bluh

Posting out of boredom may not be the best idea, but it's what I'm going with right now. I'm bored, and I don't have to be, but I'm ignoring all the stuff I should do.

I did clean the kitchen some. I emptied and refilled and started the dishwasher, washed the pots and pans that were sitting around dirty, washed the knives and stomped all the beer cans that were cluttering the counter. I also made myself another cup of coffee and rolled and smoked a cigarette.

I've yelled at the boys several times (not really yelled) to clean something as there are toys seemingly everywhere. General Grievous, the big Lego version, lies mostly built on the coffee table. There are Hot Wheels and Legos in the floor behind me. In the boys' room are more Legos and Littlest Pet Shop and Playmobile.

I'm pretty sure that Xena is somewhere, hopefully dressed in one of her outfits. I remember seeing her sword somewhere, but I don't remember where now.

The Boy has actually done a little cleaning. I think that he things he's going to get something treat like to eat. Big Brother isn't feeling well and actually laid down in his bed. That's a sure sign, so I may not bother him too much more about cleaning.

I could do my own cleaning, but as I mentioned, I'm opting for bored at the moment. I should have cooked, but at seven it's sort of on the late side to start, so we'll eat something else whenever anyone gets hungry, and the pork loin can wait till tomorrow.

Momma should be home from work any minute. I'm not sure if she's going to try to go to derby practice or not, but she'll have to at least come home, and I do believe I hear her in the driveway.

Now that I've bored you with my boringness, and now that Momma is indeed home, I'm going to stop bothering to blog and do something else equally boring.

sunshine

Perhaps my recent post about a looming bout of depression was a bit off base. While I do recognize the possibility that there is something fucked up in my head that all too often leads me to feel depressed, it seems I jumped the gun a bit this time.

I do sometimes feel like shit, gloomy, dark, inconsolable, and it does almost seem to work in cycles. Our recent weather certainly hasn't helped, and the fact that, outside of work, I'm still too often a bit homebound certainly leads me toward the unpleasantness. There are also extenuating circumstances swirling about my head lately as well.

At the same time I have to admit that there are fairly good things happening in my life lately. In past blog posts I've mentioned my historic treatment of people, my tendency to put up walls around me and blame others for their unwillingness to put up with my shit long enough to realize I'm a decent person. I can't say I don't put up some walls still, but I think I'm realizing the way to build sensible and healthy walls, or so I hope, and I'm becoming more able to accept people as they are and build friendships with people.

My recent depression was more than likely a fleeting thing, which it always has been, but this time it's fleeted quicker than in the past, and I think that the work I've done with myself is part of this.

And what's the biggest difference between this time and the last time? I haven't been wallowing in it. I didn't get in the depression like a pig in mud and roll around in it. I didn't pull it over myself like the sadly comfortable blanket it had become over the years.

Another difference I think is that I did recognize it as it showed up instead of being suddenly ass deep in sad.

I know that I'm not entirely better, and I'm positive that this is something I'll always deal with. I do think that I'm stronger and that it's not something I'll allow to cripple me anymore. I can't know that, and I don't want to think that I'll let myself be fooled by one victory into thinking that I'm suddenly a happy and carefree person. I wouldn't want that anyway really, because I can accept that it's just not who I am. I brood over things, worry about nonsense, assume the worst. My glass will always probably be just under half empty, and all of those things are all right. The universe really isn't out to get me, and while someone somewhere may hate me, at least I know that everyone doesn't.

And finally, if you live in my town, then you know how absolutely incredible the weather is today. The sunshine we're getting isn't actually responsible for my elevated mood, but damn if it don't help. It's beautiful today, and I love it even if all I've done is take out months worth of recycling. I still have the plastics yet to go, but I'll have the windows down and the stereo as up as is reasonable with the boys in the car. Also I get paid and get to go to the tail end of an awesome friend's birthday party after work.

know? no

The urge to post, to blog, to throw words out into the void, to something, whatever it is sometimes feels consuming.

I don't know if it's the lack of recent posting, though I did squeeze a couple out yesterday, or if it's some primal thing that has over the years made me want to write things down. Maybe it's an attempt to void my mind of all the noise, as if getting the thoughts into a different form will quell the jumble that they are inside my head.

There isn't anything specific that I feel I should be writing, and honestly, the way I feel like I'm starting to feel never bodes well for readable or coherent thoughts. I posted too much about depression and dark places last year, and I'd like to think I did enough of that to last me for a good long while.

