Domesticality

So.

I just got back home from a week-long vacation visiting my Lovely Fiancee™, which included all kinds of fun activities, like spending the day at the Tampa Ren Faire, visiting the Florida Aquarium and Lettuce Lake, and Driving Her Car More Than It Has Been Driven in the Last Two Years Combined While Running Ourselves All Over Hell and Creation at Breakneck Speeds.  By the time Tuesday rolled around, we both needed vacations from our vacations.

All right.  That's a little on the facetious side.  (I'm sure I hear jaws dropping collectively at that admission, because god knows that I am never facetious here.)  The truth is that we both very much enjoyed ourselves, and we got a lot of important work done.  We picked out some paint swatches for the upstairs bedrooms in our new house, had our engagement pictures taken, pored over and selected our wedding rings, and picked out some nice wall decor for the house.  In the spare time we had, I watched mortgage rates with bated breath.  All of this made me realize that I am ever-so-slowly losing my rough-and-tumble, angry-young-man razor edge, and becoming one of those fat, balding, more-or-less contented husband types.  I.e.:

- Someone who watches enough news to constantly be complaining about the state of the economy, and what the (insert political party, secret societal sect, or system of government of your choice here) is or is not doing about it. 

- Someone who has a midlife crisis when he says the name of his all-time favorite band and his step-son or -daughter looks guilelessly at him and asks "Who?"

- Someone who complains about how the youth of today know nothing, appreciate nothing, and need to get their collective heads on straight, because, dammit, we walked two miles to school in driving snow, uphill both ways, and we liked it.

- Someone who wakes up with achy joints and a creaky back and can almost immediately tell if the weather caused them without looking outside.

- Someone who spends the large part of his day in his armchair, including the four or so hours after work when he falls asleep there.

- Someone who actually has to think when asked which he values more, a good bowel movement or good sex.

- Someone who actually gives a fuck what happened on Dancing With The Stars last night.

Yes, boys and girls, I am slowly but surely becoming old.  And domestic.  Well, more domestic than I currently am.  I mean, hell, I cooked dinner a couple days for my Lovely Fiancee™ and the kids, and the world didn't come to a screeching halt or anything.  And yes, before you ask, it was good.  Damned good.  And largely not prepackaged, too!

At any rate, this newfound bit of domestic complacency concerns me.  I'm not quite ready to give up being the angry bastard I've grown up to become, and this latent bit of frumpy contentedness makes me think that I'm overdue for a good rantfest.  All I need is a reason.  And that's never been a problem before.

Or at least, it wasn't, before my memory started filling with things like APRs and complementary trim selections.

Damn.

Valentinery

So it's Valentine's Day today.

Yes, it's the day for chocolate, hearts, roses, and enough saccharine-filled love to make the Romance Classics Channel turn its head and politely vomit into the potted plant by the door.  It's the day that Hallmark, Whitman and FTD execs furiously yank themselves over, hoping to ejaculate a liquid jackpot of sales.  Uhm... on a side note, I guess I should point out that last sentence is all about completely metaphorical masturbation, but I'm perfectly fine with the mental imagery if you are. 

The flower, candy and card companies might not have created Valentine's Day, but they have turned into their primary commercial marketing orgy, right ahead of some of the other holidays they've created to try to reel in everyone's hard-earned cash.  And you know what holidays I mean.  The ones that especially target people with a surfeit of money and a guilt complex to buy for anyone and everyone for fear of missing someone.  The ones that are called Hallmark Holidays for a reason.

Like "Secretary's-- excuse me, Administrative Professional's-- Day."

"Sweetest Day."

"Grandparents' Day."

And my personal favorite, "Christmas." 

Now, my thoughts on the Valentine's Day holiday have always been pretty iffy, as you might guess from the above paragraphs, but for the sake of argument, let me reiterate them. 

I am not anti-Valentine's Day. 

That statement alone should come as a surprise to everyone, and not just because it's a grammatically hideous double-negative and obviously proves I'm a hack writer.  I don't think Valentine's Day should be slapped down as some no-count cynical corporate heartstring-tugger holiday, the way Emo Nation apparently does.  After all, compared to Sweetest Day, Valentine's Day has a long and storied and totally fucking uncontrived history.  And as my Lovely Fiancee™ can hopefully attest, I am still to some degree a romantic at heart, even if it tends to work a lot better in my mind than in practice.  I really see nothing wrong with setting aside a day to celebrate romantic love, in the same way that Greeks used to sacrifice bulls to appease-- and call blessings from-- Aphrodite.  It's a wonderfully pagan thing to do.

Now, yes, I much prefer citrus to chocolate, prefer my flowers in-ground rather than in-bouquet, and-- from a strictly decorating point of view-- have absolutely no use for reds, pinks or hearts.  And I really do utterly hate the way Hallmark, 1-800-Flowers, Vermont Teddy Bears, Helzberg Diamonds and Victoria's Secret have turned the holiday into a huge commercial industry.  I hate that they push Valentine's Day like it's some glorious slice of Americana and that you're a pinko commie if you don't buy your significant other something or several somethings, preferably from their stores.  But to be fair, every business that hinges on sales does that with every holiday.  The only people besides postal workers and government employees who celebrate Presidents Day are furniture stores, who try to lure people in with their Lincoln-look-alikes.  I can't really damn Valentine's Day simply because of its crassly capitalistic nature.

Oh, but I do despise one other thing about Valentine's Day. 

At its very heart (ha ha!  Another pun!), Valentine's Day is a holiday for the Haves to rub it in the noses of the Have-Nots.  And that sucks big donkey.

This is the day where if you're in love and that love is returned, you are most likely declaring it with the strident, rich tone of a symphony.  You're striving to make the day perfect, and not at all caring what unattached pond scum may be hearing you natter on about how wonderful the day is, how much you've spent, how wonderful everything is because you're in love.  And when you're in love, of course, everything is right in the world.  And that blinding ignorance is why you also probably don't realize that those sullenly unattached people are very likely plotting your demise. 

I can say this now with the bitterness of experience, having been a Have-Not for most of my adult life.  And at that point in time, especially during my more selfish young adulthood, I hated Valentine's Day.  Absolutely hated it.  Hated it like a Goth hates sunlight.  Hated it like a vegan member of PETA hates my dinner plate. 

I was Joe Fuckavalentine, the same sardonic, acrimonious type I am now, only younger, unattached, and pretty pissed off about it.  I was the guy who got the Let's Just Be Friends line trotted out by anyone I had a remote desire to ask on a date.  I was the proverbial Nice Guy Finishing Last, right behind the stereotypical gangster wannabe and the third-string varsity linebacker.  I was proof positive that the old canard about women appreciating brain and personality more was complete and total bullshit.  I was one of those types that received a valentine every year for one of precisely three reasons:

1.)  Because everyone in class received one, and for all my strangeness, I was actually still a member of the class

2.)  Because I was the only kid under 20 at home, and Mom wanted to instill in me an appreciation in the wonders of love, just on the off chance I might actually opt to leave my room to find a woman and help prove to her I wasn't ascetic, psychopathic or gay.

3.)  Because the local pharmacy had a 2-for-1 sale on chocolate while my sisters was there, and they thought it might look crass to hoard it all to themselves.

I've been there.  I know what it is to hate Valentine's Day.  I know, even now, what a hideous waste of money it is, and I know what an over-commercialized hype machine from the greeting card companies it has become. 

And yet: I can't bring myself to totally hate what it represents.

What I do hate about Valentine's Day is the idea we have to be keyed into a holiday for what it represents.  What I hate is that we apparently need the greeting card manufacturers, the chocolate cookeries, the stuffed bear seamstresses, the floral arrangement artists and the jewelers to wave a "Remember Me" day under our nose to remind us to show someone we love that we appreciate them.  What I hate is that everyone has become tied up in the notion that showing love involves only those things that appear on a credit card bill.

And on that note, I call bullshit.  You don't need a holiday for that.  You can appreciate the people you love, every day, without reservation.  You can show them how much they mean to you without putting them into a chocolate coma.  You can show them how much they mean to you without bundling up a bunch of roses of the proper variety and color according to some stupid chart somewhere.

And you can just fucking tell them how much they mean to you.  Any day.  Every day.

Not just February 14th.

And on those same lines, a quick note to my Lovely Fiancee™: Today is very special to me, not just because it means there are exactly 240 days until you become my Lovely Wife®, but because of the fact that you're a part of it.  Every day we've been together up to now has been very special to me because you've been a part of it, and every day from now forward will be very special because you will be a part of it.  I will never be able to adequately express what you mean to me, so I hope on some level you already know.

