| ENTERTAINMENT, FAMILY, LIFE |
2009-08-25 |
marty makes lunch for the kids each morning. she does this while they are eating breakfast. how it works is after they wake up and dress they come to the kitchen and pick their breakfast. once they start eating they are handed the "the sheet". from this sheet they are to pick three items they would like in their lunchbox. they call them out and marty acknowledges the request and busies herself in preparing it. this list deal has been around for years but had to be re-done this year now that alex is going to school with bella. i was drawn to the little pictograms marty made next to each of alex's lunch items. there's far more artistry in there than one would expect for such a artifact. startlingly impressive.
i'll scan it again at the end of the school year so you can see how tattered (e.g. loved) one of these gets from being part of a three-child breakfast bar routine every school day morning.
click for larger version
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| FAMILY, LIFE, TECHNOLOGY |
2009-07-06 |
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marty just stepped out of the shower. i was there and ready to go in next. alex just had his morning pee. marty bent over to dry her legs. alex was standing behind her. i saw his eyes lock onto her backside. they widened. marty stood up, snapped her hair back over her head and walked out of the room. alex called to her, "mom! mom! come back here. you have floss stuck on your butt." when he saw her continue walking he bolted after her.
from around the corner i faintly heard marty tell alex that what he saw wasn't floss. the boy wasn't having it.
the conversation developing in the next room made me think of the scene from planes, trains and automobiles where steve martin and john candy shared a bed together. in the morning the two characters awoke snuggled into one another and martin's character asked candy's character where his hand was. candy replied that it was between two pillows and martin told him, shriekingly, that those weren't pillows.
this felt like that. only with the potential of being way more disgusting. given this, i stepped into my shower before marty's explanation got too scientific (ex-biology teacher and all). i was afraid if i waited too long, her anatomically accurate account would scar me more than it would alex who sports the significant benefit of not knowing what all the words mean. that and i didn't want to wreck my perky morning grin brought on by the cruel imagining of marty in the next room trying to sidestep an early morning menstruation lesson to her six year old son while wearing only a bra and an alleged piece of floss stuck to her naked rear. in the world of motherhood, that's called a day-breaker before you're even down the stairs.
it's good to be back. i've missed talking at you.
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| FAMILY, LIFE, WEB |
2008-05-16 |
a former colleague and his wife emailed me asking for guidance/direction/opinions about his wife quitting her job and becoming a stay at home mom. within five seconds of getting the message i fired it marty's way because i obviously don't know the first thing about it and she is, well, a bit of an expert on the topic. she cc'd me on her response and i found it meaty, insightful and honest enough to share for any others who may be thinking about or struggling with the choice ...
C and K,
I'm impressed that you are reaching out to people and asking questions about potentially switching careers. I didn't have that much foresight when I made my decision to stay at home.
I taught full time for 7 years before I had Bella. Then I worked part time for 2 years before I had Alexander. I decided to stay at home because I couldn't imagine managing 2 kids, 1 husband, and 40 students. And once I paid for care for both kids out of my pay I would have made $300 minus taxes. Troy explained that he could create one website in 2 months and make up what I would end up actually bringing home for the year. And I was worn out from the stress of finding alternative care if Bella was sick, scheduling the kids' doctor appointments, and finding time to do my school work--correcting papers, researching info, preparing new labs...
So after leaving the hospital with Alexander I instantly became a full time stay at home mom. And below is what I have learned...
My stress level decreased instantly. It was amazing not to have a rigid schedule to follow. When I was working I felt that spent my days rushing to get where I needed to go. Rush to get to the sitter on time, rush to get to school and prepare for my classes, rush out of school to get back to the sitters, rush home to start dinner. Having to wear one less "hat" relieved some stress.
The day is organized by your child's schedule. Staying at home isn't about doing what you want, it's about your child's needs. It's about getting home to lay down for morning and/or afternoon naps, it's about eating when hunger strikes, it's about holding them when they are sick, it's about stopping and watching each ant/roly poly/snail/slug/bird that crosses their path.
I had to treat staying at home like a job the first two years. Like any job the first year is the most difficult and has the most extreme learning curve. I tried to schedule one event a day but was always flexible and realistic that it might not happen. I became involved in my district's Parent as Teachers program, attended weekly storytimes at the public library and area bookstores, went to play at neighborhood parks, joined the local swim pool, discovered that Missouri Botanical Garden, Butterfly House, Magic House all have times in the week or month that admission is free. I chose not to pay for programs until my kids were between 4-5 years old, but I know many parents who did gymboree play groups, gymnastics, and music groups like Kindermusik.