I'm a little jealous of Momma right now, and I think that has something to do with my feeling bad. I won't give you her whole story, but it often feels to me as if she can easily and without trying have half the world on their knees at her feet begging for even a glimpse from her onto their poor, miserable faces.

I, on the other hand, seem to go through life looking for connections that are never there. I can't quite decide what it is that I want, what my end goal should be, and I feel like I wander through days, doing those few things I have to do, searching for something to hold my attention, to make me feel alive or involved or even just a tiny bit of caring about.

I want something new. I don't know what. Maybe I want to go away from this town and start over somewhere. Maybe it's a relationship. Perhaps I need a hobby of some sort.

A change in the weather would be nice. I'm tired of the cold by now, and I have at least two more months of cold feet and stiff, achy hands to look forward to yet. Though today is rather cold, the sun is out, and it should be shining on my face and filling me with its light. Instead I sit here, checking and rechecking my email, debating a visit to Myspace or Facebook, knowing there's nothing new at either of those places.

In the end I think I'll just go back to my time worn catch phrase of I don't know. While I'd like to figure out what this longing feeling is I end up right back where I always end up, and like usual, I just don't know.

darkness

I knew days ago it was coming. I'm to the point where I can sense it, maybe smell it on the wind. I could call it the darkness, because that's what it is.

Within the week I'll be ass deep in the depression. Things aren't especially different than they were or have been. My life hasn't taken any spectacularly bad turns.

As a matter of fact nothing is noticeably different.

But it doesn't matter. It's coming, and I can feel it.

just 'cuz it feels so good

Seriously, this post exists solely because saying these words is so much fun.

President Barak Obama

scattered inaugural thoughts

One week has passed since my last post, and I just haven't had anything to say. I can't say I have that much to say today.

Throughout the inauguration I watched with a lump in my throat and the hint of tears in my eyes. Hundreds of miles from where those couple of million stood watching in DC I sit here in East Tennessee thinking I can feel the energy.

That today is huge and historic is undeniable. As President Obama himself pointed out it wasn't so long ago that his father would not have been able to sit and eat lunch in any number of places. Have we progressed so far from those days? Sure we have, but we have so far yet to go.

Is there a more beautiful sight than the smiles and the joy and the hope beaming across the mall?

Oh, and if you didn't notice I'm sure you can find Obama's speech on YouTube, but, not to put too ugly a mark on the delight of today, but the president's hair was not evenly cut around his ears. There was a bit of sideburn trying to assert itself on his right side, while on the left there was none.

Also, I muted Rick Warren's prayer and told the boys why. In my own words, "I don't want to listen to him. He has a problem with gay people, and I have a problem with him."

I'm not sure when the parade begins. I have to be at work in three hours, and I'd love to see the parade. Mostly I just want to see the gay marching band, but given how people seem to like to not see us, I'm afraid the cameras might be pointed elsewhere when the LGBT's show up.

courier

If I were a font I'd be Courier. My friend C at My Life Was Changed By A Train deserves the thanks for this one. Take the test HERE to be judged by a machine and given a font and a possibly inaccurate description of what that font represents and why you are that font.

Apparently:

Like a typewriter-font on a computer, you go proudly against the grain. You're not afraid to let your opinions be known, and for you, anything is better than being known as "conventional."

That's good to know, and I must say, that Courier is a lovely font. Is the idea of retaining fonts from one medium to another really so novel?

But is any of that true? It seems the sort of thing that should make me think about my life, whether I am really what this website likes to call Courier and whether it's the sort of person I want to be.

I don't know that I think of myself as especially going against the grain, but to some extent I've always felt that I basically do and would tend to be a little proud of it. And I'm quite opinionated and often annoyingly so if you know me in real life. Perhaps I might blog a little that way as well, but in virtual world you have the benefit of not dealing with actual me in all my abrasive glory.

Also, I changed my blog font to Courier. Did you notice? And what was it before? Does changing the font now change it only for this post? Will all my past posts now be Courier as well? How about the future posts? It's all so much to not give a shit about!

can't shake it

My head is all kinds of full of something today. I don't think I drank that much last night, but maybe it was more than I realized coupled with getting a late start and cramming in more beer in too short a time.

Last night started with a trip to a friend's house so she could cart me around for a bit. We began by going to the wrong place, the coliseum, when we should have gone to the arena. There was hockey at the coliseum, but we were looking for bull riding.

