finally, a funny (well, i hope so anyways, guess i will find out from your comments) post about my kids...

"what are you doing?!?"

my oldest stands in the middle of the living room, watching wile e. coyote and roadrunner in their eternal struggle (a quintessential piece of both my wife's and my childhood onto which we have recently turned our children and to which they have taken a great liking, much to our enjoyment) with his recently-shorn head shining in the light leaking through the blinds (there was an "accident" between a pair of scissors and his bangs at school, the result of which was daddy with a set of clippers on the lowest setting on the front porch with the wind blowing away the tufts of liberated locks and daddy using a passel of his favorite words with his voice set to "stern") and fully a half of his arm crammed down the back of his pants.

"what are you doing?!?"

"my butt itches."

i hear my wife choke off a laugh behind me and turn to mean-mug her for one second whilst also trying to maintain my military bearing.

"does it itch on the outside? or between the cheeks?" she asks, as i marvel at the things we find ourselves saying as parents without a trace of irony that we would never have in our wildest dreams guessed we would ever say before having progeny.

he stands, round face blank and brown eyes wide, his shoulder nearly dislocated and (i can only figure in some sick and twisted inner room of my ridiculous imagination) his hand working overtime, and replies: "between."

more spits and sputters from behind me as i say, "well it just means you didn't do a very good job of wiping. come with me. and get your hand out of your pants!"

we march up the stairs, and he heads off to his bathroom, assuming of course that that is where i am going to aid him in fixing his situation.

"no, over here."

a look of wonderment crosses his face. it is rare that the boys get to enter our inner sanctum of a master bedroom, but he is about to cross the threshold of the holiest of holies, the master bath.

"now," i say, "just because you now know where these are, and because i am giving you one now does NOT mean you are allowed to sneak in here and use them willy-nilly. got it?"

"got it."

and i break out our special stash of medicated wipes.

he is still standing taking in what must appear, to him at least, to be the lap of luxury when it comes to toilettes: brightly-colored bottles containing a plethera of soaps, the nice towels, make-up, beard trimmers that look sleek and shiny like a muscle car, shelves lined with glass jars containing q-tips and make-up removal pads.

"drop your pants and sit on the potty."

it seems ludicrous to refer to such a porcelain shiny work of art as our commode with such a juvenile word as "potty" so it takes him a moment to comply.

"now, use this to wipe your bum."

he does, and then holds it out and looks at is as if he is shocked at what he has found.

"keep going, do a good job."

"k."

again, he seems surprised, as if he has discovered a small beetle in what would otherwise be an antiseptic and pristine hospital room.

"think you got it?"

"yes, i think so."

"toss that in there and wash your hands."

dreamy-eyed, he runs the tap and puts his hands under it, and almost giggles as i dispense some liquid soap that smells of lavender from an old-time apothecary looking bottle into his damp palm.

"what's that?" he asks in amazement.

"soap."

"what kinda soap?"

"just pretty-smelling hand soap."

"oh, it is pretty."

"dry off your hands."

he giggles some more as he says, starry-eyed, "look at all the bubbles."

and indeed, there is a small pile of soap bubbles slowly popping and working its way down the drain.

"dry off."

who knows what stories he will relate to his younger sibling of what the bathrooms in heaven are like. who can guess what magical and fantastical things he can't even begin to comprehend currently dance around in his head. what avarice, what luxury, what dreams made flesh.

and all because a small bit of shit didn't get properly wiped up.

darth sardonic

ps, happy veteran's day to everyone. thanks to those that serve, regardless of what country you may have served.

ok i have fucking had it--scathing rant

before you read this post, read the last one i just left about the tea party express people. i just posted it because yet again these motherfuckers have spammed me with email surreptitiously asking me for donations. this post is also fueled by the hate-mongering i see on the news after the tragedy at ft hood and in general the kinda shit i have been hearing around this country lately.

ok, and here goes:

there is no "us" and "them." there is no "black" and "white." there is no "right" or "wrong." i have said it once, and will say it again and again and fucking again till someone puts a bullet in the back of my head, and if i have any pull with the big man spinning the galaxy, i will continue to say it in a spectral post-mortem voice from beyond the grave:

we are e pluribus motherfucking unum. "of the many, one." it's printed right on the fucking money next to "in god we trust" which every right-wing bible thumper will quite loudly and adamantly insist remains there and furthermore upon which our country (according to these zealots anyhow) was founded.

it doesn't say "of the many, one" in english, i might add, but in latin. as far as i know, we don't have an official language, but if we were gonna say we did, latin wouldn't be it. but there you have it, our very money is bilingual.