 -MH

Bits

Just some random ideas, notes and other such things that have occupied my head over the course of the last few weeks:

* * *

Between the rest of the earnest payment and estimated closing on our house, and the money owed for a truck to bring my Lovely Fiancee™ up here, I just spent close to $6000 this weekend.  

While that might not seem like a whole lot of money to some people (and let's be honest; if that doesn't sound like a whole lot of money to you, there is every possibility that I hate you just on general principle alone), and that cost might sound like a very standard amount to your average prospective home-buyer and mover, this is somewhere near a ludicrous amount of money to me.  I have never-- ever-- ponied up that sort of cabbage, let alone over a two-day span.  Hell, if I added up all my bills, it would probably take me a solid five months to come up to $6000.  When I bought Reno, new off the showroom floor, I only wrote a check for two thousand dollars, and even then it felt like having a sadistic dentist extracting a few teeth from me.

Without the benefit of good loopy drugs.

Using a pair of vise grips and auto-repair pliers.

And keeping me from fidgeting by attaching electrical clamps to my genitalia.

Really.

And what's the worst thing about it?  The fact that the four-thousand-plus-extras of the money on the house barely even scratches the surface.  In the grand scheme of things, I have officially dribbled a teaspoon of water into the rain barrel of what we will owe.  I haven't even managed to pay enough to fully constitute 5% on our house cost.  And since I got the money in the first place from my 401K, I have not only managed to barely ripple the water of our final house tally, but I've also managed to push back my retirement age to somewhere around 84.  Conservatively.    

Which coincides pretty nicely, actually, with when the house will finally be paid off.

Oh, and with all of that said, the thing that pissed me off most was having to spend $48 on windshield wipers for Reno because the store was out of the silver and gold series in Reno's size, leaving me with no choice but to buy the Platinum ones.  $48 for wipers?  Really?  Seriously?  Do they compose f**king sonnets while they're wiping bird shit off my windows?  Do they sing the chorale from Handel's Messiah while they're clearing road salt?

* * *

We got information today at work about the possibilities that while in at work tomorrow, the weather may get really nasty.  Like, a foot of snow or an inch of ice (unilaterally, we would prefer snow, so in keeping with the idea that God Hates Me, we will doubtlessly get ice). In a not-quite-worst case scenario, we will lose power at our house.  Possibly for days.

In the worst case scenario, we will not lose power at work-- our work is in the medical field... so our building has been built to withstand oddities like Rain, Snow and the Wrath of a Wintry God Gone Berserk.  But there is always the possibility that the bad crap happens while we're here... which means, in such a case, a travel advisory could then blankets the county and we could end up stuck there at work. Warm (which is a plus) but without food, beds, or the ability to shower.

In other words, inside of two days we could become like the contestants in Survivor: Norway.

We could have to eat one another to survive.  Yes, I know there's a gas station a couple blocks away, but if we're under an emergency, who will let us in to raid the chip aisle?  Hell, who will be there to put the hot dogs on the rollers to heat them?

That alone should warn you how desperate this could become.  I could be stuck at here, at work, with only parental-guidance-blocked internet, and no heated meat entrees outside of the mystery stuff in the vending machines?  

Oh, hell with that.  I may just call in sick out of a sense of self-preservation.

* * *

Loggerheads

So I'm talking to my Lovely Fiancee™ some nights ago over the phone, and somehow the subject comes up that the kitten (our Pet-to-Be) sometimes doesn't listen when she tells it not to bite or go somewhere or do something.  Like apparently, it very sweetly and very cutely leaps onto the power supply for her computer and shuts it off without a proper shutdown sequence.  Or it endearingly rips gashes in her bare legs.  Or it makes her go Awwww as it goes into heat and yowls incessantly, parades around with its ass in the air looking for something to make it have more kittens, and forces my Lovely Fiancee™ to frantically explain to her young daughter why their male cat is not allowed in without using any animal terminology like sex-starved slut, or gaping slick orifice of cat-hell.  Or to put it in a much more urbane way of phrasing, "she is sometimes a little shit."

I could have told her this long ago, seeing that the creature in question is a kitten. I could have also gloated that the only times I worry about the fish not listening is when I'm trying to take pictures of them, and then, it's most often more of a laughing manner than a genuine "What the fuck is wrong with you!" manner.  I could have also said, "Awwwh," because this is the sound I gather most cat-lovers like to hear.  Usually followed by a cutesy variant tone of the kitty-cat's name, or "Schmookums" or something equally inane and offensive to English-speakers everywhere.  "Him's a widdwe pwetty-puss, isun't him?"

I, however, knew I was treading dangerous ground here, as I constantly am whenever we talk about the cat.  My Lovely Fiancee™ is more than just an animal lover. She is a hardcore, third generation-- possibly more-- animal lover, and is instilling that same love in her children.  She moreover loves lost-cause animals-- runts the mother has tossed aside; wounded strays who look utterly pathetic; guys who play role-playing games and haven't dated for years.  I fear that soon, between the three of them, I will be on a first-name basis with every attendant at the Indianapolis Zoo.  Most women cry during chick-flicks; my Lovely Fiancee™ cries at shows on Animal Planet.

I knew all this, and yet, I responded with one of my usual wonderfully well-thought out replies: "The cat does realize that it's not going to have complete run of the house when we move in, right?"

Numerous married men are very likely now grabbing their nutsacks in empathy.

There are a lot of things that you simply aren't allowed to do to have a long, happy marriage, and you can probably guess a few of them, such as "don't say someone else's name during sex", or "don't sit there and laugh when it turns out she's wrong."  However, when your significant other is a cat-lover (hell, any animal-lover), a whole new set of land-mines arises, around which you'd damned well better tread carefully, no matter what you think.  When discussing said animal, you are in no way expected to insinuate that A) she doesn't have control over the animal situation, B) the animal in question might be problematic, or C) that you would not be disappointed beyond measure if the animal in question accidentally fell into a wood chipper.  Any of these are akin to saying something like, "dinner was pretty good, honey, but next time you ought to try to this dish my ex-girlfriend was really good at..."  You can literally watch the air get cold enough to see your breath from one moment to the next. 

I was fortunate in that it snowed a couple nights ago, so I was better prepared for the frostiness.  But it's still like a Japanese horror movie-- it puts chills up your spine for reasons you don't really understand.

"What is that supposed to mean?"  She said.  I could have almost sworn it was a hiss.  I'm genuinely hoping it was bad cell service.

After stumbling through an apologetic reply that amounted to recanting everything, I did what every man who deeply loves his fiancee would do... I showed all the backbone of a jellyfish and tried to look for a good, legitimate compromise that would at least leave me a slight, small sliver of masculinity.  And in the meantime, while doing so, I have begun making plans for what brand of hard liquor I will bequeath the rest of my life to.  As I told my Lovely Fiancee™ earlier, there is no doubt in my mind that if we ever look at separation and divorce, that little ball of meowing fluff-- or the five to ten that are sure to come after it, because cat people can't be fucking content with one-- will almost certainly be the root cause.

So, yes, the compromise.  The problem was one I figured the internet could take care of:  I needed something to keep the pet-to-be from getting onto the counters and the furniture in the new house.  I needed a way to keep this dirty beast from turning our expensive new house into the Chateau de Felinus Fuckoff (the sort of place even non-cat lovers can immediately enter and say, oh, I see by the way your house is set up that either you own a cat or have a new child with acrobatic-contortionist DNA).  I need this cat to be a ground pet, and I need it not to sharpen its claws on our new furniture... apparently that should be preferably without de-clawing, because most cat-lovers and bleeding hearts will tell you (with a venom not unlike a Vegan card-carrying member of PETA) that de-clawing a poor widdle kitty is an inhumane torture not unlike tearing your finger down to the first knuckle.  And, no, you cannot respond thoughtfully with "No, inhumane is what I will be the first time I catch the little fucker ripping up our $500 couch or pissing on our $800 carpet because, and I quote, 'that's just what they do'," no matter how much you want to, or how much you fucking mean it.  So I looked it up, and these are the sorts of answers I found for the inquiry at various websites, help-sources and stores:

1) Citrus 
Apparently nothing says, Begone, foul thing, like oranges or grapefruit or lemons.  Also apparently, cats despise the smell of citrus, so you can spritz a lemon-water mist around places that you don't want the poor kitty to go, and it will get the hint.  Supposedly.  Admittedly, it sounds way too good to be true-- srsly?  I can keep them away from my computer by spritzing around it with lemon?  For reals?--  and it does have a far less effective rate than some of the other styles, but the big thing is that you have to keep doing it.  As in Constantly. Like, every week.  Or more.  So at some point, you have to ask yourself, do I really want to sit on a grapefruit-scented couch to go along with our orange-scented kitchen, lemony-fresh computer area, and cat-shit smelling garage?  Do I want to constantly live in a place that smells like the fucking fruit du jour?  If the words fuck, no came to mind, you would be on the right track. 

