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.

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

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?

Ohio Renaissance Festival

I went to the Ohio Renaissance Festival this past weekend. Here’s some pics:









This is one of my favorite pics from the set. It's just good timing. The spear flying through the air, the pose... everything. But there is one thing that I missed when I took the pic and thought I would share...



Ok... now you've seen the pic... take a look at this guy again with his shirt up around his pits and his belly hanging out. I did mention this was the Ohio Ren fest, right?

Turkey Juice

Last week wasn’t a good week for me to blog. I had a crazy work schedule, freelance schedule, no wife-time schedule, and generally a poor attitude about anything having to do with the word “schedule”. I wrote a blog entitled “I’m a fucking whore” and then decided it seemed entirely too “woe is me” and chalked it up to lack of sleep.

I also had a topic for a blog on Friday (that would have been entitled “the game”) that I ran by the wife and for the first time she said, “You can’t blog about that! I’ve got family that reads your blog!”

I took a nugget of pride in that fact—that I had stumbled across where the taboo line was, although it left me a bit topicless.

So instead of writing, I proceeded out the door to go pay our Ameren bill. Jenn had told me that it had to be paid that day, so I assumed that was going online, making a phone call, or god forbid, actually writing a check. Come to find out, I actually had to go to Schnuck’s (the local grocery store) to avoid the $3 late charge.

Living in the city, there is no shortage of Schnuck’s around, and so years ago I started identifying them by their general level of hoopdy-ness.

Now, the urban dictionary refers to hoopdy as an exclamation meaning, "kick ass!" but as an un-hip white boy, I’ve always used is as a derogatory term in reference to people that would say things like “Check out these hoopdy rims I put on my Omni!”

I know it all must seem terribly confusing, but the general rule: The higher the level of hoopdy, the more distasteful it is.

There was “Hoopdy Schnucks”, “Super Hoopdy”, and “The Sticky Hoop”. (In fairness, there is one over in Clayton that’s called simply, “The Fancy Schnucks.”)

I knew there was one around the corner from our home, on Grand, but Jenn and I hadn’t ever been in there, so it had an uncharted hoopdy level. Since it was close, and I was only paying a bill, I figured I might as well check it out.

As I approached the counter, I was impressed at the level of hoopdy-ness that had been achieved before even reaching the food area, and dubbed it “Stanky Hoop”.

I proceeded to pay my bill, which cost me an extra buck fifty for processing (remember, this is to avoid the $3 late fee, so I’m still ahead) and took about ten minutes of my life that I’ll never get back.

As I’m waiting, I watched people walk in and out of the door on the video surveillance that they have behind the counter. One gentleman caught my eye in particular and caused me to turn around.

To say he was black may be misleading. He was ashen. His bottom lip, which was larger than average, hung down, dry and flaky, like it hadn’t been touched by moisture in countless days. Even when he smiled, his lip still hung down, showing nothing but bottom teeth. When he spoke, he showed a gapping hole next to a gold tooth.

His hair was patchy like someone that went through chemotherapy but didn’t shave their head. He had a really nice Nikey shirt,(although it clearly had been worn a few days), matching “swoosh” pants, and a thick gold necklace.

His footwear was what really caught my attention though. He was wearing pink, fluffy, women’s slippers. They were somewhat faded and looked like he had walked through gray soot.

As I stood there staring at his slippers, I saw drips liquid hit the floor. Looking up, I noticed, (oddly enough for the first time) that he had a Walmart bag in his hand that was about the size of a basketball. It was dripping something a slightly darker shade of pink then his slippers.

“DON !” the man bellowed from out of the blue. “ DON ! Don! Don! Don! DON !!” The only man working behind the counter finally looked over at him, pointed at his name tag and said, “Are you hollering for me? My name is Dan, not Don.” The ashen man’s only response was a big gap and gold smile like he had just made a new friend.

“Sir…” Dan said, “You’re just going to have to wait your turn like everybody else.”

