bring the noyz

Well my dear reader, I must apologize if my last posting left you cause for alarm. That was certainly neither my intention nor desire.

Please allow me explain m'self. . .

This morning I awoke with what can only be catagorized as a minor anxiety attack. There are no major problems, all is well with The Boy, The Wife, and The Family. All is well with me.

My anxiety is caused by a perfect storm of minor worries, slowly converging and brewing on the horizon. For some reason it all piled up in my mind and woke me this morning. Let's call it a post holiday hangover.

For starters, there is the ever present fear about The Boy getting sick. History has demonstrated that the colder, wetter months of winter in my beloved city are a dangerous time of year. He is prone to respiratory infections and has a long history of pneumonias. This fear is currently fueled by the recent death of Carlton. His death represents my worst fear about The Boy realized. It has prompted The Wife and I to the beginnings of a very serious and unpleasant conversation about The Boy. Like Carlton's wonderful family, we too have been in the PICU, physically exhausted, emotionally charged and just plain fucking overwhelmed, forced by circumstance to weigh options and make decisions with potentially life-altering consequences. What are we going to do when our luck runs out? There has been talk of things like "DNRs", "quality of life" and an evaluation of everthing about The Boy and our reasons for the adoption. We have recognized that we have to make some very grown-up decisions and put thoughts to paper, legal ones. There is talk of things such as wills and insurance. We need to be ready if the dread day comes and we find ourselves with moments to act. What will we do? What will we do if is not The Boy but one of us in such dire straits? We are currently not in complete agreement. Sometime over the next week or so we hope to steal away for an afternoon and go work this all out in the same fashion we have made all of our other major life decisions.

Yes my dear reader, you guessed it.

We need to go to our favorite Texican restaurant, get a booth, and keep ordering margaritas and queso until we have figured it out.

In addition to that, there is this:

As I alluded to earlier, this isn't the most inexpensive time of year. We have been treading water just making ends meet with the new house. Every now and then it feels as though our heads are bobbing briefly under.

Now I'm not one prone excess.

Yeah right, I don't even believe that. If it is worth doing, it is worth doing done right, whatever the cost. Yes my dear reader, you are doubtlessly recalling a night or two from the past that left me with a bad hangover and hazy memories of some girl I knew I should avoid but was too drunk to care. That same passion for life continues and flares up tremendously during the holiday season.

Oh, and the joy of seeing the spectacle and splendor of Christmas through the eyes of a child!

We spare no expense.

My credit is currently amazingly awesome. Really, phenomenally and quite surprisingly so. So awesome that I have aquired a fucking lot of it. Prior to buying the house I had completely repaired the thermonuclear credit devastation from my divorce. (Yes, in retrospect I should have at least talked to a lawyer.)

Prior to buying the house, I was a ratio lovers dream.

No longer.

I fear we are overextended. Hell, again who do I think I'm fooling? I know we are.

In the long term I am not worried. I am confident, but not certain (and therein lies the problem) that a hefty tax return will be coming our way in February. Le'me tell'ya, my dear reader, if you ever want to get a giant tax return just adopt a child with disabilities. The Feds literally pay you. And now with the additional mortgage interest deduction. . . Hell, the forms just got way more complicated.

Anyone know a good CPA? Wait a second, I know one. I was once quite close to her daughter, who for some blessedly mysterious reason remains my most forgiving and therefore the most amazing and endearing of friend.

So I can see the silver lining in that dark cloud. I'm just not sure what to do in the meantime.

And then there is this:
TAKS-Alt.

I hate it. It was coming. Now it is here. It will devour me.

Briefly my dear reader, and rest assured I shall doubtlessly rant in greater detail in the future, it is the world of standardized testing coming to and colliding with special education.

It is where the world of the grandstanding politician and bureaucrat collide violently with mine.

To say that I think it worthless is to undervalue the word worthless. To say that it will take an underestimated 250 or so hours of my time between now and April is to undervalue my time.

It is now a legal requirement of my profession and there's not a damned thing I can do about it.
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I had this to say about one of the Late Great Cardinal Fang's postings:

Dude, you just totally blew my mind. As I was reading your post and continuing as I type these words, now playing, and I'm joshing you negative, right fucking now on RadioParadise.com: Pink Floyd - Fearless.

Synchroncity indeed.

I'm feeling a bit the same at forty and a third.

Okay, so I did the math wrong. I'm at forty and two thirds.

It is a beautiful early winter morning. Reflections of pink, gold, and orange light from the rising Sun cause the morning clouds to glow like neon cotton candy animals. The air is pleasantly cool, comfortable jacket weather.

Perhaps this is just a mid-holiday low and it shall be gone along with the champagne come the new year. Perhaps it is something more, and that is my fear.

I awoke about an hour ago, not gently to the warm embrace of The Wife as she sleeps beside me, but curled up in the fetal position on the far side of the bed clutching a pillow. And I woke up worried.

My worries are many, and very in their urgency and severity. And that my dear reader, is just not me. Underlying it all is the realization that I am much more grasshopper than ant, and winter is coming.

I will mention them no further now lest they become prophesies of self-fulfillment.
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Ain't that a drag, poppa really does have a brand new bag.
_______________

Now just look here my dear reader, before you go pointing fingers and casting aspersions, by all means please just hear me out.

Many times during the past few days, The Wife has commented about the depths of my cynicism of the season. So what. Like Popeye, I am what I am.

