My Wife: Achiever of Goals

My special lady has been on a diet for a long time, and it's not been the easiest thing in the world for her. It's boring to eat nothing but healthy food all the time! Not to mention staving off hunger is a bitch.

It's all in preparation for this biometric screening that her work offers--a multi-step test that gauges blood pressure, weight, etc. The better her score, the more of a discount she gets on what her store sells.

And it's all going on today. So she's gonna come home and see this after it's all over. Hopefully it doesn't embarrass her too bad.

Img courtesy of Tim & Eric

She works on the admin team, in the position of badass, for a major grocery chain here in Seattle. You can ask her about it sometime if you want.

She's skinnier than she's ever been in her life. And not that I value anyone's skinniness over any other character trait, but she's worked really hard at it for about a month now. And before that, she's always striven to eat healthy, making kale smoothies for lunch and staying away from greasy and sugary shit.

Image courtesy of A Damn Beast

And she's not gonna publicly brag about this stuff, so I will. Megan is cool and kickass and she has an inspired haircut that's off the chain!

Great job, Megan. Shoutout to my not-common-law-wife of 14 years.

Who cares what your score is today. You score a flawless victory with me.

But the real reasons to feel good ...

... are the cheeseburgers and fries we're going to eat tomorrow night.

Image courtesy of McDonald's

Capture and Display all Your Typos

I'd type a blog entry right now but I've got kids to feed. I really want to tell you all waht's going on with me and unload these thoughts in my head, but I don't have the time. My day starts when I wake up and doesn't end till the kids go to bed. It's crazy. Sometimes it lasts till my bedtime if there's extra studying to do.

In the Spring I'll only have one class to take. It's teh lite @ the end of the tunnel.

Pictures are easier and faster to upload than explaining exerything.

              6g bh=-091`oasdghk.,b

That's what it looks like when I'm wiping my keyboard off with a wet wipe.

MLK day and my Resume

I think Dr. King would tell me that I've got to be able to take care of my own family before I can take care of anyone else, so I resolve to get my resume in order tomorrow.

Think I can find a job that Dr. King himself would be proud of me for having? That would make me feel like I'm on the right path.

I've got three professors as references, a whole wheelbarrowload of skills, all my blogs, and good journalism experience. And it's bursting at the seams with text--I can't make the margins any bigger.

Putting all this education I've got under my belt has really upped my resume highlights. For the first time there are marketable skills under my belt, not to mention a teeny tiny award for news writing, that I can not only list, but go beyond listing them in a bragging fashion, all long-winded-like, and parse them down into exact, concise, clear, bold & brief declarations of experience in all the relevant fields of the career I want to pursue WHICH IS AWESOME!

But my job experience is a little lacking, only two student papers under my belt, as well as a bevy of retail- & customer service-related jobs that ended poorly (for me). As much as I rant about how mistreated I am and special me and blah blah blah, it sucks to burn a bridge, and it's worse to burn multiple. Not that any employer of mine would say I'm a bad person, but the more you get fired, the more you gotta play a song-and-dance of explaining yourself instead of proceeding smoothly into sweet quadruple figures per year of $$$-making yo (self-fulfillment shmelf-shmulshmillshment).

Late last night I was looking at Craigslist's jobs postings in the pr/marketing and writing/editing jobs, and straight away I came to a few that I'm totally qualified for and are in the Seattle area. Then I had to tell myself in a cowboy voice, "Whoo--o-oo-o-o, now hold on now, there, little pilgrim, you still need to finalize the contact info for your references and try to geeit that fourth one in there!"

I'm suffering from what psychologists refer to as Resume Over-Confidence, which inevitably leads to a fall into conclusions.

Happy (early) Martin Luther King, Junior Day, everyone. Even if you don't have a resume of your own to work on for the purpose of feeding and comforting a family, find someone close to you who needs help, and help them!

In my pursuits of career, a joyous family, and shmelf-shmulshmillshment, I will strive to remember the sentiment expressed by our good doctor here:

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

I think he'd laugh at this

Little Sister Tribulations

I'm sitting here next to BB on the couch with a big Tonka truck filled with five rubber balls representing fruits. Lucy is playing Zelda and in her own world. Mama is at work, makin that sweet bacon like a baus.

I'd add to that definition "One who exceeds at being cool in a way that requires practiced skill."

