so, i've been a little bit out of commission as of late. i have a few weeks off work and within four hours of clocking out, i began deconstructing my office. my office occupies the smallest part of the smallest room of our house. fact is, my office is in a closet. granted it's a double door closet, but it's still a closet.

i've learned over the last few days that this miniscule space is the most coveted real estate in my home. once i had it emptied, marty stood in the room eyeing the double wide clothes receptacle. i didn't like the look. i asked her if something was wrong. she simply commented that a girl could spread a wardrobe out quite nicely in such a large closet. i told her not to even think about it, it was mine, i called it fair and square when we moved in. when bella saw the vast expanse she told me not to put my desk back in it because she and the defecator could play house in it. and by told, i mean instructed, harshly. when alex saw it, he just looked around and said NUNNEL which is how he says the word tunnel which is how he sought to claim my space because his favorite architectural structures are nunnels.

after making the modifications i planned (paint, more shelves, lighting) i had to reclaim the nook in the wee-est hours of the night. my plan would have been foiled had a single person been awake to obstruct my maneuver.

additionally, i'm not sure how connected i'll be next week either. so many engagements, so little bandwidth.

at the conclusion of each year's everyman photo contest, i invite the judges to my home for dinner and discussion. this year, every judge within a six-hour driving radius attended. that number gets to be so great because of one fella who trekked in from kentucky. add to that, i've never met him and he'd never met me which makes the gesture that much more noteworthy.

in addition to my kentucky boondoggler, one of my international judges, the one representing italy, called my home during the party to discuss the contest and give his feedback. it was a very neat moment for me. and this guy lives, of all places, in the region of italy i consider the most beautiful piece of the world i've ever stood upon, la spezia, which is in northwestern italy and part of the cinqua terra stretch of coastline. he was also kind enough to open his home to my family should we ever be in the region again. i hope he is serious because there is little doubt we will one day be darkening his doorway.

another contest-related thought; i've noticed since i've increased the number of judges, i no longer get hate-mail when winners are announced. i'm going to take that as a positive sign (it did occur to me that maybe no one was chatting because no one was looking, but november bested the everyman's previous traffic record, racking up 1.2 million requests.)

and, i'll leave you with the partygoer's highlight of the evening. alex woke up from his nap and descended the steps wearing one of bella's black velour dresses. since it was his older sisters', it went all the way to the floor and for-sure looked like an evening gown. earlier he had been wearing a really festive pair of red overalls but insisted on the dress for his nap. i intended on changing him before his grand appearance but was tied up in the kitchen and didn't know he woke up. marty was talking with one of the judges when they saw alex round the corner:

joe : hey look at alex in his basketball jersey.
marty : that's not a basketball jersey joe, it's a dress.
joe: i know. i was just trying to help you out.

and lastly, everyone i owe work, email, money or affection to can it expect it in the near future now that my life is again my life. thanks to all who supported, tolerated and enjoyed this year's event. as always, i'm in your debt.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. finish pooping please

we have ogres living in our basement, for-real ogres as bella would say. i've never seen one but bella has spoken to them a few times. the ones living with us are nice which is fortunate because, i'm told, not all of them are. that said, there are a few things they don't like. unsurprisingly i seem to be the only one in the home doing these things they don't like and i've repeatedly been cautioned against my inconsiderate behavior.

bella is responsible for feeding the ogres (if we're going to have pets, you're feeding them). ogres eat all kinds of different foodstuffs. i've accidentally knocked a box full of styrofoam peanuts down the basement stairs (father! now you've ruined their dinner. they are not going to be happy!) i've kicked a glass full of water over soaking my pantleg and shoe (oh great dad! that was their drink. now they will have nothing if they get thirsty!). and i've overturned a 2-gallon bucket full of dirt from the backyard mixed with ash from the grill (they are going to be really upset with you now father!).

this isn't quite how i envisioned this all when marty first asked if i saw children in my future.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. marcher

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

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

how three people in my home enunciate the same five words:

MARTY	BELLA	ALEX
hospital	hostipal	noh
forgot	regot	noh
interesting	instring	noh
practice	prastice	noh
breakfast	bresfast	dink

it took me awhile to identify where regotted came from. i believe it to be derived from the word 'remember' as in the opposite of remember is regot (instead of forgot). witnessing a child's mind try to assimilate and make sense of the english language is for sure something to hear.

bella likes books. she will often sit around the house or on the front porch with her head in one of the books out of the family library. obviously she can't read yet but watching her you wouldn't know this given the way she moves her finger along the lines of text and how she turns the pages in appropriate measures. many a passerby has stopped while bella is sitting on the stoop with a hefty tome in her lap and me mowing the lawn to ask if that little girl is reading that book. my reply, why the hell wouldn't she be?

she mostly reads out loud so any around may enjoy the story as well. i will say with parent-like conviction that there's nothing quite like a bella-reading. if she's enjoying a nancy drew, she may rename her colleen. and if nancy, or rather colleen, runs into some bad guys it's not that unusual for her to be set on fire. but since she's the star and smart and strong, she knows to jump into a conveniently ever-present pool of water thus extinguishing the flames. and then, as with all good adolescent fiction, a bursting can of whoop-ass gets opened up on the dastardly saps who chose, unwisely, to set poor nancy, uhm, colleen, on fire in the first place.

