Staph Meeting: The Small Bug That Bites Big

About 2 months ago I hit the busiest period of my life in the past 2 years. Work was humming along, coaching teeball one night a week (not for the money) working out 3 days a week, and preparing to move to a new home/sell a home/argue about moving and packing. Bizz. Eee. I wasn’t sleeping much but felt fine. I was eating healthy and not over-doin’ it with booze. OK, I suppose “over-doin’ ” is subjective, but for my standards, I was FINE, OK, I was fine…

Then I got hit with a bastard of a staph infection on my thigh. I think I got it from the mats at the gym, though I usually wipe ’em down before stretching on them.n I’ll never use mats again. The smallest cut and a latent response to the bugs and next thing I knew, a cyst the size of half a golfball was growing on my outer thigh. The part where you sit down and it hits a chair. Or you stand up and your pocketed-phone bumps the side of it. The area where you nudge it and cry a little. I couldn’t think of it without wincing.

After about 5 days from “implantation” to “it has a heartbeat,” I had a doc take a look at it. I thought it was MRSA due to my medical training (Thanks WebMD.com!) but it wasn’t. It was the non-MR staph aureus, which bode well for me. It was also a nice little scar about the size of a penny to remind me to not F around with that stuff.

Fast forward to 2 weeks ago; final weekend of moving into the new house. 90deg-F, in and out of trucks, sweating like a training montage in a 1980’s martial arts film. And I get the smallest cut on my back from whatever. 24 hours later, IT’S BACK. The warm, infectious feeling of spreading staph! Now, I thought MAYBE it was an ingrown hair and begged my wife to hot compress it and break out the big safety pin and go to work. NOPE. Too gross for her. Too much to ask. And in hindsight that could have spread the bug much further into my system.

The next day I’m begging to see the dermatologist because my other doc was a little too happy to dig in with a knife. The area on my back spread from a Quarter-sized area of heat and pain to about the size of an adult hand, tucked under my skin. And it hurt like somebody was pressing an iron into my back, but with a lovely little Vesuvius right there in the middle, a grotesque Ground Zero of bacterial bombardment. It had moved from a red to a deep purple spot about 1/4″ across, which was not a bruise. Instead, it’s necrosis; the bacteria and eaten and killed everything in that are and moved on.

My dermatologist took one look and said “OK… well… how much time do you have this morning?” 10min later, laying face-down on the table and lidocaine injected into the infected area. A slice, a push, and doc says “Yeah, this was getting bad. You had an abscess here that wasn’t gonna stop. We’re gonna drain this and see what we can do.”

That was 3 weeks ago now. I went through a round of Cephalexin to kill it. I had twice-daily “expressions” of the area to release any fluid built up under the left shoulder blade and in my back. I couldn’t sleep but in 1 position, and not even a fair dose of painkillers could lull it to rest. People used to die from this thing, and through the miracle of modern medicine, I have a quarter-sized hole in my back, packed with gauze, and draining only a slight amount of clear fluid and blood while it heals itself. My wife has become a field-nurse of heroic proportions. She saw my inner back-meat, and didn’t flinch.

The weird part of all this is… I had been telling myself, and been told by others, to gear-down. I had about 3 high-stress, low-sleep months where I powered through it and was ready to slow-down once we moved into the new house. Well, I did. I haven’t been to the gym for a serious lift in 4 weeks. I slept more. I drank less. My body revolted against my mind in order to preserve itself like a biologic Bastille Day; my body needed resources to stay healthy, which I was refusing it due to my own agenda. Your body seeks balance, HomeoStasis, a mid-point of reserve and expression. I guess this is part of getting older; shut-down for benefit, or be shut-down.

So hot-wash every bit of clothing, bedding, and toweling you have. Steam-clean the car seats. And remember that you should take it easy now and again. Life is not a sprint, nor a marathon. It’s a nice walk around town with a few stops for friends and meals and medically-approved THC-infused brownies.

