i just met my second person who used to have a scanner that could pick up cell phone conversations. as i understand it, due to changes in cellular protocols, these devices can no longer receive the signals. too bad about that really, cuz there are about seven traits of my personality that would have made that activity and me real good friends.

interestingly each of these fellows had similar findings. they said that the dominant thread of conversation they heard dealt with infidelity. one of them went as far to put it at 70% of the conversations he listened to took place between affair goers.

the second most common discussion they spied; couples fighting.

now there's some math even i can add up.

boy does it warm the cockles to see such an obvious example of devout commitment and companionship.

imagine for a second what this girl would do if she woke up naked next to this guy and he wasn't a famous and rich comedian but instead the plumbing guy at home depot. would she kill him or herself first?

alex is walking. aside from the fact that in perambulation little man most closely resembles the orangutan that starred opposite eastwood in the the Every Which Way But Loose series, everything is good. and good except for we now have doubled the number of people padding about the house at any given hour.

really not a problem if you remove the intimate requirements of marriage. yea...

on the very rare occasions when marty and i wake up before both children, we drift to the center of the bed and unconsciously wrap ourselves in one another. i can't exactly describe the embrace. a leg is wrapped here. an arm will get tucked over there. etc. just take my word for it that it works quite well and proves to be one of the most serene blips in our lives these days.

recently marty mustered the energy during one such session to whisper in my ear that i smelled like sauerkraut. i gave her the obligatory and frequently used, "whatever". twenty minutes after she left the bed i wondered what she was cooking downstairs, surprised that she would have something in the oven at this early hour. it only took a few minutes to realize the culinary treat i was smelling was me.

but it still wasn't sauerkraut.

i recently admitted i don't like to dance. it even more recently struck me what a vast understatement that was. to say i don't like to dance is like saying i don't like to run the underside of my penis through a cheese-grater often.

i'm not a dancer. marty is a dancer. marty is a groin-grinding, hip-bucking, trunk-slapping dancer. it's a fame thing. it's a solid gold thing. it's a rhyth...

sex. let's get into it. how have we not yet? bewildering. what kind of naughty stuff should we talk about? pregnant sex you say. hmmm. little peculiar but why not?

couples predominately seem to be on the same page when it comes to relations during pregnancy but i recently heard of a couple who decided, mutually, to not have intercourse at all during their first pregnancy. i can't help but wonder if they understand that you may ELECT to abstain during the pregnancy but that you WILL abstain after the pregnancy.

regardless of what your mind has previously conjured up or what you have been told, sex during pregnancy, assuming the female is healthy, is all good. i repeat, confidence is high. for quite some time your future tike is smaller than a dry roasted peanut and will not be getting in the way. and when he/she is not a peanut, they're an orange for much of the nine months. please forget your inane jokes about causing brain damage with your steely phallus, cause it ain't happening fabio. also forget about your manseed messing up the kid's house. if your deposit causes that sort of mayhem, you and your kid got way bigger problems to contend with.

now after the birth takes place, consider yourself benched. the physical trauma the female's goods go through will leave you simply amazed they'd ever work again. and consider the mental exercise of seeing a human, a gallon of blood/stuff and a placental flank steak come pouring out of your wife's girl parts. while it's not going to wreck you eternally both because it is your wife, your kid and you've been steeling yourself for this vision for nine months, it is certain to cool your jets for a short while. and obviously, the female is a little bit on the re-configured side after all this and it takes time. be patient. and, here's a totally solid piece of advice. don't be one of those eager hard-ons who asks the wife and/or doctor "uhhmm, so how long till we can ... you know ... do stuff". don't be that guy. be the patient guy. it will happen.

but, maybe the cold-turkey couple has legitimate reasons. if so, awesome. and, when you really think about it, it's so not a thing. i also forget that not everyone experienced the adolescent drought that i did. i could do two years without blinking. i could do one year without even realizing it had been one year because i was fully convinced i would never know a woman. i can be viewed as a sex-camel who could go impressive periods between pit stops. i appreciate that not everyone has been so fortunately prepared.

and i guess it's only fair to speak to when walt and i stopped ... you know ... doing stuff. it was definitely when i could see the little nipper swimming around in there, through marty's stomach. an elbow here raking left to right. a foot there dragging top to bottom, doing the electric slide as we were doing the electric, well, let's just say it was at that exact moment i said i'd wait until the third human in the room could be on the other side of the door.

