Goce Su Almuerzo, Pendejos...

We kinda finished this big project at work, recently, and everyone went out for a celebratory lunch, today. Everyone, of course, except me. They all paraded past the TV and headed out the door, as I sat there in my basement with my freezing thumb up my icy asshole. The only consolation is that they ended up going to "Uncle Julio's," perhaps the shittiest Mexican restaurant in Chicago. I mean, it's shitty by Okemos standards. I remember having their "Burrito con Gristle" once, and almost hurling my cacahuetes off. I hope they all choked on their goddamn chimichangas.

That reminds me of a job I had over one of the summers during college. I was a line cook at Chi-Chi's in Northbrook, Illinois. It was a shitty job in that it was hot, I didn't earn shit and I still have the scars on my hands from the splattering grease from the thousands of tortilla chips we had to fry up.

The great thing, though, was that the other guys I was working with were complete stoners. They were lifers and, realizing they were probably going to die in that kitchen, they'd stand there and pass a one-hitter down the line as we prepared the meals. Imagine being, like, 19, getting baked and having Mexican food just sitting there right in front of you. Handfuls of shredded cheese, a scoop of refried beans here, a ladle-full of guacamole there. Fried ice cream? Yes, please. I literally gained 15 pounds that summer. I also remember having a lot of diarrhea. It was a give and take kinda gig.

That was also the place where I realized that you should NEVER send food back to the kitchen for ANY REASON. The shit they used to do to the meals that were sent back -- holy fuckstain, it was nasty. One guy killed a fly and rolled it up in a burrito. I know many a loogie ended up in chimichangas and I'm pretty sure an errant pube or two made their way into the odd flauta. Seriously, if it's undercooked, eat it anyway. Life's too short.

Now go listen to Miss O's song in the last post, if you haven't yet, goddammit.

Shhh! Don't Jinx It!

I don't know what happened -- perhaps the planets aligned, maybe someone slipped some quaaludes into her Cheerios, maybe it didn't really happen at all, but yesterday, Miss O actually recorded her vocals for her latest song without flipping her lid. AND, the song's ready. I didn't want to sit on it for too long for fear that it would slip through my fingers like gossamer, so I mixed it tonight and I'm calling it done. I was going to add an upright bass part, but fuck it. It's done.

I don't want to bias anyone before hearing it, but suffice it to say that it very well could be the sweetest song ever captured on tape since the beginning of time. All right, I've said too much. Here it is, recorded on Sunday, February 25, by Miss O, at age five and four months. I give you, "Meep Flop"!


"Meep Flop" by THE MISS O BEAT


Meep Flop is my best friend,
She lives in Meep Land.
She lives under a trap-door,
In the laundry room.

I like to go to the Carnival
And get two cotton candies.

Meep Flop sleeps over with me,
She hogs all the blankets.
She has blond hair, she's as tall as me,
She is 10 years old.

And she doesn't have glasses like me,
And she has braces on her teeth.

Meep Flop is my best friend
And she plays with me! Hey!

© 2007 Miss O Music

When Will This Weekend?

Very busy weekend, so my postage has been nil. Yesterday, the old lady and I lost our minds and we decided to do some gonzo parenting -- go against our impulse to "veg" and "stay inside" and just pack the day full of child-oriented "fun." Of course, the spawnage fought us every step of the way -- they weren't going to have any of this "fun" without putting up some serious resistence.

We started out the insanity by attending this Children's Film festival at MSU. We went there last year and it kinda blew so... we went again. This year didn't disappoint. A room full of snot-encased, coughing kids, some crappy movies and shitty sound. Seriously, half of the movies (and they weren't really movies -- the longest one was about 10 minutes) were so fucking quiet that I literally couldn't hear them over Mr. Z's wheezing and the sound of Miss O growing. There were a couple of fun little vignettes, though. One was called "Dorme," and it was this acid-induced, freaky kid's dream sequence with an awesome soundtrack. Then there was... no, the rest were crap.