Yes, you read that right, bull riding. I can't say it was the most enjoyable thing ever, and this is coming from someone who like guys in Wranglers and boots. A cowboy hat never hurts as well, assuming you don't look like a douche, and seriously, too many people that do wear them do also look like douches.

We weren't sitting close enough to really see the cowboys, and the jumbotron wasn't working, though it really should have been on to give us some close ups. Even without really knowing how sexy they are or aren't, there's still something hot about cowboys riding bulls, or at least trying to as was more often the case. There was the one guy who rode the bull to a stand still. As the eight second buzzer sounded the bull fell onto his side. In my opinion, if you ride the bull to the point it can't continue and it falls, you should probably win automatically.

Following the rodeo I found myself at the square for a couple of beers and running into very few people, and from the square it was off to the strip. From there it was on to a friend's house and a last minute run to the gay bar. The friend got a call from a coworker asking her to meet, but in the end it was just the friend and Momma trying to dance.

There was a cute and freakishly skinny boy at the gay bar that I sort of tried to talk to, but when you pick up your beer and walk away without a word, well even I'm not so dense I don't get that.

Last call, beers were being taken away and it was off to revisit the friend's house along with Momma and her boyfriend. I'm not sure what happened after I left, but Momma and the friend were turning each other lesbian and Momma's boyfriend . . . I don't know what the hell he was doing at that point, but I left. I felt once again as if I were being told without words that my presence wasn't welcome.

I should have just been cool, knowing this particular place and time wasn't for me, but I couldn't help being a little pissed, and I woke this morning to a much lighter version of the same feeling. I'm sure I shouldn't be pissed, but if you aren't welcome somewhere, the people that are welcome should at least try to find a nice way to tell you, especially when they are your friends.

Now I'm drinking coffee and am going to roll a cigarette and stand out in the cold and fume. I think there's supposed to be brunch, and maybe lots of people will show for that. If it's mostly just Momma and her boyfriend I might bale and do something else. There isn't really anything else to do on a Sunday early in the afternoon, but . . .

run for the hills

The day approaches ever more quickly, the day I've warned you about in this very blog, the day when the gays marry legally and the nazi tyranosaurs with laser eye and the killing everyone and total annihilation and stuff.

The following video, and a tip of the hat to Good As You, will help us defeat us pesky gays and our marriage craving ways.

Okay, I don't plan on marrying anyone any time soon, for what it's worth. I've got bigger cats to fry and fish to skin, but the video is great, worth a couple minutes and a couple laughs.

special stomach slices

First let me say that, in my opinion, bacon is special. I've heard the idea that everything is better with bacon, and I have to say that I disagree. At work last night the GM mentioned the idea of bacon powder, a substance introduced through the new magic of molecular gastronomy.

I have no real or major issues with molecular gastronomy though I do believe that the nature of food and eating isn't going to drastically change because a few wild and crazy chefs love to play with their food. I can appreciate the peaks they attempt, the zany ideas they bring to life, and I can especially appreciate the truly good ideas (sou vide) that actually add to the whole of our range of cooking repertoire.

But bacon is special. Bacon should be left alone or will suffer, as will we all, from an over saturation of the market, in this case our palate and stomach. If everything has bacon in or on it, and if everything tastes like bacon, then eventually bacon is not special, is not the treat it currently is.

Bacon cheeseburger? Hell yes please! BLT? Fuck yeah and a half! Bacon mat? Oh sweet baby Jesus on a trampoline I can only imagine!

Really I think my feeling is this, that if you want bacon, you should cook some up and find a way to add it reasonably to your food. Not all salads are better with bacon bits. Not all soups need a sprinkle of rough chopped bacon floating on the top.

Bacon is special. Let's not over extend our dear friend bacon in the short term and ruin it like yesterday's hypercolor shirts. Anything can become a trend, but once everyone is wearing the same thing it's not different anymore. Once everything tastes like bacon then bacon becomes bleah.

And really? what beats a hot and chewy slice of bacon, fresh from the paper towel covered plate, not all the grease having drained off?

crate walk

Have I mentioned the crate walk? If so then feel free to completely disregard this post, and if you want to avoid hearing me bitch, then by all means scoot away. Keep in mind it's a relatively minor bitch, and at least is not about feelings of woe and dark thoughts.

