We no longer have two baby girls, we have two little girls, They walk, they talk they experiment with our patience. m is already remembering the alphabet and the numbers 1 and 2. If you talk to them about something from a few days ago, they remember it, down to the sound effects. Z can still impersonate the ocean and the cold wind from when we went to Bodega Bay. It was the second time at the beach during Thanksgiving weekend, We ate Thanksgivings at Pacifica and walked on the beach after dinner. the girls were all gussied up in little dresses and I managed to slick their wild hair down. Boy did grandma hate that. She took z into the bathroom (we let them go potty with females to inspire them). When they came out, lo and behold, z's hair was all puffy, like grandma had completely undid my work. I thought it was funny and never said anything, As long as Grandma is helping with child care, she can give them mohawks.
On my way to work, while walking from the station, There came the sound of a fire truck and a police car coming my way. This is not unusual so I ignored them. As long as it wasn't another explosion (see "Ka-Boom" blog entry). When a police car passed by me, I started to fantasize, what if I were Spider Man? I looked at the building next to me and imagined secretly scooting up the wall, changing into my costume. I then wondered which would I follow? The fire truck or the police car. When another cop car did an illegal u-turn in front of me and another rushed past I figured Spiderman may be needed where the police are going. Besides, Fireman don't need no costumed freak getting in their way. The more I walked toward work the more police cars I saw going left and right. I round the corner and am passing by this fenced in garage/gas station and I see this Black guy about 20 feet away, pacing around and thinking. Nothing out of the ordinary. Suddenly about 10 cop cars converge around me . A copper jumps out and says into his radio: " We got him. Gas station on 16th!" Er-ah wait a minute, I think, That's me? I look around for whoever they could be talking about. Surely not the solemn Black guy? He's not even attempting to run away. I step to the side and freeze. I imagine If it is the Black guy, and I try to make a run for it when he starts shooting, a late comer cop will just open up on me because I looked guilty with the running away from the bullets and all. About 10 cops run around, looking for a way to get into the fenced in area. One Einstein tries to climb over the fence, a barbed wire fence! He doesn't get very far, He manages to get one leg up and kinda hangs there for a few minute. Meanwhile his comrades find the entrance and rush in and tackle the guy, who never puts up a struggle. Obviously although he's what I guess is a recent murderer suspect, He knows the rule as Chris Rock says: "If the cops have to chase after you, they're bringing an ass whooping with them." Eventually, T.J Hooker, gets off the barb wire and climbs down. The only saving grace for him is he didn't rip his pants. Can you imagine? He's already gonna get ripped for trying to climb the fence: "Hey Joe, maybe we should call you Bob Wire! Har-har" they'll say in the locker room.
The interesting thing is, If I were Spiderman, I totally could have got that guy with one web shot and a hanging from a streetlight. But then I would have been late for my Job. A job that sucks, a job which wouldn't care or understand even if the head boss knew my secret: "Well sure you saved the Mayor from The Lizard man, but your proofs are late. What am I gonna tell the customers?"
I kinda feel like that's what it's like being a parent. Sure you swing in and get your kids picked up on time, make a great dinner that they love, have a great play time, they go to bed on time, happy and content and sleep trough the night. But your stupid ass job bitches at you because some fucking customer, didn't get their job, although they waited until the last moment and want it before they go skiing at Tahoe. So Spiderman has a choice, stop saving the world or let their bosses take their 2 hour lunches and go home on time without worry.
Hmmm. Which one, which one?
That's it
EM
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Ka-Boom!
I love the age the kids are at. The language is rolling in like water. We have: “Please, truck, bus, No (which is pronounced Neu!), bye bye Daddy and mine!” There’s also this word that they use for chicken or long conversations which sorta sounds like: “Plicka plicka plicka.”
I figured out why the kids love Grandma so much. Because the woman never says no! We came home the other day and one kid is standing on the arm of the couch, which we’ve told them not to do, and the other is standing on this giant toy block, which we’ve also told them not to do. Grandma is sitting back and enjoying the show, drinking a Bloody Mary. Okay, she wasn’t drinking a Bloody Mary. Maybe it was Vodka Gimlet. The point is the kids must get sick of “get off of that, put that down, get that ferret out of your mouth” from the parents. Grandma must be a nag vacation. That’s what they should call them, Nag Vacations.
So at work, I’m running away from a series of large explosions, I look behind me to see a fireball the size of a three-bedroom house rise out of the sky. “Holy shit!” I say. This is NOT a dream! This really happened! Earlier, I was sitting at my desk when there was a booming rumble and the windows shook. This is not out of the ordinary because we live in Earthquake Ville and on the road next to the building, really heavy trucks rumble by. I ignore it. Then there were two more thunderous rumblings. They were exactly the kind of thumps you would feel if Godzilla were tramping toward your building. The large windows seemed like they were going to come crashing down and mandolin this woman who has her desk right underneath them.
“Is that an earthquake? Goes this guy “A”. I know it’s not an earthquake because there were thumps instead of a swaying motion. “I think it’s an earthquake he says heading for the door which is the worst thing to do in an earthquake because you’re more likely to get clobbered by stuff falling outside. “Holy Shit!” Someone outside the office says. We investigate and see that about a block away, there’s this Victorian apartment building on fire and black smoke is rising into the sky. Then a BOOM! A fireball rises up. “A” takes off running away from the blast. My first thought was: “Gas main!” In San Francisco, it seems every day someone gets blown up by a gas main hit by a crazy city worker. “Chain reaction!” Was my second thought? What if this is part one of a series of explosions? I take off after A. As I mentioned in the beginning, I looked back and saw another explosion and a huge fireball rise up. The location seemed familiar to me. Wait! I say that’s the place that rents out building equipment like bulldozers and cherry pickers. They also sell propane gas and have a bunch of tanks outside. Or it could be the gas station across the street from it. Either way I wasn’t going back to work until the fire tucks showed up. Eventually, 5 of them roared by and got things under control. I go back to work and discover from M (The guy who thought he had won the lottery. see: Sock Soup entry) that yes indeed it was the propane tanks at the rental place exploding. He knew this because when the explosions started, he ran TOWARD the fire and called another guy to get their camera. “Wait.” I say. “You ran towards the explosions? And you’re not wearing a cape?” While watching the fire from a block away, an explosion went off and sent him into a wall. He then noticed that 5 guys, even closer to the fire were laid out, flat. Luckily, no one was hurt. Now, the scary part. I get off work at 3:30. The explosions started at 3:00. On my way to the train station, I walk within 5 feet of the propane tanks. The next day I had to get off work early to pick up the family car from the mechanic. I left work at 3! Imagine, if the days were switched?
It’s not the first time death swung a bat at my head (and of course not the last), once I was coming from Myrtle Beach with my dad and older brother. I fall asleep in the back of the green Aspen and am awaken by the car in a tailspin. There’s dirt flying into the car and we end up backwards in a ditch. Turns out, older bro had headphones on and spaced out.
The connection between both of these events are the words:” Holy Shit.” When the explosions were going off and I was spitting dirt out of my mouth, I uttered the words: “Holy Shit!” as my last words. I don’t want that to be my last words! Todd Beamer on United Airlines flight 93 said “Let’s Roll!” as his last words before he and his fellow passengers attacked the terrorists who were trying to make them watch a Julia Roberts movie. His kids will say, “My daddies a hero and said let’s roll. Mine will say, my dad ran like a flaming bastard out of hell and said holy shit before being torpedoed by a propane tank.
I think we should all practice what our last words should be, in case a news truck or your family is there to witness your death. Flaming propane tank heading toward skull? “Ho ho! Hell has sent an angel!” Spinning crap-ass green American car heading toward ditch? “Aye! Whirlpool of life! I spiral into the abyss!” or something like that.
That’s all
EM
I figured out why the kids love Grandma so much. Because the woman never says no! We came home the other day and one kid is standing on the arm of the couch, which we’ve told them not to do, and the other is standing on this giant toy block, which we’ve also told them not to do. Grandma is sitting back and enjoying the show, drinking a Bloody Mary. Okay, she wasn’t drinking a Bloody Mary. Maybe it was Vodka Gimlet. The point is the kids must get sick of “get off of that, put that down, get that ferret out of your mouth” from the parents. Grandma must be a nag vacation. That’s what they should call them, Nag Vacations.
So at work, I’m running away from a series of large explosions, I look behind me to see a fireball the size of a three-bedroom house rise out of the sky. “Holy shit!” I say. This is NOT a dream! This really happened! Earlier, I was sitting at my desk when there was a booming rumble and the windows shook. This is not out of the ordinary because we live in Earthquake Ville and on the road next to the building, really heavy trucks rumble by. I ignore it. Then there were two more thunderous rumblings. They were exactly the kind of thumps you would feel if Godzilla were tramping toward your building. The large windows seemed like they were going to come crashing down and mandolin this woman who has her desk right underneath them.
“Is that an earthquake? Goes this guy “A”. I know it’s not an earthquake because there were thumps instead of a swaying motion. “I think it’s an earthquake he says heading for the door which is the worst thing to do in an earthquake because you’re more likely to get clobbered by stuff falling outside. “Holy Shit!” Someone outside the office says. We investigate and see that about a block away, there’s this Victorian apartment building on fire and black smoke is rising into the sky. Then a BOOM! A fireball rises up. “A” takes off running away from the blast. My first thought was: “Gas main!” In San Francisco, it seems every day someone gets blown up by a gas main hit by a crazy city worker. “Chain reaction!” Was my second thought? What if this is part one of a series of explosions? I take off after A. As I mentioned in the beginning, I looked back and saw another explosion and a huge fireball rise up. The location seemed familiar to me. Wait! I say that’s the place that rents out building equipment like bulldozers and cherry pickers. They also sell propane gas and have a bunch of tanks outside. Or it could be the gas station across the street from it. Either way I wasn’t going back to work until the fire tucks showed up. Eventually, 5 of them roared by and got things under control. I go back to work and discover from M (The guy who thought he had won the lottery. see: Sock Soup entry) that yes indeed it was the propane tanks at the rental place exploding. He knew this because when the explosions started, he ran TOWARD the fire and called another guy to get their camera. “Wait.” I say. “You ran towards the explosions? And you’re not wearing a cape?” While watching the fire from a block away, an explosion went off and sent him into a wall. He then noticed that 5 guys, even closer to the fire were laid out, flat. Luckily, no one was hurt. Now, the scary part. I get off work at 3:30. The explosions started at 3:00. On my way to the train station, I walk within 5 feet of the propane tanks. The next day I had to get off work early to pick up the family car from the mechanic. I left work at 3! Imagine, if the days were switched?
