What To Watch...

I try and not watch anything on TV that in any way contributes to the culture of misogyny, violence or sexual objectification already so prevalent in our culture.

Not really, but it made me feel morally superior to write that.
Okay, so I love Damages with Glenn Close. Frighteningly, she’s the backstabbing Xerox of a former boss of mine: mean-spirited, her-at-all-costs Narcissist. Glenn Close’s the reason they have acting awards.

So maybe Entourage does appeal to my hidden puerile instinct towards a Peter Pan, stay-young / irresponsible / hide your immaturity behind material objects and chase down twentysomething hotties like you’re a Cheetah on the African plains, live-now-apologize-never lifestyle, wait – I don’t have a counter argument here.

The Shield – try and jump over the bar that series set. Dare you.
Hung. Jury’s still out on this. The tone / characterization feels a bit unbalanced to me. And, its just difficult for dudes to root too fervently for a concept built around the premise of a guy with a huge um, a large uh, well let’s just say when he orders a deli sandwich he doesn’t need the giant pickle.

I have to admit, even by my standards (wtf, I have no standards…)Burn Notice is style over substance, pretty faces trumping characterization and essentially a montage of beautifully lit panning shots of a sun-soaked Miami meant to lull you in to not noticing how implausible most if not every episode really is. My total, absolute fave show on TV. If Fiona showed up at my door with matching Makarovs and some C-4 plastique, my marriage would be in serious trouble.

True Blood. Some weeks I bite, others I don’t. Haven’t watched any of season 2 yet. So no, technically I’m not one of the rabid fang-gang.

And of course, the most morally korrupt, lo-tech reality show in the ignominious history of television – Cheaters. Basically, is what it says – hand-held cameras and a crew of 15 bust cheating spouses / lovers in the act. Best episode so far was when wife+cam crew walk in on hubby – naked, wearing a black leather mask, handcuffed to a cheap hotel bed and getting whip-spanked by a 6 foot, black Transvestite. He freaks, manages to get loose as wifey’s screaming at him, chasing him around the bed in this 10’x10’ Motel Six (maybe they should just go ‘head and change the name to Motel Sex) room trying to hit him, and he actually pleads his case, saying “'I'm doing this for us! She's helping me with intimacy issues!!!”.

To which I say, those are some intimacy issues I never, every want to hear about. Or the episode where a black husband gets cold busted by his wife. He’s total deer in the headlights – silent like a mime, just kind of blinking at the camera lights realizing he has no out. Until he invokes Presidential privilege.

He goes to wife “We can work this out, yes we can”. She’s like, “Are you out of yo black mind? Work this out how?!”. To which he earnestly responds, “Yeah, President worked it out with Hillary, right? We can fix this too”.

But not all episodes are a comic reveal on our collectivly flawed humanity. Last night they had midgets cheating on midgets. Yep, little people acting like big freaks. I was like “Man, even I can't watch this'. Turns out I could. And you know what, I learned a lot about myself, from my tiny friends.

Like you can’t measure what’s in a person’s heart. Passion really can blind a person to the obvious. And if a midget tries to punch you just reach out and put your hand on top of their head. They have big hearts, but short arms.

Careful What You Wish For...

Once upon a time I dreamed of this life--traveling around the world with a Buddhist master, making a positive meaningful impact on people’s lives. And for the most part, I do. Help others, that is. The problem has become my lack of ability to help myself. I have become the very person I humbly warm others from becoming.

By day I wear a suit and tie, spending countless hours helping an incarnate lama as we travel the world giving talks on compassion, understanding and meaningful living. By night I slink around in any bar I can find drinking until blackout. My life has somehow, unbeknownst to me become so painful that I must anesthetize myself from it.

Before we arrived in Colorado we were in Baltimore, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Before that, Vienna, Amsterdam Germany, Paris and Italy. Then South America. I can order drinks in ten different European cities in five languages. I know what time Happy Hour starts in at least fifteen of the nation’s major airports. I’m now so tired I hallucinate. While I’m awake. I visit a family friend, a doctor. He takes my pulse, my blood pressure, does a Chinese medicine work up of my phlegm, then pronounces me “Exhausted”. “Thanks, Bill--real news flash” I laugh, buttoning up my shirt.

A tall man with intense, caring eyes, Bill takes me by the elbow. Not forcefully, but it gets my attention. “I’m not kidding. You are clinically exhausted”. Doctors can add a stress to syllables in a way that commands respect. He could say “No Dana...you must take out the gar-bage” and it would take on a new, important significance.

“You can rest for a few days, or I check you in right now and hook you up to an I.V.”. I stop buttoning my shirt. Bill’s words weigh me down with their solemnity. I meet Bill’s penetrating gaze and nod. “I hear you. I do”. Bill purses his lips, blinks his forgiveness. “No stimulants, stay away from spicy food. In three or four days, you should start sleeping through the night again. Dana, you need to rest”. Bill leaves the office and I sit there, his admonition a slap on the face, still stinging.

I leave his office, shaken as much by Bill’s intensity as his diagnosis. I drive along in a daze, not sure what to do. I notice “El Chico’s”, a bar popular with the University set. It’s two o’clock in the afternoon as the cute sandy-haired waitress smiles and sets a cocktail napkin down in front of me on the laminated table. The tables are chest high and I feel like Lily Tomlin in her oversize chair. But already I feel better.

El Chico’s is famous for its margarita’s that come in a laughably industrial size glass big enough to raise trout in. There’s actually a neon sigh above the bar--an oversize glass with a line through it, forbidding anyone from having more than two of their large or three small margaritas. This always makes me laugh, but before i finish my first large, I am happy like a five year old on Christmas and realize that Bill the doctor is simply jealous of me, of my lifestyle.

“Getcha’ another?” the waitress smiles and I grab for my glass, a little too desperate for the last gulp. I fish the plastic straw from the cavernous glass bottom as she lifts it from the table. I can chew on the straw and suck the last of the margarita from its marrow to nurse my buzz until she returns. Somehow, I’ve now been at El Chico’s for four hours. The after work crowd is in full swing as is the first of the college crowd. Van Morrison wails “Brown Eyed Girl” and twice I almost tip over and fall off my stool.

I switched to beer long ago and am on my fifth Dos Equis, acting like I can handle this. The truth is, I am an instant drunk. My mother is diabetic and Navajo. Any kind of alcohol instantly converts to sugar in my system. I can get drunk on literally half a beer. That I’ve had the equivalent of twelve drinks means I’m dangerously inebriated. Being this drunk now means, I must have sex. And if I must have sex, I must drive my car to wherever the sex is. People tend to forget how easy alcohol makes problem solving.

Suddenly I remember I haven’t checked in with the secretary of the day. Essentially, I’m a traveling Joint Chiefs Of Staff. So whenever we arrive at our next city, I have to constantly ensure that the daily schedule is adhered to. The daily schedule is a Wooly Mammoth of meetings, interviews, conferences with local directors and public talks. The daily schedule is a massive, ambling Dinosaur that crushes me with every step. No matter how fast I run, I cannot escape the lumbering daily schedule.