You'll remember the weeks of rain I bitched about recently, and just so you know, the tiny window of nice weather is gone yet again. We are back in the grip of seemingly constant rain. I'm mostly tired of it, but being the gloomy puss that I am, I can't say it effects me quite as much as it could.

Beneath our little house is a little basement. It's not in any way attached to the house really so much as it's a hole over which the house was built. If I could stand upright in this hole then it would be concrete and cinder block to about the level of my chest, and today, a crate walk day, I can stand even less upright.

Rain in abundance and the basement too often combine in some minor flooding issues. I keep thinking I'll clean the basement on a dry day, but like so many things, once the problem is out of sight it is as quickly out of mind.

In the corner of the basement farthest from the door is pump sunk into a hole in the floor. The pump works, but because the basement is so dirty and because so much dirt washes in on those rainy days it sometimes needs to be jiggled a little.

And here we get to the crate walk. I have two old milk crates sitting in the basement, both turned upside down. To keep my dainty tootsies out of the water, I step from the basement stairs onto the first crate and then put my front foot onto the next crate. Depending on what's managed to float into my path to the pump I can move in one of two ways. Either I can slide the crates, first one, then catch up with the other, or I can stand on one, lift and move the other forward then step to it. In this way I can reach the pump to give it its jiggle and start its work removing the water from the basement.

In no (or quite some) time at all, the basement will be free of water. Soon enough I'll be able to go back in with my box of matches and a list of curse words. The matches are to light the water heater pilot, and the curse words are for all the times it doesn't work and the match goes out.

And did I tell you that I think the heater may have gone out? That's a new one on me, and I'm not sure how it would have. Its pilot is at least a couple of feet above the average water line.

Now I'm off to fix a cup of coffee and check on the pump's progress. I was hoping for a shower today. Also, the sky is a nasty white/gray, and the wind is whipping our plastic chairs into a fury. Today is a good day for downed branches and creepy wind in the window noises. I have to admit thought that considering how bad some have it, my crate walk and delayed shower are absolutely nothing. I hope your weather is good and your loved ones are safe.

forward

As I may have mentioned, Sunday night was the employee Christmas party for the place I work. Enough fun was had by everyone that I saw. My own night was a little odd, all things considered, but quite fun nonetheless.

Momma needed the car as she had derby practice, so about halfway through my evening I got the call from her that she was on her way. I got to take her and the boys home and then head back out for a tiny bit more fun.

Much of my night was a tiny bit of bar hopping. From the place I work, as the party shut down, I went with a couple friends/coworkers to another bar. They were heading from there back downtown to a burlesque show as I was getting the car and leaving Momma and the boys at home. I met back up with them downtown only to find they were going back to the bar we'd gone to earlier.

So, back to the bar where I hung out with not only the friends/coworkers, but I also ran into even more friends, one of whom I'll quite likely be seeing a bit more of. Turns out she has recently been dumped and kicked out of her house. She's staying with yet another mutual friend but needs a new place to live.

So, if all goes well, I will soon have a new roommate, but first we need to find a place to live. Well, as these things sometimes go, yet another friend is living in a half empty house. She rents the top floor of a large-ish, older house, the bottom floor having been recently vacated. She hopes someone without kids or someone with cool kids like me moves in. And since we are good friends, she's hoping it's me.

First, this whole situation is almost too good to be true, and second, nothing is even close to worked out as of yet. To add to the too good to be true element is the part of town in which the house is located. It's within easy walking distance to some cool new things happening. It's also within just as easy walking distance to a gay bar and a sweet little down home, local flavor kind of bar. It's also mere minutes drive from my and Momma's job as well as being as few minutes by bus, and this only means it's that close to all the places I usually hang out.

This situation would be an extremely awesome beginning to the new year, and in keeping with my goal of being in a new home by the end of the month would go that much farther to making me feel like an awesome and happy person. The potential roommate and house mate are both awesome people with whom I'd be more than happy to share space.

So, vibes, well wishes, crossed extremities, prayers, whatever the fuck you've got would be in order, unless of course you want my to fail, in which case do whatever you feel causes that.

sore hips

Yesterday was quite a day. I started by sleeping later than I meant to even though Big Brother actually woke me up at what would have been a perfectly reasonable time to wake up.

I did eventually wake up enough to actually get up, and I began the day with some lovely laziness. After the boys ate enough, and after I'd eaten a little, we finally got ourselves dressed and motivated ourselves out of the house.