70 interminably long and quiet minutes later, we went out to lunch. We were going to take them to this new-looking organic cafe ("Green River Cafe," I think?) but the kids whine-ily bonged it, and we ended up at Cosi -- generic, bland pseudo-Italian sandwich cuisine. Getting those two to go out to eat is so fucking painful -- I just don't get it. I used to LOVE going out as a kid... and even to the shitty places we used to go to, like Phil Johnson's, where my sister and I once watched a 200 year old lady literally fell asleep in her soup, or Brown's Chicken, where... they served veiny fried chicken. But the kids actually seemed to enjoy themselves, so maybe next time it won't be so painful to get them to go out. But it will.

THEN, we went home, put on our arctic tundra-wear and went sledding. Fucking nuts, we are. We went to the shitty little hill because Mt. Kilimanjokemos was mostly melted, but it was still fun. No one was there and the snow was all icy, so we got some good velocity. It was great until one run, when I went down with the old lady lying on top of me and I was racked by an unseen icy speed-bump. It's now official -- whether we want to or not, I will never again sire another child.

After that, I went swimming, the spawn watched a Scooby-Doo movie and the old lady passed out on the couch. Dinner, bed, the end.

Today has been much less ambitious. Actually, it's ambitious-less. The old lady and I have been reading the NY Times and the kids are doing whatever it is they're doing. Breaking shit and being loud? Couldn't tell you. I am going to try to wrangle Miss O into finally finishing her "Meep Flop" song today. Right, like that'll happen. In the meantime, I've posted her last successfully recorded complete song (from August of 2005 when she was still three and had tonsils/adenoids the size of grapefruits) in the "Now Playing" section. "Dracula's Walk Day." One of my faves.

And... that's it.

It SUCKS Being Perfect...

I had to take the spawnage to Meijer today (or as they say out here, "The Meijers") to pick up some "food" so we don't "die" of "starvation," and while there, a woman said hello to Mr. Z. I asked him who she was and he said that she was the substitute teacher that he had had at school today. I thought it was cool that she knew his name after only one class, but didn't think much else about it.

Then, tonight, while getting ready for bed, Mr. Z mentioned some story that the class was discussing today.

MR. Z: We were talking about this one character and everyone kept saying he was "mis-chee-vee-ous." It was so weird.

ME: What do you mean "everyone" was saying it?

MR. Z: You know, just, they were discussing it and they kept mis-pronouncing that word.

ME: Did that substitute teacher correct them?

MR. Z: NO! She said "mis-chee-vee-ous" too!

ME: You're kidding me?! Did you say anything?!

MR. Z: Yeah. I raised my hand and told her that it's pronounced "MISS-chih-vuss."

ME: Nice! And what did she say?

MR. Z: She looked it up in the dictionary, and then said, 'Well, everyone, Mr. Z was right. It IS pronounced "MISS-chih-vuss.'

ME: Way to go, dude!

MR. Z: Yeah.

No wonder she remembered his name at the store. It's hard to forget the 8-year-old who SCHOOLS your ass in front of the whole fucking class. I know she's a sub and all, but what the shit?! Five bucks she says "newcyoolurr," "larrnicks," and "foilage," too. Maybe the goddamn educators in this town should spend a little more time bonin' up on their grammar during their five-fucking-day President's Day weekends. Maybe she should've gone to the li-bary.

I'm sure she was probably just too busy celebrating the birthday of "George Warshington."

Morons, I'm tellin' ya.

All Roads Lead to Crabbyworld...

I don't have it in me to actually think and type tonight, so I give you three Google searches that landed people at my site today:

1. An inquiring young mind at the University of Minnesota arrived here at 11:01 this morning by posing the question "how unhealthy is a chocolate malt?" I have an answer for this inquisitive Golden Gopher -- chocolate malts are not the least bit unhealthy. Unless they are chocolate malts made with chunks of malaria in them.

B. Some brilliant, future world leader from Fayetteville State University found me by performing a 10:17 a.m. search for "a picture of the longest turd in the world." I am proud to say that Crabbydad is search result number six. Hopefully, with a little more relaxation, deep breathing and shredded wheat, perhaps some day I'll be a 10 foot long, steaming number two.