September 5, 2014 0

A 4 Year-Old Asks of Love

There was a recent uproar in the world of ignorance when ESPN, the world-wide leader in Deification & OverDramatizing the Lives of Athletes, briefly broadcast 2 adult men kissing… ON THE MOUTH. In the post-Janet Jackson’s-boob-world!!!

It was a moment in the lives of Michael Sam and his boyfriend, Vito Cammisano. Sam is the first openly-gay collegiate football player, from the University of Missouri, and was the Defensive Player of the Year in the SouthEastern Conference. When Sam was drafted by the St. Louis Rams in the 7th round of the NFL Draft, cameras captured the moment/announcement/phone call from the Rams on TV. In their excitement and happiness, Sam and Cammisano kissed… ON THE MOUTH.

Source: Deadspin.com

And my oldest son, who is 4.75 years old, happened to see it. As did I. It raised my eyebrow, because I immediately wondered how much of an issue this non-issue would become in social media, and then later, the starved-for-content Media. And knowing my son’s inquisitive nature – he once woke up with the question “Where do we go before we’re born?” – I expected him to ask me something about the ON THE MOUTH kiss he just witnessed between two men. My family is very affectionate; we are huggers, squeezers, cuddlers, snugglers, pinchers, and kissers with those whom are comfortable with it. But among the men, we don’t kiss. So I expected a tough question…

So he turns to me and asks, “Dadda, why did those two boys kiss each other?”

And here’s what I said, after my years of living with relationships, learning from loving, and understanding what there is to understand about People and Love…

“Well buddy, those boys love each other.”

And he asks, “Do boys love each other like you and mommy?”

And I can’t extrapolate genetic predisposition or evolutionary precursors of attraction based on brain chemistry and/or the shape of a woman’s hips as a signal of fertility and loin-revving physicality, so in a moment if divine inspiration and minor panic, I told my son this…
“Love is who you like the most.
Most boys like girls. And most girls like boys.
Some boys like boys. And some girls like girls.
But, just be nice to everybody no matter who they like, and be extra nice to who you like.
And if somebody’s not nice to you, then stay away from them.”

He turns to me and says, “Oh! OK,” and then he paused to work this out in his head. Then he gets a big smile on his face and he says... “Well I really like that girl Maggie in my class, she is good at coloring and smells like pancakes.”

And I said “Well that’s great, she tries hard at art, and pancakes are always good. So be nice to everybody, ok?”

“Okay,” he said. “Sometimes it’s hard, but I try to be nice to everybody.”

And I was happy and proud to hear that.
But then he asked me a question I couldn’t answer. He was loading up with a question that even the deepest of thinkers, the most romantic of romancers, those with far more hues than 50 Shades of Grey and people with remixes of Song of Songs could find an answer for in the 271+ years of human history. A question so heavy that sinkhole opened in my brain. My son, not yet 5, asked me…

“So… when do girls start being nice?”

I’d like to address the pre-birth location question now.

June 20, 2014 2

I feel like there’s an innate ability to parent a child under the age of 1, basic care and feeding. Most people who have a baby can do that, unless they are warped in some way. Most of it is a game of getting the kid on a schedule of sleeping, eating, and playing so they develop eyesight, body control, and communication skills. Also, you can’t leave them alone with a gun or a violent-breed dog, which are about the same thing in cultures that see either a gun or a pit bull as a status symbol above having a child. Anybody can have a baby, but it takes about a week and a couple hundred dollars to get a gun or a pit bull. I’m not saying I’m doing all of this perfectly, but I’m sure as shit not letting people I know, and people you know, get away with being or raising narcissists.

Anyway… After the kid’s 1 they need boundaries. Not just a boundary of a baby-gate to keep them from barrel-rolling down the basement staircase. Nor a leash to keep them in peripheral view while Parent does some on-line gaming. No, I mean intellectual & behavioral boundaries. In other words, working to help the child understand why NO is not a bad thing. I have seen up-close the effect of no “No,” in people my age (sociopaths) and children (theirs and others), and it is about as unnerving as watching a pit bull gnaw at a loaded Glock .40cal.