It’s not the first time death swung a bat at my head (and of course not the last), once I was coming from Myrtle Beach with my dad and older brother. I fall asleep in the back of the green Aspen and am awaken by the car in a tailspin. There’s dirt flying into the car and we end up backwards in a ditch. Turns out, older bro had headphones on and spaced out.
The connection between both of these events are the words:” Holy Shit.” When the explosions were going off and I was spitting dirt out of my mouth, I uttered the words: “Holy Shit!” as my last words. I don’t want that to be my last words! Todd Beamer on United Airlines flight 93 said “Let’s Roll!” as his last words before he and his fellow passengers attacked the terrorists who were trying to make them watch a Julia Roberts movie. His kids will say, “My daddies a hero and said let’s roll. Mine will say, my dad ran like a flaming bastard out of hell and said holy shit before being torpedoed by a propane tank.
I think we should all practice what our last words should be, in case a news truck or your family is there to witness your death. Flaming propane tank heading toward skull? “Ho ho! Hell has sent an angel!” Spinning crap-ass green American car heading toward ditch? “Aye! Whirlpool of life! I spiral into the abyss!” or something like that.
That’s all
EM
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Fish Hooks in the Ass
The girls are so damn smart. If you ask one of them: “Can you go bring me a bunny?” They’ll leave the room, search for a stuffed bunny and bring it to you. I guess that means not only smart but subservient. How long can we keep that up? Can you do the dishes? Can you cook French Onion soup? They seem to understand everything we talk to them about. Like the little coked up hamster in their brains, are running in the metal wheel.
m is becoming an artist. She jumps head first into any situation and has more nightmares than a, which I believe is a sign of an overactive imagination. a is a scientist. She likes to take things apart and study them. She lets m jump into the cold wading pool while she puts her hand in. They’re also challenging us even more. No longer content to just grunt and cry if they want something, they now say “Mine!” or “Ball!” and then cry. When they get sassy, instead of yanking their skeletons out, we give them liberal-Berkeley-hippie timeouts for punishments. The timeouts work for the most part put I believe they sit in the timeout spot only because they believe we can do that skeleton yank-out thing. I’m sure when they get older and spicier and start dating, they’ll see that yes indeed, I can flay a live human being.
m seems to get timeouts due to stuff like bonking her sister on the head while a gets them for pushing and smoking cigarettes in the house: “No smoking near my drums of gasoline!” Both behaviors seem to be a bit of jealously especially when big M has one of them on her lap. They never fight for my attention like that or even say Da Da anymore. It’s all Mama this and Mama that. C’mon kids, fight for my attention! Star Trek Style!
Okay, So it’s been like 2 months since I last did a Bog entry. Here’s why. The first month was the month of sickness. I got this weird flu-like thing that was basically like a constant 103 temperature. I called Kaiser and asked them what to do and they said: “Don’t take anything, just let it work its way out. A temperature is your body’s way of fighting it.” A week later, I still felt like shit, so I set up an appointment with my doctor. He gives me the works, including blood test and then shrugs his shoulders: “I don’t know what the fuck it is?” He says. “Back to school with Ye!” I yelled, yanking his diplomas off the wall and throwing them out of the window, killing a nun down below (I’m writing this from jail). He then tells me: “Tylenol, fluids and rest.” This kicks the thing out in about a week. Then M gets it. She immediately hits the Tylenol and kicks it out in 4 days. Then “a” gets it. Same thing, 2-3 days then finally it works its way over to m. She takes it out in 3 days. So apparently, I was the only jive turkey motherfucker to suffer with the bastard for two weeks. Even as I write this, I’m still hawking up phlegm (lovely image, I know).
The thing about being sick is, I’m rarely sick for more than 3 days. This thing went on for two weeks. Whenever I’m that sick the first things I think about are: Now I can watch Reading Rainbow on PBS and “Is this the thing that finally kills me?” If I could choose how I die it will either be sitting on a porch of a cabin at the beach or mountains, watching my last sun set or sunrise, or crashing the Space Shuttle into a comet that’s heading towards earth, causing it to veer off course into deep space. Except for one block-busting piece which fireballs into the site of my most hated political enemy’s, family reunion.
Awaiting me on my next month of hell was the job evaluation from hell. It’s not like I didn’t see it coming but it was the final straw that made me say: “Okay, it’s time to go.”
I actually took the trashing pretty well and I fully attribute that to becoming a parent.
As soon as Baby A’s head popped (twins are label A and B depending on exit position) my priorities shifted so fast that the ghost of Albert Einstein appeared and said: “I guess I was wrong, some things can travel faster than the speed of light.” Now, some things really don’t bother me anymore: Screaming kids on a train, being peed on, being vomited on, being shat on or picking a child’s nose. Before, if any of these events occurred I would have done the freak-out dance for at least an hour. As far as priorities go, my job is right below watching 12 hours of pro golf on a tiny black and white TV with no antennae.
To add insult to insult. They decided that this was the year they were going to give bonuses. BUT in order to get a bonus, you have to get at least a satisfactory on your evaluation. Guess who didn’t get a satisfactory on his evaluation? Not just me but everyone in my department who’s jobs use to be done by 5 people and is now done by one. “Oh I’m sorry I’m not outputting as much work as the other 5 people who use to do this job, I’m still waiting for my extra arms to grow out of my ass!” It gets better. They have to have everyone take this customer service test thing on-line. Apparently the size of THEIR bonus depends on having everyone take the test by a certain date. I found this part out because the Assistant Manager (Ass Man or Man Ass) told everyone at a morning meeting. Two people who also got hosed were helped sooo much on their test that it was borderline cheating. I can’t understand how the management can walk with balls so big. Do they really expect me to hurry up and do the test so that those ass weasels can have a happy Christmas? Again, Albert Einstein appeared at my desk and said: "Now I see that a person can move so slow that they go back in time.”
It gets even better. I know for a fact that there are three of us who got reamed but I suspect that there are more. I know because (unlike the supes and management) I listen to people's complaints. So lets just say moral shouldn’t suck this much if someone is giving you a bonus. The upper-upper guy must have noticed something because he made his underling give a training seminar called the FISH training. Are you ready for this? If you’ve ever been to Seattle and visited the Pikes Market, they have this fish market where guys happily yell hello to people, clown around with you and most importantly, they throw fish at each other. That’s right. If you order a fish, one guy throws it to the guy behind the counter who manages, with great skill I may add, to catch the slippery mercury bag in butcher paper: mad skills! This is basically the training video they made us watch and then at the end of it actually had the nerve to ask: “So, how can we have more fun at work like the guys in the video? And my favorite: “ In the video, they threw fish, what can we throw to each other?” Uhh, desk, lawn darts, ape feces? My favorite answer was when they asked: What should our theme song at work be and this one guy says Highway to Hell.
I mean, what the fuck? Are they that clueless in realizing that the people in the fish market were having a good time because some dick wipe didn’t take their kids Christmas money? Or perhaps their boss actually listens to them when they say: ‘I can’t do this job alone because earlier I sat on a fish hook and it’s hard to catch a fish with something like that lodged in your ass?’ No, at my job they would say: “I think you and you alone should throw and catch the fish. That way you know exactly where the fish will land AND I’m taking your Christmas bonus because you keep dropping fish, especially when you slip, running across the room.
Apparently, what they got out of the training is you choose your attitude, which is true. If you choose to come to work in a bad mood, holding an ax and wearing a hockey mask, you have chosen to have a bad day. But they refuse to believe that business failure is like a dirty pond. Blind, worker fish sucking the dark bottom, and smelly scum on the top, blocking the sunlight.
Time for this fish to evolve some legs.
That’s it, EM
m is becoming an artist. She jumps head first into any situation and has more nightmares than a, which I believe is a sign of an overactive imagination. a is a scientist. She likes to take things apart and study them. She lets m jump into the cold wading pool while she puts her hand in. They’re also challenging us even more. No longer content to just grunt and cry if they want something, they now say “Mine!” or “Ball!” and then cry. When they get sassy, instead of yanking their skeletons out, we give them liberal-Berkeley-hippie timeouts for punishments. The timeouts work for the most part put I believe they sit in the timeout spot only because they believe we can do that skeleton yank-out thing. I’m sure when they get older and spicier and start dating, they’ll see that yes indeed, I can flay a live human being.
m seems to get timeouts due to stuff like bonking her sister on the head while a gets them for pushing and smoking cigarettes in the house: “No smoking near my drums of gasoline!” Both behaviors seem to be a bit of jealously especially when big M has one of them on her lap. They never fight for my attention like that or even say Da Da anymore. It’s all Mama this and Mama that. C’mon kids, fight for my attention! Star Trek Style!
Okay, So it’s been like 2 months since I last did a Bog entry. Here’s why. The first month was the month of sickness. I got this weird flu-like thing that was basically like a constant 103 temperature. I called Kaiser and asked them what to do and they said: “Don’t take anything, just let it work its way out. A temperature is your body’s way of fighting it.” A week later, I still felt like shit, so I set up an appointment with my doctor. He gives me the works, including blood test and then shrugs his shoulders: “I don’t know what the fuck it is?” He says. “Back to school with Ye!” I yelled, yanking his diplomas off the wall and throwing them out of the window, killing a nun down below (I’m writing this from jail). He then tells me: “Tylenol, fluids and rest.” This kicks the thing out in about a week. Then M gets it. She immediately hits the Tylenol and kicks it out in 4 days. Then “a” gets it. Same thing, 2-3 days then finally it works its way over to m. She takes it out in 3 days. So apparently, I was the only jive turkey motherfucker to suffer with the bastard for two weeks. Even as I write this, I’m still hawking up phlegm (lovely image, I know).
The thing about being sick is, I’m rarely sick for more than 3 days. This thing went on for two weeks. Whenever I’m that sick the first things I think about are: Now I can watch Reading Rainbow on PBS and “Is this the thing that finally kills me?” If I could choose how I die it will either be sitting on a porch of a cabin at the beach or mountains, watching my last sun set or sunrise, or crashing the Space Shuttle into a comet that’s heading towards earth, causing it to veer off course into deep space. Except for one block-busting piece which fireballs into the site of my most hated political enemy’s, family reunion.
Awaiting me on my next month of hell was the job evaluation from hell. It’s not like I didn’t see it coming but it was the final straw that made me say: “Okay, it’s time to go.”
I actually took the trashing pretty well and I fully attribute that to becoming a parent.
