Speechless...

Rarely am I short of words. Rarer still am I at a loss because I'm smiling so much. This morning was one of those times.

Folks, it's a boy.
Happy Holidays.

Wax On...

For generations, the Copeland men have had a history of going bald early. Not once have I seen a picture of my grandfather with hair, the earliest image being in his early twenties. My father was doing the comb-over by my age. I remember a number of years ago when I said a little prayer that went a little something like this:

“Dear Lord, let me keep my hair. You and I both know you haven’t given me much, so be a peach just give me this one little thing.”

Apparently he questioned my sincerity and decided to turn that prayer into his own little punch-line. (Silly god and his abuse of the agnostic.) Over the last few years I’ve started growing hair in places that I just really don’t need extra hair.

Last year alone I harvested more ear hair then I will need out of my entire lifetime. I could make a patchwork quilt out of the yards of nose hair I have on a monthly basis. The woman that used to cut my hair once asked me how far down my neck she should trim.

Yeah god… really damn funny.

So I guess I shouldn’t have been overly surprised when my wife turned to me after my haircut the other day and said “Ok honey… now I know you won’t want to do this, but lets try and separate that eyebrow you have going on.”

Oy.

I truly thought that after I got married the days of a cute young blonde pouring hot wax on me were over.

From what I can tell, when you get your eyebrows waxed they aren’t supposed to take half your eyelid with it. But alas, she did. Jenn says that “it just got the tender part of your skin”, but everyone else wonders how I got the scar. So before they get the truth, they have to suffer through one of my bullshit machismo stories…

“Well, ya see… sometimes, when you’re usin’ a chainsaw, that chain’ll just snaps and whips back in your eye. Now luckily I was able reach up and catch that sum-bitch before it did too much damage…”

“I burned it on the tailpipe of my monster truck.”

“That shark jumped right on outta the ocean and tried to bite my eye. Luckily I punched it in the kidney before it got too good a hold.”

The blog that wasn't...

Miss me? Well apparently Blogspot in their hurry to get me to upgrade to their beta didn’t actually check to see if the damn thing worked or not and I’ve been locked out of my blog for over a week. I was able to log in for about an hour late Wednesday night, but otherwise, nada. I wrote a long entry, hit “submit” and it came back with “No bitch… you submit! You bend over, grab an ankle and take it like your cellmate’s got his name tattooed on your forehead and nicknamed your bunghole Stephanie!”

Or maybe it was just a “The connection was reset” error… at this point it’s kinda hard to remember.

Point is I’m thinking it’s about time to make an escape. So I started a little blog on my website, http://www.brokeni.com/serendipity/ and I think I’m just going to start posting there.

In the meantime, I thought I would cover some of the various rants I would have gone on last week in condensed format. Please try to keep up.

Chele (I’m sick of calling her my sister-in-law) has been writing a lot about her utter bah-humbugginess around this time of year, and normally, I can’t help but give a “preach on” about such rants. Unfortunately this year’s been a little different. I’ve been having a tough time getting into my normal scrooge-like spirit. I hate to say it, but on occasion I’ve gotten dangerously close to jolly.

The reasoning should be fairly obvious, but basically, just looking towards the future doesn’t seem so damn bleak this year.

But still, I felt like I lost a little something not being able to go off about how people lose all sense of taste around the holidays. What other time of year do red, green, yellow go together? I mean, what kind of fucked up color wheel are you smoking? What is it about Christmas makes people think a metallic white Christmas tree with blue lights would look good? And that fake log with candle-shaped light-bulbs you’re using for a centerpiece looks like Larry the Cable Guy is your interior designer.

Luckily, there’s nothing like walking into the local Walgreen’s to get a bit of that yuletide hatin’ mojo back. Sitting on the shelf was—get this—Hip Hop Santa. Complete with a backwards baseball cap, and hip swinging motion. But what was most disturbing was that the damn thing came in both Classical Caucasian flavor or more street-cred African American.

Now, I can certainly appreciate the dilemma that a black man must face in explaining why a fat white boy breaks in their home every year to leave gifts, but I don’t see how this is any less racially insensitive then, say, dressing in blackface.

So I stood there, with my moral outrage at moronically crass commercialism, a large twenty-something black woman approached the display. Busting out of her way too short t-shirt and dirty white sweatpants, she stood there for a moment before hitting the “play” trigger. As she began to gyrate and sing in sync with little rapper Santa, I realized that I might be putting a bit to much thought into all of this.

++++++++++++

On one final note, my wife and I have been driving each other nuts trying to move while weaving in all of the nuttiness of the holidays. A few months back, when I was writing about the #2 heartbreak, I mentioned that she may have thrown out a picture of Rachelle and I(and Rachelle's son), where I was sporting a power mullet. Well you’ll all be happy to know that the picture was found this past weekend, mullet well in tact. I share it’s funkiness with you now:

Winter Wonderland

The other day I was in the process of writing a blog entitled “With great power comes great responsibility” when two pages into my rant, an ice storms rolled through, knocked out the power, and I lost everything.

The gist of the tirade was how a TIVO or DVR is a power, nay even a responsibility that has to be used with care. You only have like twenty to forty hours of recording time, and you can’t waste such finite space with dreck like Disney’s “High School Musical” no matter how much your children may want to see it. Hell, if you’re being a responsible parent, your kids shouldn’t even KNOW about movies where entire basketball teams break out in song. Speaking of which only on Disney would a basketball team only have two black guys, not to mention a token Asian.

If you hadn’t guessed by now, while visiting family last weekend, my adorable three year old nephew said the words nobody ever wants to hear: “I don’t want to watch Star Wars right now… I want to watch this!”

I fully expected the smirk that rolled in across my sister-in-law’s face, as she watched me squirm, but then to turn to my lovely wife to hear her say, “well, you better get used to stuff like this” made me want to raise my fisted to the heavens and yell “KHAN!” …Or something equally as memorable. Et tu, Brute?*

And for the love of little halo wearin’ Jesus, we won’t even discuss the fact that this was the “pop-up video edition” of this forsaken movie. I wanted to beat my head in with the remote as I read things like, “Julie apologized and that’s the right thing to do!”

