LOST DOG

Lou's mom, Roxy, has come up missing. She has been gone for three or four days. Pablo said that the last time he saw her, she was standing up against the back fence. Next thing he knew, she was gone.

I am bummed out--I've known that dog since she was a puppy--but I can't imagine what Pablo is going through. He's had her since she was a puppy, about seven years now. Anyone who doesn't realize that a dog is like a family member and, without the animal, silence echoes around the house, has missed out on a really human experience.

I asked him the basic question: "Did she have any form of identification on her?" No. His girl got him a tag with Roxy's name and his phone number on it, but he said that it kept falling off, so he never made it stay. Damn.

I've called him and texted him these last couple of days, and he has not returned my phone calls. Last night he sent me a text saying, "Thanks for your concern. I'll talk with you soon."

This absolutely sucks for him, I'm sure. He's got to be feeling pretty guilty right now. I know I would be. All I can do is be there if and when he wants to talk.

Right after I heard the news, I slapped together a "LOST DOG" poster and dropped it in his door. (He had not been home.) Hopefully he has copied the hell out of that and pasted it on every available telephone pole in the neighborhood. Or done one of his own.

Sometimes, stories like these end with a happy ending. The dog finally makes it back home, after a long time out on the road. I hope and wish and pray that that is the case with this, too. Roxy is a good girl, full of loving energy. And she gave me (and my sister) three of the best gifts we could have ever gotten, in the slobbering smiling forms of Louie, Pete and Will.

I hope that Roxy is not in pain anywhere. I hope that she isn't on Doggy's Death Row--he has checked repeatedly, but no Roxy--and I hope, that if she was picked up by someone, they have a lot of love to give to her. That's how my family and I got our childhood dog: he followed my sis home from tennis practice and, after Pounding him for the requisite time to allow for his true owners to find him, we kept Merlyn and made him a loved family member.

I hope the same can be said for Roxy...if she doesn't make it back home.

FRIDAY THE FOURTEENTH [CUE THE DRAMATIC ORGAN]

'Tis a day, 'tis a day, 'tis a day, I say

'tis a day that makes me face turn gray

But I climb, I climb, I climb from me bed

and I circle the number in wide blood-red

Next to its neighbour, the twelver-plus-one

the four-bear seems timid, but--oh!--then its won

You see, dear reader, it's so much worse than thirteen

its penchant for mayhem is obscenely obscene

Friday the fourteenth makes me quake in me shoes

for tragedy follows, keep yon eyes on the clews

It's worse than its neighbour, you need to know now

before you stroll, whistling, 'neath a dangling sow

Friday the thirteenth conjures snapshots o' killers

but Friday the fourteenth delivers the chillers

I pray that you read this and watch where you walk

if you don't--I am fearful--you'll be outlined in chalk

So I hope that this warning "brightened" your day

I'm not saying hide, just watch where you play

I pray I'm not Cassy, of ancient Greek lore

who knew all the answers, but was dismissed as a bore

PAGING DOCTOR KICK-THIS-BUG'S-ASS....

Wow. I can't shake this fricking bug. This is getting pretty annoying. Now I'll have to go to the doctor to get an excuse for work. That's all right, though--I was planning to go, anyway. Maybe the doc can prescribe me some antibiotics or something. I generally don't take them, but this is a tenacious little bugger. (It makes me think of a million Olivers, virus-sized, swimming in my blood plasma, baying at the white blood cells, attacking without quarter.)

I talked to my supervisor about ten minutes ago. I hate making calls like that. I feel guilty, guilty as hell. It makes no difference that I have been holed up like a hibernating bear the last few days. It makes no difference that I sweat through another two shirts last night and woke to my sheets icy-cold wet. I still feel guilty for taking time off of work and still getting paid (Not a hundred percent, but something like ninety, I believe. Maybe seventy-five. Regardless, I ain't getting shut out of the greenbacks.).

Is there such a thing as "Irish guilt?" Or am I just making that up? I think that I've heard it somewhere before. I was IM-ing with my sister Melissa on Monday, the day that this crap-sickness began, and, even then, I was spouting off (jokingly) about Irish guilt. "Adam," she wrote, "you're killing me with that [Irish guilt] stuff." So I made sure to reference it about fifteen more times. That is me: the little brother. When I find something that might maybe perhaps get under my big sisters' skin a bit (even in jest, especially in jest) I hammer that "joke" until it is a trampled tin soda pop can, flat as a board, crinkled and all warshed out. It's one of my favourite things to do. I rather like to do that.

Irregardless, I am feeling a little guilty about being sick and missing work. It is more than legitimate...but I still feel like a slug. Truth be told, I feel quite a bit like a pussy. Meow.

Now, in my defense: gas utility, the work that I do (when I'm not at home, sucking my thumb and watching "Barney") is not exactly the easiest job on the body. It is really quite physically-demanding. Not to mention it has the capacity for danger. My company preaches safety all the time; it could be a safety issue if a worker is there, half-assed. Also, with a lowered lung capacity--from the dastardly bug--don't you think it would become easier to be overcome by the natural gas fumes, if they were so blowing? I think so. In fact, I know this to be the case.

And, finally, one last feather for my defense: a guy at work named Ken S____ was off with the "same" sickness. He stayed off for the loosely-expected three days and then he came back on the fourth...and ended going right back home. He had not been over the illness. My supervisor mentioned this to me in passing and I seized upon it. "Yeah," I said, "it's [the bug] a bastard."

And it is. It truly is. Sincerely. It sucks.

Okay. My Irish guilt thus assauged, I'm off to hit the hay. Maybe when I wake up, I won't be feeling so weak and achey. And so much like a feline.

I'm not counting on it, though.

MUSINGS

I am a lucky guy.

Slam-dazzered by this cold-slash-flu for the last few days, I have been feeling about as energetic as a lump of Crisco. M'Meegie (and her daughter Naomi) came over today and Meagan brought with her a noodle dish from a Thai place called Salah Thai and also a couple of packets of Fortifense, an immune system-boosting powder that one mixes with hot water.

"One for tonight," she admonished, "before you go to bed, and the other packet in the morning, when you get up."

And then we sat down and had the drunken noodle dish and the fresh spring rolls and I started to feel better almost immediately.

It is tres bien to be with the one you love, no?

After the meal, I was instructed to go sit down in the front room--which I did--and Meagan washed the dishes that had been piling up in the sink. And 409-ed the sink a bit. Oh, and swept the ubiquitous coffee grounds that littered the counter near the nectar-maker. What did I do to be so lucky? =o)

Maybe it's a guy-thing. Maybe we like to be fussed over when we're feeling sick. I know I do.

I also know this: this is the best I have felt in about three days. Is it simply because the cold-slash-flu virus has been weakened? Or is it for another reason altogether?

I'll say a combination of the two, but I'll lean towards the latter.

LOOK FOR THE SILVER LINING, DAMN IT!

Being sick sucks ass. It's not any fun to wake up ten times during the night to piss liquid fire, one's body alternating between being shiver-me-timbers cold and put-another-twenty-logs-on-the-fire hot. When every tissue and bone in the body hurts. You know you have a bad cold when even your perenium hurts!

That being said, sometimes a wrench in the routine opens a door to some really cool stuff. This guy's art is pretty dark--sure it is--but, damn, I wish I had some of his talent for lines. Cool, cool artwork.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

A couple of observations on this chilly March 9th afternoon.

One, I am glad that Daylight Savings Time rolled around again. Now, when I look at the clock in my automobile, it'll be the correct time. I know what you're thinking: "Dude? How tough can it be to change a car clock?" Believe me, if it had been easy or in any way logical, it'd have been changed by now. So, anyway, I guess I'm good until Fall. Sweet.

