Generations

1 month

Our sweet boy at 1 month. Looks like he's got my smirk.

Hi, I’m Marvel

Funny, funny stuff.

Who’s on first?

With summer comes some of the coolest movies, and Jenn and I we’re lucky enough to score Nana Donna as a sitter last weekend to go see Pirates at the local theater.

This is the second time we’ve gotten to go to this particular theater since we’ve moved to St. Chuck. Personally, movie theaters are like hair stylist—once you’ve found one that doesn’t screw things up to bad, you stick with it. We had a great one in Downtown St. Louis, with plush leather couches and drinks in real glasses, but since we now live about 45 minutes out from the city, we needed to find something a little closer to home. For the most part, the Mega-Screen at the Galaxy 14 does just fine.

The only real problem I had with the place was the service. Both times we’ve gone we’ve had this mentally challenged girl as the ticket gatekeeper, collecting her stub-toll before we enter the theater.

Each time she’s been sitting on a chair off to the side, a good twenty-five feet away from her post. Now, that may not seem like a big deal to you, but it takes her nearly a full minute to get to said post, another twenty seconds to lotion up her hands, ten to shoot me a look of consternation as she scrutinizes the validity of the tickets, thirty more seconds to chastise the children behind us for swinging on the red roping, and god only knows how long to rip the tickets and mumble something about how we’re running SO late that she doesn’t know if we’ll find a seat together.

Fuck you slow-ass-ticket-troll. (Oh, stop looking so offended. She started it.)

So it made me think, can you complain about the handicapped? Do you come across like a total douche if you say something to her boss?

I could just imagine the conversation going something like this:

Me: “That girl out front is really slow.”

Theater Manager: “Mentally challenged.”

Me: “No, I mean she needs to be quicker.”

Theater Manager: “You mean less slow?”

Me: “Exactly.”

Theater Manager: “Sir, I’m not sure how you could suggest she be less handicapped…”

Me: What? No, I mean she is…”

Theater Manager: “Impaired? Afflicted? Not right in the head?”

Me: “This is retarded…”

5 Things I’ve Learned in 2 Weeks of Fatherhood

I’m back at work after my two week hiatus to adjust to becoming a dad, so I thought I would share 5 random fatherhood things I’ve learned in my time away.

5: I doubt I’ll have any better idea how to relate to Noah then my parents did to me.

Times change. I recently stumbled upon a conversation that showed how little I know about what kids go through nowadays.

As I was pulling into my driveway the other day, a group of neighbor kids were playing in cul-de-sac, and had gathered together in a heated discussion.

“FINE!” one said, as he sped away on his bike, “If you’re going to be that way, I’m taking you off my buddy list!”

The girl he had directed the comment too reacted as if he had punched her in the chest. “You better not or I’m telling your mom!”

I wanted to go tell her to go hack his MySpace page. That’d show ‘em.

4: Fatherhood doesn’t bring maturity


Like responsible parents, Jenn and I got one of those baby monitors. Our Fisher Price model not only lets you hear the baby, but also give a series of lights to indicate the volume of your fussy infant. I’m sure I’m not the first guy that has pondered if he can belch loud enough to max out the light indicator like the “Test of Strength” at the county fair.

3: This boy owes me… big time

It occurred to me at two in the morning--when I was cleaning baby poop out of the wrinkles of his ball sack while he’s crying because he pee’d all over me, the wall, and in his own eye--that this boy owes me, big time.

2: “Gifted” is a big word

As I may have mentioned before, all of Noah’s cousins are pretty brilliant little kids. As such, my mother-in-law has become accustom to using the word “gifted” pretty liberally. When Noah was able to lift his head and watch people his first week home, she dubbed him gifted as well. I’m not sure he needs that kind of pressure to live up too. I mean honestly, what if it’s just retard strength?

1: Baby smiles mean nothing… kinda.

I’m done a bit of reading about how baby smiles mean nothing for the first few months. They aren’t a reflection of anything the baby is feeling. I get that, I truly do. With that being said, his smile means the whole world to me. When he looks at me wide-eyed with that perfect little smile, it’s a reflection of everything I feel for him.

Noah

I know few people still read this, (I'll get better at posting now that I can log back into the blog) but I thought I would share a picture of baby Noah. Born May 11, 7 lbs. 11 oz. With the good looks of his mother and the calm personality of his dad. =)

Keeping up with Jones

My life’s had more drama then a country song the last few weeks. My car broke down for the ump-teenth time (we’re up to around two grand since the beginning of the year), Jenn’s grumpy because she can’t ever get comfortable (“you don’t know how hard it is having a baby…” Oy.), work has vacillated between eighty hour weeks and “what-the-fuck-am-I-doing-here”, my freelance clients are dragging their feet so bad I don’t think I’ll ever get paid, and last, but certainly worst, my dog died.

Generally speaking, I really hate feeling sorry for myself. What’s worse is when I start seeing that I’m feeling sorry for myself and start resenting myself for it, compounding the problem. I know this. I see it clear as glass, yet still think, “you’re so fucking pathetic. It’s so obvious what you’re doing and you’re doing it anyway.”