Oy.

Anyway, I summed all of it up in less then a page this time, and surprisingly, the power’s still on.

Since I did so much cursing of the ice this weekend, I figured I would give myself a little photo assignment and try and find something beautiful amongst all of the muck. Not my normal melancholy, but something… enchanting. Since that’s a bit out of my comfort zone, I didn’t expect great things, but I wanted to share with you all what I did find.

I hope you enjoy

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*I ask you… how many other blogs give you quotes from James Kirk and Julius Caesar?

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What's in a name?

I’ve never been the best person to help name something. Case in point, my dimwitted, snaggletoothed, semi-blind Pekingese, Poco.

About fourteen years ago, Andrea saw him in the pet store that we wandered into and “had to have him”. At a $500 plus price tag, I had absolutely no intention of purchasing this palm-sized ball of fur. Besides, I knew that there was no way in hell that she would actually take care of him, and told her as much.

Yeah… I wasn’t always the brightest bulb on the sting.

This spun into a whole big discussion about how if I didn’t think she’d be a good mother I should just tell her as much, and then I forged my sarcasm (which frankly, she never got) into a gigantic shovel in which to dig a hole. A hole that the purchase of one fluffy puppy not only got me out of, but put me firmly back into the “sweetest guy ever” category.

However, when it came to naming him, I wasn’t much help. What I would do, was hold him in the palm of my hand, pet him on the belly and say in a Mexican accent that sounded far more like Apu(from the Simpson’s) than Cheech, “You are small. You are veeeery ugly. And most assuredly, you smell like a dead possum. But mainly, you are just small.” Each time I would say it I’d mix it up slightly, but we found it funny enough that we named him Poco, which is “small” in Spanish.

The joke was funny for about a month… then we were over it.

As predicted, she quickly lost interest in said furball, and I had to take care of him. When Andrea and I were going through our big breakup, Poco would stand in front of me, bearing his bottom teeth—and only the bottom teeth—and growl at her. At the time, that was all 6 pounds of him. Now that was some funny shit. But I digress.

Point is, fourteen years later, I love this dog like a semi-retarded son, but the best name I could come up with came about because I didn’t know how to say “ugly” in Spanish.

I tell you all of this not because I want you to have a deeper insight into the emotional scaring of my dog, but to express how god-awful terrible I am at naming things.

So now, Jenn and I have to come up with a name for our child. Since we won’t know whether it’s a boy or a girl for a few more weeks, we’ve been coming up with a boy’s name and a girl’s name.

Personally, I had no idea how difficult that would be. It’s amazing to me how many names get disqualified based on our various life experiences.

For example, I had a friend named Ian when I was growing up, and was always fond of the name, but he was a complete punk and my family pretty much hated him, so if the name Ian was a contender I’d end up having my parents ask me time and time again why I would name him after “such a jerk”. Actually, I think my good God fearing family might actually have a few stronger works then jerk if Ian came up.

Likewise, Jenn’s not fond of the name Quinn because she knew a guy named Quinton at her school and he was an arrogant ass.

I always liked the name Sarah, but it’s just bad form to name your first born the same name as the last girl you dated before you got married, even if you did go back to being friends afterwards.

Then there’s family names. For example, Jenn loves her sister Michele. Hell, I love Chele too. There have been very few people in the world I’ve dropped my guard around and become friends with quite as quickly as my sweet n’ sassy sister-in-law. However, anyone that’s read the top 5 heartbreak list knows why we’re not going with the name Michelle, Rachelle or some variation thereof.

My dad’s a great guy, but having shared his first name (for those of you that don’t know, my first name is Kent, but I go by Alan) I know the number of people that use the exact same joke of “Kent? As in Clark ?” And when you just look at them like they’re an idiot, they usually just try to explain more in their desperate attempt at being funny, “You know… like Superman? Clark Kent!” Yuk yuk.

Then we have the names that get questioned because of what kids in the schoolyard might say. Jenn and I both love the name Isabella (Izzy or Bell ) but each time I’ve mentioned it to J he says, “Isabella is a fella.” Ugh.

And we’ve got the names that would just be confusing. I mean, long before I met Jenn I wanted to name my son Nathan. However, we’ve got a nephew by that name. And my brother and sister-in-law have another nephew (so is that my nephew-in-law?) by the name Dillon.

We could go biblical, and have given some thought to the name Zachariah. However, running down the list of the top biblical names:

Matthew? my brother’s name and a contender.

Mark? Oh hell no. I’d rather give him that weird Prince symbol as a name first.

Luke? Too Skywalker.

John? As in Doe? Frankly, to blah.

So anyway, this naming thing has gone back and forth for months, and I think we’ve narrowed it down to two strong finalist.

Jacob Matthew Copeland or Sophia Anne Copeland.

Obviously either or both are subject to change with the fickle whim of my lovely wife,(and the equally fickle readers of vote4whatjensays.com) but this is where we’re at as of the end of November.

Jacob is the name Jenn would have had if she was a boy, and the nickname she had growing up. One of the things I truly can’t wait to see is all of the aspects of Jennifer that the baby has. I’ve really warmed to the nicknames Jack and Jake as well.

As mentioned, Matthew is my brother’s name and he’s one of the greatest men I’ve ever met.

Anne is a family name on my mother’s side, and Sophia…? Well Sophia’s just the most beautiful name I’ve ever heard.
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*** FYI, I've upgraded to the new version of blogger. Hopefully this should help with the issues some were having with posting replies on my journal.

Love, Sex and Pizza

No one said the life of a Dark Overlord is an easy one. I’ve been pretty busy at work lately as I continue to expand into this new position. I’m learning three new programs,(Encore, After Effects, and Premier Pro) trying to swing all of my old duties, and then staying up late to work on multiple freelance projects every night so we have the cash for the move, nursery, etc. So when Friday rolls around, I’m ready for a break.