I encourage you to use every means possible to build a group of friends who are at home with children that are approximately the same age(s) as yours. I found a great network of moms through my Parents as Teachers playgroups and the storytimes at my library. The women that I met when Alexander was a baby are still my support group 5 years later. We still get together every Tuesday for playgroup at the park in the summer and at different people's houses in the winter.
Many women find that their self-esteem and self-identity are tied partially or wholy to their career. I think that this is what causes women to want to return to work. I think that the best response to this that I heard was, "I am more than a stay at home mom", followed by "I am more than my minivan".
Your children will not be thankful or grateful that you stay at home. Your spouse might be more thankful that you are at home, but not enough to affirm your choice on a daily or hourly basis. Research does NOT show that your children will be smarter, more responsible, more successful, or more self-confident if you stay at home.
It is important that your spouse is solely responsible for the children, house, and routines for a minimum of 4 days every 1-3 years. There are things that can not be explained but must be experienced. This helps him realize that your job is challenging! Troy feels that the 4-day duration is important, because "any man can sit on 2 kids for a weekend, but on day 3 you start to lose hope."
Don't take on all the house responsibilities/chores just because you are at home. This advice came from my older sister. I strongly feel that the reason you are at home is to be with your child/ren, not to do an extra load of laundry, or clean the bathroom, or pay the bills. You are there to be present to your children.
I have been at home for 5 years and I am thankful that Troy and I had the resources and the desire that I could stay at home. A few days seem to drag on endlessly, but the years have passed too quickly. I realize now that I will never get another opportunity to be so intimately involved in my children's lives as I do right now. I enjoy being there to see what excites them, to answer their questions, and to teach them to slide down the fireman's pole. Most importantly I am thankful that their lives are unhurried and peaceful.
I hope this helps. Good luck with this decision.
Marty Walter
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| ENTERTAINMENT, FAMILY, TECHNOLOGY |
2008-04-22 |
back in the day of the early web, there was this girl who wired her bedroom with webcams. i can't remember her name but she went on to become quite an internet phenom. you could just tune in and see what was happening in her room at any time, day or night. for sure, much of the time she'd be away at school or work or life. most of the time she was in, she'd be reading or writing or talking on the phone. a few lucky times, frenetic, mouse-wielding fanboys were met with her and a rare date she'd brought home to mack and more. what those guys would have done to trade the flashing lights of their baud modems for a broadband connection back then i can only imagine.
i think i'm going to wire my whole house with cameras. for as pedestrian and uninteresting as my house is, we have our share of cussing, nudity and fisticuffs. and i can run with the legends because when i wake up in the morning, i might be alone or i might have up to four humans in bed with me, sometimes even on top of me. for added intrigue and entertainment, i'm going to set up an hourly poll asking viewers to guess what's happening before their video feed begins. questions could include:
- is anthony wearing pants?
- is alex wearing a dress?
- is troy wearing anything?
- is bella reading a book?
- is a tickle-fight happening?
- is someone touching marty right now?
there would have to be odds on each question because some are gimmes, such as that last one, because the likelihood of marty not having someone patting her breast, pushing on her buttocks, or nudging her on the shoulder urging her to get off the toilet so they can go is pretty slim at any given moment. and i'm not the culprit in any of those scenarios. i may have been before we had kids but i am not now because we have kids. |
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| FAMILY, LIFE |
2008-03-27 |
 bella is a willful human. changing her will, when she's willful, is as easy as compelling a devout vegan to eat raw meat, and requiring them to enjoy every sinewy bite.
now bella has always been spirited but i remember the first time her level of conviction alarmed me. bella was four and at the time of this tale was getting washed by her mother. midway through the bath i began hearing ra...