The woman next to the ashen man turn to Dan with a little head bobble and said “Ummm… no. You best help this man.” Then quickly pulled a tissue from her purse and covered her face with it. I figured out why about two seconds later when the wave of smell hit me.

Oh. Dear. God.

This was a mighty mighty stench. And as he raised the bag up, not only did the smell get worse but there was a slight squishy sound. Then he gave it a little shake to a far more audible squish.

“Turkey.”

“What?” Dan said.

“In da bag. Turkey. It’s turkey. Spoiled. It spoiled. The turkey.”

Sweet Jesus… he talks like Yoda on crack.

“Yeah… ok…” Dan replied. It was pretty clear he was thinking over how he just doesn’t get paid enough for days like today and suddenly, as funny as this all seemed to me, I felt really bad for Dan.

“Here!” The ashen man came lumbering forward, sticking the bag out in front of him with pride and spraying the crowd in line with reeking, spoiled, turkey juice like it was a punctured water balloon.

“I don’t want it! What would I possibly do with that?!” Dan said, exacerbated.

“Spoiled turkey. I don’t know why, but it’s a spoiled. Spoiled like meat, but it’s turkey.”

“I tell you what… you take that back to the meat department and I’ll have them exchange it for you.”

“The turkey?”

“Yeah… the turkey. Just take it on back.”

Hearing Dan on the phone to the meat department, explaining why a guy with a spoiled turkey in a Walmart bag was coming back to see him, was almost as entertaining as watching the ashen man waddle away with the trail of turkey juice dripping behind.

Civil War

This past weekend I went to a Civil War reenactment and shot a ton of pictures. I haven’t had much time to write, so I thought I would instead share a few images. They are still pretty raw, but I thought you might enjoy them anyway.

And my personal favorite:

State of the Porn Address

Jennifer and I have a wonderfully honest relationship. One of the things I really love about her is that I can, and do, talk to her about anything. And I do mean anything. For example, it’s not unheard of for us to have conversations similar to this:

(phone rings)

Her: Hey hubby… what’s up?

Me: Oh, not much. Just browsing some Asian porn. What’s up with you?

Her: Really? Find anything good?

Ok… in fairness, I embellish somewhat. With the exception of this past weekend, it had been a good 3-4 months since I looked at any kind of porn. That’s a testament to how great life is with my beautiful bride. Point is, I could have that conversation with her without batting an eye.

This past weekend, it rained, which means my cock-blocking Pekinese had to throw a little hissy, get completely un-potty trained, and annoy Jenn to the point where she was saying things like, “We’re just going to have too put him to sleep. That’s all there is to it.”

Now you may think she was joking, but trust me, I was there. It was four in the morning and there was poop on her floor. She was in evil dragon mode and the dog wasn’t the only one scared.

I tried to keep the peace. I said “baby… he’s just freaking. It’s storming and you know how he hates storms. Let me just sit up with him for a few and he’ll be fine. I’ll clean everything up and we can just go back to bed…” Then I made my critical mistake— I made physical contact by putting my hand on her shoulder. Brushing off my hand she turned to me and through clenched teeth said two words. “Your. Dog.” I wasn’t aware that evil morning dragons had heat vision, but trust me, they do. I had been vanquished and banished all in a matter of seconds.

I’m not a “yes dear” kinda guy, but by damn, there’s some times when you have to suck up the pride and realize there isn’t any way you’re gonna win.

So after cleaning up the mess, I went to spend time getting the dog to calm down. I kept mumbling things like “this is all your fault you know” to him while he followed under foot.

There are few things in the world better than rainy Saturday morning sex. However, realizing that I had been banished, and that if I actually went to snuggle up next to my still angry wife, the Pekinese was going to start his antics again, I figured the best option was to quietly web surf. It was way too early to actually do anything productive, so I decided to surf porn instead, which actually brings me to the point of this post (a revised point, since I’m too far off topic to actually go back.)