Now granted, my expectation for Fridays tend to be pretty high anyway, but last week they were especially so. A few days earlier I asked that beautiful wife of mine out for dinner and a movie, which we haven’t done lately on account of all the morning/day/evening/night sickness.

The entire week we made it a little game like this was one of our very first dates. Wednesday-ish I brought her flower and told her I was really looking forward to seeing her this weekend. Thursday and early Friday she would leave me little voicemail messages just to check on how she should dress for our outing and generally be her extremely adorable, very sexy, self.

So how could something with this sort of setup go so horribly awry? First, there was the traffic. Jenn called me around 5:15 to let me know that she was in bumper to bumper traffic, and wasn’t sure she was going to be able to make it in time for our dinner reservations. When she got home we decided just to head over to the theater, and then find some place to eat when we got close. What we didn’t anticipate was that the traffic on the other highway was going to be so much worse.

For two hours we were stuck in the car. That brought the total hours since my pregnant wife had last eaten too 8, and the number of minutes until the movie started to zero. Without really thinking about it, we grabbed a bunch of stuff from the concession stand, (which cost more then if we would have had a nice sit down meal at Clayton’s Il Vicino like we planned) and rushed into the movie.

Showing up just in the nick of time, we were left with no seats other than the second row, so the viewing experience was wretched. And by the time the movie was over, the sitting, lack of real food, and general stress of the day was making Jenn a cranky, nauseous, girl. Thank god this wasn’t one of our first dates, otherwise she probably would never see me again.

We went straight home and she went directly to bed. I kicked off my shoes and went to check on emails from my many clients. Instead I find—with my bare feet—that the blind ol’ dog’s potty training didn’t fair to well with all the thunderstorms. It was quite the capper to the evening.

This all got me thinking about the worst dates I’ve ever had, which I’ll probably have to write about later on this week.

I’ve got a joke I throw out every now and again about how sex is like pizza… even when it’s bad, it’s still pretty good. I know it’s a terribly unromantic analogy, but such is a date with Jenn. Even when things are conspiring to be awful, I still have a pretty wonderful time. She makes me smile. She embodies my happiness, without being so cheerful as to get annoying. We just… click.

Anyway, we made up for the bad date by getting Il Vicino’s on Saturday, and going baby shopping on Sunday. I don’t know what the point of this little rant is other then to say how I’m madly in love with my wife.

You know… I guess that’s a pretty good point to make.

Here’s a song that always makes me think about her.

Push

By Sarah McLachlan

Every time I look at you the world just melts away
All my troubles all my fears dissolve in your affections
You’ve seen me at my weakest but you take me as I am
And when I fall you offer me a softer place to land

You stay the course you hold the line you keep it all together
You’re the one true thing I know I can believe in
You’re all the things that I desire you save me you complete me
You’re the one true thing I know I can believe

I get mad so easy but you give me room to breathe
No matter what I say or do cause you’re too good to fight about it
Even when I have to push just to see how far you’ll go
You wont stoop down to battle but you never turn to go

You stay the course you hold the line you keep it all together
You’re the one true thing I know I can believe in
You’re all the things that I desire you save me you complete me
You’re the one true thing I know I can believe

Your love is just the antidote when nothing else will cure me

There are times I cant decide when I cant tell up from down
You make me feel less crazy when otherwise Id drown
But you pick me up & brush me off and tell me I’m OK
sometimes that’s just what we need to get us through the day

People Watching

I love to people watch. If you’re going to crank up the bass on your car stereo and “throw your arms in the air like you just don’t care” then I’m going to stare with equally unabashed amusement at the spectacle you’re making of yourself.

With the exception of when I can hear your hippety-hop stereo over my own I don’t watch with any sort of malicious intent, but I’m constantly amused at what people do while they’re “alone” in their vehicle.

And as I’ve mentioned before, I’m also amused at what people will put on their vehicles.

The other day on my way to work I saw not one, not two, but three separate examples of painfully stupid things, so I felt the need to share.

1: Have you seen those corner to corner rear window stickers that pick-up trucks have? Generally it’s some redneck with his fluttering flag (yeah, you’re patriotic. We get it.) or Calvin pissing on the FORD logo, but this was a little different. It was the full window treatment of a huge “blessed” Virgin Mary, shrouded in fire, standing under the St. Louis Arch.

Yeah. You read that right—a spontaneously-combusting, pregnant, virgin, the size of Godzilla, standing beneath the tourist hallmark of the most dangerous city in the US. Sweet Moses (who wasn’t pictured.) What do you even say about something like that? I keep envisioning Gamera showing up and the two having an apocalyptic battle of epic proportions.

2: It’s been raining rather non-stop the last few days here in St. Lou, and I always feel bad for those poor saps standing out in it. However, it was really hard to feel sorry for this one guy because he seemed to be enjoying himself just a bit too much.

Like a page out of Calvin Klein’s REJECTED files, this guy—with what would normally be a gigantic afro were in not for all the drizzle—was standing in the cross walk with his drooping pants and equally drooping mouth, blankly staring up into the rain. Now the really odd part was that he had his t-shirt pulled up and was mindlessly rubbing his left nipple.

I was stopped at the light and watched this go on for well over a minute before someone honked at him and his magical moment was broken. I kept thinking “It’s a little early in the morning to be breaking out the ecstasy, isn’t it?”

3: I always find it amusing when I just catch the end of a interesting conversation. You never know how things got to that point, but you just walk in to something like, “… and that’s why my butt hurts so badly this morning.”

Anyway, the visual equivalent of that happened to me while I was at the stop light the other night. An old woman with bulging blue eyes (she very much looked like Grace Zabriskie) pointed an angry, shaking, witchly, finger at the car in front of her and shot out curses with lips so thin and tight, I wasn’t able to read them. Her face turned a reddish-purple as she then took her hands and mimed what looked like crushing a cantaloupe between them.

