more inanity and insanity

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

moving a bed is hard work.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

darth sardonic

randomness is the sugar sprinkles on the ice cream sundae of life

if i let her, my wife will read me the entire list of foods i am allowed to eat on whatever diet she is interested in today.

you cannot split the signals from three gibson g-3 bass pickups to three different phase switches for maximum tonal diversity. it took me a total of four hours bent over a hot soldering iron and a tangle of multicolored wires that would make the most stone-cold bomb technician break out in night sweats to figure it out.

when you are 7 and 8, repetition of one phrase in a high-pitched cartoonish voice is the height of hilarity. it might also land you in the er.

when you are 7 and 8, "daddy, can i have a kuitar lesson?" means: "daddy, can i plug one of your kuitars into the kuitar amp and wail on it like i am the bastard love child of sonic youth and tad."

(in a related story, if you turn to your wife and say, "quick, gimme the name of a guitarist known for atonal and obnoxious noisy solos." she will sputter, stutter, say "jack white." and end lamely by saying, "i don't know guitarists." (i was going to go with pete townsend and kurt cobain, until it occured to me that the obvious subtext to that would be that my kids had smashed my guitar. they treat it very lovingly, as long as you don't mind retuning it when they're done.))

in a not related at all story, if your wife says, "i'm just tired." what she really means is "i'm pissed at you about something and if you are too fucking stupid to figure it out, i sure as hell am not going to waste my time explaining it to you." disappear or look busy for about a half-hour, and whatever it was you had done will have dissipated and been forgotten.

and nothing beats a walk on the beach when it is about 70 with a light breeze blowing in your hair. well, maybe sex. ok, definitely sex.

darth sardonic

synopsis...

i have amazing friends. my family rocks. i want to punch my pictorial drafting teacher in the face. my book, The Unfinished Work, might finally actually just possibly be available to anyone and everyone regardless of color, race, religion, creed, or country of origin of said person's credit card as long as they have access to the internet and a means to make online payments. i'll know for sure in 3-13 more days. naturally, i will let you, the beloved non-existents know when i know, and most likely post a link or some such thing. i am still working on my fiction novel, but think i have enough blog posts and sundry miscellaneous stories to do another memoirs cum insanity cum essays from the inner dank reaches of my mind follow-up to The Unfinished Work that i am thinking will be entitled Pierce County. my guitarist, s, should be home in less than a month and then big dumb animal (as we have dubbed ourselves) will immediately begin preparing ourselves to actually play bars and clubs and such and take our show on the road. i might post an old video of us playing a song i wrote here eventually.

i guess that more or less sums it up for now, o my droogs and only friends.

darth sardonic

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

To a hopeless cause, I sold my soul

random nonsequitors for the common man:

just a minute ago i saw a commercial for something related to the removal of leg hair on female homo sapiens. the lady was shaving her legs in a mountain brook, all flowy and gurgling. at the end of the commercial, she seems particularly jazzed about the potential staph infection she might have given herself by shaving in rotted trout eggs, algae, and beaver shit.

cause, o my beloved non-existant readers, i personally grew up in mountains, and as an eagle scout, did more than my fair share of camping in said mountains, and know from experience that mountain brooks are not even remotely as virgin and clean as madison avenue makes them appear.

having crusty blood in your ear has serious "sick fun" potential: "shit, man, your music actually made my ears bleed! check it out." i had to pick up a refill for no. 2 a day or two after my surgery, and actually thought, "if this crazy lady gives me any trouble, i hope a gout of gooey blood just pops right out of my ear right as i am beginning to get angry. i could be like, 'look!! look what you've done!' bet i could get all kindsa freebies. wonder if i could make myself bleed from the ears on demand?"

around the cove, guitar hero seemed a common christmas gift. b got his kids guitar hero: world tour, which includes guitars, vocals, and drums. yeah, you can imagine we have been seriously fucking up some cool tunes lately. but yesterday, nos. 1 & 2 really wanted to play, so we set them up, along with the other kids, and had all the kids rotate through a small set of songs. no. 1 did pretty good on the drums (we set them up so all they have to do is hit anything when the line crosses) and no. 2 rocked some bass, but the highlight of the night was watching my oldest sing "the one i love" by r.e.m.