As soon as Baby A’s head popped (twins are label A and B depending on exit position) my priorities shifted so fast that the ghost of Albert Einstein appeared and said: “I guess I was wrong, some things can travel faster than the speed of light.” Now, some things really don’t bother me anymore: Screaming kids on a train, being peed on, being vomited on, being shat on or picking a child’s nose. Before, if any of these events occurred I would have done the freak-out dance for at least an hour. As far as priorities go, my job is right below watching 12 hours of pro golf on a tiny black and white TV with no antennae.
To add insult to insult. They decided that this was the year they were going to give bonuses. BUT in order to get a bonus, you have to get at least a satisfactory on your evaluation. Guess who didn’t get a satisfactory on his evaluation? Not just me but everyone in my department who’s jobs use to be done by 5 people and is now done by one. “Oh I’m sorry I’m not outputting as much work as the other 5 people who use to do this job, I’m still waiting for my extra arms to grow out of my ass!” It gets better. They have to have everyone take this customer service test thing on-line. Apparently the size of THEIR bonus depends on having everyone take the test by a certain date. I found this part out because the Assistant Manager (Ass Man or Man Ass) told everyone at a morning meeting. Two people who also got hosed were helped sooo much on their test that it was borderline cheating. I can’t understand how the management can walk with balls so big. Do they really expect me to hurry up and do the test so that those ass weasels can have a happy Christmas? Again, Albert Einstein appeared at my desk and said: "Now I see that a person can move so slow that they go back in time.”
It gets even better. I know for a fact that there are three of us who got reamed but I suspect that there are more. I know because (unlike the supes and management) I listen to people's complaints. So lets just say moral shouldn’t suck this much if someone is giving you a bonus. The upper-upper guy must have noticed something because he made his underling give a training seminar called the FISH training. Are you ready for this? If you’ve ever been to Seattle and visited the Pikes Market, they have this fish market where guys happily yell hello to people, clown around with you and most importantly, they throw fish at each other. That’s right. If you order a fish, one guy throws it to the guy behind the counter who manages, with great skill I may add, to catch the slippery mercury bag in butcher paper: mad skills! This is basically the training video they made us watch and then at the end of it actually had the nerve to ask: “So, how can we have more fun at work like the guys in the video? And my favorite: “ In the video, they threw fish, what can we throw to each other?” Uhh, desk, lawn darts, ape feces? My favorite answer was when they asked: What should our theme song at work be and this one guy says Highway to Hell.
I mean, what the fuck? Are they that clueless in realizing that the people in the fish market were having a good time because some dick wipe didn’t take their kids Christmas money? Or perhaps their boss actually listens to them when they say: ‘I can’t do this job alone because earlier I sat on a fish hook and it’s hard to catch a fish with something like that lodged in your ass?’ No, at my job they would say: “I think you and you alone should throw and catch the fish. That way you know exactly where the fish will land AND I’m taking your Christmas bonus because you keep dropping fish, especially when you slip, running across the room.
Apparently, what they got out of the training is you choose your attitude, which is true. If you choose to come to work in a bad mood, holding an ax and wearing a hockey mask, you have chosen to have a bad day. But they refuse to believe that business failure is like a dirty pond. Blind, worker fish sucking the dark bottom, and smelly scum on the top, blocking the sunlight.
Time for this fish to evolve some legs.
That’s it, EM
Friday, August 05, 2005
Sock Soup
On my way to pick up the kids at their daycare I ran into a thick wall of smoke caused by a wall of flames that was burning on the side of the road. It was a grass fire, probably caused by some stupid-ass smoker tossing a butt out of the window. After I picked the kids up, I once again had to drive through the smoke and made it home safely. When M came home I said: “I had to drive through a wall of flames to pick the kids up.” To which she replied without shock: “That sounds bad.” And then bypassed me to say hello to the kids.
It’s been a week of driving through fire as the kids continue with Teething 2005! Combined with Parent Authority Test 101. We had a couple of good nights but usually at around 10, z wakes up and then it’s all over. If m wakes up, you can usually bribe her back to sleep, but not z. She wants painkillers, rocking, an inside stroller walk, car seat rocking, DVD of Baby Einstein or just plain cash.
Speaking of cash, m broke my fucking glasses (actually it was my fault for letting her hold them): “Thanks kid, that’s $200 out of your college fund, That will be at least one keg party you won’t be having.” If only I won the lottery. M Hates when I talk about winning the lottery because I never buy a ticket. I tell her that my odds of winning are probably the same without one. I remember the day a guy in my office won 23 million dollars. I was downstairs and we all heard. “Oh my god!” and stuff like” I won the lottery! Oh my god!” We rushed to his desk and he was reading his ticket and freaking out. We asked him to check again. He read the numbers off and compared them to the numbers on the lottery web site. Sure enough, they matched the piece of paper he was holding. Most people were silent. I gave him a goodbye man-hug (sideways, genitals not facing each other) and said it was nice knowing you. He then looked at his ticket and threw it to the ground. I resisted the urge to dive for it. Was he insane? “This isn’t my ticket.” He said picking it up and throwing it down. “Okay?” I thought. This is where I really do grab the ticket from the lunatic. If anyone else sees me grab the ticket and run out the door, I pay him or her off with a million bucks. I hand it back to him and it felt like a scene from Lord of the Rings: Bilbo, tired of the burden of carrying the all-powerful ring, throws it to the ground. One of the secondary characters picks it up and has to return it. In the process, their skin turns green and eyes bug out. A voice tells them how powerful they could become it they’ll just make a break for it. “My precious!” I slur and drool trough sharp teeth before returning it to the guy. “Are you insane?” I ask. “This isn’t my ticket.” He repeats. Is this some weird psychological guilt for winning enough money to have a view of Gods backyard? I wonder. “This is a printout of the winning ticket.” He says. Apparently the guy had got a lotto machine printout of the winning numbers to compare them to his ticket and had been reading the wrong one. We all had a good laugh (except him).
I discovered a few things on that day. 1), I really can feel good about other peoples good fortune and 2) The chances of you winning the lottery are like 500 million to one. The chances of you knowing the lottery winner are probably 1 in 80 million. The chance of you murdering someone and getting away with it are like 1 in a million (unless you’re O.J. and have a lot of money so it’s probably 1 in 10). Therefore, no matter what, you have a better chance of finding the person who won the lottery, beating their ass, taking their ticket and getting away with it then playing the regular way.
M also really hates it when I call us poor. Yes we own a house in the most expensive real estate market in the country. Yes, if I was making what I make in the Bay area and I lived in Mississippi or Bangladesh, I could live in one of those big white plantation houses, sit on a porch, big enough for a 8 mules and drink mint juleps. Or call myself sultan, live next to the Taj Mahal and bathe in saffron water. But I don’t! Everything is relative: Gas and houses are bloody expensive here! So I am relatively low middle class or upper lower (I get confused which). When I think of poor, I don’t compare it to what you have, but what you have left. Sure you can pay for your rent and car, but what do you have after that? How much are you putting into retirement? Do you really believe social security will pay for more than a Twinkie dinner in the cockroach-infested vending machine at the cheap retirement home? So after paying for everything, I have jack shit take home. I’m living on fumes and it’s not the twin’s fault, Its my job life. Why the hell did I choose art? It pays shit if you’re lucky and even then, the shit is thrown at you by some greedy art director. I’m in the highest paying art job I’ve got and yet I feel like I’m still working at an art supply store. All that’s missing are milk crates, cinder block shelves and a 12 pack of Ramen noodles.
When I was in art school, I worked in an office for a work-study program. Everything I made was going into buying art supplies, which are fucking, expensive. They should have called it a work-food program. One week I had no money for food and had already ate all of my Ramen noodles and packs of instant, peaches and cream oatmeal (which is the worst thing you’ll ever put in your mouth next to a dentist drill or a convict’s penis). I was literally a starving artist. I remember sneaking into a pizza restaurant and stealing their condiments–Crackers and Ketchup soup. Mmm! Bon Appetite! In the break room at work, they had only two things, coffee and instant creamer. So. I sucked that stuff down on an empty stomach. By the time I got back to my apartment, I was shaking and freaking out. I felt like I could vibrate trough walls. I lay down on the floor to die or at least calm down. When I looked over to the right, I noticed that under my roommates bed, was an onion. Why was there an onion there? Was he stealing food or is this some kind of voodoo thing. I took the onion, ran downstairs and tried to make onion rings.
Recipe:
Slice onions and dip in water.
Flour.
Fry in hot grease until everything breaks apart and turns into hot, brown grease soup.
Eat and thank God for this bounty because after all, people in Bangladesh would kill for Brown Onion Grease soup.
I never could figure out where that onion came from. My friend A from art school claims that I was hallucinating. It wasn’t really an onion but a rolled up white sock. Mmm! Sock soup. Maybe it really was a voodoo thing. My roommate was from the deep-deep South and he did literally just disappear after I took the onion away, never to be seem again. Maybe it was because my other roommate was a maniacal freak who threaten his life for stealing his food. More likely, that.
I do feel very rich with the girls. It is like winning a personal lottery of sorts.
But like winning the lottery, you may not have to eat Sock soup, but you may have to adjust your old unsolved problems up a level. If I won the lottery, coming home could be: “My private jet flew through a wall of flames at the London airport.” Without shock, M says: “That sounds bad” and bypasses me to get to the kids. Then m takes my $50,000 glasses I got from Sir Elton John and throws them to the ground.
That’s it
E.M.
It’s been a week of driving through fire as the kids continue with Teething 2005! Combined with Parent Authority Test 101. We had a couple of good nights but usually at around 10, z wakes up and then it’s all over. If m wakes up, you can usually bribe her back to sleep, but not z. She wants painkillers, rocking, an inside stroller walk, car seat rocking, DVD of Baby Einstein or just plain cash.
Speaking of cash, m broke my fucking glasses (actually it was my fault for letting her hold them): “Thanks kid, that’s $200 out of your college fund, That will be at least one keg party you won’t be having.” If only I won the lottery. M Hates when I talk about winning the lottery because I never buy a ticket. I tell her that my odds of winning are probably the same without one. I remember the day a guy in my office won 23 million dollars. I was downstairs and we all heard. “Oh my god!” and stuff like” I won the lottery! Oh my god!” We rushed to his desk and he was reading his ticket and freaking out. We asked him to check again. He read the numbers off and compared them to the numbers on the lottery web site. Sure enough, they matched the piece of paper he was holding. Most people were silent. I gave him a goodbye man-hug (sideways, genitals not facing each other) and said it was nice knowing you. He then looked at his ticket and threw it to the ground. I resisted the urge to dive for it. Was he insane? “This isn’t my ticket.” He said picking it up and throwing it down. “Okay?” I thought. This is where I really do grab the ticket from the lunatic. If anyone else sees me grab the ticket and run out the door, I pay him or her off with a million bucks. I hand it back to him and it felt like a scene from Lord of the Rings: Bilbo, tired of the burden of carrying the all-powerful ring, throws it to the ground. One of the secondary characters picks it up and has to return it. In the process, their skin turns green and eyes bug out. A voice tells them how powerful they could become it they’ll just make a break for it. “My precious!” I slur and drool trough sharp teeth before returning it to the guy. “Are you insane?” I ask. “This isn’t my ticket.” He repeats. Is this some weird psychological guilt for winning enough money to have a view of Gods backyard? I wonder. “This is a printout of the winning ticket.” He says. Apparently the guy had got a lotto machine printout of the winning numbers to compare them to his ticket and had been reading the wrong one. We all had a good laugh (except him).
