without children

The newest topic for the Thinking Parents wiki asks what we would be doing if we'd not had kids. I hadn't really considered one aspect that I've only seen with Doc and Molly, and it was the latter who mentioned it, but I add myself to those that didn't necessarily intend to have kids before doing so.

Okay, admitting right now that I attempted a couple times last night to write this post and didn't quite like the direction it turned any of those times. I'm trying yet again, and we'll wait to see how this one turns out. It's partly the entrance of personal history that I didn't really consider when considering how to approach this topic..

What would I be doing if I didn't have kids? Where would I be?

I can't imagine where I'd have ended up living. Hailing from Atlanta, I moved to Charlotte in the mid '90's, happily and often loudly proclaiming myself bisexual, though I really did know better. I'm somewhat certain that, considering Big Brother's approaching arrival prompted our move to Knoxville, I'd not have moved here, though I'm equally certain I'd have moved or at least attempted to leave Charlotte.

There was a summer, my first in Charlotte, of sort of breaking away from the old person I'd been, though I can't claim I did a great job of that. We could also accurately call it the summer that I began drinking in earnest and sold enough acid to pay for the acid I ate or shared with friends. I spent days at a time tripping wherever I was. I dropped alone and even dropped alone when I had other things to do. I was high at work. I tripped so often that summer that people often didn't know whether or not I was on any given day.

I met Momma at this time. There was no interest between either of us, in fact quite the opposite. We both eventually went through a bit of trouble separately, and life pulled me in new directions and pulled us closer to each other. I had no concept of future and certainly no concern. In fact, her becoming pregnant was what really pushed me to a point where I was finally thinking about things outside of how high or drunk I was or was soon going to become.

I'd likely still be in kitchens as far as work goes. I'd be drinking a lot. I'd probably be a fairly slutty person but in a totally good way. If possible, I can see myself even more cynical than I find myself now.

I can't honestly say that any scenario is certainly what would have occured. I can imagine lots of things as well as give a best case scenario. I'd probably be a bit more of the punk I was. I'd have come out much sooner. I'd be that anomaly, the gay punk, as opposed to the married with kids gay I became instead. Perhaps I'd have controlled my drug/drink intake and have climbed a corporate ladder at any of the chain restaurants I worked around the time, though one must admit that drug/drink control will likely never be a trait featured by most of us in the business.

yesterday

Yesterday's day at work actually began the night before. I was one of the closers Tuesday night and pretty much ended my night taking out the trash.

I could hear a lovely sloshing sound at the bottom of the first can, so after I hefted the tied at the top garbage bag out I flipped the can over, upside down. I repeated this operation with the four remaining trash cans, leaving them in a row, half on the concrete slab behind the gpub and half off in the gravel next to the concrete.

I opened the next day, and after the owner, I was the first person in. My first job of course was to go and fetch those same four trash cans, line them and place them around the kitchen. The previous night ended weatherwise with a bang, showers and downpours leaving our town damp and my place of employment a muddy mess, at least in the back where I'd left my trash cans.

Each of the trash cans had picked up their share of mud and funk in the little turned edge at the top. I flipped each can upright and dragged them into the dish area. My idea was to quickly spray off the mess, but my plan wasn't quite what I ended up with.

The first couple of cans were easy enough if a bit unweildy. I think it was the third can that was the worst. Wrestling it into submission I lost control for a moment. It flipped upward to where the rack is that holds racks for dirty glasses. I knocked one off, an extra large one that is tall enough to hold our unusually tall wine glasses.

I think we lost four wine glasses, another miraculously not breaking as it landed. The glass rack itself bounced off my hand. In addition to the mud and gravel I knew I needed to clean I now had a mass of broken glass. Conscience dictates, or should, that one insure they've cleaned up all broken glass when one has an accident involving glass. I picked up the biggest pieces and squeegeed the remaining contents of the entire table into the trash can.

Adding insult to injury, my attempt to do right also resulted in a huge muddy trail running from the door to the dish area. Someone else was nice enough to clean that mess while I was busy cleaning glass and wondering how hurt my hand really was.

At some point later in the day two coworkers had a bit of a tiff over space issues. We really don't have a lot of room for prep, but when we work together (and certain of us can stop being pricks) it all works. Today, these two people just would not even bother.

At one point, the bitchiness involved one person banging dishes and foodstuffs around in anger. This brought the other to the tipping point as he began his own stomping and banging and bitching declaring that everything the other person was doing was, and I quote, "faggot ass shit."

I tried to ignore this and did for an hour or so, sort of, but the general shittiness of him saying such, with me standing right there a foot away, I was taken aback at the time. Beyond that, his anger was not worth inserting myself in the middle of. So I tried to forget it and put my head down and work. I do too much of that. Also, while he was bitching I somehow managed to accidentally bang my head on the corner of the wall.

Coworker finally realized that something was bothering me and asked. I asked him, considering the situation, what about it was exactly faggot ass shit? He didn't quite get it, so I reminded him what he'd said.

He laughed for a moment and tried to assure me that he hadn't been talking about me. I told him that I knew for a fact that he hadn't been talking about me, that I knew exactly what he was discussing at the time and asked again what it was about the situation that was faggot ass shit. He again tried to assure me that he hadn't meant me, but I had to make him understand my point.

I'll take a moment and provide the knowledge that this particular coworker is black. We have another black employee that was working at the moment, and adding to the nonwhite kitchen population we'll include the three Mexican coworkers.

"Look around the kitchen," I told him. "Do you see anyone here about whom I could think of words to use that, though I may not mean that person would still upset them?"

I'm pretty sure he understood what I meant. He ended the conversation basically laughing at himself for what he'd done.

The rest of the shift was uneventful.

I left work around three. Momma let me know when I got home what she'd done supper wise which included having almost everything ready for me to cook. I debated with myself whether to cook before or after my shower that I desparately needed. The decision, a surprise, was made for me as I washed the press pot and my cup for some coffee. The water was obviously not right, not hot enough and not staying hot.

I knew immediately it had been the previous night's rain. My basement had flooded because, most likely, the pump had gotten clogged, and the water heater's pilot had been extinguished. This was in fact the case, and while it was soon remedied as far as getting the pump working, I still had to wait, listening for the pump, making sure it kept working, staying ready to go back into the basement and tilt it or stir up the muck.

The boys got healthy enough snacks as I watched the clock. I needed to be somewhere, preferrably around sixish. I arrived at seven, insisting first on a shower once the water was hot enough.

The appointment was at the new venue for bouts for our derby bouts. We have a bout Saturday, and last night was last minute sort of dry run/practice so our girls would have as early a heads up as possible about the quality of the floor.

It turned out I didn't need to go in the end. It was good to see everyone again, as we don't see the derby girls often at all since Momma dropped it. Plenty of kids were there, even a couple that we don't know. As usual the boys immediately made friends with the kids and played well all night.

So the night didn't end as poorly as the majority of the day would have one think it must. And what seems especially sad as I consider it, this doesn't even seem like a bad day at all considering some of the asshole days I've had lately. It was full of annoyances and the smashed hand from the glass rack, but it wasn't (or was it?) as bad as it seemed at the time.

not entirely gone from blogville

In a comment to a recent post Molly of Red Molly's Picayune Democrat blog asked about my well being. I knew it had been a while since I'd posted, but I looked today to see that it's been a bit over two weeks since my last post, and it was a sort of weekend update.

I will say up front that I can't be in too bad a shape. I manage to wake up everyday, go to work, feed the kids. I do what I have to do, but I can't say that I'm in especially great shape either. Too many things just seem pointless too many days of too many weeks.

Throughout my life I've run up against any number of questions. I'm good at questions, but all too often I just can't figure out answers that seem to make any sense. Maybe one day soon I'll post a list of all the stupid questions that keep me flummoxed.

I'm just generally in a place where I feel very depressed and very discouraged, and that makes it difficult to want to post. I don't want to end up posting the same whiny drivel over and over. I don't want to keep wallowing in my bad feelings. I do want to find my way out of ending up here again.

And that's where I am. I keep wanting to post more, but life doesn't make it easy. I'm not going anywhere anytime soon as far as blogging goes, but there will sometimes be dead air when you tune in.

Yesterday was mostly fun, birthday party and no soccer. The Boy's season is over. Big Brother should have played his second to last game yesterday, but late-ish Thursday night the opposing coach called to try to postpone our game to later in the day. That was not possible because we had The Boy's birthday party. We now have that game to make up as well as the first cancelled-due-to-weather game of the season, and then we have the last scheduled game which will likely actually be the second to last game.

The Boy is quite the child. The picture of him in my mind has longer hair than he has now, because Grandma decided to cut it for him. He didn't want it cut, we didn't want it cut. The only person that wanted it cut had to offer him a ride on the lawn mower to convince him to let her cut it. I'm still pissed, and Momma and I both mentioned it to Grandma, expressing a bit passively our frustration.

