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...

it seems a post from a few weeks ago has been causing a lot of confusion. first of all, marty is not pregnant and second of all marty is not pregnant. the first not pregnant clarification is for the people who felt the end of the previous post left things too uncertain. the last two lines read: i explained to marty that i was trying to be literary, not literal so hoped that by saying things had passed, i was implying that things had passed and we were out of the woods. sorry to have mislead some.

as for the second not pregnant disclaimer, marty recently got her hair cut short so anyone who knew of our ritual OR read that same post AND bumped into marty in the last few weeks was thinking that we were for real pregnant. now this confusion is certainly more justified and i'll say that even i was briefly duped by the circumstance of it all.

marty's stylist works a few doors down from our pediatrician so she booked anthony for a checkup and herself for a haircut in the same hour. we all drove to the doctor's office and then asked the kids if they wanted to go in with me and anthony or with mom. all voted for me and anthony (dumb luck that) so i escorted three rambunctious children into a cramped and spartan waiting room while marty took a peaceful stroll down the street.

surprisingly the kids and i got in and out quickly (you ever want to guarantee yourself good and fast service drag behind you three destructive and loud humans into places of business). upon getting into the car, we decided to go look for marty instead of waiting for her to return. i didn't know exactly where the salon was but figured if it was within walking distance we could find it. i drove down the road and soon spotted one and pulled into the lot. they had blinds up that prevented me from seeing the people inside so i told the kids to wait while i checked it out. i entered the lobby and stuck my head around the partition. i spied marty getting cut towards the back of the room. she and her hair lady were chatting lightly and i noticed that most of marty's hair was gone. i looked at the swaths of hair at the beautician's feet and ducked back behind the partition before marty could see me spying.

i somberly slid back into the driver's seat. the kids were going on furiously about if i saw her and was she in there and do they have candy for little kids who sit very still. i told them she was in there but that when she came out they wouldn't recognize her because she was getting a very different sort of haircut. for the first time they paused thinking on what i just said. after a few contemplative moments they started refuting my claim. i stuck to my guns saying they didn't know because they hadn't seen her and i did. right at this perfect moment, a hunched over elderly woman exited the salon. i pointed to her and said ...

TROY
there's mom guys.

BELLA/ALEX
what? where?

TROY
right there. she just came out.

ALEX
that isn't mom. that's an old lady.

TROY
i told you you wouldn't recognize her.

BELLA
we don't recognize her because THAT ISN'T HER!

TROY
of course it's her.

BELLA
if it's her why is she going to the car next to us.

TROY
she's just joking you. she's not really going to get in it. she's just playing.

(we all watch as the woman fumbles with her purse)

TROY
ahhh. she's tricking you good. in a moment she's going to come over here and say she tricked you.

ALEX
nuh-uh.

TROY
uh-huh.

(the woman found her keys, opened the door and got in.)

BELLA
see. she just got in.

TROY
man, she's really taking this far. she really want's to trick you big.

BELLA
nuh-uh.

TROY (i shouted at the window)
marty! get out of that car! you're going to get in trouble if someone sees you.

BELLA
dad! that's not her!

TROY
it is her. but she won't be able to start it so she's going to get out and come over any second.

the woman starts the car, backs out and drives off. somewhere during this the kids think that it may be their mother and are now concerned for her. with the kids twisted and craning their heads to watch the wayward woman drive off, marty emerged from the salon and got into the car while everyone else was peering out the back window. they spun around and excitedly caught marty up ...

BELLA
dad was joking us, saying you were some old lady. but then the old lady drove away. but it's ok because we knew it wasn't you and that dad was just joking us.

MARTY
yeah, he does that sometimes.

TROY
sooooo.

MARTY
sooooo what?

TROY
so, that's a pretty daring haircut.

MARTY
yeah, i decided to make it easy on myself.

TROY
there's nothing you want to tell me is there?

MARTY
no, i don't think so.

TROY
ok. because that is an awful short haircut.

MARTY
OH! NO! no! no. absolutely not.

TROY
ok. you gave me a bit of a start when i looked in there and saw you all demi moore'd up. i considered driving off without you.

MARTY
but you didn't.