now, it is possible that no. 1 has heard this song. i dig older r.e.m. but he sure as shit hasn't heard it often enough to sing it from memory, unlike, say, "my friend peter" (I don't care who you've been dining with these days/It's more than fair/Much rather be drinking anyways) or "don't call me white" (Does this mean I have to take such shit/For being fairskinned? No!) or "blitzkrieg bop" (Hey ho, let's go/Hey ho, let's go). that didn't stop him from hunching over, one foot forward, eyes and mouth wide ala johnny rotten, meatfisting the mic and putting his mouth millimeters away as he belted out "fiiiiiiiihiiiiiiiihiiiiiiiiiii errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" he definitely has rock star potential.

and since we had removed the colored buttons on the necks of the guitars from the equation, i noticed no. 2 noodling a long, convoluted eddie van halen solo high on the neck as he moved the strum tab back and forth, a look of near-boredom and "i do this shit all the time" dancing across his face.

since i have been incapacitated some, my mom has been doing alot of laundry and dishes. yesterday she says, "honey, can you fold these clothes?" while the cove was getting ready for a little shindiggity and my wife was rolling lumpia. i mean, i really wanted to help and do my part but--

"i would, mom, but that would leave nos. 1 and 2 outside with a fire and only a ring of drunk men to watch them."

i hope everyone had a wonderful christmas, and whatever other holidays you might celebrate. here's to a prosperous and wonderful new year!

darth sardonic

It was christmas eve babe...

In the drunk tank

i tried to go to my happy place, but found that it had been closed for repairs.

oh and i forgot, the latest on the Unfinished Work is that due to some other people not necessarily following the guidelines delineated by the contracts and such, and the need to seek out corrections to the not-followed guidelines, the publishing of the books is behind.

however, i never picked a picture for my cover, since they said they would be glad to find something suitable, and i took them at their word, so i am not the particular culprit in the case.

best case scenario, january.

here's to hoping.

darth sardonic

shitty sidewalks, busty sidewalks

i have to take out all my piercings for the surgery.

so the morning of, as i put on my slacker garb (loose-fitting and comfortable is what they suggested, and any time i do loose-fitting and comfortable, i feel like i oughtta have a greasy mop of studiously unkempt hair and should stand around in a carefully controlled slouch saying "meh"), and wrestled out my barbells. but my earrings would not come. my earrings are called "captive ball" rings, and to get them out and in usually requires a special tool that spreads the ring part so the ball will slip in easily.

"fuck it, they'll have some or guy who will have something to get em out. let's go."

quickly and smoothly through the paperwork and admissions portion, till i find myself buck-ass except gripper-tape socks and world's flimsiest and least modest robe ever (luckily, i am not particularly known for being overly modest, whilst at the same time not really being a flasher or anything like that either) in my own private room, watching "the price is right" while my wife makes wisecracks.

a barrage of questions from the anaesthesiologist, another nurse, the iv started in my hand while i try to explain that i am somewhere between a daily and a social drinker, which causes some mild consternation in the nurse until she shoots me up with the half-dose of versed, which hits me at a wallop and she realizes that drinking and drunk are not necessarily the same thing with me.

in and out of conciousness (versed is fun, i recommend it to anyone--err, well, i mean, if you are having surgery), with snippets of drew carey and bustling back and forth. an or tech comes in to easily pop out my earrings and the nurse tells me it was like a race to see who could get into my room fastest to get the opportunity to take them out.

i might've said something witty like, "i'm really not that good-looking." maybe. or maybe in my head.

my glasses are removed, and i get the second half-dose of versed, both of which don't stop me from noticing that the nurse taking me back is hot as hell (or maybe excacerbating the situation, i am not really sure), and then a very fuzzy recollection, as if viewed through frosted glass, of another anaesthesiologist telling me to take big deep breaths over and over, even though i am pretty fucking sure i already am. the mask barely over my mouth and nose.

fuzzy white empty space, followed by a young guy named lou flirting loudly with the nurses in an italian new york accent between questions to me: "hey, hey, you know i'm good for iiit. drinks on me, baby, drinks on me. how you feelin' mr sardonic, hey?" flip flop flip flop in and out of coherency. a distinct moment with my ear doctor, an asian fellow who moves and talks faster than anyone i have ever met, and yet manages to do so quietly and understatedly: "howdideverythinggomrsardonicthesurgerywentwonderfulyouwereactuallymissingthatboneithaddisintigratedyeah"

then him telling me to plug my right ear, leaning in close to my left, and whispering something that was very distinct, but that i subsequently lost in the retroactive amnesic effects of the drug cocktail i had been subjected to, followed by him whispering to me to count to three and me giggling like a little kid who has just been told a great secret and counting one two three. (this would also, it should be noted, be the last time i will hear out of this ear so well to date. but more on that later.)

another room where a guy who had been in the marines for 20 years gave me water and my wife sat beside me. we probably conversed, but i have no idea what about. then i got dressed (i only sorta remember that, and for all i know, i mighta done it in full view of everyone around, though i am pretty sure my wife wouldn't have allowed that) and got wheeled out to the car, where i felt it was important to ask my wife:

"so the nurse that took me back? she was hot, right?"

