***This Post Left Intentionally Blank***
Where to paddle
1 year ago
Friday, April 28, 2006
Rittenhouse on a spring lunch hour (haiku)
laying in the grass
thinking about my garden
the sun warms my face
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
stirring the babies (haiku)
sing-song wake-up call
here's your clothes, please put them on
was i in your dreams?
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
I just remembered why I hate everyone
Crack
"Shit, missed!"
Crack
"fuck, missed!"
I wake up to the unmistakable sound of a rifles going off and being rechambered. I'm groggy but the smell of gunpowder is like caffeine to my 8 year old body. I look over to the window and two of my older cousins are silloutted in the bright morning sunshine. They each have a rifle pointed out of the window in the direction of the barn. There's a dirty sock on my face.
Shit for Brains sees me staring at the sock.
"You were snoring so loud that Sluggo had to put that sock in your mouth"
I wipe my tongue with my hand and make a face. Sock Tongue.
"Did you hit them?" I ask, assuming they are trying to kill the woodchucks under the old barn.
"Nah"
I'm secretly releaved. I love guns but I cant imagine the thought of killing an animal. I dont tell them that because they'll tease me more, and I dont need that with this crowd.
Shit for Brains has a beautiful Winchester .22 caliber rifle. The stock is black to match the barrel and he has a scope on top of it. Shit for Brains couldnt hit the Barn itself let alone the Woodchuck. I covet his rifle, but he wont ever let me fire it...he says it's because I'm only Eight, but the real reason is that he's an asshole.
Shit for Brain's rifle has a long feeding tube that holds 16 bullets. It's a lever action rifle which means you pop a new bullet into the chamber by cocking the lever on the bottom, just like in the old cowboy movies. I lay back in bed and think about how cool it would be hunting down Viet Cong with that baby. It's kind of ironic considering my feelings for the woodchuck family eating the foundation of the barn.
I think about my own rifle that my father had given to me. I refinished the stock myself with a light cherry woodstain. I'm alway careful to clean it everytime we go shooting. The rifle was probably made in the 1940's and was a bolt action. We couldnt find a clip to fit it, so each round had to be loaded by hand into the barrel. I couldnt fire as quickly as my other cousins, but I dont mind. I always hit what I aimed at, mostly old Genny Cream Ale cans, even without the fancy scope.
I stumble down the ancient crooked staircase in my pj's. The kitchen is the original room of this farmhouse and is over 200 years old. It's full of cousins (i have 17 on the Steakbellie side) none of which like me very much. Grandma is a wonderful person, but a horrible cook. She's an enourmous women who loves to read, travel the world and laugh. Grandma like to gamble. She's burning eggs in rancid butter for breakfast and I take a gamble of my own and eat them anyway.
Hours later there are Eight of us in the Dodge Dart headed to the Bath County Fair. The underside of the car takes a beating as Grandma rockets down the gravel road. I stick my finger down a rust hole in the floorboards.
Grandma gives Shit for Brains five dollars for all of us to split for ride tickets and leaves us to visit friends. He and Sluggo are the oldest on this trip and decide to keep the money for themselves. They go looking for a place to buy cigarettes and let the rest of us tag along and watch them go on rides. I'm interested by a trailer that supposedly holds the body of a two headed monster. They pay for their siblings to go in, and I get to hear the descriptions when they come out.
We trudge over to the Grandstands hours later to watch the Demolition Derby. Some far removed Cousin/Uncle person has a station wagon entered in the competition. I've never met this guy before and I'm impressed that I'm related to someone in the contest. Surley he's famous.
Before the derby starts there is a man with a megaphone calling all of the kids out of the stands.
"Come on down kids and join our ice-cream eating contest! The first one finished gets ten dollars in fair tickets!"
Most of my cousins are smoking cigarettes and are too cool to embarrass themselves in the competition. I havent eaten anything all day and I sprint down into the crowd of kids surounding the folding tables. A woman is handing out styrofoam bowls of melting choclate icecream. I squeeze into an open table corner and am crowded by all of the teenagers and bigger kids vying for those tickets.
They are nearly out of icecream when I get my bowl. The announcer explains how we are not allowed to use spoons or our hands...we must shove our faces down into the icecream to eat it. I am exhilarated. I've seen pie eating contests on tv shows...surely this is something I could be good at.
"GOOOO!!!" The man yells into the Megaphone
I slam my face down into the bowl and instantly get a nose full of chocolate goo. I'm biting huge chunks off and swallowing without ever lifting my head more than an inch or two from the bowl. By the second bite my tongue and throat are freezing from eating too fast. I jam my face hardered down into the icecream trying to get a good angle for a bite. Hundreds of people are screaming and I am sure of victory. I am David amongst these Goliath teens. God made me to eat, and he wants me to win.