2) Cat-Away Sprays
This sort of solution sounds too good to be true!  I can spray something with this, and the special chemical pheromone mixture in it will keep the cat from spraying or clawing whatever I hose down, by making the cat feel comfortable in his surroundings!  Unless he's not, because, as the bottle notes:

"There are several reasons why a cat may urinate in your house -- medical problems, old age, the litter box is full, the cat doesn't like the litter you're using, or the box has been moved to a location the cat objects to.. the cat just feels like pissing you or your husband-- because we know no man is going to buy this except out of a sense of total fucking desperation-- off. (okay, I did sort of add that last one.) 

Urine marking is normally found on vertical surfaces, approximately 8 inches above the floor... Only a small amount of urine is discharged in a spraying effect. Male and female cats may mark -- even neutered and spayed cats.

Oh, fucking wonderful.  Now I have to also worry about the cat spreading urine on my walls (but only a small amount!  Only a little bit!  Don't worry!  Just like how you don't worry if slightly daft Uncle Walter shits himself in your kitchen, because at least A) it's mostly in his pants and B) he can't help himself)!

Oh, and on top of that, this stuff does not keep the cat from leaping on our countertops or anything above or beyond possibly spraying.  And again, we would have to use this stuff constantly.  At least for 30 days.  And lest we forget, some of these sprays cost upwards of $20 per 150 milliliters.  At that price, why don't we just walk around with Old West gunbelts on and keep spritz bottles of water in them, pulling them out to spritz away when we happen to catch the cat after it finishes with scraping dirty dust-ridden clay over its own shit and decides that means it's time to jump onto the food prep table?  That would mean the times that one or the other of us aren't at work, or that we're not busy, or we want to be in the kitchen, or... well, shit, that sort of puts that idea out to pasture, doesn't it?

3) Scat Mats
Apparently, enough people have had issues with dogs and cats getting onto the furniture that someone decided the best way to handle it was to introduce static electricity into the equation.  Now, admittedly, this was an idea I could more get behind.  You unroll this mat, place it on a 'problem area' where you don't want the thing to leap up onto, and plug it in.  Voila, instant mild instructional shock when it jumps up there.  The beautiful part of this was watching the promotional video, which actually seemed to show the cat leaping up and then leaping off as though its nuts had caught fire.  It was a thing of beauty.

Now the problems with this scenario?  Aside from the fact that I'm pretty certain that those same types who think de-clawing is terrible-oh-noes-inhumane probably think this is equally terrible-oh-noes-inhumane (in fact, they most likely think every deterrent is inhumane, and that the only steps that should be taken are to sit aside and let the cat literally walk all over you and anything within the house) there is the fact that just because you light up one counter with electricity doesn't mean another is safe.  Or the couch.  Or the upstairs.  Or the entertainment center.  Or you get the picture.  At fiftyish dollars apiece, we can get enough of these to handle the areas of the house the cat shouldn't be... if, say, we eschew buying a laundry dryer or a refrigerator.  But what the hey... we're not all that fond of drying clothes.

Along these same lines are the lesser expensive means that offer the same "The cat doesn't like it here" efforts, like double stick tape and aluminum foil.  And because God knows how cool it would be to consistently set my hands down on double-stick tape while I'm making dinner, or have to uncover the couches from their foil because company's coming over, I will not go into detail on my thoughts on them.

4) Sonic Things
Again, seemingly the perfect marriage, sonics and cat deterrent, this is another thing that sounds (Haa! Pun! Get it?) much better on the surface than it apparently is in practice.  The Sofa Scram mat, which is a little like the Scat Mat, but half the price, emits a sound not unlike a smoke detector.  Which is all we fucking need at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Sound:  BEEP.  BEEP.  BEEP.

Lovely Fiancee™: Mnnh.  What is that?
Me: It's the Scram Mat.  The fucking cat's on the furniture again.

Out Of Control Fire: *Laughs Maniacally and Consumes Downstairs*

The other one is ultrasonic, which might work.  But the price is higher.  Oh, this is me being surprised at that.

5) Claw Caps
This is one of the ideas put forward by my Lovely Fiancee™ as an alternative to the declawing issue.  And it seems to work.  For the scratching thing, at least.  Which is great!  Except I have been told they need to be changed out about every three to six months, and that this is a two person job.  And that I have been volunteered to help out to ensure the cat doesn't scratch my Lovely Fiancee™ into an indefinable bloody mess.

This also thrills me to no end.

And apparently there is no Counter Caps or Couch Caps to keep the cat from jumping onto either.  I did suggest weighted chains, but that idea has so far met with resistance.

6) Small Battery-Operated Guillotines Located At Tactical Areas Throughout The House
No, this will totally not work at all.  But I would admit that I would be a lot more inclined to be happy with this solution, if just for the designs alone. 

7)  Good Fucking Luck
Nothing you do, no matter how physically ingenious or chemically glorious, will stop the cat from scratching your sofa, leaping up onto the food-prep table with its shit-ridden paws, or doing whatever it feels like-- up to and including finding your PIN and taking money out of your bank account, when you're not there.  You can use a squirt bottle, a shook-up can of pennies, or a small flamethrower, and it will be effective.  But only while you're there.  Once you leave the room, the cat will do the feline equivalent of flipping you the bird and do it anyway.  Or if it doesn't, it will plot against you... like waiting until you're sleeping on the couch in your thin lounge pants to leap up and claw at your genitalia.

So out of these ideas, the more I look at each one, and the more I know my own luck, the more I'm thinking that we'll probably have a solution more like: 

8) I Quietly Bow to the Mandate of my Unfortunately-Cat-Crazy Lovely Fiancee™; I Do Absolutely Nothing About Said Creature, Deal with Cat Funk and Hair in my Food and Everywhere Else in Our New House,  and Begin Married Life by Having Myself Emasculated So As Not To Cause Civil Unrest.

Yeah, that about covers it.

Bli$$

So the wedding date has been officially set for about two weeks now, and I’m starting to think seriously about calling it off.

Let me try to keep people from becoming apoplectic by saying I in no way mean the marriage itself.  Oh, hell, no.  I’m all good with the being married thing.  I don’t think a lot of people realize what an unbelievably lucky bastard I am finding someone who shares a great deal of my likes, overlooks a lot of my faults and quirks, and seems-- oddly enough-- to find me enjoyable enough to be around that she wants to keep doing it.  Finding her was almost certainly the best thing that’s ever happened to me, quite possibly even better than finding ephedrine, and I have no intention of fucking that up.  No way in screw.  And I should point out that I’m not just saying that because my Lovely Fiancee™ reads this blog… although, if it wins me brownie points with her I won’t turn them down.  (As a male, I need to build up my reserve of those as quickly as possible, because I will spend the rest of my life calling them in when I inevitably do something stupid, drunk, pigheaded, or a combination of all three.)

What I’m talking about is the wedding.  As in the ceremony, and the reception that comes with it.  Look, no one wants a dashing, romantic, bigger-than-life wedding for his wife-to-be more than me.  No one wants the big, lavish, decadent Renaissance/Medeival themed celebration for their wedding more than I do.  Or to be correct in my verb tense, no one did, until the realities of things came into it… realities like, say, the ratio of “How Much Money We Have” to “What Anything Costs”.   To put it mathematically,  A ![] <  B   (or in other words, How Much Money We Have is ridiculous fuckloads less than What Anything Costs).

This sort of thinking first reared its head when we were looking for a photographer.  My understanding was that a photographer was someone who shot pictures.  In other words, like you or me, only with much more expensive cameras and equipment, a well-trained eye and a helluva lot more practice. 

And then I saw what they charge, and I realized that some photographers are artists.  Because no one else but an artist would have such a fantastical vision that I would be willing to pay $2300—on the low-range side—for someone to shoot pictures of me and my Lovely Fiancée™ on the day she becomes my Lovely Wife®.  (Quick moment of true story: We are very fortunate in that my niece referred us to a pair of photographers whose work is extremely good, and whose price was not only fair but did not make my insides crumple like a wadded-up toilet paper ball when I heard it.  So let me clarify, not every photog has a price package like that.)