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| FAMILY |
2008-02-28 |
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when i come home from work marty is typically putting the final touches on dinner and the kids are somewhere in the house playing invented games. the sound of the front door slamming at this time of day sends the children into an automatic frenzy and they scramble for hiding places because a game of ogre is now afoot. as i stand in the hallway i gauge each child's location based on their excited shrieks and hurried footsteps so i know where to begin my search for toes, tummies and biscuits. and on days when neighborhood kids are over, the fervor is extra-pitched.
when i stepped inside the house one day last week, i was not met with the usual cacophony but instead complete silence. i swung the door closed loudly and waited and listened. still nothing. my sweep of the first floor found no giggling hiders. i moved upstairs and checked the first few rooms. still nothing. then i found all three children shoulder to shoulder on the ping-pong room futon gazing blankly at a movie playing on marty's computer. as i stood next to the screen the glazed over kids barely acknowledged my arrival giving me a quarter-hearted 'hey dad' (we may need to take this no tv business a step further). i moved to my office to find marty sitting in the corner equally sullen. she was casually flipping the pages of a three day old newspaper.
hey.
hey.
how's things?
hanging on. long day. i haven't started dinner. feeling nauseous.
sorry to hear.
and, i'm too nervous to take a pregnancy test.
with our first few children marty used a pre-arranged code to tell me she was pregnant. the secret sign was she got her hair cut really short, like demi moore in ghost short. that's how i knew and when i'd first see her, she'd smile at me and i'd smile at her and then we'd hug and dance and shout right there on the spot (later i realized the flaw to this plan was some anonymous hairdresser learned i was to be a father before i did, but small price for the surprise frolic). now with three short haircuts behind us, i'm told the potential news while her eyes continues to skim the Week In Review section of the Sunday Times. marty is not a fan of unintentional things, especially when those unintentional things will go on to launch things off her dining room table during dinner and play with whatever they find lurking in the toilet bowl and repeatedly eat gravel.
and in case you were feeling anxious for us, marty's queasiness has since passed.
but the fear hasn't.
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| FAMILY, LIFE |
2008-02-08 |
marty is the maker of breakfast in the morning. while i finish getting ready for work i can tell what kind of day it is by the smells wafting up the stairs. many times it is oatmeal or fresh bran muffins with yogurt. sometimes it's plain ole cereal. but on lucky days french toast or pancakes make the cut. i descended the stairs on a french toast day, speared a couple of slices and readied my plate. bella soon followed doing the same. marty was upstairs finishing with the boys. before bella dug in she said:
mom usually ties my hair back before i eat syrupy things.
oh. what does she use?
i don't know.
as it turns out, i don't know either, which marty was quick to smirkingly observe when she entered the room.
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| FAMILY, LIFE |
2008-01-23 |
i sat in the grass at the back of the house with my baby in my arms. the white clover smelled of honey: it was the time in the afternoon when it is easy to drowse and slip into light summery dreams. i fed my baby until she fell asleep on my breast. her lips let go of the nipple and her head tipped backwards a little on my arm. her mouth was slightly open with a thin trail of milk at the corner. i wiped it away with my finger. i ran my little finger over her soft gums and felt the tips of the two new teeth, like embedded grains of rice. her eyelids were closed, the finest film over her black eyes. they fluttered now and then and her lips quivered in fleeting secret smiles.
excerpt from linda olsson's Astrid & Veronika.
i've never breast-fed a child yet this passage spoke to me. and judging from marty's response, as she read it to me at the dinner table last night after the kids were off and playing, it spoke to her as well. stirring stuff.
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| FAMILY, LIFE |
2007-12-18 |
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at a work christmas party tonight, a co-worker told me about a call she received from her ten year-old's school saying she needed to come in to discuss an in-school suspension for her son. it turns out he and a neighbor boy, using the internet and the family's color printer made baseball-cards of naked women and got caught showing them to other boys in the school. she described how mortified she was and the subsequent speech she delivered about the degradation and objectification of women. she also said when she asked her older brother about it, the first thing he wondered was what an 83 topps card of pam anderson was going for these days. sadly, women will never comprehend how depraved the male mind really is.