I discovered a few things on that day. 1), I really can feel good about other peoples good fortune and 2) The chances of you winning the lottery are like 500 million to one. The chances of you knowing the lottery winner are probably 1 in 80 million. The chance of you murdering someone and getting away with it are like 1 in a million (unless you’re O.J. and have a lot of money so it’s probably 1 in 10). Therefore, no matter what, you have a better chance of finding the person who won the lottery, beating their ass, taking their ticket and getting away with it then playing the regular way.
M also really hates it when I call us poor. Yes we own a house in the most expensive real estate market in the country. Yes, if I was making what I make in the Bay area and I lived in Mississippi or Bangladesh, I could live in one of those big white plantation houses, sit on a porch, big enough for a 8 mules and drink mint juleps. Or call myself sultan, live next to the Taj Mahal and bathe in saffron water. But I don’t! Everything is relative: Gas and houses are bloody expensive here! So I am relatively low middle class or upper lower (I get confused which). When I think of poor, I don’t compare it to what you have, but what you have left. Sure you can pay for your rent and car, but what do you have after that? How much are you putting into retirement? Do you really believe social security will pay for more than a Twinkie dinner in the cockroach-infested vending machine at the cheap retirement home? So after paying for everything, I have jack shit take home. I’m living on fumes and it’s not the twin’s fault, Its my job life. Why the hell did I choose art? It pays shit if you’re lucky and even then, the shit is thrown at you by some greedy art director. I’m in the highest paying art job I’ve got and yet I feel like I’m still working at an art supply store. All that’s missing are milk crates, cinder block shelves and a 12 pack of Ramen noodles.
When I was in art school, I worked in an office for a work-study program. Everything I made was going into buying art supplies, which are fucking, expensive. They should have called it a work-food program. One week I had no money for food and had already ate all of my Ramen noodles and packs of instant, peaches and cream oatmeal (which is the worst thing you’ll ever put in your mouth next to a dentist drill or a convict’s penis). I was literally a starving artist. I remember sneaking into a pizza restaurant and stealing their condiments–Crackers and Ketchup soup. Mmm! Bon Appetite! In the break room at work, they had only two things, coffee and instant creamer. So. I sucked that stuff down on an empty stomach. By the time I got back to my apartment, I was shaking and freaking out. I felt like I could vibrate trough walls. I lay down on the floor to die or at least calm down. When I looked over to the right, I noticed that under my roommates bed, was an onion. Why was there an onion there? Was he stealing food or is this some kind of voodoo thing. I took the onion, ran downstairs and tried to make onion rings.
Recipe:
Slice onions and dip in water.
Flour.
Fry in hot grease until everything breaks apart and turns into hot, brown grease soup.
Eat and thank God for this bounty because after all, people in Bangladesh would kill for Brown Onion Grease soup.
I never could figure out where that onion came from. My friend A from art school claims that I was hallucinating. It wasn’t really an onion but a rolled up white sock. Mmm! Sock soup. Maybe it really was a voodoo thing. My roommate was from the deep-deep South and he did literally just disappear after I took the onion away, never to be seem again. Maybe it was because my other roommate was a maniacal freak who threaten his life for stealing his food. More likely, that.
I do feel very rich with the girls. It is like winning a personal lottery of sorts.
But like winning the lottery, you may not have to eat Sock soup, but you may have to adjust your old unsolved problems up a level. If I won the lottery, coming home could be: “My private jet flew through a wall of flames at the London airport.” Without shock, M says: “That sounds bad” and bypasses me to get to the kids. Then m takes my $50,000 glasses I got from Sir Elton John and throws them to the ground.
That’s it
E.M.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
The Spanking Machine
Sooo tired. These past weeks have been hell as z has been teething a lot. She usually wakes up at 2 in the morning and it takes at least an hour to get her back down until the Tylenol kicks in. She has such a low pain tolerance unlike m, whose like a little tank sometimes. On the plus of development, language continues to creep in. z can say the first half of words; (cheese is che) and m can say "ball" and "bubble" pretty clearly. Time to stop saying "fucking hell!" when near them.
Both kids have been acting a little "challenging" lately. They like to purposely walk over to somewhere I don't want them to be or do something that I don't like. But first, they look at you and check: "Is this going to piss you off?" If I look at them, that's when the bottle of poison goes in the mouth or they jump trough the stained glass window (did I mention I Live in a church that use to be a poison factory?) I thought that they wouldn't be acting like this until they were two. What happen to the terrible twos! I guess this is sorta a preview of the infamous teen years when they really lay on the spread. We have a whole room full of toys but they just want to climb up to the window, eat stuff off the carpet, climb over the guardrail or pet the rabid hyena, which is in their room for some reason. I know that if I ignore them, they'll eventually start doing stuff to get my attention; fast cars with boys/drugs/alcohol, yadda yadda... But perhaps I can circumvent their behavior by using reverse psychology. Make being good, naughty and they'll flock to it like sea gulls at a garbage dump. Maybe when they become surly teens, I'll leave porno magazines and drugs lying around and hide a bunch of textbooks in the attic and under my mattress: "Hey z! Look what I found! A Calculus book!" "Ooh! Check it a SAT prep kit."
When I was visiting my family across country, my big sister, C asked me if there was anything I was going to do differently with my girls than the way we were raised. I wasn’t sure if she was leading into a religious question or not. Like getting them confirmed into Catholicism. Unlike me, she still believes in the Catholic Church’s version of Christianity along with multiple Internet hoaxes. I have yet to convince her that Tommy Hilfiger is not a racist who wants to remove the words “Under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance or Jesus will not get Bill Gates to give you money when ever you forward an e-mail. I told her the one thing I would NOT do would be to ever beat my kids. She looked at me as if my 10 years of living in Liberal Northern California had finally caught up with me. Like, Not only would I not beat my kids, but also I would let them have sex with their boyfriends in their rooms or smoke pot with us and call us by our first names. No, my objection to clobbering comes not so much from the couple of belt floggings by my dad but from the nuns at my grammar school. May those nuns all rot in hell. Yes, hell. I mean what kind of adult beats a child with a cane? This was the result of some kid opening the door to the classroom right when the girls were undressing for gym. For some reason, the boys would get dressed in the bathroom and the girls would get dressed in the classroom. Sister Magarette (or Margarita) had gotten foot surgery and hobbled with a cane for at least 3 months (not continuously hobbling or else she would have made it to Canada). Now, as cruel as the caning was, you think she’d beat just that peeping kid but Nooooo, she lined up all the boys in the hallway and one by one, hit our back thighs: WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! Dude? What the fuck? I didn’t even see anything and I get beat? Their flawed logic was; “The good must suffer with the bad” Meaning then, the good kids would keep the bad ones in line or in other words; sanctioned ass kicking.
Another time I was beat for talking in church. Oh I’m sure Jesus would agree with that one: “Blessed are the meek for they shall…Wait a minute! Who’s talking? You! Boy! Next to that goat! Come here you little bastard! How dare you talk during my eulogy! Let me show you how hard the right hand of God is! Another time we got beat by a woman who whacked you if you failed a test. Oh yeah, that’ll work. What the hell were these people’s problems? What kind of fucked up upbringing creates a nun that beats children? At what point did they choose Nun over Dominatrix or LA cop? The only thing I learned from getting beaten is; don’t ever do that again…In front of them! One nun wasn’t so much as a beater but a sarcastic douche bag. Once, I decided I wasn’t going to get bad grades anymore and I told her so and do you know how she responded? “We’ll see about that.” Wha-wha what? If she were Denzel Washington or Morgan Freeman in some feel-good movie about grammar school she would have said: “That’s what I wanna hear solider!
When I use to watch the Ricky Lake/Jenny Jones/Jerry Springer lineup and the "Out of control/whatever/I do what I want" 13 year old girl comes out and causes her mom to shrink with every “bitch” she calls her, of course, like everyone in the audience, I want to cut the rope holding an anvil over her head. But now that THAT could be my kid. I can’t see beating them just because they talked in Pope Ratzinger’s church!
For Christ sake!
The beatings were such an ingrained form of discipline in Catholic school that there was a rumor of a spanking machine. That’s right, some kind of wheeled device with multiple, spiked ping-pong paddles on it that saves the hand of the punisher and administers swift justice to the arse of the offender. One time, I got in trouble for talking (as usual) and I got sent to the principal’s office. I can’t tell you how shitless I was, dead man walking down the hallway, imagining them oiling up ol' 'Betty’ or whatever nickname they had for the machine. When I arrived, they made me sort out a bunch of paperwork. That was it! No spanking machine! I was so relived but also a little disappointed, of course not at the prospect of being beaten bloody by a robot but the fact that something horrible that you believed in and wouldn’t put past the cruelty of the nuns, was only a rumor. This created a little break in their infallible teaching for me which would follow me trough the next 5 or 6 years of their instructions: Perhaps you won’t get pregnant even if you keep your underwear on, perhaps pre marital sex isn’t wrong if you never plan to get married and why is anal sex wrong if Gay people do it and yet I see so much of it in straight porn movies?
Years later, the final straw was them protecting the child molesting priest and ignoring the victim! Perhaps this is that ingrained sadistic center that can’t smack kids around anymore but they sure haven’t got the hang of that “love thy neighbor” thing, yet.
I have yet to find a church that doesn’t beat up on someone. The Dali Lama hates gays as much as the Catholics, Baptist and countless others. Other religions won’t even let women have clitoris or drive cars (perhaps there's a connection there), that it’s okay to blow people up or believe that women can get over Post Partum Depression with prayer. Ugh!
One day I’ll find a less fucked-up religion and maybe then you’ll drag my ass out of bed on a Sunday after a night of baby teething. Until then, Zzzzzzzzz.