I look at my watch, squinting to stop the hour hand from spinning. I left for my doctor’s appointment six hours ago. By now the staff is dealing with the fact I’m not there – I justify my absence as a much-needed break. What’s six hours away from the grind for a guy that travels over 250,000 miles a year, right?. Again, alcohol enables me to really cut through the bullshit and get to the heart of things.

Besides, I am invincible. I travel with a Buddhist lama, so even deeply intoxicated I tell myself I’m blessed and can do no wrong. I exhale deeply and for the first time all day cannot feel the Wooly Mammoth’s huge foot crushing my chest. I smile to myself and stretch my arms. I am not exhausted. I am fine. Bill is wrong. I am still stretching my arms, which must be incredibly long because they are going up and up and up. I feel free, airborne. And then my head hits the floor solidly with a hollow “thunk”.

People are pulling me up. A twentysomething kid with a Van Halen t-shirt high fives me and hands me his beer. I drink it as a bouncer leads me outside. He hails a cab. We drive for one block before I am curbside, emptying out my body of liquids and solids. Cabbies hate pukers. My ride is free. I wake up later, behind the wheel of a friend’s car.

I’m on the Interstate leading into Denver. Within an hour I’ll be downtown. The windows are open and the radio is playing Cool And The Gang. I am Cool And The Gang. I haven’t slept a full night since we left Amsterdam. That was eight cities, three weeks and many time zones ago. The gas pedal feels like a marshmallow under my foot – it gives way easily, all the way to the floor. I’m flying again, soaring past the cars next to me.

I close my eyes, cold air rushes through the windows. I remember the cold air off the coast of Portugal. An exotic, old-world mix of orange, red and yellow buildings spired and tiled. Cobble stone streets disappearing up alleys so narrow, cars have to flip back their side-view mirrors to navigate through.

When I open my eyes, I see the ruby red of taillights ahead, and wonder who put a parking lot on the Interstate. And then I realize the cars ahead aren’t parked, they’re stopped. I’m going 85 MPH, waking up too late in the left lane. And now I wonder if its true – am I really invincible? Because unless I click my heels together and manage to Oz myself out of this dream, chances are very good I’m going to miss our Thursday flight to London.

The Cool Warmth Of Family

We are gathered together, family both immediate and extended, a clutch of close friends. My mother is in a casket, of sorts. It’s actually an industrial strength cardboard box. She’s been transferred to the box and lay inside, surrounded by dry ice. She’s frozen. Solid. She’s a momsickle. And we’re here to cremate her body, finally. Its been a draining, exhausting seven weeks, no one more exhausted than my mother, who finally gave up the struggle to lung cancer four nights ago.

Since then, its been a bizarre, disorienting emotional roller-coaster as those who loved her have laughed, cried, anguished and some of us, visited awake in the predawn hours by my mother’s spirit. Her latest visitation “from over there” my uncle likes to say with a wry smile and nod-up of the head, was to inform a woman who never met her to gather family and friends for a wake of sorts.

The woman tells my father this at six-thirty a.m. on a cool, bright Colorado morning. Estranged for thirty years, my mother apparently felt compelled to have her former husband see to a few last minute details for her. That’s mom--always including everyone. The woman is both apologetic and dumbfounded. She never met my mother, but worked in the same building. While the soap slid off her body in wet slimy sheets during her morning shower, she said her head was suddenly “filled with a movie--narrated by Louisa”.

The “message” says to bring Bushmill’s whisky (my dad’s favorite for some time, who says time doesn’t heal all?) and red roses. Lots of red roses. Her brother, a frail, dark-haired Spanish wizard of a man laughs when he hears this. “I told her the Navajo put flowers in the grave--so their relations would walk on petals in the afterlife--she always loved that story”. He laughs again, a high, thin laugh that shakes his whole body. His face lights up and we all laugh.

Now, two days after our “wake” we are here to say a final goodbye to the husk, which housed her for sixty-six years. We’ve prayed, done Buddhist ceremonies and cried. Cried so much that if anyone else wants to shed a tear we’ll have to get some Fed Ex’d to us – we’re all cried out. There are no more prayers. Louisa’s spirit has stopped making house calls. We can say goodbye.

But the morticians aren’t moving. They’re whispering in too-loud voices. Something’s wrong. “Problem?”. I ask. They exchange worried glances--a tacit, morticians “rock-paper-scissors”. The loser, a mid-forties death-clerk takes a breath, coughs nervously. “Her jewelry--state law prohibits us from cremating her with her jewelry on”.

Nobody says a word. We kind of decked mom out in her favorite rings and bangles thinking they’d make the trip with her. “We’ll have to remove them--unless you’d like to...”. I glance around the room--no one in my family would like to apparently. I can’t blame them. We’ve spent four days with my mother’s decomposing body, the sweet heavy smell of death now coating our every cell. Everyone’s gone just about as far as they can on this voyage--time to head for home. But since we’ve come this far...

I nod to the mortician who actually seems relieved. I’m about to find out why. I reach down alongside my mother’s frozen body and find her arm. It feels like a branch in the winter, stiff and lifeless, hands balled up and still. I feel her fingers, they are tiny, thin, preserved. I cup her wrist in my hand and pull it towards me--her whole body moves to the side a bit. She is of course, hard and cold as a rain-soaked sidewalk. And now I see the dilemma. In order to remover the rings and bangles, I’ll have to force her cold, frozen fingers free.

As I move her arm back and her body is once again horizontal a wisp of knowing moves through the room. Now they get it, too. And now, with complete certainly, no one would like to be involved. My personal macabre meter reached “tilt” long ago and though this is a new high, or low on my all-time weird list, grief has long given way to a kind of giddy, humorous disbelief. I mean, really--how much more fucked up can it get? I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing. Then I wrench my mother’s cold arm-stick up in one quick motion. It gives way somewhere at the shoulder and rises from dry-ice mist in to view.

In a way, this is awesomely bizarre beyond words--I would so dare anyone in the Addams family to top this. I firmly take my mother’s preserved fingers and force them straight, sliding off each ring. By now, I’m in to the rhythm of it and am satisfied at my own handiwork. The last ring is pulled over her hard, small finger-knuckle and I raise the gold like some deep-sea diver hoisting up the final nugget of booty surrendered by the deep.

My family looks on in awe, shock and final, silent confirmation. Despite the mood, the circumstance and the sheer madness of it all, the moment is just too perfect and I cannot resist. I look around the room slowly and with confidence as I remove the latex gloves, snapping them off professionally “I’m afraid that’s all I can do for her”. My brother shakes his head and suppress a giggle. My girlfriend who will someday be my wife and mother to our precious daughter, nods and smiles--she’s loves that I am both freak and saint, sinner and devil cursed with all, but blessed with innate, perfect unpracticed comic timing.

