it started with a post-dinner, pre-bath diaper change. of the number two variety. in some regards this (pre-bath) is the ideal time to change a diaper, but in others (post-dinner) it is the absolute worst.

i stomached my way through the turgid mess just like you'd expect from an involved father of three. i tossed the diaper in the bin, stood anthony up and pointed him to the bathroom and his running shower. but instead of turning left as he should of, his naked buttocks turned right, went into my room and slammed the door. it seems he was interested in an impromptu round of hide and seek. i checked the water in the bathroom and then went to my bedroom door. just as i started pushing it open i heard his tiny voice excitedly call out "poopf! poopf!" as i've discussed previously, poopf means one of two things; book or poop. i cautiously swung the door open hoping anthony would be holding a raised book to me. no book.

the good news is that human feces is essentially the same color as natural-stained oak wood flooring. but this is one of those rare situations where the bad news is the same as the good news. wooden floors in old homes are chock-full of seams and crevices and cracks. while the residual cudgel blended nicely with the floor's color as i scooped up what i could, i knew there would be a later price.

after picking the freshly-fallen toddler-fudge off the floor i agitatedly picked anthony up by the armpits and carried him to the bathroom holding him out in front of me like he might shoot a fecal dart at my chest. i stood him in the pedestal sink and told him to hold still. i pulled a fresh wipe out, wrapped it around my fingers and turned him so i could clean up the fun that remained before placing him in the tub. i learned something about the human buttocks in the next ten seconds. when someone is standing their butt cheeks are much more firmly clamped together than when they are laid out flat. so much so that if you try to run a delicate towlette through the small crease it will tear and rip leaving the end-user unprotected. thus, when my fingers re-emerged from that hidden crevasse, that is exactly what i saw, my fingers and not the thin, cloth material i had covering my fingers. i never knew this detail about the human body before. and i'd like to say the world was a less scary place when that was the case.

while neighborhood kids were rampaging about the sidewalks last weekend, a lady from a few doors down pulled me to the side to tell me that her son and daughter (both of which are good friends of bella and alex) had a conversation at their dinner table about how long alex's penis is. after apologizing for the topic, i explained that this misperception is nothing more than an illusion of length given alex's healthy and present foreskin.

as for why alex's best friend knows what his penis looks like, it seems they have come to that brief age where showing your penis to a friend is good fun. as for why the girl knows i'm not too sure in that neither of the boys seem to yet be at that not-so-brief age where they enjoy showing their penises to girls instead of boys (should that be the side of the fence they happen to fall on).

and, after recently catching alex with his hand in the cookie jar, marty asked him if he was ok, in that wonderful 'i'm not judging you' tone only moms seem good at. he said he was fine. marty added that the way he was rooting around in his pants she was afraid he may have lost his penis and we'd have to get him a new one. he assured her he hadn't lost it but added that if he does he wants one that looks like his friend's. i don't know that a higher compliment from one pal to another pal exists.

i want you to push down through your heel and squeeze your thigh. then flex your right butt muscle. as you lift the tenseness should begin in your calf, move through your thigh and then to your lower buttock. you want to pinch and hold that muscle for about five seconds, lower down slowly and then do it again.

these are the sort of instructions i get at rehab. at the end of such an outpouring i just stand, staring blankly at the woman. i want to ask her if all her counseling will be in portuguese. first off, i've never before contemplated the laws of my body's motion. historically, i just look where i want to go and my body goes there. easy-cheesy. secondly, i'm entirely unable to ambulate and think of that many things at the same time. the dopa-dopa-doh soundtrack they routinely play inside homer simpson's mind is not a farce. men wrote that. they know. and lastly, even though i have a wonderfully (to some) bulbous and fleshy ass, there doesn't seem to be any functional muscles in there. the woman told my to tighten my right cheek. i tried and couldn't and told her as much. she responded by repeating the instruction this time placing her hand on the upper part of my backside to feel for herself. i tried again and she, like me, felt nothing. she looked at me and told me to try it. i said i just did. she told me to do it again. i did it again. nothing. frustrated and perplexed she tells me i'll have to work on that. as far as i can tell there's nothing to work on. i have no ass muscles, just juicy, delicious rumpmeat that make it impossible for me to wear anything made by levis. i tried explaining that such beauty rarely coincides with functional use. you get one or the other but not both. at this point she turned from me and scribbled something in my chart. i didn't see what it was but i'm thinking it wasn't a notation of her agreement.

but how cool would it be if that is what she wrote down.

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!

when i stepped out of the shower i heard marty and the kids leaving for school. in the mornings i either take bella and alex to school myself or give hugs and kisses to them as they leave for the day. today i was wet and in a towel when i heard the front door slam. i ran to an upstairs window, opened it and shouted goodbye as they walked towards the car. alex returned the sentiment and bella turned paused and then shouted, loudly, "will you please shut the window! i can see your big, fat nipples!"

i can say with the full confidence that my nipples are neither big or fat. i just don't know how to say it with confidence to the neighbors who surely heard bella bark the information through the quiet morning street.

guy A recently told guy B about how his wife was having twins. guy B excitedly asked when they were expected and guy A said two weeks from friday. guy B, shocked, said he just saw guy A's wife and she didn't look pregnant. this is when guy A said, not those kinds of twins, did a head-nodding wink and with his hands made the universal sign for heaving, cleaving bosoms. guy B said 'ooooohhhhh!, THOSE kinds of twins.'

i've decided the next time i see guy A i'm going to say i heard about their procedure and congratulate him on pulling off this spousal boon to fix what they must have collectively felt was a shortcoming in their relationship. as he beams with pride and before he can reply, i'm then going to ask if it hurt when he got the penis enlargement and however did his wife convince him to go to such drastic measures for something entirely out of his control.

guy A never liked me much to begin with.

i've been waffling on whether or not to address a question i get every six months or so. it deals with what most refer to as my bifurcated chest.

to a newcomer, it appears my nipple lives below my pectoral muscle. those posing this question admit they find the nipple's placement odd. i'm not squeamish about fielding such queries because it is akin to asking jeffrey dahmer if he knows he doesn't fit in well at dinner parties. and to address this and many other questions asked or even thought, let me put it all on the table for you to digest and come to terms with.

i have ...
the hair of a 70's era diana ross,
the face of many people,
the upper body of E.T.,
an ass more voluminous (and voluptuous) than jennifer lopez,
the thighs of larry csonka,
the calves of stephen hawking,
and the feet of one fred flintstone.

all of this and i still found some girl to walk down the aisle with me.

granted her navel resides about two and a half inches above her pubic bone.

and to answer your next question, yes, we are selling tickets but sadly you can't afford one.