III. And finally, a sleep-deprived Herndon, Virginia pree-vert did a little search at 2:26 a.m. for "girls fucking in a gas station bathroom," that landed them here. I'm assuming they were actually looking for information on the famous Pointillist masterpiece by George Seurat "Girls Fucking in a Gas Station Bathroom on a Sunday Afternoon." If so, I direct them to Chicago's Art Institute, where they will find that original painting, right next to Paul Gaugin's "Two Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms, Urinating on Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec."

Only 24 Hours of President-Celebratin' Left!

My mom's in town visiting to see the new kitchen and to hang with the spawnage a bit during their 5 day President's Day Sabbatical from the school that's NEVER IN SESSION. Today was kinda wacky, as I was trying to split my time between working in the basement and running upstairs to spend time with Crabbygrandma and the kids. It was nice, though, 'cuz my mom put the kids to bed tonight and the old lady and I actually ventured out, on a school night no less, to eat some not-horrible East Lansing sushi at a place called "Omi." I haven't cramped up and/or vomited yet, so, in this town, that counts as a big "Thumbs Up!"

Tonight, we were hanging out chatting when my mom reminded me of a classic retro crabbydad moment, P.M.O [pre-Miss O]. Back when we lived in Chicago [pause... weep... continue], my folks used to watch Mr. Z one day a week. We'd meet in Evanston in the morning, hand his puny ass off to the 'rents, and then we'd meet that night and take him back. It was a phenomenal setup.

Well, one night, they dropped him off kinda late and when we got home, the boy, all of two or three years of him, asked for a snack before bed. I gave him a couple of crackers, and then got him all ready for nigh-night. When I asked him what kind of story he wanted me to tell him, he said, weakly, "Tell me a story about food." I paused and then asked, "Um, Mr. Z, did grandma and grampa give you dinner tonight?"

Well, long story short, after DCFS returned him a week later, we all had a grand old laugh. Hoo-boy, good times.

Udderly Fascinating...

So, Mr. Z was drawing tonight, and he and Miss O were sort of tittering by the table, when I happened by to see what they were up to. Apparently, Mr. Z had drawn his first set of nanners:



Interesting composition. They seem to be listing to the left, as if the woman from which they have become disembodied is lunging suddenly to the right. The nipples seem inordinately large and grape-like, but that is to be expected so early in one's breastage-rendering career.

More disturbing, however, is the subsequent drawing by Miss O. After the laughs subsided from Mr. Z's presentation, she ran up to us with her attempt:



I am at once spellbound and petrified by this drawing.

Miss O -- 1, Crabbydad -- 0...

Miss O was a total pill this morning -- she wouldn't get out of bed, yelled at me when I was trying to help her get dressed, refused to eat her cereal, wouldn't open her mouth to brush her teeth, wouldn't put her coat on, linked her mittens together with the little hook things and then refused to unlink them, making it impossible for her to climb into the car... just working my last fucking nerve, that girl.

So I got kind of fed up and pulled off her mittens, picked her up and placed her in the car, and then she kinda yelled in my face and then, well, we drove to school in silence. (Except, of course, for Mr. Z's constant stream of dialogue that's always running in the background.) She was pee-issed, but by the time we walked to her classroom, all had been forgiven.

Or so I thought. I gave her a kiss and hug and then turned to leave her classroom. Miss O walked up to her friend and teacher and said:

MISS O: Hi, K. Hi Mrs. H. Guess what? My Dad did a fart this morning and it was TOTALLY stinky!

K: Ha ha!

MRS. H: [fighting every impulse in her body not to look disgustedly in my general direction] Okay, Miss O. Um... let's find your seat and start your work.

Touché, Miss O. Tou-fucking-ché.

Miss Woe...

Miss O can be one intense little ragamuff. She likes to wait until we turn out the light for bed to work herself into a lather about, whatever. Sometimes she'll cry because she misses her old friends the Montessori she went to last year. Sometimes she'll cry because she misses her "friends" from the pre-school we sent her to that SHE HATED and that SMELLED LIKE PEE. It doesn't really matter -- she could cry about eggs. It's just the physical release of flipping her lid that she needs to go through before settling in for the night.

Tonight it went like this:

MISS O: [starting to cry] I never used my baby voice at Montessori. But now, sometimes, I use it. And I don't know why!