That said, here’s the thing.  I’m an artist, and if I charged someone $2300 dollars for 20 pieces I made totally from scratch starting with a blank piece of paper, I would expect someone to punch me right in the nads.  It's not that I think photography is terribly easy-- quite the opposite-- or that I think it has any less artistic merit than drawing with pencil on paper… it just seems really freaking expensive to pay more than the down payment I made for my car when we’re already covering the event itself, event setting, costuming, makeup, and in most cases, booze. 

So that sort of explains my response to this sort of price quote, namely: “For that price, do we get his and hers oral sex?”

The part that galls me is that I have been told that this is actually very competitive pricing.  (My response to that was, competitive with what, heart surgery?) 

As an aside, I have made my thoughts known on other sites about artists and prices.  Being an artist myself, I would find myself very hard pressed to charge anyone more than $75 for any piece I made.  And I realize that strikes a bad chord with people... I've heard the rejoinders siding with artists charging arms and legs before: “But that’s their only means of income,” or “but they have to cover the price of equipment” or “but they do such high quality work!”  To which I say, Tom Clancy worked an insurance job while writing his first three books, and McDonald’s hires daily; if what you do doesn't make enough to cover the bills and you need the supplemental income, then you really need to do the math.  (Besides, you’re an artist!  Who cares if you demean yourself?  Demeaning yourself in the name of-- for the sake of-- art... dammit, isn't that what’s expected of us artists?!?)

Here’s my thinking.  I work a somewhat menial job that requires me to remain a little active; causes me at least a slight bit of stress; and in which I have to deal sometimes with inane questions, people who do stupid things, and a lot of laziness and politics-- same as just about anyone else who works anywhere in blue-collar/low white-collar places.  And like many other people, my job is not what I’d prefer to be doing, even if I like it.  At said job, I net somewhere in the area of $90 a day… maybe as much as $150 when I’m pulling overtime.

So maybe you can understand why my blood pressure spikes like the jab of a syringe full of adrenaline to my chest when I see that someone is suggesting that them shooting pictures for somewhere from five to eight hours is a competitive rate… and that competitive rate just happens to be the equivalent of me working my job for a month.

And you know, I could even understand-- and maybe even get behind that-- if the photographer were the only expense.  But according to the numerous checklists I’ve looked over, the photographer is barely the tip of the Titanic-Killing-Iceberg that is the modern wedding and reception.  In fact, the photographer is the stuff that falls on the deck and is just enough to chill the drinks.  The average—yes, average­—cost of a traditional American wedding is $22,000.   

Twenty.  Two.  Thousand.  Dollars.

It hurts to fucking say it, let alone consider paying it.  Hell, I  paid $22,000 for my car only when you added in the insane annual high-risk percentage rate and the fact I’d be paying on it for six solid years.   That’s 1/6 of the price of my not-yet-built house!  Holy scrod, it’s no wonder everyone opts for common-law marriages anymore!   Or a JoP or Vegas deal... License, check; blood test, check; bam!  Thank you, have a nice day-- it's the Home Depot of instant gratification wedded bliss, and it's cheap!

Fortunately, my Lovely Fiancée™ realizes what a cash-strapped bastard I am, and as such has mostly gone along with me on certain ‘budget cuts’ that I have suggested for our wedding, including making the reception a pitch-in, holding the wedding at a retreat center (it’s a pretty retreat center, though!), and having our wedding and reception music on an mp3 player and speaker system rather than hiring a DJ or band.  Alone, that’s cut us down about $4500, which can instead go to the sort of trivial things that we might otherwise have to eschew; things that make a house truly a home-- like, say, food or heat… or walls. 

She’s holding firm on some areas, however, and because this is her special day as well, I guess I can’t begrudge her those things.  So I can probably get by without finding old wedding napkins, crossing out the names and writing in ours.  We don’t necessarily have to see what wedding cakes go unclaimed at the bakery and haggle for a reduced cost.  We can decorate the tables without re-using last year’s Halloween decorations.  

But I think we’re still going to look carefully at some of my ideas.  I mean, who needs rice when they can toss pouches of freshly shredded credit card applications?

FOOTNOTE: Lovely Wife® is a registered trademark of Anonymous Moron Enterprises, and is only used for purposes of demonstration.

Resolute

So everyone lately has been asking me what my New Year's Resolutions were.  I've always hated the idea of New year's Resolutions... not just because of the assertion in them that I'm not perfect (which we know not to be the case), but because the word resolution has such a grim, thickly final sound to it.  And by all rights, it should sound very final.  That's appropriate for a true resolution, after all.  The word resolution has its base in resolve.  One is resolved-- determined, staunchly firm in purpose, resolute-- to do something to make themselves a better person over the coming year. 

The problem is that no one takes their New Year's Resolutions that seriously.  No one ever plans for them, or takes steps to ensure that they accomplish them.   Hell, the only reason anyone even makes resolutions is because it's traditional, or because their friends are doing it and it's something to talk about over mocha lattes and finger food at the local coffee pub.  That's not a resolution.  On Facebook, we would be called a meme, and 90% of your acquaintances would ignore it if you posted it.  (And most likely, out of the other 10%, at least half of them agree to everything you say, anyway.)   Every year, I hear someone chuckle about how they're going to lose weight this year, or exercise more, or do something more often, or insert your clever riposte here... and you can look at them and tell that by February, they're going to forget they even said it.   That's not a resolution... that's a conversational gambit.

A resolution should have the weight of a set of proper bull's nards.   Resolutions were what were made in Parliament to remove absolute monarchy from England.  Resolutions were what were made in the Continental Congress to disengage from being British subjects.  Almost no one in the modern age, especially with the attention-deficit-issues and instant gratification mindset of Joe Internet User, is qualified to make a true resolution.  

So I no longer make resolutions, per se.  I do, however, tend to make myself a nice list of goals that I call Hopeta's.   I make a large list of goals I'd really like to accomplish over the coming year-- this can include things I'd like to buy for myself, places I'd like to go, things I'd like to do, betterment of myself that I'd like to make, or anything of the like.  The list is intentionally big... and every year, I hope to (thus the name) hit about 50% of those goals.  My thought process is that anything more than 50% is a pretty damned good year, and it keeps me from the all-or-nothing mindset of having a single 'resolution'.

So without further ado, here is a few of my 2011 Hopeta's.

In 2011, I Hope To spend at least thirty minutes a day (preferably an hour), five days a week, occupied in some form of activity that can at least functionally be called exercise.   This does not include walking around at work or standing up to cook dinner.  As an aside, it would most likely make a huge difference in a lot of people's lives if they followed the suggestions for the NFL's Play 60 for kids.   One hour of honest-to-goodness healthy activity per day-- running,  walking, biking; doing anything besides just sitting around-- would be a good goal for anyone.

In 2011, I Hope To have our house built and not be crushed under the weight of a monthly mortgage.  (As another aside, thaaaaank you, economy, for deciding to f***ing make the housing market rebound four f***ing months before I'm eligible to lock in an interest rate.  So now, instead of a 4.25%, I get to hope like f*** that we can still manage to swing a 5% in April.  Or in other words, I get to hope like f*** that we only pay $50 a month more on our mortgage payment.  You know, $50 that we might have been able to use on... I dunno.... food, or utilities, or bailing me out of jail when I get arrested for vagrancy while holding up a "Need Money Please Help God Bless" sign at the highway off-ramp.)

In 2011, I Hope To move my Lovely Fiancee™ up from Florida to our new home in wonderful Indianapolis, Indiana, and do my best to make her forget that winters here are the primary reason why people generally choose to move to Florida in the first place.

In 2011, I Hope To learn that fatherhood-- at least step-fatherhood-- means a lot more than just saying, "Sweet Mother of God, DON'T--!!" and "What did your mother say?"  I'm sure it does.  I am just looking forward with both excitement and terror to learn what exactly it entails.

In 2011, I Hope To get  my gaming company-- the same one I've been trying to get started on and off for the past three years-- off the ground, if for no other reason than to justify the amount of money I will be paying next year to keep its website running.

In 2011, I Hope To be a lot more creative than I did last year.  I would love to add to that, but nothing is coming to mind over it.  That is probably A Bad Sign.