As of yesterday, the ice skating on the square is over until the end of this year and the return of the holiday season. Our day continued there, on the square, enjoying the ice rink one last time.

That's when I got my first sore hip. I can feel the pain inside the joint, and though I don't know exactly how it happened, it was the skating. I'm not in great shape really, and I didn't do any stretching other than that required to bend over and cram my feet into skates.

It was fun, as always, and The Boy is absolutely adorable shuffling around on the ice. Big Brother is a decent skater, and thankfully, this time, he didn't let his new found ability on the ice make him over confident. He didn't go crazy and try to do all the cool things he saw more capable skaters doing.

We got to watch the ice resurfacing, and we got to skate on the freshly less scarred ice. Soon enough it was time to go and pick up Momma from work. She and the boys then turned arouond and dropped me back off at the square for the christmas party my job threw for the employees. One of the managers talked nice to the ice rink people, and they were nice enough to let us skate for a bit, so for the second time, I was back on the ice.

Sore hip number two happened, I'm certain, during a fall. I only fell twice, both times coming out of turns. I overestimated my ability and paid the price. This soreness is on the outside in the form of a lovely if nearly invisible bruise. It doesn't hurt any less because of its near invisibility.

And that's the story of my two sore hips. There was much more to the evening. There was the part when I realized again why I love this town. It really is a great size, and I love when I see that two different groups of friends actually know each other already proving that it really is one big group of friends.

not feeling resolute

New years, a time when many people discuss resolutions. It's the beginning of a brand new year, so what better time to make a decision to change your life for the better?

The problem is that it so seldom happens. We start with a grand idea, perhaps we decide to quite smoking, not one I'm personally going with just yet, or perhaps we decide we need to lose X number of pounds. All too often, our grand ideas of change amount to little as we find ourselves back on the roller coaster or back to the humdrum, however we see our daily life.

One of my favorite newish to me blogs is Line Cook, and I found him through a button that suddenly disappeared from my Google reader page, the discover button. I could click on discover and Google would give me a list of blogs that were somehow related to the feeds already in reader.

There are a few cooking related blogs in my reader, and from my first read at Line Cook I liked his writing, enjoyed reading about his view of this business we are both in. He works at a higher end place than I, but it's still the same business, and it's nice to know that our comrades deal with similar issues.

He's posted something of a new year's resolution post, but unlike so many straightforward resolutions, unlike those big life changing decisions that we never can get a handle on, his ideas are completely doable. It seems to me less a huge change in direction and more a slight change in outlook.

As he states, there is a fair amount of self doubt in the field of cooking that can lead us astray, cause us to forget what we're doing, cause us to lose confidence in our ability, and that lack of confidence can be as slight as to cause us to stumble or so great that it paralyzes us.

His resolution rings true for me not just in the kitchen but in my daily life. For all the change I've forced and faced the last year, there has been a constant thorn in my side, something I've carried with me for years, and his attitude is one I need to adopt. I need to:

stop listening to the static and bullshit and let ourselves feel confident . . . let's take risks . . . ignore the voices in your head. Let yourself feel confident . . . Let yourself move forward in 2009--no excuses and no holding (yourself) back.

I'll add for myself, stop making excuses for why X didn't work or why I let Y depress me and stop me in my tracks. I won't pretend that I'm going to go out and be different tomorrow. I'm not saying that I'll actually do better every single day. I just want to keep this attitude in mind, to start acting in such a way that makes confidence and moving foward such a habit that I'm eventually doing so because I am confident and because I do move forward. I've got a lot to learn and a lot of steps to take just to begin this journey, but I have to start.

first o' year bs

I worked nonstop from the moment I arrived at work last night, clocking in one minute after four in the afternoon. We weren't yet busy, but as the night progressed the square filled up with people and so did the place I work.

We had reservations lined up all night and were seating till eleven thirty, though we ended up taking our last table before that. I did a little prep at the beginning of the night but soon ended up back in the dish pit. I wasn't at all concerned with this, as per usual, though I am going to work my way out of there soon.

I have a tiny bit of an almost burn on my left thumb from holding dirty sautee pans to scrub them out. One of our hot line cooks is really good at scorching them making my job especially fun. Most nights I have a few minutes to let them soak, but last night they didn't even sit in the soak sink long enough to cool off. If anything the steady rotation of still hot pans seemed to keep the soak water hot.

