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Wednesday, June 23, 2004
  Still sick!

Woke up feeling a little stronger only to be felled by a migraine before I had even finished my first cup of coffee. I did beat it back, but it takes so much out of me each time when I do. Poor, tired wife and old, shaky parents came to my rescue by entertaining the royal pixie while I did battle within my skull. She does like to get moving first thing, so I was indeed rescued.

We managed to salvage part of our stormy day together, with a trip to the grocery store -where a certain small shopper absolutely pillaged the free pineapple samples- and our first trip to the library together.

Royal reader behaved better than I had expected. She did chase a pale little boy with huge Gollum-like eyes until he ran crying to his papa. Just when he thought he'd found safe harbor she approached him to ask, "What'cha doin? Are you scared? Look, I got a book, see..." His huge eyes bulged a little further than they should have and he shrunk to his knees. At this point I played nicey-nice and pretended to take control over someone's behavior. Quietly, the pale, bug-eyed boy's smaller rat-eyed brother sat on the floor to the left of papa thumbing through his book a bit too quickly. He didn't seem to notice anything going on around him. His book was upside down.

Pale, bug-eyed boys always get chased. That's why they usually grow up to manage banks, build pipe bombs or become porn stars. Rat-eyed boys always seem to squeak by, mostly unnoticed, but usually do well for themselves. Sometimes they even grow up to become President. Rats are wily creatures.

So after lots of pain, rain and good company this day is over. The animals are quiet, one sleeping on the rug by my feet and the other stretched rebelliously across poor, tired wife's brand new barkcloth pillows. I can almost hear the girls snoring together in the other room.

Earlier I wanted my two days off to start all over again, but I guess it's how the time ends that really makes the difference.
 
Monday, June 21, 2004
  After watching the remake of Salem's Lot, it's hard to believe that Rob Lowe will ever work again.
What a truly dreadful "television event."

Never mind that it was broadcast in two installments over two nights and that I watched every last horrible second of it.

I really don't watch much TV, but tonight I had a good excuse.

I'm sick. I'm really fucking sick. What else is there to do when you are sporting a 102.6 degree temp, a constant thud behind your eyeballs, an elephant's foot on your lungs and your throat feels like you have been gargling with hot coals? Put on a hoodie, take more meds and watch TNT until the warm embrace of Actifed overcomes you.

Happy day after Father's Day to me!

Speaking of Father's-

Today my Father came over to watch the royal treasure for a few hours. He can't hear so well anymore, so you have to shout when you talk to him and then he wants to know why your angry. The only voice he seems to hear clearly, hanging on her every word, shout and whisper is that of his royal granddaughter. He worships her. My mother does too, but she didn't come today so it was all Pops.

It tears me up to watch him with her, because I can see just how he was with me, and how one day I will feel as lonely for my little child running around spilling juice and saying "I love you Dada!" as he must feel. And of course I can't help realizing that I will want to see my Father one day and he won't be there anymore.

My Father is an amazing gentle man. I love him so much it makes me sad.

When I hold my daughter's hand, when I listen to her breath while she's sleeping, I am overcome by my love for her presence. It is a love more powerful than any other I have ever known. I have my parents to thank for this, for sharing their love with me so that I would know how to share it with her.

 
Thursday, June 17, 2004
  Royal daughter is turning into a Royal Ramone. When asked what she wants for breakfast the answer is "pizza!" For lunch?, "pizza!" How about dinner? "Pizza Dadas"

Clever little diplomat pluralizes the person she is trying to obtain something from. Makes you think, "Wow, there's more of me! I must be pretty fucking important." An effective bargaining tool. Maybe I'm not the only sucker that falls for it, but I do fall for it everytime.

So today I found myself at our favorite grungy little pie-house for lunch. They know her by name there now. When we walked in the "pizzaman" said to his coworker, "Toss two slices in, she's back." She has a way with the food service sector. It's in her blood. No matter where we happen to eat, she gets the best table and a tour of the kitchen.

Our romance with the pie is perhaps an unhealthy but nonetheless wonderful ritual. Its part of our bond. It used to be strictly a Saturday thing, but now it's anytime we are together for the afternoon when I am off. Whatever moments we steal together makes me happy.

I love taking the royal one anywhere, but there is just something magic to me about taking her out for a nibble. Sharing a meal is definitely synonymous with love in our household. Even if someone else makes it.

Our lunch-

While two slices bubble away in the old double stacker, a pile of steak sizzles away on the griddle.

