alex is peeing standing up. in watching him feel his way through this transition, one side of me wants to step in and counsel him on how he could do things better. another side of me sees how little i've come in 35 years of peeing upright. my own lack of progress keeps me both quiet and humble. truth told, there is really only one mistake he routinely commits that i never do and that is resting his penis on the rim of the bowl while he goes. of course the only reason i never do this is because my stuff doesn't reach the bowl. if it did, i'm sure i would take, and i don't think i'm alone here, the occasional break from hefting my phallus through the daily and arduous affair and just let it laze about on the cold porcelain while it does its deed.

people who own them and women who are married/living with them know of the variety of potential urinary misfires. i liken their haphazardness to those strobe light balls at dance clubs that randomly shoot multi-colored lights out of a spinning orb? when urination goes wrong it is a bit like that. but, instead of light they shoot fluid and instead of different colors they shoot variant types of streams (i.e. hissers, splitters, arc-ers). it's hard to get on a kid about this because it happens to grown men as well. when it occurs the best i can do is tell him to shake it, or whip it, or hit it, or tug it. while the approach seems mildly unscientific, it is the best we've got. reason is, penis flakiness happens with such pure unpredictability it's virtually impossible to study proper. so when it occurs your mind simply reacts and thus the shake, whip, hit and tug approach.

at a dinner party last weekend i mentioned our home's new kid-trauma to a fellow father. he has two older boys and asked if my son and i had yet crossed streams. i looked at him a little askew wondering if he forgot what a piddling four-year old was like because at the moment if i'm in the same room with him when he sets up, it is a mistake or an oversight on my part because i need a doorjamb between me and him until his reaction time is a little more in the sub-second range. i told the guy i hadn't yet had the pleasure. he looked at me nodding slyly and said "it's pretty cool the first time you cross streams with your boy. it's pretty damn cool."

something that makes all the random sprays and mystery puddles worthwhile is one of alex's more unique rituals. when he's done, he reaches to his left grabs some toilet paper, dabs the tip of his penis, drops the square in the water, pulls his pants up, runs his mits under the water, dries them on a towel and proudly exits the bathroom. what makes his routine unorthodox is that he doesn't tear the toilet paper square off of the roll before pulling it over to blot his penis, meaning that the next person to use the bathroom finds the toilet paper elegantly draped from the wall holder and into the bottom of the commode. you just gotta hope you've arrived on the scene before the toilet water has leached its way up the paper strand and into the full roll. admittedly, if the moisture does reach the source and i'm the first on the scene, i'm going to quietly make my way out of the house and ask the neighbors to use their facilities so i don't have to be the one to swap out the soggy roll in our home's only bathroom.

when we drive away from our home, alex turns in his seat to get a quick final glimpse of the house and spiritedly calls: it's all very sweet except that the first goodbye comes out sounding more like "goodbye whore-house" than it does "goodbye our house" which slightly soils the cuteness of it all.

on saturday marty and bella went to a wedding. bella had the job of handing out hershey kisses to guests walking out of the church after the ceremony. as she dropped the foil wrapped sweets into the passing palms of exiting people she was instructed to say, "kisses from the bride and groom."

meanwhile back at home, i took the boys kite flying. it was a stupendous day for such an outing a...

the people i live with are sick. the whole lot of them. it started weeks ago and has been evolving through the ranks with great alacrity. when this happens i possess great skill at avoiding the funk my people carry. i wash my hands with greater frequency, interact with people using more care, pop echinacea like tic-tacs and sleep in remote parts of the house. last night while slumbering on my futon/couch something stirred me from sleep. i opened my eyes to find alex's awake face inches from my own. he had curled up next to me on the small futon space.

hey aleo.

hi dad.

what's up?

i had a bad dream.

i'm sorry to hear that.

then he quick-sneezed, dotting my face with phlegmy shrapnel. and just like that i joined the infected masses. in the future i'm going to start sleeping in the car ... and with it parked in a neighboring zip code.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. different

