Slice of Life

Cornhole Burning

Still putting the pieces of my deteriorating health back together today after my sphincter waged jihad on the porcelin in our master bathroom for most of the night.  Let me tell you:  no one won.  The title of this post comes from an instant message I sent my brother this morning asking him, "Do you remember the movie Mississippi Burning?  Right now I am starring in Cornhole Burning."  Ah yes, it's good to be blogging again.

I'd like to know who came up with the phrase, "flu-like symptoms."  I came to the conclusion at about 3 a.m. last night that the terms doesn't make any sense at all.  I suppose you can have flu-like symptoms without actually having the flu, but then it would still be more consice to say "flu symptoms."  You either have symptoms that are like the flu or they aren't like the flu.  I don't know.

I have been a walking bag of death since my visit to NYC a little over a week ago.  I entered the trip with weakened defenses, already coming down with what developed into horrible cough and fever that I needed to use a couple of sick days and a visit to the doctor to finally turn the corner, then out of nowhere last night my large intestine decided to strap itself with explosives and attempt to blow a hole in our house.  I almost puked, between the spins and the sweats and general malaise that was my night, but saved myself from cleaning up any type of mess along those lines with several safe and well-timed burps that smelled like a street meat vendor with horrendous B.O.  My body sure can be an interesting place.

Senor Manguera

Back in high school my friends and I used to call this one teacher we had "Senor Manguera" which, translated from Spanish, meant "Mr. Garden Hose."  We called him this because everytime he would come into the boys' room to take a piss, he would walk into one of the stalls and it sounded like he was emptying a garden hose into the toilet.  I mean that thing was packing some pressure.

I wonder what Senor Manguera is up to these days.

Funky

The nail on my right index toe fell off today.

Now the Fun Begins

The last cardboard box from the momentous occasion commonly known as moving, in which the Wife and I jointly participated with no outside help, has been stored in the attic.  This box was "lamp shades."  Saving the best for last, indeed.

With the moving saga officially behind us, the popcorn ceilings gone and the painting done, the beige outlets and light switches replaced with white ones, the fixtures in each of the bathrooms replaced, the garage organized to even my highest standards, we can now start having fun which includes a possible house warmer in the near future.  Tonight I got reacquainted with my old friend the iPod, redeeming a handful of gift cards and plugging in some new tunes that I may incorporate into my 5-minute morning commute.  Finally got the acoustic version of Plush by Stone Temple Pilots plugged in, and my dog ever-so-slightly wagged his tail as I serenaded him with the first few verses, then jumped around me and sprinted to his mom, as if to ask her to save him from the unbearable torture I was putting him through.  The new surround system has an iPod dock which, at half blast, shakes our little neighborhood to its core.  But more than being settled, more than being relaxed, more than being completely content in our new home and neighborhood, more than basking in the glow of my continued perfectionism that is my chronically anal organizational skills highlighted by the two shelves of Tetris taking up an entire side of the garage, more than any of all that, what was the true sprinkle on the sundae this evening was seeing that Lisa Loeb's most recent album, The Purple Tape, released today, was available on iTunes, and I downloaded the whole thing.  Pure, unabashed happiness.  Not gonna lie, it sucked on the first listen-through. 

Cultivating and celebrating my weirdness, however, both publicly and privately, does not.

A Perfectionist's Decision of a Lifetime

After careful consideration and extended internal conversations and debate with myself, I've decided that after ironing my button-down shirts to only button the first top two buttons when placing said shirts on their respective hangers, instead of the first top three buttons.  I had been buttoning the first top three buttons for my entire life, but realized today that I could save a lot of time if I just buttoned the first top two buttons.

Thank you.

Patent Pending

One of my better ideas involves putting a urinal right next to my bed, in the bedroom, where a small bedstand would normally be located.  Ideally, you want to have a small coat or linen closet near the bed because, aesthetically speaking, it would probably look better to have the pisser hidden behind a door.  But such is not the case with our new home, where the master bedroom is pretty wide open.  Plenty of room for a urinal by the bed.

Why a urinal by the bed, you may ask?  Because I'm sick of having the internal debate every single day when I'm lying in bed having to piss of whether I can get back to sleep even though I'm not really asleep but I'd like to be asleep so I'm going to try and get back to sleep even though I know I won't really get back to sleep but oh wait maybe I'm tired enough and can roll on my other side to fall back asleep but now I'm even more less asleep so really should I just give up on trying to get back to sleep?