In 2011, I Hope To be less judgemental than I was last year.  You know, like when it throws me into a frothing rage because someone did something so absolutely, incontrovertibly Stupid, Self-Serving, Inept, Unthinking, Egocentric, Dimwitted, or Lazy and I call them Moronic/Insolent/Pea-brained/C****ucking/Assheaded/Reprobate/Retard/Choadsmoking/Irredeemable/Imbecilic/Douchebags/Dumbasses/Sh**-for-Brains/Any number of other insults.  Instead, I will take a few moments, count to ten, and try to see everything from their point of view.  And only then, if I cannot find a way to justify it, will I go into a frothing rage and let the profanities fly.

And finally, In 2011, I Hope To survive through to 2012.  That would be an important thing.  Cause God knows, I can't wait to do another one of these 'Resolution' blogs next year.

Oh, yeah.  And I Hopeta about that marrying thing, too.  Cause, dammit, I know what's good for me. XD

Giftwarped

It seems like this time of year is always hectic to the point of distraction.  There's always the last-minute gift-buying, the wrapping and decorating, the endless family celebrations, the prepwork for Christmas dinner, the bit where I become an overglorified chauffeur, and all those other memorable Christmas traditions that I might be forgetting in the glorious haze of the season.  Usually those things are enough to keep me in a wonderful frothy-mouthed furor over the week or so before Christmas, so when I lucked into the opportunity to take the week before Christmas off work, I was stoked.  The good news was that taking that week off allowed me to not-quite froth at the usual amount of Christmas cheer.  The bad was that I had five days  where it was in effect hopeless for me to try to get a whole lot of writing or other creativity done.  That's sort of sad in its own way, because one of the best Christmas gifts I could have ever gotten myself would have been to sit down and churn out a good thirty pages of prose. 

As sort of a related theme, I do buy Christmas presents for myself, mostly because I am the only one who apparently really knows what I want.  I am always thankful for everything I get, and my family is generally more thoughtful and touching when it comes to gift-giving than almost anyone I know.  But every year I am henpecked by my mother into putting a list together of the things that I want for Christmas, and every year, I rack my brain from September to Early November thinking of things to write, and finally fail dismally and fall back on the old standards, clothes and DVD's.  Worse than that, they're usually items that A) I don't want enough to actually go out and get it for myself before Christmas, and preferably ones that B) are not too terribly technical in detail. 

I love my family dearly and desperately, but there is no way on God's Green Earth I would give free rein for every member of my family to buy me electronic gear for Christmas.  No effin' way.  See, there is a pretty frightening anti-technical bias in some portions of my family, and sure enough, they would be the ones who decide, "Oooo, he wants this sort of thing.  Family Dollar Electronics Counter, ho!"

That's mean, I realize.  And I know members of my family who would do just fine, if they were buying for me, but damned if I want to take the chance.  We all know people that just have no affinity for electronics... hell, I've had to install software and troubleshoot hardware, TV's, VCR's, digital cameras, mp3 players, CD players, stereo systems and light bulbs for some people before.  And my mother, who is niceness and sugary sweetness personified, actively hates the onslaught of technology.  I'm half-sure that she is terrified her DVD player is going to leap off the entertainment center and devour her.

If I told her that all I wanted an ATI Radeon video card with a gig of onboard memory and a TV-out for Christmas, she would very likely look at me with that sort of desperate "Oh God, please help me" look that cats get when you hold them over a sausage grinder and tell them to justify their existences or perish.  (Or, I guess, to put it another way, the sort of look I get on my face when my Lovely Fiancee™ asks me what she just said ten seconds ago, usually during the fourth quarter of a football game.) And really, that's okay.  Not everyone cares to know technical things like, say, what SD Card, or USB Hub, or Two-Disc Special Edition in Widescreen Format means.

I don't often like leaving my electronic decisions to other people, anyway.  A lot of that stems from the fact that-- given any choice in the matter-- people invariably do no research and will just buy either the biggest name or the cheapest alternative.  If you ask for an mp3 player, you will either get one of the Apple (our motto: Quality Comes At Only 4.75 Times Market Price) iPays or some knockoff brand that no one-- quite possibly including its creators-- has ever heard of.  You know the ones... the ones that look vaguely similar to a name brand, but have a brand name like Tanguay or Sansonic.  The ones with no software of their own and an instruction booklet in eight languages, one of which is More Or Less English.  The ones that you sometimes have to hold at an obscene angle to get it to work properly. 

Guess which ones I have more experience with.

And although I will be a lot more content to trust my Lovely Fiancee™ with that sort of thing-- after all, she is partially Lovely because she comprehends technical stuff  (Quick aside... she gave me just two gifts this year: a homemade plush retarded basilisk and a light-up 20-sided die.  Say it with me, now:  Best.  Fiancée.  Evar.)-- I really have no problem with buying my own electronics and technical things my own self.  So that means I usually end up putting the same things on those Christmas Lists-- DVD's and CD's that I haven't gotten around to buying, housewares in which brand name doesn't mean a whole lot, and clothes.

Sometimes I will couch one more thing in my list just to see if people are paying attention when they read it.  One year I asked for A Movie In Which Liam Neeson says "Motherfucker."  Other requests, from years past:

• 55 More Cubic Feet of Space in my Bedroom. 
• Amiable Companionship (Preferably Non-Inflatable)
• World Peace Everywhere Except Tanzania and Nepal
• A Getaway Car, Gassed Up and Running Outside
• Injectable Happiness

The unofficial running story is that Santa Claus had a brain hemorrhage and died after reading one of my requests... and the excuse I plan to give my own children when their gifts suck.

Viral

Well, this whole write-daily-thing failed pretty fucking spectacularly, didn't it?

No blogs the last few days, as I have spent my waking time both busy as hell and convalescing from what I can only assume is one of the most terrible cases of the 24-hour stomach virus ever recorded.  Srsly.  It started as a normal enough day--  I got up, showered, prepped myself to go to work, drove the half-hour or so to clock in, sat down at my desk-- and then, quite before I knew what was happening, I was bent over a toilet and blowing chow like a college binge drinker after the big frat party.

There is nothing that will ruin your day faster than a hardcore, bona-fide evil stomach evacuation.  And this wasn't your normal "Oh, I feel a touch ill" brands of dainty bad-taste-in-the-mouth vomit either... this was full-bore projectile horking that had the blow pressure of a freaking fire hose.  I wish I could say it was over in the 24 hours one would think should be allotted to a 24-hour virus, but oh no, it doesn't completely feel like it... I still have this constant pressure in my stomach that makes it feel like every time I sit down I will either puke with the pressure and force of a jet exhaust, or belch the Anvil Chorus and literally raise the dead with the sheer volume.  It frightens and annoys me.  See, this bunch of chundering was physically painful-- it literally caused my upper body to buck, like some sort of vomit bronco.  I still have pains in my back and sides from where I apparently strained muscles in my sides while communing with spirits in the toilet drain.

Yes.  That is impressive.  Try telling your significant other that you strained a muscle blowing chow, by the way. See what sympathy you get.  My guess is none.  My Lovely Fiancee™ was more amused by my muscle strains than anything. 

And yes, I just spent three paragraphs talking about regurgitation.  There's probably some sort of allegory to my ability to write in there somewhere, but I'm choosing to take the high road and not bring it up.

So at any rate, I spent the first couple days on a more or less liquid diet and got really used to drinking Gatorade and Powerade and chicken broth, and discovered two things:

1) Lemon-lime Powerade: I served with Lemon-Lime Gatorade; I knew Lemon-Lime Gatorade; Lemon-Lime Gatorade was a friend of mine.  You are no Lemon-Lime Gatorade.  Although your cousin Orange isn't terribly bad.

2) One sure way to kill me slowly and painfully is to ensure I cannot eat solid foods. I died a hundred times thinking about how hungry I was and how much I wanted a pizza but any thoughts of pizza made my stomach do one of those flip-flop "made you think I was gonna hurl" motions. And then I had to sate myself with a cup of chicken broth... which is a little like having a taste for steak and having to make do with a slightly underdone microwave burrito.  It's not that the chicken broth is bad.  It's just not fulfilling.

The multicolored rehashes of last night's dinners and weird pressure in my stomach aside, that's probably the worst part of it... not having the ability to eat and/or drink what I want.  And that, most especially, includes caffeine.