TROY
yeah, it occurred to me i was getting the raw end given that i'd have three and you'd just have the one.

my doctor wants to stick his finger in my butt. i used to think he just wanted to a little. now i think he wants to a lot because he's taken to calling my house and telling me i really need to come in because he hasn't seen me since 2006. what he's forgetting is it was that 2006 appointment that he first suggested taking our relationship to the next level. i told him we'd do it the next time and he agreed. he just didn't totally understand what he was agreeing to. truth is, my spleen would have to be spilling out my bellybutton for me to even consider another visit.

it's kind of unfortunate that they had to come calling on this day because this day was beautiful. starting at 9am the sky opened up and vomited seven inches of fluffy, swirling snow on the city. it was a spectacular scene, observed from my fourth story office window at least. and when it was time to leave, i leisurely walked through the 150 year-old, freshly blanketed campus with amelie softly serenading me. and had it not been for the returning notion of my bunghole-inbounds appointment, the walk home may have been perfect. but it wasn't because in time it made me think of another mind-soiling moment i had in the last twenty-four hours. the day before the snow came i found a tattered strip of stationary blowing around my yard.


in case the hand-writing's giving you fits, it reads in full:
crotch-rash
rectal-hemorrhoids
burning left thigh
sore right ankle/foot
dec - saw podiatrist
viagra rx or other
coughing
diarrhea - abdominal pains
backache - old brace
mood swing
i blurt out stuff
I aggravates

did i mention that the stationary was personalized. tragic that. i'll never be able to look at, or stand within ten feet of, this neighbor again. fact of the matter is, i'm considering moving. some people would think this laundry list of game-ending afflictions would center me, giving me the strength to go forward with my own routine maintenance. those people would be right. it does make me want to see my doctor. hell, that list makes me want to get a pap smear to boot. but i still ain't going. i'm holding out until they can see whatever it is they want to see while standing on the other side of the room or while i'm totally knocked out. sticking something up my ass is, in the least, an out-patient procedure requiring table straps and a licensed anesthesiologist. perhaps my doctor should hook up with my knee surgeon and they can kill two birds with one drop of a narcotic-loaded plunger.

marty woke up 20 minutes late. i woke up 30 minutes late. what we were waking up late for was sunday brunch. guests were arriving in less than an hour and we were still bleary, un-showered and food-less.

marty made it to the kitchen first but was slowed down because alex wanted to help her make the custard french toast and bran muffins. after getting the fire going, i was soon hobbled by anthony nipping at my heels while working on the bacon. bella was yelling something indecipherable down the stairwell. the phone rang. it was marty's mother calling from florida. marty left her food station to gab ... for twenty minutes .. while i juggled food and humans. bella appeared in front of me seemingly out of thin air. she stretched her hand out forcing on me a full-size sheet of paper. once in hand, she turned on a heel and marched back upstairs. i read enough of the page to see it was a set of demands. i tossed it to the side and continued my circus act. marty hung up the phone minutes before our guests arrived and when she walked them into the kitchen made some crack to the room about how i should be cooking the bacon differently. our new audience was about to get a marital show-down, and i said as much, but comically announcing the point brought enough levity to pull us out of the spousal nose-dive and we went on to have a wonderfully homey and smiley day with friends.

after stomachs were full and the general fervor ebbed, i noticed bella's note on the counter. she was now beyond her funk and running about the house with her visiting playmates. i took the moment to read her text in full.


translated:
i decided that my webkinz is being cramped in their bed so until i can play webkinz again i'm staying in my bed and i will only come out when a movie is in or to play on the computer.

p.s. if you want me to come out you'll have to let me play webkinz again.

i'm hungry.

BREAKFAST ORDER:
oatmeal
mcdonalds
waffles
toast
pancakes
daddy cereal

for mom and troy
from bella

the true source of her angst is apparent given her use of "mom and troy" in the closing. bella lost her computer privileges a few weeks back and has been fretting for the webkin horse she received for christmas. for the uninitiated (read spared), you care for your webkin pet in this online environment, routinely giving it love and food and toys. after meting out the restriction i had a premonition that when bella did again log onto the website, she'd be met by a decaying, fly-covered horse carcass with cartoony fumes coming out of its sunken abdomen. another parent told me this is not possible in that the site is quite liberal with children's oversights and the worst she'd find is a pouty and tearful version of her horse. i think this is just another example of how our society is coddling our children to unhealthy degrees and years from now when bella finds some neglected real-life-pet molding in the bottom of an aquarium she will surely express surprise if not complete shock. and when her crest-fallen face turns to me for answers i'm going to be the one that finally delivers her the truth, "you should have stuck with those bullshit webkinz."

last night i was on the tail end of reading books to alex and bella when marty rushed into the room. she went to the back window, peering out of it. after a moment she called us over to see the lunar eclipse in progress. the kids quickly scrambled out of bed joining her. marty began explaining what was occurring. bella and alex stood on the windowsill taking in the scene while marty and i looked on from behind. three-fourths of the moon was already dim.