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.

for yesterday's rockefeller post, i waffled between the three shots below. i'm usually more confident with the images i select but this time i couldn't get the other ones out of my head so decided to share all three. what is most curious to me is that these photos were taken within a two minute time frame and the mood of each is so markedly unique. these images do a lot to visually convey the uncertainty and unpredictability of life with children.

in our home we have a pink bear named button and a yellow dog named cello.

i'm not sure why i think this is noteworthy. i just can't shake the feeling that it is.

i had a meeting with some potential web customers last night. wanting to appear deceptively alert, i took a quick power nap before rushing out the door to meet them. upon getting home marty asked me why i had marker all over the side of my face. further inspection found that alex scrawled his first red-permanent marker mural on the right half of my head while i was dozing. on the good side, the kid shows promise. on the better side, even with my face all marked up, i got the gig. i'm thankful to be in an industry where the talent is expected to be more on the bent side than not.

bella places a pen and sealed envelope on my desk and says she needs me to address it to someone for her. i pick up the pen and tell her to shoot. she dictates the following:

sarah.
your face is in this envelope.
open envelope.
we love you.

if i were sarah, i'm not sure if i'd be really pleased or terribly pissed.

a week before bella was to begin preschool she said she wanted to make valentines for her teachers. for those who don't live with this girl, valentines are the common world equivalent of a homemade hallmark card.

bella valentines typically involve of a complex formula only fully understood by her. they are diverse in style but do have certain common threads. for instance, rarely are people drawn without a browneye. allow me to swing your attention to exhibit a which i will call the 'grandparent anal valentines debacle' which fostered several silent dinners at my parent's house. given her past record, walt and i were a touch concerned of what might be in store for her new teachers.

you can obviously imagine our anxiety when bella announced her creations were complete. we hesitantly took them from her outstretched hand and eyed them carefully. no anuses, check. no penises, check. no ginas, check. (gina is pronounced like china only with a G and is how bella says the word, yes you guessed it, vagina). relief poured over us. it was important that the teachers' first impression of our child was not a jaded, or real, perception. we felt this was a pivotal component of our eldest girl's success in the classroom.

on the morning of the first day, bella was super adamant that her valentines not be left behind. we assured her multiple times we had them, clapping my hand on the three sheets of paper in my back pocket. once at school it was her single and immediate mission to distribute them to her teachers. i only saw the first of these transactions. she gave it to the smiling educator who leaned down to thank her.

teacher: oh my, isn't this a beautiful picture.

bella: yes it is. it is a person being chased by a shooter.

teacher: oh. well, isn't that ... interesting.

yes it is interesting, but not nearly as interesting as the parallel story of how marty and i became the newest names on missouri's department of family services watch-list fifteen minutes after that exchange took place.

i'm confident we just witnessed the beginning of what is certain to be a rollicking academic career.

in case you missed it yesterday, a new troyscript was posted.

in case you were wondering, after reading the above troyscript, what it looked like to have your bedroom across the way from bella's, wonder no more. photo compliments of the previous tenant.

little kids masturbate.

my sister in law, who is an elementary teacher, calls kids who masturbate in class honkers. she calls the act of masturbating in class, honking. i fear my kids may be future honkers. while i don't recall specifically, odds are more than good that i may have been a honker myself. my new theory is that without intervention, all kids have the honker gene in them. i r...

last weekend we celebrated bella's third birthday. what's the difference between a two-year old and a three-year old? you can have conversations like this with a three year old at the dinner table:

marty
so what part of today did you not like bella?

bella
when Isaac was touching our dolls.

marty
oh. and what ...

marty grew up in a very science-minded home. her father was a cardiologist. her mother an ex-nurse. two of her brothers would grow up to be doctors. marty herself, a high school science teacher. in her house, one didn't take a dump, they had a bowel movement. one didn't drop ass, they simply experienced a bout of flatulence. and, there was nothing humorous about that flatulence. you see, terribly ...

to answer some questions regarding the previous post.

yes that was a television bella was jumping from. our old busted one which we gutted and gave to her. it is not at all uncommon to see her pushing it down the hallway en route to climb up on something. it's not the smallest step stool in the house but it sure is the funnest.

and, yes we do endorse jumping on the beds in our home. well we encourage the children doing it. marty is decidedly against the adults (meaning me) from doing it. our bed almost sags to the floor in various spots. i've tried convincing marty this is bella's doing but it only took once for her to hear the tired springs groan under my weight to convince her otherwise. i've asked that we replace the bed because i can't get the height i once could out of my jumps. she is firm on the point that we will replace the bed when the people weighing over 28 pounds stop jumping on it. i'm sure we can all agree, if this is the case, we're going to have this bed for awhile.

as for bella's olympic dive pose, i'm not sure where she picked that up, but it is truly how she begins every event. and as for her naked from the waist down deal, i'm sorry to report that this is far more usual that it should be. i'm merely hoping she gets it out of her system as a prepubescent youth so she doesn't feel the need to in later life.