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. calling home

at a weeknight dinner last week bella informed the table that our family needed a password. when asked what this was she went on to say that it's a secret word only our family knows and would use if we, the parents, sent someone to pick one of the children up. like if bella was walking home from school and someone pulled up saying, "bella, your mother asked that i take you home today." bella would ask them what the password was. if they knew it she would go with them. if they didn't she would not. this led to a lengthy discussion about what to do if the person didn't know the password. i suggested if the person was in a car, the child should turn and walk in the opposite direction and go to the closest home of someone we knew and ask for help. bella then asked what to do if someone didn't ask anything but just grabbed her. marty said, very succinctly, that she gave bella and alex full permission to do whatever they could to get away. kick, claw, bite, scream, punch, gouge eyes, you name it you can do it. bella then thoughtfully ranked her skills saying she was a great pincher and could kick hard and yell "YOU'RE NOT MY FATHER! THIS IS NOT MY FATHER!" louder than anyone else in the family. then she looked at alex and said "and alex is a great biter, especially with his zombie tooth." marty and i both turned our eyes to bella and said in unison "zombie tooth?" bella, getting her next bite of food together, said "yeah, his zombie tooth. that broken one in the front."

this would be his front-left tooth which bit the dust a few years back when bella, alex and i were leaving the pool. i mummy-wrapped a shivering alex in an adult sized beach towel and told him to follow me. when he took his first step, his feet got tangled in the towel and he fell forward. because his arms were pinned inside the towel given the snug wrap job i had done on him, the first thing to hit the pool-deck was his nose, the second was that unfortunate front tooth. when i picked him up he was a bloody mess and i didn't learn the extent of the damage until i delivered him to marty at home, still quite bloody. in the midst of her first aid she looked up and said "troy, his tooth is chipped." marty's a tooth-girl and was quite, well, pissed that i had wrecked her first-born son. she hot-lined the dentist and asked if there was anything we could do. while she was on the phone i was holding the still sobbing alex. she started relaying questions the doctor was asking. is it just the one tooth? is the gum-line bleeding? what color is the tooth?

MARTY
can you see a bloody-pulp?

TROY
a bloody what?

MARTY (to the phone)
did you say bloody pulp? yes. where?

TROY
marty, i think i'm going to puke.

MARTY
troy. look at the tooth. where it broke. are there blood and veins and stuff coming out of it?

TROY
oh my god, marty. tell them they're going to make me puke.

MARTY
just look at the damn tooth troy! is there a bloody pulp or not!?!?

there was no bloody-pulp on the tooth which kept my puke-free streak alive. seeing how upset marty was through the rest of the evening, the next morning on my way to work i stopped at the pool and found the missing tooth piece. i put it in my pocket where it lived all day at work. when i got home i told marty to hold out her hand and dropped the little shard into it. she called the doctor back and told them we had the tooth chip asking if they, or we, could glue it back on. they said they could but didn't recommend it saying the cement would age and it would break off at some point probably when the child was eating and he would then swallow it. by the time marty told me this news i said that was good because i forgot i put the tooth back in my shirt pocket and sent it through the washer. even though it wasn't of use, marty was non-plussed about my losing alex's tooth a second time.

marty can sometimes not see the bright side of a situation, like how her son now has a cool and jazzy weapon against would-be kidnappers; his razor-sharp and smart-looking zombie tooth.

walking towards my office i hear a hushed voice say desperately, "he's coming! he's coming!!! Hurry!!!!" as i round the corner i see alex standing on top of the futon back with his hand deep into the front pocket of my computer bag and the neighbor boy, the one urging him to be quick, standing below him. both boys look to me, eyes wide and cheeks packed. earlier in the week alex saw me put a jumbo pack of juicy fruit in my bag. by visual estimation, i'd wager each child already had between four and six sticks of partially masticated gum crammed in their stretched mouths. this next stick would have surely been the difference between the 'fully struggling' and 'completely drooling' stages on the gum-chewing-effort scale. i shooed them away telling them it was rude to dig through other people's stuff and to stay out of my office. they ran off tittering like embarrassed school girls.

as i type this note to myself i can hear them on the other side of the wall already conspiring for their next run at my stash of gum. on the good side, i guess i should be thankful they weren't stealing peeks at marty's porn collection.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. flavored and scented