not all muslims are terrorists. not all terrorists are muslim (we seem to have forgotten in more recent years, but there have been all kinds of terrorists, some of which had no religious ties whatsoever). not all christians are assholes who think that everyone is gonna fry if they don't accept jesus into their hearts and return daily prayer to school and put a devout christian into the presidency and return this country to the bible-influenced world power that the founding fathers wanted it to be (oh and btw, the founding fathers wanted it to be e pluribus unum, not christian, or all white, or all english-speaking. the founding fathers wanted us to fucking compromise and get along. give a little, take a little.) not all people who aren't christian are bad people, or even misguided people, or even the kind of person whose values are that different from your own. not all conservatives are rush-limbaugh loving cunts. not all liberals are socialist subversive twats who are trying to destroy everything this country stands for. not all people who rally with the tea party express idiots are patriots. not all people who write scathing blogs denouncing the pocket-lining money-grubbing tea party express idiots are unpatriotic. not all soldiers are good. not all soldiers are bad.

we are e pluribus unum. of the many, one. remember? right after 9/11, when we were lost and confused and more scared than we had ever been since pearl harbor, the tv was running commercials geared towards uniting us as a country again. and people of all races and creeds would say, e pluribus unum. unless you are native american (and if you are, can i just say i am really really sorry for what the people who initially colonized this country did to you) then you are as much an outsider in this country as anyone who speaks broken english. only the native americans (i am including the native alaskans and hawaiians in that too) were here. everyone else floated, boated, swam, flew, scuttled, lied, stowed-away, rode bound in chains against their will in the belly of a ship, or in some other manner phanagled their way into this country. i don't give a fuck who you are, or what your color is: somewhere in your background, you have an ancestor who found himself/herself on the shores of this continent, scratching his/her ass and wondering, "what the fuck i do now?"

and i will say again, the problem with the country is this "us" and "them" mentality: the conservatives who think liberals are what's wrong with this country. the liberals who think the conservatives are what's wrong with this country. (an interesting side-note: in the start of this country, when george washington was president, the founding fathers were dead set against having "factions" or what we now call "political parties." so if you really wanna get down to the brass tacks of what the country was founded on, we'd do away with "conservative" and "liberal" completely.) the whites who think minorities are what's wrong with this country. the minorities who think whites are what's wrong with this country. the christians who hate the muslims. the muslims who hate the christians. the people who think that everyone should only and always speak english. the "patriots" who denounce the "unpatriotic" and vice versa.

and in closing, i would just like to say; if you buy into the "us" and "them" mentality, if you think that one specific group of people or beliefs are wrong and should be done away with or kicked out of our country, if you think you are "right" and everyone else who doesn't agree with your way of thinking is "wrong," then maybe you should find another country to live in. there are plenty out there that would probably agree with you, and where you would fit in just fine.

e pluribus unum, o my beloved non-existents, my patient and faithful few. this includes anyone who would work to make the united states of america a better place in some kinda way, regardless of what language they speak, what color their skin is, where and/or how they worship, and what traditions they choose to follow from some other land they left to join here in our melting pot.

and yes, it even includes the tea party express folks, who i sincerely hope honestly think they are doing a good service, though i just suspect they are your average run-of-the-mill capitalists making a fast buck.

darth sardonic

and i redirected these guys into my spam folder...

i wasn't kidding when i said these guys would be glad to take your money. this time i just copied the whole goddamn email. oh, and if the video is supposed to put the fear of god in you then, well, something was seriously lacking. unless you're mortally afraid of guys with handlebar mustaches and baseball caps, or yellow "don't tread on me" flags, or giant metal barns where they hold livestock auctions. and i sorta resent the implication that because i aint emptying my bank account for these stupid fucking cunts that i am not a patriot. forget that i shook every one of the hands of the air force and army guys i saw at dfw who were on their way to iraq and tried not to choke up when i said "thanks!" wtf are these motherfuckers doing for their country? not a motherfucking shitlick thing. you know why? cause they are too busy rounding up our donations and driving to the next fucking redneck town to convince more stupid twats to part with their money in favor of some nebulous "cause" that clearly has shite to do with anything at all that affects any real person's life in any way.

Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and the liberal media keep insisting the tea party movement is irrelevant - and that it has fizzled. They think they can just conduct 'business as usual.' The video below proves them WRONG!

It's from the Tea Party Express rally in Branden, Mississippi last night. THOUSANDS of people packed the venue - it was an overflow crowd that packed the bleachers above spilled out onto the performing grounds of the Rankin County Multi-Purpose Arena.

Watch this video - and forward it along to every patriot you know who needs to see that our movement is growing and we are going to take our country back!