So BB, in utter defiance of all I do around here, esp. the vacuuming I accomplished three minutes prior, just starts fucking throwing the rubber fruit out of the truck with this backassward over-the-side hand and  motion. Onto the floor it lands, bouncing and scattered. I'm just like, 'Are you seriously fucking doing this right now, right in front of my face?'

But I said nothing. Keeping my cool, I just watched her throw them, planning my calm and self-affirming retribution.

What she wanted was the truck by itself to push around on the floor. So naturally, she had to have it emptied. Accomplishing that, she started sort of grabbing the side of the truck and going, "Eeh, eeh!" The general, "This is not right and you fix it for me," sound. So I put the truck on the floor for her.

She gets down off the couch and starts to push the truck away and out of my eyesight as I start asking her how that fruit is going to come off the floor. I had to raise my voice a click to get her to pick up the fruit. And when she did pick up all the fruit, I still told her, "Good job," and acted all excited and enthusiastic that she cleaned up this stupid shit on the floor that she shouldn't have thrown on there in the first place, but high-five her I did.

I start writing this blog about it directly afterward, and I look over at her and this is happening:

Dads Who Don't Change Diapers

1. Should Start Immediately 

2. Are Ass

If you're a dad and you don't change poopy diapers, you're a piece of shit. Your woman carried that motherfucker and shoved it out her vagina and now you won't even help to change a poopy diaper? Get over yourself. Grow the fuck up for two seconds and act like and adult and SLEEP IN THE BED YOU MADE FUCKWIT.

Why does the woman deserve this responsibility? Why does she deserve to never get a break from this shit? I don't care if the dad does work and provide for the family--he's still gotta change a motherfucking diaper. Did he not understand that kids don't go in the toilet immediately after they're born? Maybe he wouldn't have had a kid.

Oh wait, yes he would have, because he has no regard for human life other than his own and his cock will shoot sperm into whatever accepts it and is legal to shoot it into.

Reading this pretty funny list of top 25 mommy confessions, I get to:

20. Three kids and my husband has never changed a poopy diaper. He says he hates the smell -- like I like it?! I'm going to shove the next one in his pillow.

And I can't even finish the rest. I'm flabbergasted. Her husband is a waste of space. Now I'm even more sure that I'm an awesome dad.

Why do people marry such assholes?

Look at me, I'm totally awesome, look at how much I love my kids:

I'm Alive / Lonely Cats on Christmas

Okay, I've been studenting, dadding, and in my free time gaming and/or tv watching, which has taken a lot of time away from blogging.

I'm not dead. There will be more updates in teh future.

Resident Evil VI: Mercenaries mode is awesome.

My family has been taking care of a cat that comes by every day. She's taken to sleeping in bed next to me every night, but this morning she really pissed me off--clawing at me and biting my hand for petting her head--that I didn't let her in all day and I won't let her in the room tonight. But she can stay inside.

She's crazy. Her meows are dreadful, like a freaking alley cat. My kids are scared of her, but she is tame enough and doesn't scratch them. Much. They like her and want to play with her, but she's scared of them, too. They keep trying to touch her tail and walk up behind her.

Smokey wants to be part of the family, and she's putting forth some effort to calm down around us and not tear the shit out of our couches or claw us. But sometimes it's not enough. She's got too much street in her to be that domesticated. And her claws need to go and she needs a bath. I wish I knew if she really did have owners.

Christmas break is really nice. I've been enjoying the extra time with my family a great deal. It's so nice to be able to hang around with them every evening, especially Megan, who I don't see much while school's in session.

Christmas holiday has indeed been satisfying, as it always seems to be. I'm glad I stuck with a woman who likes to get into the Christmas spirit, cause I'm terrible at that and Megan's awesome at it. Picks the right music and makes cookies and treats and badass gravy. Mm.

Christmas Eve we hosted friends over at our house for a dinner party. Got to use our kitchen table with the leaf in the middle for the first time.

This morning, opening presents was more of a chore at times than fun, but for the most part it was a good time. My kids are not used to Christmas, and unwrapping presents. They did not understand why we kept trying to get them to open more. Also the lack of normal daily routine threw them off. I'm sure tomorrow they'll appreciate a return to normalcy. Frankly, so will I, but a small part of me will miss that microcosm of the Christmas time of year.

Ian says he's getting me something very metal, which naturally makes me drool. I cannot wait to see what it is. I'll find out on Friday.

