i owe a personal customer a major site addition by wednesday. i owe work two site mockups by friday. and then of course there's that modest time-drain called the everyman which will be available to the public (and judges) on tuesday of next week. the above is to say i will most certainly be out to lunch the remainder of the week.

and any who see me during this run do not be alarmed by my disheveled appearance, unshaven chin whiskers or maniacal grin. i'm a closet masochist. reminds me of college. marty hates me when i self-abuse. but, marty didn't like college too much either. and for those that warn me of the pending crash given my elevated levels of sugar and caffeine, you can't come down if you never stop the intravenous delivery of said sugar and caffeine. it's children's math really.

and when i get in these jags i totally feel like ray liota at the end goodfellas. unfortunately i look a bit like him too. do you know what it takes to look like a guy strung out on cocaine when you're not, yourself, using cocaine? it's no minor achievement, i gotta tell ya.

three things i try to do everyday:

1. walk on grass
2. make my children laugh (giggling and/or tittering counts)
3. not die

a curiosity about my family; they've all got impulse control issues. wether it is marty straightening the counter in your home's kitchen or alex eating your six month supply of potato chips in a single sitting or bella arranging the books on your bookshelf by size (and then color), they've, collectively, got some real and identifiable problems.

you'll notice my name missing from the above inventory. this is because i'm the only member of the clan without such an affliction. of course, i'm also the one responsible for repeatedly clicking my tongue against the roof of my mouth so the universe doesn't collapse upon itself.

no need to thank me, i'm doing it to save my ass, not yours.

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 ... 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?

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.

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.

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

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. you rang

to say i like immediate gratification would be like saying i like to urinate just once a day. although, with me, it's not really about immediate gratification as much as it is about constant gratification. think intravenous drip.

while there are numerous personal benefits, societal downsides exist. i recently told a co-worker how i was considered a very high-maintenance employee. he asked...

there is a game of sorts marty and i have engaged in since the early days of our relationship. we refer to it as THE CHIP. i don't recall who started it or even if it was an original invention. i just know it showed up one day and has been used 3-5 times a year since its inception.

how it works; each of us began the game with an equally scant few chips. chips are given when one of us performs an act of personal sacrifice at the request of the other. for instance, if marty were going out with her girlfriends and asked me to go i could, and oftentimes would, decline. if for some reason my attendance was important to marty on a particular outing, she could simply say my going was worth a chip. with the offer of a chip, it told me that this was, for some personal reason that did not need to be explained, an important matter to marty.

another thing about our chips; the offering of a chip has never been refused.

back in the day chips weren't traded immediately. one person may burn through three chips before ever getting presented one in return. this is not so much the case these days because these days you always got a chip or two you could toss on the counter. and while chips used to mostly involve family functions or events requiring shirts with buttons, they now take a much more pedestrian form. an example of a chip exchange today looks more like this:

MARTY (walking into kitchen where i'm doing dishes)
you got something?

TROY (laughing)
do i have something? sure. go.

MARTY
stop leaving your wet towels on the bed in the morning.

TROY
hang the broom up in the pantry after using it.

MARTY
done.

TROY
done.

and, people say kids complicate life. pre-kid chips were never this simple and painless. for us, kids have simplified our days down to the lowest common denominator of life; survival. and i'm not talking about driving a leased-suv and having the summer place in the outer banks kind of survival, i'm talking about the crouching scared in the back of a dank cave kind of survival.

clarifying points: the chips aren't real, like poker chips or something. they are figurative. no official scorecard has ever been kept because no one has ever thought to abuse the chip system. and this is not out of fear of getting caught (which you would get caught) but out of respect for the good deed it has done for our time together.

some things i couldn't do in the house i grew up in:

take the lords name in vain
say darn *
say jeez *
say gosh *
or take showers during thunderstorms

* disallowed for their derivative nature to damn, jesus and god respectively.