He got all sorts of gifts. Great Grandmother watched him for a bit Friday night while Big Brother and I quickly shopped for him, the day after his birthday I'm afraid. He watched Cartoon Network at her house and expressed interest in the Hot Wheels Speedracer race track. One of the things Grandma found for him is a t shirt that says, "First let's do it my way, then let's do it my way." Even if the shirt itself doesn't, the sentiment fits him, and whether or not he gets the joke that the rest of us do, he's been quoting it all day and laughing. Big Brother took his own money Friday night and bought him a couple of the smaller Playmobile sets, one just a pair of soldiers with pikes, swords, plumed helmets, and he also got him a Playmobile chariot complete with horses and rider. Momma and I got him the toy he's played with the most, the one he fawned over the most upon opening, The Littlest Pet Shop clubhouse. It only had a monkey and squirrel, so I grabbed a dog too to go with it. He's loved all his toys, but The Littlest Pet Shop is where I keep finding him.

Okay, I don't know or care what that says about him. He's a great kid. His favorite color right now is blue, and he has blue eyes and a sprinkling of freckles across his nose. He loves sugar and crunching any candy he gets. He would eat cereal and oatmeal all day if we let him. He is teaching himself to write by copying things he sees. He asked me to spell out Momma's real name so he could write it in the Mothers Day card he made. He's been writing his own name lately. He wrote his name one day completely backwards, but the letters were also backward, so it's arguable that he was seeing it correctly. In Momma's card he wrote his name as well, and it's not backward.

He interrupts people constantly and complains the loudest when he is interrupted. He likes for Momma and I to do things for him, but he likes learning how to do things as well. He refuses to do what Big Brother tells him to do as often as he emulates Big Brother.

meme-a-lamma-ding-dang

Audrey was nice enough to tag me for a meme, and I need to stick a post out there anyway, forcing myself not to go an entire week of not posting again. I'm supposed to post the rules at the top, and I had highlighted and copied them to do just that when I decided to just not do it. I'm not going to tag anyone at the end anyway. I treat it more like a Myspace survey that all your friends get when you post it as a bulletin. They can do it or not, and so can you.

What was I doing ten years ago:
As of this date, ten years ago I'd lived in Knoxville and been married for about three weeks. I was working at a brewpub, now closed, though the original is still open in Clarksville. Momma was about four or five months pregnant with Big Brother.

Five snacks I enjoy:
In honor of the new job and the fact that it sadly makes up much of my diet these days, I will give you my five favorite things that I snack on there.
-grana padano-a hard Italian cheese similar to parmesan(sort of) though I'm not sure if ours is really Italian or the same thing produced elsewhere, though knowing the owners it'll be as close as they can get. I take the vegetable peeler and shave off a nice flat piece
-lamp chop-has to be rare. I've noticed a certain love/hate relationship I have with lamb and realized it most likely has to do with rareness. This is probably also the rarest snack as lamb is expensive, and we try not to overcook it, and when it is overcooked no one really wants it.
-haricot verts-thin French green beans. We steam them just a bit so that they're perfect for salads. I love them cold with nothing but bean, though a quick toss in a saute pan with some butter and salt would be nice too.
-bread pudding-ours has dried cranberries and is made with fairly big hunks of the baguettes we use. One day I grabbed what I thought was a bite of bread pudding and got a mouthful of chunk of sugar. It was a bit much, but I ate it anyway.
-prime rib-we cook off three or four a day, and at least one is sliced for sandwiches. We reheat them when we need to make a steak sandwich using a sautee pan and a little au jus and demi glace. Often there are little chunks of the steak still there after finishing the sandwich, or I could just admit that sometimes I save myself a bite.

In the real world I am:
way more neurotic than people realize

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
My source for the tag doesn't say Five things, but Audrey put five. If someone would be kind enough to contact the meme authority regarding whether Five should be added to this line I would appreciate it.
-travel-probably the very first thing I would do is decide with Momma where we want to go as a family and then invite some friends with kids and go there and do stuff. If I had the money I would travel my ass off.
-help out some family and friends
-I want a loft downtown and a house just north of downtown, assuming after all the traveling we haven't decided to move elsewhere
-open a restaurant
-after setting up my children to be as financially independent as they want at a certain age I'd start finding good ways to get rid of the excess. No one needs that much money.

Five jobs that I've had-
-security guard-for three years, my personal record for length of time working for a single company, matched only by the pizza place
-dishwasher-do you have a Darryll's in your town? I hated that damn job. They use more random dishes than any place I've worked. So many plate sizes and bowl sizes and glasses for desserts and boats and crocks and ramekins, and the place was huge, and it turned out the general manager and the accountant were getting busy which has nothing to do with the story
-junior counselor-at a christian youth camp in western Wyoming. It was one summer and all I earned was the experience, but it was worth it, hearing people talk about driving over Gyp Crick, archways made of antlers, learning to drive stick shift driving up and down the driveway of the ranch family I spent weekends with
-kitchen manager-I thought I'd earned this job at the aforementioned brewpub, but as the GM had pointed out at some point, I was generally a bit of an ass and spoke my mind much too often. Those weren't her exact words by a long shot, but it is an accurate enough version. I was KM at the pizza place for quite a while.
-cook-the thing I do. I'm not a chef and don't generally like the title. I don't like the idea of referring to someone as "Chef" and don't plan to. I really just think it's silly, like people correcting you if you forget to refer to them as Dr. Douchely instead of Mr. Douchely

Three of my habits:
-chew my fingernails-I actually quit once, many years ago. I had nails for some time and even had to clip them on occasion. Then I started again for some unremembered reason.
-I still yell too much, though I'm really working on it and am doing it less and less
-smoke-I still enjoy smoking. I know how bad it is and that I should quit. I'm quite aware of all of that thank you very much.
-speaking of smoking, a fourth habit-when I finish writing a post I go out and smoke before coming back in to edit and post the post.

Five places I have lived:
story time childrens. This almost seems familiar, so if you've read it before you can read ahead in your book while the other children read along, or you can read along with everyone else, or you can just lay your head on your desk until we're done.
-Atlanta, GA-technically south Dekalb but the mail said Atlanta. Born and raised until one fateful evening when I got drunk at a boy's house and let a girl talk me into leaving for . . .
-Charlotte, NC-attended the pride parade within a week of moving there, had an apartment with mostly high school kids, washed dishes at Darryl's Restaurant and Bar
-Rock Hill, SC-after my "friends" sold and/or ate my stash of acid instead of selling it to get me out of jail I made new friends, one of whom was a cook at Darryl's and needed a roommate to live in a tiny shack
-Stockbridge, GA-back to Georgia for about three month and we were so ready to move back to Charlotte when a friend called needing a roommate
-Knoxville, TN-my favorite of the bunch. Ya'll come see us some time.

What do you want others to get from your blog:
I don't know quite what to say here. In some sense I blog for myself and write what I feel like. In some other sense I do understand that I'm presenting a certain something that is me to the world, and I even edit myself to a small degree out of some respect for the variety of readers I might have. I like the idea of making friends with people from hither and yon through the blog. Also, Robin Williams sucks.

And I changed my mind. I'll tag Franklin who in less than a week has gotten linked from me twice.

an art discussion

My slightly more clean than a week ago garage was home to an argument recently between me and a friend, Franklin. He decided to bring the argument onto the internet tubes which requires I answer in kind. Feel free to click over and pay Franklin a visit and read his misguided opinion as my post mostly answers his arguments with my own as opposed to a more normal presentation and discussion of ideas that I might go into were this one of my normal rants.

The argument is whether or not food is art. I will allow that foods can be used to create art, and I will even add that I feel food can be presented artistically, but I do not believe that food is art.

A main argument is that art can be created out of disparate elements, things that would not generally go together, and they can be put together in a way that tells the story the artist intends or to elicit some feeling or emotion. Food however, if one intends to create good and edible food, needs to be created with elements that go together.

The suggestion that anything edible appeals to someone is invalid in my opinion. Certainly we have to accept that certain cultures enjoy foods that other cultures wouldn't recognize as food, but that suggests that culture has less to do with it than familiarity.

The majority of foods people eat are rather old combinations. Over time, as people have experimented with food combinations, things that don't work were allowed to fall by the side. They don't work because the vast majority of people have agreed that they are not good combinations, that they don't produce good food.

Art encompasses a variety of mediums, and it is possible to create work that some will call art while others see as not art. Food is created from a variety of elements and can be produced using a variety of tools, but in the end the food must taste good and be edible. Art can be either ugly or beautiful and need not even make sense. Food, along with being edible and good flavored needs also to be presented well. A diner presented the very finest dish of perfectly seared scallops atop a perfect portion of garlicky grits will indeed be happy, though if you place it under a dome covered in shit and vomit, even though the shit and vomit never touch or befoul the food, the same diner will likely move along to the next option.

It's really more about certain inherent rules. Art need not be pretty or attractive to be appreciated. Food must maintain a certain dynamic of attractive and flavorful in order to be acceptable as food.

p.s. a little edit to add that the great and mighty Wordpress apparently is neither as great nor as mighty as some would have us believe, otherwise they would let me sign in. I am registered there at least twice, one of my own and one via Franklin, and neither of them work.

