Oops

I realized this morning when I woke up, that I had forgotten my otherwise-regularly scheduled Monday evening blog entry. I was setting up Stacey's parents' new TIVO unit last night until about 1 a.m. and the blog was the last thing on my mind.

Considering that I've been buried nose-deep in my new video iPod and new guitar & amp, I think I'll give myself the week off from any sort of obligations. Translation: See you next Monday.

Should I be one of "those people" that says, "See you next year around New Year's? (I guess that question has just been answered.)

A Merry Christmas indeed

About a mile from our house today, Connor and I drove past the worst auto accident I've ever seen. As best I could (theoretically) reconstruct it from where the vehicles involved came to rest, a smallish sedan was attempting to make a left turn off of a two-lane highway, but did not see tractor-trailer coming the opposite way — though I've no idea how the driver missed an 18-wheeler barrelling down a 55-mile-per-hour-speed-limit road — and pulled out in front of the truck, causing a head-on collision of one vehicle at nearly a dead stop and one at 55-plus mph. Violent is not the word.

[Perhaps the truck had a flat and swerved into the opposite lane...I didn't see it happen (thank God) so I don't really know for sure. Either way, it was bad.]

The car was wedged underneath the cab of the truck like a gigantic doorstop and was pretty much flat up to where its backseat once was. As we drove past, a medical helicopter was landing in an open field opposite the crash site. I have to assume that someone in the backseat was being attended to as there was no way on earth that anyone in the front seat survived that crash. There were about eight state troopers and one team of paramedics on the scene, but no one seemed to be rushing around, which is usually a clear indication that there's little that can be done.

Damage to the truck looked minimal, at best (imagine throwing a penny at a wall in your house), but the car was little more than a heap of crushed metal with two tires and a trunk. In this situation, I'm pretty sure at least one person (maybe more) died very quickly. I'm not sure if I'd rather be the person who died instantly, or the truck driver who now has to live with the memory of this incident for the rest of his life. Neither side looks very appealing.

Why am I telling you this story, and at such great length? I just want you to remember it when you're enjoying the holidays with your families. It's unforgivable that we have to be reminded to enjoy the company of those we love sometimes, but when I see things like the wreck I saw today, it makes it a whole lot easier to remember.

A Christmas Poem

'Twas four days before Christmas and all through our house
were two freaked out parents, trying to get their act together,
because this stuff is hard, you know, trying to make sure you've got all your ducks in a row, packing up for a trip out of town, to celebrate a holiday that, for us, is becoming more about spending time with those we don't get to see very often, and less about getting stuff, although getting stuff is always cool too, but these kids today are only worried about getting more, more more, (like Billy Idol), and they really lose sight of the meaning of Christmas, which is Jesus' birthday, according to Connor, at least, because that's what we say around here, since we've decided that we're not really gonna propagate the "Santa Claus" myth to our son, and instead tell him the outright truth as soon as he's old enough to understand that Santa ain't real, 'cause I think way too many kids have to find that one out the hard way while riding the bus home from school in the tenth grade when some smart-ass bully decides to crush their misinformed world view by not-so-subtley humiliating them in front of the entire world that Santa is a myth, but yeah, we're runnin' around like crazy people, and I feel like I thought my parents must have felt on Christmas Eve, tryin' to get everything taken care of before the sun came up and me and my brothers jumped out of bed, well two of us, since my older brother would sleep until nightfall if we had let him, but my point is that we've got far too much to do and much too little time in which to accomplish it, but we're gonna make it, because we're really looking forward to some well-earned relaxing time with our families, well except for the unnamed family member that always seems to have chronic gas of the worst smelling sort, but other than that, we're really happy to have some down time for the first time in a while, even though the next five days are gonna be really jam packed, what with jumping back and forth between our two families so that no one gets left out, so it's going to be tiring is what I mean, but we're ready, so bring it on.

By the way, is it bad to take an entire package of cold medicine all at once?

Sicko

Ugh.

I have finally caught whatever it is that Stacey's been battling for the last week-and-a-half. It seems to be just a common cold, but it doesn't feel "common" when you're so congested that breathing underwater seems like it might be easier, or when your ears feel like you forgot to remove the Q-Tips after you cleaned your ear and accidentally jammed them in further with a clawhammer, or when your Kleenex tissues disappear quicker than Robert Downey's drug supply.