As we leave the mortuary, we look up to the chimney which coughs thick, curling dark clouds up and in to the inverted-ocean blue sky. Louisa. “Oh no” I say, “Now she’s everywhere”. We go to breakfast and cannot figure out what to say as the perky waitress asks “what’s everyone up to this morning?”. Between bouts of quasi-hysterical laughter, we manage to order a table full of pancakes, omelets, bacon and endless rivers of coffee.

We laugh and eat like lumberjacks. I eat and eat and eat knowing the empty feeling will never be gone, not now. I eat anyway. After twenty minutes I sit up, take a deep breath and look out the window. Endless Colorado sky blue to the edge of nowhere. Except for a few dozen cloud-puffs. I look again. They float buoyantly and I cannot help but notice about a dozen of them resemble small rose petals. Laid out across the sky so perfectly you could walk on them.

What To Watch For...

I try and not watch anything on TV that in any way contributes to the culture of misogyny, violence or sexual objectification already so prevalent in our culture.

Not really, but it made me feel morally superior to write that.
Okay, so I love Damages with Glenn Close. Frighteningly, she’s the backstabbing Xerox of a former boss of mine: mean-spirited, her-at-all-costs Narcissist. Glenn Close’s the reason they have acting awards.

So maybe Entourage does appeal to my hidden puerile instinct towards a Peter Pan, stay-young / irresponsible / hide your immaturity behind material objects and chase down twentysomething hotties like you’re a Cheetah on the African plains live now apologize never lifestyle, wait – I don’t have a counter argument here.

The Shield – try and jump over the bar that series set. Dare you.
Hung. Jury’s still out on this. The tone / characterization feels a bit unbalanced to me. And, its just difficult for dudes to root too fervently for a concept built around the premise of a guy with a huge um, a large uh, well let’s just say when he orders a deli sandwich he doesn’t need the giant pickle.

I have to admit, even by my standards (wtf, I have no standards…) Burn Notice is style over substance, pretty faces trumping characterization and essentially a montage of beautifully lit panning shots of a sun-soaked Miami meant to lull you in to not noticing how implausible most if not every episode really is. My total, absolute fave show on TV. If Fiona showed up at my door with matching Makarovs and some C-4 plastique, my marriage would be in serious trouble.

True Blood. Some weeks I bite, others I don’t. Haven’t watched any of season 2 yet. So no, technically I’m not one of the rabid fang-gang.

And of course, the most morally korrupt, lo-tech reality show in the ignominious history of television – Cheaters. Basically, is what it says – hand-held cameras and a crew of 15 bust cheating spouses / lovers in the act. Best episode so far was when wife+cam crew walk in on hubby – naked, wearing a black leather mask, handcuffed to a cheap hotel bed and getting whip-spanked by a 6 foot, black Transvestite. He freaks, manages to get loose as wifey’s screaming at him, chasing him around the bed in this 10’x10’ Motel Six (maybe they should just go ‘head and change the name to Motel Sex) room trying to hit him, and he actually pleads his case, saying “'I'm doing this for us! She's helping me with intimacy issues!!!”.

To which I say, those are some intimacy issues I never, every want to hear about. Or the episode where a black husband gets cold busted by his wife. He’s total deer in the headlights – silent like a mime, just kind of blinking at the camera lights realizing he has no out. Until he invokes Presidential privilege.

He goes to wife “We can work this out, yes we can”. She’s like, “Are you out of yo black mind? Work this out how?!”. To which he earnestly responds, “Yeah, President worked it out with Hillary, right? We can fix this too”.

But not all episodes are a comic reveal on our collectivly flawed humanity. Last night they had midgets cheating on midgets. Yep, little people acting like big freaks. I was like “Man, even I can't watch this'. Turns out I could. And you know what, I learned a lot about myself, from my tiny friends.

Like you can’t measure what’s in a person’s heart. Passion really can blind a person to the obvious. And if a midget tries to punch you just reach out and put your hand on top of their head. They have big hearts, but short arms.

When (lack of) Art Imitates Life

So this is supposed to be a real note someone found (click on it to enlarge), and posted on a site where people can post lost notes. And if you don't think too closely about it, its funny. But I do think about it--the content that is. And in a post modern world where nothing is what it seems, and every facet of so called reality is massaged and scripted until it actually doesn't echo reality, I have to wonder.

Is there really a site for lost notes?

Did Scott (socks or not) truly write this?

Because I've been duped too many times. Life has been over-edited and in the process, upstaged by facsimile.

Maybe I'm jaded. But I just can't extend the innocence of wonder to any suggestion of 'original material' any more. Personally, I don't think there ever was a Maria.

And Scott's either a seventh grader with a scanner, or a disgruntled copywriter whose launched a new web site that offers 'humorous, honest glimpses in to the intimacy of people's lives' via the found notes he 'posts'.

Which, btw looks Photoshopped. There's no bleed to the ink, and the wrinkles don't distort the letters at all. And the tear isn't a tear. Just an area where the pixels were erased.

So when I read it, I don't empathize I criticize. The syntax feels glaringly awkward in an obvious, forced manner. Even people who speak poorly, speak consistently poorly. Repeating the imperfect tense 'was' isn't a clever way to mock language, its just lazy. Not to mention, the emotional tone feels uneven. Endearments (dear, sincerely) are poorly constructed devices to imitate the closeness of their bond, but stand in glaring opposition to the condemnation supposedly motivating the writer. I mean, Scott.

Finally, tube socks? Just a cheap short cut--using a word that you thinks funny to try and illicit a laugh. Like after five beers when you crack up everytime you shout 'spider monkey!'. Until the manager tells you Happy Hour is over and Spider Monkey wasn't funny after the third episode of Friends.

In the old days, I would've laughed. But then in the old days the note would've been real. And it would've resonated with humanity in all its fractured, tender, dysfunction. But since Survivor, Big Brother, Ace Of Cakes, The People's Court and The Bachelor I just can't take the chance. So I choose to not believe reality. I'm taking a break for awhile. At least until they come up with a show where I really can't tell what's real, or not.

But I figure by the time that level of writing / programming makes it on TV, it'll also be available in Hi Def Hologram. In which case, I'm gonna grab my handheld and just film me showing up at Dunkin Donuts every morning pretending I may choose the blueberry muffin, when the whole time everyone knows I only eat chocolate chip muffins.

Hey, it's not that funny--but at least it really happens. At least, I think that's me...

Life, One Page At A Time

The lung cancer ravaged my mother like an uncontrolled fire, finally consuming her entirely one morning, seven weeks after her initial diagnosis.

She was sixty-six years old, and just about the most vibrant, gutsy, fun and badass person I’d ever had the joy of being around. She lived up to every inch of her Spanish / Navajo heritage, a sassy, wise, provocative and potent brew of woman who left the imprint of her force-of-nature style wherever she went.