Is it just me or had porn gotten a lot worse over the past several years? I mean honestly, it could just be that I’m getting older, but it seems increasingly more difficult to find pictures of just a hot naked girl without her being gang-banged by three midgets and a honey coated kielbasa. Sweet Jesus… not everything has to be so extreme. Has the world gotten that desensitized to seeing just a smoking hot body that they have to resort to the most radical of fetishes? I’m hardly someone that minds breaking out the cuffs (and even the riding crop when we’re getting “freaky naughty”), but good god. Some things are best in their simplicity.

Anyway… I had almost given up before I found a site dedicated to mischievous anime schoolgirls and all was right with the world again.

The Pit of Darkness

Before I begin, let me just say that if you’re reading this blog, I can pretty much guarantee that at some point you’re probably going to take exception to something you read here. I’m fine with that. In fact, one of the points of this blog is to talk about all of those things people don’t like talking about, so if you’re looking for something other then my heavily garnished opinions, check out… um…well, crap. This is where I would give a reliable news source, but since I don’t know of one, let’s just say CNN. That way you can see a guy falsely admitting to a decade old murder get top headlines while they gloss over the fact that 61 more people were brutally killed in Iraq with less vigor then they give the weather.

And to think that I have people that find me fucking offensive.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get back to some more pointless drivel, shall we?

As I mentioned last week, Jenn and I recently took a trip to KC to visit her family. Jenn’s sister and brother-in-law have a great suburban home, in a nice little maze of other homes that I’m sure are just as lovely. They where nice enough to let us spend the night on the pullout downstairs so we didn’t need to get a hotel. They even got out the inflatable mattress so that we were as comfy as two people could be on a pullout couch. With the exception of my wife throwing a cat-hair covered blanket on my face (I’m quite allergic and proceeded to have my eyes puff out of my head) things were pretty uneventful.

The next morning however, I woke up much earlier than anyone else. Now this is bad for a couple of reasons. First, I’m not very good at doing “nothing”. I get fidgety and start to even annoy myself.

Secondly, Jenn’s an extremely light sleeper. And I mean extremely light sleeper. Ninjas sleep more soundly then Jenn does. She not only hates being woken up, but my sweet little Jennifer turns into an evil dragon in the morning. I’ll admit it… any time before 9 a.m., she scares me.

Lastly—and this really is the very worst part—I had to take a dump.

This provided a dilemma not only personally, but tactically as well. For starters, I hate hate hate using a strange toilet. But there wasn’t much choice since we were 4-5 hours away from a familiar commode.

They have a bathroom downstairs, but it’s a refinished basement and if you turn the bathroom light on, it turns all the lights on in the entire downstairs. With the pullout only feet away, flipping the switch would have surely woken the dragon. Not only that, the bathroom door has a hole in it big enough for a cat to run through. Now, I’m a man who wants a well-ventilated, fully-fanned, three-matches-lit, no-hole-in-the-freakin’-door, bathroom when I’m doing my business.

Upstairs, they have another bathroom, but after a quick recon up the steps, I noticed that the door was open to the master bedroom, which the bathroom sits right next too.

So becoming increasingly more desperate, I thought of another option. Go downstairs, grab my keys, and go drive to the nearest Mc D’s or other public facility. But what kind of note do you leave for that? And worse yet, I mentioned this was a MAZE of houses, right? I had literally NO idea where I was. Just so you know how seriously I considered this option, I went looking for a pen and paper to write said note.

Lacking anything to write my note with, and fearing getting hopelessly lost, I decided to venture into the dark pit of a bathroom without turning on the light. I feared waking the dragon by shear smell alone, but that was a risk I just had to take.

Ever tried to wipe your butt in the pitch dark? It occurred to me that I never had. In the dark, yeah. In a “you can’t see anything except that damn hole in the door” dark? Never. And instead of having their toilet paper hanging on the wall, they have it on a cute little metal stand. Or I’m sure it would be cute if I could’ve seen it. Instead, I just knocked it over with my elbow and had to scurry to keep it from banging against the floor. And in the dark, how many times is enough wiping? I must have used half of that roll of TP just to be safe.

