Revolution I Wanna Fight

So, why hasn't the site been updated in a few days?

Short Answer: "I haven't had much to write about."

Long Answer: I haven't had much to write about, and I'm really trying to avoid being one of these guys that writes posts about "oh, my kid said the darndest thing," or "my favorite commercial is..." because, while those are quite entertaining, I'm sure you'd find that the things my kid says aren't really that well-darned and my favorite commercials haven't changed in years. You'd be bored witless.

So, to build evidence for my case that the minutia of my life are not blog-worthy, I decided to keep a journal of my entire day yesterday. Maybe something interesting was going to happen - maybe not. But at the end of it all, we'd all have a better idea of the tripe that I'm trying to avoid.

Monday, July 9, 2007

5:00 AM:
The alarm goes off and, just like every morning, I reach down and pull my child and her hooked, barbed fingers off of my head, as she's symbiotically attached herself to my face sometime during the night. She's like an adorable leech, that one, but I'm starting to think there's some merit in tethering her to her own bed.

5:05 AM:
I wake up my wife and listen to the detestable moans of pregnancy while getting her a ginger-ale. Most of the complaints are standard and fair (I'm sick, I'm tired, I hate everything, etc.) but occasionally, she'll toss in something painful like "I'm fat."

I'm not sure if any pregnant women are reading this, but here goes. You ready? You're not fat. You have a baby inside you. It's the same as if I were to stand on a barrel and start talking about how tall I am. There's a third party involved that excuses you from the constraints of fat vs. not fat. The reason you're larger than usual has a name and a heartbeat. If someone were to ask me about my belly, all I could say is "well, beer is delicious and couches are comfortable." You, however, can say, "Oh, that's not me - it's Jerry," or whoever. Get it? This is not a valid complaint. Stop it now.

6:15:
I'm fast-forwarding past the shower, early morning obsessive e-mail checking, and first cup of coffee. My wife and I are now in the car driving on the highway to work in traffic. My morning commute is easily the most stressful part of my day. The drivers are madmen, hell bent on quickly getting to their jobs that they probably hate so they can hurry up and do absolutely nothing for 8 hours.

The rampant highway assholery is so savage here that I'd not be surprised to see people climbing out of the passenger side windows, waving machetes in the air and crying "freedom" as they hack away at the other cars' tires. At the driver's ed classes here, do the instructors say, "Okay, slowly back out of this spot, turn left, drive toward the stop sign, make a right, then, on your way to the corner, let's see if you can't get the car up on the sidewalk and nail a pedestrian or two. Bonus points if you don't use your turn signals."

Either way, by the time I end up at work, I feel as awkward and tense as if I had just watched a snuff film that was filmed in my living room while I was sleeping.

6:55 AM:
I've got my 2nd coffee and I've checked my office email. Now it's time to get on IM and start swapping quotes from Flight of the Conchords with Itch. For the next forty-five minutes, I'll be giggling, while my co-workers are wondering why I'm allowed to even work here.

For the record, if you're not watching the show, at least go to HBO.com and check out a few of the video clips from it. Guaranteed chuckle.

8:00 AM:
My job is boring. For the record, my last day here is Friday, so I can be vocal about these things.

8:30 AM:
Blah blah blah. Type type type. Produce produce produce. Whatever, it's time to check out the internet.

9:22 AM:
Wow, that guy that just walked out of that meeting looks like a younger Gary Sinise. Is that an insult? Can you tell a guy that he looks like Gary Sinise without offending him? Is Gary Sinise considered to be a handsome man? I have no idea.

9:24 AM:
Hey - little piece of advice. Don't go around telling dudes they look like a younger Gary Sinise. They don't seem to like it.

10:36 AM:
If it wasn't for the internet, me planning ways to secure the new Smashing Pumpkins album tomorrow, the asinine IMDB message boards where people say things like, "I don't get Flight of the Conchords. Do you have to be smart or something to like it?," a 3rd cup of coffee and my office whiteboard where I can practice drawing pictures of Grover, I'd have died of boredom by now.

I'd be all laid out on the floor with X's over my eyes and white chalk drawn around me. Some rookie cop would be all throwing up. Some veteran cop would be trying to shove baggies of cocaine in my pocket to avoid paperwork. Then the detective would show up, pull his shades off like David Caruso and say, "I'm going to need to see his internet logs; this looks like a case of boredom."

Or if he looked like Vincent D'Onofrio, he'd say, "If you... if you look at his fingerpads... you'll see he had mild callouses there, which is typical of people that use computers a lot. His... his... uh... his eyes are very dilated. Can I see that empty cup of coffee? *sniff* The cheap office variety. I'm guessing by the eyes that this was his 3rd cup. I'm going to need a toxicology report to rule out caffeine overdosing, but right now, I'm leaning toward death by boredom because of these deep scratch marks on his head. It's likely he was pulling his own hair out."

11:00 AM:
Lunchtime, bitches. I'm going to the place that has $2 burgers on Monday and I'm eating about 7 of them. Don't judge me - we're pregnant.