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. try again

two nights ago i was getting the kids ready for bed. bella was sitting on the toilet with a book spread on her lap, anthony was scooting around the bathroom floor playing with the closet door and alex was naked and about to get his teeth brushed. as i was working over the sink putting paste on the toothbrush alex called out "aaahhhh. anthony has my penis." i wheeled to see anthony with an outstretched arm sitting right in front of alex. he had pinched, quite heartily, the uncircumcised foreskin of alex's penis between his fingers and was pulling it towards the ground. i took a moment to react because i was astounded at how far anthony was able to stretch alex's miniature member. alex's shrieking turned to hysterical laughter and he started chanting "anthony has my penis! anthony has my penis!" to which i said "ANTHONY! let go of your brother's penis!" to which bella very sadly said "i wish i had a penis." when i yelled at anthony he let go and looked at me, smiling. i turned and sensed the score keeper in my brain writing the words LET GO OF YOUR BROTHER'S PENIS in neat letters on a chalkboard and then placing a single hash mark to the left of it. while this accounting was going on alex started gleefully singing his song again "anthony has my penis! anthony has my penis!" to which i again shouted "ANTHONY! i said let go of your brother's penis!" this bought me a second hash mark.

last night marty had to attend a neighborhood meeting which put me in sole charge of dinner and pre-bed prep. this exact situation is the reason the phrase "got his ass handed to him" was ever invented. truthfully, these evenings can go a couple of ways but most often you hear a lot of "you always let us watch tv when mom isn't here" or "when is mom coming home" or "that's not what mom would do". last night actually went ok. i brought dinner home with me removing one of the obstacles. after dinner we walked down the street where in the summertime there is always a legion of little humans running around half naked while parents sit on stoops sipping wine. on this particular night the kids scored some of those glow in the dark bracelets like you see at amusement parks and carnivals. i let them run wild until they started to get shiny and then ushered them home for baths and bed. we walked in the door and i told them to all strip and head upstairs while i got drinks. i was at the kitchen sink when alex called me. when i looked up he was standing in the foyer totally naked with his neon green bracelet placed around his penis and scrotum. while i took this scene in he innocently asked "daddy, do you know where anthony is?"

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. a pack of lies

when i'm on my game and living life according to troy, saturday mornings begin with a 35-mile bike ride through some of the most finely paved and tree-lined streets my city has to offer. between the newish job and even newer baby life according to troy has gotten slightly manipulated and disfigured. until now.

the renovation began with a doctor's visit late last year. specifically when my physician walked into the exam room, his eyes focused on the chart he was leafing through.

DOCTOR
so mr dearmitt. if my math is right it says here that you've gained seventeen pounds since i last saw you (more leafing) fourteen months ago. this can't be right can it?

TROY
yeah, i'd suggest a new scale.

DOCTOR
so what's going on with you? where's this weight coming from?

TROY
would you believe it's muscle-mass?

for the first time his eyes leave the chart to look me up and down. he then resumed reading the chart saying, "No, I wouldn't". that is where my recovery began. six months later, i'm back down a belt-loop and am comfortably slipping into my nine-article wardrobe. the best of all news is through spinning three times a week i finally felt my conditioning was back to a point where i could resume my saturday treks. on the first morning i suited up to leave, alex upon seeing me said he wanted to come. i explained that this ride was too long for him to pedal himself. he quickly, desperately almost, said he could ride in the bike carrier. i explained that i would be gone for several hours and he would get bored. he quickly said he would not get bored, promised even, and could he please, please, please ride in the rickshaw carrier. ten minutes later, i'm hooking the carrier to my bike (this child is dangerously cute). while doing so, i speculate, with occupant, it is about the performance equivalent of dragging a roped cinder block behind me. and i get this fifty pound break on my first return to the road.

i gotta say alex was a champ. while we didn't make it the full thirty-five we did do thirty and it wasn't him but me that made the choice to head home. the added weight and extra pee-in-the-bushes stops bumped the usual two-hour ride to a whopping three and half hour event, but it was wonderful. truly. every comment and expression alex made was one of enjoyment and appreciation. he even took about a thirty minute nap towards the end.

the one and only possible downside to the morning was i started getting the sense that some of the people seeing us were quietly cursing my parental selfishness, saying ...

look at that man! making his child ride in that uncomfortable bike contraption just so he can go out and ride his fancy bicycle. big important man and his big important exercise. the nerve of some people.

in response to these folks (or this neurosis) i've already affixed a sign to the back of the carrier. it reads simply: he asked to come.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. now?