WATCH THIS VIDEO: NANCY PELOSI'S WORST NIGHTMARE

*** FORWARD THIS TO A FRIEND - CLICK HERE ***

Please do what you can to come out and join us for one of the remaining Tea Party Express rallies - here's the schedule: http://www.teapartyexpress.org/tour-schedule-2/

And you can help us make our final week of rallies even bigger, and help us defeat government-run healthcare by making a donation to the Tea Party Express.

Whether $25, $50, $100, $500 or any amount up to $5,000 (the maximum allowed contribution) we'd appreciate whatever donation you can make.

You can make a contribution - HERE.

You can also support our efforts by mailing in a contribution to our headquarters:

Our Country Deserves Better Committee

ATTN: Tea Party Project

770 L Street #1020

Sacramento, CA 95814

*** FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO A FRIEND - HERE ***

wtf?!? seriously?!?

the following are copy/paste lines taken directly from an email (the third) i have just received from these jokers:

The national, cross-country tour titled, Tea Party Express II: Countdown to Judgment Day (www.TeaPartyExpress.org) is rolling into Washington State to host Tea Parties. ...will hold rallies that seek to educate, entertain, and encourage patriotic Americans who are concerned about the quasi-socialistic policies being pushed by the Obama/Pelosi/Reid administration.

The Tea Party Express II caravan features two 44-foot coaches along with a group of several support vehicles,...part of a national tour that will span 19 days, 38 cities, and cover more than 7,000 miles.

The Tea Party Express is advocating for less government spending, an end to the bailouts, lower taxes, opposition to government-run healthcare and opposition to the growth in the size and intrusiveness of government in general.

they also wouldn't mind it much if you n i cared to make a charitable donation to such a worthy cause. i wonder how much it costs to drive two specially-painted coaches all over hell and gone? and i wonder what exactly these tea party lunatics are actually proposing by way of lessening government intrusiveness? are they coming up with any alternative ideas to the government health plan? do they understand that the bailouts started with dubya, not obama? why wasn't anyone driving tour buses around when dubya's administration was proposing the "patriot act" that would basically invade anyone's privacy and arrest individuals based on books they checked out of the library, or searches they did on google? did they not figure that the government was being intrusive in that case? they don't seem to realize that staging a moving "patriotic" carnival that will eat up countless dollars in gas and maintenance, not to mention the initial cost of two 44-foot coaches and the support vehicles, conservative speakers and singers, etc etc etc. and blowing all this dough on an extravagant tour is easily the best way to tell us that government spending is out of control, taxes are way too high, and the government is growing and taking over our lives. i might also recommend we watch these motherfuckers cause this has all the makings of a well-scheduled recruitment for a bloody revolution.

i wonder if hitler and lenin had 44-foot coaches?

darth sardonic

part of a mid-term...

in communications i class we had to write a couple short essays in class as our mid-term. i present to you, in conjunction with the last post (go quick and read it now) one half of my comm i mid-term:

the boy is about 7, lithe, with dusky skin. his earnest eyes hide behind lopsided glasses that match his lopsided grin.

he is excited as he watches his older brother play video games, and emits noises that are the sonic equivalent of shards of broken glass in my brain pan.

this skinny boy with the overdeveloped musculature used to fit in the palms of both my upturned hands like water scooped from a stream.

"daddy! daddy! loo' what [no. 1] is doon, daddy!"

"i see, buddy."

for reasons beyond my ken, he needs this constant reassurance; this sense of belonging. perhaps it stems from the four months he spent lying in hospital beds with only limited physical contact, most of which was to change iv's and bandages.

he sprawled there like a baby doll-cum-mad-scientist's experiment, tubes and monitors and gadgets encroaching upon his existence like the villain of bad 50's sci-fi movies.

and life was a nightmare for each member of his little close-knit family for these hellish four months.

you would never guess it today, however, from his ear-piercing sound-effects and the enthusiastic way he jumps up and down, his eyes intent on the screen as if he was the one playing the game.

you would never know he was dead for a full minute, flatlining like the special guest star's character at the end of an "er" episode while a battery of nurses scrambled for narcan, paddles, the crash cart.

you might guess something is not quite right from the delayed speech patterns; the way it takes him a little longer to formulate a sentence.

but, after observing his energy, his joy, and his zest for life as he dances from one foot to another and waves his arms over his head like a lottery winner, you would never be tempted to call him "dumb" or "stupid" or even "retarded."

and you would never guess he started off life being nothing more than a double-handful of his own mother and father's heart.