Having kids sure makes Christmas different, huh? A whole bunch of extra shit to consider, with teaching moments to grasp onto and lessons to impart hastily, impatiently, and caffeinatedly.

Well, now I'm in bed and finishing this up, and Smokey is purring next to me on the bed, so I guess she can stay. She let herself in all sneaky like when I was getting my jammies on, and jumped right up onto the bed.

I suppose no cat should be alone on Christmas night.

Here are some pics from earlier this month. I'll get Christmas pics up soon.

Quit Another Band

Area man burns bridge, looks to new horizons

So I joined and quit a band during Fall quarter this year, which is in finals week now at UW.

And in true Phil Collins fashion, I quit by text. It was a surprise to both the other guys that I had band problems at all, so it was a bit of a bomb I dropped on them. I feel bad about that.

Still, I don't think it was worth even a conversation. If you want to ask me why I quit, go ahead and email me or leave a comment or something. But no one outside the band is going to give two shits anyway. We were just starting out, trying to find a sound and a dynamic that would allow us to click together. It wasn't exactly happening for me.

We landed a show, through one friend who knew another, which was awesome--but we weren't prepared for it. We rushed to build and finalize a four-song set list. It felt good to get that together, and to go onstaget and play under the lights, and in front of the other bands and their girlfriends. It was good, yeah.

We all decided afterward that the songs were shitty, so we ditched them and began working on new material. But we could only practice once per week! And sometimes one of us would have something going on and have to cancel. So there was almost no hope of getting anything solid done any time soon.

Plus I had my stupid bullshit problems, so I had to quit. And I feel that I was significantly slighted by one guy in the band because he wasted my time. Now, not to say that my time is super-duper-extra-valuable, but when I leave the house, that means I leave my kids with someone--in this case, my partner whom I have to have on my good side, which means not leaving the kids with her all the time.

So when I packed all my gear up and left the house to drive to practice and received no answer to my door knocks, texts, and calls, since I had arranged my sleep the night and morning beforehand to prepare for practice, since Megan and I got into a kind of half-argument about me wanting to have an additional practice this week, and since I sat there on this guy's porch in the cold for a half hour while he slept, I got kinda pissed.

Then I started remembering how all of my song ideas that I had brought to practice beforehand were shot down; how our songwriting was limited and directionless; how practices were only once/wk; how I wasn't that crazy about our nice-but-sleepy bandmate's musicianship or songwriting ability; how there were no opportunities in Jungfrau for me to stretch my bass playing and dazzle the audience with anything remotely heavy or "busy"--by the guy who couldn't wake up to let me in, who could have texted me any time the night before or in the morning to tell me not to interrupt my day with band practice.

And it made me wonder whether any of my efforts to contribute to this band were worth it, because if this was the kind of behavior I could expect, then I was not going to stick around. Now if the music had been awesome, it would have been another story.

So quitting over text seemed sufficient.

Now I am free, at school, in a library, where the atmosphere is quiet and collegial. Ahh, a breath of fresh air every time. I have to work on this final paper for Race and the Law class, taught by Dr. Heather Pool. It needs to address how the SCOTUS case I chose, Bakke, upholds or ...downholds The Racial Contract, a book by Charles Mills.

Trust me, Mills's book is good enough to write a million papers on. It is an effective series of arguments that leaves no stone unturned as to the nature of white supremacy. He even lumps the very concept of racism into his overarching argument, broad and sufficiently frightening.

So I have enough to think about to distract me from the slightly nagging guilt of dropping a bomb on two completely nice guys.

But before I came to school today, to get out ALL THE GUITAR PLAYING DEMONS RAGING INSIDE ME, I plugged in my guitar for the first time in at least two months. As you recall, I had been playing bass in Jungfrau, leaving my guitar to wait by the wayside, just hanging out down there in the basement in its grey, fur-lined case, just chillin.

fuckin plugged that bitch in today and let her rip. Played some old stuff, played some new stuff, and regained my overall musical focus--I need to be in a metal band, where I write the songs. Not too much to ask, right?

..you'd be surprised in Seattle how hard that is to pull off....

Got any recommendations for what my ad in various musicians personals ads should say?

G&L made Thanksgiving awesome

As soon as this stops happening, I can write my blog.

You know, Beatrix here just said 'tongue' for the first time, sitting with me and looking at ourselves in the computer.

BB turned one and a half years old last Friday. Happy half birthday, little climber.

