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Okay, first off, I know that this is about a week late. Thing is, there is a lot to review, and I kept trying not to post until I was finished. So, I got started Sunday night, worked 13 hours Monday, 13 hours Teusday, 13 hours Wedensday, ate my heart out on Thursday, and slept most of Friday, so . . .
Anyway, here’s my account of LAST WEEKEND. It’s not finished. A lot of details are missing. I’m DONE. Deal with it.
Have you ever seen a Koala bear going about its business? I haven’t, but I’ve seen them on the Discover channel, and you know as well as I do that everything on television is true. Anyway, Koalas are not the fastest moving animal on the planet. They eat Eucalyptus leaves, which means that they spend 95% of their time about as stoned as Tommy Chong after a hard day on the set. They sit there, or lay there, and just look around, half-dazed, wondering if they’ve got enough energy to have the munchies or if they should take their 5th nap of the day.
Then, out of the blue, some Australian shitbird teenager lights a brush fire for the hell of it. The Eucalyptus sparks and burns like a torch, and the Koalas have about five seconds to wonder what all the fuss is about before they’re engulfed in flames and roast like turkeys.
Let’s face it, folks, New Orleans was most definitely not the only place hit badly by the hurricanes this season. Let’s face it — we’re now using letters from the Greek alphabet to name subsequent storms. That, to my knowledge, has never happened before, and nobody seems to know what happens if we reach Omega and have another storm. That means a lot of people have had their lives turned upside down, been suffering, need help.
And yet, New Orleans got the most press. Its residents seemed to think that they were the only ones having problems. They seemed to feel like they deserved to have services restored immediately, hot food brought to them so that they could haughtily refuse it, rescue workers at their beck and call so that they could treat them rudely. Think I’m exaggerating? Plenty of news stories came out of that great big dome in Texas, stories where relief personnel were being kept from helping folks — by the folks needing help! I am not making this up. I am not hallucinating.
Between what appears to be the general mindset of the former city’s residents, the political corruption that had inhabited its government like a plague of locusts, and the destruction unleashed on the below-sea-level streets, I think New Orleans needs a makeover.
I remembered that today is my mother-in-law’s birthrday. I’ll tell you straight off, that’s a fucking monumental victory for me. Sometimes, when my birthday is right around the corner, I forget about it. I forgot both my mother’s and father’s birthday. I forget a lot of birthdays.
I did NOT forget my mother-in-law’s birthday. Of course, it didn’t hurt that it occurs 7 days after the wife’s birthday, and that if I forgot THAT birthday, I’d be a dead man.
So anyway, I came home with the intention of giving the MIL a call to wish her a happy happy. As it turned out, the wife had beat me to it, which of course would make it look like I had forgotten. Even though I didn’t. Instead of grumping about being beaten to the punch (she is, after all, not MY mother), I asked her how it went.
I’ll give you the short version.
I’m on a train of thought. Follow it with me, if you can.
As I’ve mentioned previously, I run a vampire LARP game with some really cool guys. We’ve got a neato web site up for it, and every once in a blue moon I actually do bother to update it. There’s also a nifty forum that our players can use to plot their plots and scheme their schemes. It’s a beautiful thing, really, and as nominal webmaster I enjoy enhancing it.
Similarly, I hate with a passion anything that threatens it.
As a part of my new effort to let go of work-related stress, I thought I’d maybe change the direction of my blog just a tad — just a little something to change things up each day, keep me from getting stuck in a rut. Since I am obviously the most important person in the entire universe and this is my blog, of course any changes would be geared specifically towards pleasing me.
With that bit of sarcasm out of the way, I was thinking of adding sections for:
Thoughts, anyone? I’m just looking for something new to write about, could use a little help here.
Tonight, after I got out of work, I decided to take the wife out to dinner and a movie. Her birthday’s Monday, and while I’m neither blunt enough nor dumb enough to think that a nice Chinese restaurant and a cheesey movie (The Exorcism of Emily Rose was rather blah) counts as a suitable birthday celebration, I wanted to do it anyway. I mean, hell. Friday night and we hadn’t been out, just the two of us, in a while.
So anyway, we do the Chinese (very tasty), we do the movie (very blah), and then I hit the restroom afterwords to take a leak and wash my hands. Leak I did, then I took off my wedding band to wash my hands. Wash I did, then I turned my back to dry my hands.
I used to think of myself as someone who is dependable, someone who always makes sure that his obligations (the important ones, at least) are always satisfied. Used to be, my friends knew that if they called for me, I’d come at the drop of a hat. My employers knew I’d always be at work, on time, rain or shine, and that the drawer would always add up when I clocked out. My parents knew that if a family crisis came up, I’d put my back into whatever needed done.
I was really looking forward to bringing that kind of dedication, that kind of dogged determination to my marriage. I’m not the most romantic sort, and I forget stuff, and I can be an irritating son of a bitch, but I wanted to be the kind of husband that the wife would know she could depend on. Maybe life gets a little too routine — up in the morning, off to work, home in the evening, she cooks while I do dishes, we eat, we surf, we hit the sack — but at least you know what to expect, nothing’s left to chance.
Yep. That’s me, Mr. Dependability, bringing stability to our happy home, always practical, always rock-steady.
I’ve failed.
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