She then slapped her steering wheel and grabbed a hold of either side for a more full body shake that lifted her up off of her seat.

I swear it was like watching pro-wrestling on mute.

What I found equally amusing was the twenty-something chickedy in front of her who was blabbing on her cell phone and checking her eye make-up in her visor mirror, completely oblivious to the fact that she was having her entire lineage (and apparently future cantaloupe) cursed into an early grave.

Deal or no deal?

Ok, I haven’t actually watched that show, but I’m fairly certain I would hate it. So why am I using it as the title of this particular entry? Because as I mentioned previously, my wife and I had quite the hectic week or two, chuck full of life changing decisions.

A month or so ago, when our lovely little soon-to-be started jacking with my wife’s hormone levels, she became rather obsessive about not wanting to raise a family in our current location. Now granted, having noisy downstairs neighbors on vastly different schedules then us has never been a picnic, but our historical home full of stain glass, hardwood floors, marble fireplaces and countertops isn’t exactly the “rat hole” she was making it out to be.

She presented the idea of moving to me and being the kind, understanding, husband that I am, I responding with a typical caring comment like, “Not only no, but HELLLLLLL no. A big beautiful orchard of hell no where the hell no’s are so bountiful that they fall off the trees and you can pick ‘em up and make a big hell no pie.”

Yep… Mr. Sensitivity. That’s me.

She responded with one thing she rarely does… crying.

“Do you not love me or the baby?”

Trick question. That, or it’s rhetorical. Either way… the last thing you should do is respond with sarcasm. Just keep your mouth shut and this will all…

“Damn it, girl… You’ve figured out my master plan. I married you and knocked you up just to torment you with this living purgatory we call a home.”

“But it’s not a home. That’s the problem. It’s an apartment in the city and no place to raise a family.”

*sigh*

So my good-hearted wife asked me to do just one thing: keep an open mind. While this isn’t exactly one of my strongest traits, I agreed.

I asked her to keep a few things in mind. First, we don’t have a lot of money for a deposit, with credit that won’t stand for any of those “zero-down” deals. Secondly, I refused to move into another apartment, so it would have to be a house. And third—and this was pretty damn important—that we would have to get movers because it was only about a year ago that J and I about killed ourselves trying to hoist the damn B.A.T. (Big Ass Television) up those steps.

She agreed—a bit too willingly I might add—which clearly meant she was up to something.

I remember sitting down to breakfast right before that big card tourney I wrote about a few weeks back and telling Jay, “She’s gone insane. Completely loony. And what’s more? She thinks she’s going to win this, but she’s not. I’ve got her number on this one.”

Jay took a long, contemplative drag off his cigarette and said, “Bud, when you guys move—and make no mistake, you will— I’m not helping you move that fucking T.V.”

But what does he know? (I mean he’s only my best friend, right?) I wear the pants in this relationship. I don’t cave. Period.

So I’m pleased to announce that at the end of December, we’ll be moving into our lovely new home.

Ok… so in retrospect, she may have had a point about the school district. And our neighborhood (root word in this instance being hood.) And making the move before we get bogged down with year one baby stuff. And finding a bloody good deal that leaped all of my hurdles.

Yep… that wife of mine, she’s a wily one.

So as we got ready to sign on this thing, last week, we found out that the really wonderful three story historical home that we wanted last year is available to us again. It’s amazing. Really amazing. However, it’s still in the city, and not in the good part. So we weighed the pro’s and con’s of the newer home in the good neighborhood, with the good schools, etc., verses double the indoor square footage.

Then another wrench got thrown in. Early last week I was offered a job as an interface designer in Salt Lake City, Utah. I can’t get into too many details, but let’s just say that I’d actually get paid (and well) to log countless hours on the new Nintendo Wii (pronounced We) system that comes out later this year.

You know, just typing that gives me little chills.

And Salt Lake City? It’s where my brother, his wife, (yes, he only has the one) and their amazing kids live.

However, Jenn’s entire family lives within driving distance of us here in St. Lou. And Jenn loves her job. And who would hire a woman that’s halfway through her pregnancy?

*waves to dream job as it zooms by*

But as I told Jenn (who devotedly told me she’d leave the decision up to me and follow me to the ends of the world), that may be my dream job, but this is my dream life. The adoring wife. The baby on the way. Hell, I’ll even get used to living in suburbia if I get to come home to her smiling face every day.

With the decision all but made, I walked into my boss’ office, told him about the offer, and suggested a price point that might be met to get me to stay. They did better. They gave me a promotion, let me choose my own title (I suggested Dark Overlord), a big year end bonus to help with the house, and company paid term life policy that would almost pay for the house on its own should something ever happen to me.

Granted, I won’t be playing Wii any time soon, but my wife assures me I can get one for my birthday, which is almost exactly two months before I get the best gift of my entire life. Life’s pretty damn good.

Interlude

I know… I know… I haven’t been updating the past two weeks as often as I should. It’s gotta be unnerving for all two or three of my readers, but I assure you, it’s been stressful little week, chucked full of lots of life-changing decisions, none of which am I actually able to blog about right now. However as soon as I’m able too, you, dear reader, will be among the first to know.

Before I get into writing about numer-o five-o, I figured I would take a moment to explain a bit of my thinking in writing about the five. I mean, wouldn’t it be easier just to choke all of those things down like I do all my other emotional baggage? Damn skippy it would. But, in the same line that one might think, “if I throw up I might feel better”, I figured writing about it might help get rid of some of the sickness these things can bring.

Additionally, I don’t think there was anyone that knew all the stories. My brother may have met a few of the loves, but he didn’t know the stories behind how the relationship rose and fell. J was there for the later ones, but guy’s night doesn’t usually entail conversations about how my first love made me wrestle with the very nature of forgiveness.

I do remember a conversation with J, where in reference to a girl I was dating he said, “She’s got to be the craziest bitch you’ve ever dated.” I simply smiled and said “bud, you have no idea…”

Hell, not counting Jenn’s family, I doubt there are a dozen people within 50 miles of Saint Lou that even knew I was married before. I just don’t talk about it.

