so i was scratching my self-esteem the other day

when i laid down in bed a few nights back marty said that while she was looking for something on my computer she saw an email message from a girl saying she saw my profile online and wondered if i wanted to chat or get together. it is one of my more prevalent pieces of spam mail that i haven't filtered for yet. i laughed it off saying that i get those all the time. after about thirty seconds marty said, 'so where do you have an online profile?'.

the better question is, where don't i have an online profile.

and speaking of spam, my most cherished piece of unsolicited correspondence of recent time follows. for the sake of this presentation i've replaced every reference to a phallus with the phrase 'self-esteem', every reference to a stimulated phallus with the word 'confidence' and every reference to the fleshy skin towards the top of the phallus with the word 'ego' (mostly b/c not all of the semantics used in this message were exactly professional and/or scientific, and no one is ever going to accuse me of not conducting myself with the utmost of decorum. i mean really, if you can't bring yourself to use the proper term for an erection, engorged manroot, then perhaps you ought not be talking about the subject.)

Finally! I have always worried about the size of my self-esteem. When I have sex, even though she says that the sex is good, I know that what she really wants is an extra inch of my self-esteem! I saw the advertising for More-Size on TV and was really impressed by the customers reports. The pills work by enhancing the hormone that instructs your body to fill your self-esteem with blood. More and more blood gets pumped into the two large chambers on top of your self-esteem, making said self-esteem harder than ever before. Your self-esteem is very very flexible, and adapts well to the increased pressure, getting longer and harder. The best thing is that once the hormones have been enhanced, they get used to it and you keep your enhanced size for many months after you stop taking the medication This is the only method that is said to work other than mechanical stretching! Pumps and creams do NOT have the same long-lasting effects. I could tell that my self-esteem was getting longer and heavier, but I thought that when I stopped taking them that my confidence would shrink back to its original size. I was really surprised! I have been 4.5" long since adolescence. Since I have been using this formula my self-esteem has been 6.5" long, and my confidence is nearly twice the size. Just be careful not to take too much to begin with as the skin needs time to adapt to your new improved self-esteem! The lengthening is permanent! I could not believe the results of this prescription. I am back to taking them again and my self-esteem is still getting larger! My girlfriend says it is the best product I've ever bought, and she ALWAYS reminds me to take them if I should forget! Take a peek... We know they work. There's a total guarantee with them, too. If you are not completely satisfied with your length gain and comfort you get your money back. Every penny. No-one sends them back! Please be aware that if your ego is already tight or if your confidence is already too hard and causes discomfort, you should consult the advice of your doctor before taking these pills, as the extra size could cause added discomfort

and lastly, one of the more genuine parts of this message is that its sender was a female.

geez, really?

uttered by the fourth person to cut my hair since the departure of the great one.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. go hide

a powerful argument for home schooling

the teachers at bella's pre-school send a note home in her backpack every school day. these notes typically share what was done that day or plans for the next day.

earlier this week the note home read ...

recently a child in the school was found to have head lice. lice are passed from head to head, through direct or indirect (hats, towels, car seats, etc.) contact. lice have nothing to do with cleanliness, just exposure. please check you child for the presence of nits. if you think he or she is infected, please treat immediately and let us know so we can track the spread. Please let me know if you have any questions.

if you think anyone in our home was checked before me, you'd be horrifically mistaken. fact of the matter is marty had to pick through my hair while the letter laid at my feet with me repeatedly saying "do you see any? are there any? what is a nit? what do they look like? what do they do? oh my gawd, have you found any!!!!!?"

during my tremble-voiced questions bella stood in front of me, innocently looking up, saying ...

BELLA
dad, they're just like white ants and if we find some then we look for the mother or father and try to get them first so they stop making more babies in your hair.

TROY
white ants! babies! bella please stop talking while mommy checks daddy. and this is different than how mommy checks daddy on saturday mornings but all the same you got to give us a minute. marty are they really like white ants? please tell me they aren't really white ants! marty! have you found anything?

MARTY
just a little bit of dandruff. but i think you're lice-free.

TROY
dandruff! oh great. so instead of live ants i just got a bunch of dead debris living on my head. this is great. i'm going to go take a shower. and no more notes from school! i don't want to know!