darth sardonic

student of the month

the trick is not thinking about what we have been through to get to this point. the trick is to keep my arm around him and beam proudly and be wholly immersed in the moment. because if i think about the hospital, the tubes and machines, the appointments and doctors, the therapies, the first year of kindergarten, i will tear up in the middle of the auditorium and i will be unable to disguise the fact that i am crying, and then he will ask, "whazmadder daddy? why you cryin?" and i will sob even more, and i would really prefer to maintain my composure amongst all these teachers and students and their parents.

no. 2 received student of the month for september.

darth sardonic

smile scream always so extreme

man, o my beloved non-existent readers, my droogs n only friends, i have decided: a.) i am a shitty poster, and b.) i am a lousy fucking friend.

gringa, i finally got your link fixed.

i just finished up mid-terms, in which i had four essays, ten drawings, and two tests all due within the scope of a week.

and i have been feeling pretty selfish lately i guess. hording my free time and wanting to spend it doing only the things i want to do. and of course, the creative energy i would normally spend coming up with witty posts is instead being channeled into all these essays and such in the hallowed and hollowed halls of higher learning. (say that ten times fast.)

but i do have this for you:

we have long held in my household that if you want to hide something from my view, simply place it on a shelf behind something else. i will never find it. i am sure all of you, the beloveds, are snickering because you know some other male who finds himself in this self-same category.

well, the other day i am looking for the last rock glass that hasn't been left in a drunken haze at one of the neighbors' houses, i look in the cupboard, the dishwasher, the sink, the side table by the couch; marred with moisture ring scars the exact size of the bottom of said rock glass: to no avail.

suffice to say, o my beloveds, i am kinda aggravated. it's been one of those days. i want a goddamn drink. where the sweet cherry fuckstain is my glass...?

"it's in the cabinet with the rest of the glasses." my wife is sooo helpful.

"it is not! i looked there, twice!!" i spout, all piss n vinegar as i yank open the cupboard for the third time and--

"well fuck me gently with a chainsaw! why'd you put it on this side of the small juice glasses?"

(an aside: what the hell purpose do the small juice glasses really serve? i mean, does anyone still make a "well-balanced breakfast" replete with cheerios, toast and jam, a large glass of milk, and the apparently quintessential juice glass of oj? they are sorta the right size for a gibson i have noticed though, as long as you don't make it a double... now back to your regularly-scheduled program.)

"are you serious? you couldn't find it because it was on the other side of the juice glasses?!?"

i take a deep, steadying breath, and let it out in a prolonged sigh of surrender.

"let me see if i can attempt to explain the phenomenon of my inability to find things in pantries and on shelves to you, once and for all:"

she is already starting to giggle at me. which of course, makes me want to pour on the theatrics.

"let's say you tell me to get the medicine." i say, holding up one of the boys' prescription bottles, "and this is what i see in my head. an rx bottle. but let's just say the medicine actually looks like this:" holding up a blister-pack of gas-x.

"i will look thither n yon. my eyes will pass over this little packet of pills a million times without ever registering them, because i am looking for a bottle."

the giggles are full-on laughs.

"furthermore, if i think the object i am looking for is red, and it is actually blue, same thing, it's like it doesn't even exist."

the laughs are tears and are bordering on snorts, and by christ, o my beloved non-existents, i am hell-bent for a series of snorts.

"but the biggest way to confuse me is to put something slightly out of place from where it should be. if i know it is in a certain spot, then i won't be looking for it anywhere else, even if that is on the left side of the juice glasses instead of the right. since they are glasses, and it's a glass, it was completely invisible to my eyes."

i get the crescendo of laugh-snort-laugh that i so desperately needed at this point, and smile myself as i fix an old fashioned in my newly rediscovered rocks glass.

darth sardonic

Sing for the children shooting the children sing

shit, o my beloved non-existent readers, happy shit soon i promise.

another song; don't watch this and "swim" back to back without a shitload of tissues nearby:

"Sing" (dresden dolls)

There is this thing that's like touching except you don't touch
Back in the day it just went without saying at all
All the world's history gradually dying of shock
There is thing that's like talking except you don't talk
You sing
You sing

Sing for the bartender sing for the janitor sing
Sing for the cameras sing for the animals sing
Sing for the children shooting the children sing
Sing for the teachers who told you that you couldn't sing
Just sing

There is thing keeping everyone's lungs and lips locked
It is called fear and it's seeing a great renaissance
After the show you can not sing wherever you want
But for now lets all pretend that we're gonna get bombed
So sing

Sing cause its obvious sing for the astronauts sing
Sing for the president sing for the terrorists sing
Sing for the soccer team sing for the janjaweed sing
Sing for the kid with the phone who refuses to sing
Just sing

Life is no cabaret
We don't care what you say
We're inviting you anyway
You motherfuckers you'll sing someday...