"We have our Winner!!!!" The megaphone barks...I'm only half done and I look two table over at the big fat kid with his arms in the air. His shirt is covered in brown icecream and it seems like the only white left on his face is his teeth and eyeballs.
I hate him.
People are trying to picky his sticky fat ass up.
I have an icecream headache.
They dont have napkins so I dejectedly wipe what goo I can on my shirt. I can feel the drying brown sticky residue on my neck as I head back to the bleachers.. My cousins didnt realize I had even left and now look at me some amusement but mostly disgust.
"Gross...."
I sit down in the hot sun and watch my anonymous uncle/cousin person get his station wagon destroyed and catch fire. The engine compartment is shooting flames and I'm holding my ears with sticky brown hands in case it explodes like on tv. The driver got out and somebody extinguished the stationwagon. It was green with fake wood sides and had 'Crusher' written in black spraypaint on it.
Later that night i would take a cold water bath and sit at the table and read to my Grandma from a book she bought just for me. 5 Short Stories about Dolphins.
After the sun went down we'd catch peepers in the driveway, and Sluggo would show me my first Playboy by flashlight.
"Shit, missed!"
Crack
"fuck, missed!"
I wake up to the unmistakable sound of a rifles going off and being rechambered. I'm groggy but the smell of gunpowder is like caffeine to my 8 year old body. I look over to the window and two of my older cousins are silloutted in the bright morning sunshine. They each have a rifle pointed out of the window in the direction of the barn. There's a dirty sock on my face.
Shit for Brains sees me staring at the sock.
"You were snoring so loud that Sluggo had to put that sock in your mouth"
I wipe my tongue with my hand and make a face. Sock Tongue.
"Did you hit them?" I ask, assuming they are trying to kill the woodchucks under the old barn.
"Nah"
I'm secretly releaved. I love guns but I cant imagine the thought of killing an animal. I dont tell them that because they'll tease me more, and I dont need that with this crowd.
Shit for Brains has a beautiful Winchester .22 caliber rifle. The stock is black to match the barrel and he has a scope on top of it. Shit for Brains couldnt hit the Barn itself let alone the Woodchuck. I covet his rifle, but he wont ever let me fire it...he says it's because I'm only Eight, but the real reason is that he's an asshole.
Shit for Brain's rifle has a long feeding tube that holds 16 bullets. It's a lever action rifle which means you pop a new bullet into the chamber by cocking the lever on the bottom, just like in the old cowboy movies. I lay back in bed and think about how cool it would be hunting down Viet Cong with that baby. It's kind of ironic considering my feelings for the woodchuck family eating the foundation of the barn.
I think about my own rifle that my father had given to me. I refinished the stock myself with a light cherry woodstain. I'm alway careful to clean it everytime we go shooting. The rifle was probably made in the 1940's and was a bolt action. We couldnt find a clip to fit it, so each round had to be loaded by hand into the barrel. I couldnt fire as quickly as my other cousins, but I dont mind. I always hit what I aimed at, mostly old Genny Cream Ale cans, even without the fancy scope.
I stumble down the ancient crooked staircase in my pj's. The kitchen is the original room of this farmhouse and is over 200 years old. It's full of cousins (i have 17 on the Steakbellie side) none of which like me very much. Grandma is a wonderful person, but a horrible cook. She's an enourmous women who loves to read, travel the world and laugh. Grandma like to gamble. She's burning eggs in rancid butter for breakfast and I take a gamble of my own and eat them anyway.
Hours later there are Eight of us in the Dodge Dart headed to the Bath County Fair. The underside of the car takes a beating as Grandma rockets down the gravel road. I stick my finger down a rust hole in the floorboards.
Grandma gives Shit for Brains five dollars for all of us to split for ride tickets and leaves us to visit friends. He and Sluggo are the oldest on this trip and decide to keep the money for themselves. They go looking for a place to buy cigarettes and let the rest of us tag along and watch them go on rides. I'm interested by a trailer that supposedly holds the body of a two headed monster. They pay for their siblings to go in, and I get to hear the descriptions when they come out.
We trudge over to the Grandstands hours later to watch the Demolition Derby. Some far removed Cousin/Uncle person has a station wagon entered in the competition. I've never met this guy before and I'm impressed that I'm related to someone in the contest. Surley he's famous.
Before the derby starts there is a man with a megaphone calling all of the kids out of the stands.
"Come on down kids and join our ice-cream eating contest! The first one finished gets ten dollars in fair tickets!"
Most of my cousins are smoking cigarettes and are too cool to embarrass themselves in the competition. I havent eaten anything all day and I sprint down into the crowd of kids surounding the folding tables. A woman is handing out styrofoam bowls of melting choclate icecream. I squeeze into an open table corner and am crowded by all of the teenagers and bigger kids vying for those tickets.
