Fuck It, I Ain't Skeered

As long as I'm handing out advice about being unafraid, I've decided I'm going to do a few things that I wasn't doing for fear of what might happen. First among these is dating. I kind of stumbled into a new relationship almost as soon as I was available, which I didn't see coming at all. I was suddenly available after being faithfully committed to a monogamous relationship for over half my life, then true story: I was asked, after a few weeks of escalating flirtation, "Are you going to kiss me or not?" So I did. And she did. And the upshot is: I've done some flirting, but I've never really done the whole dating thing.  I met my ex-wife in my first year away from home at college. I have never in my life tried, successfully or unsuccessfully, to pick up a woman in a bar. Never. I've never been on any dating websites or used any apps. Never. Never! When I got involved with the woman who was getting tired of waiting for me to work up the nerve to kiss her, I was relieved in part because she's awesome and way more than I thought I deserved at the time, but also in part because the idea of putting myself out there and risking rejection was more than a little terrifying.

So I'm going to do it. Because it's terrifying.

I made a Tinder account two days ago, and it's already a weird mixture of hilarious and depressing. The profile of every fortyish woman in the Greater Austin Metropolitan Area contains the phrases "outdoors, hiking, and wine" as well as "looking for a partner in crime!" And for some reason, height is really important for a woman's Tinder profile. Should my height appear on my profile? Does it matter for men as much as it seems to for women? I'm 6'2". Does it matter that I'm 6'2"? I used to be 6'3", so I'm shrinking. Maybe that should be on my profile: 6'2" and shrinking. Fuck it, I'm going to go add that right now.

So I've done a lot of swiping. Which is getting pretty dull. I feel like a heel making straight up yes/no judgements on so little information, but I suppose that's the point. At first I kept screwing it up, left swiping when I meant to browse pictures. Right swiping when I meant to say, "Nope!" I mostly say no when there's no profile text at all. Saying absolutely nothing about yourself is an attraction strategy I don't really understand. I'm mis-swiping less now, but I think I did accidentally Super Like someone. I don't know what that means. I almost dropped my phone when I got my first match notification, then proceeded to immediately make an ass of myself when I messaged her. I think I did pretty well on my two other matches, but I still haven't heard from anyone.

So there's that. I'm dating. Or will be, if I can get a date. Even though I already have a woman in my life that's very high on the list of Best Things to Ever Happen to Me. Brave? Or stupid? Don't answer that.

Another thing I did because I'm pretty sure I was afraid of it was to invite that amazing woman to date other people, too, if she were so inclined. When we first got together, I told her that monogamy was important to me. On reflection, I thought I may have said that out of fear of competition, that if she put herself out there again, she'd find someone she likes better than she likes me. But fuck it, I ain't skeered. Who's better than me? I'm awesome! And if she finds someone who makes her happier, then more power to her. I want her to be happy. She's awesome, too!

Which all makes me solo poly? I guess? I'm Googlin' all sorts of acronyms, abbreviations, and other mysterious shorthand that appears in Tinder profiles. I'd never heard of solo poly until I saw it on my first night of swiping. I get that the poly part is polyamorous, having multiple relationships. I'm not clear on the solo part, though. I guess. Maybe that makes me fuzzy poly? Maybe I should wait until somebody actually responds to a message before I start wondering what all this makes me. Or maybe I shouldn't give a shit what it makes me. The acronyms are fun, though. There are a lot of personality types, like INFP and ENFJ, on Tinder profiles, which are apparently related to Jungian Functional Preference Ordering. I dozed off before I could slog through what exactly Jungian Functional Preference Ordering means, but it does give me a giggle to use phrases including the word "Jungian" in the same sentence as the word "Tinder."

Another was "6+4+3=2." The woman suggested in her profile that if I knew what that meant, I might have one up on the competition. So I Googled it. She and I were clearly not made for each other.

My favorite so far, though, was TDTF. I assumed it was another personality type. One profile said, among other things, "Please don't be TDTF." I tend to text in full sentences, so I didn't recognize it as texting shorthand. I Googled it, thinking it would be another of the personality types. Am I TDTF? I wondered. Turns out it stands for "Too Drunk to Fuck." Ah. Well! No problem there then. I have not, in fact, been TDTF in quite some time.