I'd rather be

At the end of a recent post, Bigg said,

But that's the tragedy of being gay; not that we are so oppressed (because that's what makes you strong), but that there are so very few of us. Kinda makes me wish sometimes that we really could recruit the way the televangelists say we do, you know?

The first part of this quote has been stuck in my head since I read it, and it's been joined by another line that was said to me at work recently.

There's a guy there who is, while not especially fat, certainly contains a bonus share of girth. One of my first days I referred to him quite thoughtlessly as "biggun." I admit it was shitty, but to my lame credit, the moment he said something about it I stopped. I've even pointed out to another employee that it was sort of shitty to continue to refer to this person in terms of his weight issue.

This same large coworker was recently making jokes about my gayness. I truly don't want to be overly sensitive, and I don't expect the entire kitchen to restrain themselves. I understand fully that I work in a professional kitchen and that the norms of the environment require that we all be a bit thick skinned. But I also support the right of everyone to be able to feel safe and respected within that environment. I won't stand for racism or sexism at work, directed at me or at anyone else, and I also won't take homophobic comments.

I will remake the point regarding the environment. It's a kitchen. I understand and accept exactly what that means. I know the cucumber joke is going to come up, and I know I can either counter it with a snappy comeback neatly skewering the person making the joke, or I can fully agree with the comment and give them the shock that comes with that.

The large coworker, though I now don't recall what was said, was making comments that I felt were a little over the line. There was a certain intent in his voice that bothered me. I took a moment to remind him of the "biggun" day, pointing out that based on a single comment from him I had ceased making size based comments and had not made those comments since. If I thought that would help I was mistaken as his next comment proved . . .

The line that keeps running through my head much like a song that gets stuck, he said, "I'd rather be fat than gay." Of course I immediately told him I'd personally rather be gay, but how much can that really help when someone's opinion of you is automatically less based solely on such a minor detail as sexuality?

true holy days

Just learned another reason May is such a great month. I'll admit that I'd love to celebrate this with some friends, but at the moment, the only person I can guarantee would be involved is myself. I guess I'll start thinking about taking a shower soon.

However you do it, whether or not we join in personally or just through the knowledge that we are all doing it in private, perhaps at the same time, help celebrate National Masturbation Month.

It's not going to pull itself.

who does stuff like that?

One of the cool things about living in my town are the myriad recycling centers, most of which are located at a particular grocery store. It's so easy and convenient to know there are so many places to take that trunk full of empty beer bottles, though it doesn't mean I haul all that out nearly as often as I should. Too often my garage looks as if a recyclable shit bomb just exploded.

Weekends the recycling bins are often full. I haven't checked the schedule of when the company comes to tote away the full bins, but it's early in the week. I've had plenty of recycling weekends that saw full bins.

At least a couple of times, because of the bins being so full at one location, I've driven down Broadway to the next closest, usually finding those bins nearly as full. Either way, I've usually managed to get my shit in. If not I suck it up and take back home what I couldn't cram in. There's always another day.

Apparently not everyone sees things the way I do. It seems some people feel it's okay, if the bins are too full, to just leave their recycling laying on the ground next to the bin. I'm sure it's not their job to do anything any different, and certainly if the bins are full it's their right to leave their shit on the ground.

I kind of don't think this is okay, and I got to watch it happen recently while dropping off my recycling with a friend. He was shouldering other people's mixed paper back, holding the tide at bay so to speak, while I was cramming my own mixed paper in while simultaneously catching Game Informer magazines that were intent on escape.

I mentioned to my friend the piles of recycling littering the ground, vocalizing my point about it being not okay, wondering aloud what sort of douche would do such. As I asked these questions I realized the woman who was also dropping off her recycling had done the very thing I'd just questioned.

My point: when the bins are picked up, there is very likely one person driving a truck. His or her job is to pick up the full bin, possibly having just dropped an empty replacement bin, and repeat with each successive bin until they are all fresh and empty.

So now the problem of the lazy locals who felt it okay to dump their goods on the ground. Who do they think is going to come behind them and clean up their mess? Whose job is it really to make sure that their recycling makes it into a bin? Would that there was a way to contact them and make them come back and finish the job.

And to take it probably a little farther than makes sense, I'd say this is a sign of some why-Americans-are-dicks/selfish sort of thing. There are people doing this very thing, leaving their shit for someone else, and there are many of them doing it. They can't possibly think it's all right to leave their shit, can't possibly believe it's not their responsibility.

cheese with my whine

In the past couple of weeks I have rammed my head into the corner of something metal more times than I can remember. From dish racks to wall mounted food thawers, if it's metal and at the g-pub, I'm likely to have hit my head on it.

I have a small cut, almost paper cut size, on the knuckle of my right thumb and no memory of how I acquired it. I have a near puncture on a finger from a staple courtesy of helping break down boxes. I got the tiniest of cuts on my right arm, thanks to a tiny bit of metal left over from drilling into the door of a walk in cooler only to learn that the handle/latch needs to go somewhere else. I bumped the door open as it was closing one day and happened to hit the tiny barb. Later in the day I took a piece of gravel from next to it (it's an outdoor cooler) and ground the door back to safety. Dropping fish into the large fish fryer, I've felt the oil on the tips of my fingers, yet I have to noticeable burns to tell the tale.

I've been making my U10's run a lot more in practice. It's become evident that eight and nine year old boys may just end up beating the shit out of each other if some sense of order is not forced. Also, it's good for both them and me to just run, and I always run with them unless it's some sort of punishment. A couple of the kids just don't know when to stop, so I've sent them running when they get out of hand. I give warning, and I try to be fair. At some point though, too many kids just won't shut up, and everyone has to run. Also, I've just noticed that some of the kids just don't run in the games. I feel like I need to show them they can or that they're doing it all wrong or something.

So I'm sore from all that too. I've gone from not running before the season to some light jogging to sprints. I've never liked running for the sake of running, but give me a ball to kick and chase, and it's somehow suddenly different. The soreness is random and would be less of an issue if I exercised more often and got my body used to it and in shape. Seems like I've heard this story somewhere before.

And that's a whiny rundown of random irritants. I won't mention that any amount of head injuries I may have suffered at work may just be the fault of yet more too little sleep. I can't say for sure, but I think I was slightly asleep for half of my drive downtown this morning. Add to that the fact that I didn't really talk any shit till after lunch and snapped at almost everyone at least once, and today was just an all round . . . something bad? Leaving work was nice, and sitting around outside reading an article about a couple of local high schools actually making attempts to stop anti gay bullying while also smoking too many cigarettes and wishing either of the cups of coffee would work, listening for the boys two yards over to hopefully not get into any trouble.

I suppose today wasn't the worst day after all. It wasn't great by any means what with the repeated head bashing, but in the end, in the immortal words of one Ice Cube, "I didn't even have to use my A-K."

random update

Now a week and more has passed since my last post. I have to wonder what's going on. To some extent, I think having a job again is a little overwhelming. It doesn't help that the hours have suddenly started much earlier on one end, but at the other end, the one that sees me going to bed, the hours have not gotten any earlier to adjust for the earlier rise.

I did mow the grass recently, and it already needs it again. I neglected one part of the yard and have been complained about. Someone learned that if they go to the city, the city will send a man out to remind me that they can make me mow my grass. Also, I will now have to finally fix the truck, but considering the main problem with that has been lack of money, it won't be a problem suddenly.

Oh, there's also that, the fact that we got our income tax refund late yet just in time finally. In the same week we also got paid from the new jobs, and I'm still awaiting a check from the most recent of the short lived jobs. While we're certainly not suddenly wealthy, we can fix the truck.

Back to the grass for a moment, we may be out of our drought with all the rain we've gotten this spring. It seems to have rained two or three days a week on average the entire year, and our weather has continued to fluctuate insanely, possibly due somehow to this. We were supposed to be near freezing temperatures last night, though I didn't actually measure. I can agree that it was quite cool. Today is supposed to be low seventies, and while I'll agree it's still cool out, the sun is doing a superb job of warming.

I'm waiting now for that call/text from Momma alerting me that she's off work and that we'll soon be making the children/job exchange. While she's worked a number of days and nights, having started at the g-pub two weeks before I did, this is only my second night shift. Thankfully it's a Wednesday and likely to be slower than not, but my last night shift was sort of a pain in the ass.

Momma is slightly more available than I am to work shifts, and she's ahead of me as well with that two weeks head start coupled with the variety of shifts she's worked. I still don't really know the dinner menu having only seen it once. I'm getting a handle on lunch, the shift I'm much more likely to work, so I'm approaching some amount of comfort in the daytime. I need to pick up more dinner shifts, but with soccer still taking up two nights I could get in, once more coupled with Momma's experience at the place, and you get the picture. Also, I'm a little nervous because that's apparently how I roll.

Speaking of the new job, my gaydar has so far been off at least once, and it isn't pointing at anyone else in the meantime. There was this Hispanic looking guy that I think was applying for a job, but I haven't seen him since, which is sad as he was definitely easy on the eyes. I thought till Sunday that one of the bartenders was gay, but he was out with a girl for brunch in a holding hands and obviously not gay sort of way.