They are nearly out of icecream when I get my bowl. The announcer explains how we are not allowed to use spoons or our hands...we must shove our faces down into the icecream to eat it. I am exhilarated. I've seen pie eating contests on tv shows...surely this is something I could be good at.
"GOOOO!!!" The man yells into the Megaphone
I slam my face down into the bowl and instantly get a nose full of chocolate goo. I'm biting huge chunks off and swallowing without ever lifting my head more than an inch or two from the bowl. By the second bite my tongue and throat are freezing from eating too fast. I jam my face hardered down into the icecream trying to get a good angle for a bite. Hundreds of people are screaming and I am sure of victory. I am David amongst these Goliath teens. God made me to eat, and he wants me to win.
"We have our Winner!!!!" The megaphone barks...I'm only half done and I look two table over at the big fat kid with his arms in the air. His shirt is covered in brown icecream and it seems like the only white left on his face is his teeth and eyeballs.
I hate him.
People are trying to picky his sticky fat ass up.
I have an icecream headache.
They dont have napkins so I dejectedly wipe what goo I can on my shirt. I can feel the drying brown sticky residue on my neck as I head back to the bleachers.. My cousins didnt realize I had even left and now look at me some amusement but mostly disgust.
"Gross...."
I sit down in the hot sun and watch my anonymous uncle/cousin person get his station wagon destroyed and catch fire. The engine compartment is shooting flames and I'm holding my ears with sticky brown hands in case it explodes like on tv. The driver got out and somebody extinguished the stationwagon. It was green with fake wood sides and had 'Crusher' written in black spraypaint on it.
Later that night i would take a cold water bath and sit at the table and read to my Grandma from a book she bought just for me. 5 Short Stories about Dolphins.
After the sun went down we'd catch peepers in the driveway, and Sluggo would show me my first Playboy by flashlight.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Do not deny me my martyrdom
i am nursing a hotdog-hangover
i wonder what the hell is in those things
i mean other than two days worth of calories
and a weeks worth of sodium
i still felt full this morning
and i'm as groggy as if I took a tylenol PM
i've been eating nothing but fruit today
make up for my sins....
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Friday, April 21, 2006
My Dream
I went to Home Depot to get a new TV. Over by the lumber, they have a couch/washer/dryer combo. It's made by GE and I'm looking at it thinking how porrly it was designed.
This particular model looks like a washer tied to a dryer with shiny black pleather coushions taped to it. It's pretty high up to sit on.
It would probably be better if they kept the washer/dryer part short, and underneath the sitting portion.
Henry Rollins (former lead singer of Black Flag) is standing next to it and points out that it has a coffee maker in the armrest.
"This thing is going to change leisure time for women, everywhere"
"huh" i reply.
"Now they can have tea-time"
"huh" i repeat.
We walk over to the tv section which is where he now lives with his new wife and 13 year-old step-son.
"This is Aaron" Henry says in a gravely voice"
I give Aaron a smile. He has black curly hair and bad skin.
I walk over to the tv and turn on the cd player above it. One of his albums starts to play.
Henry's wife is sitting on an old blue couch smoking a cigarette. She's a big woman with a mound of grey hair that is unkempt.
She yells at me.
"Turn that shit off!!!!"
Henry gives me a nod like I should do what she says.
"huh" I reply...
This particular model looks like a washer tied to a dryer with shiny black pleather coushions taped to it. It's pretty high up to sit on.
It would probably be better if they kept the washer/dryer part short, and underneath the sitting portion.
Henry Rollins (former lead singer of Black Flag) is standing next to it and points out that it has a coffee maker in the armrest.
"This thing is going to change leisure time for women, everywhere"
"huh" i reply.
"Now they can have tea-time"
"huh" i repeat.
We walk over to the tv section which is where he now lives with his new wife and 13 year-old step-son.
"This is Aaron" Henry says in a gravely voice"
I give Aaron a smile. He has black curly hair and bad skin.
I walk over to the tv and turn on the cd player above it. One of his albums starts to play.
Henry's wife is sitting on an old blue couch smoking a cigarette. She's a big woman with a mound of grey hair that is unkempt.
She yells at me.
"Turn that shit off!!!!"
Henry gives me a nod like I should do what she says.
"huh" I reply...
A Concrete Eagle for Me
There was a fire at a SEPTA station this morning, so my train dropped me off 15 blocks from my usual. Walking over the bridge at Market and 30th I noticed two 15 foot Eagles made out of stone or concrete.
They look very old and have no markings, no dedications or placks.
I will make a plack and dedicate one of them to me.