The second observation I have to impart to you, my three loyal readers, is this: people who seemingly don't do so often look funny when they run. (Kinda like dog trainers at dog shows...funny stuff.) I was at the local 24-hour megastore today, piling shit into my cart that I--if I really sit down and think about it--don't really absolutely need. As I walked out, I saw a small sunglassed Asian woman standing near the stop sign to the crosswalk. There weren't any cars coming, so she bunched her little fist around a yellow plastic bag and ran in small mincing steps to the door. Amusing to look at, sure, but I also wondered to myself, as I walked towards my car, just why the hell she was running. Did Meijer have that much of a hold on her that she couldn't casually walk the last twenty feet to the doors? Did she really have to run? Why couldn't she have ambled? Or strolled? Why did she have to rev up her gluteus maximus and quadriceps and calf muscles and feet muscles to an accelerated pace? For that matter, why put unnecessary stressors on her Achille's tendons? When those things pop, you're in a whole world of pain. Just ask former Piston great Isiah Thomas; he'll tell you--ouch. Slow down, small Asian woman in the knee-length camel-colored winter coat. Meijer will still be there. It's twenty-four hours, for God's sake.

As I got nearer my car--I'd parked about as far as humanly possible from the entrance; I guess I wanted to amble, to stroll--I saw another person running. I couldn't really tell if it was a man or a woman. I'm thinking woman, but I could be wrong. I think he or she was a Meijer employee. He or she had a red polo shirt; to the casual observer (me), it looked like it could have been a Meijer shirt. He or she was heavyset. He or she had shoulder-length brown permed hair and he or she was clutching what looked to be a paper bag in his or her arms. As I ambled to my Focus, I saw him or her moving at a fast pace out of the corner of my eye, so I focussed my attention on the runner. He or she lurched along, facing the ground at almost a one-hundred-ten degree angle. And when I say "lurch," I mean it. There was no grace, no balance, no co-ordination at all to his or her run. I am reminded now of a circus bear, motorvating along at a loping shambling gait. As I watched, he or she shot a look over in my direction and kept running. Odd.

I guess Meijer is the place to be. Everyone is busting their asses to get inside the fabled doors. It's a cool place, don't get me wrong. It has got lots of stuff from which to choose. Mister Meijer did well for himself, I'm sure. And, although they have those gosh-damned annoying fucking store "greeters," like Arnie, I'll be baaaaack. But I'll walk in. I'll save the running for the basketball court.

HEAVY BOWLING

I went bowling with Meegie tonight and halfway into the first game, the lights darkened and Glo Bowl began. You know what I'm talking about: fluorescent lights and a rocking sound system.

The theme seemed to be '80s music. Simple Minds, Bryan Adams, Duran-Duran, The Divinyls, et cetera, et cetera.

It is amazing how memories can be triggered. Olfactory stimulation is the most immediate of the senses-memory-trigger, but, hell, a song can take you back, too. For sure, for sure.

"Don't You Forget About Me," by Simple Minds. Bam! I was right back in eighth grade, dressed in my parochial school uniform, finally turning cool after seven-plus years of being a dork. Memories of Friday Ponderosa runs blasted into my forebrain. Fridays were short days (off at 1:30) at Shrine and I remembered the group of "cool kids" and I walking the block, block and a half down Woodward Avenue to the Ponderosa restaurant, much to the (I'd imagine) chagrin of the wait staff. We'd all order the sundae bar and plates of french fries and just be pubescents. Shaking salt at each other and jamming sundae after sundae down our throats, not tipping the waitresses...good times.

Duran-Duran's "Hungry Like a Wolf." First off, who the fuck named these songs?! Hungry like a wolf?! Lame. Anyway, that song played while we were bowling and--wham!--I was transported back to seventh grade when I would ball up socks and shoot them like basketballs into my Detroit Tigers dented metal wastebasket. At some point in the song, some woman in the background wails and I remembered that I used to hear that while I was up in my bedroom and I would always think that my Mom was calling me from the kitchen, maybe calling me to dinner. Upon (older) reflection, I reckon that the wailing woman on the track was probably being sexually pleasured. Whoops. Sorry, Mom. For the mix-up, that is.

It was just amazing, though, the way that the songs at the bowling alley were hitting me and my emotions. It was almost melancholy, kind of like looking back on times past, ruing lost friendships and paths that, perhaps, ought not been taken. Eighth grade is the last time that I can recall being truly carefree. Since then, I have always had at least a background grumble of anxiety in my life, in my mind. That gets old. It really does. To be one's own worst enemy for 20-plus years sucks ass.

Thoughts thundered.

So, while it was great to bowl and to spend time with my Meeg-doll, the music was kind of bumming me out. Crazy shit, man. Crazy shit.

Maybe this winter has gone on too long. Maybe I am actually experiencing S.A.D. Whatever it is, I'd like to lose the funk. That, too, is getting old.

A POST ABOUT DOGS, #27,492

Oliver is exactly 40 pounds. I weighed him today. I think, for a two-year-old male Beagle, that might be a little high. Beagles tend to have excess skin around their neck, but I think I'd be able to pull his neck-skin over his snout and tie it in a knot...if I were so inclined...which I'm not.

A friend of mine suggested that I feed El Gordo two raw chicken wings per day--one in the morning and one in the evening. The first thing that came to my mind was the slinky evil of the word Salmonella. I think, before I go the route of raw fowl, I may try to give the kid a little more exercise. He sleeps a lot. And he eats a lot. Bring the two facets of his uproariously-active canine life together and what do you have?! A fat-assed dog. Seriously, when he is sitting placidly on the floor, and I am looking down on him from above, he looks like a giant foreshortened fur-covered pear, replete with a peanut head and deep trusting melting eyes.

Fur-covered pear. Yeah. That about sums it up.

Meanwhile, Lou is rapier-sharp. This odd couple just keeps getting odder and odder.

THIS COULD GET A LITTLE GROSS--YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Somebody get me this woman on the horn immediately, please. I need my backyard declared a disaster area. The picture to the right does the yard absolutely no justice. In real life, it far, far worse.

I blame Michigan's schizophrenic weather. One day it is 10 degrees and the next day it is 48 degrees with steady rain. The piles of dog poop in the backyard stood not a snowball's chance in Hades of maintaining their integrity, their base solidity.

So why, I wonder, did I choose today of all days to do my Deca-Annual Shit Pick-up?

I don't know. I'm illogical, sometimes.

Actually, I know why I huddled in the drizzle, scooping shit up with a flat steel shovel: the neighbor next door said hello to me and, as I was walking to my side door, called me back and mentioned that little beagle named Uno that won the Westminster Dog Show, said that he had thought of my Oliver. He made me aware of my pooches and so I followed them outside when I let them out. What a fucking disaster!

The backyard is mud, first of all. Nary a blade of grass rears its head in the first half, three-quarters, of the lawn from the side door back to the back fence line. It is mud and it is ice and it is spotted like a leper with smooshy piles of brown and orange and red dog feces. I slapped my head in disgust.

I had become what I had hated when I was a meter reader: I was the guy with the lawn filled with shit. We used to put messages on the handheld computers that would spring up whilst we were walking to the address stating things like "WARNING. DOG FESES [sic]" and "WATCH WHERE U STEP" and "SKIP THIS HOUSE."

I determined to save face and do my ownerly duty. Never mind that it had been since November that I had last half-heartedly plastic-bagged the dog feces. Today, amidst the drizzle and drooping temperatures, I would make amends. I would rid the lawn of the foul-smelling land mines, damn it!

Easier said than done.

Dog shit is organic, obviously, so it is susceptible to the malevolent whims of that bitch, Michigan Mother Nature. Frozen, thawed, frozen, thawed...repeat that cycle a couple score more times and you might get an idea of what the majority of the shit was like. Let me try to put it into words. Hmm.... The majority of the shit was like melted soft serve chocolate ice cream. I'd have been better off using a sponge to pick it up. But I perservered with a plastic baggy around my right--shit-picking--hand. All was gravy (sorry for the word choice) until I got to the back fence. This is the area in which Louie loves to empty his bowels. 'Twas a multi-colored shit carpet, is what it was. And, to add to the drizzly misery, a large bush acted as an offensive lineman to the most egregious piles of shit's runningback. If that makes any sense. Basically, it was a bitch to get to. So I came up with an end-around: I would use the flat shovel to scrape the booty to a place where I could easily scoop it up.