Next, I'm going to try hitting on a stranger in a public setting. Maybe a bar. Is it weird for a dude who doesn't drink to hang out in a bar trying to pick up women? If I have a Topo Chico in a glass with lime, who's to say it doesn't have a shot of something in there, right? Do fortyish women go to bars to be picked up? Ah, fuck it. I'm doing it. I ain't skeered.

I'm thinking of trying karaoke, too. And dancing in public. Why not? What's the worst that could happen?

Yep, Still Me to a T

Yep. I'm still over here proving that truer words were never said of me than, "You never could keep your fuckin' mouth shut." I'm feeling down and out because of my mistakes, but I'll be back on top and whistling a jaunty tune soon because I'm finally getting to accept and like myself and my quirks, and my foibles, and yes, even my utter failings. Not everyone thinks so, but I'm a good man doing good things. If I love you, I'll do anything for you, and there's a bunch of you out there that I love. You keep me going. You keep me from slipping in the pitfalls. I'm still going, y'all. This is just me on the regular.

New Beginnings

It's been a strange and difficult couple of years here in Rodiusland. I went through a period of depression and lethargy stemming largely from my fear and uncertainty over my changing role in my family as Thumper moved through his early elementary school years. I didn't feel necessary as a full-time stay-at-home dad, but I didn't know how to re-enter the workforce or how to sell myself as a valuable addition to an employer's team after so long in a mostly domestic role. I didn't know what to do with myself, so I spent too much time doing nothing. It took me a little bit of a while to recognize that the feeling of being stuck, of not wanting to move, was a symptom of depression and that I needed to get help.

I'm coming out of that depression now, with the help of therapy, medication, and a full-time job that redefines my role significantly. I'm weaning off the medication, and I've moved on from my therapist with her blessings. She and I agreed I'm on the right path now, approaching my life and its difficulties and its opportunities with a new attitude. Aerie and I are divorcing, a further redefinition of my role. We have not been a happy or effective partnership for some time, but we're working on breaking up that partnership as amicably as we can. Both of us are focused on Thumper and what's best for him as we move forward into an entirely new stage of our lives after nearly 23 years together.

I've missed writing about my life, but I didn't have much to say, and frankly much of what I had to say over the past 6 months was best said privately. I live my life visibly here and on Facebook, some would say too publicly for my own good. But, as has been said of me, I never could keep my f***in' mouth shut, so I couldn't stay away from this blog forever. I'm going to try to continue to use this space as a place where I can think aloud, talk about my life and my understanding of it, and keep my friends and family aware of and involved in what Thumper and I are up to and how I feel about it. I will also do my best not to talk publicly about things I shouldn't, especially as the divorce proceeds.

Honestly, though, for anyone out there who has wondered what became of me, I am finally in a really good place. I'm working at a place that I love and as part of a team whose purpose and goals I find valuable and worthwhile. I have my own apartment, and Aerie and I are splitting custody 50/50. We alternate weeks, which means I get lots of time with my my favorite person in the entire world. On our off weeks, we each have dinner with the little man one night, which means it's never more than a few days before he sees the parent he's not staying with that week. It's a great arrangement, giving me time to focus on him and time to explore my new life away from the woman who has been my wife, fiancée, girlfriend, and/or roommate for more than half of my life. It's a strange transition, but also an exciting one. There were plenty of hurt feelings, anger, accusations, and general unpleasantness through the first half of this year, but now, I feel like things are finally truly getting better for both her and for me, which can't help but make things better for Thumper. That we both love him and want what's best for him, I have no doubt.

So, uh... What'd I miss? What's new with you?

Travel

At this moment, I'm in an expensive hotel in Miami Beach. I'm here because I'm attending DevCon, which is perhaps not as silly but perhaps just as nerdy as Comic-Con. I don't have much to tell you about this conference, except that I'm almost giddy with the opportunity. I never thought, when I asked, that my employer would actually pay for me to attend. I'm apparently consuming almost the entirety of my department's training budget to be here. The pressure is keeping me in attendance at all of the sessions and off the beach, which rumor has it is easily accessible out the back door of this hotel.

Because I must seek reimbursement for my travel expenses, and because I am less than 100% clear on the rules, limitations, and requirements for travel reimbursement, I am hesitant to spend any actual money here. This is a resort hotel, which translates in my mind to "expensive as hell," and I do not think "expensive as hell" translates well to expense reports when seeking reimbursement. So I'm trying my best to live on the cheap here. I took the "shared ride" option from the airport rather than the "private car" or "taxi" option.

