bring the noyz

Around an hour and a half or so ago, this really happened to me:

The Boy was tucked and snuggled in his bed and soundly sleeping. I decided I needed a little "me time".

I spiked the remains of my value menu Mountain Dew with a generous double pour of cheap vodka, grabbed my ipod, and went heading outside for a smoke. Somehow, in one of those freak random acts of life that only goes to demonstrate the continued amusement of Eris, I had a little mishap. Unbeknownst to me, as I was walking through the sliding glass door onto the back patio, the cord of my ipod headphones snagged the door handle. The tug pulled my headphones off and somehow caused my still brand new ipod nano (that I received for Christmas from my loving Wife) to fly from my left hand. I watched it, in one of those slow-motiony movie style scenes as it landed, nay dived, quite perfectly into the drink I carried in my right hand.

I gasped with panic, and quickly thrust my left hand into the icy sticky-sweet beverage. I ran inside and grabbed a towel and some baby wipes and cleaned and dried it off. I held it for several minutes beneath the blowdryer, attempting to dry out the ports and the inside as best as possible.

In what I believed was a minor miracle or a testament to Apple's engineering, the damned thing never shut off. Maiden's "Two Minutes to Midnight" kept quietly jamming along. I was amazed.

Feeling relief at having apparently not drowning my beloved new amazing piece of digital music technology, I adjurned with the still playing ipod to the patio. Halfway through a Camel, the damned thing just shut off. Silently, its tiny little screen went black.

Two hours later and still nothing revives it. I have a prayer that in the morning, after it has had a chance to sit for several hours and more thoroughly dry, it will again work as designed. But it is a distant prayer, and I do not feel optimistic.

Ain't that just fucking great!

That little story just about sums up the past week as well as anything else.

Really.

The Wife is still in The Flatlands attending to her injured father. He has been home from the hospital for the past few days, recovering slowly if not always comfortably from his rib breaking fall from their roof two weeks ago tonight. She has been gone for over a week, since Thursday before last. It is the longest we have ever been apart. And I am feeling it. I miss her. Thankfully, tomorrow night she comes home.

While I am fully capable of taking care of The Boy on my own, the challenges and responsibilities of having a child with significant and serious disabilities has kept me on edge, always on duty and unable to relax completely. The Wife is much more than just a wonderful wife, she is my partner in parenting. She is an amazing mother to The Boy. Although he is unable to fully express it, he misses her also. His face lights up and he smiles from ear to ear when he hears her voice on the speaker phone.

The Nurse has been wonderful, as always. She is family. She took The Boy to her house to spend the night last night. Her three boys are The Boy's best friends. They are family. They love him and are really great with him. He loves them also and had an hour long screaming tantrum this afternoon after he returned home and his friends left. I loved it. It made me proud to see such an outpouring of emotion. It was a perfectly appropriate angry five-year old tantrum. But did I mention it went on for an hour? It fucking wore me out.

The Boy did not spend last night away so that I could galavant about town, bar-hopping from beer to beer, reliving the lost glory of my younger single days. I did that last Friday night with Eduardo Suave. Ah, if only that were again the case. . .

And my dear reader, please forgive my self-indulgence, for if I can not whine in this forum about how tough it is to be me, then where the fuck can I do so? And I think I'm up to the moderate level on the stressed out scale.

I had to go visit a student. On Monday I learned that he died. This was not unexpected, in all honesty he was not expected to make it through the holiday season. But still, such news is always a shock. And yes, my dear reader, for those of you keeping score at home, that brings the total of students I've lost in the past month to two. How's that for an occupational hazard?

Two students, two years later. . . how's that for a fucking month of January? I think it quite appropriate that this has been one of the coldest and wettest months in recent history.

Isn't there some Shakespeare quote about the bitter sting of death or some such shit?

Anyway, there was a visitation at the funeral home last night. I absolutely dreaded going but knew that I had to go, as much for him as for me as for his family.

So I went.

On the drive down there I steadied myself with a tallboy of the "Champagne of Beers" for those awkward social moments with the family, for all those introductions with relatives I need not remember because I will never see them again. I steeled myself for the sharing of amusing anecdotes or some story that captured the essence of his personality while shuffling uncomfortably in my dressier clothes. That's how these things go.

When I arrived at the funeral home I was lead down a winding corridor (corridors are alway winding, aren't they?) by an appropriately somber old white guy in a dark suit. He gestured through a doorway. I quietly thanked him as I paused for a moment to put on my face. I walked through the door, condolences at the ready with a half outstretched hand ready to greet the grieving family. . .

Into a room devoid of the living. . .

Shit. I hate when that happens.

So there I am, alone in this room with the body of my dead student, laid out all resplendent-like in his Sunday finest. Where the fuck is his family? The newspaper said his family would be there to receive visitors from 6 until 8 o'clock. It's 6 fucking 30, where are the living people that are supposed to be in this room?