bella obtained some new underwear that has a different day of the week printed on the front of each pair. a few of the days are missing which makes me afraid to ask where the pantaloons came from. my spidey-sense is whispering bad words in my ear. like words that begin with 'good' and end in 'will' or begin with 'salvation' and end in 'army'. don't get me wrong, 90% of my wardrobe has come from vintage stores or darkman's closet, but 100% of what i like to call my 'intimate line' came straight from the super-mall (or mail order). because there's no real reason to maintain the secret that used boxers are to troy dearmitt what punctured scrotums are to george constanza. for sanity's sake we're going to chalk bella's 5-day week skivvies up to lame packaging, dear lawd please let it be lame packaging and if it ain't please let me remain an ignorant old fool.

anyways, i've been looking for the adult, male version of these decision-free briefs. wondering how the adult, male model differs from the tiny, girl model? instead of the days of the week, they have, in block print across the front, the weeks of the month, as in week one, week two, and so on. sadly, this item seems to be quite in demand because every store i contact says they don't have anything like that in stock.

---

as for the quiet week, my dsl went out to lunch a few days ago. i'm making this post via the back porch of some out-of-town neighbors who left their wireless router on. truth told, i only started out on their back porch. i've since found a way into their home and am now sitting indian style on their king size bed, with my shoes on. and, yes, i did see if he had the cool weeks-of-the-month boxers. he doesn't. nor does his wife.

tonight marty confided in me that she was concerned i may have run out of embarrassing things to say about myself and have moved onto her, since the last few posts have been greatly marty-centric (her breasts specifically, but her all the same).

she of all people should know that i haven't even gotten to the embarrassing parts of my life yet.

BELLA
do you want me to roast a marshmallow for you father?

TROY
uhm. no bell. i'm good.

(short pause)

MARTY
bella, your dad thinks it weird that his family is sitting around the stove in the middle of july roasting mini-marshmallows over one of the burners.

BELLA
why does he think it's weird?

MARTY
he just does. what he doesn't know though is my sister, your aunt cheri, once roasted marshmallows over an electric skillet so this is not nearly as odd as he may think it is.

---

i'm not completely sure if marty is trying to refute or support my position on this matter.

nor am i entirely certain how it is that i remain to be considered the odd one living in this home, especially after i repeatedly document tendencies such as this.

the number of ways marty can put a bra on while fully clothed is only surpassed by the number of ways she can take one off (also fully clothed). she can be standing next to me wearing a collared shirt one minute and i look again and she's got a warm bra balled up in her hand. another time she may pass me in the hall with one arm inside her shirt and the other pulling a shirt sleeve down to an elbow saying she's running to the store. i stop and watch her jet by as one arm will erupt out of the sleeve only to have the other hand dive into the collar. in these moments she reminds me of those shiny gold, female statuettes with the twenty arms. i've never looked at them closely to see if any of their appendages are messing with undergarments or not, but will going forward.

sadly these days i see marty putting bras on much more often than i see her taking them off. while this sucks for all the obvious reasons, i can say watching a shirted woman putting a bra on is far more mesmerizing in far more academic ways than seeing her remove one. (fact is, i've studied the removal process enough to think that i may have a shot at getting one off myself ... as long as someone first undid the horrible clippy/claspy thing in the back.)

and i feel i should caveat the above by reminding you that the guy so fascinated by all this is the same guy who takes his boxers off in the dining room just so he has a chair to lean on as he lowers the leg-holes down and around his short stubby legs. not sure if that lessens marty's apparel-based feats or not, but would understand if it did. i'm also not sure if that lessens anyone's desire to dine in my home or not. i promise not to disrobe while you're eating.

promise might be strong. how about we instead settle on giving it an old college try.

i've been showering daily (mostly) since i've been old enough to stand under a spray of water. it wasn't until LEVER soap's 1000 parts ad campaign came out that i realized what a suck job i was doing at bathing myself. when i first saw the commercial i'm sure i took it in with a wide-open mouth. 1000 body parts! frick! i counted out on fingers my known body pieces, bathing-wise, and came up about ...

sorry i've been away so long. i've been camping. i'm sure some of you are wondering what it takes for a man-purse carrying fellow such as myself to survive in the wild. well, first i need my man-purse and second i need a support staff of about twenty.