Bad idea.

Here is a fun experiment that you can try at home, kids! Plop some chocolate ice cream on the kitchen floor and mix in some twigs and branches. Then? Let the mess melt until it is a slightly-congealed brown mess with odd angles and protrusions. Then, standing at an awkward angle, try to scrape the stuff--with a big ole flat shovel--into a neat pile. Does it smear? You betcha!

You--sob--betcha.

It was damn-near pudding by the time I had it in an easily-accessible pile. Sticks and twigs and leaves and all. This was proving to be a very bad idea. But I was determined. Determined, I say! So now I had a pile. And behind the pile, I had a thin layer of orangish-brown shit carpet. I thought about just using the shovel to execute an impromptu rototill...but the ground was frozen. So I nixed that idea. I wandered over to the shed in the backyard and found some peat moss. Perfect! Cold and wet, with the acrid smell of dog excrement clinging to the inside of my nostrils, I dumped half the bag of the peat moss onto the stinking "carpet" and I spread it out, artistically, with the back of the shovel. It was--is--beautiful.

I filled up a black garbage bag with the excrement and I still have about another half a bag of droppings still out there to be...un-dropped.

And now my dogs stink because they slid through wet piles of shit. They'll be getting a bath. Posthaste. Just another day of lovely dog ownership, no?

I often have lessons hidden in my 'blog postings. Here is today's lesson: don't be a lazy ass. Pretend that you live outside, that you "pitch a tent" in the backyard every day and every night. Pretend that that big ole tree is your living room TV and pretend that the back fence is your hallway. Pretend that your olfactory sense has not gone AWOL and pretend that you do have a scintilla of pet responsibility and that your neighbors don't like the smell of wet dog shit. If you do all that, I think everyone will be happy. Or at least their nose hairs won't be curling come the spring thaw.

Thanks. That is all.

WHY BOTHER WITH A TITLE?

Got damn! I am so fricking uninspired. To do a lick of anything. What the hell? What gives? Even keystrokes are an effort, my fat fingers fumbling an "F" instead of a "D," a "K" instead of an "L."

I look out the window and through the gray of my omni-fucking-present cigarette smoke, the day is gray. And gray. And, oh yes, gray. Snowflakes flitter slowly down, rendering the backyard a soft white carpet.

I swallow some more of the omni-fucking-present coffee. The inside of my stomach is a friggin Starbucks. But without all the hype and the pretentiousness.

My dogs are somewhere. Wait, I know where they are: one of them will be laying by the heating vent and the other will be curled, snout to tail, on the overstuffed armchair.

I look out the window again. Yup, still gray. And gray. And, oh yes, gray.

By some (man-made) cosmic accident, today is a day that only comes around once every four years. If you were born on a Leap Year, would you celebrate your birthday on February 28th or on March 1st? I think I would celebrate mine on March 1st--kind of like a rebirth thing. February is just so fucking dreary. March is a month with purpose; just look at the name, for God's sake! March to it. Whereas February is a month in which even the spelling is a pain in the ass. How many times did you spell it (or pronounce it) "Febuary," with the "R" nowhere to be found? Shit, I just looked at the kee-rect spelling of the word and it reminded me of "mortuary." Maybe it's just the kind of mood that I'm in.

In the adjoining room, Bob Marley says to me: "Open your eyes, and look within/ are you satisfied with the life you're living?"

Well, Bobby, for the most part, yes. Thanks for asking, sir.

Now Marley sings, "Ex-ee-dous! Movement of jah people."

Exodous, indeed, Bobby. Exodous out of this gray fucking world and into a green one, resplendent with the smell of freshly-mown grass and burgers on the grill and images of blue skies and white puffed clouds.

TEN SYLLABLES

Enough. Of. Winter. And. Snow.

I. Want. Spring.

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS

out of the cold

stinging wind and harsh

skeletal reality

a warm bed,

nest here,

sleep here,

safe

let the world slide by

--greased skid--

let the world slide by and

cocoon yourself, here,

wrap me around you

together we will make sense

out of the senseless and

find Time

let the harsh shadow-world slide by

--greased skid--

nest with me

close your eyes and

sleep and know that

Tomorrow is a better day

THE CASE OF THE SHRINKING CANINE

Once upon a time, there was a cute brown dog. His fur was shiny and multi-colored: browns, yellows and blacks joined together on his coat to cull images of sun-dappled foliage in a viewer's eyes. The dog's name was Louis and he lived with a bald man named Adam. The two were inseperable and became fast friends. The bald man was a caring individual and he had a big heart, but he was often moody and distant. The dog tried his best to bring the man smiles, but he failed as often as he succeeded.

Then, one day, the bald man came to a decision to stop injesting toxic beverages at a manic pace and his moods began to even out a bit and the dog was happier. But the high that the man enjoyed from making his life-altering decision was transient and soon he reverted back to his self-absorbed ways.

The dog still had much love to offer, but the man was oftentimes unreceptive to the overtures and so the dog slipped into what seemed to be a depression. Day after day, the brindled bundle of benevolence bounded up at the sound of his master's alarm clock only to be subtly ignored for the flash of the computer, the squeaks and squirks of the video game system. Day after day, night after night, the dog lay on the couch, in the armchair, letting loose great sighs, his Boxer face more droopy than Nature had intended.

The bald man saw his depressed dog and tried to buoy his spirits, but the man's attention was sketchy at best...often the man would come home from work and go directly to bed for hour-long naps.

The man thought to himself, Hell, I live in a house, now. I have a backyard. Maybe Lou would benefit from having a partner-in-crime. Maybe another dog would help the situation.

And that thought of another dog stewed in the back of the man's mind.

And then, one day, the man's co-worker mentioned that she knew of a Beagle that was looking for a new home. The man, after some consideration, decided, sure, that could very well be a damned good thing. So he adopted the Beagle. With Dickensian sugar plums cavorting in his head, he named the dog Oliver, after the orphan from Oliver Twist. (Plus? The dog just looked like an Oliver.)

At first, things were gravy. Louie had never seemed happier and Oliver, after an extremely brief transitional period of uncertainty, soon became comfortable with the living situations.

Overly comfortable, it turned out.

The man noticed, after a time, that, when Oliver ate, Louie sat a respectful distance away, eating only after Oliver had finished. The problem became quickly clear, though, that Oliver was never finished. The little sausage-bodied dog did not eat to live. Rather, he lived to eat. And he rapidly attained Alpha status when food was concerned.

Thus, Oliver began to resemble a black-and-tan-and-white bowling ball with legs. And Louie, after putting on a quick layer of intial muscle from increased playtime, began to shrink. Still a muscular canine, his spine and ribs became more appreciable and his fur seemed to lose some of its luster. Meanwhile, the bowling ball glowed.

The bald man began to get a little worried. He wondered just how the hell he could fatten Louie up while gently nudging Oliver towards a healthier lifestyle.

He came up with this idea: who the hell said that they had to eat together all the time? That was what the doggy gate was for, he reckoned. Segregation (no pun intended) was the key. To isolate the sons-of-bitches seemed to be the order of the day.

So that was what the man decided to do. And he had heard (or read) somewhere that raw eggs mixed with the dry dog food were good for dogs. And that he--not the dogs--controlled the quantity of food that was delivered to the furry bodies, one rotund, the other stretched like a rubber band.

And so the experiment began in earnest....

{To be continued}

GANGSTA RAP

I stopped at the local music resale store today. I was intent on finding some Anthrax and/or some Megadeath. Just in one of those moods, I reckon. Headbangers, unite.

Anyway, I found neither. I ended up getting some other CDs, one of which was N.W.A.'s 1988 release Straight Outta Compton. Blast from the past, eh? An acronym for Niggaz With Attitudes, N.W.A. was basically a rap super-group which counted as its members such icons of gangsta rap as Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Eazy-E, MC Ren and DJ Yella.