So once I blatantly glommed off of the idea of the top 5, I had to set of some parameters for whom would make the cut. For example, I decided that for the sake of keeping things simple, the person had to actually love me back. But who can know someone else’s heart? So again, for the sake of simplicity, I kept it to those who had convinced me they loved me too.

Those who convinced me they loved me.

And that’s what I keep coming back too. When do you really know you are/were loved? To that end, when do you know that you no longer are? Or perhaps never were…

These are all very pertinent questions when discussing number five on my list. And I promise tales of sex, drugs, drama, and photography.

Guilt

Early Monday morning I stood at the hotel room door, wondering how I got to this point.

Walk away. I told myself. If you leave now, nobody will even know you were here.

As I began to heed my own advice, the door swung open wide.

“What are you doing?” She said, overly excited. She gave a scolding shake of her head as she smiled and motioned me in. “Were you just going to stand there all day? Do you know how long I’ve been waiting?” I went to answer, but I truly had no idea.

Even with her olive skinned body draped in a short silk robe and long raven hair, it was hard to get past how god awful annoying she was. Every word she uttered seemed hollow and phony.

“You know, I’ve got a little project for you…” She sung, teasingly.

For the love of God and all that’s holy… Just. Stop. Talking.

“Yeah, about that … Katie, I’ve gotta be honest. I’ve got no idea what I’m doing here. None of this seems right.”

“Why do you have to be so cynical? It’s not like I’m asking you to do anything bad.” She moved in close to me and bit my bottom lip. “In fact, if you relax a bit, you might just enjoy yourself.”

Still looking into her eyes, I heard the faint sound of silk falling to the floor.

I raised an eyebrow and gave a deep sigh. “There are three reasons this isn’t going to happen. First of all, you’re married.”

“But he doesn’t care. Really. Tom already knows everything…”

“Secondly, so am I.”

Fuck. How did I not remember that till the words left my tongue? The beautiful wife. The baby on the way. Being bloody happy for a change. Those aren’t things you’re supposed to ever forget.

“Oh yeah… and this? This is just a dream. And not a very good one. I’m sure there would be tons of guys that would be perfectly happy dreaming about a naked, seductive, Katie Holmes, but it’s really time for me to go.”

As I walked out the door into the hallway, I ran into a pair of Boy Scouts.

“Excuse me” I said, as I walked past them.

“Asshole” I heard one reply, under his breathe.

And then I woke up.

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My dreams suck.

I don’t know if it’s due to the guilt-ridden childhood or some other bizarre neurosis, but I’ve never had sex in my dreams. Truth be told, I’ve never gotten past second-ish base. The last dream I had like this was a year or two ago, revolving around the seduction of a woman I was dating at the time, and ended with her getting struck with a meteorite the size of a bull elephant. So having a dream about a slutty Katie Holmes seems like it would be somewhat of a breakthrough.

However, I woke up with two things rolling around my noggin’.

First, why the hell was I dreaming about Katie fuckin’ Holmes? I really can’t stand her as an actress. I equally can’t stand anything I’ve read about her as a person. If I was going to write about the top 5 best looking actresses in Hollywood, she wouldn’t be able to sniff the list. Now if this was Kate Winslet, that would be an entirely different matter.

(Homer Simpson voice) Ummmmm... Kate Winslet…

But I digress.

The other thing that I was struck with was how guilty I felt over a stupid dream. Since I’ve been with Jennifer, I’ve done photo shoots with naked women and not felt even a little guilty. But something as stupid as a dream? I get a heaping pile of guilt and side order of shame.

I even admitted the whole thing to my lovely wife, thinking that would improve things. No dice. However, she did note “Why’d you dream about Katie Holmes? She sucks…”

“I know!” I said, mentally shaking my fist towards the heavens. “Don’t you think I know that?!”

“Calm down happy pants…”

“You’re not helping.”

*sigh*

Somebody done somebody wrong thong

Last week as I was writing “Number 4”, I got a call from my darling wife telling me she’d just gone to the doctor and they heard our baby’s strong heartbeat. The very thought of that made me smile and that smile stuck with me for several days, so I’ll just have to postpone #4 for a few more days.

In the meantime, I’m going to have to talk about another interesting event when Jenn and I went to the park this weekend.

Those that know us realize we live right next to Tower Grove Park, so it’s not particularly odd that on a beautiful fall day we would grab some poor boys (sandwiches, not street kids) from the best deli in St. Louis and headed out to have a little picnic. We have a quaint little lunch where—ironically enough—we talked about the writing of the blog.

After we ate, we went for a little stroll across a big open area to hang out by a stream and weeping willow tree. On the way back, we saw a big pile of poop.

Now, that’s not particularly odd since lots of people bring their pets to the park, but as we got closer, we saw that there was a black thong wrapped around said mud biscuits.

Does that strike you as odd as it does me? Personally I think “WTF?” is sizably overused, but sweet holy mother, if there was ever an appropriate time to use it, this would be that time.

What are the circumstances that start your day out where you think “today’s a good day for the black lacy panties” and ends with the thong in the middle of the park as a brownie topper?

And the thong to doody ratio was at odds too. I'm certianly no expert (nor do I play one on TV), but I don’t think that anyone able to fit in that tiny little thong was going to be able to produce that amount of brown matter in a single sitting. So does that mean it wasn’t hers? I had more questions then a X-Files episode. The more I thought about it, the more mind numbingly stupid the whole thing seemed—and yet, days later, it’s still bugging the hell out of me. I want answers damn it!

I really want to come up with something funny to say about it, but I can’t because the sheer idiocy of it makes my right eye twitch.

Loon

During the last several weeks my wife—by comparison to the woman I married—has become quite the loon. It’s not really her fault though. The pregnancy hormones that have been racing through her have basically jacked with her emotionally, and since morning sickness has turned into, “every-day, all-day” sickness, to say she’s worn down and irritable is quite the understatement.