And aside from the expense, which I suspect would not be fully reimbursed, on the few occasions that I get to travel outside of my own little white bread suburban world, why would I want to keep myself sequestered in the resort world, where a dinner not only costs me $40 or $50 but also keeps me well removed from the world I came here to visit?

So I considered, and I concluded that asking the working folk where they eat might be a good strategy. I asked the parking valets last night where I could find a cheap dive with good food. They hemmed and hawed, put their foreheads together, and suggested I walk down the road, across the bridge, and that way a few blocks. I took their advice and wandered off the resort hotel strip a ways. I've wandered that direction both days so far.

Last night, I was the only man at Asi's Grill and Sushi Bar that wasn't wearing a yarmulke. The shawarma laffa was delicious, and  stunningly huge. I ate the other half for breakfast this morning. Tonight, I was the only non-Spanish-speaking person at Latin Cafe. I love these moments when I suddenly become acutely aware that I am the minority. As a white man in the South, they don't happen often, but that awkward, frightening, exquisite realization is  delicious. Remind me to tell you about walking to Roxbury from my Emerson College dorm in 1991 to buy an audio cassette of a Malcolm X speech. With my freshly shaved head. Ah, brings a smile to my face just thinking of it.

Anyway: traveling. Childless. Good chance of getting fully reimbursed. I'm delirious with the thrill of where I am, what I'm doing, what I'm learning, and having the opportunity to miss my family. I can't wait to see Thumper and his Mama again when I get home, but I am relishing this chance to be me, by myself, for just a little while.

Oh, and I shouldn't tell you this, but I'm also naked. I'm spending almost all of my time in the hotel room naked. Apparently I like to shed my clothes when I'm completely alone. This goes back at least to (again) 1991, when I stayed in my ex-girlfriend's dorm room at Brandeis while she went home for the extended Thanksgiving weekend, when my Emerson College dorm closed and I couldn't afford to fly home. Why she let her ex stay in her room, I couldn't tell you. I suppose she was a kind and generous person, despite the fact that she dumped me. Yes, I spent most of that time in her room naked. She, being my ex-girlfriend, probably wouldn't appreciate knowing that, any more than you do now. You're welcome. 

OMFG

I thought I didn't want to let this space become a place where I complain about my life, but I just don't know how to process all of this. I thought, when we got married, the "I'll always love you, no matter what" part would get us through anything, and I guess it has, and it will, but it isn't making it easier. There is no one I can talk to about all of the stress that we, our little family unit, is under right now, and I should be worried about who will see this and what I'll do if the wrong people see it and take it badly, but...

FFFUUU...!!!

No, that didn't really help.

And the Rage Thread, by the way, is a meme I wouldn't know anything about if my hip, just-graduated-from-high-school nephew didn't reference it on Facebook all the time. Tip o' the hat to ya, Penguin Man.

What was I talking about again? Oh, yeah. At the exact moment that the pressure exerted on my wife in her professional life is increasing, for a variety of reasons, and the staff that she has available to her to help her deal with that pressure is decreasing, for a variety of reasons, the demands placed upon her by her extended family are also increasing. She is the go-to chick when it comes to getting problems solved, only this time, the problems are starting to look pretty damn near unsolvable. Yet solve them she must, while navigating the minefield of family history and catering to the particular needs and sensitivities of each individual party, and especially one particularly needy and sensitive party, all while still working 12 hours a day and not letting her son, or her husband, feel the burden of her stress or her absence.

And I'm supposed to help her. What I want to do to help her is to unleash the venom of 18 years of suppressed anger on certain parties, and especially one party in particular, but I know that it wouldn't really help, and I know that Aerie would definitely not appreciate it, so I keep on suppressing it. Come to think of it, she probably isn't going to appreciate this post, either, but...

FFFUUU...!!!

She's had enough. More than enough. And I've had enough. And more keeps coming, with no end in sight.

Rotator Cuff Tendonitis

So I've been to a few doctors lately, and whatnot. I'd love to tell you more about the conversation Thumper had with one of them, but it would be wrong. You wouldn't respect me in the morning. Seriously, when I recounted it to Aerie that night after the boy had gone to bed, we both laughed out loud in a particularly "we can never tell anyone about this" sort of way. Good times. I'd bet money that doctor told his wife about it when he got home.

But (one part of) the upshot of all is that I'm in physical therapy now for my long-standing shoulder injury, which the physical therapist believes is a result of me hoisting my giant toddler over my head to carry him on my shoulders several times a day. She thinks maybe I should quit doing that for a little bit of a while.