My guess is that noone will notice and the plack will stay as long as the glue holds. I will leave the other one free for any of you that deserve your own Concrete Eagle
Thursday, April 20, 2006
steel cut
if you think you can pretend not to care more than i can pretend not to care then you're wrong....unless you're not really pretending, in which case i'm not pretending either. In fact I'm not pretending waaaay more than you.
Infinity.
My Dad can beat up your Dad.
(even with his hip brace)
Madame X
I hope I go out like this....
Here's a 76-year old man who was going door giving free breast exams. That shouldnt be a crime.....ok so he wasnt really a doctor, but he did carry a big black bag with him!
Inching towards my own Event Horizon
i had the best conversation with my twelve year old last night. I had put the two youngers to bed and he was up studing for a test. Somehow we got to talking about Chemistry (he loves) and I got to unload some advanced chem onto him, explaining molecular bonds.
that got into subatomic physics:
Gravity
Black Holes
Event Horizons
Elastic Time
Super-Strings
Objects with greater than 4 dimensions
We were up till midnight. I cant believe I have someone to talk about this shit with, and he lives in my own house!
Sunny Side Up
Seven years ago today the baby was born. His name is M@x but I have convinced him that it is short for M@ximum. The wife even laughed good-naturedly when his insurance cards arrived saying so.
If you could be anybody, this is the one you want to be. He's a total showman and can charm anyone. Chix are crazy about him, and god does he love his mama. His athletic prowess is scary.
Happy birthday baby....
If you could be anybody, this is the one you want to be. He's a total showman and can charm anyone. Chix are crazy about him, and god does he love his mama. His athletic prowess is scary.
Happy birthday baby....
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
I feel like punching Tom Cruise in a 'Silent Fight' (haiku)
dont you get it yet?
we are all laughing at you
and your brainwashed bride
it's complicated
She confronts me with her arms crossed.
"Why are you trying to blacken my pots"
"What? That doesnt make sense, what do you mean?"
"You're weird. I know you're trying to blacken them."
"I have no idea what you're talking about, I'm not trying to blacken your pots"
It's the first night of my wife being away on vacation, and I am running around the kitchen, preparing dinner, monitoring homework production, and getting tomorrows lunches ready.
"Whats that smell?" It's the oldest. His arms are crossed just like hers.
"I'm trying to blacken your Mother's pots.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
this is the kind of crap he comes up with when he's been left alone....
A few months ago, someone commented here that the definition of 'Integrity' is what you do when noone is looking. Isnt that also the defintion of masturbation?
Artie Lang is right
I need to get the fuck out of this place. Just the sound of my bosses voice makes me ill, and I'm afraid I wont be able to hide my revulsion much longer...he comes into the office, and I feel like all the air is taken out of me.
I need to work somewhere where I can believe in the boss to at least be an ok person. This guy is a total asshole and I've put up with it why?
* I have my own office
* I dont have to work longer hours than 45
* I can bike to work
* I can run at lunch
Thats pretty much it. I'm certain I could find a place that has those things, and doesnt treat everyone like shit. I could do my job if he just got out of the fucking way.....
I'm looking after Memorial Day
Dont worry about Dad
I put my wife on a plane this morning for a week of Vegas with her friends. She works very hard at a highly emotional-stressful job, and then has to come home to me and my halflings, so you can damn well bet that she deserves to enjoy herself.
She is funny though....
She spent the last few weeks organizing all of the local Moms to look out for me and my rabid brood whilst she was away. She made sure there was coverage for every possible non-school moment. Every practice, every game, every concert.
Years ago I probably would have been alittle offended by this, but now I can accept her help organizing the week without her. I realize that Moms the world round have a hard time relinquishing control of the household to a man. It's not that we do things wrong, we just do them different.
"I made all of your dinners til Friday and packed them up and labeled them by day"
"Wow, Thanks, you didnt have to do that" I say
"Thank God, Dad would probably have just cooked us eggs" says Son Number 1
And that may be true. It might not. I can cook and usually handle the cooking for Thanksgiving....I'm just not known for my smaller domestic everyday meals.
In my twenties I would regularly get stopped in the baby aisle by older women in their thirties. They saw me with a blonde baby in one arm and pushing the cart with the other and immediatley assumed I was lost. Like the babies Mom MUST be hospitalized, because this poor man is doing the baby food shopping.
A Mom: "Do you need help?"
Steakbellie: "No, I'm fine thankyou"
A Mom: "He's adorable, is he your first" (damn certain he was)
Steakbellie: "No, actually he's my third"
A Mom: "Oh...."
Steakbellie: "Can I get through?"
None of them ever offered to help the young Moms though. I'd see them struggle down the aisle and that pissed me off.
So today begins our mini-adventure. We'll make it, but just MY way....
Monday, April 17, 2006
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