There's a bruise on my leg from running into the walk in door or having it opened into me. I'm not really sure which. I think I was fortunate in not wounding myself any more than that.

In time for the last countdown of the year I walked outside and smoked a cigarette, not the least interested in anything happening on the square, wanting to get back inside to my dishes and hopefully getting the hell out of there early. As it turned out I had another hour and a half of srubbing and spraying and shoving things into and out of the dish machine.

There were a couple of beers, some Bakers bourbon that ended up in my nose from laughing just as I took a shot combined with the fact that I really don't like whiskey for the most part. There was some actual champagne, better than what most of the actual revelers got to drink.

A beer later I walked a few doors down to the pub and had another beer was accosted by a girl, a pretty girl, but a girl nonetheless. Some of her hair caught in one of my earrings, and she was grossed out when I twisted my ear lobe to prove that I was fine. Her hair had actually stuck in my earring and had been pulled out, so my concern was her hair. I couldn't convince her that my ears were in fact fine.

I ran into a friend there and ended up back at the hotel room he'd gotten for the night, a nice late night walk through town. I woke this morning having had too little sleep and came home. I sat here a very few minutes before getting a text from Momma to go pick up the boys, and it was there that I realized I'd not even changed out of my work clothes. Even my filthy boots were still on, and those are generally the first thing I get rid of work related.

Now I'm home, have the last of a cup of coffee and am clean. The house is still a mess from Christmas stuff. Someone needs to cook supper, or we need to decide somewhere cheap to eat, and it needs to happen soon. Since noon yesterday I've eaten very little.

I'm fucking hungry, and Momma and I are both off today. I'm done with this pointless post. Hell of a way to start the year, by boring both my readers, but it's how I roll.

I hope this one is better than the last, because the last one, while it didn't suck the whole way through, just seemed more suck than not. Let's see where this new one will take us. Hope yours is happy.

end o' year bs

So once more we come to the end of a year. What does it really mean, this forcing of time constraints that we allow ourselves? It really does seem a lot of bullshit, but as humans we seem to like to be able to note beginnings and ends.

What have we seen and done this year? Some bloggers like to look back at their old posts and remember, perhaps by month, what the past year looked like based on what they wrote. Some people like to use news stories to remind us of where we've been and what we've seen.

I'm just going to take a couple of minutes and try to remember. I have a bit of coffee left, and I really need to take a shower. I have to be at work in about an hour and a half. I have no idea what comes after that, hopefully me on the torso of a hot young man.

But seriously folks, let's try to remember. Last new year's eve saw me and Momma and the boys sitting at home, sampling a bit of sparkling wine, watching television, waiting for the ball or the apple or the peach or whatever to drop.

Soon into the year it became painfully obvious that I needed to find work. I was still announcing for the roller girls. I wanted desperately to find a man, and I did find a couple, but nothing lasted there beyond a couple of hours.

I found a job at the sushi bar days before Momma was fired, and I didn't return for more than a check after that, three days pay was nice to have. Shortly thereafter I took a job for three weeks cooking at my default bar. The hours were shit and the pay was equally shit, so when Momma talked to the boss at the gpub where she is still employed I jumped at the chance.

Nothing of note happened for some time until at a friend's girlfriend's party late in the summer I met a nice young man, much younger than I, but really that's neither here nor there. We seemingly couldn't get enough of each other, and within a week he asked if we could be boyfriends.

I jumped at that as we seemed such a great fit. I'd never had a boyfriend before, and the next couple of months were full of wonderfulness and weirdness. My kids thought he was great, and he was willing to hang out and enjoy my kid's company. He still has a Paper Mario game saved that he will never finish. Then suddenly, while I was still a great boyfriend and a great guy, he was just not into me, and that quick it was over.

In the meantime, Momma met a guy, another friend of a friend, and they seem to have hit it off. I have mixed feelings about the guy, but he's not my boyfriend, and my only real concern is Momma and what is best for her.

In the middle of all of the above I lost my job at the gpub and spent nearly two months searching for another. I finally did find one, making slightly less than at the gpub, but I'm infinitely happier with this place. I like nearly everyone I work with. I like the food mostly, and even though I seem to seldom leave the dish room, I am happy.

