Son of a...

What the hell, people. I broke my blog somehow. I'm not sure. I mean, I usually know when I break something. Like, if I'm trying to work on it or fix it, I usually hear a snap and a tinkle as some piece falls irretrievably to the bottom of whatever I'm tinkering with. That usually involves me saying bad words and hitting something. Which is a perfect segue into the second way I know I've broken something, when I smash it out of anger and lots of little pieces fly everywhere and/or there's a dent in the wall. And then there's the third type of "I've broken something" that happens at work, and usually that involves a lot of gas being generated, possibly a gout of yellow liquid spraying everywhere, and me whistling innocently as I casually, yet in a hurried fashion, make for the exit to "go to lunch".

But, my blog, she's a broken, and I don't know to fix her.

I noticed yesterday that things weren't loading quite right on my work computer, but when I got home, everything on my home computer was fine. Now, even at home, things are eff to the you to the sea to the kay fucked.

I mean, I could go and find the layout--again--and then reinstall everything, and then I'd have to go around and find all the wonderful blogs I read and put those back in here and...fuck. That's a lot of shit. And, inevitably, I'd forget someone, and then they'd be all pissy and smearing my name in YOUR comments section, and I just can't have that. The only person who gets to smear my name is ME.

Plus, I've got a lot of writing to avoid--I mean, to do. Yes, a lot of writing to do. *shifty-eyed*

Anyway, did you guys hear that it's been cold? I've heard that some places got down to -50 something wind chills. That's enough to make your nipples stand up. Here in North By God Carolina, it's been pretty chilly, too. In fact, it came to the point where I had to bust out my coat that I wore when I was still at Notre Dame. I don't usually get that out unless it's 25 degrees or colder. I learned my lesson the first year I was married and we came down to Charlotte to visit her parents around Christmas time, and I about died of heat exhaustion wearing my heavy coat. Sweating outside in January is something you should only do if you're playing football, and while South Park Mall is a battle zone sometimes, it's not exactly the grid iron.

But, I don't mind the cold. Once I've acclimated, I'm okay with it. What, it's chilly? Oh darn, I guess I'll have to brew some coffee and lay around under my favorite afghans while watching Dirty Jobs. What a terrible fate. Oh, do cry for me, Argentina. In short, I'm a fan of the cold.

You know who's not a fan of the cold? My toes. This is rather unfortunate because my toes, apparently, take the brunt of the cold air. Seriously, my right foot has felt cold for about six weeks straight. Sure, some of that might be do to my, ahem, avoirdupois causing some poor circulation, but I think the bigger part is that I've worn my socks down to what can, at best, be described as "threadbare".

So, I've had to take desperate measures. That's right, I'm doubling up my socks, folks. Now, instead of the standard one pair, I'm soiling two pairs a day. And still, I'm feeling a bit chilly down in the wine cellar of my soul. I've even got on my slippers--ah, wait, I'm sorry. My house shoes. I am in the South, after all.

Still, while I'm looking at this weekend's forecast and thinking "highs in the 50s? Fuck a duck", I've got ten little piddies who are practically jumping for joy. Oh look, right now, they're dancing! Oh, how happy they must be for warmer temperatures.

It's either that, or they've been exposed to some kind of neurotoxin in the lab.

I'm a Hard-Working, Yard-Working Man

So, one thing that I don't like about living in the South is that you have to mow in November. I know this because I've done it for the past six years. One year, when I had a particularly aggressive patch of thistles (ironic) and crab grass, I mowed on the first week of December.

Now, I understand that this is not Florida or Southern Texas or Southern California where you have to mow pretty much year-round (I imagine). This is North By God Carolina, but I'm still not used to it. In northeastern Indiana, it was time to put the mowers away in the middle of September. Sometimes, if Indian Summer falls just right, you might have to mow in October, but after that, you're sitting pretty until April.

Not so here. And while I don't mind mowing--especially if my wife is home to make sure the agents of entropy children don't kill each other--there's just something unright about mowing in November, at least in my mind. Shouldn't there be a law forbidding you from sweating and being cold at the same time? Usually, I come in from mowing and take a shower to feel cool and refreshed, not to warm up and refresh.