And then, from the darkness, came one of the scariest things I’ve experienced in recent memory. In writing it, you wouldn’t think a cat putting it’s paw on your leg would seem like a scary thing, and trust me, I’d build up the drama if I could. But I swear, when you think you’re sitting alone in the dark and your hearts still racing from knocking over the TP stand, a cold, rough kitty paw on your leg is enough to make you jump out of your skin.

So you may wonder, what’s the point of this stupidity? Absolutely no point. That’s the point. I just thought that the next time your feeling stupid about something, you can think back to my little bathroom dilemma and suddenly not feel quite so foolish.

Click Click BOOM!

I’m sure you’ve heard any number of guys talk about how they don’t get women. Generally speaking, I find that if you just try to be a good listener instead of a problem solver, you’re 90% there.

However, lately I’ve found a plethora of random topics that my wife no longer sees my opinion valid on. The dilemma is that I don’t think she knows what those subjects are until they come out of her mouth, so I tend to walk blindly into these topical landmines.

Here’s an example of one of these exchanges that happened just last week:

Jenn: (looking in the car mirror) "Do you think I’m getting more freckles?"

Me: "If you are, I hadn’t noticed them. But I think your freckles are adorable, so if the question is are you looking increasingly more adorable, I’d have to say yes."

Jenn: (Looking at me like "I just tried to belch the national anthem) Ugh. What do you know? You’re my husband… you supposed to say stuff like that."

See what I mean? Getting married completely killed my point of view. I’d have to bring in a series of experts, a team of analyst, and a Simon frickin’ Cowell before she would have considered my opinion valid. Truly boggles the fucking mind.

Goals for the Road

This weekend Jenn and I went to KC for our nephew’s third year birthday party. Yeah, I had to backspace to say “our”. I’m still not used to that. This is our family. And man… is it huge.

My parents are both only children, so on the holidays, if my brother can’t make it with Kim and the kids, we’re looking at around half a dozen people, tops. This was a kid’s birthday party and there must have been at least twenty-five to thirty people there.

Now, with that being said, I had a great time. I think, in part, it was because unlike when we went to KC for Christmas, I went with my own set of objectives. You see, at Christmas (our last trip to KC), Jenn and I had been going out like 5 months, and my basic plan was “adapt, make a decent impression, and don’t look too idiotic. You never know, if all goes well you may actually see these people again.” Now we’re married. It’s a whole new ballgame. This is family.

So what was my strategy going into this trip? Good question. Here’s the list in no particular order:

• Don’t say or do anything stupid.
• Spend some quality time with my nephew. He’s great, but we haven’t had a lot of chances to hang out with him. Besides, it’s been a while since I’ve tried to keep up with a three year old, so I wanted to make sure I was up to it before Jenn and I start trying for our own family later this year.
• Get to know my brother-in-law (Jenn’s sister’s husband. Does that still qualify as brother-in-law? I don’t fucking know.) He’s a cool guy. A techy geek like me (ok not nearly as geeky as me) and a movie buff. However, up until now, it’s always seemed like any time we were talking I got the vibe that he was just talking to me to be polite. While I’m sure that’s probably just in my head, I really wanted to get to know him a bit better and have at least one conversation where I felt like he was having a good time.
• Avoid staring at cleavage. These people are family now. Besides, even if it’s wife cleavage, it’s kinda uncool to do at a 3-year-olds birthday party.
• Get road head.

Well, I’m happy to report that I had varying degrees of success with just about all of these goals. Here are the results, which are also not in order.

Jenn helped me with the last goal on the way there. Thank you all for your prayers, well wishes, and emails of support. The PT Cruiser is officially christened.