ME: Miss O, you're in control of the voices that you use. If you don't want to use a baby voice, just don't use it.

MISS O: [getting weepy] But I CAN'T control it. It just comes out. I open my mouth and it comes out on its own. It's like a germ that's inside me. The germ controls the voice.

ME: [slightly freaked out by her imagery] Of course you can control it. You just say to yourself, "Self, I don't want to speak in a baby voice. I want to speak in my normal Miss O voice."

MISS O: [now sobbing and pissed]You don't understand! It's the germ!

And it went on and on, until I pretended to pull the germ from her bellybutton and put it in my pocket. Then I told her that I was going to fart on it and it was going to disappear in a wisp of stinky smoke. And then she laughed and that was it. And this happens once or twice a week, usually when she's tired. It can only be defused by tickling or fart jokes.

Sometimes it starts while we're still in the bathroom, brushing her teeth. That's classic, because she loves to watch herself cry in the mirror. She'll just stand there, staring, as she cries harder and harder, turning her head to see how she looks from different angles. It's fucking bizarre. If she were brushing her hair while sobbing and staring in the mirror, she'd be just like Marcia Brady when she lost the part of Juliet in the school play. I think it was Episode 52: "Juliet is the Sun," if you're keeping track.

Now there is that off chance that she's some sort of empath, and she's sensing the years and years of pent up emotions, locked in the dessicated husk that is my psychic being, and she's attempting to purge this angst from my very core.

But I'm pretty sure she's just Miss O: ragamuff extraordinaire.

Maybe She's Just a Fan of Base Nine...

Miss O and I were practicing her counting tonight -- I would start counting ("20, 21, 22...) and then, when I'd get to 29, I'd say "twenty-ten," and Miss O would say, "There's no twenty-ten -- it's 30!" And then I'd keep going. Pretty fucking cute. So, I get up to 100, which leads to the following exchange:

ME: 107 108, 109... 110!

MISS O: No, not 110. There is no 110.

ME: Sure there is. It's just like starting over when you get to 100. After nine, it's ten, then 11, then 12--

MISS O: NO! In my class, there's a chart and it only goes to 109. There aren't any numbers after that!

ME: Well, the chart might stop, Miss O, but the numbers keep on going forever. What did you think came after 109?

MISS O: One thousand!

ME: Well, 1000 doesn't show up for a long time. There's 100, 200, 300--

MISS O: [getting really pissed] But there's not 110! It doesn't sound good!

ME: Here, do you want me to write it down so you can see--

MISS O: NO! IT DOESN'T SOUND GOOD!

ME: Hey, let's go brush your teeth!

See, you've gotta learn when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em with Miss O. If I had pushed our debate much further, I'm pretty sure she'd make it a point to never count above 109 for the rest of her life. And without the number 110, she'd never be able to experience the joys of things like Ununnilium, the 110th element in the Periodic Table, or the signature oven-roasted whole garlic served with warm, crusty French bread at Chicago's Bistro 110, located on the Magnificent mile. Or the fact that a person can't even be considered a supercentenarian until they are 110 years old.

And not to mention 111 -- the perfect totient number!

McLater, Ronald!

I'd say that 99.9% of every piece of advice/kernel of wisdom I try to impart to the spawn is completely ignored, and ends up sounding like the muted-trombone adult voices from the "Charlie Brown" cartoons. But every once in a while, I see modified behaviors that can only have resulted from some sort of internalization, by the spawn, of some do-as-I-say blatherings from my face-hole. Case in point, this actual conversation we had as we drove back from "Office Max" yesterday, while passing a McDonalds:

MR. Z: Eew, there's a McDonalds. That place is so gross.

MISS O: [snootily]I don't think I like McDonalds very much anymore, either.

MR. Z: You know what, Dad? McDonalds is like an anglerfish. But instead of a glowing lure on its head, it has a Happy Meal toy that it uses to lure kids in. AND the food's bad for you.

MISS O: And the toys aren't even that fun.

MR. Z: You know, Dad, toys and fast food don't mix.

ME: Wait a minute -- are you the same kids who whine your brains out every time we pass a McDonalds on our way to Chicago?

MR. Z: Not anymore.

MISS O: Yeah.