And that's the other thing I don't understand: it was a perfectly lovely day yesterday, warm and sunny with nary a cloud mottling the perfect blue dome of the heavens above. Yet, whenever I was in the shade and shadows of the many trees lining my yard, I felt cold. Not shivering cold, but cool nonetheless. And, I was sweating like the proverbial pig, or whore in church, whichever way you want to go with that. When I came in and shucked my pants and boxers, my ass cheeks were ice cold. They were more like ice cheeks. More ice, less ass. We won't even talk about how badly I was turtled.

My only beef with mowing--aside from the fact that it is suspiciously like real work--is that this is a time when I should be communing with my yard and the vast world around me. While I'm locked in the silence within my head, I should be able to ponder the world at large, or--better yet--do a little soul searching. However, this is not the case. Instead of some life-altering and self-improving ompahloskepsis, I think about work. Like, my job work. Like, the job that I'm trying to escape by being home and relaxing on the weekends work.

For instance, yesterday I thought about how I need to register and submit compounds 007 and 009 (yes, the former does have a license to kill...Trypanosomes!). I also thought about how I need to spot the 150 tubes in my hood and then take the cleaned-up compound on to the ring-closure this afternoon, if possible. And from there, I planned out the rest of the week depending on how much material I get out of the ring closure.

Argh! This is not something one should be thinking about for two hours on a Sunday afternoon in early November! Fortunately, while doing the yard on the western side of the house, I was able to put together the scene I'm envisioning for the next chapter in the book I'm currently working on, so when I finally finish up the second chapter tonight, I can get to working on this next one and fill out this scene that I've imagined.

In case you couldn't tell, I didn't really write much last night. Instead, I bitched about the Packers losing on the heels of Notre Dame being whupped on by Navy and how that tore at my poor, despondent heart. And then I put some new things up on the sidebars of the blog! Hooray!

It occurred to me that someone might want to go back and look at all of the Friday Morning Latin lessons. That someone might be me when I'm trying to reference an older lesson, for instance Aut futue, aut pugnemus!, so I thought I'd make it easier on myself and anyone else by just making a link that you can click on and access them at your leisure. Then, I thought the same about Totally Blowing Shit Up Tuesdays. And finally, I thought the same thing about all my TMI stories, so I collected those, put them together, and then added in the five-part story about my stay in the hospital when I got my gall bladder removed back in 2006. For, you know, posterity's sake. And while I probably should have used Lilu's button for the picture linking to all my TMI goodliness, I opted for the Hobbes picture, you know, the class the joint up some. Plus, mooooog used it last week, and I thought it was pretty fucking awesome.

Those are all located over on the far right, beneath the Followers button, because, really, if it wasn't for the 140-plus friends I've accrued over the past couple of years, none of these stories would have made it to electronic print. Think of it was a way of giving back to you.

Now, get off my lawn. I just mowed it and I need to look nice until the end of March.

I'm So Cold...I'm Shivering...

Every year, I become increasingly aware of how soft I've become.

It used to be that, come fall and winter, I was hearty. It was my time to shine. Cold? Pfah! Not until your eyebrows have frozen! I'm one of those idiots who would be in Green Bay, shirtless, with something painted on my chest rooting on my Packers. Or, at least, I used to be one of those idiots.

Something has happened over the last seven years. I've lost that constant internal fire that kept me warm (trust me, the insulating layer of blubber is still there, probably moreso now than when I was living in the midwest). My Calcifer has gone out. Someone call Sophie!

I took my kids to their fall carnival this morning. It was probably somewhere in the mid-fifties when we arrived. There was a pretty stiff wind coming straight out of the north...but still. It wasn't like I was left upon the wild, windswept plains of Siberia. No, I was still in North By God Carolina, but I felt the cold. I felt every biting, snarling, wind-whipped attack on my body from it. I wasn't even underdressed! I was wearing a long-sleeve t-shirt and a wind-breaker. This would be standard attire well into December for me back when I lived in Indiana. Now? I wanted to curl up and cry like a little girl.