while we waited marty and alex began a guessing-game about the people traveling on the walkway behind our house. he would call out when he saw someone approaching and we would first try to guess their gender and then their name. my guesses of cornelius and pumpernickel were met with chastising looks from bella. between pedestrians, i got some paper and sketched out for the kids what makes an eclipse an eclipse. intrigued bella started asking questions about what direction things were moving in and what other things were possible out of this (i.e. solar eclipse). marty interrupted my lesson to point out a man dancing in his third-story bedroom across the way. we all silently watched this older man gyrate and swivel to music we couldn't hear. while no one announced it, i'm sure all four of us were squintingly trying to see if he was naked. in time he paused, walked to the window, seemed to peer at us peering at him. his arm came up and he twisted his venetian blinds closed. we returned to the moon and watched the last slivers of brightness fade. when it was done it seemed anti-climactic. slowly, people drifted back to their routine spots resuming their routine acts.

for as uneventful as this unique diversion proved, i have a sense that the twenty minutes the four of us gathered around a window in a dark room to watch the earth roll between the moon and sun will hang in a framed picture in my head for much longer than one would think such a mild-mannered event should or would.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. curious

it was 12:30 at night. marty was reading in bed. her hand lazily reached to her right softly scratching my back as i drifted towards the ether. in the night silence came a wooden thump on the other side of the house. and then another. and another. they were steps. heavy, labored steps that neared our room. i opened my eyes to see the sweet tea in the mason jar on my bedside table dancing like the puddle in Jurassic Park moments before the t-rex arrived.

in our doorway appeared a sleepy isabella, pushing wild hair out of her face and rubbing her eyes. once her face was fully visible, she said ...

Mother! Go To Sleep!

she then turned and heavily-marched back to her bed. you could hear her collapse into bed two rooms away. back to silence.

the next morning alex reported having a dream where his toes got cut off with a pair of scissors. i said it was a weird night all around. i asked him who cut his toes off. he said in an exasperated voice ...

i told you already dad, my dream did.

when i was a senior in high school i blew my right knee out while playing flag football in gym. when it happened i had a sense for what occurred but my gym coach told me i simply twisted my knee and to walk it off. that's just what i did, finishing out the school day and then working a night shift schlepping yogurt on CSU's Campus West. when i woke in the morning i was unable to move my leg at all and the knee joint was the size of a grapefruit. at the time i was living alone in my parents house, my folks having already relocated to saint louis. using the cord, i pulled the phone to my bed and called the neighbor lady who was charged with helping me in the event of trouble. she was a nurse. she was attractive. and i was naked. but she came over, let herself in and with averted eyes helped get me to the hospital.

my dad flew in for the surgery which was deemed a success but my knee never worked the same again. in the fifteen years since i've had a number of minor traumas to it and have seen many doctors many times. they all did the same thing, flex my leg this way and that and tell me some rehab and muscle work would fix my woes. being the one experiencing the failing joint, i've long known this could not be the case. this last summer the debilitation reached new heights and for every hour of tennis i would play, my knee required three days of rest. so i did some research into sports medicine orthopedist in the area and found one who does work for the saint louis rams and blues. i had my appointment yesterday.

first they took several x-rays of my knee. next, two resident interns came into the room for a preliminary examination. the lead guy asked me a few questions before putting me through the paces every internist before him had. in the end he clapped his chart shut and said he was confident some rehab would do the trick. they excused themselves saying the doctor would be in momentarily. i sat up dour. my mind churned frustrated thoughts.

the door opened again. a large, handsome man walked in giving me a firm handshake, the two toadies trailing him. he asked me about ten minutes worth of questions then had me lay back. he had a bunch of extra motion-tricks in his bag and after a few minutes said, "i think i know why your having so many problems, you have a torn ACL." i looked at the resident in time to see the blood rush from his face. the doctor seeing this, turned to him and jovially asked, "you saw this right? i mean look at this thing." the pale-faced youth managed a choked, "well yeah ... i mean no ... i mean he didn't say all that stuff about the buckling." dude, why the hell do you think i'm at an orthopedic surgeon!?!? and please note the bonus eight minutes your elder took to ask the guy he's never met about a fifteen year problem. trying to put his miss on me ... arrogant prick. the doctor turned the dropped ball into a teaching moment, showing them what a failed ACL looks like. the three of them took turns manipulating my two legs. the doc was smiling. i was smiling. and why wouldn't i be, this was my first group action ever. i could have kissed that tall, nordic god square on the mouth.

to the cutting board i go, delirious with joy!