[SFX: sound of my very being imploding]

You could have knocked me over with a limp, trans-fat engorged french fry. These two were like Mayor and Comptroller McCheese whenever we took a fucking road trip. We'd try to fight it, but we'd always succumb to their pleas, and they'd end up with their goddamn toys, the car would smell like McNuggshit for the rest of the trip, and they'd both wonder why they had the fucking McSquirtles for the next couple of days.

And then, all of a sudden, it's over. Might I never have to set foot in a McBurgerBell again? No more dessicated french fries crammed into the car seat cracks? No more stray ketchup packets lurking on the floorboards? No more goddamn movie toy tie-in plastic pieces of fuckshit in every nook and/or cranny in the house? Ah, who am I kidding -- that shit'll still be there. Like I'm gonna clean it all up. The key is that there won't be any NEW shit piled on top of it.

Excuse me... I have to take a moment to soak all this in.

Et Tu... Much Shitty Pizza?

I took Mr. Z to the next door neighbor kid's birthday party at Caeserland, yesterday. Fucking Caesarland... just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. And I swear to fuck, they must've been filming an episode of "Wife Swap" there, 'cuz it was even more white-trashtastic than usual.

There was this moment when I was sitting there at the booger/pizza sauce-encrusted cafeteria table, talking to the birthday boy's dad, as he held his three-year-old daughter on his lap, when these two women passed maybe two feet away from us, stopped and had this exchange:

SATIN JACKET WOMAN: Come back here, BITCH!

[she pushes the woman in front of her]

DISTRESSED DENIM WOMAN: Look, BITCH, do you want me to call the cops?! That's ASSAULT!

SATIN JACKET WOMAN: [confused] SALT?! [pause] You can't call me a BITCH... BITCH!

Finger wave... head wave... and... scene.

I looked at the dad and asked if the floorshow was included in the birthday party price. Then I made a reference to "Wife Swap," and he kinda looked at me like, what the shit? So I had to explain the premise of "Wife Swap," while maintaining that "I think that's the show's conceit... I mean, I've only seen it, like, once." Actually, I love "Wife Swap." I usually just watch the first five minutes and the last five minutes. It instantly makes me feel fantastic about my lot in life. It's like eating a funnel cake that's been dipped in Velveeta, stuck on a Slim Jim, rolled in colored mini-marshmallows and then had a picture of a Camaro airbrushed onto the side of it.

So, yeah, I sat there for two hours, eating shitty pizza, watching really shitty parents do the violently grab their kid's arm/jerk it/and yell in their face from two inches away thing, and making sure all the carnie-looking dudes scattered about the joint kept their distance from Mr. Z, who was busy contracting any number of superviruses from the habitrail tube climging structure that was basically a glorified sputum/poo/lice sewage system.

There was one amazing moment, though. Mr. Z had been collecting a bunch of tickets that he had earned from the shitty video games he was playing, and was eager to go up to the toy counter at the front of the place to redeem said tickets for even more plastic crap with which to fill our already-overflowing-with-plastic-crap existence. He had probably 75 tickets and he walked up to the counter with the birthday boy. When he came back, all he had was a smiley face ring and a superball. I asked him what was up, and he said, "Well, P [the birthday boy] wanted to get this stuffed animal but he was like 65 tickets short, so I gave him mine so he could get it." I pretty much dropped a steaming load in my trousers right there -- Mr. Z has never given away an opportunity to score plastic crap, especially if I'm not there saying, "Mr. Z, why don't you give P your tickets -- you don't need any more plastic crap." I couldn't fucking believe it.

I told him how proud I was of him and he was kind of like, "Ah, ain't nothin' but a thang," but it was really a watershed maturity moment for the boy. The kid never ceases to amaze me. Wild shit.

Well, then we said our goodbyes, passed through the de-lousing station and left. Of course, exiting a Caesarland is akin to walking into the corona of the sun after spending a lifetime in an underground bomb shelter. I felt like a goddamn naked mole rat seeing light for the first time. My fucking retinas shriveled up like fucking raisins the minute we walked outside.

No more Caesarland -- that's IT! I don't care if the spawn never attend another birthday party. I'm never setting foot in that fucking black hole of life-suck again.

