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.

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

split lip and split tongue...

i am putting my foot down. i refuse, unless it is by my choice, to share my meals with my kids anymore. my youngest could've consumed 20 bowls of cereal, but when i sit down with cottage cheese and fruit, he desperately needs some. i could sit down with a plate full of crawling live bugs on top of rotted fish-flesh, and no. 2 will ask if he can have a bite, over and over and over again.

someone please explain to me how today's skate punks can wear jeans that fit tight everywhere but the ass. how does that work? the jeans look painted on, till they turn around, then you suddenly have this odd urge to show them where the bathroom is and pass them a can of oust on their way there. we did this in the 80's, except that our jeans fit tight everywhere, and we appeared to still have complete control of our colon.

when you are wrenched violently from your bed sooner than you wish by the sounds of your lovely children fighting and crying and wailing in the back yard, if you wish the noises to stop, do not, and i mean do not spray them with the hose. if you want them to quit fighting, it works perfectly. if you want quiet, it sorta has the opposite effect.

which brings me to my next question: how is it that my oldest can come in from outside fucking soaking to the skin damn near every fucking day, but i spray him just a little with the hose, and all he can talk about for the next twenty minutes is how i got his shirt wet?

apparently video games on disc taste good, and little-kid teeth marks cannot be buffed out or filled like scratches. when q gets back, i owe him, along with a new controller (well, at least one, probably two) a couple of games as well. i will also tell him to never leave a game console with us again, as we don't really deserve it.

today is no. 1's 6th birthday. he was born 6 years ago on labor day. today, it is again labor day. us yanks tend to have barbeques and such on this day. i will be doing some cleaning and battling with the kids and drinking too much coffee, most likely, and little else today. we will celebrate no. 1's birthday at chuck e. cheese's (shitty pizza, and more video and arcade games than a simple mind like mine can even comprehend) when his mom gets back.

in just TWO MORE DAYS!!!!!!!!

fuck yeah, felt good to say that.

darth sardonic

p.s. jamie's blog has disappeared. considering what she was going through, this makes me a bit nervous. if anyone has any info, it would be greatly appreciated. thank you.

random thoughts from a fevered mind

i just passed a cop, in his cop car, talking on a cell-phone. what the fuck?!? driving with a cell-phone pressed against your ear is slated to be a ticketable/finable offense here in washington in the not-too-distant future, and the shining examples who will be enforcing this law are currently driving their cruisers around fucking yakking on cellies! what a crock of shite! hypocritical motherfuckers.

i just left my evil changelings, errr, ummm, children, with grammy to do a bit of grocery shopping (and freeing myself from the voices that plague me constantly), and bumped into another person i graduated high school with (my town really is not that big, and it seems like people end up back here at some point or another constantly, heh heh), and while she wasn't as animated as tz was, the reaction was very similar: "you've changed so much." to which i replied, "thank you, that is the best compliment anyone could pay me." this lady was hot as hell in high school, and in a rare change of pace, still is, despite being very pregnant with twin boys. i am always happy that the people from my school that i run into all seem genuinely pleased to see me again. we exchanged a few pleasantries, and got on our way.

i awoke this morning to a complete and utter disaster. no. 2 got ahold of a pen (lucky for this dopey sod, your humble narrator, a dry-erase board pen), and scribbled all over himself (wants to be tattooed like daddy), the tv (???), and the carpet (!!!) that i cleaned all up special a few weeks ago. this kinda set the stage for the rest of the day. i am in desperate need of a nap, and the kids need to calm the fuck down some.

my wife returns on the 6th of sep, at about 3 in the pm. i will either have to keep the boys home from school, or yank them early so that we might all go and be there with shining, smiling faces to greet her upon arrival.