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| FAMILY, FRIENDS |
2007-12-14 |
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when my sister-in-law was exiting a store with her three year old, he spied a nearby baby, pointed at it and started loudly screaming, "stupid baby! stupid baby! stupid baby!" some hours later she called marty to commiserate about the incident. of course none of our children ever hurled insults at hapless passerbys from the red cage of a target cart. our children much preferred biting them. i mean, i've seen insulted kids not cry. the same cannot be said about freshly bitten ones.
the stupid-baby tale supports a theory i have about parenting: it is not the parent's job to mold the human, it is the parent's job to keep the human alive until adulthood. we come much more wired than i think many seem to acknowledge. for instance, we didn't teach bella to bite kids who touched her crayons. she just did it the first time it happened. as parents it's our job to teach her not to bite crayon-curious playmates because one day she may bite the wrong one and they, in turn, will eat her. we will have then failed her as parents.
another thing not often acknowledged is the full psychological rigors that come from life with children. sure, people say it's hard and it's this and it's that, but not many people talk about their honest emotions when coping with the frustrations of children. what previous experience prepares you to look at a stranger and say 'yeah, sorry my kid called your baby stupid. i'm sure he's not that stupid, you know, being a baby and all' or to make the phone call saying you're glad that the bite didn't break the skin. parenthood will for sure test the most patient and capable out there.
when marty is at her breaking-point she goes into this deep-breathing trance. she told me that during it she thinks about the child (in question) when they were still in infancy and still cuddly and toothless and wordless. a few moments of this helps her re-enter the heat of the fracas less likely to take someone (in question) out.
thinking about the past doesn't work for me, i have to think about the future. when i start unraveling, i say the three letters F and S and U, repeatedly. what FSU represents for me is the day in my future when i deliver my child to a university to begin their college education. i pick FSU, or florida state university, because it is far away and because it strikes me as a party school (two characteristics that twist the knife a little extra). so i imagine driving my child halfway across the country, unpacking their bags and boxes and then briefly inspecting their room. i imagine myself sitting on the couch of their room during the awkward last few moments. i imagine marty standing by the door gesturing for me to get up. i imagine my child not nearly as aware of the import of the moment as myself. i imagine that tighter than usual hug and a longer the usual kiss on the cheek. i imagine the hollow chasm in my chest when the dorm room door closes and i imagine the deathly silent walk to the car.
so when i walked into the living room six days ago and found the christmas tree toppled on its side ... FSU. and when i walked into the living room three days ago and found the christmas tree again toppled over on its side ... FSU. and when i walked in the door from work tonight and found our christmas tree fallen yet again ... FSU. and when i asked alex what happened and he said "anthony just looked at it and it fell down" ... FSU.
and now just even typing out how many times the christmas tree has fallen over the in the last week ... FSU.
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| FAMILY, LIFE |
2007-11-30 |
 a peeve of marty's is when adults make condescending remarks to children about how easy their life is or how they've so got it made. these often take a sarcastic form like "oh, it's a hard life isnt it?" or "you never get anything you want, do you?".
after one of marty's huffs about it i asked her why she took issue so. she explained that she didn't agree with this widespread notion and c...
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| FAMILY, LIFE |
2007-10-17 |
yesterday upon waking up the first thing i heard was marty walking down the hallway calling the following out to the house:
nobody is going to school today. everybody is going to school tomorrow. if anybody disobeys me or acts disrespectful in this house, i'm getting them dressed and taking them to school, because if you are well enough to give me trouble, you are well enough to go to school.
this is alex's fourth day home, bella's second and my first. i think marty is feeling the pinch of having so many cantankerous and inflicted humans milling about her home. especially since when bella cuts class she conducts her own school in our ping-pong room. while in teacher mode she expects to be called Mrs. Fun. however, if you cross her or make light of a provided assignment a more apt name would be Mrs. Pissed-Off-And-Surly, although no one is brave enough to say that to her face. |
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| ENTERTAINMENT, FAMILY |
2007-08-31 |
 bella started school this week. something about the ramp-up made me think of an issue bella had late in her kindergarten year. some boys in her class were chasing she and her friends at recess and wouldn't stop. the girls didn't like it, or at least professed to not liking it. for a week, bella gave dinner-table reports on how bad these boys were and how they just wouldn't listen or leave them alo...
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| FAMILY, FRIENDS, LIFE |
2007-08-28 |
as mentioned last week, anthony turned one. for each of her children on their birthday marty bakes and decorates a cake of their choosing for them. so far this year marty has produced spiderman and superman cakes for alex and bella respectively. for marty, these kitchen sessions usually run late into the night and if you listen very closely you may hear a naughty word or two ring through the dark and quiet house before the work is done. but this celebration, anthony's one year, would possibly be a swear-free event because being just one he couldn't request some exotic and complex animated character. additionally, our thirteen year old niece, emma, was spending the week with us so marta actually had kitchen staff.
when i arrived home from work the day before the party there was a pan cake cooling on the counter. it wasn't one of marty's typical molds. this cake was made of two simple round cakes. a larger one for the base and a smaller one, about half the size in diameter, for the top.