I also got to know the brother-in-law a bit better. I prepped before the trip by going to darkhorizons.com and superherohype.com before I left and got all the latest movie gossip. I had several conversations with him where not only did I feel that he was having a good time, but so was I.

Avoid staring at cleavage? *sigh* Well, there’s always next year, right? For various reasons it was completely impossible for me to avoid the cleavage stare. However, I take some solace in the fact that I caught my father-in-law staring too (albeit at different cleavage.)

Don’t do anything stupid? Another thing I didn’t do overly well. Here’s a little etiquette tip: If you’re going to start out a sentence with “I have a friend who used to be a stripper…”(believe it or not, this was relevant to the conversation at the time) check the room to make sure your brother-in-law’s religious mom isn’t standing behind you. Jenn tried to cover for me to no avail. So again… there’s always next year.

Lastly, there was spending time with my nephew. This was, without a doubt, the best part of my weekend. Not only was I able to keep up with him, I had a really great time doing it. We hung out on the back deck for a good long while flying his air-pump powered plane and I got to teach him the overhand toss of the plane (verses the dump over the railing.)

But the moment that cemented the fact that I want to have kids was this little exchange:

Nephew: “Larry the Lizard is stuck up there (pointing up.)”

Me: “Really? Way up there? In the sky?”

Nephew: “Yeah. But he’s not in heaven; He’s just on the roof.”

Dark Wires

So I’ve been in a really creative mood the last few days. However, I haven’t had a shoot in several weeks, so there’s not much to work on. I suppose I could go back in the files and find something that I had looked over in the past, but I hunger for something… new. That’s probably the best way I can describe it. Being really ravenous, and yet not quite figuring out what I have the taste for.

On the plus side, it’s been a while since I’ve done something creative where the parameters weren’t dictated to me, so hunger is good.

It’s good in other ways too. Jenn’s asked me “what’s gotten into you lately?” more than few times as of late. As much as she likes her “good man”(which is, btw, the best compliment she can give me) she equally appreciates my darker side.

It’s also helped me at the job quite a bit too as I’ve been able to come up with some “out of the box” solutions to problems. (God I hate clichés like that, but I don’t know how else to say it. “Creative” is also pretty overplayed considering where I work.)

And I’ve been enjoying music more than I normally do. I’ll freely admit to being rhythm challenged and being partially deaf doesn’t help much either. I’ve been digging back on Blue October and I don’t think there’s anything of theirs I don’t like. They’ve got a very eclectic blend of music that runs the board of stuff I really dig. For example, they’ve got a song that sounds very NIN called Drilled a Wire through My Cheek. Here’s a nugget:

I try to stay on top of you
To hold your body down
Your shaking seems to hinder
Every grap that I have found

Moving every inch around me
To defuse your private bomb
I stretch myself surrounding
And protecting you from harm

I use a wallet for your mouth
So when you bite you will not bleed
I drilled a wire through my cheek
And let it down and out my sleeve

And as your pulling out the best of me
Yeah which never ever comes
This wires all thats left of me
And its hooked within my gums
within my gums...

So drill it, so drill it
So hard
Feel it

Its proof to show that I bleed for this
And ive cut myself the shame
But to get to know this macicist
Who has stolen my first name

Pretending he's a teacher
Holding all my weight at ease
Yet the teacher seems to split in two
Destroying both his knees

Now crawling I position myself
Below your broken wing
I lift your featherd left arm
Where you hide your heart for me

I never noticed it was swolen
With the touch of brutal pain
I never knew a heart could live inside
The rust from all your rain
all your rain...

That’s only half the song and yes… the whole song is that dark, fucked up, and I love every line of it.

Anyway, I’ve got the day off tomorrow, so maybe I’ll have a new image soon. I’ve got to get a bunch of freelance stuff done and we’re going to hang out with Jenn’s family in KC this weekend,(which means a road trip in the Cruiser and the potential for road head since I finally have an automatic. Keep me in your prayers) but I’ll try to budget in some art time.