alex has expanded his most most used phrases (previously why and no). i present, in order of frequency ...

• i no want to go home
• i no want to go to bed
• della ... della ... where are you della?

and on that last one it is great to see bella pop her head from around a corner and yell "i'm over here alex" with a big and sunny wave of her arm. alex then head-down runs with full swinging arms to join his big and super-fly sister.

granted, five minutes after that warming scene alex returns using using a phrase which is unfortunately climbing the ranks ...

• della hit me daddy

on the positive side, it's cheaper than speech therapy.

we went camping again last weekend. this makes twice in one month. quite unprecedented. i think part of the reason for this landmark can be explained through marty's last birthday present; an 8-person tent.

i know, i know. there's only four of us in our family, and two of them are tiny. what you're not accounting for in the equation though is what i call the marty-factor. the marty-factor stipulates that when evaluating your space requirements (1 + 1 + .5 + .5) you take the total number of full grown, or equivalent-sized humans, double it and then add one. this is the only way you can guarantee that the matriarch of our family will get a full and good night's rest. when sassafras shows up, we may need to upgrade. so any family, mormon or otherwise, needing space for eight, look for us on ebay come next spring.

and, much to marty's distaste, i always contend that insomniacs are simply victims of too much sleep to begin with.

remember what you did when you were in school and you were too tired and/or lazy to do your own work? you stole it from someone else. you know the difference between being in school and being a mature adult? you actually give credit to who you stole from, in this case my friend bookguy.

and it's really not that i'm mature now, it's just that i'm also too lazy and tired to even steal right.

bookguy calls it noun-challenged. to be noun-challenged is to be someone who can't remember people's proper names. between he and i, it's unclear who is more severely afflicted. as per usual, he would claim the title and i would claim he is wrong. either way, it is a fierce race.

as evidence to my condition allow me to turn to my proclivity for nicknames. i give people such monikers for three reasons; (1) to insulate them from embarrassing things i may say about them online, (2) because i can't remember their name at all, or (3) because i can't remember the version of their name (mike, michael, mikey, m-bag) they prefer or more importantly, they greatly dislike. and on that last item, i've argued many a time that mike, michael, mikey and m-bag are entirely synonymous and should be freely interchangeable.

to recap, some of the past characters, several of which you've heard of countless times ...

• bookguy
• bookpimp
• e-love
• man who screams like woman
• doctor j
• the way with words girl
• chavez
• smart ryan
• buddy james
• thin when tan girl
• the why the hell wouldn't ya guy
• the doctor of diss
• guy with mussed hair
• and of course, girl who dates guy with mussed hair

here's a few i've never shared online and use mostly when talking with walt (or rather marty) ...

THE FAKE MOMS
a group of highly augmented ladies who hang out at our pool.

NEWSPAPER DAD
a guy who sits at the park with his four young children reading the ny times and shooing his kids away anytime they near him.

HOLD MY BABY
actually bookguy-coined this gem but it is a fast staple in our home and i'm not really in a position to speak to its origin.

SMILING LADY
i see this lady all over the place and she makes the joker look morose.

BAD, DRUNK MOM
she's not just bad and she's not just drunk, she's both and therefore gets the double-bill.

YELLING MOM
the yelling mom scares me and is not too surprisingly married to ...

THE QUIET GUY
i got ten bucks that says this fella comes out soon.

i used a public restroom yesterday. there was one other person in there. i was going number one. he was going number two. he was also talking on a cell phone while going number two. as i attended to my matter, i listened to his end of the call (like i have a choice). i tried to discern if it was a professional call or his wife asking him to pick up a ham steak on the way home. it seemed like more than ham steak. i finished my duty and let my hand rest on the flush handle until i was sure the guy on the other end of the phone was in the middle of speaking. i didn't want to compete for microphone time with the squatter. and then with balletic-precision i dropped the hammer lighting up the small-tiled room with a reverberating rush. at the sound of the commercial-grade explosion, duece-man immediately interrupted the speaker trying to mask/overwhelm/hide the jet-powered urinal. such a force of nature is not so easily quelled though.

it was never a question of wether i would do it or not. it was just a question of how calculated i would be in doing it. well that and how much satisfaction i'd derive by acting like an eight-grader who just intentionally clogged the school's commode. let's just say my already spry step had a little extra attitude as i exited said bathroom.

it's been more than ten years since i've had better hardware at work than at home. since i invested heavily in apple some five years ago, many who see my home workspace, which is cozily nestled into a french-doored closet, remark at what a neat set-up it is. i humbly agree.