The first thing I noticed was a person’s whining. For the adults it was usually an issue in a restaurant where they equated a missing item on the menu with a personal attack. A guy I grew up with pulled this a few times, and the second time he did, I saw what he was doing… because he’s a cheap asshole who plays this game, and doesn’t realize he’s the flat tire on the fun bus. Here’s the ploy:

1) Ask to modify a menu item by complicating the order (The cheeseburger, but with swiss instead of cheddar and an onion roll instead of regular and no pickles and medium-well).

2) Keep talking while the server tries to read it back, to confuse the server or muddle the communication.

3) Fries on the side, not on the plate.

4) Act like it’s no big deal and be just oh-so-sweet about it.

So, by telling this server to greatly change a simple thing, they set the entire chain up for failure. And usually it’s a break at how the meat was cooked. The average person doesn’t know Medium-well from Medium, but this fuckpuddle would always eat half the burger then send it back for being under- or over-done, and ta-daaa!

We all have to wait while they make a new burger for this dick, and he gets his for free as an apology for upsetting a grown man over the hue of the center of his meat patty. The heavens nearly crumbled…

As a child he got what he wanted by whining, because his parents had 4 other kids, and his whining was quickly shut-down/rewarded with the cookie, the toy, the shoes, the extra hour of TV, the 17”-rims on the new truck, and eventually the family landscaping business which he plowed into the ground after 4 months and zero work. Whining isn’t in his DNA (his brothers and sisters are talented, fun, hard-working people) but it is hardwired in at this point. He’s now divorced and bankrupt and it’s his parent’s fault for not helping him out of these jams, of course.

The last time I saw him he started to pull the prank, I told our server, “He’s fine, don’t listen to him, he’s just joking.” He got pissed at me and sat quietly staring at SportsCenter while the other 4 of us laughed and drank. That’s right…

HE POUTED LIKE A LITTLE KID. Later he told another friend I was a dick. Behind my back. Good.

Now, a friend’s kid is a spoiled little brat if ever I’ve seen one. As an only child, he is treated like THE only child. His deal is that if he’s told “No” he reverts to pouting (he’s almost 6) and whiiiines and starts to fake-cry. His parents let it roll for about 3min while the kid stews in his own stink and then eventually, while the kid is still in pout mode, his parents say “Ok, you can have this now.”

So the kid hasn’t detached Pouting from Reward. Maybe his mom & dad think they have instilled a clean break between the whining and the lesson, but all they’ve shown the kid is, “Hey, hang on to being rude and withdrawn and eventually you’ll get what you want. You don’t have to apologize or ask nicely. Just be stubborn.”

I know this because I’ve seen it happen a few times. One time he tried to take a toy from another kid, and I said “No, you have to ask nicely if you can play with the Ninja Monster PitBull Cannon.”

Then he cries and says he hates me, which I find a way to overcome. Then he sits right there and turns away and cries loudly, as if his fingernails were being chewed off by a bullet-powered Rottweiler. Because of a “no,” and a reminder to mind our manners.

His dad swoops in, lest his child be scarred for life with such harsh discipline! After explaining to his dad what happened, his dad does the fatherly thing…

And asks the kid with the Ninja Cannon if his kid could play with it. Well of course the kid’s gonna give it up because a grown-up just asked him to. So not only did his dad miss the teachable moment, he killed the kid’s chance to build manners and a bridge to another kid. Double Middle Fingers, folks. But hey, at least his son quit crying, pouting, whining, or moving on towards growth. Yay.

It’s not easy to have your own boundaries, but it’s a basic need for most of us to keep our sanity. And it starts early. If we’re always told “No,” then we don’t think we’re worth anything and deserve nothing. If we’re never told “No” we don’t understand that some things must be earned, asked-for, or are just off-limits until further notice and some sweet talking and probably a bottle of wine.

