in absentia

My abs have gone straight to hell. At least that's my speculation. To be honest, I don't know where exactly they went. All I know is that they are no longer here and that I miss them terribly.

Without so much as a "Dear John Basedow" note, text, or Facebook message, my abs bailed on me. I half expect to see them on a milk carton some day soon.

Spring is here, and soon I will be at the beach. Vanity has not escaped me, despite my age, so I'm on a mission to find them. They are Harrison Ford and I'm Tommy Lee Jones. To take the lame Fugitive analogy a step further, they are truly innocent. The hernia is the culprit. Being ordered to lay off any core workouts 5 months prior to hernia repair surgery and 6 weeks after did me no favors.

So it's back to the gym and avoiding eye contact in the locker room. Just how I love to start the mornings. I guess it beats the hell out of getting on that Basedow train. Fitness Made Simple, and Creepy. I mean, look at that guy. The scary thing is, he probably gets laid all the time.

It must be the abs, damn it.

writing the b-sides

more often than not many post ideas that hit me ultimately become farts in the wind. by the time i get around to weaving them into something intelligible, they have lost their potency, their ability to offend, so i chalk it up to another day with nothing said. my wife sometimes asks why i have not posted recently and reminds me that it doesn't have to be war and peace every time i sit down.

great blogger = shitty parent? good parent = shitty blogger? these are questions i live and breathe. so be it.

as i mentioned last year, i am haunted and best represented by the junk drawer. to be fair, i should express that in the plural sense due to the fact that i am the shameful owner of about 6 junk drawers, if you include my desk at work. since i have so many in the literal world, it probably makes sense to to have at least one in the figurative dimension. so,now and then i think i'll throw a random mess of stories, anecdotes, bad jokes, and whatever else hits my radar screen. here goes nothing...

i had you at "fuck"

recently i took a new client out for drinks after work and in the course of the night experienced an epiphany of sorts. something i believe i always knew in the back at my head occured to me in fluid words, and one of those words happens to fall onto my list of favorites - fuck.

we decided to catch beers at lia's, the only nonchain restaurant that's worth a damn in chevy chase where i work. i have a dilemma with the place since it's owner, chef geof, and his wife, nora o'donnell, both sort of irritate me, but i can't knock the setting or food, especially for chevy chase. now normally i'm straight after the liquor when i sit at a bar. really, i can't stand beer and typically do wine only with dinner. otherwise it's a splash of club soda on whatever color liquor i've chosen. but at happy hour with a complete stranger - fully suited while you chose dark jeans with a blazer that day - you can't hit the hard stuff.

in any case, about 30 minutes and 3 beers into chatting with this guy, who turns out to be a solid cat by the way, he suddenly hatches a sentence with "what the fuck..." i can't believe the rest of what he said totally escapes me, but it didn't matter after all. after all, can you blame me?

i had this cat at "fuck." once a stranger becomes your buddy and drops that f-bomb, he's down. you two are tight just like that. enough said.

it reminds me of a great eels lyric in "dirty girl":

i like a girl with a dirty mouth, someone that i can believe...

that reminds me of a plug- eels are playing this sat (3/29) at a venue i've not checked out but plan to downtown called the sixth & eye historic synagogue. i've caught them at 9:30 twice and have to say they put on an ethereal show. it's fierce.

so, as i was saying, when my suited friend threw down the "fuck," what did i do? i turned to the bartender and ordered a scotch. what else?

happy birthday dear blog

home alone, really

welcome to a slice of rare life. hold on while i pinch myself to see if this is indeed a moment in real time and space.

set the scene? sure...

radiohead's in rainbows blares from the bose ipod dock in a dark corner of the room. thom yorke's ethereal wails deliver an ironic sense of hope to the place. a faint trail of smoke lingers. RG sits at the table in the dimly lit dining room, the glow of the laptop - meiwah's sushi page on the screen - causes him to squint slightly, taddling on the modest beginnings of crow's feet in the corners of his eyes, and he's contemplating a cigarette. earlier he spotted an old pack of smokes on a shelf in the basement. god knows how old they are?

scattered about the stainless steel tabletop are the following, in no particular order:

• work files on some media company ceo RG's meeting tomorrow AM
• phones - cell and land line
• amex card
• half glass of red wine - debating whether 1/2 empty or 1/2 full
• diet coke can given a makeover, now a makeshift device
• 3 lighters, 2 of which are dead
• nalgene bottle of water, full
• netflix dvds - halloween (rob zombie remake), live free or die hard, 30 days of night
• paste magazine

missing from this picture are wifey and kids, all swayze on this particular night. mommy and cole are in FLA, and the jackal is doing a PJ party at the nanny's.

terrible, ruby-red welt on his right arm, a hell of a pinch. he looks around the room to verify.

yes - it's true. he's home alone (and apparently referring to himself in the 3rd person tonight). the netflix selection might have given away the fact that he premeditated this.

of course he misses them terribly. still, how many times in his lifetime (at least the next 20 years) will he have the entire house alone with zero responsibility?

delivery guy at the door, time to get after it. probably the toughest question he might face tonight is over which flick to watch first. life's hard.

the healing power of laughter

as i mentioned yesterday, i've basically been residing under a rock with a man cold. probably everyone has already seen these videos, but i'm posting them anyway. i can attest to the healing power of laughter after watching these. i'll take any remedy i can get.

first - sarah silverman's confession to jimmy kimmel that she's fucking matt damon:



then - kimmel's revenge. turns out he's fucking ben affleck. ben's best acting job in years...

sick and tired of being sick and tired

for the past two weeks i've felt like a cast member in one of george romero's zombie flicks. not one of those bullshit fast zombies you find in more recent stabs at the genre. (i still can't believe the remake of romero's dawn of the dead pushed fast zombies on us.) no, whatever the hell knocked me out left me listless and worthless. i was a tried and true slow-ass zombie who more than once wished some hero would deliver me a fatal head shot and cue the closing credits.

in the beginning of what i often felt was my end, my wife and i sort of laughed it off. she even posted a video clip to poke some fun. incidentally (for those of you who don't enjoy zombie flicks and never find yourself, i don't know, daydreaming about being perched in your attic window with a high powered rifle, eating tuna straight from a can, and staving off a charge of walking dead with bullets to the brain), the british actor in that clip, ed frost, plays the hysterical sidekick in shaun of the dead -- a fantastic zombie spoof that happens to remain true to the slow zombie theme.

as time passed and one week of illness gave way to a second, it became a real drag. suddenly i was half-assing every aspect of my life -- work, parenting, being a husband. to say i half-assed blogging would be an understatement. i straight up bailed on this. not a critical component of my life though, so no regrets. i started thinking about a post from last year in which i debated my ability to care for my sick spouse, and wondered if the same thoughts might be going through wifey's head. she's extremely nurturing and grounded, so i doubt it. if she did though, i would not blame her.

it appears that i am on the mend now, though i shiver superstitiously just typing such a bold statement. a week ago i thought i was better then found myself on the floor with muscle aches and confusion over the whereabouts of the truck that ran me over. at least i am on antibiotics now with a round of steroids waiting in the wings in case i need the reinforcements. the doctor told me last week i might have a case of walking pneumonia. good times..

i have a big guys' weekend coming up, so i'm determined to be healthy. mommy and cole are headed to FLA for a long weekend with family and to attend a wedding for one of her old friends. that means the jackal and i are going to be on the loose, infecting the nation's capital with our good old smarmy ways. fast zombies won't have shit on us.

so, got any plans after the match?

not the highest quality video, to be sure, but the amy winehouse celebration conveys well...