BELLA
what's dandruff?

if you don't know me that well you may need an interpreter

i have a friend who moved recently. i wrote asking him how he was liking his new digs. he wrote: cafe du monde, liquid crack, porterhouse, ice cream and no wipers. i only wonder if he's ready for me to move in.

not a lot of piss or vinegar running through these veins

marty commented on how competitive bella has become as of late. for the last month or two we've been hearing lots of 'i beat you' or 'i can do that better than you' sorts of taunts. these heckles just roll off me given how accustomed i am to hearing such things. marty on the other hand has never had someone stick a pointed index finger in her face and bark 'EAT THAT BEE-AUTCH!' until two weeks ago when bella finished coloring a picture faster than her.

as to the source of her aggression, i'd like to place on the record the fact that marty had college scholarship options, of the athletic variety. the extent of my collegiate correspondence came in the form of a postcard informing me i incorrectly filled out their application for enrollment.

open wide and say DUH.

do you know how to tell if you are dehydrated? i didn't and expressed the concern to someone at a rest stop on last week's MS150 bike ride. the following series of questions ensued.

do you have a headache?
now that you asked that question i do.

does your body ache?
i've biked 97 miles in the last two days. yes my body aches.

do you have stomach cramps?
because you aren't familiar with my diet, i'll forgive the fact that you don't already know my stomach is in a perpetual state of turmoil. it is what makes me so empathetic towards menstruating women.

when was the last time you urinated?
two and a half days ago.

the only question i had for her was why she didn't ask the fourth question first given it's apparent slam-dunk nature, you know, a diagnostic money shot of sorts.

tic-toc, tic-toc

only one (1) week left to get your everyman entries in.

so if you want to dance, get off your duff.

p.s. the from the attic category seems to again be woefully under-represented.

i provide embarrassingly affordable translation services

i used to work with a Jehovah's Witness. during this period i was reading the bible on my palm pilot while riding the metro to work. every now and again he would ask what most recently happened so i would tell him and he would try to guess the chapter and verse. for any ex-sunday-school stars this may sound like a no brainer but there is a catch and that catch is my descriptions came in troy-speak and troy-speak sounded something like this:

yeah, so this guy's kicking around, you know, back in the day, and runs into this chic in like an open air market or something. well she's super hot and he's super into her from the start. and she's jonsin' for him too and before you know it they hook up and they're shacking which way back then was a bit of a thing but this is just how into one another they are. but then for some reason god looks in on the dude and totally freaks out. something about the girl being the guy's sister or his brother's wife or the like and god tells him to shag his ass out of her crib or he's going to open up some real biblical whoop-ass on him. so the dude bolts but the locals catch wind of it all and everyone starts calling the girl a hoe-bag and threatening to stone her ass because she gave it up to some dude who was passing through town and turned out to be a relation. but damn, everyone was related back then so i don't know who you could avoid tapping anything less than a first cousin.

to his credit, chris was quite gifted at deciphering these modern translations.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. be a warrior

a new GALLERY IMAGE was posted today. september 2005

i takes care of my kids!

i get asked to write referrals for this or that every now and again. i reckon we all do. recently i was asked to do a new sort of one though. these guys were trying to be a host family for a child coming from another country to receive a medical procedure. the child would stay with them through the operation and recovery which would last almost two months. the reference, obviously, was going to the agency placing the child. i found this an extra-challenging item to write because it was not about some dude i went to college with or used to work with nor was it whether they would make a good programmer or college student, it was an assessment of a whole family and at stake was the well-being of a young and ill child.

fortunately i like this family. i like them a lot. this is what i wrote:

jack and jill were my first example of a true family-first lifestyle. Fact is, to date, jack and jill are my only example of parents who make virtually every decision with the good of their children/family in mind. Most parents preach it. A very scant few live it. An observable measure of this philosophy can be felt by simply meeting their children. mark and john are two of the most gentle, courteous and vibrant young boys I know and I'm confident that their rich approach to life is a direct result of the stable and warm environment found within the walls of jack and jill's home.

while thinking about what to write i had a memory of a moment i shared with jack many years ago. some of his college buddies invited him to a week in a cabin on a lake. when jack asked about accommodations for his family the friend laughed at him stating that the whole point of the vacation was so everyone could get away from their families.

i didn't have kids yet so didn't think too much about the implications of the classmate's remark. i do remember though being totally transfixed on jack's disgust towards the comment. his emotion was so visceral that i knew there was a great amount i didn't understand about being a parent or even husband for that matter (a good one at least). he and his wife have totally given themselves to the life they have chosen. now that i have kids, i understand how hard this is to do. and now that i do understand this, my respect for how they live their life is ten-fold what it was.

and for those who know me well enough to ask about jack and jill's true identity, don't bother. i'm not sharing my alpha-family with any of you wannabes because i need all the help and one-on-one attention i can get.

yes, as a matter of fact, i am taking a poll

i met a new girl recently and asked her the question i ask all new girls i meet; has she ever seen an uncircumcised penis? her response: i feel as though if i could have gotten her to continue for seven more seconds she would have told me that she, herself, had an uncircumcised penis.

and god knows what i would have gotten with fifteen more seconds, the opportunity to see it for myself perhaps?