I don't think there's much else to say. I'm quite sorry, both for you and for me, that I've failed at making time to blog lately. I really have quite too much to say, as any regulars know, especially when given the soft ball of a good rant topic. I had two such softballs this past week, but I failed to act in a blogging type way and let them go.

You should visit the Thinking Parents wiki and read what other people have to say. The topic this time around was a pick between two upcoming events, National Day of Prayer and National Spank Out Day.

I don't pray, so prayer day would have certainly been a fun baby seal to club, and taking the reference to violence to the other option, I also don't spank. I still don't feel I'm a great parent, but I do feel I'm trying. I never realized the lifetime of spankings I lived with would set me up to be such a bastard of a father, but the farther I step from the spanker I was, the more I'm able to fix these issues. I can confront the way I've allowed my childhood to continue to infest who I've become, and I can allow myself to give my children the sort of freedom I never had. As I do this, I still have to confront the sort of expectations that I don't need to dredge from my past and smother them with, and that's really hard, throwing away so much of what you learned about parenting and trying to reinvent who you are.

Update complete, we now rejoin our regular features already in progress.

in the like file

Thanks for this go to Matt at Debriefing the Boys. This video makes me happy.

the roof, the roof

The roof of my mouth, while not on fire, has a certain hurtiness about it. I'm quite sure I know why this is. I spent a large portion of yesterday yelling and or talking loudly.

As per usual for our eight week spring soccer season I was at the fields only slightly late. Along with The Boy one other of my U6's showed up for the game, and the opposing coach was happy to agree that we'd play two versus two. We made it through two thirds of the game before The Boy decided he'd had enough. No amount of urging would compel him to continue playing, and once again the opposing coach was obliging. His team was being absolutely creamed by my guys, though to be fair, The Boy never does really give an entire shit about playing soccer as opposed to just playing, so the other team was actually being quite handled by only one of my guys. I was doing everything in my power to slow him down, and by the end of the game he was doing everything in his power to get the ball to The Boy, however, as I've mentioned, The Boy just doesn't have it in him.

Game two, U10's. We had enough time between games yesterday to run to Burger King (no need to point out the ridiculousness of fast food on soccer day thank you very much) and speed back to the fields.

Where to start on this game? Most of the goals score by the other team were goals my guys should have stopped. How do you get eight and nine year olds to be more aggressive on defense? We certainly could have won this game if I could instill in my team the usefulness of working on passing and shooting with your left as well as right foot, and perhaps this game will be a good way to work on that in our practices this week. We missed at least three goals because the shot was from the left of the goal and taken with the right foot. The kid that missed them has an excellent foot on him and is the same kid that could have scored from the half line earlier in the season.

To their credit, my U10's mostly stayed nearly in position and bunched up much less than usual. They actually passed the ball a number of times and showed us some beautiful plays involving multiple passes. I was immensely proud of the work they did and the fact that they are slowly starting to learn.

We had a couple of hours between soccer and roller derby, too much of which I spent taking a nap. I may have mentioned in the past my disdain for naps as well as my need to not take them. I only ever wake up disoriented and slightly irritated, not exactly the purpose of a nap, and they never seem to be the least bit restful to me.

The bout was exciting even if Hard Knox lost to Memphis 110-55. I'll try to only say nice things, and this is generally my goal as an announcer, to only say nice things. Last night was just hard on a person who attempts to say only nice things.

The highlights of the evening-record ticket sales, record merchandise sales, new location proved we can bring a good crowd of mostly new fans. Word of mouth should make our next bout even bigger. The new location issues that were of concern seem to have been handled handily by support staff/volunteers/husbands and boyfriends and girlfriends of our derby girls. Several of our new skaters are a little less new, perhaps one could say even a little less virginal in that they've skated in a bout against a truly powerful team.

The not so highlights-someone didn't seem to have brought their B team to play our B team. I'm not sure exactly what makes ours a B team because we did have a few of our stronger skaters on the track, but for the most part we seemed to be giving some of the newer and less experienced skaters their chance. As someone pointed out at the after party though, no one drives six hours to lose.

A final highlight-derby is awesome, and I love the way it brings people together. As I mentioned at some point in my announcing, there's nothing like derby to bring the two ends of our lovely state together. And there's a certain something special when, during a timeout for the referees to huddle and discuss referee stuff, watching as the pack dances to the music, girls in Memphis red and Hard Knox green doing a family friendly bit of bump and grind. And they call it derby love.

And so I shouted and hollered and yelled and spoke loudly into a microphone all day. I'm sure I spent some amount of time at the after party being a vociferous bit of an ass. It's cool, but damn if the roof of my mouth isn't just a little hurty today. My throat is tiny bit raspy, but having been an announcer and slightly less a fan, at least I wasn't screaming then and voiceless now.

Oh, and the final, final highlight, the beefcake card. Being a boy, I'm obviously not allowed to join in the coo tag game our skaters so love to share, so when one of our skaters gave me my beefcake card I felt inclined to share. She had brought and was passing out a deck of playing cards which featured mostly nude male models. She was kind enough to let me pick my own, so I was lucky enough to end up with the one that wasn't wearing bondage apparel.

The trick is to not make a huge point of the card but to hold it just obviously and wait. Soon enough the victim looks over and aaaaaaaagggggggghhhhhhhhh they realize they've just seen a cock. Is it only gay men that enjoy seeing cock? Straight men and lesbians I can understand, and they are obviously the most fun targets of this game, but one would think at least a couple of the straight ladies would mind a little less.

feed me coffee

The last of my last cup of coffee for the day sits mostly finished in the kitchen. I'm on to beer now, though drinking slowly as I still have to get out and pick Momma up, hopefully soon.

This week that began so . . . less than spectacular, has ended with me feeling better than I have in ages, yet I'm physically worn down to a state we in the south refer to as plumb wore out. I tried to post earlier, while I was drinking number one of my evening cups of coffee, yet for all my effort, I was unable to stay awake while sitting at the computer, my attempt to blog completely in vain.

My two week notice at the bar was cut short by management. I secretly wonder if my tales of cooking glory at the gastropub had them concerned that their other cooks would revolt and leave the ship. Perhaps they really didn't need me anymore with their acquisition of two new cooks who would be quite able to fill out the schedule. Perhaps it's a bit grandiose of me to even imagine the former when the latter is quite likely the truth.

As it happened, one of the managers, on what became my second to last shift, informed me that, if I wanted, I could cut the two week notice in half, but she also admitted that if I needed the shifts I'd be welcome to them. The fact is, the g-pub coworkers had earlier suggested that I need not work out the full two weeks as they could very easily find shifts for me to pick up. My decision originally to work the two weeks was driven as much by my desire to act in an honorable manner as well as my complete lack of desire to anger the people that feed me my beer when I get that rare night out.

In an absolute orgy of work-Tuesday night, closed the bar, leaving at nearly four a.m. Arrived home for a couple of last winding down beers and two hours of sleep. Wednesday morning, popped out of bed manically, quite ready for my first g-pub shift, which I must admit I loved. Left the g-pub shortly before three, walked around the corner to the pizza place in which I used to be kitchen manager, ate a hamburger while downing two beers and walked back down the street to the bar where I was scheduled to work at four. That shift lasted till eight and was the shift during which I was informed that I could be quit of the place as an employee a week early. As the shift ended I drank my two shift beers and a third beer I happily paid for before walking back to the g-pub, both to enjoy yet another beer as well as to inform my new overlords of the change in my fate which allows them to work me to death beginning a week sooner than we'd previously thought. With that I was on my way home to Momma and a couple more beers and stupidly keeping myself up later than makes sense. Thursday was full of yard work, mowing the grass twice as it had already grown too tall to reasonably manage followed by soccer practice where I, contrary to what I'd promised myself, did run around, work up a sweat, tire myself, get my ankle stomped harder than a nine year old should be able to land. Practice ended at seven thrity giving me just enough time to make it back to my final shift at the bar ten minutes late, yet another closing shift, and yet another moment of finishing at nearly four in the morning. This morning was back to the g-pub at nine, a slightly late start, and non stop slicing and dicing and toting and mixing and done in time to run home in time to bring Momma back for her shift. That in turn was followed by a trip to the bank, the food co-op, the free air at the gas station and then the grocery store.

At some point in all this I have to tell you about the feeling, the thought that didn't occur to me till some random time between that first g-pub shift and earlier tonight. It's a moment that I tried to include in the ill fated posting from earlier, the post during which my chin couldn't seem to stop attempting to kiss my chest, my heavy eyelids dragging themselves and my head down into the sandman's own domain.

This isn't a feeling I had once in my three days at the sushi bar, if you remember that ill fated experiment. It never once came to me at the bar. It came to me at the g-pub but was unrecognized. I think it may have happened to have been in the air or was some sort of pheromone like thing I exuded but only to heighten my own senses as opposed to those around me. Perhaps it began as I tied the apron around myself, getting it just so in its old place below my belt while I tried to pinch my boxers through my jeans to ease them back down, getting that just right alignment of pants, apron and underwear that only lasts as long as I can avoid reaching the least bit upward. Perhaps it was the also familiar tucking of the towel into my back pocket. I'm not sure exactly when or where or even how, but I realized later what it was. It was a feeling I haven't had in all the years of attempting to be a stay at home dad. It was a feeling I didn't realize I missed till I realized it was back. It was a recognition of my place in a kitchen. It was a recognition in that kitchen that I was finally back home.

