Look! It's a Floating Loser!

First off, I have to toot my own horn ["poot!"] as my "flashlight solution" for Miss O's recurring night waking appears to have done the trick. She has apparently gotten up the last couple of nights to pizzle in the toilizzle, however, she has done so on her own, accompanied only by the flashlight. Of course, by speaking of this aloud, I have cursed said solution and she will re-commence waking our asses up tonight. Nice work, me.

She did wake up last night, though, because of an apparent nightmare of nightmarish proportions. At about 2:30 a.m., she started screaming "Dad! Dad!" [A little aside here -- I get this strange pride whenever either of the kids calls out for me instead of the old lady at night. I think it's because when I was a kid, I'd only call out for my mom after a nightmare. Wait, that's not true -- I'd mostly call for my mom, but I always felt so fucking guilty for doing so that I'd call for my dad every now and then just to make sure he didn't feel left out. Guilt consumed me from a very early age.]

So, yeah, she had a nightmare. I went in there and she was pretty upset and had a hard time going back to sleep. I asked her what the nightmare was about and she said, "It's the same one I always have -- I was walking down the stairs and they started breaking. Then the floor started breaking. I never have any dreams... I always have that same nightmare." I finally got her back to sleep but I was too fucking scared to go back to sleep myself. Fucking stairs and floors breaking?! Thanks for nothing, Miss O.

On a complete tangent, it probably comes as no surprise that I was a bit of a dorkus as a youth. Oh sure, crabbydad, we were all dorks to some extent when we were younger. Ah yes, but did you perform.... MAGIC... at kids parties? Or worse still, were you the... ASSISTANT... to a guy who performed magic? Yeah, so I rest my dorkus case. It's a long story, and I didn't do it for very long, but I was indeed the assistant to a friend of mine who did most of the tricks. Sure, I did a few -- the needle through the balloon... the silks-that-turn-into-a-cane... the keep-the-fact-that-you're-a-magician's-assistant-from-your-cool-friends trick. We even performed at a Jerry Lewis MS Telethon once, with the nice lady and fluhBOYGEN!

Why do I bring this up? Suppressed shame, mostly. And as a preface to the fact that tonight, before bed, I treated the spawn to a little something I like to call... "THE BALDUCCI LEVITATION!" It was perfect -- they were in the bathroom brushing their teeth and I said, "Hey guys! I've been working on this for a while and I think I'm ready to show you -- I'm pretty sure I can LEVITATE!" Then I explained to Miss O what "levitate" means.

Then, I performed a flawless Balducci. It looks a little something... like THIS:



Mr. Z reacted perfectly. He gave me a "Whoa! How did you DO that?!" Magic, my son... MAGIC! Miss O wasn't that impressed. She said, "I can do that too... look!" Then she jumped off the ground. Yeah, nice try, kid. The best reaction, though, was the old lady. She kind of looked at me like, "Okay, I know that's a trick, but... what the shit?!"

Ah Balducci... you never let me down.

It's the easiest of illusions, my friends. I could explain it but that would go against the Magician's Code. Plus, it would take to long, so here's a link that explains the whole thing:

The MYSTERIOUS Balducci Levitation

So simple, yet so satisfying. Basically, you just stand on your fucking toes, but it freaks the shit out of people. It's the one that chunderhead David Blaine uses in his "Street Magic" (say "Street Magic" in a whispery voice while displaying "Jazz Hands" for maximum effect).

What's the lesson to be learned here? I don't fucking know. It's either "You must never be ashamed to be a magician's assistant," or "Once a dorkus, always a dorkus." Whatever it is, I know there's one guy looking down on my with buck-toothed, magical pride:



Indeed, Mr. Henning. InDEED.