"the old one?"

"no, the one that wheeled the bed back to surgery. i didn't have my glasses on n i was stoned, but i am pretty sure she was hot."

"oh, the one that came in and took you back! yeah, she was very pretty. but she was wearing baby phat scrubs. i mean c'mon, seriously, baby phat scrubs (maybe just a hint of jealousy in her voice)! maybe she is trying to land herself a hot doctor."

"yeah, prolly. can't blame her."

dizzying down with a doofy grin on my face as the streets blended and intertwined and i spent the rest of the day in and out of sleep.

not sure how much lortab does for pain, but it sure knocks my ass out. the next two days were basically spent feeling like i have gotten a sinus infection from the inner circle of staphalococcus hell, everything i eat or drink tasting metallic, hocking up tremendous loogies that look like they might get up and crawl out of the sink on tentacle-like tendrils.

my inner ears starts the day feeling relatively normal (but with lots of cracking and popping) but my pillow looks like someone killed me in the middle of the night, then in the course of the day pressure builds to a golf-ball sized lump of icky dough before releasing again and making me look like someone has blown up a bomb very near my head, fluid draining from my ear, the chewing oxidated copper taste flooding the left side of my mouth.

due to the fluid build up (which is perfectly normal), the hearing in that ear is decreased to an underwater susurrus of the waves gently lapping my inner ear. i hold on to that giggly, drug-induced little kid memory of the doctor telling me to count to three, because if i were to judge the outcome of my surgery right now based on what i can hear, i would be sure he rendered me deaf.

turns out, one of the three bones in my inner ear that convey the pulses from the ear drum to the aural nerves had actually disintigrated somewhere along the line, and the doctor replaced it with a suitable piece of titanium, and once my ear quits refilling with fluid, i will be able to hear wonderfully.

in the meantime, it is kicking my ass.

darth sardonic

p.s. one really should not get surgery a couple weeks before christmas and right after one's mom arrives from out of town. just saying.

random notes from my so-called brain

the phrase "i love [insert name of close friend here] to death" is usually followed by a dissertation on why you would love to punch him/her in the taint.

recently, there was a squad of brit soldiers or air force or not sure what here for some kind of exchange or some such thing, and they apparently are avid golfers and were at the clubhouse getting some breakfast when i went up there to also purchase vittles. i figgered they "weren't from round here" real quick, based solely on their dress. but when one said something to another, it gave me an opportunity to ask where they were visiting from, and engage in a conversation. lady macleod, don't hate me, but i actually asked the scott if he was a northerner. heh heh, cause i am a dumb yank, and can't really tell the difference between a brogue and yorkshire. eh, up, lads.

fred was out in force for them the day they were golfing as well. like someone called him in advance and said, "for the sake of international relations, you need to be out by the pond on 17 fairway from 8 am to 3 pm, or you're a pair a shoes."

i actually suggested we just get a big stuffed gator from a taxidermist and lay it out wherever it would do the most dama--err, umm, be the most visible, by way of keeping the tourist trade interested in dropping their hard-earned bones at our pathetic little course rather than any of the much nicer courses off-base.

today is my wife's 35th birthday, and we have quite a turn-out from all corners of the globe (well, the us anyways) to help celebrate it.

what crazy ingenious bastard invented jell-o? and subsequently, what crazy ingenious wino decided to add alcohol and make jell-o shots?

i'm sure i'll come up with more shit, just as soon as i post this and step away from the computer, but for now, that is all.

darth sardonic

Place a curse on the hearse we're driving...