5 more days.

you, all my beloved non-existants, do realize that after her return it is likely this blog will be horribly and almost ruthlessly neglected for an indeterminate amount of time? this does not mean, however, that i won't be back with my usual panache and flair (facha, they call it in argentina) after a certain amount of time getting myself, uhh, centered, shall we say?

darth sardonic

i am going to axe the games and put my kids on ambien

i am, in fact, writing a book. i have been for ten years. a smartass, surreal, semi-memiors cum creative license, thirty-odd years of observations tome that i actually think i might be near to wrapping up the way i would like soon. well, soon, if i actually spend some time tackling it. i will let my faithful non-existants know as soon as some (ill-fated) publishing company picks it up. i need to get a few of the stand-alone chapters out to (crappy no-name) magazines to drum up interest in the entire manuscript as well. i really am about as motivated as freeze-dried shitake mushrooms when it comes to finishing some of my projects.

for three days now, my (bratty-ass) kids have displayed extreme signs of sleep deprivation. along with dark circles under their eyes (which actually look like i have done the very thing that i have wanted to do the last few days, but have been too scared of child protective services to actually go through with, and punched them in the face (i really am kidding. i wouldn't do that. that isn't to say that there aren't moments when it flashes across my brain like a quick hint of horrible violence in a trailer for an upcoming slasher flick.), leaving them with nasty black eyes) are accompanied with crying at the drop of a hat, incessant whining, and arguing with anything daddy says, even before the entire sentence is finished (no. 1 loves to do this: i start to say that if he does thing a., he will receive reward b., but he wants to argue with the very hint of thing a., and so receives instead reward c., loud and stern raised daddy voice accompanied by (much cursing and) threats of loss of all privileges).

in another ring of the same circus, my wife has insisted that i will be able to get some sort of pass to mow my way through seatac's (extremely fucking rude) security to meet her at the gate where she disembarks. i have set out to confirm this. initial attempts at assuring me this is possible resulted in a "i've never heard of that." i pass this along to her. she passes along to me another thing further "proving" this is possible. the thought of hauling my whiney, argumentative kids through a long line to a desk for a (less than helpful) airline representative to inform me that i cannot go up to the gate is daunting at best, so i set out today to confirm the veracity of this rumor.

i am no closer, some hour or so later, to knowing for dead sure that it is true than i was when i launched on this search for the holy grail. i have learned a few things though: telling no. 1 to shut the fuck up only makes him argue more, and louder, which only makes that split-second flash hint of violence to pass across the front of my brain. when no. 1 says that the video game console he is playing on is "berry berry boring" and requests another, it is a good idea to put all video games up out of reach, and subsequently ignore the ensuing whining, crying, wheedling, cajoling, yelling, screaming, and threats of violence to all and sundry from the (junkie) kid. ignore all moaning and crying that (whiney) no. 2 does, as he sets himself off if the sun ducks behind a cloud for a moment as of late. there is no number at seatac for a simple informational question of this sort. there is a number for this sort of informational question with united, but their (heavily-accented) answer will be to ask the united help desk at the airport in question. there is no number to this (jodido) desk at seatac.

so, in summary, i will take all the info i need, wait in line with two whiney, argumentative kids who will no doubt be wound tighter than a watchspring at the thought of mommy returning home, wend my way to the desk, and will find out there, once and for all, whether or not i can in fact pass through security to the gate.

wish me luck.

6 more days.

darth sardonic

the earliness of the hour

i think i will be vindicated before the court when i explain that my kids awoke at some hour prior to 4:30 am, and proceeded to turn every light in the house on, and reenact scenes from movies and video games inches from my ear at top volume (and you say, "yer still awive!" you say "yer still awive!" no. 2! YOU SAY "YER STILL AWIVE!"), and after i found myself freed from my prone position to something akin to early man's posture (upright is certainly not the right word, o my beloved non-existants), proceeded to say "daddy daddy daddy" about 450 times in two minutes, and whine about absolutely everything while the cats conveyed to me that they were starving in the only way they know how (the word is caterwaul). i think the jury will look on me with sad, reminiscent understanding, and the judge lean out across his desk and say, "bailiff, release this man, he is free!" before banging his gavel resoundingly.

it completely baffles me how i could put my kids in their bedroom at 6:30 pm, after which they proceed to wrestle around noisily until 8:30 or 9:00 pm, (sometimes, later), and still awake so early, and with the kind of nervous energy that one finds in tweekers on a 48-hour bender.

thank god for coffee.

ten more days, he he heeee.

darth sardonic

a word to my pals...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and so, eh, up, lads.

darth sardonic

roll out those lazy hazy crazy days of summer

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

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

you might reply with, "oh, fuck!"

now, if i said it like this:

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

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

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

but i am getting ahead of myself.