Home! I'm a lifer. The back aches for the feel of standing perched between keg and shelf as I finagle that box of bread off the top shelf just close enough to realize it's the wrong bread. It's the tap tap tap of my knife turning an onion into slivers. It's the feeling of the dressed salad not cooperating with my attempt to get just a little more height. The only feeling even close to this lately was my coming out not so long ago.

I think I'm finally unslumping myself, and it feels good. It also feels good to once more know that I've earned being this tired. I won't see the kitchen again till next week, and I think I might be getting a wee bit impatient.

proves how little i really understand taxes

Relative to the services that you receive from the government, do you feel you pay too much in taxes? Explain.

So begins the project known as Thinking Homeschoolers in which participants blog concerning the current question. You can read other entries HERE.

The following is my rambling, probably often disjointed, view of the question. I will admit openly and up front that I'm almost the last person to ask for an intelligent discourse on taxes, how they are collected and how they are spent. Where I lack in knowledge I overflow in opinion.

In a sense I don't feel that we are getting certain services that we should be getting that would be paid for by our taxes. In many areas I feel that we do get adequate services for the taxes we pay. At the same time, I feel that many of the services for which we pay through our tax dollars should be completely changed.

Many of the other posts that have already been added to the Thinking Homeschoolers project mention schools, a service for which most of us pay without getting any of the benefits. Some of the homeschoolers use online charter school options, so it's arguable that they are getting those benefits. The utopian ideal of school that festers in my brain would first of all not be mandatory. It would exist to provide education for those that choose to use the service, and it would be available for anyone at any age to use the service when they were ready for it. That's a system I would happily pay for.

Medical care in our country is a very unfunny joke, and I don't only mean for the people like my family who have no medical insurance. My ideas would certainly cause many people to scream socialism, but I don't understand why anyone could think we don't have a right to basic medical care. Just being born, to me, should provide the right to be able to have regular medical, dental and vision screenings giving us the ability to spot potential problems and fix them early enough to avoid the high prices we face when something is allowed to grow worse.

The continuously failing war on drugs is a sponge that can never be full of our money no matter how much we throw at it. The very idea that we are ever going to fully prohibit people from finding ways to self medicate and/or tilt their brain a little is laughable. Since the very first human first drank the intoxicating grain brew and liked the effect we have tried to duplicate it, and along the way we've found increasingly interesting ways to achieve a broad array of highs and drunks.

It would be stupid of me to not recognize that many of the drugs people choose to use are extremely dangerous and addictive, but I don't believe our government should be using our money to address this particular moral issue. By decriminalizing most drugs and legalizing others we would free up a huge cash resource that is currently being spent on more cops, more weapons used by the cops, more jails and would allow that money to flow into programs designed to study, understand and treat addiction and the people who become addicted. We make criminals of people who need help, and we incarcerate them, insuring that they will not only not get help but will exit the system in worse condition than when they entered, more likely than not to reoffend and reenter the system.

Legalizing certain drugs would also allow for their sale, much the same as with alcohol and tobacco. Taxing these would create new tax revenues that could help to fund medical care for all as well as our new school system.

Corporate subsidies just don't make sense to me and never have. If you have a solid business plan and run your business intelligently and provide a product or service that people want or need then you don't need the government holding your hand and slipping you money to stay afloat. Having said that I do feel that it is often a good idea for government to look at taxes and business and help when it's appropriate.

My town is in long range discussion of TIF's or Tax Increment Financing which basically allows certain businesses, usually developers, to temporarily hold onto some of what they would be paying in property taxes in order to feed that money back into the business. Because of well used TIF's our downtown has, in recent years, seen a number of new businesses open. We have several buildings that were once sitting empty and abandoned and are now newly remodeled as condos and stores and restaurants. We have a growing population downtown that is breathing new life into what was once a dead area, pretty to drive through with nothing to do. There is now excitement and reason to go downtown more than once a year. The TIF's were part of what helped all this to happen, but now other developers want a piece of the pie, and they want to do an end run around how business should operate in order to line their pockets and increase their own profit. I'm happy that my tax money can help revitalize our downtown, but I certainly have no interest in helping someone pave over a wetland or flatten yet another ridge in order to build yet another mall. I certainly am not interested in allowing yet another big box to abandon their big box in order to build a bigger big box down the street. We already have enough empty big boxes.

In the interest of keeping this from growing too much larger and keeping me from talking even more nonsense out my ass I'll try to bring all this into a tight little bundle. Do I think we are getting our money's worth? Sort of, but I also think that all too often the taxes flow into the wrong hands. It's not that we pay too much in taxes for too little service, it's that we are paying too much for all the wrong services and too little for what would really benefit your basic, average tax payer.

derby hits downtown k-town

This should have made it to the blog when I first learned about it, but negligent blogger that I've become, I'm just now finding my way to posting.

Hard Knox Roller Girls have had a couple of homes, each with their pros and cons. We're now looking forward to a bout this Saturday, April 19, and the ladies are hitting downtown, literally.

HKRG will be playing Memphis, I believe the B teams from both leagues, and it's happening in the old convention center under the Days Inn on Henley Street. You heard right, down-frickin-town.

Visit Brown Paper Tickets to preorder tickets for ten dollars or show up at the door for fifteen dollar tickets. Better yet, show up with five cans of food for Second Harvest Food Bank and get five bucks knocked off your ticket price and help feed some families that could use a little help. Kids under three are free, while kids three to five are only five dollars. Afterward, join the ladies at Sassy Anns to, hopefully, celebrate yet another win.

As usual, yours truly will be doing the announcing with a little help from Memphis' announcer. I haven't worked with another announcer before, so I look forward to meeting her, and I hope working with her can help me be a better announcer.

So, friends and neighbors, and anyone within the sound of this broadcast, put on your girdle, glue in your weave, pull out your big foam fingers and come on down.

keep on moving?

Momma has been raving about her new job almost non stop since her first shift. I've let it get to me a bit, not wanting to hear how happy she is when I've been feeling like such shit lately. I want to support her, but her joy ends up making my own lack seem more glaring.

It hasn't helped that, since day one, I've been pretty sure I wasn't going to like my new job. There's a distinct lack of morale among the cooks. Each shift has only one cook on the line, and the place opens at five pm. The opening/prep shift is four to eight while the closing shift is eight till whenever you finish cleaning, around two in the morning if you've been there long enough to have your tricks and techniques and assuming you don't bust your ass and do six hundred dollars in sales on your first solo shift.

A little brag here. Last night was my first solo shift and I did do around six hundred dollars in sales. After three years of being out of kitchens, I walked into that place and owned it. The worst crime I committed was burning bacon, but in my defense they use shitty precooked bacon that you basically warm and crisp on the flat top grill, and if you aren't hovering it burns very quickly.

Momma has mentioned the likelihood that I could get a job where she works, but I haven't really felt that I could do it. I should have known that I could, but the ol' self esteem has been lower than a caterpillar's balls lately, and I felt as if reaching too far or trying too much is going to see me getting knocked down yet again. It's an issue I'm trying to work on, and taking the job is just an early step.

So yeah, I'm already going to put in notice at my new job, after a week, and take another new job. I'll be working with Momma, though not quite with her as we will work opposing shifts as we always have. I'll be taking several steps up in terms of food quality, and I'll have a much better chance to learn and hone my technique. I'll also step a couple dollars up in hourly pay, which is definitely going to help.

And though I'm not sure exactly how it came about, Momma was nice enough to inform some amount of the staff that I'm gay. It seems kind of nice going in without having to wonder how to go about treating that bit of info, but again, it's not something you're ever sure people will take well. In the end I can only care/worry about that so much, and I don't intend to bother.

So we turn another page, this one a short one. I hope not to burn the bridge as the job I'm leaving remains my favorite bar to drink at and the bar at which I'm most likely to meet friends without planning to meet. I'll be working both places for a couple of weeks, and I'm certain that's bound to add to the thrills.

Finally, I'll link HERE to the website of a certain restaurant, but in the interest of blogging and working and not sure about how much info needs to be shared and not wanting to fuck up before I start, I won't share any more just now than that. I've been a stay at home dad the entire time that I've also been a blogger, so I've never blogged, before now, about a place I was employed at while writing. Again, in the interest of not fucking things up, I'll be sure to keep a sensible separation between the two. Any advice from fellow bloggers about this sort of thing is more than welcome.

it's true

I don't pay a lot of attention to my statcounter, but I do look at it every couple of days. It's nice to see the number of visitors, and sometimes it's fun to see the different ways people get to me.

I am more than a little gratified to find that I come up first in a particular search, and a good number of visits I get are because of this search.

I am the number one hit when people google Robin Williams sucks, and it feels good.

aarrrrrgggggghh

The IRS is a bunch of idiots. This is at least the ninth year that Momma and I have filed our tax returns together, each year filing as married filing jointly.