That’s it
EM
Both kids have been acting a little "challenging" lately. They like to purposely walk over to somewhere I don't want them to be or do something that I don't like. But first, they look at you and check: "Is this going to piss you off?" If I look at them, that's when the bottle of poison goes in the mouth or they jump trough the stained glass window (did I mention I Live in a church that use to be a poison factory?) I thought that they wouldn't be acting like this until they were two. What happen to the terrible twos! I guess this is sorta a preview of the infamous teen years when they really lay on the spread. We have a whole room full of toys but they just want to climb up to the window, eat stuff off the carpet, climb over the guardrail or pet the rabid hyena, which is in their room for some reason. I know that if I ignore them, they'll eventually start doing stuff to get my attention; fast cars with boys/drugs/alcohol, yadda yadda... But perhaps I can circumvent their behavior by using reverse psychology. Make being good, naughty and they'll flock to it like sea gulls at a garbage dump. Maybe when they become surly teens, I'll leave porno magazines and drugs lying around and hide a bunch of textbooks in the attic and under my mattress: "Hey z! Look what I found! A Calculus book!" "Ooh! Check it a SAT prep kit."
When I was visiting my family across country, my big sister, C asked me if there was anything I was going to do differently with my girls than the way we were raised. I wasn’t sure if she was leading into a religious question or not. Like getting them confirmed into Catholicism. Unlike me, she still believes in the Catholic Church’s version of Christianity along with multiple Internet hoaxes. I have yet to convince her that Tommy Hilfiger is not a racist who wants to remove the words “Under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance or Jesus will not get Bill Gates to give you money when ever you forward an e-mail. I told her the one thing I would NOT do would be to ever beat my kids. She looked at me as if my 10 years of living in Liberal Northern California had finally caught up with me. Like, Not only would I not beat my kids, but also I would let them have sex with their boyfriends in their rooms or smoke pot with us and call us by our first names. No, my objection to clobbering comes not so much from the couple of belt floggings by my dad but from the nuns at my grammar school. May those nuns all rot in hell. Yes, hell. I mean what kind of adult beats a child with a cane? This was the result of some kid opening the door to the classroom right when the girls were undressing for gym. For some reason, the boys would get dressed in the bathroom and the girls would get dressed in the classroom. Sister Magarette (or Margarita) had gotten foot surgery and hobbled with a cane for at least 3 months (not continuously hobbling or else she would have made it to Canada). Now, as cruel as the caning was, you think she’d beat just that peeping kid but Nooooo, she lined up all the boys in the hallway and one by one, hit our back thighs: WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! Dude? What the fuck? I didn’t even see anything and I get beat? Their flawed logic was; “The good must suffer with the bad” Meaning then, the good kids would keep the bad ones in line or in other words; sanctioned ass kicking.
Another time I was beat for talking in church. Oh I’m sure Jesus would agree with that one: “Blessed are the meek for they shall…Wait a minute! Who’s talking? You! Boy! Next to that goat! Come here you little bastard! How dare you talk during my eulogy! Let me show you how hard the right hand of God is! Another time we got beat by a woman who whacked you if you failed a test. Oh yeah, that’ll work. What the hell were these people’s problems? What kind of fucked up upbringing creates a nun that beats children? At what point did they choose Nun over Dominatrix or LA cop? The only thing I learned from getting beaten is; don’t ever do that again…In front of them! One nun wasn’t so much as a beater but a sarcastic douche bag. Once, I decided I wasn’t going to get bad grades anymore and I told her so and do you know how she responded? “We’ll see about that.” Wha-wha what? If she were Denzel Washington or Morgan Freeman in some feel-good movie about grammar school she would have said: “That’s what I wanna hear solider!
When I use to watch the Ricky Lake/Jenny Jones/Jerry Springer lineup and the "Out of control/whatever/I do what I want" 13 year old girl comes out and causes her mom to shrink with every “bitch” she calls her, of course, like everyone in the audience, I want to cut the rope holding an anvil over her head. But now that THAT could be my kid. I can’t see beating them just because they talked in Pope Ratzinger’s church!
For Christ sake!
The beatings were such an ingrained form of discipline in Catholic school that there was a rumor of a spanking machine. That’s right, some kind of wheeled device with multiple, spiked ping-pong paddles on it that saves the hand of the punisher and administers swift justice to the arse of the offender. One time, I got in trouble for talking (as usual) and I got sent to the principal’s office. I can’t tell you how shitless I was, dead man walking down the hallway, imagining them oiling up ol' 'Betty’ or whatever nickname they had for the machine. When I arrived, they made me sort out a bunch of paperwork. That was it! No spanking machine! I was so relived but also a little disappointed, of course not at the prospect of being beaten bloody by a robot but the fact that something horrible that you believed in and wouldn’t put past the cruelty of the nuns, was only a rumor. This created a little break in their infallible teaching for me which would follow me trough the next 5 or 6 years of their instructions: Perhaps you won’t get pregnant even if you keep your underwear on, perhaps pre marital sex isn’t wrong if you never plan to get married and why is anal sex wrong if Gay people do it and yet I see so much of it in straight porn movies?
Years later, the final straw was them protecting the child molesting priest and ignoring the victim! Perhaps this is that ingrained sadistic center that can’t smack kids around anymore but they sure haven’t got the hang of that “love thy neighbor” thing, yet.
I have yet to find a church that doesn’t beat up on someone. The Dali Lama hates gays as much as the Catholics, Baptist and countless others. Other religions won’t even let women have clitoris or drive cars (perhaps there's a connection there), that it’s okay to blow people up or believe that women can get over Post Partum Depression with prayer. Ugh!
One day I’ll find a less fucked-up religion and maybe then you’ll drag my ass out of bed on a Sunday after a night of baby teething. Until then, Zzzzzzzzz.
That’s it
EM
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
Sweaty Hobos, Covered in Butter
We recently went to Atlanta to visit my side of the family and give them a chance to finally meet the girls (15 months later). It was a lot of fun. Got to see my friends too. The girls got compliments on the airplane like: "They were so good.” or “They shut the hell up, real good." On the way back, we got to use the special Homeland Security baby lane which was like 5 people deep, instead of the 500 poor saps who had to wait an hour to get anal probed. Ha! We got express anal probing!
After all of the stimulation of travel, hotel rooms, going off their organic diet for a week and 9000 degree heat plus humidity that was like having a large, sweaty hobo grab your face, it was nice to get back to my Bay Area island in the sea of red state stupidity. It’s taken a while, but I think the girls have finally calmed down and realized there are no more army of people admiring you, just your boring ol’ parents and those dishonorable cats.
z seems to have picked up a souvenir from her cousin j, who’s pretty much the same age as them. She keeps trying to do j’s very high-pitched squeal. Thank god she can’t quite get it because j’s squeal was so bad, my fillings rattled. If z gets it right, we may have to take her back to the hospital: “Excuse me? Do you have a quieter model?” I kid of course (nudge nudge).
"Will someone please Stick a railroad spike trough my head?” This is what I'm thinking as I return to work after being out for a week. There use to be a time I really liked my job..Okay, that's bullshit. There was a time I didn't hate it as much. Back in the day (Yo, yo) it felt more like a team thing. There were staff parties, free movie tickets, perks, even t-shirts with our company name on it. Now, they give you t-shirts instead of raises and movie tickets instead of respect. It seems that all of the people I liked working with either quit or never made it past that 6 months probation period. I miss going to lunch with people or being able to speak off the record about what a fucking back-stabber this guy who sits across from me is. More and more of these backstabbing assholes are being shoved into my office. It's like they're surrounding me, like the cream filling in a jackass cake. The only people that are left are the ones who you know if you tell them anything, the upper management will come to you later and say: "Did we get a customer complaint about X?" My old crew, we would SELF CONTAIN the problem before it would get that far up. We wouldn't cover it up; we would just solve the problem as fast as possible. And what's wrong with that? If I were a boss, all I would say would be if the work is getting done and the customers are happy then leave me the fuck alone.
I was an assistant manager at an art suppy store once and even tough you try to be as "cool" as you can, the "Leave me the fuck alone" technique never really works. No matter how hip you try to be, it was all about the age. I wasn't even 40 and yet the 20-30 year olds treated me as if I was the old coot. It didn't matter that I was a independent comic book artist who use to make his own movies or tried (emphases on tried) to make really terrible music and form an industrial band which never put out an album or played anywhere. (I did get the t-shirts printed tough). The work would always slip as people would slack off and then what? Now you had to come out of the office, wearing your Members Only jacket, sporting a comb-over and your arms akimbo saying:" So, is it break time?" Or: "Do you need something to do?" Yuck! Poo-poo to that.
One of my first jobs was at a fast food chicken joint in the South, during the summer. It was 90 degrees outside and we were stuck in the kitchen where the 9000 degree heat would cook us like Peeps Easter candy in the microwave. Whenever I got a chance, I would sneak into the walk-in fridge and sit on the milk crates. "Ahhhhh!" Occasionally the Members only jacket/comb-over/akimbo arms manager would check in on me: "What are you doing in here?" "Oh, just organizing the eggs." I would respond.
This fast food joint served these really large biscuits and it was our job to brush them, just once with butter before wrapping them up. I always thought that was a rip because I personally would like to taste the butter more. So one time I really lathered it on as if they were sponges. In comes the morning Sunday rush, out go the biscuits, and in comes this pissed off old Black dude. His brown pants, butter stained like he had wet himself
Everyday, they wouldn't let you go until you cleaned the stove and drained the grease from the deep fat fryer. Cleaning the grill involved a long audacious process of scrubbing a still hot, metal slab with a Brillo pad and then after draining the lard pit into these huge buckets, you had to carry this sloshing liquid to this garbage bin containment thing, way the hell in the back. After one brutal shift, at around 2AM, I really wanted to go home and watch the Night Flight video show (is that still on?). Instead of walking the rainy long wet journey to the grease bin, I just dumped the grease next to the side of the building. I'm sure the rats outside were happy about that one: "Hey! Ben! It's like drinking a steak!" The next day, the manager comes in, his pants and Members Only jacket covered in grease and tire marks complaining: "I was riding my motorcycle on the side and hit a slippery patch and whipped out."
I guess I can understand how grossly incompetent and lazy young people can be. And how you really can’t not manage them but still, I wasn’t those freezer-checking managers, I was like working for Patsy and Adina in Ab Fab. You know. Come in whenever, bottle of champagne and caviar in the desk, calling everyone dahling. But did that get me cool Assistant Manager points? Hell no. Will it get me cool points with my girls? All I can say is; if your kids think you’re cool, you’re not doing your job.