One good thing is that most of the physical therapy is about strengthening all of my other muscles, particularly my back and "core" (read, "abdominal muscles") so that my left shoulder won't have to compensate for all of its brethren throughout the rest of my body every time I pick the two-year-old-that-everyone-mistakes-for-a-four-year-old up.

So, anyway. I'm finally diversifying my workout routine to include a wide range of upper and lower body resistance exercises, as well as sit-ups and crunches and a yoga ball, etc. All stuff I've known about, considered, and put off. So maybe this stabbing pain in my shoulder will help me get over the hump and actually start losing weight again.

Yes, Sir!

I've been instructed to write a post. The Man has been remiss in his blogging because he has been busy taking care of a sick Thumper and working on some projects. I've been busy too, though, working hard to bring home the bacon, training a new investigator, taking care of a sick Thumper so the Man can work on projects, and trying to keep an orderly home and squeeze in some taking care of me things so I can continue to do all the other things. I'm doing my part to stimulate the economy by lining the pockets of my dentist and my podiatrist.

The dentist stuff is really quite boring (no pun intended) and the podiatrist stuff probably isn't too interesting either, unless you have some kind of foot fetish. Which, I was wondering aloud last night, is curious. What makes someone decide they want to handle feet all day? Or root around (again, no pun intended) in strangers' mouths every day? But, I digress. Or maybe not. Did I really have a point to start with? I, Rodius asked me to write a post...YOU get what HE asked for.

Oh, yeah...so the podiatrist. In early April, I am looking forward to not ONE, but TWO foot surgeries. Within a week of each other. Woo hoo! I'll be off work and yet, not off work, for 2 to 3 weeks. Surely, I'll at least get some good Scooby Snacks (pain killers).

And speaking of Scooby Snacks...half of my day today was spent trying to figure out a solution to the following highly regulated problem. Got a guy who is legally getting roughly $8000 worth of medications a month. Three different exceptionally strong opiates (pain killers). And yet, a random urinalysis comes back negative for opiates. Um, yeah...think he might be selling them? But, he has a legal prescription... Cut him of from the meds? Can you smell lawsuit? Prove he's selling them? Yeah, Dateline never airs the unsuccessful attempts, which greatly outweigh the successful results. Media makes it look so easy... in actuality, it's very intensive and frustrating.

So, there you are, I, Rodius. I wrote a post to keep the blog current. Maybe interesting, maybe not. But, done.

Meme Answers You Don't Want to Read

I finished making our lunch, and the boy is STILL asleep, so I thought, hey, instead of earning money and trying to finish the project that was due, um, three days ago, I'll read some blogs! And I discovered that I got memed. And since the boy's STILL asleep, OK, sure, why not.

Mr. Lady of Whisky In My Sippy Cup wants me to reveal Seven Random Things About Me:

1. I only have one testicle. Yep. That's right, I said it. I used to be horribly embarrassed by this. I fretted at urinals, like anybody's ever examined another man's testicles at the urinal. I was certain, absolutely certain, the first time I ever did the deed with Aerie, that she was horrified. In truth, she hadn't even noticed. I was born with only one. The other one is apparently "undescended," but exploratory surgery when I was eight never revealed it. The doctor at the time, when asked if it would hinder my fertility, said, "He'll only be able to have fifteen kids." For years, I was blind to his attempt at humor and was sure that the answer had been "Yes." Now, though I probably wouldn't tell somebody face to face ("Hi, nice to meet you. I only have one testicle!") I figure, why be mortified? It's just a thing about me, like any other thing. And clearly, I'm man enough to knock a chick up. I thought that I recalled, and then verified with some independent reading, that it also made me higher risk for testicular cancer, particularly in my late teens and early twenties. Consequently, I became absolutely certain around the age of 21 or 22 that I had testicular cancer. I was so sure, I even went to a doctor. This is rare for me now, but almost unheard of for me in my younger days. The as-yet-unbetrothed-to-me Aerie even accompanied me. I think I even made her feel my imagined lump. Is it not amazing that she's still with me? I mean, seriously, I don't know how I got so lucky. But anyway, standing in the doctor's office, my drawers around my knees, I got fondled and then told that no, that wasn't a lump that was just bits of plumbing and whatnot that was supposed to be there. I've never been so happy to feel like a complete idiot in my life.