Cut the brake lines, end up dying

soon i will get to find out which one of the less-than-stellar choices gets to fuck up my life for the next four years.

we had a union meeting today, the subject of which was johnny-come-lately, the new assistant superintendant. lo and behold, corners were cut, rules were bent, protocols were skipped, and comme ce, comme ca, o my beloved non-existant readers, o thou patient and long-suffering hepcats and kittens, it is likely that johnny c. l. will soon find himself back to being a flunky lawnmower man like the rest of us. (we're actually hoping he will get frustrated and quit, because he has proven himself to be a roundmouth and untrustworthy, as well as never having bothered to learn to properly use much of equipment we utilize on a daily basis, and therefore making him a danger to himself and others) as for the boss (recipient of implied bj's and arrogant prick, as well as clearly perpetrator of cronyism), at the very least he will get reprimanded and hopefully knocked off his high horse. it is even possible he could find himself shitcanned. which wouldn't bother any of us (except johnny c. l. perhaps) in the least. the superintendant, who we all dig, and who we figure has found himself uncomfortably lodged betwixt igneous and hardpan in this situation, will escape unscathed.

no. 2 recently had eye surgery to correct a strabismus (opthalmologist-speak for lazy eye), and it was a smashing success. i could see a notable difference the very first time he opened his eyes, and now that the bruising is gone, he looks rather dashing.

i myself will be going in soon for a same-day surgery to fix the hearing in my left ear. yours truly, your humble narrator, has had a fairly significant hearing loss in his left ear for as long as he can remember. since we work for the military around noisy machinery all day, they require regular hearing checks. this led to me being referred to see what can be done. turns out, the bones in my inner ear aren't functioning properly, and a little snip, snap, paste, n duct tape, and i will be able to hear again. at least a 90% chance of success. i am excited, and trying to imagine what it is going to be like to not say, "huh? what?" all the time.

no. 1 is getting assessed for adhd. like he has so much trouble focusing in school that it is actually causing him to fall behind. his teacher is quick to reiterate over and over that he is not dumb, or lacking in any kind of mental capacity. he is just so rambunctious and unable to concentrate. so he will probably be on meds to help settle him a bit.

i just feel, lately anyhow, that we get one thing out of the way (no. 2's eye) and something new and equally, or even more, aggravating pops up. can i just get a year or two where things just get better, without having to trade some other thing in?

anyhow, i wasn't really necessarily headed anywhere with all this, just getting the latest out there to keep you, the beloved non-existants, the alphas and omegas, abreast of the current events in the sardonic household.

darth sardonic

I think I'm dumb...

Or maybe just happy

i haven't even touched my bass in over a week. my friends from sg chat are wondering why i don't come in anymore. the cove thinks i am being a cunt. my wife comes home from work and is a little disgruntled at the disarray, the dirty dishes, the piles of laundry. i barely do enough laundry to keep us all in underwear and socks, and sometimes we have to grab it out of the wrinkly pile dumped violently on the couch after the dryer dings.

but today, i went through 60 pages! and i have maybe 140 left to go. less. then arrange the order of some chapters better, come up with a few better more clever chapter titles, and maybe write a page or two here and there to tie some things together, and hey, presto!

the light at the end of the tunnel is there, o my beloved non-existant readers!

and dj, if you are reading (which i doubt), i am almost done, i will be bugging you soon. (though in all honesty, she really oughtta not help me cause she already did and i did a good job of working at it but then started this job, got tired lazy and unmotivated, sluffed, pissed around, and only recently got my shit back together, i'd be rather pissed with me if i was her!)

thanks for sticking with it with me, my droogs n only friends

darth sardonic

6x9 in

i am 3 hours early. i am seated with a group of people who won't even be on my flight because they are all bound for minneapolis on a plane that currently occupies the gate that my plane will occupy eventually.

this is due, in most part, to my wife being a worry-wart.

she must've told me four times in the last few days, "don't miss your flight."

and i am susceptible. i get bent out of shape. i let it infiltrate my consciousness. it feeds on the logic centers of my so-called brain.

that, and partly because i have spent very little of the past five days alone with my thoughts, i just decide, fuck it. i'll give me some "me" time, albeit at the sea-tac airport. suffice to say, it would take an act of god to prevent me from making my flight.

no one writes anymore. not "write" like stories and novels. i think even more people are doing that than ever before. and not well. and about subjects that probably interest very few readers.

but in the snack/magazine shop near gate s6, i had to search like a cryptologist/archeologist to discover a pad of paper n pen.