there are few people who walk into my new work office and see the equipment on my desk without gasping "HOLY DAMN!". the only other office you hear such reverent exclamations out of belongs to my boss. i hope to share photos of my new saliva-inducing work digs but i still have a couple upgrades en route and want to hold off until i can flash you with the full monty.

and before you get too down on me for bragging so, also know that i've worked until 5am more nights in the last month than i have in the last five years. and no, it's simply not because the hardware is so sexy. i'm too old for those sorts of juvenile affairs.

marty recently suggested, seriously, that we replace our current furniture with outdoor/patio chairs and tables because she doesn't see the point in replacing our home's kid-broken furnishings with nice stuff just so it can be trashed like the originals.

i upgraded her thought by suggesting indoor tire swings and felled tree trunks like they use in the great apes display at the zoo. i mean why sugar-coat the problem we are combatting.

last night after brushing teeth and knocking the larger, more visible pieces of earth off the children we walked into their bedroom for pajamas and books. it was at this point we learned that earlier in the day bella had given one of her stuffed tabby cats an impressively thorough haircut. fine black and white synthetic hair coated the sheets of her and alex's bed as well as many other nooks and crannies of the room (damn the oscillating fan). and for added effect, perfectly centered in the room lay the large pair of orange-handled scissors used to commit the malfeasance. truth told, upon first impression, it looked like something pretty wicked happened in this corner of the house and i was somewhat relieved that the only victim was not only inanimate but also not one of my belongings.

as punishment we made bella vacuum the mess up. not only did she prove quite skilled at the cleaning, she enjoyed the act immensely all but asking if there was more she could do elsewhere in the home before going to bed.

i once read that the key to effective discipline is always knowing your child's currency, the one thing they covet above all else. i fear that bella may have read the same article because she's pretty keen at hiding hers from me. there's few things less sucky than handing out what you think is going to be a loathsome task only to have the recipient bouncily say, "ok. i'll get the vacuum' as if it's the high-point of their day.

the family went camping this last weekend. one of the mornings i passed another fella in our party and commented on how impressed i was that he'd already showered. he said he hadn't and asked what made me think he had. my eyes drifted to his hair in that it looked wet and shiny. he noticed my gaze and ran his hand through it telling me that it was just oily and he needed to go wash it.

sorry dude. my bad.

this mis-speak seemed to make its way back to the camp because later his wife engaged me:

HER
so troy, how long does it take for your hair to look un-showered?

ME
as long as it takes for mcdonalds fries to start looking as if they're rotting.

HER
and, how long is that?

ME
i don't know, they're still watching them.

alex has two toys of choice at the moment. one of them is a six foot inflatable alligator and the other is a three-inch high space-cowboy he calls 'cool guy'.

let's begin with the object that inflicts the most physical pain upon me, the life-sized gator. to date i've walked my groin into its upright tail four times. sure you'd think something this large would be easy to spot but it's a sn...

i have a friend who hides his porn on video tapes labeled MATH COUNTS. his theory: nobody likes math enough to pop in a video dedicated to the subject and if they do, they could use a good dose of porn so either way, it's all good.

i have another friend who hides his porn related materials in a box labeled SHITTY HE-MAN TOYS. his theory, in his words, "who the hell wants to look at a bunch of shitty he-man stuff?"

i am so rich in friends.

a local radio station in town has been advertising, incessantly, a contest where first prize is two vip passes to something called 'the party-deck'. i don't know what or where this structure of joviality is but after extensive consideration have concluded it's the last place i'd ever want to be.

you know those small decals some people, usually high school or college-age women, put on their bodies while tanning? it often seems to be spring-break related and of a playboy bunny or rose or pot leaf. i currently have one of those, although it is not of a rabbit or prom-flower or infamous herb. it is the perfect profile of a three year old child in fetal position, sucking his thumb.

yes, my pale and hairless torso is emblazoned with this life-sized outline because my youngest child took a four-hour nap on my chest while i took a two-hour nap on a lounge chair while at the pool. i woke up slightly before him to find myself awash in sweat from his head, drool from his slightly open mouth and urine from his seemingly pointless swim diaper. while there are many tragic points to this gaffe, the most damning seems to be that this not-modest collection of body fluids acted as an accelerant to my tan which succinctly outlined his curled up frame on my concave chest and soft belly.

in the days since, i've studied this skin-art in the mirror after my morning shower. i contemplate the significance of the young women's choice of symbology comparing it to the message my branding will send to onlookers at my next visit to the pool. i'm going to go out on a limb and say my mark doesn't scream 'spontaneous hook-up' like a frisky feline on my inner thigh, also hairless, might. damn the luck of it all.