It took us a while to realize what was going on even though all the signs were there. For example, she hates to shed tears, even in front of me, but openly cried when a member of Good Morning America got to go swim with Shamu.

Now, I’ve tried to help her with some of these mood swings, and desperately jumped out of the way of others, but this is all new to both of us, so we’re just doing our best to manage.

On the other side of things, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend in my own personality over the last few weeks. Instead of really listening to what my wife has to say as a loving and caring husband, I’ve started pre-judging everything that she says based on “the crazy hormone thing”. Not to mention, this whole “going to be a father thing” is still something I’m adjusting too as well, and while I’m usually really good about talking to Jennifer whenever something is bothering me, I’m not always so good about recognizing the root issue before it grows into a problem.

Yesterday was a unique example of all of these things hitting at once in a “perfect storm” scenario.

I had planned a fun little trip for us to the apple orchard (thanks for the idea J) where we would pick some apples, take a hayride, and generally get out in the wonderful fall weather. I love this time of year and wanted nothing more than to spend a romantic day with my lovely wife. When Jenn woke up sick, I realized pretty quickly that it wasn’t going to happen. Instead, she wanted to clean up the house and rearrange the living room.

Now, one of my prized processions is my Big Ass Television (or BAT for short.) A few posts ago I said I didn’t know how I defined happiness before Jenn, and I still don’t, but BAT fell into that definition somewhere. It’s 56 inches of pure, unmitigated, bliss. I don’t put a whole lot of stock on possessions, but this is one of those things that just makes me smile every time I see it. Hell, it makes EVERY guy smile when they see it. Consequently, most women, including Jenn, say “it’s too big,” which, as a general rule just makes me smile bigger, any time I hear it (which sadly, isn’t as often as I’d like.) Ya simply ain’t lived until you’ve surfed Skin-a-max in split screen while watching Monday night football on HD. My point is the BAT is the technological equivalent of a monster truck. It’s not supposed to be pretty, it’s supposed to be damn cool, and it is, by god, it is.

Long live the BAT. (And the men in the congregation said “Amen”)

Sorry… where was I?

Anyway, the problem with the BAT (if you want to call it a problem) is that it takes up a good chunk of whatever room it’s in (I got it before Plasma TVs were even remotely affordable.) In addition, ever since we had that giant power outage a few months ago, it’s had this random problem of having the gamma “pop” on it and it goes dark and stays that way, until you turn it off and back on. Sometimes you can watch for an hour or two before you have to restart, sometimes ten minutes. I need to get a repair guy out to fix it, but we’ve been saving for our honeymoon and I didn’t want to spend the cash.

Jenn got fed up with all of these issues yesterday and said, “Let’s just get rid of the damn thing.” To which I very politely said, “No chance.”

She came back with “Wouldn’t you rather have a nice Plasma screen?” To which I answered, in my slightly smarmy tone, “Certainly. So whenever you want to buy me one of appropriate size and quality, I’ll be more than happy to get rid of this one. Until then, this one stays.”

“But it’s not very feng shui. And it’s going to cost an arm and a leg to fix.”

“Fuck feng and his shui. Jenn, let me make this as clear as I can: I’m not getting rid of my television. And let me warn you… you don’t want to keep going down this path, ‘cause you’re just going to piss me off.”

And things went badly from there.

Holy crap. Let me warn you? My television? Ok, now who’s sounding loony?

Once the discussion broiled down to “Hey hubby, go fuck yourself” as she stormed out the door, I really started to look at what the issue was for me. When Jenn called back we really got to talk it out.

For months, Jenn’s been trying to make our place more “ours” and over the last few weeks, she’s specifically been obsessing about how baby friendly (or lack thereof) our place is. She’s systematically going through the entire house and saying “what if?” She’s talked about getting rid of our great steel and leather couch that I’ve only had about two or three years. The matching kitchen table I’ve had for less time. Turning my photo studio into either a second bedroom or a nursery. What we’re going to do with my cranky, half-blind dog that apparently isn’t real fond of kids.

I, on the other hand, have been obsessing about losing my identity. Always working and never having time to do my art. Losing guys night. Not having a place to do art. Putting everyone’s wants and needs in front of mine to the point where I don’t even know who I fucking am anymore. And I’m not saying that’s where I’m at, but I could see that happening to me and it scares the crap out of me.

So when my beautiful wife says something like “let’s get rid of the TV” I hear “let’s cut off your balls and put them in a jar in the cabinet. I’ll keep the key in my purse.” Or when she says, “what are we going to do about the dog?” I’m thinking “the kid’s not even born yet and you want to get rid of my dog!”

Point is, this is an emotional roller coaster ride for the both of us, but at least she has an excuse.

When we were talking all of this out Jenn said “Maybe we’re just not ready” and that was like a bucket of cold water for me. It certainly got my out of my self-absorbed funk. I remembered my buddy here at work telling me about how he and his wife were pretty certain they were going to have a baby too, but weren’t telling anyone yet. And I remembered a week later when he told me that his wife had miscarried. I remembered all of those things and realized just how blessed I am that this is happening to us. And most importantly, how lucky I am to be going through it with someone as wonderful as Jenn.

It's all fun and games...

I’m a dork.

Yeah, I know that that’s probably no big surprise to most of you, but I’m occasionally taken aback by what a misfit I see myself as. The odd thing is, my good buddy J (As in Jason, not January. You really would never confuse them in real life) is very similar to me in his likes, dislikes, quirks, etc. and I don’t see him as a misfit at all.

For the last several years, J and I get together for “guys night” on a weekly basis. I know what you’re thinking…Drinking, smoking, and debauchery, right? Well, only if you consider my mass consumption of Diet Coke drinking, the pack of Kool’s that J goes through smoking (ok, I guess you’ve got us there) and debauchery lots and lots of card playing. And not poker or something socially trendy like that. Oh no… we’re playing Magic: the Gathering.