2. Oh. Crap. I kind of shot my wad on that first one, if you know what I'm sayin'. Uh, I thought I was just kinda going to shoot some answers out there, and I'm already stumped. Hmm. Well, frankly, I think my one should count as at least seven, since how many of the men you know would ever tell the world they's got half the inventory of balls they's supposedta?

The boy's stirrin'. Time for lunch!

Pneumonia

This will be a boring post, but I feel like I should write about my adventure yesterday, and mitchellkt wanted a history:

When I was two, I had pneumonia. I believe I spent a couple of weeks in the hospital, some portion of that in an oxygen tent. According to my mother, that experience left me with scar tissue in my lungs that has apparently been the root of a lifetime of minor respiratory difficulties ever since. After passing out while running laps in 7th grade off-season football training, I was diagnosed with "activity-induced asthma," but the medication did nothing for me, and I am currently and have periodically since demonstrated my ability to engage in activities like jogging without inducing asthma. I've at least twice since then been told by doctors that I have asthma, but the prescribed asthma medication has virtually no effect. My lungs, to me, do not feel constricted or inflamed, as TV commercials for various asthma medications describe the symptoms of asthma; they instead feel obstructed, or partially flooded.

When I was a teen, my mother told me that I should never smoke, because my childhood pneumonia experience had left my lungs in such a state that smoking would be very dangerous for me. So of course I eventually took up smoking. I was usually a 1/2 to one pack-a-day smoker. I quit for 4 years in my 20's, then let a single stressful day start me up again. I've now not smoked for two years and have no intention of falling back into it.

I've had occasional bouts of bronchitis in the intervening years, usually accompanied with pleuresy, the inflammation of the lining of my lungs causing them to press into various pointy parts of my skeletal structure and causing pain. That's what I thought was happening again on Sunday night. But while driving young Thumper to the playground Monday after lunch, I coughed up 4 or 5 bright red chunks of blood, so I turned around, took the boy back to his Mama, and drove myself to the hospital.

Ever since I started smoking, my mother's admonition has whispered in the back of my head, making me sometimes certain that I will end up with lung cancer. It was never enough to make me straighten up and fly right, but it was enough to make me now and again sure that I would get my just come-uppance for acting the fool. So for a few minutes, I thought the time had finally come. Of course! I'm finally a father. I'm working on improving my health and my weight. I'm trying to be a better person. Of course now I've got cancer! But then I told myself to stop being dramatic, and I told my wife that it was probably pneumonia.

So when the doctor talked about a chest x-ray and a blood test and a CAT scan and tuberculosis (probably not) and a blood clot (let's rule it out) and probably pneumonia, I actually chuckled. My mood improved dramatically. I smiled. I joked with the lady who came to take my insurance information. I suppressed the urge to make a joke of an inappropriate sexual nature when the nurse, looking for a vein from which to draw blood, exclaimed, "Wow! It's huge!" I chatted amicably with the x-ray tech and the CAT scan tech. I showed my nurse photos of Thumper and made her tell me how adorable he is.

So I dodged a bullet again, this time. But that little voice is still there, telling me I screwed myself through all those years of self-indulgent self-destruction. It's coming eventually, it says, and I'll deserve it.

Three Undignified Sentences

I've taken to painting a double coat of stinging Nu Skin Liquid Bandage onto my right nipple before a workout to keep it from being sanded off by the fabric of my shirt as I jog. Only the right, not the left, is abraded, and I cannot fathom the physics of this exclusivity. Painting one's nipple strikes me as an undignified sort of activity.

He Accepted the Challenge

At his one-year checkup, we mentioned to Thumper's doctor that we thought he might be lactose intolerant. He was on a milk-based formula, but we had a few diaper incidents, so we switched him to soy. But he didn't like soy and wouldn't drink it, so we compromised and mixed them half and half. And there was peace and prosperity throughout the kingdom. So since we're getting the boy off the bottle, we asked the doctor what he thought about soy milk.

He's not a fan of soy milk because it's not fortified with as much stuff as whole milk. He said when the boy gets a little older, we can test him to see if he has a true milk allergy or a lactose intolerance like his Mama. The doctor suggested that, in the meantime, we "challenge" the boy by giving him whole milk and seeing what happens. I guess kids sometimes grow out of these things. So we've kept the morning and bedtime formula bottles and replaced the two post-nap bottles with a sippy cup of whole milk. But he doesn't like it. He sips it, then scoffs and throws it on the floor. He throws a fit if I insist. I'm sure all of our carpets are spotted with splashes of milk and will probably start smelling funny any day now. So he's been getting some whole milk, but not a whole lot.