The Montoya’s came to the New World in 1546. Given a land grant in New Mexico, they settled on 700 acres of land living as Gauchos and ranchers and still do, today. And by thier standards, sixty-six was adult infancy. The elders tended to live regularly well into their upper nineties, with one hundred plus ages not the least uncommon.

We all presumed Louisa was one of those old growth Oaks under whose branches of family would rest grand and great grandchildren. Certainly no expected that Oak to be so quickly, unceremoniously burnt to the ground. The cancer moved faster than we could plan. Days slipped away faster from us the tighter we tried to hold onto them. Louisa was tired. Morphine masked the pain, but made her groggy.

We moved her home to the couch and watched her labored breath move her chest slowly, up and down, each breath possibly her last. Exhausted from the sheer terror of losing my mother, I fell into a deep sleep early one night. Suddenly, Louisa was there—a dream, an apparition, a vision.

I kneeled next to her, asking “What should I do?”. I meant, with her belongings, her clothes, a few possessions. But what I felt was, “What will I do without you?”. I kept asking, answered by the air all around us which echoed “Everything’s fine”. Until finally I realized, everything would be fine. Somehow. When I wokr up, my face was wet from tears. I said to Ann, “I never knew a dream could be so sad…”. And in the space before she could answer, my brother called to say he’d just gone in to the living room and found mom—peaceful, relaxed and yes, no longer breathing.

Seven weeks later, Ann and I were far removed from Colorado’s foothills, but every second of the previous months was as close as our breath. We couldn’t sleep, and suffered a sort of dulling malaise that clung to our hearts like those lead capes you wear when you’re x-rayed.

We were staying on NYC’s upper west side in a small one bedroom. It was just forty-eight days after Louisa’s death, a time Buddhist’s consider a key transition point when the consciousness finally separates from presumed reference points.

All night long the phone kept ringing—half asleep, I’d stumble over and pick it up. On the other end was a kind of low-frequency static “Hello….hello, who is it?’. I’d keep asking over and over, able to hear the line was open—but no one responded.

It happened on and off through the evening, my voice falling away in to a space at the other end of the receiver that buzzed lightly with an energy like a small bee-hive.

Around 3:00 or 4:00am, I sat straight up in bed, looking over to the living room. There was Louisa, her long black hair flowing behind her as she glided through the space, then just as mirage like, disappearing.

Ann sat up “What is it?”.

“Louisa”.

We put our heads back down and slept what little we could, too tired to make sense out of any of it anymore. The next evening Ann and I walked to the Hudson. I had a small portion left from Louisa’s cremation ashes, which I let fall into the dark water far below us.

“I’m just trying to let go mom, that’s all”.

My voice echoed inside my ears, as sharp winter air stabbed at us. Silently Ann and I marched back to Broadway, to the subway. Then Ann reached over, her hand to my arm “Can you breathe?’. I put my hand on my chest—the lead vest was gone. Maybe it was a start.

We sat on the subway quietly, side by side. Too worn out to say anything. It had been a marathon of grief, and we were just beginning to realize we might never finish the race. Better to stop running. Across from me, I saw a little girl next to her mother. Five or six years old, beautiful little ringlets of hair spilled over her forehead, which I could see just above the cover of the book she was reading, held out in front of her.

The cover was illustrated in bright colors, and I had to tilt my head down just so to make out the title, “Louise, The One And Only”. The girl’s mother leaned back in to her seat, eyes closed. Behind them both through the subways window I could see the buildings blur past in an endless line, a page, a book, a story at a time.

Does This Lawn...

...make my grass look fat?

Okay, so I’m still pretty surprised at what some fresh air and a lack of NY'er's in your face can do for your overall state of health. Don’t get me wrong, NYC’s a wonderful place, but I must’ve been ready for a change.

We moved to CT in September, and I’ve been back to NYC exactly once since. Ann called me about two hours after my first meeting “So, what’s it like to be back?”.

“Someone’s already been mean to me and it smells like urine—I’m getting the 4:40 instead of the 5:00 train, see you for drinks on the porch”. Pretty much sums up my last trip to the city.

I can’t say there’s been any serious downside to my new life here. I’ve grown accustomed to the staff at Home Depot just about peeing themselves with laughter when they see me coming in, knowing I’ll be loaded with just about every newbie question a NKO (the suburban) B can rock.

My last visit started out with a real knee-slapper “Hi, welcome to home depot, how can I help you?”

“How do you grow grass?”.

This was followed by a blank stare and a fairly long silence.

Hmmm, Home Depot. The name said it all. A depot of things you need for the home. My home needed grass.

“Uh, well we have a gardening and lawn section just past aisle eight…”.

I walked past aisle eight outside onto a tidy little 1.5 acre of land filled four stories high with every conceivable lawn / garden / home gazebo / product ever devised. Seriously, there were tools I’d never even seen before stacked Christmas tree high.

But I didn’t see any grass. I saw plants, dirt, trees, flowers, tools, I even saw entire sheds pre-assembled. But no grass.

“Hey, welcome to home depot what can I help you with today?”.

The woman in the hunter orange vest had the kind of face that could grow flowers just with a smile. Kindly. Nurturing. God had sent me an angel. Visions of a lush green carpet of grass by the weekend danced in my head.

“I need grass”.

“Great, follow me…”. I followed the bright orange vest as she tossed out question to me like flower petals falling off a branch…

…is the crab grass all gone, because you’ll want to take care of that if you haven’t but it’s really too late since you should’ve killed that during the winter it’ll just strangle whatever tries to grow so for now you can just leave it, it’s the brown patches on your lawn just rake up the old crab grass bag it, do you have lawn and leaf bags? we’ll get you some and then I’d recommend a good sun and shade mix of seeds go ahead an distribute them evenly we’ll get you a seed sprayer so you can maximize distribution and after you lay your seeds you’ll need a fertilizer unless your soils too acidic in which case you should consider…”

I’d lost her after crab grass. Managed to regain consciousness somewhere around “seeds”, then kind of blacked out again and came to as we arrived at a pallet of ten pound bags.

“Here you go, fertilizers on over by the geraniums…”. She handed me a heavy plastic bag. It said “Grass Seed: Sun/Shade”. On the bag was a beautiful picture of a vast, green lawn. Children were playing on it. It looked like a magazine cover. I wondered if maybe I could just cut out the picture and tape it to the dirt in my backyard.

The bag was $25. For a bag of seeds. It seemed expensive and unnecessary especially since I didn’t want a bag of seeds. I wanted a bag of lawn. The bag was not only heavy, but it was happy hour. I needed a drink and a new plan.

Back home I sucked on my third Corona, staring at the bare patches on my newly adopted “lawn to be”. It was clear to me now there was no way that little picture from the bag would cover my lawn. I mean, my earth. Turns out growing grass is a lot of work.