The second song on the disc is "Fuck Tha Police." The chorus sounded for the first time, and I found myself vehemently barking, "Fuck the police!" I paused and started laughing to myself. There I was, a somewhat mild-mannered, mid-30s white guy, driving the speed limit, safely seatbelted in a silver Ford Focus hatchback in an affluent suburb of Detroit. I was about as far from Dr Dre and the other fellas of N.W.A. as I could be.

Yet, I felt an affinity towards them. They m'boyz.

I, too, have had run-ins with the boys in blue. More than a couple of times, actually. Of course, every time I had a problem with the law, I was a million sheets to the wind and I can't really blame them for doing their jobs, ridding Suburbia of sodden belligerence. But, still, the animosity remains. Fucking pompous do-gooders. Strapped egos sauntering about like Hands of God.

Fuck tha Police, indeed.

One of these days, my childish, churlish attuitude towards our beloved protectors will change. Until then, I am,

Signed,

Gangsta Adam

[Now excuse me. Heavens to Betsy, but the dishes are piling up!]

WE'RE NUMBER ONE! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!

But I demand a retabulation of the numbers. This is bullshit. I think that Detroit was the fattest city in the United States, too.

Well, you gotta be good at something, right?

(And, trust me, it isn't shocking that Flint, MI, came in third in the "Misery Ranking.")

IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS

Life comes at you fast. 21st Century technology ramps up the velocity. Cell phones, instant messaging, digital televisions, gaming systems, GPS technologies: they're all great and they all serve their purpose. But, God damn, life often seems like a whirlwind of activity--technology, bills, relationships, responsibilities--and sometimes you lose your bearings and you don't know whether you're coming or going.

So it's the little things in life that can help you regain your equalibrium.

With southeastern Michigan's wacky (Michigan-like) weather lately, my backyard has been transformed from a dog-dug, brown "lawn" to a shimmering ice rink. It's completely covered in two-inch-thick ice, save for a few spots in which the sunshine did its melting job.

The dogs were overjoyed to see me today when I got home for work and, when I let them outside, they scampered across the brown area near the side door and then took off across the icy yard. Slippin' and slidin' and playfighting, they brought a smile to my face, reminding me of hockey players sliding around on the ice as they tried to level a punch at their opponent.

I busted a thick layer of ice off of the fold-out canvas chair and sat my Carhartt-layered ass down to enjoy the festivities. Moments of serenity are little things, too, but we gotta cling to them, sometimes. They are increasingly--in this modern world--few and far between. This was one of those moments, and I clung to it. The sun was shining down on me, I was nice and toasty inside my outerwear and the only sounds I heard were the chirps of birds and the hypnotic shurrrr sound of distant traffic and my boys' breaths of playful exertion.

Slippin' and slidin'. Slidin' and slippin'. No cell phones ringing, no TVs blaring, no obnoxious commercials imploring me to buy a new dinette set...just dogs' breaths, puffed cloudy by the frigid air. I felt the tension of work begin to slip out of my shoulders and neck. I breathed deeply and closed my eyes in the sun. So what if it was 20 degrees? I was warm and I was right where I wanted to be. I slowly opened my eyes to the bright winter day.

I watched m'boys tussle for about ten minutes and then I watched as they amicably broke and went about marking their territory, voiding their breakfasts. And I watched as they scrabbled over to me in the chair and offered their heads for petting and then I watched as they discovered the ice that I'd knocked loose from the chair and mouthed a couple of big chunks over to the brown areas on the hockey rink, where they lay down. And I heard them crunch.

And I listened. And I watched. And I breathed. And that was good enough.

ROOT CANAL: *PARTE DOS*

In about seven hours, I will be slouching in the dentist's chair, proffering my gaping maw, cringing 'gainst the high-pitched whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnne of the little drill. Or maybe the big, slow, plodding drill that vibrates my whole head, making me feel as though I were caught in a mini, only-Adam's-melon earthquake.

Before either drill, however, my dentist, Dr. Mills, and his sidekick Cindy will bounce a bit of impromptu standup comedy against the white-tiled walls, against my noggin.

[One classic Mills joke is: "If the novocaine doesn't work, we'll just have to conk you over the head with a rubber mallet." Dr. Mills? I only laughed that one time because I was hung over as drunken turkey and my seratonin and dopamine levels were all fucked up, so please if you could can it, sir?]

After the joke session, a fifteen-inch needle will magically appear in Dr. Mills's right hand and with his left he will pinch the inside of my cheek and slide his ever-so-sharp untensil into my Clockwork Orange-propped mouth.

It only hurts for a moment, kids; trust me on that one.

Then.... Then, the fun begins! Whee! Drilling and scraping and Cindy's thigh pressed against my shoulder and Dr. Mills's nasally monologue and white ceiling tiles. My mouth will be jammed open and twisted and pinched and contorted and jagger-slashed and rinsed and spit out and on and on and on.

And then I'll get to pay for it! Whee! In all seriousness, though, thank God for insurance. Instead of 1700 doll hairs, I'll only have to pay, like, three-and-a-half hundred doll hairs. So, that's something good, eh?

Depending upon how smoothly the undertaking goes, I could walk out of there the owner of a new crown, carefully matched in color to my surrounding, yellowed choppers. In all likelihood, though, I'll walk out of there with a temporary crown and I'll get to go back again! Excuse me if I refrain from the "whee!" blast. This dentist shit gets old.

The only good thing about this debacle is that I'll be able to twist his arm into prescribing me some Tylenol 3s...or maybe even some Vicodin! Probably not the V--and I don't think I'd really want the V--but I know that I'll get some Threes out of the deal. Hell, it's the least they could do, what with puttin' me through all that pain and abject sufferin'.

Let this be a lesson to you, kids: when you eat sugar by the spoonful, be sure--damned sure!--to floss afterwards!

That is all. PSA complete.

Happy Card-and-Flower Day to you all...and to all a good (wink wink) night.

DOG-EAT-DOG WORLD

"May I have the...Beagle, please?" Thus spoke Dr. Something-or-other Something-or-other, the final judge at the 2008 Westminster Kennel Dog Show. Uno, the fifteen-incher had just ended a quarter-century Best In Show drought for Beagles.

I felt good for the Beagle. Having been blessed with Oliver, here, for the last seven or eight months, I have come to love the Beagles' stubborn ways and intense hunger for both attention and food. I have come to respect the Beagles' world-class noses; I have come to love their melty butter-pat eyes. Their character is dynamic; they own the room.

Uno was a good choice: a perfect specimen and he had that it quality. The commentators referred to him as a "rock star" and, while that may be stretching it a bit, the dog definitely carried himself with some pizzaz. To attribute some human qualities to the bastard, he looked like he felt he was above all the superfluous pomp and circumstance. He knew he was the best dog: Yawn. Just gimme the trophy and be done widdit, okay?

However, if I'd been one of the judges, I would have made sure that this guy was in the final group. And i would have judged him Best In Show. The Neopolitan Mastiff. All wrinkles, jiggles and lope.

CRACKER LOVE

"If there be no roses, then lay 'em down in crackers."

There was a massive rose shortage, seventy-five years ago. No one really knew just why the roses had ceased--for the most part--to grow, but all men who, on Valentine's Day, feigned cliched romanticism felt that they were up the creek without a paddle.

The wealthy men could afford the rarity of roses, but the poor and middle-class lovermen were jammed somewhere between a rock and a hard place.

In New Jersey--New Brunswick to be exact--a man named Abe Rittlefrop figured he had found the answer. A deli man by day, Abe fancied himself a peerless Lothorio and so, on February 12th, a couple of days before the big day, Abe ran his wife of nine years, Gertie, through a dry run.

"Close your eyes, sweetie," he'd said, leading her down the tight hall to the bedroom. "I have a wonderful surprise for you."

Docile as a lamb, Gertie Rittlefrop followed. She had learned over time to acquiesce to Abe. He was nothing special in the Bed o' Love, but she'd found that, if she voiced her opinion (or wants or desires) like her women liberation friends, Abe would invariably become churlish and belligerent.

Tenderly Abe led her by the hand to the bedroom and opened the door to the soft warm smell of vanilla candles.

"Can I open my eyes now, Abe?" Gertie asked.

