i'm the christmas person in our home. if i didn't set it up, it wouldn't happen. this year, the day we were scheduled to decorate, every time i'd pass bella or alex, they'd eagerly ask if it was time yet? and if i was going to bring christmas up from the basement NOW??? and could they help? and when, oh when, were we going to do it? this onslaught of energy told me this year's chore would place ex...

our home breaks more dinnerware than a 24-hour dennys. when i gathered the family to discuss this performance matter i was told that not only am i not in a position of authority over them i was actually several rungs below them on the chain of command. i kind of saw this coming when i overheard alex call bella to the meeting by saying 'della, the giant poophead wants to talk to us'.

last night i went to a christmas party at my boss's house. monday night i go to one at his boss's house. i can't tell you how much i adore being out of multi-state, mega-corporation hell.

right now it is thursday morning, 6am. the last meal i had was monday night, 5pm. since then i've consumed less than 500 calories. and i feel great. i think nicole richie used a diet like this. i say this not because i'm losing weight like nicole richie but because i'm starting to look like nicole richie. and just in time for the holidays! lucky break.

i gotta tell ya. whatever this funk i have is, it's weird. not only can you not eat, you don't even want to eat. and (once you clear out your digestive tract) you feel and function fine. someone ought to look into canning this bad-boy. and speaking of cannable-goods. alexander naturally has about 5% body fat (3% since getting this illness) and can wear nothing but underwear in a freezing-cold room and feel like a white-hot charcoal briquet. it's bizarre. and it's spooky. and, it's wonderfully marvelous, especially in the night when he is close and one of the house-comforters is not.

"A sphincter is a circular muscle which normally maintains constriction of a natural body passage or orifice and which relaxes as required by normal physiological functioning." - wikipedia

a body has many sphincters but at the end of the day you only care if one of them is working as advertised; the anal sphincter. this is one of those hyper-smart organs that can discern what's what with great alacrity and precision. right now, three of the five sphincters in my home are malfunctioning at the hands of some twisted and humorless virus. mine is one of them. bella's is another. and alex, well poor alex has all sorts of evil stuff going on.

as a parent of a school-age bella, the stakes of having an unpredictable digestive illness such as this are much greater, because she greatly delights in sharing everything about our home with her classmates (i mean does the child have no sense of propriety). so if my sphincter were to deceive or fail me while, say, sleeping on the couch and bella came to learn of this misfortune, she would be sure to regale her wide-eyed, floor-sitting schoolmates with the story about how everyone in her house is potty-trained except her baby brother and father. please wish me luck in holding the line.

and for those keeping score at home, i still haven't puked.

alex puked at 11pm. then again at 12:30am. bella woke up coughing at 12:45. marty rushed to her side, choke-up bowl in hand. she asked bella if she was ok. she said she was but just had a dream she was about to throw-up.

this does not bode well for my night's sleep or my 30-year record of a puke-free troy.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. currency

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excerpt from Parenting from the Heart by Jack Pransky

before we had children, when accommodating out of town guests marty and i would straighten and clean our home. now that we have children, all we look to do is remove any visible blood, feces or urine from our kids. that said, if we see a bodily excrement sprayed or wiped on a wall or piece of furniture we will attempt to clean/remove/hide it. although, i don't do ceilings. so if an illness, natural event or blood-sport marred something i can't reach on my tippy toes, it's getting left for the visitor's imagination.

and i assure you this is one scenario where the mind's creativity won't surpass or even come close to our life's reality.

i promise.

i'm more than a little bit lucky to have gotten the everyman uploaded this evening. saint louis got racked with an ice-storm and for the last five hours i've been listening to ice-heavy branches snap and crunchily fall through other ice-laden branches before painfully slamming into the ice-solid ground. after each limbs tumble through the night, i reload a web page testing my internet connection. i know there is a branch or pole somewhere in this city with my internet connection's name on it and i'm in a race with that piece of timber. at this 4am moment, it looks like i'm going to best my swaying foe, on this blustery night at least.

so if you are lucky enough to possess a healthy connection i invite you to visit my seventh love in life, the everyman photo contest, because today is a special day in the world of the everyman.