It's not a pretty scene around here, folks. Our house looks like somebody without OCD has suddenly moved in. (Hey, I have OCD, I can say that...you can't!) There are dirty dishes that I should have washed today that are piled up in the sink; there are papers, CDs, and other odds and ends stacked up on every available flat surface; I haven't even made the bed — this being clearest indication that I'm not feeling very well, because having an unmade bed makes me itch in a terrible way, even if it's in a hotel room and I'm checking out.

Forgive me, because tonight I do not feel like entertaining anyone with funny stories about how Connor will say, "What's up, baby," when he sees you, or how he likes to strut around the house with his toy golf club slung over his shoulder like he's a mob hitman, or how he'll hit Murphy when he's mad and then look at me like "What choo gonna do 'bout it, jack?"

Instead, I'm going upstairs to feel sorry for myself. I like to have private pity parties when I'm sick. because I may feel like crap but I'll be damned if anyone is gonna know about it.

Psssst

Read this quick, before Stacey realizes that I'm giving out classified info...

To the poor unmarried souls out there, let me clue you in to one of the secret perks of being married: if you nab a motivated spouse, you'll never have to Christmas shop again.

It is December 19th, and today marked my first trip into a store to purchase a Christmas present this year, and probably only the third time, or so, since I've been married. Having the Internet helps out immensely, but Stacey's desire to check everyone off of our list in a timely fashion (and not with truck-stop quality gifts) has done well to keep me out of the malls on Christmas eve, as I've been known to wait until the last minute on more than one holiday season. It's not that I'm a procrastinator, it's that I hate the mall only slightly less than jabbing pencils into my eyeballs. My first real job was in a fast food restaurant in a fairly large shopping mall, and I was hired during December. Not fun. This has contributed in large part to my aversion to obnoxious and holiday crowds. (That they're obnoxious probably contributes just a tad, as well.) Plus those unsettling holiday movies where everyone is fighting over the last toy in the store make my skin crawl. I hope Connor never sets his sights on the "must-have" toy of the season, 'cause he ain't getting' it from me.

Consider yourself fortunate that I shared this little marriage secret with you. Being married is kind of like being in the military. You really won't learn what it's all about until you join up — and even then, you probably won't figure everything out for a looooong time.

Besides, if I told you any more, I'd have to kill you.

White Flight

For all my friends NOT in the South who like to continually make jokes about how freaked out people down hurrr' get when there's a threat of inclimate winter weather: WE DON"T GET SNOW; We get ice, and it wreaks havoc with our power lines and roads. Back off.

This morning, I awoke to the sound of silence. For Simon & Garfunkel fans that might be a good thing, but silence in our house means one thing: the power is out, or everybody's dead from carbon monoxide poisoning...wait, is that more than one thing? I told you I'm bad at math.

At about 8:20, I called Stacey's cell phone to see what was up with the power.

Me: Hey, what's up with the weather?
Her: I dunno. I'm sleeping in the next room.

With our power out, Stacey stumbled around downstairs trying desperately to get ready for work with only a dinky flashlight to help conquer the darkness. Once she hopped in the car and tried to get out of our neighborhood, she realized that our exit was blocked by at least one downed tree. So, she did the logical thing and came right back to bed, but didn't want to wake up Connor and me (who were sleeping together since he was up most of the night with a fever).

With our exits blocked, Grammy hauled ass out to our house to rescue us, but not before we found an alternate exit that involved some sketchy off roading that nearly got us stuck in some deep mud. Stacey headed to work (sucker!) while Connor, Murphy and I were chauffered to a warm house with electricity and cable TV. It's gonna be a rough couple o' days, but I think we'll manage.

It's ice storm 2005, baby! Live it up.

On The Road Again

I'm back in my [rented] home after a quick 36-hour trip to Atlanta to earn some much-needed money at my very part-time job. But, in my haste to get on the road and beat Metro-Atlanta's insidious rush hour traffic, I made a critical mistake. Connor's best friend (ahead of me, Mama and Murphy) Barkeley, the stuffed dog, got left behind in the mad dash.

Ever since receiving the dog as a gift more than a year ago, Connor has never gone to bed without Barkeley. Even though we've made a concerted effort to keep him from becoming too attached to a stuffed animal (after my brother and sister-in-law learned the hard way with a stuffed animal known around their house as Fluffels, that is now merely a smelly, dirt-stained shadow of its former self), we saw no harm in letting him sleep with one. Sure, he went to bed fine without him tonight, but I'm thinking that tomorrow, when it's afternoon nap time and he's not as exhausted as he was this evening, it's going to be harder to get him to sleep without his constant companion.