A urinal by the bed solves these problems.  Why not just get up and take a piss in the bathroom, you may ask?  Because that defeats the whole purpose of not letting a full bladder ruin what should be the most important part of each and every day:  sleep.  Good, solid, sniff it all in until it tickles the depths of your lungs sleep.  At one point I employed a strategy of keeping my eyes closed as I walked to the bathroom to take a piss, but one forehead off the doorframe and that tactic met its end.  I've tinkered around with the idea of having some device on a bedstand where one could take hold of the apparatus and attach it to the top of his or her penis (always striving for gender neutrality here, gotta keep the liberals happy), and then just piss away.  I think the end product would go into a bowl or container of some type, but the problem with this idea is that you really can't piss on your back, and pissing on your side is uncomfortable (unless bajeebered at a Phish show in the hills of Vermont, in which case it is surprisingly comfortable), and there would definitely be drippage in the bed.  So the bedside urinal, ladies and gentleman, is ultimately what life is all about.

Still working on the rope and pulley idea for my couch in the garage plan, so as to turn the garage into an extra sports room attached to the house.  That idea is actually way better than the urinal one.  Way better.

Continuing the Internal Fight Against the Man

I locked in our mortgage rate a few weeks ago, only to have The Man slash rates by a whopping half-point today.  To refinance now would cost money I don't want to spend and a serve as a concession that The Man clearly won this very important battle.

Damn, what a blow.

I took the Little Wienermobile into the dealership last night for some routine service and check-up on some perpetual rattling going on under the front hood, generally when I hammer it over speed bumps and such.  The dealership just called and said I had a cracked motor mount, a bent sway bar, and a faulty flux capacitor.  The dealership looked up my information on the computer and saw that I opted to purchase the extended warranty, currently in its final months, and told me that my total bill for today was $32.50.

The Slicer strikes back.

I think we're the only household in the entire neighborhood that owns their own lawn mower, and I haven't touched a blade of grass or whacked a single weed in the 5 weeks we have lived in our new home.

That's just funny.

The mortgage rate cut was signficant, and I shall plan the appropriate retaliation.

Keeping it Light

Overheard at a recent work meeting to discuss a proposal for a public conservation park and soccer fields:

Other:  I'm worried about these trails on the plan, I don't think they can be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act the way they are drawn to scale.  I mean there is no way someone in a wheelchair can get from the parking lot to that soccer field.

Me:  Maybe the trail is on a decline.

A Day in the Life of a Perfectionist

Today's major project involved taking a bucket of hot water and oxyclean and scrubbing down the walls and floor. . . of my garage.  Suffice to say it was apparent that it was something that had never been done before in our humble little one-car garage, but man it is rockin' clean now.  You'll be happy to know that two industrial strength shelves were assembled, one of which is now storing a dozen cans of paint, arranged by color, from the lightest (white semi-gloss for trim and molding) to the darkest (shoal blue or stone blue or some shit, whatever is in the kitchen now.  Whatever happened to colors just being red, dark red, blue, dark blue, etc.  I blame the collective brain trust that is Crayola crayons, getting all fancy back in the '80s with their seinnas and burnt oranges and chafed peckerheads and whatnot.  Good lord, I'm in the paint section of Home Depot for 5 minutes and I have a headache from just looking at the color palates for all the different paints.  I think we ended up going with the "white almond" to compliment the shoal blue or whatever it is in the kitchen (first coat Friday night, 4 hours, and the final coat yesterday morning, 3 hours, thank you very much), it's okay to have parentheses within parentheses, if you were wondering, big-time legal writing thing.  We have a lovely "gallery toupe" in the living room and dining room (basically a dark beige if you asked me).  Anyway, I don't know where I was going with that.)

Gotta see the garage though, stylin' bra.

Admissions

I haven't worn deoderant in 5 days, and am currently emitting odors even I have never smelled before.  My lunchtime yoga class begins in less than 30 minutes.  I can't wait.

I'm 65% certain that the 5-9 guys that have been working on our new home for the past 4 days are not exactly street legal, if you get me.  Seeing what they've done to the place in such a short period of time, I would hire them again in a heartbeat, even if doing so will be an issue of concern for my 2020 presidential bid.

I don't know where any of the silverware is, so last night the Wife and I used a wooden spoon to share a little pudding dessert.

All I wanted to before I passed out yesterday was hook up the DVD player and watch a couple episodes of The Office.  I needed the remote control to switch the output mode on the TV to DVD.  I had no clue where the remote was.  I looked in one sock drawer and there it was.  This morning I couldn't find a clean pair of underware.

I should have gotten the 30-year fixed rate mortgage, because we're never moving again.  Even if we have 5 kids.  I'll finish the attic space, turn the garage into 2 bedrooms and have the black sheep of the family sleep on the patio.  But we're never moving again.

The city should plan some events next year at this time for "Africa Week."  Instead of the free trolleys that run in and out of Uptown, throw people on the back of some elephants, just to jazz things up a bit.

That's all I got.