i recently admitted i don't like to dance. it even more recently struck me what a vast understatement that was. to say i don't like to dance is like saying i don't like to run the underside of my penis through a cheese-grater often.

i'm not a dancer. marty is a dancer. marty is a groin-grinding, hip-bucking, trunk-slapping dancer. it's a fame thing. it's a solid gold thing. it's a rhyth...

i've been feeling rather poked and prodded at as of late. all over. and by that i mean all physical, mental and emotional orifices.

couldn't be better timing what with the holidays not around the corner but upon us. if my friends and relatives used to think i sat in the corner too much playing with the frayed hem of my kahkis, they're going to be uber impressed this season.

i wasn't the first on the block to get tivo. i was the second. the first was darkman. darkman is the first to try a lot of things. darkman is like the older brother some of us didn't have. and when he's not that, he's the older brother some of us wish we had.

the number one question most have asked about darkman; why's he called darkman? as with many nicknames, the story is not half as sexy as the moniker itself. we must go back many movie releases to the opening night of a modest film i like to call spawn. it is here i first met the as-yet-un-nick-named fella. after the film, he commented on how that was the worst (or maybe he said best) movie he'd seen since darkman. little did he know that this simple comment would forever brand him darkman, to at least one person walking around that is.

in the early days of knowing him it was not uncommon to catch me saying "yeah, call up that guy, you know, that one guy, darkman." and, there were other times i'd call his home where his wife would answer and it would occur to me that i didn't even know his real name. by the fifth time i could no longer discern her mumblings. she'd just say "one second", set the phone on the counter and call out 'that guy who calls you darkman is on the phone.' i guess she didn't know my name either.

once darkman informed me that he didn't like being called darkman.

me: and ...
dm: and, so i want you to stop calling me that.
me: i'm sorry but that's not how it works.
dm: look i'm telling you i don't like it and i want you to stop!
me: in young guns do you think chavez got to pick chavez as his nickname or did they just call him chavez?
dm: but HIS name WAS chavez!
me: and, therein rests my point.

we all know you can't defend a young guns offensive. it's just not done.

the next nickname dissertation will dissect my accountant-looking, human resources manager friend dubbed snake.

marty and i have been married somewhere between 3 and 7 years. in this time i have gone to bed before her exactly 9 times. monday night was one of these times. it was 12:42 when i laid down. i remember thinking what an awesome night sleep i'd be getting making it to bed in this nascent hour. putting it all into perspective, one must know that the three nights previous i went to bed at 4am, 3am and almost 6am (thanks to mr. everyman).

having children changes the whole mood of this nocturnal lifestyle because when you go to bed at six only to be beaten about the head two hours later with an empty gatorade bottle containing seven coins and having the words "big bird, i want to watch big bird NOW daddy!" screamed inches from your ear, you realize there is much in the world that's just not right.

but back to the going to bed first. when this happens, i do this, totally involuntary, meal worm dance as a form of acclimation to the cold sheets. to fully set the scene: i'm face-down. i'm naked. my body/limbs are in full stretch, grind and squirm mode all while rolling from shoulder to shoulder. i've never done this without thinking how cool it would be if i were doing it ten hours earlier, at work, midday, laying on that tight woven carpet, face down, naked, shaking and quaking like this. i imagine a circle of employees standing around me. one might ask, 'who's that?' whereupon another will answer 'that's troy, the web guy'. the first may then ask, 'what's he doing?' and the second would respond 'i have no worldly idea'.

i'm not a woman.

i do not wear bras.

only have a few times at least.

but i've got one question, why the hell don't they all clip in the front? seeing the antics marty goes through to get dressed all i can say is it's good i'm not a woman and that i don't wear bras because if i were, i'd be three hours late to work instead of two.

in college i read shel silverstein's the giving tree in about 4 minutes and thought it both cute and well executed.

when reading this book to my daughter last sunday morning in front of the fire, i almost couldn't finish it because i was on the brink of crying.

it's going to be a long fatherhood.

if it's true that a picture is worth a thousand words, then i have no worldly idea why you'd be here instead of here.

busy, busy, busy with the everyman. the 1200 plus photos will be unveiled on monday so clear a little time in your daily grind to swing by and see the humor.

and, please sleep a little for me this weekend.

i heard an interesting person interviewed on the radio. she is a party motivator. more simply, she could be called a party ringer. someone with guaranteed charm, charisma and a way of bringing people out of their shells. yesterday i was bemoaning how i'm not a party guy, but this i could do. it's all about the objective. if i was being paid to interact i would have an excuse to interact and could then justify it even if not fulfilling.

her core skill involved stimulating conversation. i could stimulate conversation. i've been known to do this many a time. only difference is she would ask questions like...

what did you want to be when you were in high school and what do you do now?
who is cuter, justin timberlake or leonard dicaprio?
who here thinks mud baths don't renovate a woman?
don't you just love wearing capri pants in the early fall?

where i would ask questions more along the lines of ...

are you circumcised?
will you circumcise your children?
have you ever seen an uncircumcised member?
don't you think men should be able to wear capri pants?

while getting my own party motivator business off the ground, i think you'll find my rates to be quite fair. but i suggest you book me before demand becomes too great.

if someone were attempting to create the party environment i would be least comfortable in, they would have to design a halloween/karaoke combo party. two things to know: i don't dress up and i sure as hell don't sing in public.

upon entering the threshold of this debacle, the very first thing i see would be a six foot sock monkey singing elvis' blue christmas and dancing in circles in the living room like one of those hopping toy penises used in Pump Up the Volume.

do you know how scary a six foot sock monkey is? do you know that sock monkeys have a horizontal anus that looks like a set of lips? do you know that this sideways nether region is disproportionately large in regard to the rest of the creature? in fact, it is a whopping thirteen inches in length on the six foot rendition of this cotton-tubed primate.

but why is it sideways? if it were oriented the way one would expect, it would only be slightly unnerving, but tip the damn thing on it's side like that and were talking about a vision that consumes the last thoughts to enter your mind's eye before slumber for four straight nights.

on the positive side, at the least i had something to mull over while sitting in the corner while the non-introverted types did their thing.