WAKE UP DADDY! I WANT TO WATCH MY SPACE VIDEO. WAKE UP! WILL YOU WATCH IT WITH ME? WILL YOU? WILL YOU DADDY?

this is how i was brought out of my saturday night sleep, all four hours of it. usually i'd just push the child away but this day was special. friday marty had shown me a movie alex had checked out from the library; a 1998 training video about internet searching. he picked it because of the cover art. on the bottom of the cassette case was a computer monitor showing an archaic browser and above that was a broad expanse of open stars and space, hence, space video.

alex. i don't think that video is about space. it's about something else. something very dull and boring.

IT NOT BORING! I WANT TO WATCH MY SPACE VIDEO DADDY! I WANT TO WATCH IT NOW!

six minutes later i'm snuggled under a blanket with alex listening to a woman in a red leather jacket (which she was wearing indoors might i add) talk to a computer animated girl named cyber-jane. before the rise of the internet, the leather-jacket girl was surely manning a suburban mall cosmetics counter. as for cyber-jane, i'm afraid all her previous work was in animated porn.

about eleven minutes into the video, bella groggily entered the tv room and fell into an open spot on the futon by my feet. she took one look at the television and groaned, WHAT IS THIS? IT'S TERRIBLE. i telepathically said to her 'YEAH! NO SHIT! AT LEAST YOU WERE SPARED THE FIRST ELEVEN MINUTES.' when she didn't acknowledge my mental message, i verbally and politically said, 'not everyone likes all the shows you pick bella'.

spending my sunday morning on this cramped futon watching an instructional video on a pre-google internet made me think of the day before. driving the kids home from a country sleep-over with my parents i got stuck behind a car in the passing lane. after several minutes of telepathic messages to the car's driver, also unanswered, i noticed their vanity license plate read BALLRM. the realization of how screwed i was at that moment just about matched how i felt right now (alex has never stopped watching a show he has started). if i could have only had a transcript of our mind's glassy-eyed thoughts while we took in this experience. i think bella was architecting her retribution towards alex for squandering his morning show on such an obvious loser. i myself was woeful in how pathetic and unexciting these two women made the industry i am part of seem. and alex, well poor alex, he was just wondering where the hell all the stars and space got to.

poophead — when alex gets upset or excited or happy or is basically conscious, this is the word he is most likely saying. in example:

alex, do you want a glass of milk?
no. i want a glass of poophead.

alex, is this your toy?
no, it is your poophead.

alex, if you're going to cry, you need to go to your room.
no poophead! you go to your poophead room ...

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growing up in colorado i was taught the importance of layered clothing. somehow i genetically passed this insight onto my eldest son because getting alex dressed in the morning is like preparing an arctic explorer for a month-long expedition. his goal is obviously not warmth or comfort but simply one of wearing a multitude of his colorful shirts. so instead of settling he slowly moves through each item in his drawer holding them up, studying them, choosing items based on some internal measure. on average he will select three to four shirts. and given his slight frame he is easily able to accommodate multiple garments. some parents may be inclined to step in the way of such a childish obsession, but marty and i place it in the 'doesn't matter' column alongside making messy bubbles with straws and urinating in the back yard.

this year alex wore three shirts to our christmas celebration with marty's side of the family. when he opened a 3-pack of white t-shirts he elatedly ran to me requesting i help him put them on, all of them. i unquestioningly did so. three presents later he ran to me with three long-sleeve rugby shirts repeating the request. the kid already had six shirts on so i said i thought he should save these so he would have some clean ones to wear tomorrow. my suggestion was quickly called a bad idea and dismissed. on they went, albeit not as easily as numbers four, five and six. but he wiggled and i wrangled and sure enough, alex set a personal best of nine shirts, five of which were, impressively, long sleeved.