But if somebody brings a loaded gun or chain-jerking pit bull into a Farmer’s Market, and nobody says “Hey, come on… This could get ugly, and it’s better safe than sorry,” and something terrible happens then either we have no market for these dipshits to come to, or we have boundaries that say “You have to stop here. There are very sensitive people within.”

June 10, 2014 0

The Time I Met Adam Carolla

A few years ago, about 3+ now, I met Adam Carolla at Laughs Comedy Spot in Kirkland, WA. As a comedian and near deviant in my early 20’s, the work of Adam and Dr. Drew on “LoveLine” was a life-saver. Not only that, Adam’s humor and sensibilities match, and often surpass, my own. When I heard he was coming to my home club I immediately did everything I could to help facilitate the evening. And naturally I didn’t want to act like a total dumbass because Adam’s like the older brother a lot of us wish we had or needed.

Fast-forward to a few things Adam has said about his life and that night in particular.

1) Adam’s wife once told him, paraphrasing, that he has a way of “Bringing out the idiot in people,” I heard this years after the night I’m writing about, but it rang true that night. As part of Adam’s weekend, he was going to jaunt across the parking lot from the club to a bar called the Liquid Lime, wherein he’d sign autographs, take photos, and then try to beat it back to the club a mere 70 yards away. Instead of walking out the front door, or walking all the way from the club to the Lime via the backdoor, I was asked to drive Adam and Mike August, his road manager, over in somebody else’s 1990 Camry. So I did.
Cut to IDIOT TIME.
I gotta get Adam back to the club so we all head out the car which is parked right in the front of the Lime. I’m 8 steps ahead of them so I can unlock the car, open doors, and get back around the comedy club and drop ’em off. First I need to unlock the…
I need to unlock the Camry… Stupid button… What the… Unlock the …
I pushed the button, held the button, etc for about 10 seconds which is an eternity in the world of Adam’s Efficiency Sphere. At which point I hear what equates to “Nevermind, dumbass, I’ll walk.” It was actually “Hey, I’ll just walk.” The Idiot had been brought out. And I don’t think Adam’s being an asshole at this point, it’s just embarrassing and he’s just a guy who would rather not deal with speedbumps, and it ain’t personal.

So I manually unlock the car, alarm goes off, we get in hastily and I hit the button to unlock it and stop the alarm.
The alarm stops, I start it up and we go.

As we enter the back of the club I hand the keys back to the owner of the Camry, a guy who’d been hired as “Security” for the night. Nice enough guy. I say “Your unlock ain’t workin’,” and he goes, “Oh yeah, I heard the alarm! HA HA HA I should’ve told you it was broken.” Yeah. You should’ve.

2) Adam has referred to this particular weekend as a gauntlet, which went from I think 4 shows to a whopping 9 shows over 3 nights. He’s just so damn popular people wanna get close to him, and Laughs was exactly the spot to get close. Adam’s a worker, a do-er, and this was a weekend that put everything else I’ve done to shame. 9 shows, 90min at a go, on-stage alone. Fuggin’ amazing. Since then he’s only done bigger venues and fewer shows for more money, deservedly-so. It’s a great model to follow; if you can get to the same audience with less repetition, you’re not working harder, you’re working smarter. And less. And that’s good. No need to burn out making people laugh. Truly a hard working entertainer and philosoteur.

They say “Never meet your heroes,” because the shine’ll come off the bust. Not true. Adam’s a dude doing what he does, and great at it. I haven’t hit the Bucket List item with Adam, which is getting invited to Jimmy Kimmel’s Football Sundays and catch a Mangria buzz. But until that happens, we’ll always have a fritzed car alarm story.