Caffeine withdrawal is the worst feeling in the world.  Okay, second worst feeling in the world, right behind Singing Yack Songs With the Tidy-Bowl Choir at Firehose Pressure.  But it's right up there.  Imagine doing everything with a headache that blurs your vision, and being forced to speak in one-syllable words, even when there are no one-syllable words for what you need to express.  Imagine a bull elephant sitting on a barstool on top of your head, and then holding up a hundred dollar bill to get a lapdance... from a blue whale.  Imagine your brain processes losing what makes them hyperreal and instead becoming slow, sluggish little cretinous things that decide unilaterally to take a break from doing constructive work and instead gather around watching sitcoms on the couch while they spray cheeze whiz from the can directly into their mouths.  Imagine that, and you have an idea what it's like to suffer from caffeine withdrawal.

I fear for the day that the doctor tells me, "We're going to have to cut down your caffeine intake."

I fear worse for when he just stares negatively at me after I respond, "...because we've found a legal way to put me on speed, right?"

I realize that it has now become vogue for people to say that they try to stay away from caffeine, or that their lives are healthier because they no drink Caffeine-Free Diet Mountain Dew.  And they can certainly feel free to do that. (Although my personal take is that if you're taking the caffeine and sugar out of Mountain Dew, shouldn't you just drink a sixteen ounce can of non-alcoholic beer and be done with it?  No one drinks Mountain Dew for taste, anymore than people drink beer for its thirst-quenching ability or Goldschlager for the cinnamon-fresh breath it leaves them.)  Caffeine, people say, is a terrible detriment to people.  It makes them jumpy.  It makes them irritable.  It can cause arrhythmia.  It's a horrible substance.

And I'm in total agreement in some cases.  I have seen some people-- some children, especially-- that need to be drinking caffeinated beverages about as much as I need to have a bad case of the shakes and an open-blade razor.  And much like you, I immediately want to jam a syringe full of horse tranquilizers into their carotid artery when I see them doing it. There is a single important, fundamental difference between the way those people act on caffeine and the way I do: I don't annoy me.

Except maybe when I get sick.  But that sort of goes without saying.

Seasons

I woke up yesterday morning to "flurries".

A quick note to all budding meteorologists, weatherpersons, and aspiring pseudo-scientists: "Flurries" do not impair vision.  Nor do they remain on the ground when common sense says that the ground is too warm for accumulation.  This would be what we call "snow."  It is a bona-fide sign that despite our best efforts, we're going to have to endure another winter in Indiana. Sigh.

I have this love-hate relationship with winter this year.

On the one hand, winter means that time's a-movin' on, and the more time a-moves, the closer I get to bringing my Lovely Fiancee™ up from the steamy swamps of Florida to the heartland of America and into our new home.  Our new home, I might add, that will be built as winter makes its way into spring.  That's always something to look forward to.  Then there's the bowl season and NFL playoffs in winter.  The happiness of Christmas is in winter.  The joy of a New Year is in winter.  The wonder of Groundhog Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and the Feast of the Epiphany are in winter... come on, who doesn't enjoy a good Epiphany party?

On the other hand, my kneejerk reaction is to say fuck you, winter, fuck you, cold, fuck you, High of 27 degrees days,because winter is the cold-ass, snowy, icy, bitterly frigid donkey-prick of seasons.  Everything that is relatively easy and carefree in any other season becomes an absolute pain-in-the-butt chore in winter.  Getting outside to pump gas in winter blows.  Using more gas because you have to spend fifteen minutes warming up the car blows.  Being forced to warm up your car because the ice on your windshield is too thick to see through blows.  Waiting for buses in winter blows.  Shoveling snow from your walk blows.  Salt discoloration on car paint blows.  Being forced to jack up all your utility bills to stay warm blows.  Tracked-in snow on new carpet blows.  Driving on snow blows.  Driving on snow behind Indiana drivers who forget from year to year how to drive on snow blows.  Ice blows.  Even in most drinks.

Okay, to be both fair and honest, there's a lot more hate than love to this year's relationship.

My usual views on Hoosier winters are pretty much the matter of public record.  I was born in a winter, and that was more or less the highlight-- they've progressively taken nosedives from there.  This reached a nice bloody head a couple of years back, when a chance wintertime meeting with a semi-trailer resulted in the untimely death of my Ford Escort (An aside: I loved that car, not just because it was paid off, but enough that I named it "Escort"... just because I am that creative with my names for cars.  To wit, my Suzuki Reno is named "Reno", my Pontiac Sunfire was named "Sunfire", and my Dodge Aries K car was named "K".  I also once owned a very used Chevy Caprice that I named "Deathtrap" which quite by coincidence caught fire on the highway, and a 1980 Ford Country Squire Station Wagon which could not be contained by one true name... and about which hazy legends and frightening rumors still abound.  But I digress, for now.)

So yes, I'm inclined to side with my kneejerk side here, that the only good thing to come out of winter is a fuller appreciation of how much more summer could suck.  Once fall has had its share of us and saunters off for a year, and the skies turn grey, nasty, cold, and ready to spit down frozen bullets of sleet, I generally enter total fuckall mode.  This sort of weather is going to be very fun for my Lovely Fiancee™, and my family-to-be, all of whom thus far has yet to even see real snow (i.e., anything that registers more than a light dusting on the grass).   I imagine that will have a lot of excitement for the first couple minutes: 

Minute 1:  "Oh, look, honey, it's snowing!  It's those really big flakes, too, like they show on the Christmas cards!  And it's happening in October, too!  I never thought that Al Gore was right and that we were going to experience a radical change of seasons, but it's sort of cool that we'll have to make the kids wear coats beneath their Halloween costumes!"

Minute 3:  "It is so pretty out there, everything looks so peaceful!  I'm going to put on my coat and go out there with the kids and just enjoy the moment!"

Minute 3.25:  "Holy fuck Jesus, what is it, ten fucking degrees out there?  Fuck, give me a loaded coffee or something to warm up!  It's pretty, but screw that, I'll watch it from the window."

Minute 25: "Uhm.  It's still falling pretty heavy.  Does it ever stop?  I mean, we can't even see the driveway now."

Minute 45: "Wow.  I can see why you hate that stuff.  I just saw the neighbor skid into a tree three yards over."

Minute 75: "It's still not stopping.  We're going to die, aren't we?  Like the Donner Party, only much worse because we're inside a house and look more pathetic that way."

Hour 3: "What do you mean, only four inches?  We could get more?"

I do feel a little twinge of guilt for pulling my Lovely Fiancee™ and the kids away from their tropical paradise of a home.  But I'm sure that they'll get used to snow-covered evergreens and frozen retention ponds instead of palm trees and balmy sea breezes, and I fully expect that eventually, they will come to look forward to cold weather.  Someday, I am hopeful that we all will enjoy winters in Indiana the same way that I do.

Which is to say, from far away.  Say, the Bahamas.

Automotivation

So, you might have noticed that I wasn't here yesterday.

Okay, so actually, you probably didn't, but I like to pretend that I provide something to a select few people-- be it a little bit of escapism, a momentary enjoyable read, a measuring bar to point at and say if I ever get that low you should put me out of my misery, whatever--  so humor me.  

On my way home from work Friday, as I was getting on the highway, my car's brake and battery lights both came on.  As a car driver, there is nothing quite as stomach-churning and sickening as red lights on the dashboard just as you are accelerating to a speed that places you right alongside an 18-wheeler, especially when you're a solid 30 miles from home.  I checked my emergency brake and made sure I had no other battery-related things running, like the dome lights or cigarette lighter, or little vagabond kids screwing with the automatic windows, but everything checked out clean.  Fortunately, a few moments before I was about to go into full-on Why me, Why now, Why the Fuck mode, the two lights went out.  Fearing the worst, I cautiously went a very proper (and very unlike me) 55 miles an hour the whole way home.  The lights never again came on.  Admittedly, I sort of put it out of my head.

I had to make a run to my friends' house that night, and upon starting Reno (that's the name of my car, for those who are unaware) in the driveway, the red dash lights came on again.  And right about the time I caught my breath and was about to say "I wonder what the hell is up", they went out again.

By that time, it was patently obvious in my head that my car was fucking with me.   Haaaaa!  Made you go a legit speed limit, fucker!  This is for not taking me to the car wash after that flock of birds treated me like a four-wheeled toilet.  Oh, and that $2.31 a gallon swill you put in my tank... let me tell you, there are such things as standards of good taste, and you skirt them every off-pay day, you bastard! 

So I make an appointment with my dealership to take Reno in on Monday.  Let me be really clear and frank about a couple things here.  First, the people I've worked with when I've had to bring Reno to the dealership for repairs or maintenance are some of the nicest people you'd ever want to meet.  That said, there are two places I utterly, without reservation, hate to go: hospitals and auto repair shops.  Hospitals are for more obvious reasons, naturally.  