TROY
what is that?
EMMA
it's anthony's birthday cake.
TROY
why'd you make him a giant nipple?
EMMA
it's not a nipple.
TROY
then what is it?
MARTY
just ignore him emma. that's what everyone else around here does.
TROY
this is not a criticism. i think a gigantic nipple for a nursing one-year old is quite thoughtful.
by the time the cake was presented the next night, the nipple-part of the nipple-cake had been lopped off and was being fobbed off as a second, sister cake. it was a worthy attempt, but insiders knew.
for all their efforts of deception, anthony still seemed keenly attuned to what was what.
and then there is the ritual i most dislike where the birthday child is allowed to eat their personal cake using nothing but their hands.
... and then even worse, feed their party guests, with those same sticky and soiled hands.
lastly, we finish the one-year birthday with a big-ole group shower. this detail usually gets left off the party invites because hallmark seems to be too fancy and proper to produce the one-year-old birthday slash group bathing party cards. hallmark, get over yourself already. it's 2007, the year of the nipple-cake.
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| ENTERTAINMENT, FAMILY |
2007-08-17 |
anthony turns one today. this makes it just about four days shy one year ago that marty and i walked into our home, labored to put three children to bed and collapsed glassy-eyed in our own room numbly staring at one another. one of us said, "what have we done?", the other didn't answer. over the years marty has told countless new mothers "it gets easier, don't worry."over the same period, i have told countless new fathers "it's temporary, totally temporary". we both slept that night with these missives playing, on repeat, in our heads.
and here we are already, with another one year old. what can i say about him? most notably, it's remarkable how completely different three biologically-connected humans can be. you'll get occasional glimpses that they belong together but much of the time it feels like i just run around yelling "where did you come from?" or "hey! you! are you supposed to be here?" in the end, you could slice many of these anthony-related moments into the following buckets:
the obvious things
the anthony scoot dazzles and tickles onlookers without fail. you ever hear the phrase 'money in the bank'? well setting anthony down in a public forum is just that, money in the bank. one unknown detail about his mode of transportation: the outside of his diaper is typically way dirtier than the inside, especially when what's on the inside starts finding its way to the outside, an unfortunate phenomenon that has recently come to pass.
the unexpected things
anthony is our first white child. while this was unexpected, it nicely rounds out our set. we now have one dark, one light and one white. i have friends who have joked about the uncertainty of my race saying that one day marty and i would have a child and the delivering doctor would catch a fully black infant in his hands, subtlety look at the nurse and say "we may be about to have a problem here." they would then hold the baby up so i could see and i would arms-open yell "heeeeyyy! my son, ohhh he's so beautiful." to which the doctors and nurses would retire to the corner of the room and whisper among themselves trying to figure out how i did not notice this child was black and i was not.
the inevitable things
when bella was little, if her pacifier touched anything other than her open mouth it went straight into the washer. with anthony, i've picked a paci up off the ground, saw something on it, brushed it off on my pants, looked again and still saw it, shrugged my shoulders and popped it into his waiting mouth. if we have a fourth kid i reckon we'll not even bother with store-bought soothers but instead just stick clods of dirt and other random small objects into the kid's mouth.
the problematic things
i'm an only child so watching two siblings interact has been quite academic. when things are good, it's spectacular. when things are bad, it's terrorizing. dumping a third child into this already heady equation complicates the math to collegiate levels. anthony often serves as a pawn to exacerbate, calm, excuse and manipulate situations between his older siblings. obviously the lion-share of his participation is not of his choosing and consequently causes him angst. it is not uncommon to hear a parent yell "bella/alex put him down. he's not a doll! he's a person who gets to decide where he wants to go ... now give him here, i need to change his diaper." it's also not uncommon for a parent to yell stuff like "stop standing on your brother, you're going to make him puke!" only to have them say "but, he likes it" and when you go to investigate, the little nut is laughing maniacally under the weight of his sibling to which you don't have much to say other than "well, just don't do it too long."
the satisfying things
not only does anthony not look like anyone else in the family, his demeanor is also quite unique. with bella, she looked like me and acted like her mother. with alex, he looked like a walter but acted like me. with anthony, well, he doesn't really look or act like anyone already living here. when left to his own, he's perpetually happy. lots of smiles. lots of giggles. our house was already jovial-rich but now we got a one foot high billboard scooting all about wearing a slobbery, indelible grin. it's warming. it also tempers a home otherwise rife with an ever-changing and frenetic energy.
happy birthday sir anthony. thanks for being something we totally didn't expect.