For those uneducated in the ways of the Planeswalker (players), Magic is a collectible card game that allow you to build a deck of at least forty cards and throw down your mighty horde against an opposing Planeswalker for fun and glory (aka bragging rights.) Are you going to use the mountain goblins of fiery red, or call upon the dark zombie hordes of the swamp? Or maybe the beasts and fairies of the green forest?

I can already picture my wife rolling her eyes as she reads this.

So in anticipation of their newest set of cards coming out, the designers of Magic, held a tournament so all those that entered could try out the cards two weeks before they were released to the general public. J and I, fantasying ourselves quite the card players, decided to go see how we faired against all of the other Planeswakers in the land.

In preparation, we talked strategy on the phone, email back and forth various spoilers of rumored cards, and theorize about potential combo combinations. Want to know the best part? We tend to do most of those things even when a tournament isn’t going on. And the trash talking. Let’s not forget—even for a moment—the epically bad trash-talking.

It’s not uncommon to have this conversation with my wife after hanging up the phone with J:

Her: “So how’s Kat?”

Me: “Um… ok, I guess. We didn’t really get into it.”

With a disapproving look, “You spoke with J for 45 minutes and you didn’t ask how his fiancée is doing?”

“Well, you know… we got to talking cards and stuff… and it didn’t really come up.”

“Of course it didn’t if you didn’t ask.”

“Well, I’m sure he would have told me if she wasn’t doing well.”

“Did you talk about the baby?”

“Um… yeah. He still likes the name Quinn.”

That’s met with the eye roll of “in-other-words-you-still-like-the-name-Quinn.” (sign the petition at www.vote4quinn.com)

Anyway… back on subject…

The morning of the event, I was wired, and woke up early like a kid at Christmas. J picked me up early and we headed off to the event. We were both prepped and ready for our various battles, and when we walked into the room, we swung the doors wide like we were a pair of gunslingers walking into the saloon.

With hundreds of people at these events, perhaps a dozen of them were women. I did note that one guy did bring a hot blonde to hang on him while he was playing and provide ample distraction for his opponent, but other than that, it was a pretty disheveled lot.

We went and traded cards with a guy named Ogre, who’s far nicer than his namesake. If you’re wondering how he picked up the nickname, well, if you put him in a line-up of everyone there, I doubt any of you savvy readers would have to much trouble identifying him just by the name.

My first round opponent was a sporadically toothless guy with a long goatee, shaved head and introduced himself as “Pigeon”. I also met a smallish girl nicknamed “Squirrel”. (Keep in mind, this isn’t D&D or some such thing. Nobody needs a nickname. They just have them.) Anyway, all of these woodland creatures proceeded to whoop my ass for most of the day.

In the afternoon, I got my revenge however, as I tied for first in a draft tournament. My final opponent said “you know, if we call it a draw, we split it. That’s better than one of us getting nothing.” Indeed.

Jenn called during the final round of the tournament and asked when I was going to be home. I said “in a little bit. I’m actually winning.” Then I turned to opponent and said “Now… you done?” Not realizing how those sentences might sounds strung together. I got “Ok. Fine. Whatever.” And she hung up.

Suddenly I felt like the biggest dork in the room again.

Anyway, it was all lots of fun, the new cards come out today and that means a brand new bit of trash talking begins. J has to find a new Warrior Bandit, and I a new Eight-and-a-Half-Tailed Fox Cleric to bitch-slap each other with.

Let the games begin!

Beautiful Dreams

I rarely talk to anyone about my dreams. Oftentimes I’ll have dark imagery that others would constitute as nightmares, but I see as vivid inspiration. In those circumstances it’s easier for me to show people my dreams than describe them. Other times, they simply aren’t noteworthy, or they will swing to the absurd and I’ll recognize the dream for what it is.

But there is an additional category. One that shakes me more deeply then any nightmare ever could. It’s the dream where everything’s exactly as I want it. The girl loves me deeply. I’m successful at art. My friends find me charming and my parents truly understand me. I’m at peace.

But there is always that one thing that’s just a bit too good, and I wake up. I wake up and I find that it’s all a fucking lie. The heart’s still broken. The art still listless. The friend sits idly by as others disparaged my name. It goes on and on.

Nothing is ever right.

Such was the pattern for about 32 years of my life. But then I met my exquisitely lovely Jennifer and my life turned a corner.

I knew our second week that she was the one, and I told her as much. I said, “You know what? I think you’re it. Now comes the fun part because now I get to convince you I’m it for you too.”

Within three months we moved in together. Within six we’d flown to Naples Florida where I surprised her with a proposal on a secluded beach. And within a year of our first date, we were married. I don’t know how I defined happiness before her, but it was a shell of what we have now.

My art has taken some amazing strides, I’ve had a couple of gallery showing, and I have a clear vision for what my next piece of art will be. The truest of my friends have nothing but the best wishes for me.

In short, for the first time that I can ever remember, everything seems pretty damn right.

While there are always the day to day toils to deal with,(see any number of post below) this time in my life seems so much better—so much more vivid— then any dream could hope to be.

Which brings me to that one thing... that if this were a dream, would truly push it over the edge to being “too good”.

Two weeks ago, I saw my baby’s heartbeat.

If I’m dreaming, leave me be. If this is just another time I’m blinded by hope, let me never see again.

Jenn had been told years ago that she might have difficulty having children, so we didn't have our hopes up. But now, just when everything seemed so perfect, life gets better.

I’m sure over the next six and a half months or so, I’m going to have plenty of times that I’ll joke about the good and the bad of living with a pregnant woman. I’ll fully admit to having a cocktail of emotions from fear to excitement, joy to panic, but without a doubt, I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

the "thing"

Some days need a fast forward button.

My morning started at three thirty this morning when I woke up, still quite sick. I took some more meds, the kind that are supposed to knock my punk ass out, but instead just turned me into a zombie. I decided to browse the net since for the first time in a long time I didn’t have that “swamped at work” feeling looming over my head.

