It has been a while

I know that it has been a while since my last post. With work, little league, and track practice, stuff like that my time is at a premium. I have also had problems with one of my computers, the "g" key does not always work, makes it awkward to type.

Anyway, there is something that has been bothering me lately. You see there is a Walmart by my house that is a lot like going to the circus. Whenever I go there it is like a sideshow of eating disorders, bad homemade tattoos, and domestic violence. It is a sea of loony tunes outfits (I will never understand the appeal of the Tasmanian Devil) and large women wearing halter tops. As the weather gets better here in the Northeast the bugs have sprang back to life. I cannot stand pestilence of any kind in my house so I went to that beacon of all things mediocre, Walmart. All I wanted was a flyswatter, nothing too high tech. After walking around for a while I finally tracked one down and proceeded with my purchase to the checkout. Once there I was assisted by a young woman who was obviously not from this country. Judging from her accent I would guess that she was from some eastern European country. I place my one purchase on the conveyor belt and as she tried to ring me up I realized that I had gotten a flyswatter without a price tag. This turned out to be a huge problem. Apparently there is some computer database where the girl was able to look up the price of this thing. As long as she knows what it is. This girl holds up my fly swatter and asks "Vat is dis?". I looked at her and said that it was a fly swatter. This elicited a blank stare from the girl. I then tried to explain the concept behind swatting flies and even included a pantomime of me killing a fly. Then I began to wonder, what backwards assed Slavic village did this chick come from where they have never seen a flyswatter? What kind of place is this? If I were to show up with a case of them would I be hailed as a hero?

Birthday

Memorial Day will be my birthday. I will be spending it by wearing a wool uniform and marching down some street in a parade, but that is beside the point. I guess this is a milestone birthday for me, I will be turning 40. I kind of go back and forth between being really bothered by this and thinking that it is not a big deal. I mean, I feel good, I doubt that everything is going to just come crashing down on that Monday. But still, turning 40 will make me firmly ensconced in middle age. The most depressing thing about turning 40 is that I am now going to be in a completely different marketing demographic. This shocking revelation came to me last week. I was reading an article in an online magazine called "The Art of Manliness". Anyway, the article was rating different magazines marketed towards men, and they were discussing one men's health magazine geared towards guys in their 20's and 30's. Suddenly, I had the wind knocked out of me, in a little over a week this magazine will no longer be for me. I will no longer be welcome to read this publication. I have never read this particular magazine, or really ever even heard of it until last week, but now that I know I am excluded from their target audience I am kind of bothered. What this really means is that now I am going to be lumped in with the 40 and 50 year old group, and I am way too immature for that shit. Really, it's not fair to either me, or the whole 40 to 50 year old demographic.

So anyway, the online magazine "The Art of Manliness" is a really cool online magazine, that and "Modern Drunkard Magazine" are probably my two favorite online mags. The problem with "The Art of Manliness" is that it sounds like a gay porn site, but its not. Its just one of those things in life that sounds problematic, but isn't. Kind of like when you have plumbing problems. Did you know that the mechanics inside of a toilet tank are called the 'ballcock assembly? Now, if you are talking to someone who does not know anything about home repair and you say to them "Hey, could you do me a favor and come on over and give me a hand with my ballcock assembly? It's been acting up lately". It sounds really bad, and more than a little dirty and homoerotic. But it's not. I guess life is full of stuff like that.

Blocked

I don't really know what to write about. I took my son to the batting cages, because as an adult I realize that being good at a sport is not the be all and end all. But, my kid is nine and to him it is. So I was hitting some pitches with him and now my fucking hand is all swollen and black and blue. It really really hurts. Typing is hard, mostly due to the fact that I really cannot move my thumb.

I have come to the conclusion that I really need structure in my life. I have no self discipline at all. Last weekend I was without my wife and kids. This pretty much left me to my own devices which included a lot of drinking, fast-food, and oddly enough mingling with the Amish. It took me days to get back to normal. I also tend to spiral out of control rather quickly when I am not working everyday. I have been a teacher for about 12 years, during which time I have only taken one summer off. It wasn't pretty. After about a week I could no longer remember what day it was. Shortly after that my kids had to start reminding me to bathe and change my clothes regularly. I started to loose mental functioning and began to find myself fascinated by shiny things. Without structure I begin to devolve and it gets tougher and tougher to claw my way back.