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

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

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

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

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

"good job, daddy, you a deneeus."

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

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

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

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

darth sardonic

how many are going to st. ives?

round two:

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

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

it is 1:45, a.m.

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

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

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

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

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

in a rare moment of brilliance, he listened.

darth sardonic

kits, cats, sacks, and wives...

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

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

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

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

i lose it.

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

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

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

is there a looney-bin in st. ives?

Wanted to scream for them but had to stand in silence

my kids are currently watching the mst3k version of godzilla vs. megalon. they love it! which is great, cause as a kid i watched the rubbery dinosaur and his HO-scale-japan-destroying counterparts faithfully. when i got older, i watched mst3k faithfully, and would laugh extra-hard when they made fun of a movie i had seen on saturday's sci-fi theater. and when i stumbled out of bed this morning, my kids actually stopped the video games to ask me for the "mosser/wobot" movie.

friday night me, s, and t went to the l&m tavern. it is actually called the firehouse now (it burned down some years ago, and they rebuilt), but it will always be the l&m to us. my cold was still in play, though getting better, and we ordered up dinner and gin n tonics and laughed and did the kind of bantering that high-school mates with over 20 years of history behind us do.

brooke's eyes are real. they are ridiculously blue. and i have never wanted to just stare intently into her baby b's to figure it out, but while she was taking t's order, i managed to sherlock holmes, and there are no contacts.

as for her boobs, the jury is still out. t "brushed" them with his chest when they were trying to get past each other in a tight space between tables, and informed us they were "pretty firm". they are, also, (not that i really noticed, mind you, but i have been told...) err, umm, rather large for her frame. must do more research...

{we interrupt this program so that no. 2 can spend five minutes pleading and wheedling at no. 1 to get his binkie, when i know damn good and well that no. 2's binkie is probably in his bedroom. but no. 2 would rather spend all this time saying, "plaese (yes, the misspelling is intentional, that is how he says it, a cross between "please" and "place"), plaaaeeeese, plaaaaeeeeeeese, PLAAAAAEEEEEEEEESE." over and over like some fucking whiney-voiced oliver twist crack-addict begging his pimp not to hit him again. it goes without saying that when no. 2 does this, it drives me beyond crazy.

i tell him to go find his own. it is in his bedroom, right where he left it. he continues with the pleeding plaeses until i see red, jump up, pull him by his arm into the bedroom, stern voice on full alert the entire time, and find his binkie for him while he cries like i am hitting him in the head repeatedly with a baseball bat.

when he does this plaese wheedle thing, i am unable to concentrate. since this is a rather largish post covering several days of happenings, drastic measures were called for.

that is all. now back to your regularly-scheduled program.}

as the night wore on, karaoke ensued, and s, t, and i were forced to nearly shout to be heard, and this, combined with the already sandpapery condition caused me to sound like the love child of harvey fierstein and gilbert godfried as it goes through puberty.

saturday, i needed to clean. and clean. and clean. then shower. and nap. then people showed up for my little do. i received presents of tangueray (my friends know me oh, so well, o my beloved bemused non-existant readers), and happily drank and talked and basically had a rather toned-down little fiestita. i did not run around the back yard in my boxers. just wasn't the right mood. (and my new non-existant readers, which is damn near all of you, will have absolutely no idea what i am talking about. suffice to say, the right group of people + the right atmosphere x a drink or two = darth suggesting a boxer run, which is usually seconded by one or two of my more exhibitionistic friends, resulting in a few of my tipsy friends running around the backyard in their respective underwear.)

