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...

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. a pack of lies

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.

troy-tistic (noun)
a number with no scientific value or qualified source used by troy in debates to support his arguments.

e-love was 37% justified in coining this term about my style of argumentation during last summer's beach trip.

a note about yesterday's photo. yes, bella is sitting in a dresser-drawer. she pulled it from the dresser on the very left of the frame about six months ago. after removing the drawer she stacked the clothes that were in it back into the newly created void. she then lined the drawer with a blanket and pilfered a pillow from the tv room to use as a backrest. she calls it her reading box and she uses it everyday, sometimes for hours a day. she's less than a month out of kindergarten and reading series based chapter-books. and she has a cooler reading room than me.

when i'm on my game and living life according to troy, saturday mornings begin with a 35-mile bike ride through some of the most finely paved and tree-lined streets my city has to offer. between the newish job and even newer baby life according to troy has gotten slightly manipulated and disfigured. until now.

the renovation began with a doctor's visit late last year. specifically when my physician walked into the exam room, his eyes focused on the chart he was leafing through.

DOCTOR
so mr dearmitt. if my math is right it says here that you've gained seventeen pounds since i last saw you (more leafing) fourteen months ago. this can't be right can it?

TROY
yeah, i'd suggest a new scale.

DOCTOR
so what's going on with you? where's this weight coming from?

TROY
would you believe it's muscle-mass?

for the first time his eyes leave the chart to look me up and down. he then resumed reading the chart saying, "No, I wouldn't". that is where my recovery began. six months later, i'm back down a belt-loop and am comfortably slipping into my nine-article wardrobe. the best of all news is through spinning three times a week i finally felt my conditioning was back to a point where i could resume my saturday treks. on the first morning i suited up to leave, alex upon seeing me said he wanted to come. i explained that this ride was too long for him to pedal himself. he quickly, desperately almost, said he could ride in the bike carrier. i explained that i would be gone for several hours and he would get bored. he quickly said he would not get bored, promised even, and could he please, please, please ride in the rickshaw carrier. ten minutes later, i'm hooking the carrier to my bike (this child is dangerously cute). while doing so, i speculate, with occupant, it is about the performance equivalent of dragging a roped cinder block behind me. and i get this fifty pound break on my first return to the road.

i gotta say alex was a champ. while we didn't make it the full thirty-five we did do thirty and it wasn't him but me that made the choice to head home. the added weight and extra pee-in-the-bushes stops bumped the usual two-hour ride to a whopping three and half hour event, but it was wonderful. truly. every comment and expression alex made was one of enjoyment and appreciation. he even took about a thirty minute nap towards the end.

the one and only possible downside to the morning was i started getting the sense that some of the people seeing us were quietly cursing my parental selfishness, saying ...

look at that man! making his child ride in that uncomfortable bike contraption just so he can go out and ride his fancy bicycle. big important man and his big important exercise. the nerve of some people.

in response to these folks (or this neurosis) i've already affixed a sign to the back of the carrier. it reads simply: he asked to come.

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i stay up quite late. i do this most nights, going to bed between one and three in the morning. it is in these wee hours i get all sorts of stuff done; writing for this site, other web work, my macrame and latch-hook pieces, reading, etc, etc and etc. when people learn about my nocturnal routine, some try to convert me to being a morning guy (what they inevitably are). they argue that sleeping first allows you to approach things with a rested and crisp mind. to that i say it's obvious they've never seen me first thing in the morning. this also raises the point that i don't think this is something you choose, it is simply something your are or are not. i've always been this way and would wager they have always leaned their way.

secondly i would say that the greatest perk of working through the night hours is that you get to stop playing when you're ready or physically required to (the chiming noise a depressed key ultimately makes when your face is flat against a keyboard was designed specifically for me). in the morning your production is stalled not because you are necessarily done but because you have to take the kids to school or yourself to work. for me there isn't anything restful about racing to beat an early-morning clock (because the clock always wins). and i can't think of a suckier way to start each day than loosing to that never-ceasing ticking sound each and every morning. how demoralizing.

so put that in your morning cup of joe, joe.

the five rules of a marshall dunn tennis clinic:

1. always cock and ready your arm before swinging.
2. never take your eye off the ball.
3. always follow through on your swing.
4. never change a winning game.
5. always change a losing game.

oh, and whenever dispensing this advice he adds that all rules also apply to life itself.

when it comes to my children i have two speeds. they are:

oh my gawd, isn't this soooo much fun!
... and ...
oh my gawd, what just happened!

i believe there are some grey moments in-between but am pretty sure all the children or i will ever recall are the moments in these two extremes.

yesterday morning, marty woke me to say she was making an early morning run to the store. the next thing i discerned was the slam of the front door which officially woke alex and consequently brought him to my bed which officially woke anthony (who was sleeping by my side) which officially woke troy. now that i was up, officially, and had two wiggly, giggly kids playing about me, i decided to begin my day and head to the shower. i put anthony on the floor, raised the gate in front of the stairs and told alex to come get me if there was a problem. once in the shower i assumed my usual position leaning in the corner of the stall to begin my twelve-minute pre-wash soak. after just a few minutes i heard a spectacularly loud crash followed by anthony crying. i killed the water, threw the curtain aside and shouted "oh my gawd, what just happened!" and bolted wet and towel-free toward the disturbance.