$4.44 later and i am seated on the end of a series of seats with cracked vinyl, back to a large window with a view of the movable causeway jammed against the side of a jet that doesn't appear large enough to carry all these people to minnesota.

it is the ideal place to kill three hours doing two of the things i enjoy most: writing, and people-watching.

the latter affords little to occupy my mind. the seats are mostly filled with the standard travelling fare: businessmen trying not to look like bussinessmen, flying out to facilitate that next big merger that will skyrocket their career, elderly couples headed to weddings, families on vacations they don't really want to take.

the flight is overbooked, and as they begin boarding, the airlines employees are frantically trying to find volunteers to get "bumped" for which they will reasonably compensate.

one man complains loudly that he has already been at the airport three hours.

yeah, i am gonna know what that feels like.

the pages in my cheaply-expensive little writing pad are already coming loose, and i wonder if this five-dollar experiment is going to survive the journey.

i have a momentary desire to write something all out, then leave it in the seat back pocket in front of me, imagining that someone would find it, be curious enough to read it, love it, wonder who wrote it.

it seems more likely that it will find itself at the bottom of a plastic bag under empty miniature bottles of alcohol and spent coffee grounds.

which is probably a fitting final resting place for it, actually.

my handwriting is atrocious. i am attempting to keep up with my stream-of-conscious, and tired to boot, which makes me wonder how long it will take me to transfer my longhand into the harddrive of my computer. judging by other writing adventures, a couple years would be a safe bet.

the waiting area of gates s6 and s7 is now relatively quiet, the plane boarded, leaving behind a few people who, like me, have wives that worry too much.

i try to decide if i am hungry. the truth is, probably not. with the looming and daunting three-hour wait, i am bored in advance. i ate a heavy breakfast of eggs benedict and hashbrowns with toast and having blown five bucks of my nearly-depleted funds on this ill-fated writing endeavor, i think i should really tough it out till memphis, where i must try the bbq according to one of my friends.

writer's cramp and the aforementioned breakfast necessitate a break.

back from the earthtone-tiled bathroom with the motion sensor faucets that rarely sense my motion, to my seat that still bears the imprint of my cell-phone and wallet chain.

in memphis, on the way to seattle, waiting to board my plane, was a lady with a monkey. this seemed so random and surreal as to completely tickle me pink. i wondered if she had checked a hurdygurdy with her luggage.

i wonder if the plane serves hot tea. then wonder if hot tea might be a bad idea in a narrow, cramped seat with a clipboard-sized table which will, when i am not dozing, be occupied by this rather silly pad of paper.

a clearly high-maintenance lady of unkown ethnicity asks two matronly white travellers if they would watch her all-leather carry-on while she goes to buy an over-priced coffee.

it gives me pause momentarily to ponder about levels of trust. neither party really knows the other, and the sweet older ladies might be high operatives in some new terrorrist group, and take advantage of the other woman's assumption that they are harmless.

then i think: and i would be on the plane! but as i think this, the sun beams through the clouds directly on me, and i think: nope, today is not the day.

it is about an hour until the flight leaves, and the waiting area is beginning to bustle.

this is usually the time when i begin to pick out the people i wish i was seated next to, and the people i will actually be seated next to.

wish: the two matronly terrorrists. one is talking on the phone, and has a tennessee accent, and they are probably from memphis, and they seem like overall nice people, even though they seek death for the american infidels and want to blow our plane from the sky.

wish: the high-maintenance lady, who appears to to have a small tattoo on her instep, and is eating yogurt from a plastic seattle's best cup while she surfs gay male porn on her laptop.

wish: two female college freshmen who will laugh at the stupid, laconic things i say in a valley-girlish way and regale me with stories of spring break in cancun, where they drank three times their weight in margaritas and had sex with each other, the men's water polo team from lsu, and possibly a donkey.

actual: the pudgy bald guy with glasses, who is closetedly gay in a creepy sort of way, and will be playing scenarioes of sodomy and submission with yours truly in the back of his head while he tells me about the cute puppy paint-by-numbers his wife does.

actual: the tall, pocked-face man with the greased-back hair, who will grunt in reply to anything anyone says to him, snore loudly, and wreak of garlic for the whole flight.

actual: the well-built, clear-eyed gentleman with the van dyke who will turn out to be a cop in a big southern city and will go on and on about the many painful ways to restrain "perps" which he will say like a racial slur.

my flight is actually overbooked as well, and for a split-second i contemplate bumping myself for a later one, but i am reminded of the four seperate occasions when my wife warned me against missing my plane. bumping myself would be a death sentence.

the polychromed scabs on my back are beginning to itch something fierce, and i wonder how difficult the four-plus hour flight is going to end up being.

for fun i watch the other passengers surreptitiously to see if anyone is putting me on their wish/actual list.