Yes, I believe in and embrace that whole "peace on Earth, goodwill to Men, yada yada yada" crap. I believe in it and endeavor to practice it. Daily. Really, I'm joshing you negative. I hear many others obediently mouthing those words without grasping the meaning. Or I hear them saying them with a forked tongue.

You follow the news of the world and are a student of history, my dear reader. You know it to be true.

We exchange gifts gifts along with vows of love, family, and fellowship in supposed tribute to The Newborn Savior.

Hum-fucking-bug.

I mean really now, what says "Thank you baby Jesus for being born to be crucified to grant us forgiveness and to save us from all our sins so that we may live forever in your warm embace, for thine is the kindom, the power, and the glory forever and ever, amen" better than buying a PS3 for the kids, or that new flatscreen you just hung on the wall in the living room as a gift to yourself.

Later today, millions upon millions of us will gather round the glow in our dens to watch modern day armor clad warriors battle in the most highly choreographed celebration of violence since the glory days of Rome. And um. . . go Cowboys! Hah!

What a great way to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace.

And so this is Xmas
For weak and for strong
For rich and the poor ones
The world is so wrong
And so happy Xmas
For black and for white
For yellow and red ones
Let's stop all the fight

A very Merry Xmas
And a happy New Year
Let's hope it's a good one
Without any fear

It's just like Brother John sang, "All you need is love"

Happy Xmas.
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It's three o'clock in the morning. I have just ceased my day's toils and I am finally having a chance to sit down and relax with the single malt I gave myself to celebrate the holiday. It's quite smooth, something from the Lowlands, and not quite as smoky or peaty as some of Highlands or Islays I have recently sampled.

The shopping was miraculously finished before the shops closed, a minor miracle in itself. As for the holiday projects. . . well, they're coming along nicely, thank you very much. The Wife is inside, wide awake half-buzzed on vodka and sewing the fabric I have just finished cutting. She's making retro-looking aprons for the ladies in the family. She's doing a fabulous job. They look fucking great. I'm very impressed.

As for The Boy, well he has been sound asleep for hours with vision of sugar plums dancing in his head. This afternoon we finally braved the traffic and the crowds and made the dreaded yet required trip to The Mall so that he could see Santa. The overpriced photograph of him looking starstruck up at the overweight bearded old hippie as he sat in Santa's lap was worth every second of the hour plus wait in line.

The air is damp and very cold, yet not freezing. The rain pours steadily down, its irregular rhythms beat above me on the corrugated plastic roofing of the patio. It is soothing, and is appropriate for the season.

For me, the day began with a funeral.

One of my students died on Tuesday. Yes my dear reader, that does really suck. It is a reminder of the perils of loving, caring for, and working with medically fragile kids with severe and profound disabilities. So merry fucking Christmas.

Last weekend he was admitted to the local pediatric ICU with a nasty case of pneumonia. The pneumonia won.

Tomorrow afternoon, or more accurately, later today, I'm picking up another student from the nursing home facility where he lives to bring him to our home to celebrate Christmas. He's only eight years old. His family has sadly abandoned and forgotten him this holiday season.

Have yourself a merry merry Christmas
Have yourself a good time
But remember the kids who got nothin'
While you're drinkin' down your wine
- Ray Davies

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As if this wasn't enough to scare you silly, read this:

Former U.S. Detainee in Iraq Recalls Torment

I am getting the distinct impression that current members of the regime have degnerated into the most dispicable form of bastard. I fear my uneasy suspicions are slowly being confirmed, and that Alex Jones is right.
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Did yours end while eating migas at a south side diner at two o'clock in the fucking morning after an afternoon of karaoke and margaritas at a local Texican restaurant followed by a night downtown curiously, but not curiously in that kind of way, watching gaggles of gay men line up to do presumably cocaine and Lord only knows what else in the men's room stall?

Mine did.

I do still so love this town.
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This should scare the fucking shit out of you.

This guy is an American, born and raised. He's as baseball and apple pie as you, my dear reader, or I. He's one of us.

I am you and you are he and we are all together.

I could be next.

So could you.
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Please set aside for one brief moment the occasional curmudgeonly musings of the Late Great Fang on the demise or rock music. . .

. . . be it dead or alive

Thank you. Now let's proceed.

Well my dear reader, you best grab your balls with both hands and hold on fucking tight or this will rock them right off:

DragonForce - Operation Ground And Pound
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Hey, I saw these guys on TV last night.

Part Maiden, part Mighty Met, and well, part Manowar; with tones of The Tenacious and The Tap with what I swear to me sounds like a touch of Triumph here and there. . .

110% rock your balls off! You can not rock any harder than that!

(or at least you wouldn't want to)
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So, um. . . I just read this:

On the November 30 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, host Rush Limbaugh proclaimed: My "cat's taught me more about women, than anything my whole life" because his pet cat "comes to me when she wants to be fed," and "[s]he's smart enough to know she can't feed herself. She's actually [a] very smart cat. She gets loved. She gets adoration. She gets petted. She gets fed. And she doesn't have to do anything for it." Limbaugh has previously stated, on the March 1, 2005, edition of his show, that "[w]omen still live longer than men because their lives are easier"; on January 10, he suggested that some women "would love to be hired as eye candy."

Ah. . .

So I guess he just went to feed the pussy.

Hypocrite.

Asshole.
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