I approach the open casket. I stand close enough to touch him, although I don't. There is a small sign placed on the pillow by his head which requests that visitors respect the family's wishes and refrain from touching the body. I think that's just weird, and I turn a potentially disrespectful snicker into a sob. His lips are oddly shiny. He has lost a lot of weight. His once bright brown eyes are closed and are no longer heavy and sad.

So now what the fuck do I do? This whole hangin' with the dead thing really just ain't my scene. I said my good-byes and well. . . now what? Should I hang out and wait, like one of the first guests at a party. Or should I just sign the visitor registry and get the fuck out of there because being alone in a room with the body of a dead student is starting to creep me out.

Well, what would you do, my dear reader?

I thought as much, you'd do the same as me. I turned tail and got outta there.
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Two years ago, on this very night, right down to the weather, I received the call that brought this news.

Tonight as I stood in my backyard silently contemplating the stars I took pause for a moment. I exhaled, I raised my glass high, and I poured a toast "to tha brothas. . . "

I simply glowed with the warmth of scotch and nostalgia.

I said a silent prayer. . .

Listen to me now
I need to let you know
You don't have to go it alone

I turned around and shuffled in my slippers back inside.
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Well then, my dear reader, please indulge my ignorance and just tell me what the fuck are those illuminated (and illuminati?) flying (and reportedly crashing) things that "our side" is testing in the skies over "their side".

Immanetizing the eschaton, immanetizing the eschaton. . .
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I have just returned from a bachelor night.

I sit and dine on a drive-thru-value-menu-fast-food dinner of a burger and fries and wash it down with a large Dr Pepper that came with the combo spiked with enough cheap vodka to cancel out the excessive syrupy sweetness of the beverage.

Despite my lonlieness, or mostly because of it, it has been a good night.

The Wife is hundreds of miles away, in the Flatlands, helping to care for her father. My father-in-law recently bet Mother Nature that he could get the Christmas lights off the roof before She belted our great state with an icy blast.

Yes, my dear reader, he lost that bet and is currently in hospital with, thankfully, only a few broken ribs.

The Wife flew out yesterday to help her mother care for him. As the months pass his body will recover. I fear the injury to his pride may prove to be terminal.

So The Wife's not here.

And as for The Boy. . .

Well, The Nurse volunteered to take him home with her for the night, so that he could spend some time playing with his best friends, her three boys starting at his age and going up every other year.

So somewhat blissfully and inebriatedly, and somewhat feeling lonely and depressed (an oxymoron indeed) I am half-past drunk at half-past midnight.
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Yes, my dear reader, you're memory is quite correct and very impressive, I have already used that title for a previous post.

"But that was then, and this is now / It doesn't matter anyhow" is how the Byrds-ish song in my head goes. I don't care. I like it. Say it with me: "snow day".

Doesn't it just sound yummy?

Outside is an eery, quiet calm. The only sounds come from the wind creaking through frozen tree branches and the gentle whisper of lightly falling sleet. Thank you, Mr. Freezemiser. Even the ever present raging concrete river of the interstate highway that lies half a mile or so as the crow flies to the east of our home is quiet this morning.

This is a moment to be savored.

And so I shall.

Yes, frozen cold icy weather has shut down our fair city and the local news reporters have turned into our collective mother: "Don't go outside without a hat", "wear mittens or gloves". On and on they endlessly prattle. And don't get me started on the local television weather folks. It's like the past day has been one giant 24 hour orgasm for them. They bask in front of the green screen glow of their increasingly impressive graphics while delivering their sixth grade earth science lesson to explain the weather and why the ground is slippery.

Thanks guys. I appreciate it. No really, I do.

Enough of this for now.

While The Wife and The Boy still snugly slumber I shall finish my generously spiked cup of morning coffee and then go see if I can skate down the nicely icely glazed sidewalk in a pair of beloved and well-worn Chuck Taylors.

Be'cha I can. . .
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So the fuck what if it is scarcely nine o'fucking clock in the gah'danged morning on Sunday. It's the last fucking day of my vacation. My two weeks of ingoring reality comes to a close tomorrow. Back to work, back to the real world. This morning I am enjoying a little hair of the dog and wishing I'd bought another pack of smokes. Yes, my dear reader, I am fully aware that it is a habit as unhealthful as it is unpleasant. And it's on the list of resolutions. But like I said, this is the last fucking day of my vacation.

And today, oh Sunday sweet Sunday, is the first day I've had in the past two weeks just to finally fucking chill on the couch in my jammy pants, watch mindless TV or virtually destroy with my PS2, drink more than is prudent, and hold close my wife and child. I'm not going to answer the phone today.

Last night I watched one of the greatest films of all time, and while its wisdom of "Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life" rings true, it is truth for today.

And while I'm on the subject of drunk and stupid. . .

I must warn you, my dear reader, for this is truly evidence of our downfall, dumbing down, and our doom:

I Love New York
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Proudly presenting the most longly awaited and highly anticipated release since Boston's third album. . .





You want it.

You need it.

And you need it fucking now.

So ask me how.
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