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| ENTERTAINMENT, FAMILY, LIFE, WEB |
2006-08-21 |
the day after sassafras was born, i took the kids to the hospital to meet their younger brother. bella immediately latched onto the newborn making various cooing and gooing noises at him while waggling a finger over his face and belly. alex immediately went to marty taking his rightful spot on her lap. about five minutes into the visit bella spoke up and said she knew what we should name the baby. we asked what, preparing our poker faces for the worst. she confidently announced Abrey. after her proclamation she turned and hunched back over the infant as if the matter were resolved. marty and i both made faces, but they were different.
TROY
i kinda like it.
MARTY
what did she even say, avery?
TROY
no, abrey.
MARTY
spell it.
TROY
A-B-R-E-Y.
MARTY
abrey? that's not even a name.
TROY
sure it is. everything is a name.
MARTY
well, i don't like it.
TROY
and if i do?
MARTY
i'm not naming a child abrey.
TROY
it's two against one.
MARTY
alex, come here.
here's a thing to know when negotiating with the human who just spat another, smaller human out of their special hole; they always possess more stock in the business at hand than you. so abrey was out. after a brief bout of panic and uncertainty a name was unanimously agreed upon ... anthony. anthony walter dearmitt.
that said, everyone in our house calls him something different. marta calls him anthony. i call him antonio. bella calls him abrey. and alex calls him sassafras. no reason to not get a quick jump on the schizophrenia his world is sure to bring.
click here peggy
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| FAMILY, LIFE |
2006-08-18 |
 labor began at 6pm, wednesday night. we left for the hospital at 3:30am. marty gave fully natural birth to a six pound healthy boy Thursday, August 17 at 1:54pm. the child is still as of yet, unnamed.
my mother watched the delivery, something she also did for alex. marty has now twice extended this very generous invitation to my mother since she never got to personally experience childbir...
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| ENTERTAINMENT, FAMILY |
2006-08-11 |
were our family being monitored by nasa, our latest transmission to them would read "houston, we're set to pop. i repeat houston, we are set to pop. confidence is high". technically, we're still weeks away but we've entered the any day milestone. alex was almost two weeks early which means who knows how quickly sassafras could appear now that the track is greased. if you looked, touched, listened to and smelled marty's stomach protuberance, you'd be amazed the little nipper hasn't just fallen out into the tub while she showered.
while the first picture is representative enough of the home's state, this second photo better captures the true breadth of moods. we are (right to left) frenetic, meditative, swirling and observing.
wish us strength and health over the next few weeks getting the child little man simply calls 'assafras' to the other side. and peace out. (photo credit to the soon to be big brother, alex)
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| LIFE, FAMILY, SOCIETY |
2006-08-09 |
 any of you catch the latest round of women against public milkings? my favorite quote was from this en-lighted pioneer of human rights out of kansas ...
I was offended and it made my husband very uncomfortable when I left the magazine on the coffee table.
which was almost trumped by ...
Another reader said she was "horrified" when she received the magazine and hoped that her husband hadn't laid eyes on it.
i assume by these women having this magazine in their home they are about to become or recently became a mother, which makes the reaction all the more surreal. i mean if this is your position on the matter shouldn't you be in a confessional asking forgiveness for the tingling sensations you occasionally experience 'down there' instead of pining your time away educating yourself. and, perhaps your husband's discomfort stems more from the fact that you never leave the house, granting him ten minutes alone with your bleeding-edge girlie mag because i'm going to go out on a limb and say these men just may not be receiving an adequate amount of intimacy in their life. but then again, leaving the confines of your safe and always dressed home may expose you to someone wearing a strapless halter or biking shorts thus casting you further into your psychological tailspin.
i'm finding it hard to go on too much about the never-naked ladies cited in this article because i out-loud laughed more in reading it than i did watching four hours of kevin smith candidly answering questions from college kids. well that's not true, but i did laugh quite a bit, alone in my office and was thankful no one popped their head in to ask what was so funny because lord knows what ogling such outrageous pornographic materials in the workplace would do to my career path.