11:15 AM:
Unfortunately, joining me at lunch are these two guys that I can't stand. Last week, they tricked me into going to a restaurant that was like Hooters, meaning the waitresses all dressed in skimpy clothing and expect you to not care that the burgers are overcooked.

While we were there, these guys were loudly calling the women whores, describing what they'd like to do to them with their genitals, embarrassing themselves and me, and, coincidentally, not getting much attention from the waitress who made the decision to avoid our table for the rest of the meal. Naturally, they made a big deal about it on the way out, and I made it known that I'd not be having lunch with them again.

Which leads me to ask, why are these jackasses walking in and sitting at my table? Something tells me they just don't get it. Explaining to them why I don't want them around me would be a waste of time since, clearly, the concerns of others are not something they ever consider. Thank god these burgers are hella juicy.

12:00 PM:
They're being assholes again. We're about 10 minutes away from Kyra Sedgwick walking in, seeing my corpse and saying, "My gosh, it looks like this man has died of shock and surprise!" I mean, who could have seen this coming?

One more week, man.

1:00 PM:
Work, work, werk, wirk, work, wurk, work, wyrk. I think that word sounds the same with every vowel except for A.

2:35 PM:
Gary Sinise is still pissed. He's wearing the Lieutenant Dan scowl.

3:30 PM:
Fuck this - I'm out. I'm on my way to my wife's job to pick her up, then get back on the highway and see if we can survive the South American civil war that is my commute home. you think it'd help if I had an uzi and just fired shots in the air the whole time? Maybe that'd keep things in order?

4:18 PM:
I'm home, and my daughter has re-attached herself to my face. My mother-in-law explains that the cricket is back and was doing a bit of unprecedented daytime chirping. I suspect this is to taunt me. Let me back up a bit.

There's a cricket that lives, as far as I can tell inside the wall that's right next to my front door. I can't figure out how he got in there, what he's eating or what he's using to power the 400 watt Marshall half-stack amplifier that he's got his chirper hooked up to. That fucker is loud. He starts chirping and you almost expect to hear drums and a bass kick in to accompany him like you're at a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert.

So, naturally, I've been trying to kill him. I've sprayed the area with natural insecticide. I've sprayed it with unnatural insecticide. I've sprayed it with supernatural insecticide. I've even put a bounty out with all of the neighborhood snakes and lizards offering a reward to whoever can bring him down.

Now I'm at the point where I half-expect him to call me on the phone one day and say, "I hear you're trying to kill me. But you can't kill me until I kill you first."

Who is this? Is this the cricket!? Listen, you bastard cricket. When I get my hands on you, you're going to wish you had died weeks ago!

"Yippee ki-yi-yay, motherfucker."

4:35 PM:
I'm devising ways to kill Cricket McClane here and I've legitimately considered knocking down the wall entirely before my wife settles me down and hands me a children's book.

5:45 PM:
For the last hour, I've been reading books, pretending I was a lion, playing follow the leader, jumping like a kangaroo, kicking a ball and singing U2 songs while posturing around like Bono in sunglasses to entertain my daughter. She really enjoys "New Years Day" for some reason and always makes me repeat it while she drums along. This wouldn't be a bad thing except neither my wife nor I really care for U2. I have no idea how this trend started. I mean, she's not even 2 yet - does she have fond memories of The Joshua Tree?

6:00 PM:
Dinner.

6:30 PM:
A gang of ninjas jump in the door and I, using my skills of kung fu, take each one down before they're able to kidnap my family and take them to the headquarters of the evil Dr. Malciton on his desert island.

Or... maybe I'm washing the dishes. You decide which one you think really happened. Like one of those Choose Your Own Adventure books.

If you think Maine washed dishes, proceed to 6:45 PM.

If you think Maine fought the ninjas, go to your local Toys R Us store, walk to the board game aisle, look under the C's and get a Clue. Please.

6:45 PM:
Time to get dressed and take my daughter to her swimming lesson. First one. If I hadn't pulled 7 muscles during the extended "Bullet the Blue Sky" medley I might actually be excited about this.

6:47 PM:
Wait - the homerun derby is on tonight? And it's almost over? If I was even remotely interested in baseball outside of the Yankees, I might want to sit around and see how it ends.

7:45 PM:
Well, that was interesting. I mean, I'm probably dying of hypothermia thanks to the freezing water and lack of sunlight, but at least the kids had fun.

8:15 PM:
I'm home, I'm showered, I'm warm, and I'm ready to get my daughter to sleep. My wife is watching TV and some commercial comes on with a car that's being advertised as "available in Midnight Black." So... let me get this straight... there are shades of black now?

8:30 PM:
Daughter and I are reading her good night books and I think I'm getting sleep faster than she is. I drop her into her bed and I'm asleep before the lights go out.

So, there you have it. My day in its entirety. Now excuse me, as it's time for me to go execute my "acquire Smashing Pumpkins CD" plan. Be back later.