But auto repair shops know me on sight.  I'm the guy with the seemingly invisible tattoo on my forehead that says, "Potential Pillage Victim."  I'm not a complete prat; I do know a little about cars, other than the fact that I have to get in one to go somewhere.  I know-- in theory-- where all the fluids go; I know how to change tires and wiper blades and filters; I know that I should have certain types of maintenance every few months; I know that these certain types of maintenance always cost 20-50% more than they're ever advertised at, because exchanges like this always take place:

Repairman: So we've drained your oil; what are we going to fill you with?  Same stuff we did before, 5W30?
Me: (Trying to appear confident) Yes, definitely.
Repairman: Synthetic blend?
Me: (Smiling)  Of course.
Repairman: I notice you haven't changed your air filter; it's looking a little dirty.  Want us to take care of that?
Me: (Nervously)  Uhm.
Repairman:  It's no worries.  Your car probably doesn't need it to keep up with all the other cars in its model class.  It'll just lag a little bit behind.  Like the special-ed student with a helmet.  MPG will drop like a rock, but that's okay.  You probably just drive down the block and back, right?
Me: (More nervously)  No, I drive across town to work.  Crap.  Uhm, I guess, if it's not too expensive.
Repairman:  Nah, it's the cheapest repair we do.  Expensive, though?  If you don't change the shot PDG bearing we found; if it's not changed, the whole transmission could go... that would be expensive.  Wouldn't want that, would you?
Me: (Completely blank stare)  I... I...
Repairman: Of course you wouldn't.  I also see your framistat gasket housing is not properly sealed.
Me: (Helplessly)  Is... is that important?
Repairman: (Gives the over-the-glasses "Are You Kidding Me?" look, sort of like my Lovely Fiancee™ when I ask if we really need to keep the cat.)
Me:  O-okay, fine.
Repairman: Excellent, sir.  Rough estimate is $1700, and we should be done with you in about four hours; in the meantime, you can feel free to enjoy our waiting room, where we have some free turgid coffee, and you can watch some brain-cell deadening daytime network TV and fold yourself into a fetal position while you wait.

I am exceedingly fortunate for my Lovely Fiancee™, who knows more than her fair share about cars.  I wish she were here now.   She might have been able to tell me exactly why I stayed five and a half hours at the dealership after they couldn't reproduce the problem and paid $250 for preventative maintenance that we both agreed would likely do nothing about the lights coming on.  No, my repairpeople couldn't duplicate the issue, and couldn't find any reason why it was happening (if in fact I wasn't hallucinating it.  Twice.  While not being on drugs at the time).  The alternator was fine.  The battery was fine.  The electrical system was fine.  The computer wouldn't tell what the issue was.   And in the meantime, while they tried to diagnose the issue, I sat through Good Morning America, Live with Regis and Kelly, The View, the Noon News, part of All My Children and at least one other show that I think my subconscious has mercifully purged from my memory, because there was no remote to change the channel.  Preferably to off.   (Especially The View.  You could make a convincing drinking game by taking a shot every time someone on that show says something that you honestly believe they need to be backhanded for.)

And while the dealership couldn't figure the battery and brake lights issue, they did discover my brake pads were worn to almost nothing... y'know, just to make sure I didn't leave there with a full wallet or anything.  I guess that it was probably be nice to find that out from them, rather than learning about it shortly before ramming full speed into a school bus full of children.  So there is that.  But I still get the feeling that those dashboard lights were just a cry for help.  Maybe Reno's just depressed, and if so, I in effect just paid his therapy bill by buying him something nice to wear.

Next time, though, I'm gonna see if a nice pine-scented air-freshener will do the trick.  With the money I make, only one of us can afford to be medicated.

Crowds

I guess I should offer some explanation about yesterday's diatribe about Black Friday shoppers. It was a little over the top, a little stereotype-y, and a little unfair to those people whose lives revolve around that singular day after Thanksgiving because their particular form of religious worship has a magnetic strip and a security code on the back.  And since I consider myself irreverent and a-religious, who am I to question that faith? I realize all of this now, and upon further examination, contemplation and soul-searching, I am blaming that entire freaking blog post on the Wellbutrin.

Ha!  Had you going, didn't I?

I think my personal bias against the whole Black Friday "tradition" is twofold.  Firstly, it's all about the hype.  Every year, stores right and left give a limited number* of special deals* with the caveat that they will only be available at this price for a very limited time* while their limited quantities* last.  Now, I've marked with an asterisk every phrase that is specifically pointed at underscoring the OMG-urgent immediacy of the sale, and how you are rewarded for being among the first in line vis a vis the other, worthless, huddled masses further back in the line.  Not for being a good customer, or a consistent customer, or anything like that.  For standing in freezing cold for 8 to 10 hours awaiting this particular special hype-machined sale like mindless lemmings.  And that's total bullshit.

Hype, as we too well know, can be terribly dangerous, and should frankly be avoided at all costs whenever possible, just for the sake of common sense.  But hundreds-- thousands-- people don't learn that, and they let the stores jerk them around with the tease of a few dozen items "marked down" to the same price they will be in two months. And that's exactly what the stores are counting on... that people are stupid, greedy and priority-driven enough to wait around in the cold until they can herd in like pigs at slop time and join the chaos of hundreds of people fighting for dozens of items.

The second reason I hate the whole Black Friday "tradition" is that it draws huge crowds of people, and modern statistical analysis proves that the more people you gather into any reasonably contained space, the lower the group mean IQ level becomes, and the quicker the group becomes irrationally surly.  People wonder how the Romans could possibly enjoy gladiatorial games with their blood and death... I give you exhibit A... and B.... and... hell, you get the drift.  The Romans could have sent out pornographic poets and free oral sex and their crowds would have been bloodthirsty and ready to kill things. Every year around this time I get reminded of those wonderful holiday words delivered by Tommy Lee Jones in Men in Black: "A person is smart; people are dumb panicky dangerous animals and you know it."

I therefore refuse to go to these Black Friday events, partially out of a sense of self-preservation; as I told my Lovely Fiancee™, I have every reason to believe that the first year I endure the Black Friday "tradition", it will undoubtedly be the first year that there are multiple gunshot, trampling, or stupidity fatalities at a Wal-Mart. It's only a matter of time.  Especially the stupidity ones... I'm sure at some point I will hear, "...Three drown in a Target bathroom.  Details at eleven."

I've learned very quickly that I am not generally a crowd person.  I get anxious and antsy and claustrophobic in them.  I think it says something about me that I prefer solitary hobbies like art, reading, writing and fish-keeping, that I enjoy playing golf, and that whenever we have our family gatherings I end up holing up in my room.  On top of that, I have a really low tolerance for stupidity in mass quantities.  In short, I cannot imagine a level of hell that would be worse for me than being among the five hundred people trying to fit into a Best Buy after six hours in the cold.  So I'll happily continue with my own "tradition" of shopping around online in my lounge pants, ordering gifts as early as possible, and praying that the 24-hour stores aren't crowded at 3 in the morning on a Tuesday morning for those last few things I have to get.

I guess, if nothing else, the good news is that I most likely only have a couple more years to deal with it.

Thanksgiving

It's Thanksgiving.  

I'm fatter for it.

Really, there's not a shatload to write about beyond that at the moment.  Tune back in tomorrow.  And for the love of all that's holy, don't go out shopping tomorrow.  Life's too short to deal with the toxic levels of greed, base crass materialism, and overall gluttonous nonconcern for fellow men that you'll find in some of the hapless degenerates you'll find waiting in line at any store that goes "Look!  Rush in here at five AM and you might be one of the 15 people who get a special deal on one of these wonderful gifts (no rainchecks, first come first serve, not responsible for damage incurred by fights with other customers or the hours of productive time you lose by standing in line, nor are we responsible for the mental trauma you may incur by making the local newscasts and looking just like the morons that waited in their Star Wars jammies and Stormtrooper outfits for the most recent Lucas movies.  Oh, by the way, tell us how those dumpster fires turned out, kthxbye?)!!!"

By the way, I finished the vast majority of my shopping for my Lovely Fiancee™ and our Family-to-Be from my room.  While eating turkey.  Hot turkey.  I will contrast that later with having to endure a Wal-Mart the first Saturday of the Christmas Shopping season.  I'm just guessing here, but I'm thinking that sitting in front of my computer monitor and spending thirty minutes-- while eating some of my Thanksgiving meal, thank you-- will most likely stand up very well to getting elbowed by Gus and Wanda, the creme de la creme of Western Civilization (and devout NASCAR fans) who are in the midst of trying to find out why an X-Box Kinect doesn't come with this here game that little Bobby wants, and oh yeah, they need to make each of these things in their cart a separate purchase, too, even though there's a half-dozen people in their line, knowwhutImean?