So I plan to tackle it tomorrow. Or possibly this weekend. Or, never. There’s always spray paint. Be kind of homage to NYC. I could just graffiti on my lawn and call it a day.

Whatever I do, one thing’s for certain.

I’m definitely writing a letter to Home Depot and recommend they change their name to Home Suggestion. Or Home Possibility. But depot it isn’t. Place is the size of a Kennedy Airport, and they don’t have one lawn there.

Am I Gay, Or Is It The Coffee?

Here’s my theory; we’re all insane until proven otherwise. We just don’t know we’re nuts until you have one of those moments when the soundtrack of your own thoughts falls away and you hear yourself talk.

Like in line at Dunkin Donuts, it was like suddenly someone turned off the stereo and I could hear the words come out of my mouth and echo around the store:

“…thanks, I’ll have a medium light, one Sweet and Low and a chocolate chip muffin”.

It was a car-key moment. The moment when everything drops away but the sound of the car door slamming shut as you lock your keys inside.

I sounded so Man-Gay. Not straight up “Gay Gay”, and nothing on the down low, no inner cowboy secretly looking to take that long weekend escape on Brokeback Mountain.

Just Man-Gay.

“Medium light with one Sweet and Low” isn’t gonna make anyone look up from their morning paper and go “Alpha male on the floor, stand back boys…”. So I stood there fumbling around for some money thinking how MG my order sounded.

And I worried that I’d been too pampered, too lucky in life. And I haven’t even been that lucky. But then I heard something that made me pause, reflect, then almost laugh out loud.

Guy behind me goes “…I’ll take a large coffee, extra light skim…with a splash of cream and four Splendas”.

Okay, I may not be the toughest guy on the planet, but I was ready to hand this guy the ass-less cowboy chaps and say “You go Village People…”.

C’mon.

Okay, the splash of cream is equal to the skim milk content altogether so what’s up with that? Just freaking order it with the cream.

Which brings me to my second point. I know I live in Suburbia now, but who the &^%()*%$ orders a ‘splash of cream” in a $2 cup of Joe at Dunkin Donuts?

I’m all for us dudes getting in touch with our inner Queer Eye For The Straight Guy, but puh-lese, you do not need to be taking the inner Queer Eye out for a picnic lunch.

Or letting him order a ‘splash of cream’, for that matter. And while I’m at it, Splenda? Honest to god are you really gonna tell me you can take the Pepsi challenge, line up packets up Splenda, Sweet / Low, Equal, do a blind taste and pick one out?

And, god help you it you do possess the freakish ability to separate artificial sweeteners by taste, if you are a straight male, can you please not order ‘splenda’?

Why?

Say it again: Splenda.

You order Sweet and Low, you’re calling a spade a spade. It’s sweet, d’uh. That’s it job. And it’s fake as Pam Anderson’s floatation devices so obviously it’s low in calories.

But dude, you order Splenda you better not be wearing a penis because the word Splenda is about one man-gina away from borrowing your wife’s lip-gloss and trolling the park after work.

Hey, order your drink. Live large. But you get two perks per cup. You order coffee, you can add milk or sugar. It can be skim, soy, cream, half and half, hey you can hook up your own cow and squirt away.

But you don’t get to ask for your milk and a splash. No. Not now, not ever.

Unless you are Carston from Queer Eye or Liza Minnelli.

Or maybe Jake Gyllenhaal. Yeah, yeah I know; he was just an actor playing a gay cowboy.

But he was on the bottom.

I’m just saying.

If you're gonna be a muffin, be the top.

What's It Gonna Take?

I’ve watched with equal parts panic and helplessness as the flames of the recession first licked, then engulfed and have now consumed, my business.

Friends and family say all the right things “Hang in there”, “You did it once, you’ll do it again”, “Whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”. And they all mean well, I honestly believe that.

And I honestly believe, what they all really mean is “Thank fcuking god it’s not me”. Because that’s just human nature and hey, I get it. I really do.

When they were filming Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg flew Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Vin Diesel, Edward Burns et al, to Ireland. They spent two weeks in a kind of stripped down boot camp, led by an old barnacle-hard Irish drill instructor. Tough old SOB. Kind of guy that opens beer bottles with his ass.

Tom Hanks said that after 48 hrs of no-sleep, marching in the rain, living on c-rations hell they were, well, pretty much fcuked. They were hurt, bruised, frightened and to a man realized they were pampered movie stars who just wanted to be back in their own beds.

Around a pitiful campfire on a wet night, the instructor asked them to imagine being in war with one good friend. One man they counted on and loved like a brother while bullets flew too close, and killed men next to them.

Then he said, “Imagine he dies. Now tell me, how would you feel?”. And they thought and thought. Until one at a time, each of them mustered the courage and honesty to talk about the loss they felt, the grief they’d experience. The utter frustration and anger they’d feel about losing their own. Their brother-in-arms.

And the instructor looked around the circle, and said “That’s fucking bullshit. What you goddamn feel is happy it wasn’t you”. And to a man, they realized he was right. Then, they really felt bad.

So I get it when people say “Dude, you will get through this man, I know you!”. That’s cool, it’s what you say. It’s what I’ve said. But I wonder what it takes to tell the truth?

While back my wife bought two lamps. Cool, modern Ralph Lauren, leather with top stitching. Real expensive, but she found them at a sample sale for like $200 instead of $1200.

Recently we decided to sell them. Not because they didn’t go with our present décor, but because we needed the money for food. But we’d taken them to a consignment shop in this charming, rich little town thinking we might get a better price for them.

We didn’t. So I put my five year old in her car seat and schlepped us the 20 miles across town to pick them up, figuring we’d go Craigslist with them. Ella was tired, and whining in the backseat as I tried to read directions off my Blackberry in the fading light.

Trying to steer, read font the size of half-ants on a screen the size of a Ritz cracker while not missing the *&^%$@!+ that was it turn onto route 7, a little amber light caught my eye.

The reserve tank. I was running on fumes. Which in and of itself is not so bad. What’s bad is running on your reserve tank and not having enough money to get gas. And having another 20+ miles to go with a sleeping five year old in the car who’s crying because it’s dinnertime and the money you don’t have for gas, is also the money you don’t have to stop and feed her.

I finally found route 7, and eventually the rich, manicured town that refused to buy our lamps. I carried Ella into the store, met immediately by the cool, disapproving glare of the owner. Apparently she had an unwritten policy forbidding her to extend kindness to father’s who brought their crying children into her store instead of say, leaving them in the car which was parked a block away.

She pointed to the lamps. Plural. I’d forgotten one was taller than me. Great, I had to carry Ella which meant it’d take me two trips. One for each lamp, Ella slumped tearfully against my chest.

I could feel something like pride make a small cracking sound inside my chest. “Okay, sweetie…here we go”, I tried to comfort Ella as I picked up the lamp which now seemed to weigh every bit as much as it’s true retail cost.