Holy Funkshit!

I'm trying to write something, but I've got VH1 on and it's showing this old Stevie Wonder concert that's fucking blowing my mind. He's singing some song "Sensuous Whisper" that I've never heard but it's insane. There are like 20 people in his band and they are unbelievable. Now he's doing "My Cherie Amour." It's funny, 'cuz earlier I was watching some "Little Steven's Underground" concert with the Romantics and Cheap Trick, and compared to Stevie, those dudes just sucked donkeys.

Don't get me wrong, I'm one of the biggest Cheap Trick fans out there -- the first concert I ever saw was in 1978 at the International Amphitheater in Chicago and it was Cheap Trick and Graham Parker & the Rumour. But shit, man, in the thing I watched tonight, they were all out of tune, and had that bad wig-hair and they were phoning it the fuck in...

MOkay, I just stopped typing for about eight minutes while Stevie played a medley of "I Wish" and "Sir Duke." FUCK! I've gotta go downstairs and burn every musical instrument down there. What's the point?!

Look at this shit:



That does it-- starting tomorrow, the spawn and I are going out and buying matching dashikis, and we're gonna listen to Stevie 24/7. Okay, 23/7 -- gotta have an hour of the Ramones to balance shit out.

And I can personally guarantee that Ms. Laurie Berkner will never be played in this household again. She's the anti-Stevie. She's a funk-suck. She's "Songs in the Key of B... M"

Ooh, I've gotta get Miss O one of them funky pillbox hats the bass player's wearing.

Remember, If You're Going to Punch Her in the Arm, Be Sure to Wear a Mitten...

Well, both kids are officially sick now, and my parents are supposed to come out for a visit this weekend. Great timing. I actually suggested that they postpone the trip until the following weekend, when the kids have their ludicrous 5-day President's Weekend No-School-a-thon. Fucking winter. What a dick.

So, as Mr. Z was getting ready for bed tonight, we had the following chat:

MR. Z: I can't wait to sleep tonight so I can have some special dreams!

ME: Special dreams? About what?

MR. Z: I'm TOTALLY not telling you!

ME: What, do you have a crush on a girl at school or something?

MR. Z: HOW DID YOU KNOW?!!!

He then tried to deny that he had a crush, and started doing this wiggly dance around his room. Then I told him that I thought it was cute that he had a crush, and that it was completely normal for a kid his age. He said:

MR. Z: Yeah, but you don't know WHO I have a crush on!

ME: Is it that girl from the music program who was wearing that Native American costume? What's her name again... is it A?

MR. Z: HOW DID YOU KNOW?!!!

After a few more laps around his room doing the lid-flipping-love-shimmy, he settled down and we had a little talk. It's interesting, because she's the only other fourth-grader who skipped a grade and is only eight. I asked him how she makes him feel, and he said:

MR. Z: I feel like I'm flying up into the air. It's a really, really nice feeling.

It's also interesting that this is the second girl he's ever had a crush on -- the first one was named after a Roman goddess, and the second, a Greek goddess.

If he ever meets a girl named after a Star Wars character, his fucking head'll explode.

Puddin' Myself to Bed...

Hey, get me -- I'm typing in my bed. Woo-hoo! Wi-finally! Unfortunately, I'm tired as dick and I have nothing to say.

I would tell you all about the new headgear Mr. Z got at the orthodontist today, but the photos are on the computer in the basement and I can't get them from up here. So yeah, that sucks.

I think my brain hurts 'cuz I had to start writing again at work today. I've been doing music for weeks now, and while hectic as shit, it's been a fucking blast. Now I've gotta get back into writing mode and the ol' gray matter's feeling a bit like puddin'. Puddin'. I love puddin'. I like taking a big ol' spoon of puddin' and sticking it up on the roof of my mouth and then trying to say the word "puddin'." It sounds like, "Poogie."



Puddin'.

You know, maybe I'll write tomorrow's post back in the basement.

How Many White Blood Cells Does the Kid Have... Two?!

I've gotta start keeping track of the times I begin my posts with, "Well, Miss O's got another goddamn cold." I guess this wouldn't be one of them, seeing as how I didn't actually start with that line. Hm. I've gotta start keeping track of the times I use "Well, Miss O's got another goddamn cold," as my second sentence.