That’s it,
EM
After all of the stimulation of travel, hotel rooms, going off their organic diet for a week and 9000 degree heat plus humidity that was like having a large, sweaty hobo grab your face, it was nice to get back to my Bay Area island in the sea of red state stupidity. It’s taken a while, but I think the girls have finally calmed down and realized there are no more army of people admiring you, just your boring ol’ parents and those dishonorable cats.
z seems to have picked up a souvenir from her cousin j, who’s pretty much the same age as them. She keeps trying to do j’s very high-pitched squeal. Thank god she can’t quite get it because j’s squeal was so bad, my fillings rattled. If z gets it right, we may have to take her back to the hospital: “Excuse me? Do you have a quieter model?” I kid of course (nudge nudge).
"Will someone please Stick a railroad spike trough my head?” This is what I'm thinking as I return to work after being out for a week. There use to be a time I really liked my job..Okay, that's bullshit. There was a time I didn't hate it as much. Back in the day (Yo, yo) it felt more like a team thing. There were staff parties, free movie tickets, perks, even t-shirts with our company name on it. Now, they give you t-shirts instead of raises and movie tickets instead of respect. It seems that all of the people I liked working with either quit or never made it past that 6 months probation period. I miss going to lunch with people or being able to speak off the record about what a fucking back-stabber this guy who sits across from me is. More and more of these backstabbing assholes are being shoved into my office. It's like they're surrounding me, like the cream filling in a jackass cake. The only people that are left are the ones who you know if you tell them anything, the upper management will come to you later and say: "Did we get a customer complaint about X?" My old crew, we would SELF CONTAIN the problem before it would get that far up. We wouldn't cover it up; we would just solve the problem as fast as possible. And what's wrong with that? If I were a boss, all I would say would be if the work is getting done and the customers are happy then leave me the fuck alone.
I was an assistant manager at an art suppy store once and even tough you try to be as "cool" as you can, the "Leave me the fuck alone" technique never really works. No matter how hip you try to be, it was all about the age. I wasn't even 40 and yet the 20-30 year olds treated me as if I was the old coot. It didn't matter that I was a independent comic book artist who use to make his own movies or tried (emphases on tried) to make really terrible music and form an industrial band which never put out an album or played anywhere. (I did get the t-shirts printed tough). The work would always slip as people would slack off and then what? Now you had to come out of the office, wearing your Members Only jacket, sporting a comb-over and your arms akimbo saying:" So, is it break time?" Or: "Do you need something to do?" Yuck! Poo-poo to that.
One of my first jobs was at a fast food chicken joint in the South, during the summer. It was 90 degrees outside and we were stuck in the kitchen where the 9000 degree heat would cook us like Peeps Easter candy in the microwave. Whenever I got a chance, I would sneak into the walk-in fridge and sit on the milk crates. "Ahhhhh!" Occasionally the Members only jacket/comb-over/akimbo arms manager would check in on me: "What are you doing in here?" "Oh, just organizing the eggs." I would respond.
This fast food joint served these really large biscuits and it was our job to brush them, just once with butter before wrapping them up. I always thought that was a rip because I personally would like to taste the butter more. So one time I really lathered it on as if they were sponges. In comes the morning Sunday rush, out go the biscuits, and in comes this pissed off old Black dude. His brown pants, butter stained like he had wet himself
Everyday, they wouldn't let you go until you cleaned the stove and drained the grease from the deep fat fryer. Cleaning the grill involved a long audacious process of scrubbing a still hot, metal slab with a Brillo pad and then after draining the lard pit into these huge buckets, you had to carry this sloshing liquid to this garbage bin containment thing, way the hell in the back. After one brutal shift, at around 2AM, I really wanted to go home and watch the Night Flight video show (is that still on?). Instead of walking the rainy long wet journey to the grease bin, I just dumped the grease next to the side of the building. I'm sure the rats outside were happy about that one: "Hey! Ben! It's like drinking a steak!" The next day, the manager comes in, his pants and Members Only jacket covered in grease and tire marks complaining: "I was riding my motorcycle on the side and hit a slippery patch and whipped out."
I guess I can understand how grossly incompetent and lazy young people can be. And how you really can’t not manage them but still, I wasn’t those freezer-checking managers, I was like working for Patsy and Adina in Ab Fab. You know. Come in whenever, bottle of champagne and caviar in the desk, calling everyone dahling. But did that get me cool Assistant Manager points? Hell no. Will it get me cool points with my girls? All I can say is; if your kids think you’re cool, you’re not doing your job.
That’s it,
EM
Friday, June 24, 2005
"Thanks for the heroin, sorry for spitting on you."
Grandpa (M's dad) came for a visit. Little z was a lot more relaxed and "normal" with him. You see, z has what I call "Manxiety", which means, if you aren't putting out an estrogen vibe, and aren't their wussy dad, she freaks out, especially if you try to pick her up. I actually attribute a lot of this to just the way some people approach her. z is a very exotic looking toddler while m looks more like Gerber baby (we call her Baby Classic). So, annoying strangers seem immediately drawn to her. m has a little Bohemian mind (for now) and is a lot more open to strangers or new experiences. She will let anyone pick her up. But z is a little scientist (for now). She likes to see what's going on, first. She asks “Who are all of these fucking people?” Then, maybe by the end of the day, she comes around.
Where I come from, little girls were either called “fast” or “shy”. Shy is an obvious description for any child that doesn’t want a perfect stranger to pick them up and swing them around the room yelling: “Hi! I’m yer uncle Gus! I use to change your diapers and I just got out of jail!” Of course a kid is going to slink away from that. “Fast” kids were those take charge, back-talking smart-asses. Instead of assailed as brats, they were admired for having independent minds and rapier wit. Most likely, when no one was around, these kids would be back handed by their parents for such insolence but in front of company, when they say: “Talk to the hand!” It’s considered cute.
Teaching manners to the Bart Simpson generation is going to be tough. I'm constantly in the Mission District neighborhood in San Francisco. Parts of the Mission have some of the most disgusting sites I have ever seen in my life. Once, I saw a woman, who I thought was putting on makeup. Turns out she was shooting up heroin into her eyebrows! I’ve seen daily human turds on the sidewalk, crack smokers, hobos, tramps, gypsies and thieves. Worst of all, there’s this fruit stand right on the corner of 16th and Mission where all of these people hang out. When it rains. The sidewalk smells like the floor of a YMCA men’s room. As cars drive by, on rainy days, they do their little puddle splash thing and I cant help but wonder; “Why don’t they take that fruit inside and away from the constant spray of piss, shit and used needles flying into the apples like pin cushions? One time, I was walking past that stand, and this dealer/addict turns his head right when I’m passing him and accidently hawks a luggie right onto the side of my head! Instead of looking for a flame thrower to kill him and then burn my face off, I remained calm until I could find one of those showers like they have in nuclear plants that blast your skin off. The addict guy says: “Sorry” and moves on to his life of depravity. Years Later, after many STD test, I was in the same neighborhood. These kids inside a fenced in playground call out to me. I listen and they say: “The ball!” After checking my pants to make sure my testicles hadn’t slipped out, I notice their red ball was lodged under a car. I picked it up and threw it over the fence to them. And what happened? Nothing! No thank you! I could have pulled an Eddie Haskell* and took it with me but nooo, I have to be Mr. nice adult! But those little brats can’t say thanks? On numerous occasions kids ask me for directions, and when I help them they never say thank you. What the fuck? Like I don’t have better things to do. At least the Drug addict said sorry! C’mon, what are parents teaching these kids? (He said feeling old and shaking his fist at those darn kids today).
Dear kids: The world doesn’t work for you. Two simple words: THANK YOU. How hard is that?
Perhaps I ask too much. I mean, after our girls cause all of my grey hairs to fall out, some kind of hernia/ulcer operation and 5 years spent in prison after a boyfriend tries to get to first base with them. Do I really expect them to go: “Oh Papa. Thank you for your hard work and selling your kidneys so that I could go to Stanford and become a Nuclear Robot Technician.”? They aren’t going to say that. Not even if it was: “Hey! Asshole! I won Porn Star of the year award. Thank God for all of that coke I bought with your kidney money.”
I guess that is sort of a thank you for my future hard work. I’ll take what I can get.
That’s it,
EM
* From Leave it to Beaver.
Where I come from, little girls were either called “fast” or “shy”. Shy is an obvious description for any child that doesn’t want a perfect stranger to pick them up and swing them around the room yelling: “Hi! I’m yer uncle Gus! I use to change your diapers and I just got out of jail!” Of course a kid is going to slink away from that. “Fast” kids were those take charge, back-talking smart-asses. Instead of assailed as brats, they were admired for having independent minds and rapier wit. Most likely, when no one was around, these kids would be back handed by their parents for such insolence but in front of company, when they say: “Talk to the hand!” It’s considered cute.
Teaching manners to the Bart Simpson generation is going to be tough. I'm constantly in the Mission District neighborhood in San Francisco. Parts of the Mission have some of the most disgusting sites I have ever seen in my life. Once, I saw a woman, who I thought was putting on makeup. Turns out she was shooting up heroin into her eyebrows! I’ve seen daily human turds on the sidewalk, crack smokers, hobos, tramps, gypsies and thieves. Worst of all, there’s this fruit stand right on the corner of 16th and Mission where all of these people hang out. When it rains. The sidewalk smells like the floor of a YMCA men’s room. As cars drive by, on rainy days, they do their little puddle splash thing and I cant help but wonder; “Why don’t they take that fruit inside and away from the constant spray of piss, shit and used needles flying into the apples like pin cushions? One time, I was walking past that stand, and this dealer/addict turns his head right when I’m passing him and accidently hawks a luggie right onto the side of my head! Instead of looking for a flame thrower to kill him and then burn my face off, I remained calm until I could find one of those showers like they have in nuclear plants that blast your skin off. The addict guy says: “Sorry” and moves on to his life of depravity. Years Later, after many STD test, I was in the same neighborhood. These kids inside a fenced in playground call out to me. I listen and they say: “The ball!” After checking my pants to make sure my testicles hadn’t slipped out, I notice their red ball was lodged under a car. I picked it up and threw it over the fence to them. And what happened? Nothing! No thank you! I could have pulled an Eddie Haskell* and took it with me but nooo, I have to be Mr. nice adult! But those little brats can’t say thanks? On numerous occasions kids ask me for directions, and when I help them they never say thank you. What the fuck? Like I don’t have better things to do. At least the Drug addict said sorry! C’mon, what are parents teaching these kids? (He said feeling old and shaking his fist at those darn kids today).
Dear kids: The world doesn’t work for you. Two simple words: THANK YOU. How hard is that?