November 22, 2013 0

So I’m like 3 months away from my 40th birthday, and I have a particular goal of dropping 20 el-beez. LB’s. Pounds. Lard Bricks. I wanna drop ’em by the Friday prior to the Super Bowl. I know I can do this, but I’m also stumped about how my droppage seems to have stalled. Admittedly, the past weekend of Halloween and eating like a foraging bear (candy, date night, pizza party and cake for the youngest’s birthday) didn’t help. I put on 3lbs since last Thursday morning. 3. It’s probably retained water and frankly I could feel it and my face looked it. So if my body will store it that easily, it can lose it that easily.

So what’m I gonna do? Doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of violent minds meeting great opposition to mediocre dreams ~ Oprah Lincoln. Or whomever said it, people mash-up and misquote so many Faux-tivational quotes these days, even with the internet to validate against. Ridiculous. I have a dream that one day we will not be judged by the choosing of our quotes but by the accuracy of their citation.

So my plan is as follows:

Eat less crap: I need to be strict with my intake. Depending on which expert you ask, nutrition is 80% of the success towards weightloss. Some say 70%. I’ll gun for 76.47% and see where that lands. I can’t afford a “cheat day,” so maybe, MAYBE, one cheat “thing” a week. But not 1 crap-pile a day for 3 days. Come on, dude… Come on…
You can eat like this if you are THE ROCK. Or turn your heart into A ROCK.

It’s hilarious the games we play with ourselves about crap eating. “Oh just a little isn’t gonna be a problem.” Right. Put a cake out at your workplace and sit by it. Nobody will touch it, no matter how many people come by. Now walk around the corner, and hear the woodchipper that is your coworkers scraping the last of the buttercream off the lid. Do right by you, but no games, Geoff.
Eat more boss: My ideal meal is about like this: Roasted salmon with broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, sweet potatoes. And then right to bed. I need to get away from food, and in the house the best place to get away from food is when I’m asleep. So, eat well, then stop eating. I like the Paleo path best, and I rarely eat breakfast. I’m not hungry until about 11:30 anyway, so why force food into my face when I’m usually behind schedule anyway? No, skipping breakfast doesn’t slow down your metabolism when you’re like me, which is “kinda fat.” So shut up.
Lift Some Heavy Shit: No, not my ass off the couch, ha ha, so funny I forgot to laugh. I finally have found the joy of proper squat technique, dumbbell deadlifts, and pushing heavy stuff around. I did circuits for a while and looked good but wasn’t very muscular for a dude walking around over 240. For cardio I like either HIIT on an elliptical, hill sprints, or road raging.
Sleep More: I seriously have to get to bed earlier. 11:17pm ain’t cuttin’ it.
Stop worrying about it: I need to chill out a bit on this. I know what I need to do, so now I just need the consistency of doing it. This isn’t a diet, this is a lifestyle.
Stay Motivated As All Hell: Not sure what I need to get super motivated, like whatever blind self-allegiance Guy Fieri has that keeps him from assessing his life. I need that. Maybe it’s seeing 4 of 6 abs. Maybe it’s being under 12% bodyfat for the first time since kindergarten. Maybe it’s just that I need to prove to myself that I can do this. The ultimate goal is to drop 35lbs by April 2014. Mostly, I need to do this for a better quality of life in a few years as my boys get older. They aren’t going to do LESS in life from here on out.

So I’ll post some stuff here in the “20 by 40” posts about what’s up with my bod and how it’s going. May even get some “BEFORE” and “LATER” pics if I’m feeling froggy. Sorry, this was kinda boring and self-indulgent, got low blood-sugar, gotta find some work cake.

November 5, 2013 1

CrowdFund Your Motivation

I’m still not sure if I like crowdfunding, the ability to ask friends or strangers for, and sometimes receive, financial backing for your pet projects. It’s not exactly on-line panhandling, but it’s not really fundraising. It IS, I mean, yeah, you’re raising funds for whatever it is you haven’t saved for, but do you really appreciate it and let it be YOUR baby? In this case, we’re talking fundage, financially, money. Mmkay?