Well today, Thumper decided to rise to the challenge. Only he misunderstood what the challenge was. He thought that, perhaps in honor of the Olympics starting today, he would go for new world records in the volume and distance categories. I spent twenty minutes on the floor of the Souper Salad bathroom, the one that doesn't believe in changing tables in men's rooms, cleaning horrible, noxious, chunky pudding off of him, his clothes, and the high chair. During lunch, I noticed a momentary reddening of his face and thought, "Well, I can probably wait to change him until we get over to the mall." The mall has beautiful bathrooms with a faux marble changing table built right into the wall. In the men's room!

So we finished our lunch, left our tip, and as I was reaching down to unbuckle him, I noticed a pool of goo sitting on the seat next to his thigh. It was smeared down the back of his leg and the front of the seat. I thought I'd caught a whiff of something when I took out my wallet for the tip, but I hadn't divined this. Did anyone else notice? Horrified, I hoped it hadn't already made it to the floor and rolled him straight into the bathroom and into the handicapped stall to get started on the cleanup. I'm sure the guy in the next stall thought I was a rude son of a bitch, because he kept grunting and farting, and I kept saying, "Oh. Oh God. Oh, that's horrible. Oh, Jesus." I tried to amuse myself as I worked by imagining the news story I'd see later on when we got home: "Thirty-six people were caught in this horrible, tragic mudslide. Thirteen remain missing, but rescue workers are still optimistic that more survivors will emerge as they continue to dig through the night."

Twenty minutes later, with Thumper cleaned and into a fresh onesie, I rolled the high chair back out again. I said "Um, excuse me?" to a passing waiter and explained that I'd done my best to clean the chair up, but it should probably be disinfected or something. He stood like a statue while I spoke. I don't think he was even breathing. When I finished, he said, "Oh. OK." I said, "I'm sorry about that," and he said, as he probably felt he had to, "That's OK." Even though I'd washed it down with about a whole pack of baby wipes, plus more than a couple anti-bacterial wipes, I didn't want to just roll it back out to be used by the next unsuspecting parent to come along, although by that waiter's reaction, I wouldn't be surprised if that's what happened anyway. Oh, parenting certainly has its moments, doesn't it?

So anyway, I guess if the doctor ever tells us to "challenge" the boy again, I might just kick him in the balls.

Sexy

Queer Eye for the Straight Guy told me long ago that I should trim my body hair. And I believed them. They never mentioned the hour-and-a-half time commitment, though. Man, I'm hairy. It takes forever, and I hate it. But when the boy becomes engrossed in pulling on the chest hair poking over the top of my shirt collar, it's time. Bonus fun: I never feel quite so gigantic as when I'm measuring my entire surface area by a two-inch swath.

How To Watch Your Father Sleep

Guest blog entry from Mrs. Rodius...

You really don't want to read this. I've been thinking about my father a lot lately. Fitting, since it was recently Father's Day. But, this started several weeks ago.

As I mentioned in my last guest blog, Thumper's been vocalizing more these days and he often talks about "Bob." He bob, bob, bob, bob, bobs so often that The Man and I have decided Bob must be Thumper's imaginary friend, and he often blames Bob for the things that crash! And, Bob is the reason why Thumper does some of the things that he should not...Bob told him to. My dad was Bob, and I lost him a long time ago now. Some say that imaginary friends aren't imaginary at all...that they are some other force or form or spirit. I don't know...the thought has struck me, though.

It makes me sad that Thumper will never know him and that my father will never have the chance to meet the little guy I'm so proud of. He was far from perfect, but he was that dad running like mad away from the sewer he'd just dropped an M-80 down (on the 4th of July) as all of us neighborhood kids cheered on. Boom! Ha ha ha ha ha!

The Man recently resurrected some old writing we'd stored on floppy disk. Floppy disks...yep! I came across this. One of my writing professors used to have us do free writing exercises to start class. She'd give us a topic and we'd just start writing. It was an exercise in free-flow writing. I believe this day must have been "What if..." Excuse how rough it is. I never went back to flesh it out, though that was the idea behind the free-flow writing.