No offense to the little girls out there.

Being the rather parsimonious penny-pincher that I am, I was refusing to turn the heat on until November. Bold, but I do live in the South now, a place where people from the north go to escape the winter chill. However, the other day I came home and my wife was wearing a coat indoors and, I'm not certain, but I think I could see my breath misting out as I exhaled. I dozed off on the couch later and awoke with my elbow--of all things--chilled and numb.

Grumbling curses to anyone who would listen, I got up, turned on the heat, and immediately felt better. Well, maybe not immediately. There was that prolonged stink of dust burning on heating coils that filled the house. After that faded, then I felt warm.

I'm not about to bitch, though. Despite the fact that I've softened up in the face of Old Man Winter's icy breath, I still prefer that to the hot and steamy summers. I can at least dress for winter. I can only take so much off for the summer before they arrest me or try to roll my beached ass back into the ocean.

As for the carnival, it was fun. The kids had a good time, and that's what matters. Although, we waited forever to get onto the bungie run--you know, that thing where you strap yourself into a harness and run as fast as you can down an inflatible aisle with a bungie chord attached to your back? Well, we waited because there was no one to supervise the "ride", and so people were letting their kids take fifteen, twenty minutes a turn. Finally--and predictably--just as Tank was climbing into the thing, someone showed up to supervise. "You get three turns," she trilled.

This lasted about 30 seconds.

The next ride over was an inflatible obstacle course. No one was watching that one. So, we went there. I paid my four tickets and let him run through it five times. It was like vigilante justice. I was kind of like Batman on the playground--except, you know, without the multi-millionaire playboy alter-ego, millions of dollars worth of awesome gadgets, kickass car, cape, cowl, miles of caves beneath my sprawling and stately manner and lantern-like jawline. So, really, I was nothing like Batman.

Because I'm pretty sure Batman never gets cold.

TMI Thursday: Me and Mr. Wodka Don't Hang around Where We're Not Wanted

Let's head back in time to that magical era I called my sophomore year of college. It was early spring of 1996, and for some reason, I had not been involved in the theatre production that had just wrapped up. I think it had something to do with my work schedule.

Despite having missed the show, I was invited to one of the cast parties because I was a regular. Being that I felt like throwing caution to the wind and actually having a little fun, I decided to head on down to the party. Accompanying me was the other two legs of my Unholy Triangle, Scooter and Young Bob. You might remember them from the infamous "White Chair Incident". And Young Bob was the camera operator for Sparkle Belly. Rub my nipples.

We finally roll into the shindig there on second Justin West, and immediately I grab a beer and start drinking. What fun is college with alcohol-fueled shenanigans? Alright, alright, it can be fun without the booze, I know. But, seriously, I'm not one to pass up free booze. This could be downfall, as we'll soon see.

Foreshadowing aside, I down the first beer rather quickly. Not feeling anything, I get a second. Again, it's gone painfully fast. Time for a third. What the hell is this I'm drinking? Water? Oh, Miller Lite. Same fucking thing. But, it's college. I give myself a pass. Plus, hello, free beer = good beer. Not always true, but in college, it's a 90% win rate.

When it comes time for my kids to go to college, I'm going to teach them a few rules. The first one will be "Liquor before beer, in the clear; beer before liquor, sicker quicker." This is a talk I wish my father had had with me, but since my mother threatened me with bodily harm if I even so much as touched alcohol in college, I left for Rensselaer, IN with a wide, innocent-eyed view of my future. You have to remember that in high school, I was a much different person than I am now. Alcohol? Me? Never!

Back to the party. Not only did I head off to this party with my good friends Scooter and Young Bob, I also arrived with a healthy lust for a Croatian honey that we'll call Amy. We'll call her Amy because she's in the army now and I'm pretty sure she could kill me with a look if I used her real name. So, Amy it is!