Admittedly, I did use “GoFundMe.com” earlier this year to help a single mother get her car repaired. She had no money, was living in a church, and needed a new transmission in order to get her car running to get around for job interviews. The need was there, the means were there, so I cobbled together a few things and posted it and promoted it. We made our goal in a few days, and I can only thank the kind people who gave anywhere from $10 to $50 to $300. It was an inspiring influx of empathy and care, and very much appreciated. There’s always more to the story, of course…

Of course, like anything that goes online, it had its share of trolls asking why a transmission cost of $600-something (labor included) was the target, why she didn’t just get a better car, etc. By ignoring some of them or calling them out for being dipshits we were able to just focus on the goal. Don’t feed the trolls.

I’m not going to say this isn’t some sort of meta-trolling about the intent of using crowdfunding to fill a project’s financial gap. I’m not tearing a rotator cuff to pat myself on the butt for a job well done, either. Just stating what is possible when you present a need to people who want to help. It was really great to see it come together. Hell, what would YOU do with your pet project if you had another $1,043 laying around? Would you use it properly? Could you/I be THAT accountable? That’s why I wonder how much a person can appreciate the gifts they promote themselves to receive. Some people are making movies. Some people are trying to pay off medical bills. Who’s to say who’s right? The people with the money, that’s who’s.

The “more to the story” is that I had two situations where fundraising for a cause took very different turns. In one, I produced a comedy show to raise money for a family friend whose mom had been left with a mountain of medical bills after her husband passed away. I don’t know how much was raised, all I know is the place as packed with concerned friends and a lot of love. We did very well, and my friend’s mom was incredibly appreciative.
The other turn was that a person who I did something financially-beneficial for via fundraising really didn’t take advantage of the upturn. There was an option there to move ahead with what they had been asking for – and given, but they either moved at a glacial pace as to appear immobile, or just bided their time. Then kept hinting how they needed more of this, or didn’t have any of that. In a side-project we also provided a lot of resources to help them get back on their feet, but nothing in the form of straight-up cash. And pretty soon it seemd as if they’re just hoping to get more of something without putting out anything. As much as I want to see everybody doing better for themselves, I want to see people DOING, unless some sort of crippling disease has taken their ability to leave the house and interact with people or bring me homemade cookies and/or dark beers from around the world.

The Need exists for a little something more; schools, food banks, neighbors, drag show open mic nights, etc. People have needs that aren’t met because of – pick a reason. And if you can help meet their needs, do it. The 1% that made 95% of the income won’t. Our taxes aren’t going to make up for it. Gotta act locally.

Reminds me of a story my maternal grandfather told me. There was a bear who grew up near a campsite. Every Monday he would go to the dumpsters and pick through food and he grew strong and clever, but a little fatter than the other bears in the rivers eating salmon. One Monday morning a park ranger saw the bear and thought he may be a hazard, so he tried to scare him off. The bear didn’t understand the tactics; this was garbage, nobody wanted it, why can’t he have it? But the ranger didn’t want the bear coming into the park at other times, and didn’t understand the bear’s intent was simply to eat from a reliable source at a non-threatening time. In the end, the bear starved to death after getting his nose caught in a plastic holder from a 6-er of Miller tallboys.
The Lesson: You can always get garbage, the good stuff takes some effort, and park rangers are usually assholes.

October 30, 2013 0

Cold and F-You Season

Just a friendly reminder from your co-worker…

Just because you’re coughing up “less” blood doesn’t mean you’re “on the mend.” Stay at home.
You missing 2 days of work = 2 days of work missed. You getting 4 people sick = 4-6 days of work missed. Stay at home.
Your kid’s sickness doesn’t mean that kid should be socialized with other kids so that other kids’ immune systems can be exposed to your kid’s sickness and everybody takes a step forward in the “strong immune system” line. You are not allowed to compromise anybody else’s health based on short-sighted, negligent, selfish parenting. We’ll get through the 3 year-old’s party without you, your annoying fashion choices, and your overuse of the word “amazing.” Stay at home.
If I can hear you coughing and blowing your nose from 3 rows away, that’s too close. Stay at home.
Stay at home. Until March, if necessary.
Wash your hands. Wash ’em again. Soap and water’s fine. No more superbugs.
Stay at home.