Guh.  I have the cold sweats just imagining that.   Let alone enduring it.

Cattywampus

An Epilogue to yesterday -- I am now on my first day of meds, so I officially have a scapegoat for everything that happens between now and the moment I get picked up by the police while in the midst of a three-state spree of aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, identity fraud, and public indecency stemming from exposing myself at various art museums.  One thing you have to admit about living in a culture where people refuse to accept responsibility for anything they do wrong: it's much easier to blame large multinational corporations, inanimate objects, and freeflowing emotions or mental states than our own inadequacies and dumbfuckery. (We've come full circle, boys and girls: the 80's were the "Me" Generation... welcome to the "Not Me!" Generation.)

And if anyone is offended by that last statement, the generic Wellbutrin XL I'm taking was wholly responsible for writing it.  

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled blog.

* * *

So a couple days ago, my lovely fiancee warmly informs me that our pet-to-be can peel wallpaper with the stench of her cutesy-widdle-kitty-cat poo-stink.

Needless to say, I couldn't be more thrilled about bringing our pet-to-be up here so that it can demonstrate its newfound ability to clear a room and stank the new house.   I say "our" pet-to-be because I have-- in what we can either call a grand magnanimous gesture or a minor bout of idiocy-- folded like a wet towel to my wonderful fiancee and her children's wishes to bring along the kitten on their move from Florida to Indiana.  There, it will make itself a new home in our brand-new ridiculous-priced house, where it will no doubt mark its territory with its piss; spend a few formative months shitting on whatever happens to be around-- rugs, furniture, computer chairs-- until it gets its bearings and realizes that the litter box is in the garage; and sharpen its claws on whatever new furniture we happen to buy.  Overall, I foresee it turning the first few months of my new marriage into an exercise in reigning in sarcasm and watching our house depreciate in value.

Also needless to say, I am not a huge fan of cats.  That is completely the opposite of my lovely fiancee, who has yet to see a cat that hasn't made her go "awwwh," and want to bring it into her life.  This might not be so bad if she were, say, blind.  Or if, say, we could own two houses, one for the cats and one for me.  But neither is the case, and much in the same way attractive women in a bar can key on the one guy who's happily in a relationship as 'safe' and taunt him mercilessly with cleavage shots and innuendo (my lovely fiancee will be happy to know I don't go into bars anymore), cats from all over seem to notice that she's a cat-lover and do everything but molest her to get her to notice them.  It's like premeditated sluttery wrapped up in a furry coat.

My lovely fiancee can't help but fall for it, unfortunately.  She likes sites like LOLCats and I Can Has Cheezeburger, which are known for cutesy/humorous/saccharinney pictures of cats in cutesy/humorous/saccharinney situations.  I cannot fault her for this.  I would probably like both those sites if it weren't for A) the broken, butchered and massacred English that masquerades as 'cute' when it is actually what many 5th grade Language Arts tests look like, and B) the cats.

Almost every writer I know is all "How can you not like cats?! They're so independent, and aloof, and mysterious, and spunky, and playful, and insert-adjective-that-I-would-use-to-describe-a-heroine-in-my-novel!" And there is a very simple answer: I tolerate cats, sort of the same way I tolerate ebola viruses: I know they're out there, and generally I hope never to be exposed to them, but I realize if I do, it'll probably be something I have no control over, anyway.  And I can objectively admit that as creatures, they have a sort of regal air to them that's lacking in dogs.  Of course, that just means they're arrogant, aristocratic, and have a sense of entitlement.... so it's a bit like having a rich New England politician for a pet.   

What some people see as independence and aloof... ness, I simply see as a propensity not to give a flying fook what their owners say.  Cats will climb up on anything, no matter whether they've been "trained" otherwise or not (and whether that training has come with a gentle "shooshoo," with a super-soaker, or with my personal preference, a taser).  They'll jump onto furniture after you've shooed them away.  They'll jump on the TV.  They'll climb onto your food prep table.  They'll sit on your stove.  It is honestly a miracle of no small proportions that they even use a litter box.  They will happily follow whoever gives them food.  If an axe-murderer chopped our family up into bite-size pieces, but gave the cat a can of tuna, the cat would be happy and content and probably would follow the axe-murderer to his next few stops before the electric chair.  (And before the calls of "Cat Hater!" start, let me say that if children shat in my inkjet printer, scratched up my copies of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and sprayed in my briefcase, I would hate children, too.)

So people would very likely assume I'm a dog person.  Yes, but not so much, really.  Dogs are too much work.  You have to let them out to go shit in the yard, then you have to clean it up unless you're really keen on stepping into it later.  And while they can dissuade burglars, they require a small metric assload of space, and most of them are dumb as a sack of hammers.  They do love you unconditionally, however, which is a huge step up from cats, who love you only as long as it suits their purposes to do so. But no, I'm not a big dog fan.

Personally, I prefer fish.  They're quiet, unassuming, calming, and excited to see you when you come near them.  They require very little food and no personal contact, and they won't move out of the area in your home that you set aside for them.  When they go to the bathroom, it won't be on anything of yours.  And what's more, when they inevitably kick off, they aren't all that hard to get rid of.

And they don't like cats.  Which makes them pretty damned intelligent in my book.

Medicated

It's a big day for me today.  And that's sort of odd, because it's not as though it's some great anniversary or birthday or anything.  At least, that I'm aware of.  Given the size of our family and my newness at being a true significant other, it is entirely possible that I have forgotten an event of some sort and royally pissed someone off with that last statement.  I tend to do that.   (As an aside, in case you didn't know, our family is big.  At family gatherings, you are a small voice in a cacophony of laughs, stories and contentious points being made.   The chances of you being able to carry on a legitimate conversation at one is somewhere near the chances of you being able to hear a pin drop on a busy airport runway.)

No, it's not a special day just because it's the second day of this blog, either.  (On another tangent, I did not even realize that I started this blog on the anniversary of President Kennedy's assassination.  Some folks that are smarter than me would probably say there's some sort of ironic symmetry about that, I'd imagine.  But they can make those sorts of leaps in eclectic thought-- that's why they get paid to write, while I get paid to never fully understand how a largely-automated job can possibly be so difficult for so many people.)

Nope, today is the day that I take step two in my plan to get myself back to being the creative force I used to be.  And this might be the most difficult one, too.  Today I go see my doctor and I talk to him about Viagra.

Oh, shit.  You mean that doesn't expand your mind, too?  Well, that's  a big "fuck me on stilts".

Actually, I'm going to see him about seeing what sort of medication we can put me on that will keep away this anxious, oppressing gloom of depression without turning me into either A) a completely unproductive drooling vegetable or B) a bubbly flower girl named Rainbow Jubilee.  Cause God knows, A) I am already desperately close to being a drooling vegetable; my weekends are largely filled with watching the wall of my room and wondering if I can change paint colors with my mind rather than doing something constructive like... maybe writing, or maybe art, and B) my lovely fiancee will probably stake me through the heart with a digital tablet stylus if I start singing how the hills are alive with the Sound of Music or some crap like that.  

But, you know, even with my insurance, there's like a $25 co-pay at the doctor's office.  Maybe I should just load up.  You know, how you try to get all the preventative maintenance done when you get your oil changed, or buy all your Christmas gifts in one run to keep your trips down?  Maybe I ought to look at this as an opportunity.  Buy one procedure, get one free.   "Yeah, I'm really happy we can get me set up for Wellbutrin, doctor.  I'm also having a little trouble sleeping, I have muscle spasms at times, and you think it would be too much to ask to slap a couple inches on my pud while I'm here?"

Hell, maybe I could get a rain check on the buy-one-get-one so I can use it later, kinda a just-in-case for when we've finished up with the move.  That way, in case I strain my vertebrae lifting the couch; or find after the fact that I have an allergy to cats, ferrets, or married life; or we decide the vasectomy honestly cannot wait for a few months, I can take advantage of it then rather than waiting for a big sale when I have to buy it with a six pack of Darvocet or Propecia.

Or maybe I'll just deal with one issue at a time.   Someone once told me that dealing with one problem at a time rather than a dozen was a good way to keep the anxieties away.   Course, maybe if I listened to them a lot more, I wouldn't be in the sort of situation where I needed to see a doctor to get my creative mojo back in the first place.