Anyway, Amy was this beautiful first-generation Croatian girl that I had been sprouting wood for since we both arrived at St. Joe in fall of 1994. As I was in one of the "off again" periods with the Ex-, I felt that anything and everything was fair game. Did I ever mention that I have a thing for Slavic people? They are a beautiful race of individuals, in my opinion. Amy had dark hair, gorgeous, big, round brown eyes, and a singing voice that would make the gods themselves weep. Plus, she had big tits.

Amy showed up at the party, but didn't stay long. She came in, got a drink, and mingled for a moment or two and then left. I had waded about four or five beers deep into the Sea of Debauchery when I saw Amy show up. I sauntered over to the bar, struck up a feeble attempt at conversation, and then asked what she was drinking. It was a college party, so it wasn't like I was going to go all captain smooth here and try to buy her a drink. She was having a screwdriver, medium vodka.

'Fuck,' I thought--though hazy my mind may have been--'if she can handle a medium vodka screwdriver, I can handle a heavy vodka screwdriver.'

"Can I get one, too?" I asked the lovely Mandy, who was manning the bar and hosting the party. "Heavy on the vodka."

I'm pretty sure that the lovely Mandy upended the bottle of vodka into my cup and whispered the words "orange juice" over the top of it. When this young woman made a drink heavy on the vodka, the stock price of Smirnoff shot through the roof. Like an idiot, I drank it.

Up to this point, I was largely a vodka virgin. I knew what it was, that it made an excellent drink, and that it largely had no flavor. I also knew that it was a bit tricksy when it came to you feeling drunk. You drink it, and then you don't feel all that drunk. However, suddenly--WHAM-O!--you're fucking blotto and quoting lines from Crime and Punishment. What? I love me some Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov.

So, here I am, stumbling mingling about the party with my half-consumed bucket of vodka and I'm not feeling drunk. In hindsight, I'm acting drunk, but not feeling it. Case in point. Remember, I came to the party with Scooter and Young Bob. Now, Young Bob was not one to drink. He didn't like the flavor of alcohol and he was one of those who enjoyed staying sober and laughing at the stupid antics of us drunk motherfuckers. Scooter was a bit more of a casual drinker. He got a drink, nursed it through most of the night, and usually left a party feeling buzzed but not drunk.

Me? I'm Barney Gumble.

Early on, we had met this cat named Robert. He was a friend of the lovely Mandy's (host of the party), and Scooter was chatting him up all night long. Robert was pretty cool. I came over and asked them, "Hey, how you guys doing?" and Scooter responds with "We're good. We're talking about comics." I think he was trying to lure me into the conversation, maybe to play wingman. I dunno. Things have gotten a little hazy at this point.

I stare at Scooter and Robert with a very serious look on my face. "Awesome," I say, "Comics RULE!" *insert requisite fist pump to accentuate the word 'RULE'*

Having finished the screwdriver, I decided I wasn't nearly drunk enough. So, I head back up to the bar. Now my friend Kurt is manning the bar.

"What can I do you for, my good man?" Kurt asked.

"I think I need something to drink. I'm not nearly drunk enough," I respond.

"Shot of vodka it is."

Kurt pours me a shot of vodka.

I down the shot of vodka.

"Nope, not drunk enough."

"Shot of vodka it is."

Kurt pours me a shot of vodka.

I down the shot of vodka.

"Nope, not drunk enough."

"Shot of vodka it is."

Kurt pours me a shot of vodka.

I down the shot of vodka.

"I think we're getting there." I say. I put my arm around a talking zebra that I befriended somewhere between the second and third shot and we stagger away from the bar.

(In case you couldn't tell, there was no zebra.)

I find Young Bob.

"You're drunk," Young Bob says. He has a mastery of the obvious.

"Yesh," I slur. At this moment, It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) by R.E.M. is queued into the stereo.

"Oh my God," I say, wide-eyed. "Thish ish the besht shong! I know all the wordsh." I try to sing along, muttering and mumbling everything except for Leonard Bernstein (naturally).