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| LIFE, FRIENDS, FAMILY |
2006-06-21 |
bookguy calls it noun-challenged. to be noun-challenged is to be someone who can't remember people's proper names. between he and i, it's unclear who is more severely afflicted. as per usual, he would claim the title and i would claim he is wrong. either way, it is a fierce race.
as evidence to my condition allow me to turn to my proclivity for nicknames. i give people such monikers for three reasons; (1) to insulate them from embarrassing things i may say about them online, (2) because i can't remember their name at all, or (3) because i can't remember the version of their name (mike, michael, mikey, m-bag) they prefer or more importantly, they greatly dislike. and on that last item, i've argued many a time that mike, michael, mikey and m-bag are entirely synonymous and should be freely interchangeable.
to recap, some of the past characters, several of which you've heard of countless times ...
- bookguy
- bookpimp
- e-love
- man who screams like woman
- doctor j
- the way with words girl
- chavez
- smart ryan
- buddy james
- thin when tan girl
- the why the hell wouldn't ya guy
- the doctor of diss
- guy with mussed hair
- and of course, girl who dates guy with mussed hair
here's a few i've never shared online and use mostly when talking with walt (or rather marty) ...
THE FAKE MOMS
a group of highly augmented ladies who hang out at our pool.
NEWSPAPER DAD
a guy who sits at the park with his four young children reading the ny times and shooing his kids away anytime they near him.
HOLD MY BABY
actually bookguy-coined this gem but it is a fast staple in our home and i'm not really in a position to speak to its origin.
SMILING LADY
i see this lady all over the place and she makes the joker look morose.
BAD, DRUNK MOM
she's not just bad and she's not just drunk, she's both and therefore gets the double-bill.
YELLING MOM
the yelling mom scares me and is not too surprisingly married to ...
THE QUIET GUY
i got ten bucks that says this fella comes out soon. |
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| ENTERTAINMENT, FAMILY, LIFE |
2006-05-02 |
 question. do you know the two words most used by a three year old? they are 'no' and 'why'. another question. do you know how demoralizing it is to get whittled down in an argument by an opponent who refuses to say anything other than 'why'? it is the equivalent of losing a chess game to someone who moves nothing but pawns, which for those who don't play chess is pretty sucky.
another que...
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| FAMILY, LIFE |
2006-03-08 |
bella fires more people than trump. this started a few months back. not sure what seeded it or even where she heard or understood the meaning. just one day people, meaning marty, started getting dismissed whenever bella became annoyed. earlier this week marty and alex were a few minutes late picking bella up from school. as marty approached, the door opened and bella's teachers walked her out.
MARTY
sorry i'm late.
MISS JUDY
oh, what's the bother? someone has to be first and someone has to be last.
BELLA (pushing her way through everyone towards the stroller)
mom, you're fired!
but, similar to the adoption trend, marty is the first to feel the brunt, but whatever hell she is catching is sure to be ultimately spread throughout the family. last night when i announced i had to walk the babysitter home, i was immediately "fired 50 times". don't get me started on this escalation-bullshit. upgrading my penalty by such magnitude is a complete abuse of one's power, and i for one take exception.
and forget the minor detail that we have children who don't wail and scream when we leave them with a sitter but instead when we return and send the sitter home. i always thought kids cried when parents left and rejoiced upon their return. we have to literally peel our children off the help just so they can get out the door. like my two year old son bear hugging the leg of our 20-something babysitter. which puts me in the awkward position of kneeling behind her prying his fingers off the back of her lithe thigh, pleading with him and apologizing to her simultaneously.
TROY
he really doesn't hate us. nor is he afraid of us. he just doesn't see outsiders too much because his mother is a bit of a shut-in and i'm a bit of germ-phobe. so, again, they don't get to see new people a whole lot. now dammit alex! let go of the maria's leg so she can go home! i'm really sorry about this.
in my distracted state alex leans forward and bites my hand which causes me to lurch forward head-butting the girl's ass (also lithe) which makes her fall in my lap and inadvertently pulls alex into her groin. this would of course be the moment marty chooses to enter the foyer finding the two men in her life rolling around on the floor with the one coed in the neighborhood who has not yet been warned to not babysit at THAT house.
i sense more firings on the horizon. |
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