How To Watch Your Father Sleep

What if when you were nine years old your dog died? She'd have been german shepherd and husky and her name would have been Kelly, and she'd have been the first thing in your life to go and die on you. What would you do? You might cry a bit and think about the time when you were out riding your bicycle (and Kelly was outside too because there wasn't a leash law then) and Mikey Powell came up and stood in front of you and wouldn't let you by. You would remember that you had been too scared to do anything when he pushed you off your bike, but Kelly had rescued you. She'd charged at him barking and barking, and you knew she didn't bite, but Mikey had run away, the piss scared out of him.

And what would you do if you found out years later that all day long your mother thought she heard the dog whining on the back porch where your parents had hidden her the morning they found her cold as stone on the kitchen floor? They would have done this so you wouldn't know until after you had come home from school that day. Parents do that kind of thing. If Kelly had been your goldfish, they would have bought you another and secretly switched it with Kelly thinking you wouldn't know the difference, trying to spare you this pain. But a dog would have been much more difficult to switch, so it was the back porch until they could get rid of her.

"I kept thinking I heard her crying on the porch," your mother will tell you one day when you are older as you sit in the kitchen drinking coffee with her and some of her friends. "I kept going out there to check and I'd say 'Kelly?', but it was just my imagination."

You won't be mad or sad when she says this, having long since gotten over it. You will think it's eerie and let the words pass away with the rest of the small talk. It will come back to you though, this thought.

Because when you were twelve, just a few years after Kelly, you would stumble groggily into the kitchen to find your father as gray as modeling clay sitting at the breakfast table. He'd be sweaty and cold and you'd watch, unable to move, as he turned to your mother and said "I think I better go to the hospital."

What would you do if you heard this from a man who refused to take so much as an aspirin when he had a headache? You won't be able to remember a single day when you shivered more, even though it was June. Your mother would come home from the hospital, alone and crying. She would continue to cry as she called all of your relatives to say that Bob had had a heart attack and they don't know if it means surgery or not but that she needed everyone's support and couldn't some of them take one or two of the kids for a while if she needed them to?

You wouldn't know what to do that night or when two months, one more heart attack and by-pass surgery later, he finally came home from the hospital. Your mother might tell you what you have to do. You musn't upset him and you kids musn't fight in front of him and your father won't be allowed to do heavy lifting anymore, so if you're a boy, you must do it for him. You might do it for him anyway, even if you are a girl.

You would have only gone to visit your father once while he was in the hospital because you had gotten so upset that one time that your mother didn't think it was a good idea for you to go again. You wouldn't have been able to say much or even look at your father with all those wires and tubes attached to him and that machine that beeped in time with his heart. Your father would have noticed you staring out the window and would have called you over to him to explain to you what each tube and wire was for and to tell you that he was going to be okay. And you'd have choked trying not to cry because you were ashamed. Ashamed because you're not supposed to upset someone in I.C.U. and because he was the one in need, not you.

Once your father was home from the hospital, you'd begin to notice that you watched him a lot more than you ever used to. He'd be lying on the couch taking a nap after work and you'd stop suddenly, your face tingling and fear cementing all of your joints and you'd stare. You'd stare, but then you would relax and tell yourself yes, he was breathing. You'd get really good at scaring yourself this way. You'd practice different methods of ignoring other sounds, the television, a car passing on the street. It would be a game almost, a kind of art, shutting out all other noises just to hear his breathing. This is how you watch your father sleep.

And years would pass and your father's health would continue to deteriorate and all new complications would develop, too many sicknesses for one man. You would wonder why he refused to quit smoking and why he couldn't seem to stick to the doctor's diet. You wonder how long a death can be carried out. You would think it's strange as you stood outside his bedroom door listening, that he goes to bed earlier than you now. Yes, he was breathing and it was just your imagination. But no matter how many times you tell yourself this, you can never make it stop. You always find yourself straining, holding your own breath to listen for his.

In a Slump

You don't want to read this one, either. Additional details about me will be revealed that you will be unable to unlearn.








I'm in a slump. I can't get motivated. I don't feel like cleaning the house again because I swear I just did it. I'm bored with playing with the baby because we do the same things over and over. I don't want to go babysit because the talking and the talking and the talking, ugh, it's exhausting. I sort of worked out yesterday, but I half-assed it. And I quit early.