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.

the man who lives across the street from me is known in the neighborhood as gardener bob. this moniker stems from the point that he is by passion and trade a gardener. in his backyard he has multiple raised mounds of dirt housing his various plants and through the spring and summer months he is often seen walking and crouching around and among these beds. to many in the neighborhood i am known as ...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. try again

the first compelling argument i've heard against sleeping naked:

there is a man. he is sleeping naked. his three year old daughter, having stirred from her slumber, foggily walks into his room in the middle of the night. she moves to his side of the bed. to hoist herself up, she reaches up grabbing a fistful of sheet in one hand and a fistful of her father's pubic hair in the other. she pulls mightily.

most anti-nude arguments deal with the scaring or scarring of children. they lack merit. a handful, even a three year old handful, of short-hairs viciously ripped from their root is merit, big ole wail-in-the-night merit.

editorial clarification: this man was not me.

bella spent the last two weeks at a circus camp. bella has been pretty keen on circusy stuff since seeing a trapeze artist perform at a shakespeare festival a few years back (when the girl we were watching finished bella was the first to rise and exuberantly applaud). at the conclusion of this camp bella informed us that she would be conducting her own camp at home for us, her family. marty and i nodded in support saying that was a fine idea and then dismissed it. moments after getting out of bed the next morning bella came up to me, handed me a sheet of name badges and told me to get ready because class was about to begin.


bella set her school up in our living room. she placed every pillow in the house in the center of the floor. marty somehow got a pass which left me, alex and anthony as bella's only pupils. she began by running us through a series of tuck and roll drills. next bella and i worked on a move where she stands on my shoulders, her arms stretched wide in the air (we're getting pretty good at this maneuver if you ever see us and would like a viewing). next i had to work on a headstand. bella demonstrated how to start out which is this precarious upside-down tripod like pose which i can't even begin to describe. once you're in it though and have your balance you are to raise your legs vertically in the air. i couldn't believe how hard it was to straighten my legs perfectly upright without haphazardly tipping over. seeing me struggle bella came to spot me and started trying to push and hold my legs up. watching, from my inverted view, her laborious attempt to get me into position made me start laughing, much to the chagrin of my six year old spotter. she let go and i fell flat still laughing. i was chastised for not being serious and having such heavy legs. fortunately this impasse concluded our first day of tutelage.

as we wrapped up bella informed me that for our real production to the neighborhood folks a few weeks out i would have to wear appropriate attire which is a leotard. when i confessed to not having one she said i'd have to make one. when i said i didn't know how to sew she said aunt cheri did and i should get her help. since aunt cheri lives in chicago i told bella i thought i could maybe fashion one out of a t-shirt. embarrassingly, this wasn't a lie. a friend of mine told me how her ten year old son got this notion of making a wrestlers bib. to do so, while naked he put on a t-shirt and then stretched it down into his groin and clipped the front and back together with a safety-pin. he was quite proud of his creation and ran around the house playing for a bit. when it came time to take it off, he hit some trouble. he found he was unable to get a good enough handle on the safety pin to undo it. he obviously became vexed by this and went to his mother somewhat distressed. she studied the situation and concluded there was only one way to approach the predicament; roll her sleeves up and go in. i'm convinced it is these unique moments that happen behind the closed doors of people's homes that create the special bonds that make families close and forever connected. because there is little doubt that if i performed a similar service for someone we're either related or seriously dating. the only question remaining is who is the lucky soul living in my house getting tapped when papa troy needs to make tinkle in the potty between acts.

i hate the hilton.

let me back up.

last thursday morning me and mine piled into our family van and pulled away from our home's curb in the direction of fort collins, colorado for my high school's twenty year reunion. the drive from saint louis to fort collins takes between twelve and sixteen hours depending on wether you're riding with me or my father, respectively. using the band-aid removal theory, my intention was to drive straight through. after one hour of smooth sailing we watched the brakelights stack up in front of us which resulted with us sitting for one hour. this was followed by torrential rains, more traffic congestion and then more rains. the only saving grace of this seemingly cursed adventure was the children traveled amazingly well, better than i could even hope for and this without the aid of the portable dvd crutch (which very well may be the reason our kids travel so well).

so instead of arriving at 9pm, as i had intended, we arrived in the fort at 2am (MST). a classmate had offered his carriage house to us. he caveated the offer by saying it was on the tail-end of a renovation, but thought it was far enough along to house my brood. he was going to be gone when we arrived and told me where he kept a key secreted away. i had hoped i would be looking for this key in the late dusk light instead of the moon's, but as i said the trip thus far had been cursed. with everyone sleeping in contorted positions throughout the van, i momentarily sat and looked at the dark house. i got out of the car and went into the backyard. my goal was to find the key and get into the house before a neighbor reported a prowler to 911. my eyes were still adjusting to the dark when i heard a bush move. i turned to find a well-built figure clad in only a pair of shorts rapidly coming at me. as he neared, images of blairwitch entered my mind and i thought i was about to experience the final scene first-hand. he then spoke; "hey. i wish you had called first." it was my friend, and for reasons i won't get into, the lodging wasn't going to work out. i returned to the car and tentatively told marty we needed to get a room somewhere for the night. she silently nodded in understanding and i pulled out in search of some red-eye lodging. at one point during the hotel quest marty said with very succinct and frustrated tones she needed me to find a room, and like right now. there was a time in our relationship such an urgent mandate was a sign of good things to come. our relationship is sadly no longer part of that time. so i amped up my efforts.