Young Bob shakes his head. "Bitch, you couldn't do that sober. You're just embarrassing yourself, drunky."

"I got 'em all," I insist. "I jusht shang too fasht for you to hear."

What happened after this, I'm unsure. However, I know that Amy the Croatian Honey had left the party. At this point, I'm drunk AND horny. I start hitting on something close by. Now, when I say I'm drunk, I mean really fucking drunk. People, I started hitting on one of the Stankus girls. Swear to anything and everything I know that's holy, Stankus was their last name. I'm pretty sure Stankus is Latin for "disease-ridden sulfurous pit". Yes, I'm referring to that particular pit.

Finally, I end up out in the hallway. It's well past midnight, but it's before quiet hours (which started at 2 am), and I'm beginning to feel the copious amounts of vodka that are now coursing through my veins. As the Bolshevik Revolution was playing out in my liver, I felt the need to escape the pounding music and the close quarters. The hallway was a great place to do this.

Young Bob accompanied me. We were standing there, talking. Well, he was talking, I was slurring shit together into incohesive incoherency. There was a lull in the conversation, and as the Russian army continued pounding through my vasculature, my stomach suddenly turned into the Romanovs. They needed to get out of the country, and they needed to get out NOW!

Being that I'm a polite drunk, I simply walk away from Young Bob. He turns to tell me something, and I'm gone. I'm down the hall. A trashcan is in my sites. I walk over to it, stare at it, and then I fountain into it. And by fountain, I mean a raging torrent of alcohol-tinged vomit comes rushing out of my piehole, splattering noisily against the back of the trashcan, and landing in the bottom. I can identify dinner. I think I can identify lunch. It was brown. It was chunky. I remember it tasted like pasta sauce and vodka. The flavor clings to my palate to this day.

Not all of it went into the trash can. When I puke this violently, it comes out my nose, too, and so there was some left-overs on my upper lip. I needed help. I looked up. The only person around me was my nemesis: Vanzetti. Yes, he was related to that Vanzetti. For some reason, we strongly disliked each other.

But, I was desperate.

"Oh my God, Vanzetti, could you get me some paper towels?" I asked in my most pathetic voice. Vanzetti's girlfriend at the time lived on the same floor as the party, and he had walked down the hall to use the bathroom. I saw him as he was headed into the toilets. A few seconds later, he re-emerged, carrying some paper towels. I thanked him, wiped up, and proceeded to puke some more.

I heard Young Bob at the end of the hallway ask Vanzetti, "Is he throwing up." Later, Young Bob related to me that Vanzetti paused and then said with a look of horror on his face: "Oh. God. Yes."

Having emptied my stomach of everything, I was feeling better, but still drunk. I return to standing in the hall with Young Bob. The world is spinning. It's almost 2 am.

"We should get going," Young Bob says. I think he's more worried about the fact that I just puked up my internal organs than it being late.

"Just a sec," I said. I stopped the Stankus girl in the hallway. "315 Gallagher. It's almost 2 am. Come by before they lock the doors."

Young Bob and I wander back across the quad. Together, we mount the stairs to the third floor. All is silent. I pour myself into my room and strip because, hey, there's a Stankus on her way, right? I'm still powerfully drunk. I lay down in just a pair of red Indiana shorts. Sleep claims me immediately.

If there was a knock at the door, I'll never know. However, I do know that the fucking fire alarm went off at 3:15 am. And there I was, wearing only a pair of Indiana shorts that are indecently too short. I pull myself from the alcohol-fueled reveries and fall down the three flights of stairs to the safety of the outside. It is fucking freezing outside. I am wearing just a short pair of shorts. I am still drunk.

Finally, after fifteen minutes, we are allowed back in. I am cold. I am drunk. I am so cold and drunk, I cannot sleep. Finally, after an hour, I fall asleep. The next morning, I woke up sick. And hungover. And with a healthy distaste for vodka.


If this does not sate your thirst for awesome TMI stories, then check out all the other glorious tales of things we probably shouldn't tell at LiLu's home for the staunchy raunchy, TMI Thursdays!