high-maintenance keeps looking my direction, no doubt thinking, "i hope i don't get seated next to him, he looks ill-mannered and unkempt." other than her, i seem to have flown under the radar with my fellow travellers.

i had been tired, with an impending bit of moodiness looming on the horizon, but the sun has burned off the clouds, and as i wait to actually board the plane, a fresh breeze blows in through the space between the fuselage and the edge of the jetway.

my last whiff of home before i go.

darth sardonic

space coast to space needle

it is quite likely that this blog will disintigrate into a stream-of-conscious randomfest. a randompallooza, if you will. enjoy. and just remember, i am as lost as you.

observations from a quarter of a day spent in travel, in no preferential order, and completely nonsequitor:

3:00 am is too early to be up. memphis is extremely proud of their musical heritage. and their bbq. i live in the most southern state, but had to travel considerably north to tennessee to actually hear a southern accent.

ever notice how when you ask a guy for his id, he slaps his ass like he just suddenly realized that despite the fact that his wallet has been with him all day he isn't really sure if it is still in his pocket? like the words "can i see your driver's license?" make him think that it is possible that his wallet has vaporized right under his very bum? a guy will even have a brief look of relief cross his face when he feels it. i do it too. i take it one step further. i not only slap my back pocket, but suddenly and maniacally check for my keys, too. like, if my wallet can magically disappear, what's stopping my keys from doing the same?

in the town of orting, wa, pierce county, there is a bell tower, erected in the center of town in 1989 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of logging and the moving of coal down from the mountain (also known as orting's centennial), and under this bell tower is a time capsule to be opened in 2089, and in this time capsule is an orting centennial calendar, and the majority of the artwork depicting scenes from orting's 100 years, and the things that it is famous for (namely, logging, the shipping of carbon (later to be used as fuel), and daffodils) were drawn in pen and ink by yours truly.

oh how disappointed the future openers of said time capsule are gonna be on that day.

i stop at orting's liquor store to pick up the fixings for tom collinses, and not far in front of me parks a classic car. out pops an older gent, resplendant in pegged 501's, black boots, and slicked back pompador. "sweet ride daddy-o" i say, without the slightest hint of irony. "what is that, a '50, '51?" "'51." "niiiiiice." we shoot the shit about rat rods and early fifties caddies (my favorites) and later when i leave, it occurs to me that despite my apparent lack of sufficient hair for a duck's ass, and the skinny puppy t-shirt i was wearing, i still was pulling down a fair bit of street cred in my dorkboy glasses, dickies, and converse all-stars. the devil knows his own.

there should be an "annoying" section of the plane, where the people who want to be annoying can go be annoying together, and not bother the fucking people who fucking want to fucking sleep cause they had to fucking get up before fucking 3 am to fucking get to their flight to fucking make the fucking connecting flight so that they could fucking sit next to the fucking annoying fucking people who won't allow them to fucking sleep in the first fucking place.

the day was clear and bright, and as i looked out of my window i see mt st helens. at least i think it is mt st helens. well, it must be cause there to the south is mt hood. which would mean that mt rainier is somewhere off to my ri--and as i think this, the plane banks some and there it is: my mountain! there are mt rainier (in all of its pierce county country hick glory), mt st helens, and mt hood, all lined up in a straight row, beautiful. and i know it is near.

but it doesn't fully hit until i am outside in the indian summer breeze and i get the mountain-lake, fresh-fruit, evergreen, clear-stream smell that i always equate with home, but had somehow managed to quit smelling till i moved away.

fuck, it is nice to be back.

darth sardonic

Oh, I will be with you, running from the rain

life is nothing without the random, seemingly disjointed things that happen that keep it a tad surreal.

at my suicidegirls account, rather than write another blog, i simply post something short with a link to this blog, and finish by typing, "not even star-crossed, just unlucky."

most of the current beloved non-existant readers weren't there in the very beginning, the earliest days of this tiny shit-stain on the world-wide web, when i decided to use that line from the codiene song, "cigarette machine" as the title of this blog.

a few days ago, at suicidegirls, i get a comment on my blog from someone i have never talked to before, and who, as far as i can tell, would have no reason to be reading my blog in the first place, i.e. we have no friends in common, and i can figure out no other reason why she might've ended up on my profile, saying: hey, that's a codiene lyric.

well, i had to send her a friendship invite, right?

those are the kinds of things that make life fun for me.

the night before last, i had a "long" dream (the kind that feel and play sort of like movies) in which i met up somewhere with my very first crush.