October 7, 2013 1

The Political Party Parent

In my 4 years of parenting I’ve noticed quite a few things that are likely my own internal judgments come to light…

I am a somewhat hyper-vigilant observer, which is a great help for cultivating material for the stage and this blog, but a terrible trait for, you know, enjoying life. It often makes me, as my wife calls it, “annoyingly uptight.” My uptightness, however, is also the same trait that causes me to hover around my kids in unfamiliar situations until we all know the lay of the playland, keeps them from thunking their head off the ground because I was socializing or phone-gazing or not being at all involved in their play time. That level of involvement/concern/uptightness doesn’t make me “better” parent, but it sure as hell keeps my kids out of harm’s way, aggressive dog’s way, and “over-tall sharply-elbowed aggressive shit-head kid with phone-gazing parent’s” way.

One parent type I’ve run into is who I call “the Political Partier.” I’m not sure they even realize what they’re doing, but this is the parent who shows up at a kid’s party… WHICH ARE ALWAYS A GREAT WAY TO SPEND A FOOTBALL WEEKEND DAY INSTEAD OF WATCHING FOOTBALL ON ONE OF 35 DAYS OF THE YEAR… and doesn’t really “count.” Example? SURE, here ya go….

Couple with 1 kid. Mom and kid come to the party. Dad comes, too. Didn’t have that counted on their RSVP, but hell, we can swing another few inches of the party-sub and a juicebox, dig in! BUT… he’s almost a ghost. Sits in the corner, looks at his phone the whole time, doesn’t mingle, doesn’t really make it known his kid and wife are there, nor how he’s related to any of this. Here’s the Political Issue…

His mere presence now forces the host of the party’s significant other to assess any of that couples’ future parties as “go-worthy.”

What’s the problem? Well, now I would… just using myself as an example, not saying this has ever happened… I would have to ask “is HE going?” when they are hosting a party that I really don’t NEED to be part of. And if he’s going then I have to go because I can’t look like the guy who’s not involved with his family, right? I mean, how many times does the daughter of a mom in your youngest kid’s toddler socialization group turn 2 and have the party at an indoor petting zoo for blind animals? Once? So yeah, big day all around, better tape up my face and go. Paying for another gift and card and taking day off from football isn’t enough. Gotta BE THERE, Dad.

OR, just not go. Take the older kid off for the day while mom and youngest goes off to do their thing at the party. Identify with your other kid in your own space for a while, and bond there. Get your own slice of cake somewhere. Don’t buckle. Get out. Do what you have to do and enjoy it.

Which is a great thing to do as long as you can let go of the other parents judging you.

October 7, 2013 0

A New Set Of Tireds

Just before she lay down her beautiful head to sleep the other night, my wife took the water glass from next to my laptop (I was working on a presentation for the next day around 9:15 that night), sipped from it, and said…

“I’m f***ing tired. The house is always dirty, I’m being disrespected, I hate this house, if I’m not here cleaning I’m off doing a bunch of other stuff just to keep the boys busy or in school, and I’m sick of it.”

So, what did I do to respond? What COULD I do?
She was done for the day. She had gotten up pretty early to go workout, raced home to get our kids in the car for preschool and general out-of-house tasks (what non-stay-at-home parents call Life or Work), and they were going a bit nuts the rest of the day. I got an earful when I got home from the kids, after a long day and meeting with a local entertainment comedy talent mastermind. Kids will wear you out. They will grind on you and they will break you down and they are unreasonable under the age of 5 or 19 and will just beat on your brain walls and sometimes you want to tell them to shut their damn mouths and go the fuck to sleep because you are a grown up, sex has been had, you’ve thrown an angry punch, and paid taxes but not enough to really help this flailing society you want to build a wall around to protect them, so go to sleep.