I’m not sure if it’s age or illness, but even porn browsing sounded unappealing, so instead I decided to check out my friend’s blog. There was a political discussion going on where someone said that is was hard to tell the far left from the Al Qaeda. Of course, with such a moronic statement, I had to add my two cents in. It was clear, cutting, and somewhat witty.(almost like a bumper sticker… hmmmm…) I was very happy with it… right up till my browser posted it three times. Fuck.

Still not feeling sleepy, I decided to go to watch a DVD we got from Netflix, a cancelled TV series called “Undeclared”. It’s kind of like American Pie, only not funny. I mean really not funny.

I started wondering what I’d wear to work for the day about the same time as the zombie meds kicked in. I decided I’d wear the new shirt I got this weekend, but it was going to need to be tumbled really well in the dryer. So I get that started and decide I’m going to try and snuggle in with my lovely wife for the last hour before I needed to start getting ready. That hour turned into an hour and twenty, and soon I was running late.

When I went downstairs to get my shirt, instead of fluffing, the dryer had turned it into a big, wrinkle ball of nastiness. Not having the time to iron, I ran back upstairs, and started flipping through my closet. The problem with my closet is that because it’s in the same room with my sleeping wife, the well-documented morning dragon, I can’t turn on the light. I had a flashlight in there for the longest time, but she keeps putting it away, so I’m left fumbling around in the dark. I grabbed a shirt, pulled it out and realized it’s my lucky Nintendo Tech Support shirt. I love this shirt and just pulling it from the closet brought a smile to my face.

I sat down next to my wife to put on my saddles, and said, “lovely girl… it’s about time to start ‘the process.’” We’ve dubbed her waking up “the process” ever since she sat straight up in bed, glared at me, threw a pillow and said, “don’t you know waking up is a process?!”

So I wasn’t expecting a great response. However, what I got was, “I can do it. I don’t know why you even do that thing… man. So…fucking annoying. Can’t you just leave me alone?”

Personally, I don’t even know what that thing is. So now I’m left wondering what the hell she was talking about. I know that the last couple of weeks the thing has been making sure I’m shutting not one, but two doors when I shower because the waters too loud. However, knowing that both doors were firmly latched this a.m., that was decidedly not “the thing”.

So I take the dog out and when I’m in the stairwell with him I get a really bad smell of dog. That strikes me as really odd for a number of reasons. The first being that I haven’t been able to smell shit for last several days, so something must be pungent to get to this sniffer. The second is that we just had the dog groomed on Saturday, so he shouldn’t be stinking yet.

Once I got outside the smell went away and didn’t come back until about half way to work. I found that odd to since, well, the dog wasn’t with me. I was in typical St. Louis traffic, so I only gave it a passing thought until I was parking my car. Even then I was thinking “why does my car smell like dog too?” Then I sniffed the lucky Nintendo shirt. Oh good god.

Occasionally, when I’m getting ready in the dark, I put on a shirt, decide against in and put it on the bed. When I’m in a real hurry I don’t deal with the shirt again until I get home. The best I can figure, last week, before the grooming, the dog slept on this shirt. That’s the only thing I can think of for the rancid dog smell of what I thought was a perfect clean shirt.

So now I’m sitting at work, it’s 8:45 in the morning, I feel like a zombie, and I’m smelling like week old dog ass. How’s your day going?

Random Ramblings from the Sicky

I’ve been sick as a dog the last few days. Or more specifically, sick like my dog. Snotty, blurry-eyed, random-sneezing-so-hard-my-whole-body-hurts, and most importantly, sitting around with a blank stare on my face.

Luckily, I think I’m keeping my snaggle-tooth in my mouth.

With that said, I’m going to ramble a bit.

I think it’s always a good thing to know your virtues and limitations. For example, one of the things I’m terrible about is patience. I hate waiting. My biggest pet peeve are the words “we have to talk… but not right now.” Or “I don’t want to talk about it right now.” Or pretty much anything having to do with "talk", “not” and “right now”. This lack of patience gets exponentially worse when I’m sick and the little things really start to stand out.

For example, I remember when those Lance Armstrong Foundation armbands were novel and meant something. Now, everyone has them for every damn thing under the sun. Same with those magnetic ribbons on the back of cars. They started with the “Remember our Troops”, and "Breast Cancer" and now I just saw one for the Cardinals. I mean really... The Cardinals? I know they've been loosing a lot lately, but do they need thier own ribbon?

And speaking of things on the back of cars, it’s bad enough if you’re going to ghetto up your car by putting a bumper stick on it, but at least take the time to put that shit on straight. I saw a, “In God We Trust” bumper stick slapped on at a 30ish degree angle. At that point you’re not even trying.

And speaking of the “In God We Trust” is there any way of saying “I haven’t bothered to research any real information on my stance” then being able to sum up your political view with a bumper sticker? I don’t care what side of fence you’re on. If you can sum your opinion up with “Man + Woman = Marriage”, or something equally as *cough* clever, then you’re beliefs are as shallow as your wit.

Ok… well, I’ll ramble about more stuff later. Time to go take some more medication that my Pharmacist tells me I can make Meth out of. Weeeeee…

A few surveys...

This probably doesn't suprise anyone...

You Are Surrealism

Dreamy and idealistic, you've created a world that is all your own. It's very likely that you've either dabbled in drugs or are naturally trippy. You are always trying to push beyond the boundaries of your culture and society. You believe that art, love, and freedom can change the world.

What Art Movement Are You?

But this might...

Your Pimp Name Is...

Long Dong Slick

What's Your Pimp Name?

You Are An INFP

The Idealist You are creative with a great imagination, living in your own inner world. Open minded and accepting, you strive for harmony in your important relationships. It takes a long time for people to get to know you. You are hesitant to let people get close. But once you care for someone, you do everything you can to help them grow and develop. You would make an excellent writer, psychologist, or artist.

What's Your Personality Type?