I balanced Ella, lamp and shame while nudging open the store’s front door. “Dana, what are we doing?”. “Oh, we have to get these crazy lamps home sweet-pea, we’ll be there soon, okay?”. I wondered quietly without breaking into tears how much gas is in a reserve tank.

And I carried my little girl who meant everything, and a lamp which shouldn’t, but did at the moment, mean a hell of a lot to me, down the block, into the wind and finally to my car. “Can we go now?”, Ella said into my neck.

And I swallowed back something like a childhood memory of walking down the street with my dad and somehow knowing not to ask for toys in windows so he wouldn’t have to make up a story about the money he didn’t have.

“Almost there sweet girl, we just have one more to get…”. It was dark, and Ella was warm against me and the walk back already felt long. I lifted Ella up to get her on my other hip, turned around and there stood the owner of the store. She reached out, “Here’s that other crazy lamp”.

She smiled, turned, walked away. I stood there, quietly. And blinked. And very gratefully said, “Thank you”. I thought about the look on her face the entire way home. The amber light of the reserve tank stayed steady, like a little homing beacon all the way into my driveway.

We sold the lamps a few days later on Craigslist. We have some food in the refrigarator. But I have a much bigger problem. I experienced real kindness. Unconditional kindness. But it took a running-on-empty, hungry child, broken business drained bank account before I was humble enough to recognize it.

And if that’s what it takes, I mean really, really takes to be human? To live the kind of truly spiritual life I tell people I do, but don’t? Then I don’t know if I can do it. If my heart has to be that broken to let out what little good there is in me, I don’t think I can take it.

But what if I can? Take it, that is. Maybe I can live broken hearted enough to experience life and put groceries in the fridge and gas in the car. And I wonder. Every time the reserve tank light suddenly flicks on, I wonder. Will I ever run out of gas. And if I do, does that make me a bad person?

Or, does it mean I’m lucky enough to not actually be running on empty, but to be running on humility? And if I can just hang in there, eventually, I’ll make it home.

Ho, Ho, Ho It's Magic....

...you know, never believe it's not so.

Out Of Africa...

NEW YORK - A Nigerian man has been charged with trying to swindle nearly $27 million from a Citibank account in New York held by Ethiopia's central bank.

You're kidding me, right? I mean you have to have the I.Q. of a fcuking juicebox to not know this. C'mon, my daughter's five and even she rolls her eyes when we get spam from some financial officer at an unheard of African bank promising us our soon-to-be released millions just as soon as we send him our bank account information.

And you're telling me that Citibank fell for this?

Man, how desperate is the US banking industry? What's next, the CEO of Skank Of America hoping his Lotto 649 ticket hits so he can increase credit lines?

Dude, read the fcuking memo--the words "Ethiopian" and "Bank" in even remotely the same sentence are about as legit as "Paris Hilton" and "Singing Career", "Pamela Anderson" and "Natural","Olsen Twins" and "Solid Food", "Amy Winehouse" and "Sober" or "Ryan Seacrest" and "Girlfriend".

Worse, who had to admit they were getting scammed by a con even third graders know is like, completely bogus? I would've hated to be the exec at that meeting:

"Um, we've suffered another setback...".

"What is it Wilson, are the Markets down another two hundred points?".

"Um, well, uh, no....".

"The Feds won't lower the prime rate?".

"Yeah uh, no. I uh, transferred some money. To my uncle. In Ethiopia".

Followed by the deafening roar of silence.

Ohhhhh, man. That is just ugly.

Great. Our banking system is attempting to rebuild our financial infrastructure by falling for internet scams.

I am so psyched as our leading corporate entities try and steer us out of the disaster they've created by relying next on the advice from The Magic Eight Ball, Rock, Paper, Scissors and that most sagacious of all founts of wisdom...

..."Dear Abby, recently the CEO of our bank decided to cut the prime lending rate...".

Monkey Takes A Bullet

HARTFORD, Conn. - A 200-pound domesticated chimpanzee who once starred in TV commercials for Old Navy and Coca-Cola was shot dead by police after a violent rampage that left a friend of its owner badly mauled…

Okay, that’s weird. And sad. Unfortunately we’re in a depression, so though I love monkey’s as much as the next guy, I’m laughing my ass off.

Funny thing is, I live like, 20 mins from Stamford. My wife and I were sweating out the economy last night when this story comes on the news. We were like WTF?

And you gotta admit, WTF?

And yes, before any of you closet Darwinists go ape on me, I know chimps and monkey’s aren’t the same thing, genetically. I salute your dedication to species differentiation with my opposable thumb.

Now, first things first—since when do chimps top the scale at 200 freaking pounds?

Hello, we’ve all seen those cute little chimps scampering around and they’re adorable and not a banana over 40 lbs, right? C’mon, they’re like the size of a four year old.

Clearly, this is a chimp with a chronically lowered sense of self esteem who’d turned to junk foods in an attempt to heal a wounded self image.

Which may explain the anxiety. And I quote “Conklin told reporters the chimp was acting so agitated that Herold gave him the anti-anxiety drug Xanax in some tea”.

Great. Overweight, image conscious chimp with a drug addiction. Which more than explains the drinking. And again, I quote “The chimpanzee…drank wine…logged onto the computer to look at pictures, and watched television using the remote control, police said”.

Just so I have the big pieces of the puzzle in hand here—obese, drug-addicted, alcoholic, TV watching slacker. Okay, so basically the chimp is me. They didn’t mention the online porn addiction, but then again, they didn’t have to.

I mean, you can’t make this stuff up.

Poor bastard never had a chance. He’s just doing what any of us would in tough times like these. He’s acting out. Can you blame him?

Dudes like 15 yrs old. Now I have no idea if chimp years are like dog years, but c’mon—nothing that weighs 200 lbs should be in a diaper. Especially if it can drink. And log online and read about the economy. Cuz we’ve all been there.

Starts with an after work cocktail, just to take things down a notch. You loosen up, have dinner, have more drinks. Tub with the kid, bedtime story, it’s 9:00pm when you leave the room and what’s left of your night is whatever you can jam in between now and 11:30pm.

Fill the glass, now you’re on drink number four. And feeling kinda groovy. But, what if after drink number four you looked around to notice you lived with a tribe of chimps? All of them yammering and poking at you to download another Tarzan clip from Youtube.

That’s our boy. Bottle of Merlot, some online poker, then suddenly it hits him—“I’m wearing a fcuking diaper? And what the hell is Youtube? And what’s with the humans?”.

So in the long run, I guess there’s more that separates me from chimps other than my awesome opposable thumb.

I can handle my Xanax. And my booze. And I have at least another fifteen years before I’m wearing diapers.

So until I’m sitting here typing away in a Depends, using a voice synthesizer to activate my keyboard…

…its Happy Hour.

Yes, You Eat It...