I'm loathe to say anything like this these days. One, I don't want this blog to be a place to bitch about my life. I've read some of those blogs, and they get kind of old. Two, as a SAHD, it seems like it's my job to put up a happy front. I feel like if I complain, the answer is simple: "you chose this, jackass." So whenever anyone asks me about it, it's wonderful! It's fantastic! We're having a fabulous time! My old full-time position was recently vacated by my replacement. My former supervisor jokingly asked me if I wanted my job back, and I said, "Ha! No thanks." A former co-worker, too, asked me if I was going to take my old job back. He thought this stay-at-home dad thing was just an arrangement for a few months, until the kid was old enough for day care, like any normal baby; he was flabbergasted when I said it was for years, not months. "Really?" he said. "Of course!" I replied. "It's so much fun!"

And it is, and I do love it. But man, I'm in a slump.

I know the answer I'll probably get, at least from my mother, is "get out there and connect with other parents! Go to the SAHD playdates! Go to their Dads' Nights Out!" And yes, I should. But who can be bothered? And Thumper's still napping through the playdates, and the Dads' Nights Out are during babysitting. I have been chatting with mothers at playgrounds more, but I haven't managed to wrangle the boy a girlfriend yet.

No, really I'm thinking it's time for a fast. There was a time when I tried to live by the principles of BFF's bible. It's largely about how to combine foods properly in healthy ways, like meat and bread don't go together because they require different enzymes from your stomach to digest. And melon is the perfect food for humans, but it shouldn't be eaten with anything else. That kind of stuff. I followed it very closely for a good six months, and didn't feel like it really changed my life. So I dropped most of it. But I did keep one aspect for several years after. Ready for it? This is the part you don't want to know: colonics.

Yep. Self-administered colonics. Twice a year. In combination with a week-long fast. Since cheapness counts, I couldn't imagine spending hundreds of dollars on a Colema board (you don't want to click on that), so I made one myself. With $60 worth of wood and a wastebasket from Target. And yes, I thought it was crazy, too. I thought BFF was crazy. But the craziness appealed to me, in a way. "Hey, won't this be wacky? I'll be one of those nuts who hoses out his insides! Hee hee!"

But strangely enough, the fasting and colonics made me feel incredible. I fasted by eating nothing and drinking sometimes carrot juice, sometimes grape juice, or carrot-grape juice. Sometimes just water. Sometimes I used solutions for the colonic other than plain water, like coffee and water, or garlic and water. The first day or two of the week-long fast, with nightly colonic sessions, I would be exhausted and hungry. By the third or fourth day, though, I started to feel recharged. Energized. And that gut-gnawing sensation of hunger was gone. By the end of the week, I was refreshed, renewed, ready to start again. I'd ease back into eating with light and healthy meals. It was like pushing a reset button.

But after a few years, I'd stopped smoking. I was working out more, losing weight, feeling good. I didn't feel like I needed a cleansing, a restarting. And the tedium part of the colonics, the preparation, the cleanup, started to get to me. Not to mention having to clean the juicer daily from all those grapes and carrots. So I decided I was done with it and threw out my board. I haven't fasted since, and it's been probably two or three years.

So now, in a slump and feeling like I really need a good renewal ritual, I'm thinking about fasting again. And since I've been eating a lot lately, snacking when I don't really need it, I want to re-learn that feeling of hunger as a positive thing, to remember that being hungry isn't so bad. I don't think I can get behind building a new board, and I certainly can't get behind buying one, so I'll just skip the colonics this time around.

Maybe I shouldn't use the words "get behind" and "colonics" in the same sentence, huh?

Anyway, does anybody else out there fast? I've never done it without the colonics, and I wonder if it will be the same jolt of power and energy that I remember.

So who's with me? Who's up for a week of emptying the vessel and starting over? Come on! I promise I'll stop saying the word "colonic" now.

You Don't Want to Read This

Seriously. Just stop right now. If you keep reading this, you will regret it. You will learn things about me that you just don't want to know. There are much better ways out there for you to spend your time.









So have you ever had dry skin on your, uh, equipment... Your tool... Ah, I'm a responsible parent-type adult now, I should be able to use the correct terms without embarrassment. Have you ever had dry skin on your penis so bad that it split open when you got an erection? I mean like blood and everything. Wait, most of you are women. I'm talking to the wrong target audience here. OK, so has your husband or boyfriend ever had...? Well, he probably wouldn't appreciate you discussing it publicly. I think I'm probably on my own here. I'm going to have to start putting lotion on it. I'm not saying that I haven't put lotion on it before, I'm just saying it wasn't really part of a skin care regimen, per se.

See, now don't you wish you'd done like I told you in the first place and just stopped reading?