add to all of this the detail that if alex likes an outfit, and he inevitably likes them all, he refuses to remove it at night. this would be another arena marty and i elect to not engage. and don't think the efficiency-zealot in me doesn't see the time gains in just peeling a layer off a child each morning. doing this, we'd only have to get him dressed once a week. problem is, he's even less generous in the morning about changing than he is at night, so once they go on they in many ways become hermetically sealed to his frame. the above picture shows alex in his nine shirts. at this point they've been through two nights and are working on their third day.

and yes, i get that he may be a tad gamey under all that cotton and twill but i figure there's eight layers of insulation between his clammy skin and me. i'll take those numbers any day. in the end, i didn't see a real downside to all this until one of marty's brothers commented that alex, artificially bulked up so, looked like a miniature lou ferigino. my good parental mood was momentarily fouled until i reasoned that without the shirts he may instead look like a dark-complected erkel. and i'll take a little-ferigino over that any day ... and twice on bath nights.

i have to go pee dad.

this is how it starts. with a small boy still in the rudimentary stages of potty-training tightly gripping his groin on a park playground. the more vicious the grip, the less time you have. you must also assess the feet because if they are fidgeting, time is extra-short. on this day, i gave the fist-feet combination a 7 out of 10 on the urgency scale. we were also about 50 yards from the indoor restroom. totally doable. i call across the park:

bella, i need you. come with us please.

why?

alex has to go pee.

ahhhh. i don't want to go.

come on, bell.

en route, i endure a lecture from bella about how she doesn't want to go to the bathroom and how she is old enough to stay at the park by herself. she informs me she is not going to go into the restroom because it is the boys room since mom is not here and boys are gross. and their bathrooms stink. and they can be mean. as we enter the rec center i point to a leather-bound chair and tell her she can wait there. she falls into it with an exaggerated huff.

when we get into the stall, i look at alex's fist and speculate his penis hasn't seen an oxygenated blood cell in four minutes. i lay a few sheets of toilet paper on the seat, pants the child and throw him on the commode. a heavy torrent begins the second his buttocks touch the seat, like there's some button-mechanism on his ass that controls his urethra's flow. when the stream ends, i ask him if he's done. a clenched face looks up at me, struggling to enunciate ...

i have to go poop.

oh. ok. that's fine. go poop.

in a still clenched and strained manner he informs me that he 'needs privacy'.

oh. sure. of course. i step out of the stall and lean against it. i take the first full breath of air since he announced his need on the playground. a guy at the other end of the long restroom calls out, asking if anyone has lost a girl.

i think she's mine. bella?

father. where are you? you guys are taking sooooo long.

bella, we're almost done. alex is going poop.

i'm done dad.

ok alex. i'll be right there. bella. wait right there.

dad, i'm done.

i know alex. i'm coming.

but dad. i've got to go too.

uuhhh, bella. ok wait just one minute. let me get alex.

dad. where are you? i'm done.

coming alex.

but, dad i have to go right now.

ok bella. coming.

i wipe alex and raise his two pair of underwear, one pair of pants and two pair of shorts. don't ask. meanwhile, bella has gone into another stall and is working on getting on the toilet. i come in, get her on the seat and am told she also needs privacy. i step out. she tells me to lock the door. i explain i can't lock it if i can't be in there. alex crawls under the stall before i can shriek for him to get off the ground. bella counsels him on how to work the lock. after he secures the door, she instructs him to leave. he crawls back out of the stall. more ground. more shrieking. bella calls that she's done and needs wiped. i explain i can't get in there because she locked the door. she clarifies that she didn't lock it and that alex did. during my eye-roll, alex shoots back under the stall. i've since surrendered that battle. he unlocks the door. i get bella out and place both kids in front of the sinks, even though what i really need is a mild acid and fire-hose. bella uses this time to reiterate, loudly, her male theory explaining how boys are dirty and gross and mean. three men standing at urinals turn their heads our way. i smile. they don't.