we will call her tm. we met at church. she had long red hair and pale skin, big blue eyes, and she seemed (for the first time i could remember) as interested in me as i was in her. we were eleven.

we couldn't really date, being that young, but for a few years we talked every sunday at church, and our families would often get together for bbq's and the like.

as we got older, she figured out i wasn't very cool, and started crushing on guys who were. but we were still friends and still talked on occasion, though not as frequently as before.

then they moved. to another state.

when i have dreams about her (which isn't very often, but more often than should be considering i haven't talked to her in forever), she is always unhappy with her religious choices, disgruntled, single, hot (of course), and, it seems, every time, looking to fuck me. or be fucked by me. however you want to paint it.

now, i highly doubt that this is the state that she is in. i'm sure she is happily married, with a few wonderful children that she adores.

now, could she just stay the fuck outta my dreams?

darth sardonic

how come the hole in the roof isn't big enough so i can fly out...

but it is big enough so the rain can get in?

my wife has been gone this week for training in texas. the boys' daycare ended last friday, and school doesn't start until next monday, so i took the week off and reminded myself what last summer felt like.

cleaning broken nightlight pieces up off the kids' floor at 11 pm. the neighbor's kitten (we are cat-sitting while they are on vacation) nibbling on whatever protruding part of my anatomy is unprotected at 2 am. being kneed in the back by no. 1 as he climbs into bed and proceeds to sniffle snort and hock like he is trying to dredge up a loogey the size of an apple at 4 am.

today we have kindergarten orientation for no. 2. he is going to a regular kindergarten with lots of out-of-class assistance with his ot, speech, and other learning issues. i am excited that he is finally starting to near the "normal" range, and i can see things that remind me of just how far he has come: most of what he says is understandable, he can copy his name just by looking at it, and recognizes most of the letters and all of the numbers.

i've updated my pals list. bel's blog is no longer there apparently, pixie's blog has changed again (but is current in the list now), and i finally decided that jaimie's memory was better-served with whatever things we know of her in our head than by some by-line declaring "this blog has been removed."

i do still make my way out to all of your blogs on a relatively regular basis, though i don't always comment.

spose that is really all i have for today.

darth sardonic

a conversation...

a real conversation i had in a chatroom once:

me: van gogh was fucking crazy, he cut off his goddamn ear and mailed it to a chick!

chick who wasn't involved in convo to begin with: he didn't cut off his whole ear, he only cut off half.

me: and that makes him any less fucking crazy?!?

have fun, o my beloved non-existants.

darth sardonic

lolligag

i had a conversation with a coworker the other day that went something like this:

"possession is nine tenths of the law." [said as he weilded a golf club that one of the other groundskeepers had found and intended to keep]

to which i replied (being the thoughtful bastard i am, and a bit of a devil's advocate), "i am gonna go kick out the window of your car and just sit in it. then it will be mine."

"my car aint worth gettin' shot for."

"yeah, but i bet the gun is in the car isn't it? which would make it mine as well."

he thought for a moment, "hmmm. yup. guess so."

"so the gun and the car would be mine. whatcha gonna do?"

"walk home, i guess."

all my working out is paying off. i no longer have moobs (man-boobs) but instead what can only be referred to as pecs. and while i don't have a six-pack, i definitely have a four-pack, instead of the keg i was hauling around for quite a bit.

a few miles down the road from us, there is a motel called the luna sea motel. looks like a decent place, but you would be crazy to stay there.

the weather has been nice. life has been rollercoasting along. things are more or less the usual for a summer.

and that is really all i can say for now.

darth sardonic

Traveling at five hundred feet per second...

Five thousand feet from the ground


the other day, no. 1 asked, "mommy, were you a baby when i was in space?"


so many people believe in an afterlife. i also believe in a forelife. or lives.


i am in desperate need of a shave. but i have to say, i love having a job where it doesn't really matter whether the razor has hit my face anytime within, say, the last several days. even showering is a bit optional.


i saw fred the other day. he was swimming lazily towards the center of the pond he considers home. no doubt to see about some frog or water fowl dinner.


my tan is ridiculous, i have several layers. my butt has never seen daylight, moonlight, isrealite, or fanny by the gaslight (and i am seriously considering a trip or two to the nude beach to fix that), my chest, back and upper arms are a medium shade of caramel. my legs, arms, and face are, well, my neighbor b says to my other neighbor, j (who is mexican), "he's gettin darker than you." not only do i have this silly farmer's tan, but i have a "sock" tan included, since they kinda frown on mowing or working the idiot spoon in flip flops. it is supposed to be sunny and warm the next couple weeks, and i intend to rectify this disparity.


i had so much more clever shit i wanted to say here, but it seems to have all slipped my so-called mind.

darth sardonic

You told me that you missed me...