This is the ninth year they have fucked up Momma's name and in doing so delayed our refund.

When we got married, we did the normal thing, Momma changing her last name to mine. She did the normal thing of keeping her middle name and adding her maiden name as a second middle name. We went to the local office of the Social Security Administration and did it all correctly and legally.

Every year at tax time (nine if you remember correctly) we have had delays in getting our income tax return because the IRS doesn't have her name right. Every year we end up calling them and explaining the issue and telling them how to fix it.

Every single fucking year this happens.

And it's happened again. Possibly it happens because some dumb fuck in a cubicle doesn't update the information. I don't know why it happens.

I'm absolutely sick of this shit. We planned things rather poorly I'll admit, but we've been counting on the refund being in our checking account by a certain time, and we are so close to the edge financially based on this that we may end up completely broke.

And it's all the fault of the idiots at the IRS who can't manage in nine years to stop fucking us over. So thank you IRS. Don't bother fixing it this year, because by next year I can only imagine where our lives will be, and besides, I'm sure it's not your problem. You don't care if my kids are hungry. You don't care that some people don't have the money falling out their ass to deal with this kind of setback.

Fuck you, IRS!

credit

I posted yesterday about words without giving some credit to a blogger Mike who posted a blog along similar lines which was part what put the subject on my mind. I meant to thank him then for the blog fodder and to tip the ol' hat in thanks.

He posed a question concerning whether calling people certain things was okay in the office environment. I personally assume offices are generally quiet, passive aggressive places, but most of what I assume I know about them comes from tv or movies, most notably the movie Office Space.

I've never in my life worked in an office. My very first job was busing table in a restaurant, and since then, probably 90% of the jobs I've held have been in restaurants. There have been brief forays in light construction and the several months I worked as a DJ in a titty bar, but really, I'm a restaurant lifer.

Restaurant culture is totally different from any other job. I'm not going to point out how different or why different, just accept that I'm right. We are a different sort of folk, and I feel that the very nature of the work demands something so different from other work that it really does require a different sort of folk.

And part of that is the ability to at least accept the foulness and vulgarity if not the ability to deal it out as best you can. It's generally good natured and often has extreme homoerotic overtones if not a little bit of homophobia. Again, I'm not really going too deeply into that either.

Really, the whole point of this post is to give Mike credit for planting the seed of the thought that became yesterday's post and to send him some link love.

things we say

Language warning. The following screeching contains a very few words of questionable offensiveness. Read it anyway. Be a damn grown up.

My poor little blog seems to be slowly dying from neglect. I'm not intentionally neglecting the thing, but trying to write has not gotten any easier lately. If anything, my willingness to write has stayed the same, sort of, while my desire to post what I come up with continues to decline.

What you haven't gotten nearly enough of from me lately is a nice healthy rant. I've kept my ire entirely to myself for far too long. While I was off being unhappy, I was still finding targets for anger, but they don't nearly affect me lately as much as other issues I can't stop over-pondering. So what has been bothering me?

I've thought lately about words. Certainly I've considered words before, but lately I've noticed more of an ability for words to have impact, often an impact that the speaker has never considered, and there is often no way to explain, no way to make someone understand that how you hear their words is far removed from how those words sound to them.

One word, cocksucker, and a phrase, that's so gay, have stuck out in my mind lately. There are plenty of variations on these two, but these two are enough to start my little conversation. The suggestion is that enjoying fellatio as a giver or being gay are inherently demeaning to one's manhood, so it follows that they are great words to use to insult people. Cocksucker/gay=undesirable trait

What really bothers me with these words are the inability to explain to people in a way they understand why it might bother me or others to hear them used in this manner. I've only been able to explain to one person, and though she isn't black, when I compared her use of the word gay as a negative adjective to someone using the word nigger, she seemed to at least get for a moment why it might not be okay. She's a good friend and not someone who would intentionally be hurtful, but she also couldn't accept that in might bother me that she would use gay in such a way.

So how do you make the average person understand? What compares, in each individual world, to gay or to a racial epithet? What word has enough power to offend? I can't really think of any. While many women abhor the words cunt or bitch, they don't quite seem to have the same power for as many people. The bother is more a personal issue on an individual level.

The only tool I really have when confronting this is to turn it around, to make the situation lighter through disagreement, yet people often don't get it unless they also know that I'm gay. And while I might have made a show of announcing it in certain locales, not everyone reads the blog, and I don't wear my "Hello, my name is Gay" convention sticker everyday.

So I disagree. I hear the tired phrase and tell the speaker why they are wrong, why the situation or the thing is in fact not gay. "Andre champagne is the gayest? No sir. In fact it isn't gay at all. It's of low quality and has a poor taste and is in fact not even champagne. Andre may well be quite heterosexual," to use a conversation that took place recently. But all that gets is a laugh at the perceived joke or a blank stare of not understanding.

I do have friends, including the young lady mentioned above, who are quite able to use the word gay as a description and in a non negative fashion. These are people who are quite accepting of me and quite unconcerned with the homosexuality of their friends. They're the best kind of people, and I'm slowly building a network of friends for whom gayness is no more or less important than any other aspect of who you are. When you know that someone doesn't look down on the sucking of a cock you don't mind hearing it so much, and when those same people can just as easily describe the same situation as comparable to licking cunts it seems more easy to hear it.

So where have I arrived with all this? What great lesson have I learned? Not a fucking thing. All I know is that it used make me pause when I almost caught myself suggesting something was gay, and now it bothers me on some level to hear it, and I'm quite willing to point it out and to deny someone the chance to use it with impunity. I will in fact call you on it and at least try to make you see. Does it always work, or more accurately, will it ever work?

Feel free to comment about this with your own thoughts. I'd really like to hear what others think. Feel free to remind me of words I've used that make me a hypocrite.

my life . . .

. . . is like asking for Cherry Coke and getting flat cola with not enough grenadine in it.

I had an IM conversation with a friend today. He was talking about the girl he likes, explaining that he likes her more than she likes him. He explained that this is a problem that he's figured out about himself, that he too often sees more in a relationship than do the girls with whom he has the relationship.

I didn't tell him that that's the way I feel about him. It wouldn't have helped. He's made a point of explaining that he's not gay when I've messed with him about it. He doesn't know how I really feel, that I've actually had some amount of trouble getting myself over him. He doesn't need to know.

But I know, and our conversation, while helpful to him in figuring out the direction he plans to take, didn't help me at all. It merely served to slam me back into a place I thought I'd gotten passed. He's a great friend and someone I'm glad to have in my life, but it's hard to accept that I can't have him in my life in the way I want.

It makes me want to smash my head into the wall, but I learned years ago how little benefit there is in that. It's really too bad that, on some level, I'm still doing it, knowing all the time that it only hurts me. The wall doesn't give a shit.

edited to add: if you see yourself in the above, please understand that it really is okay and I promise I didn't tell anyone else. Also, I forgot that I told you about my blog, but I'm leaving this up anyway. I deal in melodrama like Republicans deal in lies and being assholes. It's just how I am.

mmmmmmmmm vital fluids

Regardless of how much I eat lately, it seems I'm never quite satisfied. I think I may finally have come across the solution to this problem. Thanks go to Joel Derfner whose blog I recently staggered across. He's perfect for me to have a crush on as he's hot and completely unavailable, but it does help that it's not another straight guy.

Anyway, to learn more about my new diet click HERE.

job news

Momma and I now officially both have jobs. Money has not yet quite gotten tight, and according to IRS dot gov our income tax refund will arrive in time to keep us afloat long enough to start getting paid. We did at one time have other plans for the money, but that's how we roll I suppose.

Both our jobs see our return to the Old City, our absolute favorite place to be. I'll be working at the place with the awesome patio. I start training in the kitchen Saturday night and will soon be following a server around learning how to remember which drink goes where and how to tell the computer to tell the bartender to make four purple hooter shooters.

To be honest, it isn't especially my first choice of a job, but it also sort of is. The vast majority of my work experience is in similar sorts of places, so bar food won't be stretching my limits too much. After three-ish years of not working, easing back into it seems like a good idea. Plus with the cross training in front and back of house I'm only making myself a more rounded employee. Also I will obviously have to retake the ABC class for which my permit just recently expired.

Momma put in a couple of applications. What had been her top choice made room for her other top choice as I pointed out that, while either job would get her what she wanted, one was closer. She wanted to stay in a more high end sort of kitchen, and she was really leaning toward the French place that is only slightly out west. Perusing the menu at the closer place helped her realize that it's equally as high end and would give her the same opportunity to learn technique and that it's closer. She allowed the closer place to move into the number one spot, and she got the job.

So Momma arrived at the gastropub at ten this morning. She took one of our chef's knives as well as her sushi knives which may very well not come in handy. She has been excited and perhaps a bit nervous. I'm really happy for her and look forward to the two of us finally earning money and getting to eat there. The menu looks amazing.