i found a ramada for $90 a night. the room was of a nice size, had two beds, free internet, a pool, a fridge and complimentary continental breakfast. but given that we were going to be staying a week, marty wanted to get a nicer room closer to our activities. once we got settled marty went online and price-lined better accommodations. she scored a $220 a night room for $75 a night at the hilton. the next morning we packed up and headed across town for our new digs. hilton hotels are nicely appointed with lavish lobbies and clean rooms. upon checking in the first thing we noticed is that there was no fridge. marty called the front desk. they said they could deliver one at a charge of $10 per day. we needed one so requested it. never-mind that given the length of our stay, we could have purchased a new one at target for the same price and got to keep it in the end.

next i plugged in my laptop to check my mail and couldn't get a connection. i called the front desk for assistance and they said they'd send an 'engineer' up. two dowdy looking twenty-somethings arrived minutes later and i showed them what was happening. one of the two asked if i had yet payed the internet service fee. i said i had not assuming it came with the room. i assumed wrong and was told the fee was $12. i commented that that seemed steep for a week of internet given the availability of free hotspots. the technician corrected me saying the fee was per day and not per stay. i asked him to leave my room.

later that night my folks arrived to watch the kids while we attended an event. i told the children i'd get them an in-house movie for the night and queued it up. the pre-purchase warning screen advised of the $12 charge. $12 doesn't seem like a lot for r-level porn when you're away from home but it somehow felt like a burn for disney. i shrugged the imbalance off and accepted the charge. the next screen informed me $14 dollars had just been billed to my room. that is $12 plus a $2 tax and service fee which was obscurely footnoted in the previous screen.

the next morning i went down to get a coffee and bagel. i was greeted with a neon sign that said breakfast buffet $12.99. no morning coffee. no morning bagel. i stopped at the front desk to ask if i could get a microwave for my room (so i could make oatmeal). i absolutely could ... for a mere $10 a day.

i got back to my room and grabbed a bottle of water sitting on the television. just before i cracked the seal i noticed a piece of cardboard at the top that had in a bright red font, $4.00. below the price in a softer blue text were the words PLEASE ENJOY! i put the bottle back in place, went to the bathroom and scooped a handfull of water out of the toilet. before raising it to my mouth i looked behind the tank checking for a water meter with a dollar sign on it. i didn't see one but figured they could have hidden it behind the drywall. i poured the water back into the commode and then peed in the sink, afraid to use or flush the toilet given the distinct possibility of a hidden flow-meter.

now don't get me wrong about this. i'm far from uptight about spending money, especially when on vacation. in the past, i've laid out upwards of $600/night for a room on a ski mountain. i do believe you get what you pay for and am willing to appropriately compensate service providers. but i also believe one should charge what it costs to accommodate a client. if you can't shoulder basic and what i would say are reasonable requests from your guests, then you should charge more. some of these services routinely cost this business money and some do not thus making some of the added dings definitively frivolous. the net result of this treatment is that not only will i never again stay in the fort collins hilton but i will never stay in any hilton (wether they engage in such nickel and dimery or not) and i will actively evangelize against anyone else staying in them. an honest translation of such evangelism is if ever asked i will say i'm not sure where you should stay but i am certain where you should not stay. i'm told this tactic of repeated ten dollarish thumpings is a main-stay of pricier hotels. i reckon there's some battle-tested psychology that the more affluent appreciate perks when a fee is attached to them (anything someone will give you for free is not worth having you know). and conversely, sub-hundred dollar travelers expect everything inclusive, al a buffet-restaurant hell.

i for one, regardless of price, would like to engage a service and then not have to think about it again so i can focus my thoughts on my leisure or work. this hilton did nothing to improve my experience, all of their energy was spent increasing the size of my bill which on this stay they did succeed in doing but the obvious short-sightedness of their approach has forever lost my patronage and by extension anyone who cares to listen to my opinion, which record has admittedly proven is not all that many. so be it.

let me state again, in the event i have not been clear.

i hate the hilton. i'm not a huge paris fan for that matter either.

i'm not a great outdoorsman. on my first ever camp outing my family went to yellowstone with some relatives from back east. my uncle had one of those boxy pop up campers. my folks and i slept in one of the two beds which hung suspended on either side of the camper. in the night i rolled against the canvas wall at the end of the bed, the snaps came undone and i fell out and onto the ground, never w...

residing in saint louis in the summer months is comparable to living inside a combustion engine doing 120mph on the autobahn. and if you weren't bred and born in the region, your body is simply not equipped to gracefully handle the climate. i sweat so much here it's unfair to even call it sweating because a distinct property of sweating is that it is intermittent. when your body constantly exudes fluids it is really more an act of leaking, which is what i call what i do in saint louis, leak. as for the leak-season, it starts in mid-june and ends in late-september. the native residents don't really get why outsiders leak so, in part because they themselves never leave the city (for reasons i don't yet understand) so they don't realize there are environments in this nation and on this planet that have less than ninety percent humidity.