And now we are at the end of the year, and I have to go to work, and then I don't know what I'll do next. I have an invitation to a party from a friend of a friend. Momma has been invited to this same party by the girlfriend of the guy who invited me. She'll be their with her boyfriend, and I'm of two minds about my own attendance. I want to do something not with Momma and her boyfriend, but at the same time I'm sure I'll know lots of people at this party, and I do love hanging out with Momma. Chances are I'll end my night near where I work, possibly with workmates, probably not with a cute young man.

And we'll ring in the new year with shouts and cheers and drinks and I'll try to kiss someone who won't want me to as they will likely not be into boys. I'll deal with it, I'll come home drunk and depressed, and I don't have to work tomorrow.

That's really all I have for now, so I'll proofread this beast of a post, and then it's off to take a dump and a shower, though not at exactly the same time. Also I still need to brush my teeth.

So, from the deepest and warmest nether regions of my stone cold heart I wish each and every one of you exactly what you deserve. I hope you all find twenty dollars on the street and send it to me. I hope you all can come to my town for a visit and bring me all your gays. I need a car and a place to live, and that's how I'll begin my new year, searching yet again.

is seven the lonliest number? meh

Suddenly I'm just not sure what to think. At this moment I'm thinking it would be nice if the boys would actually pick up some of this crap left over from our busy Christmas time. Yes, there is still some trash and lots of toys and toy parts laying around. If not a hugely extravagant Christmas, it was still a messy one, as usual.

Next on the thinking about agenda would be my new reader. In the line of brothers I am number five of seven. Number two has been a reader for some time, but I learned last week that number six is now reading, having gotten my info from number two.

Number six found himself mentioned in a recent post, probably the one in which I referred to my family's still pending Christmas celebration as a possible nest of vipers. He emailed me to explain a bit of new family history among other things. I was immensely happy to hear from and a bit disconcerted to learn that he was my newest reader. Then I grew to find myself less anxious as I replied and soon enough got a reply in return.

So it seems like another brother will be willing to discuss things in a reasonable manner. Did I mention he's read both blogs? I'm certain I haven't included anything too lurid at the other place, though that was a huge reason for having another place, but even with the other place, I find I personally am not comfortable with too much lurid.

It's good that I learned of his presence after he'd been around for a bit. I can't imagine how far back he has yet read, and he's quite welcome, of course, to read as far back as he wants. I'm just happy that I don't feel too great a need to cover my ass or to change what and how I go about blogging since he's bound to see me as glorious as I tend to get. This of course brings up the lurid blog, because if he's going there then my tales of all the sexual misadventures I'm not actually having any of may not ever see the light of day.

So, welcome to the ol' deskfull number six. It's good to have you. Feel free at any time to throw a comment this way, especially if it might add to the discussion. Also, I will be emailing you soon enough, but I have workshirts and socks in the need-to-do laundry, a measly pay check to deposit, and a headlight to purchase followed by work. I'm also hoping to get out tonight and see the band of a couple of friends as they have their our-guitar-player-is-in-town-for-three-days-let's-rock reunion show.

shelled nuts

I almost wrote a post about this being the eight hundredth post, and then I wrote some nonsense about my last post, and I couldn't remember when that was. There have been interesting incidence of things happening since late on the eve of Christmas eve, and then there's been a variety of whatnot since then.

I did end up looking and realized I'd added a couple of drafts and that I can actually just click on published posts if I really want to know. So if you care, that's why this isn't about being any sort of number representing something. Just so you know.

It's not as long and sordid a tale as it could be, but it certainly has it's moments. Christmas was fun enough. I won't mention that I got cash and some English Leather gift set sort of thing with four little bottles of cologne, most of which I never heard of and all entirely useless to me. Who wouldn't rather a man just smell like himself, preferrably a recently cleaned version?

We hung out with MIL on Christmas eve far later than we should have and then visited Momma's dad's family, showing up when most of us would have been leaving in past years, or so it felt. Momma and one aunt, then eventually the other aunt, ended up in the kitchen shrieking and laughing and being girls. I sat with the men and sort of tried to see the t.v. from where I really couldn't. I tried to be nice to everyone as usual, made what I felt were appropriate jokes at the appropriate times.

We came home and put the boys to bed. Momma and I drank beer and sat up late and wrapped Star Wars Lego and Littlest Pet Shop. We placed this year's haul of used books between the two meager piles. We drank what might have been the very best gift, Momma having brought home a bottle of Tanqueray, we had gin and tonic most of the night as we perfected the pint glass gin and tonic.

She's still my favorite person to sit up and drink perhaps a little too much with. I can't help as I think this but to consider 2009 and what it's going to be. But that's a whole other post.