most people who meet me are hyper curious/anxious to meet marty, and not for the same reason luby was itching to meet her. first they want to see if she's really a she (marty ... marty ... could go either way). and secondly, for the same tired reason of just having to know who elected to put up with me till death makes us part.

well, for your information, the person putting up with me had a very lackadaisical look on her face when we saw two pandas having sex in a tree on the tele and the commentator talked about how the female had two vaginas. after telling marty she was at least 50% deficient she informed me that i was short one bifurcated penis as well and that if i'd work on mine, she'd work on hers.

marty then went onto say that she's often contemplated stopping to check out road-maimed opossums because they, like pandas, have this dual genital thing going on. first question is, how does anyone know this. second question is, how the hell did i end living with a person who knows this. third question is, how the hell is it i'm somehow known as the freaky one living at our address.

and, if you're curious, luby seeks to meet the partners of people he may intend hanging out with just in case the other person totally sucks because he "already has one friend he can only eat lunches with because that's the only time his wife is sure to be working and thus guaranteed to be previously engaged."

awhile back i was approached by a guy who wanted to know if i was interested in doing some design work for a porn site or two. he assured me that he and people he knew had quite a need and the opportunities would be both abundant and lucrative.

the only burn i could see is that i'd be doing work i couldn't exactly put in my portfolio which is a little bit on the evil side. when i mentioned it in passing to marty she surprisingly had a few more negative items outside of the portfolio issue. "just how would you feel telling your daughter that you peddled pornographic material for a living?"

would i be sitting in my new Porsche when explaining it to her?

this would be an example of the wrong thing to say to marty when discussing such matters.

marty has a rule that if i'm ever going to cheat on her it's totally ok, under one condition; i must call her beforehand.

while this seems like a pretty keen deal, i can't help but wonder what effect speaking to my wife moments before would do to the mood. i'm guessing not heighten it.

but, just in case, anyone have a cellphone i can borrow?

how about a dime?

one of the few shows walt and i watch together is nypd blue. during the sabbatical we watched an episode where one of the main cop guys (clark) was dating this smoking hot doctor woman he met in a previous episode. on one of their first dates they got into this row about how she has treated droves of fellas who were abused by the esteemed men in blue. he obviously took the opposing view saying tha...

it was 3am on a friday night. i was going to bed which means alex was waking up which means marty was mumbling incoherently and picking up things that weren't there (once marty hits 30 plus days of deficient sleep, watch your ass).

after realizing alex wasn't going back to sleep, i plucked him out of his bassinet and stood rocking him. during this i noticed that a way cool fog had rolled in. seeing how the lights played through the mist it was a given i had to go out and get some shots. so with the little man master-blastered to my chest, i grabbed the camera gear and headed out. we ambled around for about an hour during which time we talked to a cop who warned me about being too affectionate to my kid lest they become overly attached, ran into a shopping cart guy getting a jump on the friday night trash can loot. he asked for a buck. it's sad how some people are just unable to clock out.

alex and i call the above shot 'the apartment building someone was having sex in'. my god can people be loud. or i should say, my god can this particular woman be loud. i heard her halfway down the block. she was so loud in fact i felt i had to commemorate the moment with a picture and since i had just talked to the cop i thought it may be uncomfortable if he had to arrest me minutes later for photographing a young couple having sex through their bedroom window, so you're going to have to settle for a picture of their building's entrance.

and, while setting up for this photo and listening to this woman's production, alex and i pondered why it was societally acceptable for women to make all this racket when the guys can't, or aren't supposed to at least. i mean i guess the guys 'could' light it up but i ask you, what do you think would happen to your libido if you had to take in my squeals and grunts of utter delight during your utter delight. don't bother answering that because i know what it would do to me and that's all i need to know at the moment. issue settled.

ok, this one here's for all the ladies out there. i'm going to let you in on a little secret. ready. ok. here goes. there is no such thing as blue balls. never has been. you know how i know. well, a couple of reasons. first, i own a set and they've been through all kinds of trauma and abuse and they have never, ever taken on such a jaundiced hue. second, i've seen every In Search Of ever made and nimoy never tackled this mythic beast which pretty much confirms the veracity of the whole deal for me.