She was healthy for, what, a week and a half? A new fucking record. It was bizarre -- she was actually fine when she got home from school, and then around 5 p.m., her nose filled up with 20 gallons of shnottage and it was all over. I think it's the house. We probably have that killer mold living in the walls. Along with the fucking woodpeckers. Killer moldy woodpeckers. That's it -- next house we get is gonna be all cinder blocks.

Mr. Z's kinda getting his ass in some trouble at school. His teacher sent us an e-mail saying that he's been fucking around in class a bit, of late. Apparently, he occasionally wanders around the class and doesn't sit still. I guess today he got busted when they were doing two-digit multiplication, and he was doodling in his notebook. His teacher caught him and he didn't know what the shit they were working on. I know it's because he's bored -- when I sat down with him to do the math after school, he had no problem. Math just bores the shit out of him. And he's a total spazzmo. This is an actual picture of him "relaxing" and working on one of his comics:



Looks relaxing, huh. When he's reading or doing something he loves, he's like one of those people from "Awakenings." Doesn't even blink. But throw a fucking fraction at the kid and he's GOTTA MOVE!

But that's part of his charm, really. I mean, he's two years younger than the other kids in his class, and grades aren't a problem for him. He's just gotta figure out how to chill the shit out. We'll just implement some more behavior mod with the boy. Probably do some sort of reward for good reports from school -- a movie, time on the Gamecube, cash... gum. I guess, ideally, we'd put him in some "arts" kind of school, like we did back in Chicago. But he does really like the school he's at now -- great teachers and he's got lots of friends.

Ah, everything will even out when he goes to college... at age 16.

Shit.

Does This Taste Like Frostbite to You?

All right, fuck off the Bears lost. Football's for fuckheads, anyway.

How 'bout them Bulls!

So, I got this laptop from work so I don't have to sit in this underground fortress of ice-itude all day (and night), with my fucking nardarinos up around my neck, and I can't get the goddamn thing to work with blogger. The rest of the internets seems to be working fine, but the blogger page just freezes up, the dick. I've gotta figure it out, though, 'cuz the idea of crapping this blather out (blathering out this crap?) while sitting in my warm, comfy bed is making my already erect nipples even erecter.

This morning, this electrician dude came by to replace our ENTIRE FUSE/BREAKER BOX, because, apparently, the old one was about to make our house go "boom." It had basically been fucked up since we moved in a couple of years ago -- always making these weird buzzing noises every time I turned the space heater that I basically sit on down here to any setting above "arctic tundra." I thought I had "fixed" it by jamming a guitar pick into the main breaker, keeping it from buzzing and (here's the bad part) ensuring that the breaker could never actually shut off, if overloaded. Apparently, that's a bad thing. Who am I, Johnny Wires?

So, the power was shut off for about 4 1/2 hours this morning, while the dude put in a new box, and I sat around with my extremely cold and chapped thumb up my extremely cold and surprisingly unchapped ass. I realized that it's probably a good thing that I have a job. I'm not good with not having shit to do. I mean, I tried to write some shit for work, but with no internets, I couldn't do much. So, I finished the Sunday Times crossword puzzle, I cleaned the bathrooms and looked out the window a lot. It was depressing as shit. I guess it's a good thing I haven't won the Lotto yet, 'cuz I'd probably have keeled over from boredom by now. Though I'd be wearing much nicer pants while keeling, most likely. Maybe even 'slacks.'

Okay, I've gotta figure this laptop thing out. I'm through with you for tonight. Go do your little Colts dance, ya bastards.

Not the Usual Salty Seamen that Floats in the Pool...

Probably won't post tonight, as I'll be watching the Bears win the Superbowl, so I'll just jot some bullshit down now, while the spawn run around upstairs, engaging in some maximum lid-flippage.

Swam yesterday, and it was a fucking nightmare. Anarchy reigned supreme, as a cast of about six hirsute, heavily tattooed chucklefucks had taken over half of the pool. I walk out there and there they were, kinda lounging in lanes one through three, yappin', splashing and, occasionally, actually swimming. I couldn't quite figure out the demographic from whence this clan came. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess merchant marines. I don't really know what merchant marines are, but I'm pretty sure they look and act like the pool-hoarders.