"Not yet, lover," he whispered at her ear. "Just a little further." He led her a few feet farther and then released her hand and slowly and softly ran his hands up her sides and cupped her breasts. She drew in a quick shuddering breath. "I have a lovely surprise for you," he whispered. "I am sure you're going to love it. You're going to think that it's the bees' knees, indeed."

She smiled, her eyes still squeezed tightly shut. "I'm sure I will, too, Abe, honey. You, um, never fail to impress." In her mind she pictured his three-inch erection, curved at the base, as thin as a pretzel rod. "You make me feel like a school-girl, fresh to the thought of love." In her mind, she pictured little boys and girls, standing at the blackboard, chalking out multiplication tables.

Abe smiled grandly. "Now," he said, and lay her gently onto the bed.

Along with the familiar creaking of the ancient box springs, Gertie first heard and then felt the foreign (to the bedroom, at least) cracking and crumbling of thousands of brittle crackers. She grimaced and pawed Saltines from the small of her back. Some multi-grain crackers had found their way into her panties and so she hooked them out and deposited them on her stomach. Her eyes slid open.

Abe stood at the foot of the bed, grinning fiercely. She could tell that he'd put a lot of thought and effort into this "surprise" and she knew how babyish he could become when someone didn't fall into line exactly as his mind had surmised, but...crackers? This would be a tough one to negotiate.

He raised and lowered his eyebrows in a lame Groucho Marx impersonation. "You like, honey?" he asked.

"Crackers, dear?" she said. "Why...crackers?" She shifted her weight up to the headboard; the bed of crackers crumbled in her wake. An itchy medley of Saltines and wheat thins and goldfish crackers found their way between her buttocks.

His face fell. "Why not crackers? I know how much you love crackers and there was a whole extra delivery of 'em at the deli. I figured two birds with one stone. If you don't like it, why then I'l--"

"Oh no, no!" she said, holding her hands out. "I love the idea. It's so...unique, dear. You're so thoughtful and caring. And...innovative, honey. You're like my own little Edison."

"'Little Edison?'" he grumbled.

She amended herself. "You're like my own huge, gargantuan Edison, baby. Come here. Come to Mommy." She opened her arms to him and he clambered aboard. They made sweet love in the bed of crackers. In the end they were covered in dust and spent.

And so, in the Year Without Roses, love was still professed, love was still made and love, sweet love, still reigned supreme.

But clean-up was a bitch.

DINNER

It is February 5th. It is 12:31 in the aye-em. I am in Michigan. It is the anniversary of the Constitution.

I heard thunder a few minutes ago. And now the patter of rain soothes my soul. Thunderstorms in February? Oh, sure. It's like we say in Michigan: "You don't like the weather, wait five minutes." LOL! LOLz! HahaHA! ROFLMAO!1!

For dinner tonight, I had a bag of microwave popcorn with parmesean Goldfish Crackers and a bowl of Bear Claw ice cream, complete with whipped cream and Hershey's chocolate syrup.

I must be 12. Okay, maybe 13. For dinner tomorrow, I'll be having Geno's Pizza Rolls. And a Zagnut candy bar.

Post-coital bliss is a good thing. It should be bottled. And sold to dictators, despots and jingoistic American presidents under the brand name of Mell-Ohhh. Maybe it would calm people down, make them shinier happier people. Hell, it's a thought.

My sleep schedule got all ducked (mucked, clucked, pucked, shucked, fucked) up this weekend. I was on-call at work and I got called out at 11:00 on Saturday night. We got out to the job and, after heading back to the shop to bring back another backhoe (the frost-line was a motherfucker) we dug down to the curb box and found it to be blowing through. So...that was a bit of a job. We ended up getting done with that job at around nine the next morning. I went home after that, tired as a one-legged dog in an ass-sniffing contest, and I lay my head on the pillow and promptly fell asleep. Fell asleep for an hour and a half, that is, until work called again. The second job went for about five or six hours. So, all in all, though on-call can be a pain in the pooper, sometimes, it is tough to sneeze at 15 hours of double-time and three meal tickets.

But now my body and brain think that it is Wednesday...or Thursday. They are sadly mistaken.

I have to mention the Superbowl. What. The. Fuck? I mean, seriously: what the fuck?! How does a team that went 18-0 and set all types of scoring records and basically made the competition look like so many Pop Warner teams lose to a team that had to claw and scratch to even make the playoffs? It is simply unfathomable.

As Al Pacino would bark, "On any given Sunday!"

This is the biggest upset ever in the history of the National Football League. Tom Brady, uber-quarterback, finally didn't come through in the clutch. I reckon this just proves that he's human. (Although he does have movie star-good looks and he is insanely rich and he does fuck a supermodel whenever the mood strikes him.) In the Superbowl, however, he looked as mortal as Abe Begoda. And that's saying something.

I still have Christmas lights up in my front room. They are there to stay for a time indeterminate. I like the rosy red glow that they cast. I like how it makes me feel--perhaps--like I'm back in the womb, warm and safe...and bored out of gourd.

That's all for now. Have a happy Tuesday.

Post-script: That picture is of me at my friend Pablo's 40th birthday party. His finacee held it at a bowling alley. I bowled like shit, as did everyone else. That cake is a torso of a buxom woman dressed in a pale blue negligee. Two of the candles were placed strategically in the frosting where the nipples would have been. Mmm...frosty nipples....

POST-ROOT CANAL: INTERNAL DIALOGUE

My mouth is home to warring factions right now. My tongue keeps poking into the debris left by the root canal and flexing against the substance (whatever the hell it is) that the dentist used to pack the immense hole. My tongue is repeatedly scraping 'gainst the sharp edges of the annihilated tooth.

Tongue [like an excited third-grader]: Oh! Lookie here! Lookie here! Lookie here! Lookie here! Lookie here! Lookie here! Lookie here! Lookie here! Lookie here! Looki--

Jagged Tooth: Dude. We're the same as we were fifteen seconds ago, man. We haven't changed a lick. [pauses] You know? That was pretty punny, all things considered.

"Substance": Huh?

Jagged Tooth [sighing]: Never mind, blob. Never mind.

Tongue: Oh! Lookie here! Lookie here! Lookie here! Lookie here! Lookie here! Loo--

Jagged Tooth: Yes! We are still here, you ADD motherfucker!

"Substance": Well, speak for yourself, compadre. I ain't exactly as here as I was back at the office. Tongue-boy...he's, uh, really done a number on me. [to itself] Maybe I wasn't hard enough?

Tongue: Oh! Lookie here! Lookie here! Lookie here!

Stomach [from a distance off-stage]: I can vouch for "Substance," Jagged Tooth. Some of him is with me. Well, was with me. I had him take a bath. So what if it was a bath in acidic juices? 'Twas still a bath, you know.

Jagged Tooth [sarcastically]: Thanks for the input, Stom. What would we do without you?

Stomach: Durrrr....

Tongue: Oh! Lookie here! Lookie here! Lookie here! Lookie here! Looki--

Jagged Tooth: Man, keep it up. Seriously. Keep it up and I may have to cap yo' ass. Or maybe crown yo' ass.

[Silence from all]

Jagged Tooth: Does anyone here have the friggin' capacity to appreciate a pun?! Jesus!

Stomach and "Substance" [simultaneously]: Durrrr....

Tongue: Oh! Lookie here!

CUSSING

I think I have unintentionally taught Louie the F-word.

He seems too young to know that kind of language.

Every time he and Oliver are wound up and playing, when there is a break in the action, I'll look over at Lou and say, "Whassa mattah, huh? Go on. Fuck 'im up."

And he bounds off.

Sorry, Lou, to have corrupted Your Furriness.

CHOCOLATE COVERED OREO'S

Today at work I was standing in the meeting room before work and I saw a pink piece of paper on the table. Seeing as how I work at the gas company and pink is usually not a piece of paper but the punchline to a joke, I picked it up and examined it. It was some kind of pricing sheet, listing the prices of chocolates and treats and the like.