recently i was working with a colleague in my office. when we were done talking i left and biked home for lunch. the moment i walked in the door marty reminded me of something i forgot. so i jumped back on the bike and made the five minute trek back to my office, ran upstairs and logged onto my computer to get what i needed. after a moment the same colleague i was working with earlier walked back into my office to ask me a question. she paused at my desk staring at me oddly. i, in a distracted state, asked what she needed. she posed her question and i answered it. i noticed she remained standing there and i turned to find her staring at me wordlessly. when she realized i was looking back at her she lowered her gaze, turned and left.

dismissing her oddness, i resumed my own work. i felt a drop of sweat roll down my temple. i swiped it with the sleeve of my shirt. in doing so i realized that the material of my oxford was completely soaked through, like see-through soaked through. as i flitted the shirt around trying to cool off and air out it occurred to me that this woman was probably seriously perplexed that she was in my office moments earlier and i was fine and when she returned twenty minutes later i was drenched in sweat. she of course didn't realize that i made not one but two half mile sprints on my bike in the 94 degree, mid-day swelter. and because she didn't know this i now work with a woman who secretly fears the leader of her project team is free-basing heroin behind the closed door of his office.

what she's forgetting is that missouri is the nation's leading producer of crystal meth, not heroin.

thursday began wonderfully. the night before i launched the new and improved everyman making it to bed at a respectable 2:30am. in the morning, i woke up after marty's first nudge, showered and ate breakfast before anyone else had risen. i got bella awake with a negligible amount of effort, dressed her and had her sitting at the breakfast bar with time to spare. while she ate corn-pops and my vietnamese coffees brewed, i serenaded her with my very own version of tori amos' cornflake girl which began "bella was a corn-pop girl" to which she immediately stopped me and told me not to call her 'girl'. i improvised with "bella was a corn-pop kid." this was also shot down. as was child, lady, woman and scamp. i then ushered her to school came back grabbed my bag and after receiving a hearty push out the door from alex was on my way.

when i stepped off the curb into the alley behind my house i twisted my ankle. and by twisted i mean horrifically buckled it so far that the little bump on the outside of my ankle touched the cement. i might have said a couple of swears, like a really long and creative collection of them. there was an older chinese couple walking by when it happened and the guy laughed, like a for real belly-chortle. i gave him the benefit and assumed he was admiring my robust use of language. the pain was excruciating. i collected myself and tested the foot. even though my walking commute is under a half a mile i didn't think i'd make it. i hobbled back inside and collapsed on the foyer bench. marty came down to check on me. i felt like one of the kids sitting atop the bathroom radiator waiting for a spiderman bandaid. being the receiver of such tender focus was a nice change. in the end marty put a compression wrap on the foot and i was back out the door.

work went well. upon returning home i found marty in the kitchen. i asked how her day went. she stopped, leaned a hip on the counter and succinctly described it as 'pretty terrible'. she slipped coming down the stairs and jacked up her ankle (i know, kinda funny in a coincidental way). anthony was sick. bella had to be picked up early from school because of allergies. and alex was testing her at every bend and currently serving a really long time-out. i kissed her on the back of the neck and said i was sorry her day was not better and that i'd go wrangle children so she could have some time.

i went upstairs. the first child i found was alex in the bathroom. he was using the sink and when i looked around the corner saw that he was rotating a bar of soap between his lathered hands. i stepped behind him and told him he had enough soap. he put the bar down and i grabbed one of his hands between mine and started washing it. something about it felt wrong but i couldn't make it out. i lifted my hands to look at them. they were shiny. as i studied them he stepped back to face me holding his arms up towards me. coating his hands, his arms, some of his face and much of his shirt was a generous layer of Vaseline. i looked at my hands again. he had infected me too.

Vaseline has been my nemesis since childhood. you might know it as petroleum jelly which is possibly the worst name for anything meant for non-prescription use. bella for many years pronounced it as scasolene. i'm also pretty sure it is the goo they put on thermometers before sticking them into people's rectums in the hospital, which is also pretty much all i need to know about a product. i immediately turn the water on and the second my hand gripped the faucet i felt the murky grease bleed through my clenched fingers. double-duped. there was enough bottom-grease on that handle for 68 thermometers, so much in fact the silver knob had completely lost its shape. i pulled my hand back and stared at it again. i then looked at the source of this mess and he innocently held his arms straighter and with a shrug of his bony shoulders said, 'it won't come off'. at the conclusion of this matter-of-fact statement, i heard a thumb kill a running stopwatch in my head. marty's parental calvary made it exactly 89 seconds before being cast onto the heap of fallen care-givers.