See the pointless little loop? Yeah… me too. God, I’m so fucking pathetic…

Anyway, this weekend I remembered a funny little story that centered around the Poco-nator getting his own bumper sticker, so I thought I would share.

A decade and some change ago, I was working as a software trainer for CompUSeless. My roommate and best friend at the time, Jeremy (who also worked there as a sales associate) and I were standing around after one of my classes, waiting for quiting time when the “ever quotable” Mike Jones walked up.

Now, Mike needs a bit of an introduction, because he was one of those guys you either loved, or hated. I tended to find him really funny, which, statistically speaking, meant Jeremy found him less so. Much, much less so.

He would go on bizarre rants that went nowhere, but were fun to listen too. He was also oddly confrontational at completely inappropriate times. This all seemed a bit surreal coming from a guy that was 6’3 and maybe a buck sixty.

Mike: “You! Squatcheye! Tell me what your dog is doing this very second.”

Me: “Truth be told, I hadn’t even considered it.”

Mike: “You mean you don’t think about what Poco is doing during the day? What sort of pet owner are you? I should leg drop you.”

Jeremy: “Mike, what concerns me is that YOU think about what his dog does during the day.”

Mike: “Well clearly somebody has too. We need to hook up some sort of Poco-cam. Squatch, get on that. I’ll supervise. Don’t speak—just do.”

Jeremy: “Nobody is putting a camera in our apartment.”

Mike: “Alright, then YOU tell me what Poco is doing right now.”

Jeremy: “Knowing Poco? Probably doing the eyeball dance or humping his elephant.”

Me: “He did make that little stuffed elephant his bitch.”

Mike: “Double damn right he did. And I think we could all learn a little something from our boy Poco. W.W.P.D.”

Me: “W.W.P.D.?”

Mike: “What Would Poco Do. Words to live by. You see, Jeremy said something very true. Perhaps the truest thing he’s ever said. Poco would be humpin’ (dramatic pause) or dancin’. And that, my friend, is the key to the universe.”

Me: “The key to the universe is humpin’ or dancin’?”

Mike: The key to the universe is in what Poco would do at any given time. Some people need growled at. Others, humped. Sometimes you need to just take a moment and make fucked up noises at the back door for no particular reason. W.W.P.D. Learn it. Live it.”

A few days later Mike Jones had made up W.W.P.D. bumper stickers with “now with PocoCam” in small print.

Good times… good times indeed.

R.I.P.

Last night I lost one of my closest friends of the past fourteen, nearly fifteen years.

Rest in Peace buddy.

V-Day

I am starting to wish Valentine’s day would just go away. Not that I ever had a particular love for this crassly commercialized event, but being, by most accounts, more romantic then the typical guy, I often took it as a way of showing off my “mad sweet skillz”.

The only problem is that Jenn hates Valentine’s Day.

Now I know hate is a strong word, but I assure you, she has the disdain to back it up.

Last year I made the mistake of thinking that it was one of those things where the girl say she hates it, but your balls will be in a vice if you don’t actually do anything, so I brought her flowers. Twenty painstaking minutes later, she had emphasized, reemphasized, and overemphasized (which is one of my only pet peeves about my lovely wife) just how much I should not ever consider trying to do something romantic for her on 14th of February… ever again.

So this year we set out, a week in advance, to specifically do nothing for V-day. Just to treat it like any other day. However, we interpreted that a bit differently. I took that as “we’ll hang out, talk about our days over dinner, maybe watch a movie.” Jenn took it as “I’ll go shopping and see you whenever.”

Meanwhile, just because Jenn and I weren’t celebrating V-day doesn’t mean others aren’t. I got greetings from a few female friends wishing me a happy Valentine’s Day. So I started thinking, “so who do you wish Happy V-Day too, and who don’t you?” I mean, I’m sure if I would have started out my conversation with J with “Hey man, Happy Valentine’s Day”, he would have said, “Uh… Um… ok man... Whatever.” And what about co-workers? Do I tell them Happy V-Day? Just the female co-workers? Somehow that seems a bit sexist. And what about the gay guys in the office? Honestly, what are the sensibilities? Are my friends sitting at home offended that I didn’t call?

And what of family? I didn’t think I needed to call my mom on Valentine’s Day, but thanks to a guilt laced email I got from my dad at close to midnight last night, that was big mistake. And if my mom’s offended, sure-as-shit my grandmother was expecting a call. And I guess, if I was making the rounds, I should have called my sister too. But she’s not even in the country, so do I get a pass on not making an international call? Probably not. And if then should I call my niece? My nephew? My sister-in-law?

Stupid holiday. It was much easier when I could just buy Superfriends Valentine’s cards for the whole class.

Loosing It

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Our New Home

It was like the perfect storm— moving AND getting a new digital video camera.

Have a gander at the new place...

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.

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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.