And with that we are both employed again. Soon after we spend the last of our refund we will start bringing home checks. Hers will most assuredly be larger than mine, though it will likely not be as large as she was bringing home. Soon I should be serving and bringing home a pocket full of cash to supplement the meager amount the cooking side of my job will bring in. And though the sun isn't out today where I am, life is slightly brighter.

bigger than

I feel as if I've posted this before. It almost quite seems as though I have. Whether or not I did or not, you really need to click on the triangle and turn this song waaaaaaaaay up. Way up! If you are reading this, this song is quite likely outside your normal sort of thing you would usually listen to. I suggest you play and listen to this song anyway. Even if it makes you a little uncomfortable go ahead and click the triangle.

best fucking bass line evar!

first game

Yesterday should have been the third game for my U10 team. It was our first. East Tennessee spring season soccer has never, in my limited experience, been quite the chore this year has become. Our first game was snowed out, and our second game was rained out.

As I approached our field, I met up with a couple of my team members who immediately noticed that we were going to be playing a girl heavy coed team. Of course, my team being all boys, and fairly typical eight to nine year old boys, one of them made a comment suggesting our team should easily win. I was quick to point out that he had no basis for this as he had not seen them play and that the fact that they are girls suggests nothing when it comes to their abilities on the field.

My point was proved soon after as the game began and they scored on us fairly quickly. The one real difference between boys and girls of this age would be physical in that the boy is more likely to come out of fight for the ball still on his feet. This is not meant to disparage the girls only to suggest that the boys are in general going to be a bit bigger and stronger. It's also an argument to not have coed teams after the U6 level whenever possible. But that's another post that I may have covered some time in the past.

This game certainly proved that no matter what any of us may think, girls can play with the boys sometimes, and they can play well. The first half saw our opponents take a fair lead against us. Big Brother was our keeper for the first half, and as I've seen before, he took those first goals very personally before figuring out to move and pounce. He soon stopped allowing goals and even took down a couple of their players diving onto the ball.

The second half saw us close the gap. We actually should have won the game on an offside call, though not necessarily due to the call. I saw the goal, but I didn't see offside nor did I not see offside. What I did see was the line judge make an offside call, the referee take back the goal and the opposing coach argue the call and convince the ref to give them the goal.

And this is my problem here. I could argue neither the goal or the offside call as I didn't see it. The team may have been offside or not. My problem is with the opposing coach arguing and winning. Our ref was a young man of twelve or thirteen years. At that age I don't expect him to have the same skills as an adult when it comes to standing up to an adult. My problem is with the other coach arguing with a child and setting a bad example for all the players on the field.

I teach my teams to accept without argument the calls of the ref. That's how the game goes. You will never agree one hundred percent with the referee, and a good player knows how to suck it up and keep doing his or her best. I expect my players to play that way, and I expect other teams and their coaches to play the same way. I believe this so much that, during our scrimmages, I will make at least one bad call, sometimes more. I want them to know never to argue with the ref. Sometimes bad calls happen. Sometimes the ref misses something. You can not let it interfere with how you approach the game. You suck it up, you let it go and you keep giving your hundred percent. It's seldom personal, and you can't take it as such.

We ended the game tied, and I couldn't be prouder of my guys in their first game. We need to work on getting corner kicks into the air. We need to stop bunching up and stealing the ball from each other. We need to pass more. We need for my one insanely powerful striker to accept that he can't reasonably expect to run around the entire field for thirty to forty minutes, so he should stay in his position.

One moment that gave me a giggle was due to my sweeper. This kid, in our very first practice, when I asked them all their favorite positions immediately piped up with sweeper. He does a great job on the back line. At one point in the game he kicked the ball from the half line into the arms of their goalie and actually hurt the kid's chest. I could see it in the keeper's eyes and here it in the smack as the ball hit him.

Oh, and our team name? Yo Momma. Seriously. Not my decision.

the more you ask

I'm posting this unamusing anecdote for one simple reason.

A friend of ours has a daughter between the ages of our own kids. She's a sweet kid, and when the friend asked us to watch her for the night, Momma was happy to oblige.

So how does that work out to a blog post? Nothing exciting happened last night or today, and she hasn't really provided any blog fodder, not really.

I'm pretty much done on the computer for the moment. I've checked Google reader, Myspace and my email. I've done almost everything I could want to do and certainly everything I want to do at this point in the day.

Next to the computer chair is a small child size rocking chair. The entire time I've been online today this lovely young lady has sat next to me in that same chair asking every couple of minutes if she could get online or if I'm done yet.

I tried to warn her that each time she asks only makes me stay on longer. It's not that I don't want her on the computer, but I really want to be able to finish in peace. I actually tried to find a way to compare her repeated questioning with the idea that expressing disbelief in faeries kills one, but that seemed a little too cold even for me, so I didn't say the thinky part aloud for once.

Instead of dashing any hopes of faeries she may have I've chosen to find a way to insist on taking longer. I could easily be done now. I could happily have found something else to do and given her a turn. But she wouldn't stop asking.

I'm not sure what finally did it, but she's wandered away to join the boys in some cartoons. It's been at least five minutes since I was hit with the question, but I'm still not willing to give up the computer. Like everything else I do, I'm sure it makes me a bad person, like I care.

don't know where I'm going, but I sure know where I've been

We are turning yet another page, to use Momma's explanation of our lives right now.

After three years of doing a fairly poor job of being an active stay at home dad I took a job at the same place Momma worked till recently. I began my training as she began a week long suspension, punishment for being fairly late on two consecutive days.

I worked last Friday morning and Saturday night. This week I worked my third training shift the day that Momma returned to discuss her future employment with her direct superior, the head chef.

He fired her, and I worked the rest of my shift with the thought that I would return the next day. If I was the only one of us with a job, the responsible thing to do would be to keep the job as long as I needed to.

I awoke Thursday morning in time to get to work on time. I awoke Thursday morning to a mix of rage and depression at the thought that I'd have to go back. I got dressed as far as pants and socks, pulling them on in the most angry way I could muster. I slipped a pair of shoes and my jacket on and stepped outside with Momma to smoke, an early cigarette for clarity in the coolness of the beginning of the day.

In truth I was trying like hell to talk myself into going to work. I was upset with both Momma's firing after being held in limbo for a week as well as the knowledge I have of this restaurant based both on Momma's descriptions as well as disappointing things I'd seen in the three days I put in. This wasn't anywhere I wanted to be, and though Momma will certainly miss the place she attained at this restaurant, she is overjoyed at the page being forced to turn when she'd had so much trouble doing so with so many reasons not to.

I applied for a different job Thursday, after hanging out at the park with some great people and their great kids. I have a second interview today for not quite the job I thought I was applying for. One could consider the location a step down in certain terms, but it's more my kind of place, and the possible job would be both cooking and serving. I have years of cooking experience, but I have random and not really serving experience serving.

I don't see why I couldn't get this job, and I find myself actually wanting it. The weird part is that it's at my default bar. A number of the regulars were friends before this place opened and/or are friends outside of this place. I've known some of the staff for some amount of time.

Another page, Momma has an offer to cater a small dinner party. It's on a Saturday that I have both soccer games and a roller derby bout to announce. Did I mention that Momma hasn't been skating for a couple months? The dinner is a great opportunity for her, and catering is an idea she and I have tossed around noncommittally for a couple of years. I won't get to help too much with this one, at least not in the final process, but I plan to do my part to make it a success.

So pages turn. We find ourselves unemployed, both of us expecting a check that will sever our ties with her place of employment for nearly four years. This is on top of all the things we've been through over the past year plus. We find before us doors opening, pages turning.

There are other burners going, ideas beginning to simmer between us. We are in a place of hesitant excitement as we begin to imagine ourselves doing for ourselves, less at the whim of others. We've begun thinking in terms of what is best for us rather than what we have to do. We are aware through IRS dot gov of the date by which our income tax refund will arrive, fully expecting that to keep us afloat for just long enough once again. There are light bulbs over our heads, and more and more, we are looking to turn those pages ourselves. We're getting tired of having to read to the end of pages we don't care to read and are looking for the good stories, the ones that speak to us.

title from Bon Jovi with a capital duh

the thing I said

I almost feel as if I owe any readers I still have an apology for last night's late, drunken post. Momma had gone out with some friends, and I managed to invite a friend over. He's straight, and continues to remain so despite my urging him to change his mind, so it wasn't that sort of thing.

Sometime between him leaving and Momma arriving home I made the turn from completely fine mood to somewhere else as evidenced by the drunken rambling.

I'm tired of not writing more, and I'm tired of the writing I do manage to squeeze out being ridiculous nonsense. It may seem that it's not all crap, but that's only because you only get the ones I post. You never see the shit that sits around as drafts, lonely and unwanted, soon to be deleted.

So, I hereby resolve to stop the melodrama and the melancholy or at least place some other posts between the weepy ones. And with that, I'm off to complain about something that will likely earn me trouble.

don't stop believing

This twist off of the beer cap comes too easy.

The sad feelings come too easy.

The melodrama flows out of me like blood from a head wound.

I try like hell to beat it down. I try like hell to master myself. I want so much to be in control, yet those damn feelings and thoughts have a mind of their own. I can try all I want, but I don't end up making sense of anything.