as soon as my foot hit the wood floor outside the bathroom it slid like a freshly sharpened ice skate. my body made an instinctual attempt to stay upright but lost and i continued falling backwards. the next to hit was my right butt cheek which when upon the wood slid like a freshly sharpened ice skate. in that i was still falling backwards my shoulder blade was the next to make contact and, yes you guessed it, it also slid like a freshly sharpened ice skate. i slammed into the wall that ended this short stretch of hallway to our bathroom. my legs were in the air and my fleshy bottom took the brunt of the impact against the baseboard. i looked to my left. alex was sitting on the floor sucking his thumb right next to where i stopped. he turned and looked at me expressionlessly.

what just happened alex!?!?

you fell down.

no. not to me, what happened to anthony? why is he crying?

i don't know. why you fall down?

because the floor is wet.

why the floor wet?

well, the floor isn't wet. i'm wet.

then why you say the floor is wet?

where's your brother?

(he wordlessly points into my room at anthony who is now not crying).

(i lay my wet head down on the floor, stare up at the ceiling and take a deep breath)

dad.

yes alex.

i can see your penis.

just think, all this fun and i'm just seven minutes into another day with children. in re-reading this account i see there's good reason we only remember the harshest sides of our lives. i mean it's admittedly not all that often you get to carry on a relatively calm conversation with a wet, naked adult sprawled awkwardly on the floor ... without paying for it in advance at least.

someone recently asked me what kind of music i'm into. like most i usually say "oh i don't know. all kinds i guess." i decided i was tired of this uninspired answer so i actually spent ten minutes thinking on it in that deserted island kind of way. my conclusion: i like a cappella and acoustic versions of music. i can track the a cappella back to my friend e-love who was the first to seriously introduce me to the genre and the acoustic roots probably connect to my father who for a time was a professional bluegrass musician and for as far back as i can remember our house was perpetually alive with the vibrant and natural sounds of his practicing and the ever-happening "pickin' parties" (although i admittedly didn't have a positive sentiment about it back in the day).

in example, below is a song i've been very much enjoying as of late. i knew a couple of the fellas in this university of rochester group and picked up a few of their albums as result. the simplicity and purity of this song in particular puts me in a smoother place without fail. as for the subject matter itself, i don't think i currently know anyone with green eyes (remember, i'm a calf man) but my third kid is somehow becoming blonder than a bleached eminem so that might count for something. and, as a last embarrassing testament to how tone-deaf and music-illiterate i am, i for sure listened to this song 50 times before it dawned on me that it was my friend who was the soloist. so, so sad. enjoy and if you like it, there's a lot of great stuff on their albums.

Green Eyes 3.6 mb performed by : u of rochester's midnight ramblers (site) original artist : coldplay

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. now?

some guys like butts. some like hair. others are into eyes. i myself am a calf man. baby anthony, well, he's a bit of a nostril lover. not the nose. not the bridge. not the cute and curled upper lips that attach to the nose. the nostril itself, from the rim and in.

because of this, watching a new person hold anthony is a bit of a spectacle because they don't know of his affinity. they don't know that at some point in their holding him his eyes will drift up to their face whereupon he will stare at them intently. the holder, they take this as adoration and typically melt at his round, cheeky gaze.

ohhhh. look at baby anthony. i think he likes me.

in a few moments anthony will raise an unsteady hand towards their face.

oh. baby's going to give me some loving. are you wondering who's holding you?

in time his hand finds their face, patting it and moving around in uncertain and mostly uncontrolled motions until he finds their nose. his little fingers grasp the tip and then pause. next he will run a single finger across the bridge and down the sides. and then to one of the openings where his finger travels around the edge. watching this always reminds me of how women, sultry women, alluringly circle a finger around the rim of a tall wine glass. the actions look doting, loving even. the same is true of anthony's preliminary nostril massage.

does the baby got my nose? should i get the baby's nose? i'm gonna get the baby's nose. here i come. here i come. got it! i got baby's nose.

it is sometimes at this perfect moment that anthony delves his index finger deep into the holder's nostril. i'm talking about burying it somewhere past the second nuckle and thanks to some cartilage we all seem to have not quite to the third. this will cause even a veteran mother to jolt in the chair and instinctively move him to an arm's length.

ok. i think it's time to go back to your mamma.

we in the family know this is always in the cards and have learned to deflect these nasal assaults save one maneuver and this is only because we all have to sleep at some point. in my years of life i've been raised from slumber by a number of unappealing methods; cold water dumped on me, kicked in the leg, hit about the head, even by being tested for lactation but the most hated technique is having a tiny index finger with a tiny jagged nail on its end rammed up my nose. and for sure when your eyes bolt open the first thing you see is anthony inches from your face studiously overseeing the procedure.

and speaking of nostrils, alexander somehow got a piece of cooked linguini stuck up his yesterday. we considered sending anthony in but alex knows his game and won't let him near his nose. fortunately i've learned that a near sure-fire way of getting little objects out of little kids noses (bella once had a piece of cooked rice in hers) is a combination of rough-housing and tickling. i can't tell you if it will get shot outward or sucked inward, but one way or another that unfortunate cudgel is coming out.

and in regard to my interest in women's calves, it's not like i enjoy eating peanut butter off them or shaving strangers' legs, there's just something scintillating about a tawny muscled and nicely proportioned calf on a lady.

boy, it sure is good to be back. i missed you.