"Chocolate covered oreo's" and "chocolate covered strawberry's" screamed at me from the pinkness. I was in an odd mood, I admit. There was a pen lying nearby, so I used said pen to circle the misplaced apostrophes and draw a line to the phrase that I wrote: "not needed."

Later, as I was out at the truck, doing the pre-trip inspection, one of my coworkers, a fine-looking woman in her mid-40s who smokes like a chimney and possesses a gravelly voice, walked up to me and shoved the paper in my general direction.

"Did you do this?" she demanded.

"Uh, yessssssss?" I said hesitantly.

"That's great," she said. "Just great." She glared at me. "Did you even read the whole thing?"

I studied the pink sheet of paper. "Lymphoma" and "leukemia" leapt off the page at me. I felt a sinking feeling in my gut.

"There are only a limited number of these printed out, Adam," she said. "This is a fundraising sheet for blah blah blah blah."

Truth be told, I didn't really process what the fundraiser was for. I felt like a real shitheel and so my ears kind of tuned out the rest of what she was saying. I figured I'd read it more in detail later. The sinking feeling in my gut intensified.

"Really nice, Adam," she barked. "Really nice. Just don't fucking touch it again."

And, with a disgusted shake of her head, she stomped off, heeding not my lame "sorry."

Whoops. Let this be a lesson. Pretend not to see glaring grammatical errors and, if that is simply not possible, for God's sake, don't break out the correction pen.

I think I'll be buying some strawberry's and oreo's tomorrow.

(Then again, this woman has the supremely ergonomically-placed ability to be a queen bee bee-yotch, so it wouldn't even surprise me if she turned me and my money away. And blasted me with another F-bomb.)

CYNTHIA FRANCES [LAST NAME REDACTED]

My Mom turned 66 yesterday, the 28th of January. She doesn't seem 66; in fact, she doesn't seem a day over 65-and-a-half. I joke. I keed. I joke and keed because I love her with all my heart. (She actually doesn't seem a day over 50.)

What can I say about the woman who nurtured and raised my sisters and me to be the people we are today? Where do I find the words to convey the love with which we were brought up? The love that richocheted off of us and back to her? I don't. It is nebulous. Intangible.

I just know that it's there. And it always will be.

Happy birthday, Mom. I love you.

SUDDEN FICTION, A-TO-Z: THE MAGICIAN

[Because I am bored. And because I want to send that "Masturbation" post down the 'pike, a bit.]

"And now," spat the magician, "the rodent shall return from the dark depths of Hades, perfectly intact...not a whisker harmed." Bristling with hubris, the greasy-haired 60s-ish magician swept the threadbare satin away from the hat and beamed out towards us, his straggling "audience."

"Cool," mumbled Betty, staring at the empty hat, obviously bored out of her mind. "Do you think we could, uh, get going, now?" she asked me, pinching at my love handles. Empathy was not Betty's strong suit. Frankly, if she couldn't care less about something, she had absolutely no problem letting that fact be known.

"Girl," I stage-whispered, "this guy's life has got to suck ass; the least we could do is give him a fiver or something and be polite about his show, hon."

He looked into his top hat and, frowning slightly, pulled it closer to his face. "I seemed to have lost Ricardo," he mumbled.

Jiggling the change in my pocket, I held Betty's arm close to my side and waited.

"Killer show, old man!" some teenaged wit hissed to the scattered laughter of his peers.

Let me just say here that I have never seen a more forlorn expression: the old man's eyes glistened with unspent tears, his gray eyebrows furrowed, casting his sky-blue eyes into darkness, and his chin trembled as his lips quivered. My guess was that the old man--"Xerxes the Great"--was going to break down and weep right there, on the corner of Thirteenth and Grant.

Not a very pleasant memory to retain from a vacation, you know? Our original intent--Betty's and my--was to walk the streets of New York and soak in the manic frenetic energy of the city, do some window shopping, maybe enjoy a couple of under-prepared and over-priced deli sandwiches and some beer...you know, just take in the atmosphere. Plopped right in front of the deli had been this Xerxes fellow, resplendent in his tattered magician's cape (that he'd probably found in a Dumpster behind a costume shop) and his dirty blue jeans that were unraveling at the cuff. Quixotic image, that: a street magician practicing his "craft." Really, though, the problem was that this dude sucked, he had no talent for Illusion, and this wasn't 19th-century Paris. Sadly, he was just a bum, down on his luck, hawking for money, making a fool out of himself and it hurt me to see him degrade himself as such, so I tightened my grip on Betty's arm and turned to go.

"Try again, Xerxes," she said softly, boring her beautiful brown eyes into the old man's blue. Usually, Betty had little patience, so this was a welcome (and somewhat heartwarming) about-face for her.

"Very well, young miss," said Xerxes, straightening himself to his full height and regaining what dignity he could. "Watch very closely as I bring Ricardo back from"--he cleared his throat with a rattle--"the darkest depths of Hell."

Xerxes the Great replaced the satin over the mouth of the top hat and, with murmury incantations, swirled his free hand above the whole shebang, his long delicate and dirty fingers plucking imaginary cherubs from the air and gesturing them towards the hat.

Yes, the rodent returned; yes, Ricardo the rat emerged from the hat, gray-brown and whiskery, his black eyes beady, little front paws up on the brim of the hat, his long fat pink tail curling out over the edge; and yes, Xerxes the Great tasted Redemption--the real magic that day, though, was the way in which Betty had been imbued with the all-encompassing warmth of empathy, the way in which she opened her heart to someone less fortunate.

Zonked with the happy chemicals of Altrusim, sex that night was the best ever...and, yes, it always comes back to the sex.

MASTURBATION--IT LOOKS GOOD ON YOU

I found this in the comments section of Fumblings web site. It's called the Slogan Generator, and you can put any word into the little box thing-y and hit "sloganize". I entered "masturbation." Hijinks and hilarity are guaranteed to ensue.

Okay. I'm off to sloganize "Golden Shower." Take care. (And Happy Saturday.)

Here's a good slogan: "You Need a Golden Shower." :-P

TAGGED WITH SMUT

I've been tagged. Nighthawk Nan of underacheivingmommy fame sent this my way and I think it would simply dandy to ruminate on sex. Ponder on sex. Ponderous sex. Hmm. That doan soun' too fun, Loocee! Ponderous, that is...sex in general is an absolute delight.



Rules and Regulations: Tagged or not, feel free to post it on your blog (the more the merrier). Title your post the Smut Meme, outline the rules, and tag two people when you're through. Please link to whoever you've tagged, so we can see just how smutty your readers are.

Okay. Let's see how smutty Adam is.

1. Chocolate or whipped cream? I can't say that I've really ever had either in the Bed O' Love. Once, I was pretty trashed when I was with this girl and I walked naked into the kitchen and brought back a can of Reddi Whip. We never got to the whipped cream and I awoke the next morning with my mouth tasting of ashtrays and stale booze and the girl was on the couch (she said I was snoring too loudly). The Reddi Whip was on the floor, on the side of the bed, leaking white stuff onto the carpet. Hungover and bummed out, I just threw it into the trash.

2. Leather or PVC? Leather. It has more of a sense of natural goodness than PVC, a substance with which I associate much displeasure and sweat. Also, PVC makes me think of work. It's a kind of pipe, too, isn't it?

3. Outdoor sex or indoor sex? For me, it's got to be inside sex. I guess I'm kind of a private person. I don't want to take a risk of having sex outside and someone happening by and noticing my eighteen-inch erection. Leapin' anacondas! They'd be scarred for life!

4. In the jacuzzi or in the bed? I like being comfortable. In bed, all the way.

5. Bad sex or no sex? Considering all that I have to offer is bad sex, I'll have to go with bad sex. Otherwise, there'd be no sex...and that'd be a negative thing. :-P

6. Dominate or be dominated? Spank me, baby. Tie me up and tell me what to do. Make me your sex slave.

7. Thigh highs or body stockings? Oh, shit. Thigh highs all the way. Women wearing high boots are a major turn-on for me. Particularly thigh highs made of chocolate and whipped cream. (Oh. And PVC.)