i really need a sure wind to come and blow this dark cloud away from my home.

i'm a popcorn snob. i use redenbacher, maybe newmans, but always someone who is passionate and gifted at the craft. i make it over a flame, such as a gas stove-top or open fire. i always use the same pot. i always use real butter. and i always make a tasty bowl of corn. and i do it a lot. marty knows all this. i shared it early in our dating relationship right after my positions on religion and children. given the reveal, by marrying me marty accepted this character trait. this is why our marriage works. she deals with my three flaws and i accept her sixty-four.

the other day while passing through the kitchen i caught marty, fresh back from the grocery, pouring a bag (a clear-plastic bag like we were simple heathens living in the forest) from some no-name maker of popcorn through a funnel and into an empty redenbacher container. i stopped and eyed the woman. she looked like alex when i found him unwinding a full roll of toilet paper into the commode. words weren't necessary but she said some just the same.

MARTY
i bet you wouldn't have even noticed.

TROY
don't test me marta. not you. not you of all people.

i don't want to call it a divorcable offense but it just may be the closest we've ever come to seeing one.

bella has this funny habit when she finishes a roll of toilet paper she takes the cardboard tube off the holder and drops it into the bathtub. seems minor but when i shower in the morning i just reach in past the curtain and turn on the hot water to let it warm up. then moments later when i step in, i see this water-logged spool soaking in the middle of the tub. from this i've come to learn i don't like touching wet cardboard (probably the most predictable thing i've ever learned about myself) which means i leave it there for someone else, which in our house can also be pronounced 'marty', to deal with later in the day/week.

i asked bella why she threw the roll in the tub and not in the waste basket. she shrugged her shoulders and said 'no reason'. i asked her if she would stop doing this and she unaffectedly said 'sure'. a week or two would go by sans shower surprise when one morning there it is, again rolling around against the spray of the shower jets. after thinking on it some, it occurred to me that i just assumed bella was the one doing it and that i've never actually seen her make the maneuver. this may explain why they keep showing up. with my luck marty is the one doing it in protest of our decade-long battle over wether the toilet paper should come out from the top or bottom of the hanging roll. she and i have persevered through children, financial crises and other significant life changes yet an agreement on how to hang the toilet paper in our home's only bathroom eludes us. looking at this in print, i'm seeing how petty the matter is, but what are you going to do when you're married to someone as stubborn and convicted as marty. i will confess though, if she is behind this secret and this is her tactic of choice in settling our feud, she just may come out on top this time.

it was saturday night and walt and i were in sears ready to buy consumer reports number one rated vacuum. while we waited for a salesperson, i walked the aisles. the models all looked embarrassingly similar, save one which caught my eye. i took it off the shelf and began pretend vacuuming. marty told me to stop screwing around.

now waiting by marty's side, i asked her which one we were b...

as i cut the the french toast into kid-sized pieces i was planning my defense. you see, i've been watching this sorry slice of toast bounce around, unwrapped, in the freezer for almost a week now. several times i found it lazing about in the ice tray to which i'd pinch a hardened corner and wing it to the opposite end of the shelf. other times i'd find it sitting on top of the bryer's real-vanilla-bean vanilla ice-cream and would send it elsewhere with a flick of my finger.

as i poured syrup over the now bite-size squares, i thought how just six days ago this texas-thick slice was piping hot on the sunday-morning skillet, a butter-pat dissolving on it's face. it could again melt butter thanks to a forty second trip through the microwave. bella had resurrected it, saying it was the one and only thing she wanted for breakfast.

i was certain that when the first bite touched bella's tongue she would animatedly eject it from her mouth, sending it well beyond her plate. she'd yell an exclamation you only ever see spelled-out in the sunday funny pages (and followed by numerous exclamation points). i was sure all of this was moments away, which is why i'd been preparing myself to handle it in a way other than barking, "i told you it would taste like shit, but noooooh, you just had to have desiccated cardboard for breakfast and now you're going to eat it!" but she didn't spit it out and she didn't scream AAARRRGGGGHHH!!!! instead she thoughtfully chewed and swallowed the cudgel, smacked her lips and proclaimed it to be the BEST piece of french toast she's ever had. i leaned against the door-jam with my head lowered and rubbing my temples as i sometimes do in the pre-coffee hours. in my mind i pictured the paternity-test billboard out by the airport and wondered if five-years in is too late to know. my rumination was interrupted by alex, who pointed across the table and said he wanted what she was having. i matter-of-factly explained that it was the last piece and i didn't have one to offer him. he was audibly non-plussed over this truth.

it appears i was preparing the wrong defense on this morning.

