Spam for Spam

In response to my lovely wife’s critically thought out, even handed response to spammers at her blog, here’s my own knee-jerk scorched earth, fuck-the-fucking-fuckers response:

I say post spammers’ e-mail addresses. Post their telephone numbers. Sign them up to get offers in the mail. Register them at porn sites.

Spammers are just one small ladder rung above the bottom of the Internet cesspool. If they abuse the system that I rely on for news, entertainment, and honest work, they can expect me to respond in kind.

Anything we can do to make life harder for spammers is a good thing.

Soreness

Yesterday, I split almost a face cord of wood with my axe, a maul, and the MegaMaul.

This morning, my house is warm, and my joints are complaining.

Pete, just think, if you came back out here next weekend, you could be a foreman at the Tom Sawyer party. (It’s on Sunday, if you’re wondering.)

Poor Meg

My wife is trying to make a little extra money for us and still get to be home to be a mom to Alden by babysitting one of our friend’s children during the work week.

I’m home today and hear the constant crying and screaming she has to put up with. One kid is nine months, the other is twelve onths, so they’re in the stage where they feed off each other’s crying. A voicing of minor irritation turns quickly into a major dual screaming fit.

So officially, as of this morning, I don’t think I could ever work in child care. No way, no how. I do not have the patience of a saint like my wife. It’s absolutely amazing to watch her with them; she’s such a good mom.

A Church, a Boat, and a Piss

I was at a rather large and rather fancy in it’s ostentatious plainess (if you follow my drift) church in Madison (I think) for a regular service. The congreagation was all hip in in it’s low-keyed down-to-earthness and asking big questions of itself like “Why aren’t there any black people here? We need black people so we can be diverse.”

I waited for the service to end because there’s very little that’l make a guy more self conscious than standing up and leaving church in the middle of a very nice congreagation that tries very hard to be very open and very accepting in it’s very wealthy little way.

Finally, the priest ended, the service ended, and I was going to slip out in the huge throng of people headed for the door. But then some little old lady started talking to the priest, telling this earnest, young, sandy-haired, smock-bedecked guy how *lovely* his sermon was and how everything he said just *resonated* with her.

I waited. I figited. Then I left. Over the tops of the pews. In my wool socks.

One young woman turned to her mother and said, “Interesting. I never knew that was an option.”

The Boat

Meg met me outside the church with the van, the Bub, a couple of dogs, and assorted stuff. Apparently, we were on vacation or something. We decided we really wanted to go fart around on the lake in some sort of watercraft, but had no connections and not enough money to go pay the outrageous rent for a half-day on the water in someone else’s boat.

A Pottery Barn couple came past us while we were talking about wanting to use a boat and overheard us. She, daintily petite and dressed in her tennis togs, turned to him, chiseled and heroish, and also dressed in tennis togs, and said, “Oh honey, they should use the club boat. No one else will be using it, and the pastor said we should be kind to those who are less fortunate.”

The guy brought me over to the club’s shed next to the tennis court that we had been convienently standing next to, and brought out this tandem sailing sea kayak and the gear. It was on a trailer and while the van has a hitch, he wouldn’t let me take the trailer. “No, no, just carry it over to the lake,” he said.

With practised ease, I hefted the boat over my shoulder and headed for the student union.

The Piss

The Union was full of students, all these young people milling around looking rather chic. Meg and I no longer had the boat, but were looking for prime waterfront seating while we ate. We passed vendor after vendor, booth upon booth, until we finally sat down at a table that already had some folks at it.

“Hey, here we finally are,” I said. “It took us a long time to find you, but we made it.” Meanwhile, of course, the people are just staring at us like we’re sprouting second heads in their midst. But they’re too polite to actually ask who the hell we are, so they play along like they’ve been expecting us.

Finally, mid meal, I need to use the bathroom, and apparently Meg does as well. I asked our companions where the nearest bathroom is and they point me down the hall and tell me to just keep an eye out for the signs. The first bathroom sign I saw pointed to a prothesis lab. I didn’t have the guts to go in there, so we continued down the cooridor and around the corner back into the thronging students.

Finally, we ended up at a McDonalds stand in the middle of the union where some guy was trying to buy a Coke and a small fry. “That’ll be $46, please,” the counter girl said in her well-practiced souless monotone. “What?” The guy freaked out. “Oh wait. Sorry. Yep, I did have fries, too. Good thing I brought my credit card.”

Molly the Schnoz

You would just not believe how much go-power a German shepherd can muster until you’ve heard her blow bubbles in her own crotch while licking herself at 5 in the morning.

And now you know why I’m here at this insane hour. Viva la crotch bubbles!

Atta Girl

Way to go, Claudia! I’m proud of you for putting your name back on your blog.

Oh, Blogger, How do I Loathe Thee

Blogger, you are a twisted crutch
That laughs cruelly as I stumble
Over your bloated leg,
So hard and unfeeling.

Your home, Blogger, if I may be so kind
Is refuge in time of un-need
For falsity and posturing;
So few pearls, Blogger, so few.

You say My will be done
As long as it conforms
To the EULA I gleefully clicked
So many dark months ago.

But no more, Blogger,
You who are unaccepting of my trackbacks,
Who will not tell my friends what I’ve created,
I need you no longer.

I heap scorn upon thee, Blogger,
Not that you care,
For you have other lovers, other slaves;
So many thousands.

Dear dark Blogger,
I, too, have found another lover, and
I have spurned you in my heart of hearts,
Old friend, deepest enemy.

Notes for Claudia, Pt. 3

Now Claudia Jane, you know what you want to do. Comeon, fess up; it’s right there inside you. Hell, it’s right there for all of us; all we have to do is look.

And I know you, of all people, have looked. But maybe you have one of the same problems that I have: You’ve looked so hard, so deep, and so long, that the answer that you got, the same one you’ve always known, seems too obvious, too basic, too childish, too selfish, too risky, too whatever.

But guess what? It’s really the answer.

The hard part, of course, is walking that path; is taking the step off the edge of the cliff over the bright bubbling lava of financial insecurity and burning what-ifs and just knowing in you rheart of hearts that you’ll either fly or not and that either way is fine because you’re following that answer and no matter what &mdash even if the bottom of your Keds get a little scorched &mdash that’s a Good and Important and Vital thing and if you do anything else but follow that answer, you’re just marking time, maybe hoping the answer will change to something easier and less scary.

Like scalloped potatos.

How filling. How boring.

P.S.

I, for one, vote that you stop hiding behind your pen name. Let your little light shine. Yeah, I know you’ve had problems with assholes who won’t take “no” for an answer. But you know what, chica? You’re strong. You can take ‘em.

Notes for Claudia, Pt. 2

Your time management concerns and “am I focusing on the right thing” worries are familiar territory for me. This is something that helps, though it requires commitment, occasionally concentration, and trust in inanimate objects.

Notes for Claudia, Pt. I

Ah. Natural family planning. Otherwise known as “fuck-n-freak.” Or perhaps “dither-or-do-her.”

Just know that I have a few sets of friends, all of whom have kids, who have tried natural family planning. Now isn’t that food for thought?