we make our way back to the playground. it's now twenty-one minutes since alex first called me. three minutes later alex approaches me again ...

i'm thirsty dad. can i have a drink?

no.

why no? i'm thirsty.

because then you'll have to pee again.

alex has graduated to big boy underwear. when i was his age, they were white. maybe a colored band here or there, but mostly just plain ole white. nowadays these utilitarian garments are a colorful and busy strain branded just for kids. you name it, someone makes it. right now, alex's favorites are batman and spiderman, with buzz lightyear getting some occasional play.

for alex, in addition to selecting which super-hero to pull from the drawer, he must also decide which artwork he likes better, the picture on the front or the picture on the back because for him it is important that the better of the two be front-facing giving it superior exposure. so each morning before slipping his tiny jockeys on, alex diligently studies the front and back of the shorts, deciding which scene deserves the marquee. you'd think this review would be consistent, but for reasons i can't explain, it is a total crap-shoot from day to day, and one i'm mildly embarrassed to say leaves me thoroughly intrigued.

i'm a boxers man. have been for decades. in looking at a pair of briefs i would have guessed they could be worn backwards without even noticing, other than having the ill-conceived penis-tunnel even further from the member it is meant for, making the knee-bending maneuver of extraction that much more precarious. but, if you, like me, thought the cut was reversible you'd be wrong. it turns out the material on the back is significantly larger than the front, and when you wear them backwards you find it only partially covers one's biscuits (that's parental-speak for ass-cheeks). this unforeseen detail results in what appears to be, from the back-side, a modest man's thong. and, before you think this is the only flaw in the design, consider all that bonus material in the front which makes the wearer look like they shoved a hot-pocket down their shorts.

all this said, how ill-fitting the shorts appear doesn't phase alex in the least. he just sucks in his tummy, looks down and excitedly points at the display saying, "BATMAN!, look daddy! batman on my shorts". and i do look and i must confess that the picture of batman standing atop gotham with his cape flaring in the wind looks pretty smart in wide screen across the front and am both impressed with and pleased by my son's eye for such detail. but it is during this revelry when alex turns to leave the room anxious to show others today's selection where i'm left spying his narrow biscuits sneaking out of the deficient material in the rear ... and sneaking more with every excited stride.

the kids and i biked to a nearby park last weekend and i bumped into an ex-colleague. we were close enough to the playground that bella and alex continued on while i stopped to chat with my friend and his family. after bella got off her bike, removed her helmet and was ready to proceed she started calling for me. i was busy bringing my pal up to speed on my life; bragging on how well things were going with the new job and even newer baby. he asked how the kids were adjusting to anthony. i explained, honestly, that they were great. bella is doting and alex impressively gentle. overall things were very warm and loving. i should mention that the whole time i was talking bella was thirty feet away yelling at me, bike helmet in hand.

dad, we're ready to play.

dad!

dad get over here.

dad get over here right now!

dad git!

father. if you don't come here right now, you're going to be fired.

dad!

DAD! you're fired.

(alex was standing there sucking his thumb and looking elsewhere through this whole lambasting until that last line at which point he removed his thumb just long enough to say in his soft, partially interested voice)

yeah dad. you're fired dad.

i was specific in directing the warm and loving sentiments of my children towards their new brother, not their old father.

we had a child born two weeks ago. we had another child begin full day kindergarten one week ago. and gluttons that we are, we're making yet another child enter half-day preschool this week. with so many balls in the air we didn't really get a chance to counsel alex proper on what to expect at his first school experience. what to ask. what not to do. where the bathroom is. you know the basics. fortunately for us, we have bella and it is apparent from the below 5-second time lapse photo that she has privately schooled him on the powers of manipulation, or as she would contend, the powers of survival, happiness and household dominance.

i just can't figure out if the photo on the left is his mean-mug or his just got mean-mugged face. knowing bella as i do though, i'd say that is the face of someone committed to keeping the thomas-train table all to himself.