now we know all kinds of guys are going to come crawling out of the morass saying i'm wrong and that they've had them or their cousin had them or this guy up in canada got em once and how they were wicked terrible and ached so. it's bullshit. don't believe a word of it. it is a male-wide conspiracy to dupe women into granting favors of the flesh that they may otherwise be disinclined to provide. i mean believe me, i've been tormented, turned down, and left in quite a state by an inordinate number of ladies all over the planet and my sack has never gone through such permutations.

now here's the deal, should a guy try to work this con on you, ask them what the remedy is. when they say it is to get some relief, bust one or flush the tanks, tell them that they are probably more qualified to address the issue than yourself and they should go to the john or behind the bushes and handle their bidnez. because, you see, even if there was such an affliction no one ever said that a woman had to be the one to extract the demons. hell, i know a doctor that will give you a a prostate massage to the point of climax. send them there and see if the mere thought of a gloved hand two feet up their ass corrects their mood.

and since i believe in being thorough, let's say the above tactic doesn't take. tell the guy you'll help him out but that you are a little trepidatious given the colony of warts on your hands, the chancre sores in your mouth and the odoriferous yellow-green discharge your girlfriend said you should have checked out by a professional. if they're still game after that, run. run like hell. don't stop, don't look back. just run.

a recent behavior being questioned, frowned upon and ridiculed by marty is how i've been wearing my sweaters as of late. first, we're all painfully aware by now that i have a tragically misshapen body. it is modeled, sadly, after my feet. my size 6 EEE feet. for those lacking visual aides, this would be square in proportion. given this, sweaters manufactured for the average human fit me more like an oversized and striped tube sock rather than a comfortably hanging and stylish winter garment. for this reason i must buy them bigger than my height might suggest. the shortcoming in this compromise is they are also much longer. to adjust for this i have taken to cuffing the waist band much like i do the wrist bands.

marty says this looks stupid. i contend that it also looks stupid to have one's sweater hang to some point between their groin and kneecaps, possibly more stupid in fact. i mean if you were to throw some ankle warmers on me i'm suddenly and very concisely transformed into every side-ponytailed aerobics instructor from the 80's. i gotta say i'm not budging on this one. partially because if i were to move too suddenly all the various pieces of debris that have collected in the cuffed hem of my sweater would be certain to spill onto my lap and about my feet. wanna talk about looking stupid.

marty while watching the bachlorette.

for those sending money and thoughts in the name of the tv-cart family (08.07.02), here's a follow-up. not tell me about the particulars of his marriage? perhaps not in an email and maybe not even today but unless he intends on severing all personal ties to me and never looking me in the eye again, this is a story that will be told.

i do not acknowledge valentine's day, as readers of this site must know by now. and after a brief discussion and concession from marty, i do not celebrate father's or mother's day either. conversely, in a discussion with a friend who recently adopted an infant boy, he said he became a parent for one reason; to receive gifts, really cool and numerous gifts. i obviously chortled at this immodest and...

one of the worst things about being married is having to share the free selections from the quality paperback club membership with your spouse.

walt and i were in a heated argument as to whether one of our selections should be the newly available The Clitoral Truth or not. i'll let you intuit who was voting against us getting it.

in a fit of frustration i suggested that she use one of her selections to get the book How to Make People Like You. i further suggested that she might even consider using both of her choices on that so she can get two copies given that amount of help she needed.

suffice it to say, we will not be getting The Clitoral Truth with this order.

suck.

e-love on the complexities of his sexuality

a recent study made the following observation regarding what men like about women, physically at least: in my own unrelated study, i found that women like pale, oily guys with afros who like playing gameboy on the toilet and wear the same underwear for three days in a row. ok, so it's six days in a row and marty is the only woman i know who prefers this ... and i may be taking liberties when saying marty prefers this, 'endures this' may actually be a more concise way to express her position on the matter.

I recently learned that one should never take a date to an amusement park. I haven't seen a more date-hostile environment since Sheila Michaels took me to a canceled Agent Orange concert than what we experienced on our recent boondoggle to Cedar Point where I witnessed not one, but two highly vicious and very public scraps between young couples.

In each case it was the girl who was ma...

This scene represents a typical non-working day in the life of Marty and Troy. At the time of this shutter click, it is most likely about noon, maybe 1:00pm, and we are just now considering getting out of bed. Many times this simply means moving the show to the couch for a couple hours of mental preparedness for the trials the average American faces from day to day.

On Feb 3, we are f...