a&m showed up for a little while, though m looked completely strung-out. he reacted badly to the anaesthesia, resulting in vomiting, followed by reacting badly to the morphine, resulting in vomiting, and then reacted badly to the percocet, resulting in, yep, you guessed it, vomiting. as a result, he was taking tylenol and toughing through the pain, and gimping around pretty poorly. i will mention here, though, that m is a crazy fucking rugby player who took a knee to the eye and wanted them to send him back in with his eyebrow hanging open like a side of beef at the slaughterhouse.

a good time was had by all.

the next morning, i awoke with no voice. one nostril was completely plugged, not with boogers, but with swollen nasal tissue, and my throat was paved in freshly-laid hot tar and gravel. my cold in its death throes, putting up one last-ditch attempt at making me miserable.

and it worked.

i tidied from the party (my friends are not the kind to make a large mess and not help clean), and rested. the kids thought that daddy sans voice = not having to listen, until no. 1 was trying to outtalk me as i was softly lecturing him, and pissed me off, and i stripped my throat out outyelling him, causing him to cry, and resulting in both of them being a little easier to be around for the day, though i did have to repeat the "yelling-till-i-spit-up-blood" manoeuvre on no. 2 a little later on, resulting in him crying, followed by better behavior.

today, the majority of the cold is gone. i still have lingering snot and junk in my throat, and i sound a bit like dirty harry.

so you have to ask yourself, do you feel lucky, punk, huh? do ya?

darth sardonic

p.s. sparx, i am so pleased to be linked at all that you could link me under "boring twat what whines too much about his life despite how good he's got it" and it would make absolutely no difference whatsoever. dj kirby, i left a comment, but don't know if you have seen it, "some people are just small, hard peas" is a line from a codiene song, pea, and i guess you could use it as long as you gave proper credit, though i am not sure how that would work, copyright laws-wise.

god, i hate being right

lord knows how many times i have told my kids to ask for my help when handling the dvds and games. i keep telling no. 2 not to handle them, that they get scratched and finger-printed and crudded up, and that he might break them.

so why exactly was i surprised when no. 1 said, in his pained voice, "oh daddy, look, he bwoke it." and held up two halves of melody time?

and immediately began the tirade. "if you guys would listen to me, and pay attention, these kinds of things wouldn't happen. i tell you to ask me for help, and what do you do?"

it goes on in that kind of vein for some time, while no. 1 mourns the loss of a movie that i think is shite but is apparently near and dear to his heart (though he hasn't watched it in several months, maybe even years), and no. 2 pretends to listen and care (though it is quite clear he is doing neither).

this is the sort of thing that happens alot around the sardonic household alot. "someone is going to get hurt." waaaah, my head. "you're going to break that." gish, snap, tinkle. "it's not going to work if you put it in the pool." wahwaharble, pop, fizz.

the thing is, it would be easier for all involved if: a.) they would listen and comply, and hence not test daddy's prophetic abilities, and/or b.) daddy was always wrong.

this was followed by me trying to purchase a replacement on ebay, whilst addressing a care package to the wife in far-off places and filling out the necessary customs paperwork, and no. 1 saying "daddy?" "daddy?" "daddy?" "daddy?" and then staring blankly each time i said, "what?" "what?!" "wha-haaat?!?" "what?!!!? for the love of christ!" and no. 2 walking into the room with another dvd that he has pulled out of the case so hard and fast upon bearing the brunt of my lecture, this time with slightly better results, though if the cops need his fingerprints, the media side of buzz lightyear of star command seems a very safe bet.

i've a feeling my kids are never going to learn to listen.

i am, as an aside, also scared to death about teaching them things that i can't remember ever really learning: like, how do you teach a kid to be polite? i mean beyond "thank you" and "please". how do you teach them to be respectful of others? to not be judgemental? to love and respect women? and on, and on, and on.

anyways, i know it has been a bit since i have posted, i have been alternately busy and drained of energy. and another little note, i am not one to leave comments on every post of the blogs i read, but rest assured that i read each and everyone's blogs on a regular basis.

darth sardonic

saturday fezzle

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

to which i texted back, nah.

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

"nooooo."

u sure?

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

"leeb me 'lone. owwwww."

maybe some gin?

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

"owww, you're hurting my arm!"

"let gowa meee!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"yeah!"

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

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

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

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

darth sardonic