it was a great outing. one of the best we've had. the only bump under the tent came when a bed came available in the one air-conditioned RV in our party. the bed was secretly offered to marty. after learning of the opportunity, i said she should take it. she acted disinterested, albeit unconvincingly. i insisted.

on the surface, it appears to be a stand-up gesture on my part. under the surface it is the choice of a man who knows his wife well enough to know that if a raccoon drops ass within 50 yards of the tent, the girl is going to wake up. so for good measure throw in (a) two twisty, kicky, sweaty kids, (b) a 100 degree day, (c) one husband who is trying to go four days without showering (for reasons not well-defined) and (d) four people in a three-man dome tent and what you have is a proverbial no-brainer. for obvious reasons, i sent her off and for even more obvious reasons, she went off.

when it came time to for her to retire to the camper she paused on the way out of the tent and asked for the pillow i was using. this common house pillow was without doubt the only luxury item in the tent the kids and i were sharing. i uncertainly raised my head and started handing it to her when i asked what i was supposed to use. she tossed me a cloth object that i could have fit into the front pocket of my daisy dukes and told me to use that.

what the hell is this?

it's your pillow.

this is not a pillow.

it's a camping pillow.

what, for a ken doll?

well, did you pack a pillow?

well, did you pack an air-conditioned camper?

fine, keep the pillow. (throws it at me)

yes. how very generous of you. i think i will.

---

and this was how pissy she was before not getting a full night's sleep. i imagine my choices are looking much more sage at this point.

it is my personal goal to be the last information technology guy in america who doesn't own a cell phone. as it stands, it's between me and 18 other folks.

i still haven't even seen titantic. i cannot be beaten. this is a fact.

for most who look at this picture, what stands between them and hair like this is a catastrophic and/or life-changing event. for me the only thing between me and this is my barber.

it was almost eleven o'clock on a friday evening and i was driving to the apple store to pick up my copy of their new operating system, tiger. as for the late hour, they were open until midnight in honor of the software's release. i stopped on the way for gas and as i headed inside to pay, a youngish woman jumped out of a parked car and dashed in just before me, beating me to the counter. she purc...

given one half of my diet i should look like calista flockhart and given the other half i should look like ralphie may.

so i guess when you balance it all out, it explains why people think i look like this.

the experiment is over. marty has returned to the flock. a synopsis:

day 0 or preflight or the last day marty was with us : height of the roman empire
day 1 : rome is crumbling
day 2 : rome has fallen (detail)
day 3 : the new world is discovered (detail)
day 4 : still the new world, but with a lot of crappy neighbors.

yesterday (day 4) had multiple peaks and valleys, a meltdown or two and some good laughs interspersed throughout. my guess would be this is the most representative of what Walt experiences from one day to the next. as for earlier, i think the goodness of day 3 was just as aberrant as the badness of day 2.

to all you current and future fathers. this experience is a must, especially if your partner is a full-time caregiver. and, i'm not talking about a four hour stretch or even an overnighter, i'm talking about a multi-day escapade of a you-against-them kind of scenario. this is some exhausting shit. without doubt. and what seems to make it so taxing is the sheer unpredictability of it all. you can only ever reliably see five minutes into the future. any premonitions beyond that is wild speculation and about as accurate as the 10 o'clock weather.

empathy is your friend. understanding is your currency. appreciation your lifeblood.

now, if we could only experience menstruation.

marty is holidaying in florida with her sister, spring break-style for sure. she deserves it. this is her first vacation away from her children since she's had children. bella just turned four if you need perspective. fact is, i kicked her out, i said the words 'leave. get out. we don't need you. go. have fun. we'll be fine.' i want to be clear, those words were formed by me and under my own volit...

last night i listened to a show discussing dream analysis on npr. as i took in the eruditic ponderings of the panel i thought of a dream marty had earlier in the week.

in the dream she woke up in the morning and smelled poop. she called into the kids room asking if anyone needed a diaper change. none did. she then marveled at the proximity and strength of the aroma. she threw the sheets ...

before having two mobile and ever-curious children a productive evening for me might entail reading 100 pages of my book.

now that i have these two humans living in my home, i define a productive evening by simply finding my book.