Christmas day broke warm and sunny, the best we could hope for considering the rains we've had lately. I really shouldn't complain, as usually the worst some rain is going to do to me is make me do the crate walk across the basement to the pump so I can jiggle and/or stir it back to life. Then I wait to relight the water heater. I have to remember to show Momma this or get a rain soaked call sometime next year when someone's shower stopped being warm slowly.

It was my first Christmas waking on the couch, and all the coffee was shitty Eight O'Clock beans. Blech! But I soldiered on and greeted the day with at least a smirk, toning down my usual sneer. Our usual Christmas morning, the boys check out their stockings and anything not wrapped that they have reason to believe might be for them. Either Momma or I will be making coffee at this point, and as the coffee enters the room and is settled away from where it represents a danger, the boys finally look to the wrapped gifts.

We were lazy for the majority of the day. Eventually Momma decided that it was time to visit Grandmother, though we knew a set leaving time as we'd invited friends over after a certain time. Dinner at Grandmother's was fun. It was several of the people from the previous night minus one, plus four. And then it was back home.

A few friends stopped by, mostly families, the kind of people who know what BYOB means and don't care that you've obviously thrown some shit together as an offering to their kids when we realize at the last minute that they got our kids stuff. But it was cool. We drank beer. We stood outside and smoked. The kids behaved mostly, and now that her mom finally took her too cute little boots home we now have a darling child's too cute tiny pink glittery shoes when they finally turned up. Next year we'll save up all the shoes she leaves here and give that to her for Christmas.

And to make matters odder, there was a child's birhtday party at the place I work recently, the daughter of someone in the family for whom I work. After the party, as everyone was getting up to leave, I spied the birthday girl, and she wearing a pair of fuzzy pink butterfly wings, and a certain part of me saw those wings and fell in love. I kind of want my own butterfly wings.

And eventually I went to bed. I worked the next two days and was then off today. Very little happened between those two days for me. I went out for drinks one of those nights and had a very serious discussion with Momma that was not about me. There may or may not be news on that front soon enough, but that's all of that I've got for now.

finally this season's christmas song

Let's not pretend the spirit of the season ever did fully enrapture me, but I did spend a fair amount of the day on the youtubes finding Christmas music I thought the kids would like. I was playing The Nutcracker that we usually welcome the season with when one of the boys mentioned one of the songs and was remembering The Brian Setzer Orchestra's Nutcracker Suite from the Elf soundtrack.

That started the video-go-round, and eventually I settled on yet another top Christmas song to add the aforementioned (in another post) top favorite Christmas songs. The search for more wasn't hard, and I was reminded of another top favorite that I have posted about, but I don't think I've shared the other slightly funnier version. This is definitely not a list of the videos we found, but since most of you won't bother to listen to the songs anyway, I'm only adding two.



Starting with the new fave that's actually an older song we have Buck Owens singing Santa Looks A Lot Like Daddy. I love Buck.


Number next on our list is Rufus Wainwright doing his song Spotlight On Christmas. It's a good enough song by itself, but add in French and Saunders, and it's like a parade of awesome.

maybe more feeling?

This post is for Molly because I did something Christmasy with the kids, and she commented recently that I should. We had hot chocolate and popcorn and watched A Christmas Story, one of my all time favorite Christmas movies.

We are planning more holiday movie watching that will involve one of the other greatest of the genre, the almighty Elf. There will be more hot chocolate, but instead of popcorn, or maybe in addition to, there will be peppermint ice cream. Also Momma will be in attendance. Our schedules require that we plan a bit more than on the day of.

Also, while we will be visiting the part of the family that I really, really would prefer not to, we are making plans to bail early with some lame, possibly made up excuse. We might make cookies as well, though that might be pushing it a little for me. We also may attempt to invite friends over in which case there will be noise and beer and other children.

In light of her comment, I'm less sure how I should feel about this whole thing. I don't want to force myself to pretend things I don't, because I've done that for a long time. I get that making oneself smile can actually act to lighten one's mood, but this kind of goes beyond that.

In the interest of not liquefying the already beaten dead horse I'll end the post here. But I do want to make it known that, in my smallish and lame way I'm sort of trying. I'm at least trying to do what I feel is right.

Also, let me point out that my links are Christmas colors. I usually just make them all red, but in some amount of spirit of the season I've added green as well.