I’m still settling into suburbia here. Not that I don’t love it, I do. And I’m learning all the little things that mark you as one of the lawn mowing, Dunkin Donuts loving, neighborhood tribe.

Like, ‘mommy-banter’. A form of casual conversation that gains you entrance into the mom‘s circle (especially crucial if you’re a dad-dude). It’s the perfectly harmless little morning snippets of convo that go down between parents when you’re dropping you child off at school.

Its winter, so the weather’s always a simple way to wedge into the mom’s circle and spark up some well-meaning gab.

I’m a people person, so while hanging with the mom’s this morning I decided to kick off the first round of neighborly chat.

Dana: “Wow, it is so Frosty the snowman out there, brrrr”.

Niiice. Turn a holiday reference into a clever play on the weather and off we go.

Connie: “Oh, I know—just makes me want to curl up with my comfort foods…”.

Oh man, how easy is this? I may start a service for people who need a casual convo starter. I’d be like those little logs you use to get your fire roaring, but you know, I’d hang out at parties. Find a clique of party-mutes and kick things off.

Dana: “Hot cocoa, cinnamon toast…”.

Connie: “Mmm, soon as I get home I’m making my favorite…beer cheese soup”.

Dana: stunned silence.

None of the other mom’s say anything, so I’m not sure what to do. Though instinct is shouting in my ear that sticking my fingers down my throat and pantomiming spraying chunks all over my daughter’s classroom is probably not the preferred response.

I can feel the seconds ticking by, and now I’m getting nervous that she thinks I’m purposely not responding.

But wtf do I say, coz all I can think is “Did she just fcuking say ‘beer cheese soup’?. I do the math real fast—beer+cheese=soup. Sh*t. I got nothing. I take a deep breath, and manage…

Dana: “Hmmm, that sounds like something you’d make if you were from Wisconsin”.

It’s not much but it’s all I have, and at least for the moment I’ve keep the banter alive. I mean, these are the kids my daughter will be growing up with. If I fail the banter-test, I’m off the Island, the tribe has spoken.

Connie: “Oh yeah, mid-west style for sure”.

Phew, nice save. I figure I have to go for it now, really lean into it.

Dana: “Sounds yummy—what do you use, like Vermont cheddar?”.

Connie: “Velveeta”.

Dana: roaring, epic stunned silence.

Now I’m panicking, because essentially this woman just told me when the temp hits low digits she microwaves a bowl of cheese for lunch. With basically, a beer chaser.

I want to scream. I picture a hunk of Velveeta, slowly melting like the wicked witch into a puddle of orange chemical goo. It seems really hot, so I unzip my coat a little, I need air. And my chest feels suddenly heavy. I try and regulate my breathing like I learned in my wife’s pre-natal class. Now I’m sucking in tiny sips of air through my lips.

I take off my hat because now I’m in a full sweat. I smile weakly and slip a finger onto my wrist pulse—it’s racing. I’m going to stroke. Fortunately, one of the other mom’s chimes in…

“Oooh, good one. We always do meatloaf, with a ketchup glaze”.

I quietly wonder to myself how I came to this. I live in a place where ketchup and glaze can be used in the same sentence, and a bowl of melted cheese thinned with beer constitutes soup.

It’s all just so, new to me I guess. The giant SUV’s, the families of four and five kids, all the father’s working in finance, all the women having the exact same blonde hair with honey-toned highlights.

And after school snacks you can make by simply melting cheese in a bowl and topping it off with a little Pabst Blue Ribbon.

I’m not sure how to work my way back into the conversation. And time is working against me. If I don’t close the circle, she’ll know it. She may not acknowledge it, but she’ll never forget I abandoned her during the cheese-soup bonding.

Do I ask for the recipe? I can’t feel my legs any longer, how can I summon the motor skills to type a recipe into my blackberry? I don’t even know where the
‘v’ key is.

I jab my thigh with a pen, try to get the blood flowing and think of my daughter—I gotta man-up and make this happen, her futures at stake here.

Dana: “Sounds super-fast to prepare…”.

Dude, you are the freakin’ man. Phew, I feel my chest release just a little.

Connie: “Super-fast. You garnish it with popcorn”.

She may as well have said “Oh, and I have a penis”.

I’m frozen in a kind of half-smile, and I’m blinking too rapidly. It’s like my eyes can’t believe what I’m seeing so they’re trying to shut out reality by changing the shutter speed.

Like a fatal car accident caught on high-speed film all I can see is a little snowfall of popcorn, settling onto an orange lake of cheesy-frothy foam. Connie’s saying something else, but I can’t hear her.

A kind of suburban concussion grenade has exploded too closely and ruptured my inner ear. Connie’s laughing now, tossing her head back, honeyed-highlights flashing. The other mom’s giggling, trying to cover her mouth with a mittened-hand.

I blink. And watch the slow motion movie of my life unfold one frame at a time.

I say something like, “Gr…aha…blugher…baw”. It’s not really a word, it’s a language I’ve never heard. On my home planet, it must be some kind of goodbye, because I’m walking away on my frozen-legs, kind of jabbing one in front of the other hoping they’ll hold up.

Connie’s waving, slowly. The other mom’s smile, mouthing something I can’t hear. I hope it’s not “See you at lunch…”.

Back in the car, I rip off my jacket and gulp down fresh, clean air. I turn on sports radio, listen to football scores. Really, really loud. But I’ve done it. I’ve entered the inner-circle, the hallowed ground, the Stonehenge of school culture—the mom’s circle.

My daughter will have play dates, be invited to birthday parties and have sleep over’s at her friends homes. And I’ll just remind her to be polite, say ‘please’ when she asks for something and whatever she does, do not eat the orange soup.

The Power Of Ass

My daughter just got hammered by the flu. 102 temp, projectile vomit—poor kid was a hot boiled mess. A few things cross your mind when you see your little kitten wrestling the toilet-bowl like a truck-driver:

1. Poor little angel.
2. Jesus, I don’t want the flu.

The flu is bad. If you haven’t been bitch-slapped by it lately, pick up a six-pack, check it out. Reminds you why old people die from it. A cold is a bunch of unruly little germs having Spring Break in your system.

The Flu is Hitler.

Colds are impersonal, they’re frisky teenagers copping a feel with some of your white blood cells. The flu knows you by name, and wants you dead. And it will slowly raise your temperature until you lay in bed curled into fetal submission weeping like a special needs student who lost his juice-box.

My wife and I woke up the next morning and tore through the medicine cabinet. Funny how with a cold, I’m Mr. Natural. Sore throat? Sniffles? Here, try the latest organic, naturopathic remedy I just picked up—an herbal-psychic potpourri of Echinacea, Golden Seal, the imprint of Baby Jesus’ tiny handprint and the rainbow-aura of magic dolphins. Um, yummy. Taste the love.