A few years ago a friend of mine asked me to join a band that he was putting together. I offered him full disclosure about my complete lack of musical talent and ability nut he was persistent about me joining. He needed a drummer and I was assured that I could be taught all that I needed to play. So, I agreed, and right away visions of rock stardom entered my head. Teenage fantasies of destroying hotel rooms, tour buses, and violent drug fueled arguments with my band mates seemed to be within my reach.

As it turns out the guy was talking about starting up a fife and drum band. For those who don't know, on the spectrum of all things cool, fife and drum bands fall roughly in the same area as Star Trek conventions and Dungeons and Dragons tournaments. The only thing that makes fife and drum slightly cooler that those things is copious amounts of free beer. I have a full Revolutionary War outfit complete with triangle hat and wool jacket and cape. I get to march down streets during parades wearing this stuff, having little kids think that I am apirate and swaeting my ass off. Becaues as everyone knows parades are held during the summer when nobody in their right mind would think of putting on a wool outfit and walking around in the sun.

One can only imagine my disappointment when I had a vision in my head of this...



But instead I got this....

Like I said, pretty much polar opposites on the spectrum of cool stuff. and by the way what the hell were people thinking back then? I mean that stuff they wear is really uncomfortable. Nodody could figure out shorts? And the fact that a person does not always have to wear long sleeves? Anyway, think of me the next time you watch a parade.

I have not had time to post in the past few days, partly due to the fact that I somehow messed up my router. I don't know what I did but I didn't have Internet for a few days. I was able to use my advanced technical skills to fix it by basically turning it off and then just turning it back on. Which is pretty much my first step in fixing anything. If that doesn't work then I know that things are going to be a pain in the ass.

Amidst all of this my kids baseball coach told me that my son really needed some practice, and that I really should get out there and throw the ball around with him. So the next day me and the kid go out into the back yard to throw the ball around for a while. Real father and son bonding time. So, the second or third throw, I ricochet a ball right off of his fucking kneecap. I have always hated baseball. Right away I felt like a failure as a Dad. I mean, I am such a slob that I cannot even give my kid pointers on catching a ball. Then I started thinking again, and just because I suck at baseball does that really mean that I am a failure as a Dad? I have done tons of stuff with that kid. We workout together sometimes. I have taught him how to make creme brulee', and I am not talking form a mix either, we went old school using real vanilla beans and everything. What is going to help him out more in life, catching a baseball, or being able to land chicks because he is funny and can cook his ass off? Don't get me wrong, at nine I certainly don't want him going around banging chicks, but when the time comes I would like to think I prepared him well. Then I started to think that maybe I really was a failure as a Dad, because here my kid is writhing around in the dirt holding his knee, and I am standing there like a dumb ass thinking about how it has affected me.

I have a dog. Her name is Morgan, and she is a beagle mix. She is kind of a dirt bag, always getting into the garbage, stealing food,running away stuff like that. A while back she got out and we found her in the little grocery store near my house, just wandering up and down the aisles, looking for food.

I actually like my cat, Sam, much better, but there are two types of people in the world, dog people and cat people. And cat people are usually gay, or at the very least just plain odd. You always hear about a man and his dog doing heroic and manly things, like herding cattle or exploring the arctic. A man and his cat rarely do anything heroic, and they will usually be the ones who get assaulted by their biker neighbors after complaining about the noise.

Interesting side note, someone recently pointed out to me that my dog was named Morgan after my favorite rum Captain Morgan, and that my cat was named Sam Adams, after my favorite brewer patriot. While I did not set out to name all of my pets after brands of alcohol, somehow I did.

Day 2

I am having a problem. Over the weekend I was out in the yard doing some stuff when I noticed something on the roof of my house. Upon further inspection I realized that stuff has gotten stuck in some crevices in my roof and I now have shit growing there. I have fucking shrubbery growing on the roof of my home. I am now obsessed with this fact for two reasons 1) there is no way this can be good for the house, and 2) I hate climbing around on the roof, any roof. I am not really bothered by heights. I have done some crazy stuff involving heights in the past, bungee jumping, leaping off cliffs while swimming stuff like that. But standing on a roof freaks me out, it must have something to do with the fact that its not flat.

Anyway I must bite the bullet and take care of this soon. I figure there are a few ways I an go with this. I can either go up there and start grooming my fucking roof hedges into topiary shapes like elephants and Disney characters or something like that, or, I can go up there with the intent of doing battle with, and destroying the floral infestation plaguing my home. I have opted for the second. I am now in the process of researching the right chemical to tackle this problem. I do not want environmentally safe in this instance. I am looking for a product that is so toxic, that I will be able to create a botanical wasteland severe enough that i will never have to drag my ass up a ladder and deal with this again