8. Fast or slow? Eeeeeeeaaaaaaaaasy does it. For me.

9. Rough or gentle? Could there maybe be a happy medium? How about roughly gentle? Naw. Fuck it. I like to do it rough (but pain-free).

10. Bite or suck?! Are you kidding me?! S-s-s-s-s-su-su-su-- I can't even say it, I like it so much. :-P But, of course, a well-timed (and placed...and pressurized) love bite is heavenly, too.

11. Role play or reality? I gotta say, I like a little role-playing. 'Tis fun, is what it is.

12. Dirty talking: coming or going? Coming. I feel like a fool when I mack my dirty talk. It makes me feel self-conscious and, Lord knows, one doesn't need to feel onstage when one is puttin' the biscuit in the basket.

13. Edible panties or no panties at all? I don't want to have to chew through a layer of frustration to get to the Promised Land. Plus, I have to think that they'd leave a sticky residue all over the bed and, thus, all over the bodies. I'm not a fan of feeling sticky. So, in summary, with a choice between no panties or edible panties, I'd have to go with no panties. The best answer, though, is the G-string. Plus! Isn't it fun to disrobe your lover? That's highly underrated.

14. Spanking paddle or bare hand? Definitely bare-handed spanking. If she's been a naughty girl, she'll have to be spanked, but I want her to know that it hurts me as much as it hurts her. Plus, come on. Why the hell would I waste a perfectly nice naked ass on a paddle when I have my hand, um, handy? Exactly.

15. Landing strip or Kojak? Telly south of the border. Who loves ya, baby? The less hair, the better, in my humble opinion. I'm not a fan of tonguing stray hairs out of my molars. (Wow, that sentence was just wrong on so many levels.) ;-)

16. Multiple sessions or one good fuck? Multiple one good fucks. 24 hours of sweaty, steamy, tantric, no holds barred, kinky, loving, transcendental sexual congress. (And then I'll wake up and realize that I am no Lothario. Whoever the fuck Lothario is. Jealous much, Adam?)

17. Moaning or screaming? I am partial to soft, heartfelt moans. It makes me feel that I'm doing a decent job.

18. Three-way or no way? Three-way, for sure. As long as I'm the only cock in the henhouse. Gosh, I get goosebumps just thinking about it. :-D

19. Swing or no swing? Schwing! That's as close as I'll get to that. No swinging for me, thanks. Ever since I traded Ron Guidry (his strike-shortened 1981 season) for Bill Gullickson and Ron Davis in Strat-O-Matic baseball, I've had an aversion to trading. And to trade significant others? That'd be madness. Madness, I say!

Okay. I'm done. This meme has left me in the mood to grab the KY and a napkin and fire up the ole DVD player but, since it is 2:30 in the morning and I am basically the walking dead, I think I'll call it night and dream of kama sutras and breasts.

Tag. Who do I tag? No pressure, play if want to and don't if you don't. Okay, I tag Meegie and Laura from Scotland.

"WHAT? DO I AMUSE YOU?"

So says Joe Pesci in one of the--if not the--greatest gangster flicks ever, Goodfellas.

Do you ever get the feeling that someone is looking at you and silently following a comedic interlude inside their head, in which you are the buffoonish lead act? I do. I don't get that feeling nearly as much as I used to, but I still occasionally want to leap onto the counter (or table, or chair) and burst into my Pesci imitation. "What? Do I fucking amuse you? What am I? A clown? Huh? You seem like you're having a grand old motherfucking time, there, laughing at my expense. No, that's cool. If I amuse you, that's just fucking dandy. But maybe you should pay me for being the clown act. Because I really wanna know: am I just a clown, here, goose-stepping around strictly for your motherfucking amusement?! Answer me, Henry!"

Okay. So I wouldn't call the person Henry...unless, of course, his name really was Henry.

[Henry is Henry for the Henry Hill in the movie Goodfellas, based off of the book Wiseguys, written by Henry Hill, a former member of a New York-based Mafioso Family to which he turned the screws and sang like a yellow parrot.]

I digress.

I bring this up because earlier tonight I went to the late-night liquor store to procure a pack of smokes. It was late, so I just threw on some brown slippers and, wearing my cobalt-blue pajama bottoms and a green sweater (and a knit hat and a brown leather jacket) I stepped carefully into the car and drove the block or three down the road. The kid in the store was sitting over by the cases of beer, talking to his buddy with the heavy eyelids, and when I walked in, he looked up and started towards the counter.

"How you doin'?" he asked, pleasantly enough, as I walked to the counter.

I said, hey, what's up, man, and something in his face changed. He went from open and ready to sell me my cigarettes to, in my opinion, tense and guarded. I asked for a "pack of American Spirits, blue," and he walked over to the cigarette section and grabbed my pack and brought it back to the register.

"That'll be [price redacted], sir," he said, all professional, now. As I gave him the money, I glanced up at him and saw him looking over at his friend and smirking. I've seen the look before. It's annoying. What the fuck about me is so gosh damned amusing, you son-of-a-pup?! Is it the slippers?! Get over it.

Anyway. I'm tired now. It'll be another night of short shitty sleep. I just felt the urge to relay this story to the masses. Why? Who knows. It just bugs the everlovin' shit out of me to be laughed at, or mocked, in any way. I'm pretty sensitive; it's a character flaw. Maybe I need to grow thicker skin. Maybe I need to sprout a duck's ass and just let the slights roll off the back like so much water. Whatever.

Current mood: Annoyed.

:-P

I DO NOT UNDERSTAND HTML...AT ALL

I am a fool when it comes to HTML. I know nothing about it. If you need evidence of this fact, just scroll down a bit and you'll see a free playlist that I slapped onto this weblog. It is red and it hangs out over the side of the, well, sidebar, and it looks like shit and Jimmy cracked corn and I don't give a flying shit. It looks like a 9-year-old was pounding away on the keyboard, but...Jimmy cracked corn, and all of that.

I tend towards perfectionism, so this abhorent display of "tweaking" the web site has my nose hairs curdling. If I looked in the mirror, I'd probably see steam coming out of my ears.

So...am I just a dummy or is this shit actually as difficult as I make it out to be? I think the former, unfortunately.

Maybe I need to change the type of template that I have. It is called a template, right? The screen around which I juggle letters of the alphabet and punctuation marks and sometimes numbers? Does anyone know what I did wrong?

I do have to change the template, don't I? I have to find a template that will accept this somewhat wide "playlist" thing.

Times of Archa, take me away!

Take me back to the time in which dudes with low brows and animal pelts for clothing chiseled shit onto stone tablets. Take me back to the quill and ink. Take me back to ballpoint pens, for Christ's sake (rice wine).

This binary jungle has me flummoxed.

Oh well. I hope that you like Hendrix and Mozart, Mega Death and Clapton.

OHMYGODI'MCOMING!

It's not what you think, really. I'm just saying that sometimes? sometimes it feels really damned good to just lay back down after awakening at a respectable hour and lose consciousness again until the hour is less than respectable. Waking up at 1230 hours? I haven't done that in far too long.

It's like a Beastie Boys sample that I have heard a million times: One guy says to the other, "You're stupid." The other guy says, "Eh-uh?" First guy: "You should sleep late, man. It's just much easier on your constitution."

I happily agree.

I awoke at 0826 and let the boys out and then blearily walked around the house, looking at things that I needed to do. The kitchen counter needs to be straightened up. I need to do a couple of loads of laundry. I need to leave this house and enter the blistering cold of January 19, 2007, Michigan, and venture to the grocery store to fill my Mother Hubbard cupboards that are so bare, I have not even a bone. (Sounds like a personal problem, but it ain't.) I need to...

I walked into the front room and saw Oliver and Louie laying blithely on the couch and I said, "You know? You guys have a good idea." I clambered aboard and leaned back against the arm of the couch, my legs sprawling diagonally across the warm puppies' bodies. Louie cast a baleful eye at me--it's his couch, after all--and Oliver shifted his little sausage body so that his sharp little Beagle nose was buried in the space between my hip and the back of the sofa. I jammed a throw pillow behind my head and--voila!--the Sandman blasted me across the head with a two-by-four of Sleep. I think I was sawing logs in under two minutes.