I want, yet I can't even figure out for myself what I want.

I don't know if I'm even trying anymore or if I'm just right back where I've alway been, rolling with the punches, trying for nothing more than to get drunk enough to get to sleep quick enough to avoid crying into my pillow.

Beer doesn't really seem to be working, but it's the constant, the thing I can rely on. It's the thing I think I know my way about when so much else seems to bring nothing but a curious mix of heartache and curiosity and regret. It's my friend, the friend that's there when no one else is.

I'd like to think there's something more, but . . .

holidays are bull shit

This started out as a Myspace bulletin. I cross posted it here because I loved it and want everyone to read. This note is for the couple of people that may read my crap both here and there. So . . .

To whom it may concern:

I'm tired of all these "christian" celebrations masquerading as holidays.

I do not give a shit about St. Valentine, and I doubt his life's work involved funneling even more money into the butchers in charge of the majority of diamond procurement/production that exists in the world. Look into blood diamonds and see if they're still as pretty.

St. Patrick may have been a drunk, but I sort of doubt it. I'm a drunk and have neither doubts nor qualms about it. I also don't think that he was really the guy who got rid of all the snakes in Ireland, as I don't really think they ever had a huge snake problem. Green beer sucks, and if you're beer is so nasty that adding green doesn't bother you, then maybe you suck too.

Easter, I don't even know where to start with this one. This was once a non christian celebration of spring. As is its want, the Catholic church co-opted the day and painted some religious overtones on it so that they could count the heathens among the saved and steal their gold when they were too busy collecting eggs to notice. If I celebrate spring it will be by enjoying the warm days and long nights, and it will hopefully involve drinking a beer on the patio at the Urban Bar.

Christmas was also co-opted by the church to celebrate the birth of baby Jebus. This time the heathens were too busy outspending each other at Wal Mart to notice the gold theft, but the end result is the same.

I could go on. All our holidays are shams, and if they ever did mean anything, they now only serve to increase the income of our corporate overlords. You aren't really celebrating anything recognizable as worthy of celebration, but you are helping the rich get richer. If you're okay with that, then fine, but just understand if you try to pinch me for not wearing green that I might smash your lips against your teeth. I'm not Catholic or Irish (I might be a tiny bit Irish in a DNA sort of way) and I don't celebrate religious holidays.

I have no religion, therefore religious celebrations would make me a lying hypocrite. Please respect that, and look at your own beliefs, and ask yourself what you're really celebrating. If it's just an excuse to get drunk, then perhaps you should recognize and celebrate that you're a drunk. I'll be right there with you, not lying about the fact that I drink, not needing an excuse to tilt the pint.

partay

In order, somewhat, the pork loin is cooked, chicken stock is cooling on the counter, the flourless chocolate cake is also cooling on the counter and the beans are soaking. It's too late now to worry whether I should have chosen pork butt instead of loin or to worry about whether it will overcook with the beans.

Between games tomorrow I need to drain the beans, rinse the salad greens, chop the mire poix, cut the sausage and decide whether I want more of the hog jowl bacon chopped. I'll cut the apples and soak them in some lemon juice and water in the refrigerator. I might even cut the bacon, but it might be nicer to have it hot.

Dinner will start with a salad, packaged greens that are supposed to be a fifty/fifty mix of baby spinach and spring mix, granny smith and ambrosia apples, bacon and toasted pecans. The dressing is a sort of buttermilk vinaigrette that I'm stealing from Ms. Joy which is recommended in her book with a similar salad to mine. After the salad we'll be moving on to a cassoulet followed by the previously mentioned flourless chocolate cake.

This is only the second attempt I've made at a cassoulet. I'm cobbling a variation together using Julia's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Joy of Cooking and a little bean cookery advice from Alton Brown. I don't have goose or duck confit. I don't have any mutton. I do have pork loin, smoked sausage and hog jowl bacon.

While I'm sure I can produce an end product that is tasty, I have no fear that I'll actually approach a real cassoulet, a classic of French peasant cooking, a large casserole that not only uses available ingredients but is argued about seriously should you choose to vary your recipe from that of basically anyone within earshot.

I haven't even cooked beans that often (almost never) and have that whole concern to be concerned about. I'm a little worried about the cake as well. I couldn't mix the chocolate mixture with the egg whites any more without flat beating the shit out of them, and now I'm a little afraid that I can kind of see some unmixed beaten whites spotting the surface of the cake. We can't know till tomorrow when we dig into it, but I can't help but worry. A rich slice of chocolate cake can almost hope to fix a nearly mediocre meal. I'm confident with my salad, and I mostly expect good things out of my cassoulet, but the cake has me nervous.

I'm sure I'll remember to post about the great fun we had, drinking wine with friends and enjoying a nice meal. It'll be awesome, the food will be better than I expected, and all sorts of niceness. And because I've been posting so regularly, you can rest assured that you'll have the info soon after the affair.

And if you're lucky, I'll take pictures and tease you with glimpses of my culinary achievements. Just you wait.

food porn meme

I wasn't directly tagged for this meme, so I won't directly tag more than one person. I almost did it when Rosie left an open ended tag, but I totally did it when Sue left a more openly ended tag.

1. What food do you consider the best “date” food? In other words, what meal or food item do you think is sexiest to eat in the company of someone you would like to look sexy around?

I never dated. That's what this question makes me think of. And then it leads into too much thought going into my whole upbringing (far past and far right) and the places I've been between then and now.

I'm starting to think that the best date would be finding some dark haired boy that wants to both eat my cassoulet and watch a Miyazaki movie with me and my wife and kids.

2. What well-known person would you like to share a meal with—with or without clothing. (saying whether or not clothes are involved is optional).

I'd like Eric Ripert to cook me dinner. I believe in cooking clothed, so anything else would have to find its own way in at some point later in the evening.

3. What does your perfect breakfast-in-bed look like? (Food AND the details, please. Candles? Music? Flowers? Hot tub? Dancing girls?

My perfect breakfast in bed would happen at the bar over some steaks and eggs and bloody marys.

4. What do you consider the best application of whipped cream to be?

Pie, the only real destination for whipped cream. Anywhere else it just gets in the way.

Which is not to say that I couldn't think of any number of other uses for whipped cream. So I guess we're back to the original question. If nothing I've said so far gives you an indication . . .

5. Oh-God-No, Biff, the yacht is sinking! You are sent to the galley to retrieve the food. What luxury food items do you snatch first? The champagne? The caviar? Smoked Salmon? Truffles? Chocolate? Or something else?

Seriously sinking yacht? I'm going after the least perishable items I can find, and if Biff can't get his dumb ass in gear enough to recognize this fact then fuck him. His ass can drown. My kids and as much food as I can dig up is my sole priority in this situation.

Okay, two things are a sole priority? Yes, though kids slightly edge out food, slightly.

And there you have my food porn meme. I tag Momma first and foremost, because she needs to write more. After that?

singing fool

Last night, without even being nearly as drunk as I assured everyone I would have to be, I was coaxed to sing karaoke. And it wasn't quite so bad as I thought.

Coaxed really isn't quite what happened so much as the sound of the words "Sometimes Roommate and Sam sing Chug-a-lug," yes that one, the Roger Miller classic. That was followed quickly by the words "son of a bitch" steaming out of my own mouth. She'd already done Dolly's Mule Skinner Blues, the one with the yodeling, and after that I couldn't not have the balls to sing.

I will admit to enjoying myself. I also feel that some explanation of the particular place is also in order. It's a distinctly local place, a honky tonk that proudly advertises their hillbilly jukebox. The menu, is beer, pizza, hot cheese plate and more and is posted randomly behind the bar on sheets in paper and Sharpie. Pictures of customers and staff adorn a good bit of the wall space, and with the new addition of a slightly regular hipper, younger element seems to be growing. It's a really cool place, introduced to us by none other than Sometimes Roommate.

We're back to my enjoying singing karaoke, but I will admit more here. We got a couple of late starts on a couple of lines, which anyone could do. I also caught myself improvising some of the lyrics which is a habit of mine.

Very often, when I'm singing alone, I will make up new words to songs. Quite often the new lyrics are fairly obscene, though more often they're just stupid, humorous only to me. It certainly happens a hell of a lot less when there are children present, so don't too alarmed, but it does happen. I didn't consider this habit when I was walking through the bar toward the stage, and really, why would I? The right lyrics are on the little tv, so any I forget, I'll be able to figure quickly, not that I've memorized that many Roger Miller songs.

And it happened. I suppose the social lubricant, PBR in a can, may have helped, or not helped, depending on how you see it. Being up there at all courtesy of Sometimes Roommate and a desire to enact some mild revenge like thing may have subconciously come into play. I don't now remember what lyrics I changed or even what I sang, but I'm pretty sure I sufficiently gayed it up, which is the part that I do remember.

Momma definitely wants to go back and sing karaoke again and soon. I'm holding out as ambivalent just yet. I did enjoy it, but I'm just not sure.

And fresh from the ovens of YouTube, the video is crap, but the audio is fine if you choose to listen to the song. There's a second song that you don't have to bother with, but you are also more than welcome to listen to it as well.