So I stood there for a good ten minutes deciding where I should attempt to swim. The other two lanes had 2-3 swimmers in each, so they were pretty much off limits. So I got into lane three, which had two of the yahoos in it, lounging at the far end of the pool. One of them started swimming toward my side of the pool, and when he touched the wall, I asked, "Uh, do you mind sharing the lane?" Without looking up, he growled, "Whatever, dude, there's enough pool for everybody." Pretty hostile for a "go ahead," but I went ahead because a) I need me my swimmin', and 2) I was getting so fucking cold standing on the side, my left nipple had already cracked off and plipped into the drink.

So, I spent the next 1/2 hour dodging these romping ruffians, as I attempted to get in my meager workout. I narrowly missed getting kicked/punched in the head multiple times by errant frog-kicks and their near-constant homoerotic water horseplay. I guess when you're lonely out at sea, selling things or doing whatever the "merchant" part requires you to do, you develop a close camaraderie with your boatmates that spills over into the real world. And what better place to engage in watery grabass than at the local YMCA.

They finally tired of their maritime merrymaking, and headed off to the showers while I was still mid-workout. Luckily, by the time I went in to rinse off, any evidence of the rollicking that went on under those spraying nozzles had already been washed down the drain.

They had vanished just as mysteriously as they had appeared. Perhaps their ship was pulling up anchor, setting off for some other port in the storm. For they were Merchant Marines: the military salesmen of the sea.

And the motto of the Merchant Marines? I'm pretty sure it's Semper Clausus -- always be closing.

When Will This Day Endor?!

For a moment, it appeard as if xmas had come early today. The mom of a friend of Miss O's called last night, wondering if Miss O wanted to play with her daughter today. Of course Miss O had school today, but this brilliant mom said, "I thought that maybe, after her kindergarten class this morning, I could pick her up and she could spend the afternoon with us." See, normally, Miss O finishes her kindergarten class and then goes straight to the enrichment program that lasts until 3:40, when Mr. Z gets out. But shit, I was all over this plan.

That meant that I only had to wrangle Mr. Z all afternoon and, just maybe, things might be a little less pig-fuckian. Unfortunately, the boy exhibited some serious crabbitude today, and the afternoon was a wash. It started out okay -- I picked him up from school and, while he had his snack, I finished up a little work on this reggae-ish tune I was doing for work. Now I'm probably the last dude to be attempting to get all irie and shit, but I think it actually turned out quite nicely, mon. I'm telling ya, if I only had to write 10 second looping songs all my life... well, I'd be king of the goddamn 10-second-looping-song-world.

Anywhich, after I finished that up, I promised the boy we could do a little Lego Star Wars on the ol' Gamecube. We never let him use that thing, and I figured, why the shit not. So, we we're over there on Endor, and we were zooming through the forest on those little hover-racer things, and the dude starting yelling at me and shit. At first, I let it pass 'cuz, shit, we were on Endor, zooming through the fucking forest on hover-racer things -- I think yelling is part of the deal. But he got really pissy for some reason and was giving me some serious griefage. Then the game got kinda fucked up and we were stuck in this weird video loop thing. I was trying to fix it (meaning I was repeatedly unplugging the controllers and blowing on them... the extent of my Gamecube repair capabilities) but nothing was working. So he starts yelling at me again, and, while I really didn't want to, I was forced to pull the old "Dude, I asked you a bunch of times to stop talking to me that way, and you're not listening, so we're done." [SFX: me turning game off/him losing his shit].

And thus began the swirling of the potentially mellow afternoon down the shit-filled crapper. I ended up having him go up to his room to chill and read for awhile. He complied. I cleaned the kitchen and then Miss O returned. Dinnertime. Bed.

Oh well, what matters is that there was potential for a fun and mellow afternoon. I'm sure the Bizarro Crabbydad had a fanfuckingtastic afternoon. That bastard.

Now if I only had some doobage, I could fire it up and listen to my 10 second reggae loop for the next half hour.