Perhaps I ask too much. I mean, after our girls cause all of my grey hairs to fall out, some kind of hernia/ulcer operation and 5 years spent in prison after a boyfriend tries to get to first base with them. Do I really expect them to go: “Oh Papa. Thank you for your hard work and selling your kidneys so that I could go to Stanford and become a Nuclear Robot Technician.”? They aren’t going to say that. Not even if it was: “Hey! Asshole! I won Porn Star of the year award. Thank God for all of that coke I bought with your kidney money.”
I guess that is sort of a thank you for my future hard work. I’ll take what I can get.
That’s it,
EM
* From Leave it to Beaver.
Friday, June 17, 2005
"You are in our thoughts, flaming Klansman."
So, apparently my name is “Dee-Daa.” This is the closest we can figure what the girls are actually calling me. I guess a variation on “Da-da”. As far as I'm concerned, the girls could be talking about the cat or my glasses but M swears that this is what they say when I just show up or they're wondering where “Boob-less Thing is?” Their name for the cat is “Ka!” The dog next door is “Aie-ya!” All other children are “Adieu!” Said just like French for good-bye. Cheese is “cshhh.” Fish is “fss”. Tree is “uhhh!” Clock is the sound FX: “Toc-toc-toc.” and Grandma is represented by a loud happy squeal. The only person who does not have a name is…Mom. It’s confusing. If you were to ask them: "Where's Daddy?" They'll not only look at me, they'll look back at who asked it as if to say: “Are you on crack? He's right there!" My theory is, its not that they don't have a name for mom or not know who she is, its more like she's such a part of them, that its hard to differentiate her into a separate entity, its like asking a kid, where's your mind, as opposed to where's your brain? Mom is not satisfied with this theory and still insist that the kids call her a name while pointing at her and holding up one of those name signs you see limo drivers holding at the airport.
We had yet another greetings card being passed around at work. You sign it and then try to hunt down the nearest victim in order to get it off of your desk and away from you as fast as possible. Otherwise you're “It” until you get rid of it. This card was for some woman, whose mother-in-law had passed. I don't really like her (the woman) because she's part of this elite group of older workers who have been there for years and run only on a reputation that they're hard workers when in fact they make the lives of people under them a living hell because they promise the customers miracle deadlines. Sure the customers love them but THEY don't do the actual work so me and the slaves bust our asses getting these promised jobs out ASAP and when we do, the customers send them bottles of wine and Krispy Kreme doughnuts (mmmm Krispy Kreme doughnuts) and the only reward we get is 30 punches in the stomach instead of the usual 40. So this card is in front of me and I have to write something because accompanying it is a checklist with your name on it, If you don’t write something and check your name off, they'll know you're a heartless bastard and didn't sign it. But what to write? What nice thing do you say to someone you don't like in order to show the least amount of caring as possible while appearing nice? The Bush Administration has mastered “You are in our thoughts and prayers”. Every time something happens in a country we don't like; an earthquake in a Muslim country. The first thing out of their mouths is “You are in our thoughts and prayers”. Now "Thoughts" was a possibility. That's vague enough. If a Klansman's car flipped over into a flaming pit of gasoline, when he looked out the window at me and screamed for help with what's left of his mouth. I could honestly yell in all sincerity: “You are in my thoughts!” and then walk away. But prayers? Ha ha ha! The only thing I ever pray for is a mutual sustainable world peace, happy healthy children, justice for all and Fox not to cancel yet another show that I like. So I decided just to write: “You are in my thoughts.” because I'm not really sorry and I try not to ever lie (which gets me into a fuck load of trouble, let me tell you). But get this! Two other people wrote the same thing! I guess I'm not the only one who dislikes her.
I carefully checked to make sure I was assigning the right message to the right card. This is important because we had so many birthday cards floating around in one month that I just got into the habit of signing the usual generic birthday messages. One time, this card came around for yet another person I don't like. I was about to sign with something witty until I read everyone else's notes and realized it was actually a sympathy card for her dead father!!!!! Whew! Dodged a bullet on that one. Can you imagine when she reads:” “Hey! Time to Party!” “Have fun tonight!” or “One step closer to death!” Even “Happy Birthday!” would have got me fired.
I definitely would have been in her thoughts after that.
That's it,
EM
Monday, June 13, 2005
The Birds! The Birds!
Raising twins is easier than you might think and harder than you can ever imagine. Although it's a lot easier and more fun with them, now. I remember during the first 3 weeks when we had to feed them every 3 hours, day or night no matter what. m and z were both under 6 pounds at birth. Apparently when a baby is born, there's like this short starvation period because the baby doesn't know how to latch onto a boob. So it doesn't really eat at first and looses a little weight. Because our kids were in a dangerous weight area, there was a risk of them losing any weight. So, we had to force feed them using a syringe-like device with a long tube connected to your finger. We would fill the syringe with formula or breast milk and then, using your finger as a pretend nipple, let the baby suck on it. Did I mention We had to do this every 3 hours day and night! This meant we were sleeping in these 3 hour blocks, if they slept together. BUT being twins they could split-shift you which means you could literally be up every 1 or 2 hours. One solution was, one of us would just take them for a 6 hour block while the other one slept. I can't tell you how surreal it was seeing the blue light of morning, every day and hear the sound of those fucking birds chipping away. In college, M (Kid's mom) said that she and her friend K would study all night and dreaded the sound of "The birds! The birds!!!" Because it meant that your study time was up. The worst thing was, even if you slept, you would have these horrible anxiety related nightmares. If you got out of the house, everything felt so bright and strange. people looked like insignificant robots and Safeway was an overly-lit, David Lynch movie with ironic Muzak soundtrack scoring your demise. In a few word, I felt like I was going insane.
Speaking of Insane: I always thought that my neighborhood in the East Bay was inhabited by nothing but roust-abouts and n’er do wells. So it was a big surprise when M took the kids and me to an open studio a couple of blocks away. Not only did I figure that there were no more artists in the neighborhood but especially not a professional one. I figure that the neighbors idea of art was cars-on-blocks lawn sculptures or dandelion Ichibana *. It was also good when the artist held a meeting with other citizens in the hood to discuss the pit bull problem that keeps happening. Apparently this same dumb motherfucker keeps breeding the little head chompers and they keep getting loose and killing dogs or cats. In spite of being dragged to court and fined numerous times, this Neanderthal Einstein (great band name) keeps breeding them and letting them loose. Another problem I’d like to see the citizen posse come together on, is the speeding. For about 3 blocks on my street there are no stop signs or speed bumps. This lets the usually young teenager boys show off just how stupid they can be with a simple formula: IQ=Speed minus actual speed limit for the street. Although there is a school zone at one end and a park at the other. these Fast and Furious Fat heads (F.F.F) race up and down the block, disregarding any chance of children or animals running in front of them. My fantasy is for one day; Mr. Pit bull is walking around with one of his dogs, off leash. A FFF races down the street and hits the dog. The dog crashes trough the windshield, death locks the driver on the balls and causes him to plow into Mr. Pit Bull. As a bonus, the resulting crash could be into the house across the street from me, which is occupied by 4 teenage boys who are annoying enough for another column. I guess this scenario is a little gruesome. Maybe I’ll just hope the police department does their fucking job for once and stop hiding in parking lots taking breaks. That’s right! I see you bastards! Whenever you see two cop cars parked next to each other in an abandoned parking lot, do you really think they’re saying:
“Gee Fred, what are we going to do with those darn kids and their piece of shit cars, racing up and down the block?”
“I don’t know Bill. Perhaps find a way to get them to plow into Mr. Pit bull?”
More likely it’s…
“Man I'm tired.”
“Me too. Good night.ZZZZzzzzz…”
That’s it,
EM
* Ichibana: The Japanese art of flower arrangement.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Look at me! Look at me! I'm a Gangsta!
I believe we all have two duties as parents: 1) Keep your kid from killing other kids and 2) Keep their kids from killing your kid.
My nightmare is for a then, 12-13 year "gangsta" versions of m or z to end up on a daytime talk show, wearing see-thru clothes, and talking about the 500 men they slept with/I want a baby, now!/My daughters needs a makeover.
Right now, the girls rebel by trying to climb on the couch from Ikea in their room, which is fine, but they still think about: "What would happen if I went off head first?" So far m has fell twice and z was saved by a last minute leg grab. Literally, in 3 seconds, the time it took for me to walk to their closet, m had ran over to the couch climbed on it and then went off head first like a stage diver at a a 1980's, punk rock concert.
Why the hell is that couch in there?
Speaking of bad girls: So I'm riding BART the Bay Area Rapid Transportation or Bastards Always Raising Tickets or Butt Fucking Asshole! Ride This! This girl gets on. She's like 16-17, Some sort of Hispanic, Black-White mutt mix. Listening to rap on head phones and smoking a cigarette. Of course she sits near me because I have this cosmic magnetic attraction to beings of negative energy also know as a bitch magnet.
Now, everybody in the Bay Area know what the smoking laws are. You can't smoke anywhere in California except in the middle of the desert while standing on a blue tarp and 4 fans blowing toward you. This girl is obviously rebelling against every thing and everyone around her. Now, I support rebellion when it's focused and used to improve the world: The American Revolution, Civil Rights, refusing to watch Everybody Loves Raymond, but this girl is obviously doing this just to piss everybody off. She sits there, bobbing her head, taking drag after drag and waving her hands around like a "gangsta beeyatch" instead of what I guess, the middle class princess from Berkeley who's parents ignore her. I decide I have 4 choices: 1) Confront her and get a fuck you! 2) Get up and move 3) Turn her in to the pigs and thrown in jail plus a $500 fine. 4) Ignore her because she's almost finished with her cigarette and she's screaming for attention. I opt for # 4. Two other passengers opt for #1. This blonde woman taps her on the shoulder and points to a sign over her head that said no smoking. The girls gives her a look which I hadn't seen since I flew to Paris. When we were departing, this old French lady, lights up a cigarette in the customs line. This stooopid American guy tells her (in English, mind you) that there's no smoking and she gives him a look that translated into: Go away! You insignificant cockroach! That was the look the girl gave, except without the class. The blonde woman switches cars. This bald guy tries for option # 1. She tells him: "Fuck You!" and gives him the middle finger which I found kind of her to consider that he might be deaf. He gets up and switches cars. As I predicted. The girl finished her cigarette, so I sat still and continued to write in my Palm Pilot.