04.30am		put my computer to sleep after working on a site design for 7 straight hours
04.35am		get undressed in the dark and fall into bed only to learn alex is sleeping in my spot. i yank my pillow from under his head and drag it behind me to his bed.
04.40am		listen to bella grind her teeth for five minutes and do some unqualified projections on what orthodontic expenses will look like in ten years.
04.45am		fall asleep
06.18am		roll over and smash my face into a metal thomas the tank engine toy. attempt to throw it across the room but send it into the wall next to the bed. fall back asleep.
07.30am		get pushed in the head by alex's foot and told to get out of his bed. i push him away telling him to go ask mom.
07.34am		get shoved again by alex, this time with a hand, and told more emphatically to remove myself from his bed. i repeat the instruction to take it up with his mother. he leaves.
07.50am		pushed in the back by marty and told to get up for work.
07.53am		bowl of grapes spilled on my head and chest as alex roughly climbs over me for the thomas train that accosted my cheek and nose earlier.
08.00am		pushed harder in the back by marty and told she's not telling me again to get up.
08.06am		tickled by bella and excitedly told 'first one to the tv room gets to pick first show'. i tell her i hate the formulaic brainwashing that happens on modern broadcasting and am fifteen hours into a boycott. moments later i hear her shout her first-show victory through the house.
08.10am		again shoved in the back by marty and told i am ruining her morning.
08.32am		i wake, naturally, and stumble to the bathroom feeling surprisingly refreshed and have a notion it is going to be a good day.
08.35am		i find my electric toothbrush lying behind the toilet. it seems the good day hunch was a tad premature.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. three shows

on our trip to the beach last month, marty gave bella and alex disposable cameras. she explained there were a certain number of pictures and when it was done, it was done. we just now got the developed rolls back and i was impressed with alex's range.

• (top left) i've long been a fan of cattywampus composition and this shot was skillfully crafted. field of depth and division of color is wonderful.
• (top right) this looks straight out of a gap/j crew/fitch seasonal rag. it's a totally overdone technique, but if you can't nail the fundamental shots, you got no business being in the mix.
• (bottom left) the 'what's happening here' quality of this shot makes the viewer commit a few brain cycles in contemplating the action and more importantly why the action warrants being photographed. (spoiler: ethan just bested his father in a thumbwar and is counting his winnings)
• (bottom right) nailing the 'moment in time' shots is a skill any serious photog must be able to harness at will. sure, you wish the cup wasn't there and the window wasn't behind her but your gotta work with what you got.

the full collection, only excerpted here, had several shots of bookguy and his people so i forwarded the relevant ones on thinking he may like to see a photographic savant's early work. his reply ... imagine being privileged enough to also see the early steps of a future world ruler as well.

alex likes barney. we tivo the show routinely but, for reasons i don't understand, he always insists on watching a solitary barney tape that somehow came into our possession. he's had to have seen the thirty-minute episode over fifty times. he refers to this show as 'white barney'. it's dubbed as such because the physical cassette is white in color, instead of the usual black. while this innocuous reference poses no problem in our home, it occasionally creates discomfort when out and about in our diverse community.

if before any of this took place, had someone presented this exact scenario to me soliciting my opinion, i would have thought little of it, proclaiming the child's rant to be simple and harmless. however, in the few instances we've been out and he's decided he wanted to watch the show, like now, and freaks out when he can't, things gets murky. because reality has me pushing a stroller through a crowded urban street with a fitful child wailing WHITE BARNEY, WHITE BARNEY, I WANT WHITE BARNEY NOW! at the top of his lungs. needless to say, i find the questioning gazes of onlookers to be a tad challenging. i don't know what they think. i don't know what i would think. but i don't think they think he's asking to watch a recorded episode of barney that just happens to be on a white VHS tape and if they aren't thinking that are they thinking this kid might as well be yelling ARYAN JOE, ARYAN JOE, I WANT ARYAN JOE NOW! because in the end, i think that might be what i was thinking had i witnessed the scene.

as for why this situation has never escalated beyond uncertain glances, i can't say for certain, but the fact that alex looks like the product of an international adoption surely can't hurt the cause.