. 2 was getting into his car seat, i noticed it seemed very loose. i went to tighten it, pulling on the seatbelt, and it came free in my hand. no. 2 had undone both the seatbelts holding the car seats into place. god knows how long they have been like that.

prior to this little incident specifically designed to make darth's blood boil and his heart rate skyrocket, no. 2 and i stopped into starjunk's for a coffee and some kinda organic psuedo-homemade refined sugar and starches. not but a few minutes after getting comfortable, several college-age minas came in and sat not far away. many more minas entered and spread themselves about the shop. everywhere i looked, minas pibas y chicas.

as an aside, you know how i mentioned i loved summer cause the minas appear in abundance showing off loverly skin? well, it is like that all the time around here. and when my wife is sure i am checking out bikini girls, i notice her drooling a bit over the surfers' pecs. yep, we are having ourselves a time, o my beloved non-existant readers.

darth sardonic

i got yer to-do list right here!

life can be frustrating in the extreme sometimes.

no. 2 is having relapses with potty training, which i think are more likely the result of sheer laziness (no idea where he gets it) rather than any other more logical reason.

no. 1 has declared himself no. 2's "dictator for life and sole commander in chief" as well as "double agent and informant" to the parental units. he likes it when no. 2 is in trouble as it deflects some of the heat from himself. when we are mad at no. 2, no. 1 is ingratiating in the extreme to us. this drives me fucking batty. know why? cause i did the same fucking thing when i was a kid!!

for the first time since i took my return ferry ride across river styx to go back to work at the pizza joint, my tips were good last night. i have been working there now for two months, and most of the nights have sucked. my boss continues to be twaterrific and cuntacular in ways that boggle the normal mind and can only be explained by a massive case of sociopathic and criminal genius. beelzebub pales by comparison...

my back is still stiff and crusty from the latest three-hour stint at flaming dragon. seems to be healing up faster this time though. soon as it heals, i will get a pic posted here, i promise.

then when i sign in, i notice that one of the previous blogs of note is going to be made into a book. that is cool. it lends me hope that someone will stumble across this moldy crumb stuck in the world wide web and think, this guy is brilliant (sorry, give me a sec, choked on my coffee... ok, think i am bett-- no, wait, laughing fit coming on. there, ok.) and hand me a book deal.

wait, what? this is a book of other people's to-do lists? emailed in to the author? they're gonna publish a book about other's to-do lists? you know, the only, and i mean fucking onliest blog of note that ever ever spoke to me, and had anything of import to myself, is sparx' blog.

and now this blog of other people's ideas (and i am dubious as to how interesting most of them are going to be) is getting published. (yes, yes it is sour grapes. i happen to like sour grapes. now, let me have my sour grapes, continue laughing with, at, or near me, and let me get on with it, heh heh. thank you.)

i guess i will have to continue with my original plan of cultivating a healthy drinking habit, writing prolifically barely-understandable drivel interlaced with the occasional witty little anecdote (to keep you hanging on, o beloved non-existant readers), hide all these writings in plain site (while constantly pointing them out to my kids and saying things like, "thish ish going to be your legacy, sonsh. thish right here ish gonna make ush rich one day. right here! look, goddammit you ungrateful lil bashtardsh! here. and the password is tangueray."), then die of pneumonia or some other malingering alcohol-related disease that has a certain romanticism to it, after which the kids will get my crap published everywhere and i will be hailed as a "great american (god i fucking hate that, we are yanks, america is a huge fucking place. why the fuck do we get to call ourselves american and everyone else calls themselves canadian or mexican or what-have-you?!? goddamn we are pretentious fucks! end rant.) author."

(now, it seems a few of my beloved non-existant readers occasionally take things i write here waaaaay too seriously. (or who knows? maybe they don't and i mistake their dry-humor retorts as serious. either way.) so i leave this disclaimer: the vast majority of the above paragraph is a play-by-play of how most of my favorite authors went about it. i've no intention of going about it in that manner. thank you for your time.)

follows is my to-do list:

1) clean house
2) beat children
3) lose mind
4) buy gin
5) write piss-poor prose through veil of gin-scented tears
6) glower at boss and mutter evil-sounding things under my breath when he is present
7) go swimming naked in a downpour
8) do not scratch back, do NOT scratch back, do NOT scratch back
9) sleep in gutter
10) toss pizzas in bag, leave store, drive, return to store, repeat
11) show kids location of folder of writing, as well as journals
12) buy voodoo doll resembling creators of blogspot (not that i was ever gonna, but kiss any chance of becoming a "blog of note" good-bye now)

thanks for playing along.

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