Sorry PETA, I just had to cave in. A hot NY style cheese steak hoagie is just too powerful of a temptation to resist now that I am eating meat again. I never was very good at denying myself much of anything as poor,tired vegetarian wife likes to point out so often.

"Dada ate a cow today honey, how about that?"

I furrow my bushy brow and moo.

It's as if I'd stopped to purcahse an eight ball on the way home from a brothel.

Sorry poor, tired mama, but every cell in my made-to-eat-meat body is driving me to eat flesh. Pretty low sin on the totem I'd say. What next? Will I pawn our lawn mower for ground chuck? Is there such a thing as a "gateway" meat?

I'm a carnivore again. There, I said it.

And I like it.

Fear not. Royal daughter doesn't eat the forbidden flesh. When she's old enough to understand where it comes from then it's her choice to make.

Until then it's just two slices for the little Ramone and a whole cow for Dadas 
Wednesday, June 16, 2004
  I have wallowed.

I have whined a little, but yes, I have whined.

I have shared it all with you too. So now I can't deny it.

Somehow in the midst of the me bashing, I decided to make a pact with myself.

If you give a spoon to a prisoner they will probably do one of two things with it. The first thing is to eat, whatever the hell they eat in the pokey, and the other is to dig a tunnel. I like the tunnel idea. What's not to love about a tunnel, an escape plan, a way out!?

I have a spoon. I have a myriad of spoons actually, and I will use each and every last one of them to end up with the sweet sunlight on my face. Poor, tired wife will be relieved and royal daughter will be proud. Kingdad is bustin' loose.

Came up with the name, "Console" for the new band. Think of an instrument panel, not an act of empathy.
We play our first show this Friday.

This is going to be one bent, dirty spoon.

 
Sunday, June 13, 2004
  Some people need to go to a meeting.

Some people need to get right with Jesus.

Me, I just need to drive home from work in a thunderstorm with the Nick Cave pounding the railroad spike of "The Carny" into the center of my soul.

And just when the clouds seem to have tossed the sun into a quicklime pit for good, there's always The Pogues -Shane MacGowan's shot-o-gravel sweet voice- peeling the lead from my horizon, "Down All The Days..."

I balance my life with love and music.

No one thing is the answer, but at least I listen. 
Friday, June 11, 2004
  A wonderful, sharp woman once cautioned me that I was too serious.

She spent time in an East German prison for helping people escape to West Berlin. She was sort of a German Eartha Kitt to me. She wore a cape, smoked incessantly, wore sandals that were made to resemble black snakes and kept her short, choppy hair a less-than-natural shade of red. She often wore leather pants to breakfast. Not a bad look for someone over 50.

I used to joke that we were from the same planet and that's why she was so fond of me. She laughed, for only a second of course, before exhaling smoke into my face and telling my that I looked like a hedgehog, and there were no hedgehogs on her planet. My hair was choppy then too.

Besides, was I "really so sure that she was fond of me?"

Of course I was.

This wonderful, sharp woman also cautioned me against getting lost in "Blut und Erde Musik" Only the Germans would have a term like "Blood and Earth Music."

And here I am years later sitting with my back to the window as lightening turns the room into an x-ray, listening to the soundtrack from "Betty Blue" and contemplating what it means to be a "post-modern Flying Dutchman."

Am I too serious, or am I just plain self-indulgent? Pretentious too?

Don't be in any big hurry to 'message' me the answer to this little musing. I know it.

A most wonderful and sharp poor, tired wife -who has never smoked and has beautiful, naturally red hair- knows it too, better than anyone. She gives me the same message daily, but in English and it is less of a cautionary observation coming from her. I think it's a plea. "Lighten up asshole, please!"

I'm trying, really I am. But it is so hard to find a balance between dark and stormy. This is why I had to remind myself of Frau R.S. At least she earned her personal stormcloud.

When I think of the nature of my complaints it would seem that mine was ordered from Urban Outfitters.




 
Thursday, June 10, 2004
  I write as often as I get lucky these days. Sorry.

Its so hard to decide which pail to squeeze the last drip of my energy into.
OK, I am always going to choose sex first. I am married afterall.

I miss the clockless salad days of staying home with royal daughter. Seems like there was always time to do it all. I shopped, I cooked and I cleaned. I kept a certain little someone entertained, changed, napped and fed all day long without complaint. I fed poor, tired wife meal after amazing meal. I practiced with my band, wrote poetry, read two books a week. I worked in my then glorious garden, and maintained two others for friends. I was close to getting my own business off the ground. I blogged more often than most married folks have sex each week.