She's out of the baby phase. Never sits still, but cute as a wittw button. Climbing up on everything she can, laughing, talking, taking it all in.

She and Lucy are, the vast majority of the time, very well-behaved, something I don't express too much on this blog. No time like the present?

Over Thanksgiving, the four of us spent two nights at my aunt Laurie and uncle Guy's house. The rest of the idiot kids, Ian, Savannah, and Jared, made themselves somewhat present. But Guy and Laurie stuck around and were really accommodating to us.

My kids behaved perfectly the entire time. They were so excited to be at G&L's huge house. They got a big kick out of the smooth, wooden spiral staircase, and all the rooms to go into and explore, upstairs and down. Lots of room to wander.

Lucy did get a little homesick there, during bedtime the first night. I remembered feeling like that as a kid. The rest of the time they were totally comfortable. Lucy had been looking forward to going there for two weeks beforehand--talked about it every day.

"Dad! In a few weeks, we're gon' go to Fanksgiving!"

"That's right Lucy, we are!"

"Yeah, at Guy and Lourie's house."

Lucy and BB are old enough now that I could actually sit back and let them run free, which is so unbelievably awesome. G&L played babysitter when necessary. Jared hung out with Lucy in his room for like, an hour. It was crazy. He was ready to dump her off on us when I went up to check on them, though. I even got a little homework done.

Ian brought some dumbass friend who talked too much, and didn't attempt to bond with his nieces at all. Great job.

Point is, Lucy is getting old enough to make lasting relationships and bond with her older family members. Totally heartwarming and all that. Aunt Lourie had lots of toys out for Lucy--Polly Pockets, mainly. Those PP toys are a big attraction for her, as well as this VHS tape of these twins calling themselves Gemini, from Ann Arbor. It's a live taping of one of their shows, with a bunch of kids and old ppl in the audience. They sing a song about Zingerman's. But more importantly, the one where they go, "Just one more." Lucy felt right at home up there.

Beatrix had lots of fun walking in circles in the kitchen and living room, around the table and the couches, laughing at Linden, the elderly golden retriever.

So we left for Bellingham Thursday around 1:30. From the time we arrived until yesterday (Sat) morning, Megan and I did little else than sit around, watch tv, drink wine, talk with everyone, and eat a bunch of awesome food.

Guy and Lourie loved seeing the little ones, too. It was totally apparent, they both spent time playing with both of my kids. Lourie made sure both kids were happy. She even started us on what I hope will be a tradition of making hand turkeys, by tracing their hands on construction paper and cutting out the outlines.

Little vacations like that work wonders for us parents. Wish I had more family around to take on my kids more often!

Fleshing Out My Assignments

It's hard to concentrate at school when there are females flipping their hair around all the time and playing with it when I'm trying to do boring homework! How am I supposed to keep my eyes on my boring old readings?

I'm here in Suzzallo Undergraduate Library at the University of Washington. Got Jimmy John's delivered to me, as is my usual food of choice around here. Beach club, #12.

I have to start doing a literature review for the final project in my "Effects of Mass Communication" class. The assignment--to put together a sociological research proposal, looking at media effects in some way. Keep in mind, no actual research will take place--we're just supposed to write the proposal. It's a lot of work.

The question I choose to address is this: How do minorities, African-Americans and Hispanics specifically, in the U.S., react to stereotypical depictions of members of their race in television and movies?

We need to use something like eight other published works which are in line with the topic we're choosing. Research methodologies must be nailed down--I'm thinking of a triangulated approach, using field and panel study methods, possibly with a survey thrown in.

(writing this is helping me think about what I'm gonna write on the final product)

Now, all aspects of what I will ask people, what I will have them, watch, and basically all that will happen during the interviews, I have to fill in. For the field study part, I'm thinking--get in the household with minority families while the tv is on. Get some real reactions, in the moment. For the panel studies, I'll want, as far as my thinking is going right now, three groups of people--one of African-Americans, one of Hispanics, and one of whites--and have them watch something, and then comment on it. Maybe give them questionnaires or just ask them all. Also record their reactions while viewing. Maybe save questionnaires for a survey? What am I gonna ask on the survey?

Obviously I've got a lot to think about. And this is just one class! I'm taking three. However, I've got about three weeks to get it done, which is enough time. I've got a presentation about public relations in Egypt to do in my PR class, and a research paper about a SCOTUS case and how it enforces Charles Mills' racial contract.

Yes!

Stills