...But you meant with the grill and hood

i am horrible at keeping up with everyone's blogs lately. for the most part, my life has been reduced to work, fight to stay awake, eat, sleep. but i do go through every so often and read. so those of you as haven't stopped already (and there are alot of you, turns out, jesus), don't stop.

if a man casually and disinterestedly says, "yeah, she's cute." to another female, nine times outta ten, he means he wants to have her real savage over a couch/counter/car hood.

when it isn't storming like crazy, it is so hot that even fred won't come out.

i forgot to mention in my job description: shucking dead fish.

a few weeks ago, due to lack of rain, and overabundance of algae in one of the ponds, we had what is charmingly referred to as a "fish kill."

quite simply put, the fish run out of oxygen, shuffle off this mortal coil, and go tits up.

so it was my job to take a long-handled net, and pull the carcasses (hundreds of them, no exaggeration) to the shore to be dumped into the front loader with pitchforks and buried somewhere quiet.

the stink that came off the bodies stuck in my nose for days.

but i didn't throw up.

which is about as positive as i can get at the tail end of that story, hahaha.

darth sardonic

37 today (damn i'm old)

but instead of talking about that: a rant.

my deoderant comes in three scents: they are cool mist, wooded meadow, and mountain stream (which also conjures up a tangent rant about those old brita commercials. they used to say, "what would it take to get your tap water to taste like this?" and flash up a shot of a rushing mountain stream. my reply was always: " a few tons of river rock, a smattering of algae and watercress, some trout poop, and giardia.") so apparently it is manly to smell like cold water, pine trees, and fish guts.

i never understood that. men don't wanna smell like a pine tree. i don't wanna smell like a pine tree. pine trees are pitchy and sappy. the smell of a pine tree can be downright overpowering. anything that i might put on my body that smells like pine would be like patchoulie (and oh man, is it damn near impossible to get just the right amount of patchoulie. i think i have passed maybe one or two aging hippies that had actually nailed the pleasant amount. usually i walk through a fog reminiscent of skunk class a, that continues to linger for hours after the gray ponytail and birkenstocks have moved on. i digress.), it would be virtually impossible to get a pleasant amount of it dabbed on.

it is, i guess, based on some room of suits on madison ave, manly to smell like dead cow hide and sweaty horse as well. i mean, english leather, old stetson. come on. i don't wanna smell like leather. i don't even own a leather outfit for naughty time behind closed doors with my wife. the fucking seats in my car don't smell like leather, and they are leather!

my cologne smells like alcohol. alcohol and spices. like some scent wizard combined whiskey, gin, vodka, goldschlager, and amaretto into the perfect body shot.

and that is fucking manly.

darth sardonic

vonny grahzny bratchnies

i have been doing terrible at this whole blog thing lately, it appears.

not that there is an overage of new things going on, really. i continue to put my drumset together piece by piece (got my first paycheck yesterday, so that is going to help greatly), eat and drink on the cove, work on my magnum crappus as i have time and energy (basically, nearly never), and in general try to enjoy my free time.

work is still wonderful. well, except the early morning start-time, but then, nothing is perfect right?

no. 1 lost his first tooth. he doesn't like to do anything like other kids, and so in true no. 1 fashion, he lost a tooth on his lower front, instead of the usual upper front tooth that most kids do to start. he was very excited, and the tooth fairy took him to see indiana jones and the kingdom of ridiculously long titles.

now, here is the rub, o my beloved and fair non-existant readers, my droogs and only friends, i am a huge, and i mean huuuuge indiana jones fan. have been since the first time indy dodged a booby trap.

and the new indy movie is pretty good. but i am not sure it fits completely with the rest of the movies.

if nothing else, the opener, compared to the beginnings of the other three (poison, dodging darts, rhino horns, a battle over antidote and diamonds, a giant boulder, whipping oneself in the chin) left alot to be desired. i wasn't roped in like i had been in the past.

still, the kids loved it, it is the first movie we have seen in the theater since the last lord of the rings butt-sleep inducing megamovie, and i still enjoyed the movie, but it was lacking a little something. or is it that i am just older and harder to please?

either way.

darth sardonic