over the weekend, marty had to make a morning run to the grocery store. when this happens, my sleeping body will get nudged and told she is leaving and i'm on. i blearily sit up and look for the clothes that got dropped next to bed the night before. once she sees i'm staying upright, she leaves.

i immediately move to the bathroom, urinate, brush my teeth and walk out. bella, like an appar...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. free pizza

at a housewarming party last weekend, a fellow adoptee pulled me to the side to talk about an opportunity he was presented with to find his biological parents, the mother at least. he asked what i felt about the practice of adopted children finding their birth parents.

i told him about a guy i met through work several years earlier. this fellow was about my age, well educated and impressively accomplished in his field. i liked him quite a bit and would lunch with him when he was in town. on one of these outings he told me about his search for his birth mother. after revealing the mechanics of the quest, he went quiet and stared off for a long moment. i asked him if he ever found her and he said he had. i asked him if he got to meet her and he said he had. i asked him what it was like and while still looking away he sedately said 'you can never take it back'.

here's the deal, in youth adopted children assimilate what it means to be adopted (obviously, i'm talking about children who know they're adopted). part of this process inevitably has them create some mental representation of a biological parent. in my fanciful vision, my birth mother was young, empathetic, kind and the victim of dumb luck. my introspective lunch date had far more grandiose notions regarding his lineage. he had a quick mind, athletic physique, winsome charm, basically a lot of positive and innate qualities were handed to him and he, quite logically, transferred larger versions of these inherited traits onto his mind's version of his parents. when he finally came to meet his birth mother he learned she was a truck stop waitress, living in a broken-down trailer, dealing with numerous health issues and had him after a short-term, abusive fling with a guy who didn't shower a lot. many decorative vases lining glass shelves in his mind toppled on this day. and as he continues to reflect on what he has come to learn and compares it to what he long believed, as he appeared to be doing even while simply talking to me about it, these fancy pieces of brain-crystal continue to unsteadily wobble.

after telling this story to the house-warming guy, i watched him as he considered my friend's journey. during these seconds, i recalled that this same house-warming guy came to me years earlier about wether or not he should circumcise the son he was about to have. let's just say i think a certain head-hunter is about to be asked to name and locate the uterus my contemplative friend once slid out of. oh well, this is just another reason it's fortunate i like the sound of my own voice.

bella clips her own fingernails. toenails too. has been for well over a year now. she's quite adept at contorting her hands and feet in all sorts of crazed poses to get just the right cut. the thing i love most though is how meticulous she is about cleaning up. as clippings drop she plucks them from her thigh or shirt and adds them to a small pile of prior victims. and, if a shard jettisons through the air she tracks it with eagle-like awareness and then retrieves it, even getting up to recover the runaway if necessary.

another thing about bella is she's an improver. she often devises methods for doing things faster, smarter. at some point bella deduced that instead of handling every nail piece individually, it would be quicker to hold her foot or hand over some sort of container. this way, the debris, aside from the occasional shooter, would fall right in thus saving her a step. while you would think we could all celebrate such a handsome improvement i was quick to identify a slight flaw in her process. her receptacle of choice is my work shoe.

now it's not that bella is inconsiderate. when done, she carefully picks up the wingtip and empties it into a nearby trash can. after the initial pour, she'll peer into the dark recess of the shoe with squinty eyes. if she detects any hangers on she'll give it another tip and shake, possibly even clanging it against the side of the bin. when satisfied, she returns the shoe to it's home beneath my dresser.

this leads to a second issue in bella's workflow. if she's in the middle of her grooming and neighbor-molly sticks her head in our door calling for her, the clippers get immediately dropped and the shoe left in place as bella hurriedly scrambles down the staircase excitedly calling "coming molly. i'm coming." then at some later point in the day marty will walk by, see the shoe in the hallway, pick it up, quietly curse me and haphazardly toss the footwear in the direction of my dresser.

the next morning i will slide my socked and unaware foot into the loafer moments before dashing down the stairs to usher the younglings to school and then myself to work. i may notice something straight away but in the a.m. fervor don't take enough heed to do anything beyond wiggle my toes or shift my foot around. it isn't until hours later when i'm sitting in my office discussing some mundane matter with a colleague that it again occurs to me something is amiss. it is here that i roll my chair back, remove the shoe and tip it over. as i watch the translucent pieces of human waste tumble through the air before disappearing into the dull-colored carpet my mind screams "noooohhh!" i turn to look at the face of my alarmed co-worker. it is clear they feel are too near someone with an exotic disease that makes their toenails brittle and crumbly. and my condition appears so dire i can't even wait until i get home to attend to my illness privately and on top of all of this, am inconsiderate enough to just cast my withered body pieces all willy-nilly about the workplace.

have i mentioned that bella will also on occasion trim her own hair. that particular habit has 'night in jail' written all over it.