But man, you say ‘flu’ and I break out the big guns. I’ll buy shit off the pharmacy shelves that guarantees pancreatic cancer in 4 out of 5 users, has no FDA approval, has clinically killed half of its trial-patients and carries a Govt warning label with a picture of a man’s head exploding after taking.

But if it says it’ll ward off the onset of flu, I’ll push you into traffic to get my box of it faster than you can say placebo. So as my wife and I sort through half-bottles of fairy-potions I’ve amassed over the years, we find a box of Zicam tablets.

“Oh…”, Ann says—like she just found my porn stash and doesn’t know how to broach the topic. “I forgot we had these…well, they’re pretty strong…”. That’s about the last thing I remember her saying before I awoke in a Latvian clinic with my spleen missing. More on that later.

Before she can stop me, and she tried, I popped a Zicam tablet in my mouth and started chewing. Chewing hard, to show my level of commitment. Chewing like my life depended on it, visions of little Nazi-uniformed flu cells raping my immune system.

And then, I stopped chewing. Because I was both crying, and gagging. ‘Cause what Zicam’s label doesn’t say is “Warning: Product Tastes Like Ass”. Point of clarification, I don’t mean ass in the college-kid, drunk, naughty way, like “check out that chick’s ass”. I mean ass, as in the working end of the noun.

Have I ever eaten ass? No, and I’ve never been poked in the eye with a sharp stick either, but I get the idea. I’m sufficiently knowledgeable with the general theory—sharp stick; hard, spear-like, capable of inflicting damage. Eye: soft-tissue, vulnerable, protect at all costs.

And to my latest vocab entry—Zicam. As in, it tastes like a full-blown, uncooked and pungent hunk of ass-meat. In your mouth. And though it’s a gum, its not really gum. It’s a weird alien hybrid. It starts like gum, kinda chewy and soft.

That’s just a ploy so you keep chewing. Cause you’re tasting butt, except the gum consistency makes you think “Gum can’t taste like rear-end, I’ll keep chewing…”. And then the tablet kind of breaks apart into fragmented mini-chunks of butt, each small chunk as fully potent as the whole.

Like those monsters, you cut their hand off, but the hand stays alive, separate from the body, right? Zicam’s the same. The tablet’s just a delivery system of sorts. The total assification of the tablet occurs upon breakage. Each fragment blooms into an orchestra-rich flavor symphony of sweaty ass-crack. And even if you gag, it doesn’t matter.

Zicam’s flavor-chunks kind of leech butt-flavor as you chew, coating your tongue and throat, and teeth and so-god-help-me, your life really, with ass. And then, like a drunken college grope-fest, it’s over as soon as it began. The tablets gone, broken up, dissolved and swallowed.

I’m standing there, kind of teary. I feel violated, like, I just woke up in someone else’s dorm room and can’t find my panties. I’m blinking, trying to find true North on my life-compass. My wife says “Chew one every four hours…”.

The last part echoes in my head like I’m on a ‘shroom trip “every…..four….hours….”. Now I’m feeling kind of nauseous. I have a stomach full of the flu Anti-Christ. My body feels really light and airy, like I’m lint just kind of floating around in space. I’m having an out-of-body experience. I’m Zicaming. My wife is really, really tiny now, because I’m floating at Space Shuttle altitudes.

Entire cities are like Lego-block projects below me, cars and people the size of a comma ending the sentence in which they live. And there, yes there—I can see little laboratories, and teeny-weeny little scientists in pristine white lab coats making Zicam.

They’re making billions of little Zicam tablets, and…and they’re laughing. The tiny scientists so far below me are, laughing. Because they’ve managed, after decades of frustration to finally get the upper hand on the flu virus?

No, they’re laughing because after years of frustration, they’ve finally managed to market a product that tastes like ass.

Does Zicam work?

Yes, it does.

Does it taste like ass?

You be the judge. Next time you feel the telltale signs of some plague-like virus slowly goose-stepping over your immune system, pick up some Zicam. Now, in all fairness you should know Zicam also makes a nasal swab.

And you wonder, ‘hmmm, nasal swab? Well, if the tablet tastes like colon, does the swab smell like butt-gutter, too?”.

I’ve tried the nasal swab too.

But I’m not telling.

I’m floating high above it all, and like my little scientist pals—I’m laughing.

The Things Children Say...

Friend of mine and I were talking 'bout the relentless joy of parenting. Speaking of Happy Hour, she recalled one of her many trips to Children’s Hospital. The names have been changed to protect the innocent and the family now lives in Paraguay.

"Oh, one time my husband and I had a few beers. I'm playing with our little guy, trying to tickle him while he's on my back. Well, I wrangle him off my back to around the front of me. He's hanging upside down, when he slips and falls.

Head first. Splits his lip. Immediate buzz kill. He's screaming, my other two kids are laughing hysterically and I'm half-wasted trying to get a band-aid on him. Well, five minutes into it my husband's like "Um, I'm pretty sure he needs stitches".

This is confirmed by the blood now pretty much gushing down his face. Okay, three kids and two parents into the car, off to the emergency room. We walk up to the desk, the nurse takes one look at my screaming, bloody five year old and sympathizes, "Ooh, what happened?".

Which is when my 8 yr old Lisa pipes up--"Mom dropped Alex. On his head. Drinking beer". I try to laugh it off, "Kids...." which earns me a sidewards look from the nurse. "Alright..." she begins, logging us into the computer, "...has your son been here before?".

I switch into Mom-mode, determined to show nurse Ratchet I can parent with the best of them. "No. Lisa was here when she fell of her bike. Oh, and for measles. When she was four. Robert was here for mumps...".

"...and when he broke his toe in soccer...", my husband chimes in, flush with pride that we're forging ahead through a beer-haze showing the world our kids indeed come before Miller Lite.

“But this is Alex’s first visit”. I give the nurse my best this-is-not-a-sarcastic-smile when she squints at the screen, then looks up.

"It says here Alex was hit by a car. You brought him in May 15th, 2:33pm. Do you remember your child being struck by a car?".

The question hangs in the air like a threat to call Social Services.

"Yes, okay--that's right. Actually, we were here and um, yep had Alex checked out. Technically, he rode his bike into a car...". Nurse Ratchet quietly folds her hands in front of her, like a judge.

"...the car didn't actually hit him". I try to reverse my this-is-not-a-sarcastic-smile into something that might work in child custody court. Kind of a half-pleading, I'm-not-a-bad-person smile.

Quick to my defense, my husband offers "Yeah, we'd remember if a car hit him".

Nurse R. exhales once. "But you don't remember him riding his bike into a car?".

"Oh, we remember that...May 14th...".

"The 15th, actually" Nurse R. corrects me coolly.

And in that brief awkward and accusation-filled silence is when my eldest decides to ask “Can I have a Happy Meal? Do we have to stop for beer again on the way home?”.

Alex got three stitches.

Everyone got Happy Meals.

We now go to St. Vincent’s Hospital. Yeah, it’s a bit out of the way but they have a great cafeteria.