At one stop, this fat Black woman gets on wearing a hideous powder blue jumpsuit. the pants are so tight that they cause her stomach to escape like a muffin baked in a metal dixie cup. she sits across from us. The "Gangsta" girl lights up yet another cigarette proving that yes, she's trying to provoke anyone who for some reason, like oxygen. "Oh Boy! Here we go!" I think. Expecting a confrontation that will be worthy of Pay Per View or Jerry Springer. But Noooo the Black woman ignores her like I do. At this point, I'm running out of air and patients. I want to leave but I don't want to leave like the other too passengers and loose my "phat street cred." I decide to wait until a stop comes up, then I'll act like I'm departing and switch to another car from the outside. The intercom announces the next stop and I get up and walk to the door. As I'm walking by, the girl says "BYE!" dripping in sarcasm as if to say: "Thought you could take it, huh bitch!" I ignore her and wait by the door. But get this. The girl starts up a conversation with the Black woman as if suddenly they're friends!!! But, what about me??? I'm cool? I was willing to let you rebel in peace? As planned, at the next stop, I switch cars and sit down. It is then I notice I smell like a giant tobacco leaf. She ruined my clothes! Now, I'm pissed. "That's it!" I say. "You want to be tough? Let's see how tough you are…IN JAIL! I get on the intercom and call the train operator. I tell him that there's a girl smoking multiple cigarettes in the last car. I want to see the girl dragged away, kicking and screaming, while I look at her from the window, laughing with sharp teeth and yelling "BYE!" over and over. I feel like such an old man, shaking his fist at: "those darn kids! Always sneaking into my yard and stealing my apples!" The train operator starts asking me all of these time wasting questions: What's she wearing? What does she look like? Which seat is she in? What's the chemical makeup of titanium? Why do people hate me? By the time We're finished, it's my stop. I get off the train. I don't see the girl on the platform, nor do I see her inside the car as it leaves. : "Damn it!" I curse. But get this. When I was leaving the station, off to the side, out of view of the station agent, I see the girl, hop over a small wall and sneak out of the station, without paying!!!!'
Gangsta Beeyach to the end.
That's it, EM
My nightmare is for a then, 12-13 year "gangsta" versions of m or z to end up on a daytime talk show, wearing see-thru clothes, and talking about the 500 men they slept with/I want a baby, now!/My daughters needs a makeover.
Right now, the girls rebel by trying to climb on the couch from Ikea in their room, which is fine, but they still think about: "What would happen if I went off head first?" So far m has fell twice and z was saved by a last minute leg grab. Literally, in 3 seconds, the time it took for me to walk to their closet, m had ran over to the couch climbed on it and then went off head first like a stage diver at a a 1980's, punk rock concert.
Why the hell is that couch in there?
Speaking of bad girls: So I'm riding BART the Bay Area Rapid Transportation or Bastards Always Raising Tickets or Butt Fucking Asshole! Ride This! This girl gets on. She's like 16-17, Some sort of Hispanic, Black-White mutt mix. Listening to rap on head phones and smoking a cigarette. Of course she sits near me because I have this cosmic magnetic attraction to beings of negative energy also know as a bitch magnet.
Now, everybody in the Bay Area know what the smoking laws are. You can't smoke anywhere in California except in the middle of the desert while standing on a blue tarp and 4 fans blowing toward you. This girl is obviously rebelling against every thing and everyone around her. Now, I support rebellion when it's focused and used to improve the world: The American Revolution, Civil Rights, refusing to watch Everybody Loves Raymond, but this girl is obviously doing this just to piss everybody off. She sits there, bobbing her head, taking drag after drag and waving her hands around like a "gangsta beeyatch" instead of what I guess, the middle class princess from Berkeley who's parents ignore her. I decide I have 4 choices: 1) Confront her and get a fuck you! 2) Get up and move 3) Turn her in to the pigs and thrown in jail plus a $500 fine. 4) Ignore her because she's almost finished with her cigarette and she's screaming for attention. I opt for # 4. Two other passengers opt for #1. This blonde woman taps her on the shoulder and points to a sign over her head that said no smoking. The girls gives her a look which I hadn't seen since I flew to Paris. When we were departing, this old French lady, lights up a cigarette in the customs line. This stooopid American guy tells her (in English, mind you) that there's no smoking and she gives him a look that translated into: Go away! You insignificant cockroach! That was the look the girl gave, except without the class. The blonde woman switches cars. This bald guy tries for option # 1. She tells him: "Fuck You!" and gives him the middle finger which I found kind of her to consider that he might be deaf. He gets up and switches cars. As I predicted. The girl finished her cigarette, so I sat still and continued to write in my Palm Pilot.
At one stop, this fat Black woman gets on wearing a hideous powder blue jumpsuit. the pants are so tight that they cause her stomach to escape like a muffin baked in a metal dixie cup. she sits across from us. The "Gangsta" girl lights up yet another cigarette proving that yes, she's trying to provoke anyone who for some reason, like oxygen. "Oh Boy! Here we go!" I think. Expecting a confrontation that will be worthy of Pay Per View or Jerry Springer. But Noooo the Black woman ignores her like I do. At this point, I'm running out of air and patients. I want to leave but I don't want to leave like the other too passengers and loose my "phat street cred." I decide to wait until a stop comes up, then I'll act like I'm departing and switch to another car from the outside. The intercom announces the next stop and I get up and walk to the door. As I'm walking by, the girl says "BYE!" dripping in sarcasm as if to say: "Thought you could take it, huh bitch!" I ignore her and wait by the door. But get this. The girl starts up a conversation with the Black woman as if suddenly they're friends!!! But, what about me??? I'm cool? I was willing to let you rebel in peace? As planned, at the next stop, I switch cars and sit down. It is then I notice I smell like a giant tobacco leaf. She ruined my clothes! Now, I'm pissed. "That's it!" I say. "You want to be tough? Let's see how tough you are…IN JAIL! I get on the intercom and call the train operator. I tell him that there's a girl smoking multiple cigarettes in the last car. I want to see the girl dragged away, kicking and screaming, while I look at her from the window, laughing with sharp teeth and yelling "BYE!" over and over. I feel like such an old man, shaking his fist at: "those darn kids! Always sneaking into my yard and stealing my apples!" The train operator starts asking me all of these time wasting questions: What's she wearing? What does she look like? Which seat is she in? What's the chemical makeup of titanium? Why do people hate me? By the time We're finished, it's my stop. I get off the train. I don't see the girl on the platform, nor do I see her inside the car as it leaves. : "Damn it!" I curse. But get this. When I was leaving the station, off to the side, out of view of the station agent, I see the girl, hop over a small wall and sneak out of the station, without paying!!!!'
Gangsta Beeyach to the end.
That's it, EM
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
"Which ones the evil twin?"
Aaahh. How I love getting up at 5AM to go to work.
The girls have been sleeping pretty well this week. It's odd because m and z sleep well during the week but got my ass up every hour on the hour on the weekend when I have the most time to sleep. MMmm sleep. Kiss that shit goodbye when you're the parent of twin girls I take the first shift 7PM-2:30AM and M (mom, note big M) take them from 2:30-whenever and then takes them to child care at 7:30. God forbid if they get her up at 3 or 4!
Top 10 guaranteed things to say to a parent of twins who hasn't had any sleep, to get your bloody arse kicked...
10) "Is that a boy or girl?" Said by old man in line at Safeway about m. We have two fraternal girls who look nothing alike. one has lots of hair.
9) "Ooh double trouble." Not very original! people!
8) "Which ones the bad one?" I am!
7) "Can I hold one?" Oh, for fuck's sake! As if!
6) "She must be the shy one." I'm sorry if my kid doesn't touch your Naaaaaaasty greasy unwashed from the rest room hand's, Mrs stranger.
5) "Ooh, that one lost out on the hair department." Heard recently. I wanted to retort: "Yes and you missed out on the looks department. You should sue God."
4) "High five!" (While holding up hand for kid to slap). Not only do Je déteste high fives, but why would I let my kid touch your Naaaaaaasty greasy unwashed from the rest room hand's Mr. Stranger?
3) "Are those twins?" I can let this one slip by itself. But It's usually followed by the other questions above.
2) "Ohh! I wouldn't wish that on anyone." Said by rude woman pushing a singleton (one kid) in a stroller and a 4-5 year old walking along the side. Wh-wha-what? You have two kids also, you fucking moron!
And the number one thing that makes me want to go Abu Girab on someone after no sleep...
1) "Looks like you have your hands full."
My fellow Americans, if you see someone struggling to get groceries in the car while trying not to have their kids skulls splatter onto the Safeway parking lot. OFFER TO HELP! KNUCKLE HEAD! More likely, they'll refuse but for the love of Jesus Chryster, don't say witty stupid-ass things to them.
That's it, EM
The girls have been sleeping pretty well this week. It's odd because m and z sleep well during the week but got my ass up every hour on the hour on the weekend when I have the most time to sleep. MMmm sleep. Kiss that shit goodbye when you're the parent of twin girls I take the first shift 7PM-2:30AM and M (mom, note big M) take them from 2:30-whenever and then takes them to child care at 7:30. God forbid if they get her up at 3 or 4!
Top 10 guaranteed things to say to a parent of twins who hasn't had any sleep, to get your bloody arse kicked...
10) "Is that a boy or girl?" Said by old man in line at Safeway about m. We have two fraternal girls who look nothing alike. one has lots of hair.
9) "Ooh double trouble." Not very original! people!
8) "Which ones the bad one?" I am!
7) "Can I hold one?" Oh, for fuck's sake! As if!
6) "She must be the shy one." I'm sorry if my kid doesn't touch your Naaaaaaasty greasy unwashed from the rest room hand's, Mrs stranger.
5) "Ooh, that one lost out on the hair department." Heard recently. I wanted to retort: "Yes and you missed out on the looks department. You should sue God."
4) "High five!" (While holding up hand for kid to slap). Not only do Je déteste high fives, but why would I let my kid touch your Naaaaaaasty greasy unwashed from the rest room hand's Mr. Stranger?
3) "Are those twins?" I can let this one slip by itself. But It's usually followed by the other questions above.
2) "Ohh! I wouldn't wish that on anyone." Said by rude woman pushing a singleton (one kid) in a stroller and a 4-5 year old walking along the side. Wh-wha-what? You have two kids also, you fucking moron!
And the number one thing that makes me want to go Abu Girab on someone after no sleep...
1) "Looks like you have your hands full."
My fellow Americans, if you see someone struggling to get groceries in the car while trying not to have their kids skulls splatter onto the Safeway parking lot. OFFER TO HELP! KNUCKLE HEAD! More likely, they'll refuse but for the love of Jesus Chryster, don't say witty stupid-ass things to them.
That's it, EM
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