But you cannot do that. I cannot. I’m an adult. I’m nearly 40. I have embraced and accepted all facets of Parenting, which is a much more advanced form of caregiving, and shouldn’t ever be equated to having a pet. [ed. note; Equating child-rearing to pet care is on the same shelf as equating an compound femoral fracture to a sprained finger. It’s minimizing to do so, and you should really not do it, or I will punt your dog right down the frozen aisle of this Trader Joe’s it’s not even supposed to be in.] Because I’m an adult.

And no, you cannot flip out on your kids at the ages of 4 and nearly 2. You look like a complete asshole, first, because the kids don’t fully fathom the rage and the cause. You only scare them, you don’t teach them. And it’s much much much more frustrating than you’d think it may be to tell a kid for the 5th time who knows what you’re saying to put.
on.
the.
monkey.
underwear. Then they cry, and it’s like…

“Why are YOU crying? You did this to yourself! 5 times I’ve asked you to put your monkey underbips on and you keep trying to put your bobo on the gorilla pillow! Put your monkey underpants on, don’t put your business on the monkey!”

As adults, we’re supposed to be in control of things. I’m not. I control very little. I control myself, usually (except I’m a bit of a choc-o-holic, GUILTY!), but sometimes I just have to ask somebody at a grocery store “What’s going on here?” I know what’s going on. They are blind to anything else around them, dead-stopped in the aisle, looking at their phone. I promise you, ma’am, you are NOT about to get a prescient message that has the PowerBall numbers. I can’t always control what happens to me, but I can control whether or not I tell somebody their head is in their ass.

So here’s what I did the other night.
I wrote a note to my wife and left it up on the monitor for her to see in the morning.
This is what it read:

I have a great marriage to a man who loves me and works hard to provide for our family. He doesn’t gamble or drink or tattoo or buy cars and shit we don’t need.
I have 2 great sons who are young and sometimes they are just little kids who don’t know any better while trying to be funny.
I get tired and that’s OK
My house is a house, not a hut, not on fire, and not a pit in a shitty jungle.
I woke up today healthy. This is a good start.
My sons woke up today healthy and with food in their house. This is a good start.
My sons have two parents who love them even if my sons don’t know it yet.
We will be in a new, better-sized house soon and we’ll do it the right way so that we don’t destroy our family financially.
I am a great mom and wife who does what she can to make every day matter to my family.
For all of these things, I am grateful.

Here’s what I did NOT do, after she made her statement of frustration and walked away with my glass of water while I worked on my presentation…

“Hey hon? Hon?
Could I get that water back?”

September 18, 2013 0

Condo and Condon’t; What I’ve Learned As a Condo Association Board Member

… and how it pertains to real life.

You are part of a community, like it or not, big or small, populated or wooded, and you can either be a good part or a bad part.
Paying your dues to the association is part of being in the association’s budget so that your neighbor’s fence gets repaired with some of your money, and your backed-up sewer line gets fixed and your floors replaced with some of my money when the poop hits the Pergo.
Everybody wants a package of comfort that is packed with varying sizes of the same items: Security, Financial Stability, Quiet Hours, Nice Neighbors, Cleanliness, Rules.
Not everybody, in fact, most people, won’t do much to reinforce or model that behavior.
There is always, always, always a neighbor who everybody thinks is crazy and is probably legally crazy, but they always think everybody else is crazy.
I wish the people of the association were all doing so greatly that there were no issues financially or physically to deal with, but that will never ever be the case.
The amount of work to be done is inverse to the amount of money to pay for that work.
The priority of the work is perceived by whomever needs their walls to stop leaking.
The priority of the work is determined by whomever holds the checkbook.
Never never never ever buy a condominium older than 10 years.

July 19, 2013 0

Tag: Advice