Life was under constant construction. I was loose, happy.

I was free.

And now once a week I sit down to pour it all out and there is just so little left to pour. I see and feel and think as much as I did back in my "sabbatical." But now I am just so fucking tired. I am always tired. By the time the dishes are done, so am I.

And for this I am so sorry.

I think of my beloved ancient Egypt. How the sun's fiery fingers once played across the gilt skin of Amarna. Across polished stone and freshly kohled eyes.

Today the sun rose high and slowly fell into the dusty, silent mouth of ruins nestled far away in a chalky white open palm above the Nile River. The same sun rose over me this morning as I drove to work, slurping burnt coffee from a broken travel mug, weaving dully from lane to lane while news of nothing oozed from the radio. And then the sun collapsed over my home, just a few hours ago while poor, tired wife read "Lowly Worm" to our precious royal somnambulist.

I don't even remember finishing my coffee this morning. Where did this wine I am now drinking come from?

Energy is drawn from us, water pulled from the cool hollows of the ground to evaporate. Our days stretch and burn away, into dusty amber colored shadow. A bleached bone sticking from the dried mud of a once teeming watering hole is all that remains to speak of life.







 
Thursday, June 03, 2004
  My wife recently asked me if I was having a mid-life crisis.

"No," I told her, "I'm just bored."

One of the many things that I am quite bored with is the term "mid-life crisis."

It completely neuters the truth. It turns a profound series of revelations into a Hallmark moment. I'm pretty sure that we are one of the only cultures that actually uses the term "mid-life crisis," which explains so much about our culture.

Perhaps I should start saying "MLC" just to keep in step with the whole "WMD" trend.

So far I haven't run off with my secretary -I don't even have one. I have no desire to drive an ostentatious sports car, and I have not gone on the Adkins diet. Really, I am just bored, and maybe a bit blue.

It is sad that time becomes so precious because we seem to have less of it to spend with what is truly precious to us in life. How many of us will ask ourselves as we are dying, "Why didn't I spend one more day at work? Just one more -gasp- day. Who won American Idol?..."

Here is a short list of things that just don't move me- ever-

WORK- I cannot lie. I wish I had been born with platinum spoons hanging from my ass and mouth. I'd rather be playing music, painting my toenails and writing meaningless manifestos while admiring the view of the river Spree from the window of my flat. Instead I see myself attempting to sell organic produce to women wearing platinum tennis bracelets. They name their children Hunter, Zoe and Mitchell.

MONEY- Sure, I love having it. I love spending it too. Buying a CD every now and then really helps me to continue the illusion that I am happy and free. When I throw a nice Rhone together with a piece of endangered fish I feel like a king for a moment. Then I have to wash the dishes.

LIVING IN THE US- So sorry to all of you flag wavers out there, but I think living in the US is dreadful. Yes we are free, sort of, and free to be the tackiest beings on earth, and yes, I will leave it one day, so save your red, white and stinky blue breath. As long as my parents are breathing I will continue to drive everywhere, supersize every last thing that I purchase, endure American Idol, The Outback Steakhouse, Walmart, school shootings, and the outrage over Janet's nasty lookin' nipple. But one day, Hello Berlin!

TV- With the exception of the occasional archaeology documentary, and a few HBO unmentionables, I know enough cynical, well-off, balding white guys without having to feign interest in a pretend one named Frasier.

KATHY LEE GIFFORD- When she pens "KATHY LEE- AN ANAL DIARY" then maybe I will reconsider.

PARIS HILTON- Someone has recycled George Hamilton! Paris is a bit more orange than George, but I suspect his sex tape would have lasted longer.

SHIZZLE MY NIZZLE- From Compton to MTV. Snoop has become the spokesman for the slightly lighter than peach crowd. Funny how this seems to always happen.

NASCAR- Rednecks dressed in Kraftwerk garb, endlessly circling each other at incredibly high speeds. NASCAR sort of makes Shania Twain make sense. Maybe they should circle her.

THE ADKINS DIET- You may die skinny my friend, but you are still gonna die. Also, you and your slender-but-fat-packed arteries are driving up my families health insurance premiums.

GOLF- Nothing can make your ass any tighter in kingdad's world. What a waste of good, green grass. The two-tone shoes are the only point of interest in this so-called sport. Notebook paper is everybit as white as the game of golf, yet much more interesting somehow.

I have to cut myself off here. It's late, my list is long and I suspect I am boring you.

 

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