America! Join me in my laziness! Let us all be sloth-like! Tell Industriousness and Early Birdedness to "talk to the hand, bee-yotches!" Sleep in! It's just much easier on your constitutions!

As a speck of humanity in this vast teeter-totter o' Cyberland, I hereby declare on this, Saturday, January 19, 2008, when the temperature is about 15 degrees here in the Mitten state, "Sleep! Sleep as though your lives depended on it! Get nothing done! Give in to the narcotic of sleep! Relax! It'll only hurt for a second! Put off whatever needs to be done for another day! It'll still be there!"

As Marie Antionette was wont to say, "Let them use pillows!"

[Now, please to excuse me as I hypocritically go to get an oil change for my car.]

FOCUS!

I sit down in front of this damned thing, sometimes, and my mind is a whirl of half-created thoughts and jimmy-jozzins of ideas. Mental burps. Effective blog-writing speed bimps is what they are.

It is 5:59 in the morning. One would think that my brain would be ensnared in a morass of slowly-spinning neurons and confused synapses. Why am I pecking away at this keyboard when it's not even six o'clock on a Sunday morning? Because my bladder is more stubborn than I am.

I was IMing with my sis yesterday. IM time vacuums sure can be funny--and/or misleading--sometimes, eh? You know what IM time vacuums are. It's when you're electronically texting with someone and one of you might be a little quicker, a little more on the toes, than the other, and so answers to entries sometimes are two entries too late and so it ends up being a highly-confusing--and sometimes humorous and sometimes worrisome--conversation. As Billy Crystal might have said on SNL (back when it was watchable): "Oh! I haaaaaaaaate it when that happens."

What in God's name am I doing? It's 6:15 on a Sunday morning. I should be in bed, sawing logs. Not talking to myself in Cyberland. (And let's face it: often blogs are just that. Cerebral self-massage.)

What else? Ah, yes. My dogs came to me yesterday and informed me that they were "on the ticket in Oh-Eight." You can see their election poster here. I know what you're probably thinking. You're probably thinking, "What? No way! We can't have dogs occupying the most important positions" [sorta, if you discount lobbyists] "in the great Ewe Es of Aye! Dogs?!"

I can understand your apprehensions, but, really, is it that much of a stretch to have dogs in office after eight years of corrupt bumbling baboons? Naw. And, in my humble opinion, the further away we get from simians in office, the better. At least dogs have some integrity. Baboons walk around with pink-ass all day long. And they fling shit. And they beat their chests to a jingoistic rat-a-tat. And who needs that?

So vote Dawg in Oh-Eight, wouldja?

I think I may just stay awake now. Why not? People get up before the sun all the time. Hell, farmers make their living before the sun reaches its apex. Plus, I have a meeting on Sundays to which I have a hard time getting. It's at 10:00 and if I went back to sleep now, I'd probably sleep through it again. Yeah. Better just to stay up.

Eh-heh-heh-heh-heh. He said "stay up."

SURPRISING PROGRESS...

Well, I checked out the scale to-day and discovered that I have somehow lost about ten pounds, maybe more. I'm not quite sure how I have done it. I do know that I have been eating less, lately, and that I have been trying to start each day with a bowl of cereal. I've been trying to put at least something in my stomach in the morning. It is a widely-known fact that breakfast is often considered the most importante meal of the day.

Rumor has it that it kick-starts the metabolism.

Oh, and I've also been laying off the ice cream and the wanton sugar bombs such as candy bars and Hershey's syrup straight from the container. I have also eaten more fruits and vegetables than I had been. And the midnight toast snacks have been mightily curtailed. And I also have stopped eating just for the hell of it. Now I wait until I am shaky and can't see straight before I pop some food in my mouth. I'm kidding about that last part...sort of.

There was a study done recently that observed how the laboratory rat--that ole classic standby--did when it was allowed less food per day. If memory serves, the researchers had two groups of rats: one was allowed to eat to its heart's content and the other was fed basically just enough to get by. The first group had higher incidences of diabetes and heart disease and cancer while the second group retained their youthfulness for a longer period of time. What does that mean? I think it means that less food equates, for the most part, to better health.

And that is not a news flash, I know.

But, anyway, after losing around ten pounds, with another ten to fifteen to go, I think I'd like to ally myself with the second group o' rats.

STANDOFF: GOOD AND EVIL AT MIDNIGHT

Leroy was not fully aware of how much power the being had accumulated until he looked at the computer, at a picture of himself, and he noticed the malevolent inky black spread of the being, in binary starkness, from the middle of his back, from just below the shoulderblades. The image had not been there when he had taken the picture, of that he was certain.

Verily, viewed quickly, the Black Spread had reminded him of Fantasia, the part in which El Diablo had unfurled his massive black wings from the top of the mountain and had stretched them across the sky, blotting out the sun, rendering all below in shadow. The theme from the score echoed in his mind as his spine turned to ice: dum-duh-dum-duh-dum-dum-dum-dum dum-duh-dum-duh-dum-dum-dum-dum.... Images of the militant ghostly equestrians galloped across his mind and he wondered when he had gone wrong. Had he not tried to be morally and ethically beyond reproach? Had he not strove to live his life in adherence to the Golden Rule? Had it all been for naught? Had it?

He scratched a wooden ruler down his back, following his spine, and gasped as he ran the implement over the area at which, in the snapshot on the computer screen, the Black Spread originated. It was a singular sensation. The only thing to which Leroy could equate it was a slow melting drip of an ice cube, directly above the bone of his spinal column. That was not to say that it was an unpleasant feeling, though. Actually, quite the contrary. Rubbing the ruler against his back was directly proportional to the waves of pleasure that blossomed from his groin. The harder he scratched, the more powerful the pounds of pleasure.

Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to pull the ruler from his back and he threw it into the corner, breathing heavily, a heretofore innocuous means of measurement now seen in a different, much more malevolent, light. How was he to combat something that, instinctively, he knew to be evil, but that felt so damned good?

He and the Dark Prince were set to do battle. Back to back, they stood, the clock at high-up midnight, the battle for his spirit about to commence. How does one combat tidal waves of dopamine and seratonin, ill-begotten though they may be? Where does one start?

For the first time in a very long time, Leroy was afraid for his immortal soul.

And, on the computer screen, the Devil silently mocked him, blooming from his back like some inverse poisonous toadstool.

STARTING...NOW!

Resolutions...they're so cute, aren't they? Quaint, almost. I've already zoomed past quite a few of them. In fact, with each key stroke, I am further distancing myself from my dream of being "unhooked" from the wily Internet. I went to bed at three in the morning, maybe three-thirty, and I sit here typing with a cigarette smoldering in the assss-tray next to me. So that's at least three Rezzies to which I have held a silencing palm. On the plus side, last night when I went out, I had a [for the most part] vegetarian pizza. I say "for the most part" because I invited bacon to my half of the pizza pie. And why wouldn't I? Bacon is a cool dude. I didn't want him to feel left out, or anything. So I invited him to the shindig and then I ate him. "Bacon? Hello. I'd like you to meet my teef, I'd like you to meet my shiny white spades."

Bacon stood not a chance.

I am thinking of starting up a Flickr 365 project. You may be familiar with it. During the next 365 days, people involved with the "project" have to post a picture daily with at least a part of their body in the shot. I think I'll start today; maybe the piece of my body that I have in the snapshot will be my crank. Or...probably not. Maybe I'll just start with this one.

The picture that you see is me, sans color, methodically crushing seconds and minutes and hours in front of the Evil Computer as my wattles grow and my dogs take to chewing on things that they shouldn't be chewing. I think it was Timothy Leary who said, "Dude. Cut the cord, man. Release thineself from the 'Puter Politico."

On the plus side, it snowed last night, so there should be sleddin' in store today. Either that or copious--and I mean fucking copious--amounts of college football on the tube today.

Happy Two-Thousand-Eight, my dear partners-in-binary-addiction. May the new year bring color to our faces and strength to our constitutions.