Then again, this kid is pretty resilient. I stopped feeding him like a week ago. Has he complained once?

--
On a completely unrelated note, driving on the Interstate often yields some interesting discoveries. Consider the following nuggets, seen on the back of several trucks during my most recent trip:

"Bomb Mecca"
Nothing like good ol' misinformed American "pride" to really brighten one's day. A Larry the Cable Guy fan, perhaps?

"If you can read this your driving too close"
No, I didn't accidentally misspell "your." This poor misguided fool really did butcher the language in an attempt to eliminate tailgaters, even though he was chronically tailgating other drivers. Your dum!

"Show us your Hooters"
The simple fact that there's an "us" in this makes this incredibly disturbing. What's more unsettling, though, is that, at some point, this sign has to have worked at least once, right? I'd like to meet the lady who sees this as an open invitation...no wait, actually I don't.

You Get What You Pay Forward

Yesterday, Connor and I spent the morning out on the town. First, we stopped at Stacey's office because her group was having a breakfast-type event. Next we stopped at the Post Office to pick up a registered package that the mail carrier refused to deliver because it meant she'd have to leave her vehicle and walk down our driveway. Then we went to Wal-Mart where Connor promptly peed so much that his diaper refused to accept it and dumped the tee-tee out the backside of his pants. After a quick change in my trunk, we headed for home, but not before stopping to watch a backhoe and dumptruck move some serious earth.

While we were at the Post Office, I saw something very interesting — a pregnant woman with two kids who either wasn't having a very good day, or was the biggest beyotch on the planet.

I'm not saying I'm parent of the year (see above story about changing Connor's diaper outside in 40 degree weather), but this lady has some issues. First of all, she was expecting her 5-year-old (I'm estimating his age) to be the watchdog for her 12-month-old (again, estimating). When the older kid didn't keep a hawk's eye on his younger brother, she'd express her annoyance that she was actually having to reprimand the tot. Once she finally got to the counter (after waiting in line for all of about five minutes) she got really upset with the already unmoved postal worker and started cursing under her breath (but loud enough for everyone to hear...including her kids) because she wasn't happy with the rates the government charges for carrying heavy-ass boxes across the country.

That she was rude wasn't exactly the issue — it's that she was behaving like the world owed her a huge favor in front of her kids and wondering why the two kids weren't behaving.

Everyone that spends any time with Connor comments on how well-adjusted he seems. Guess what? Some of it might be his natural temperament, but kids absolutely pay attention to how their parents behave from day one. Sure we curse too much, but I like to think that we're pretty decent to people and he's learning that you don't treat people like fag poop (a term I heard in 7th grade and still think is the funniest thing ever, even if it's incredibly insensitive).

It might be a good idea to stop cursing and throwing nickels at the fast food drive-through employee for forgetting that you ordered a Junior Western Bacon Chee (that you actually didn't order) while you try to scam a free Coke or Seasoned Curlies in the process. When your kids aren't trying to scam you in 20 years, you might thank me.

+1

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The Davis familia has a very important announcement, so listen up. This weekend, our family officially grew by one member. Thank you, thank you. It was nothin'. This is, after all, what men do, right?

We're super excited about this new little guy, although Connor doesn't seem to share our enthusiasm. I have to admit that I'm a little worried about Connor breaking his neck or scratching him, but I have to remember to give Connor equal love and attention and not make it all about the new guy. Easier said than done, right? Connor is my firstborn, but come on...

Did I mention that I was talking about a guitar?

Yeah, sorry. Guess I should've pointed that out. This past weekend was my great guitar gear giveaway giggity giggity. I loaded up the car with all the guitar stuff I figured I could get any cash for and went to Guitar Center. One hour later, I left with a brand new Gibson SG Standard in my possession — a guitar that's nicer than any I've ever owned before — though probably not worth as much as the actual '61 SG that I foolishly traded away after my brother foolishly sold it to me in the first place. (For the record, we both have SGs now as a belated attempt to try and amend for such stupid decisions in our youth.)

Connor is already sick of the guitar, and I've only had it for two days, and I don't even have an amp here for it. I traded in my beast amp and am now waiting for my birthday to roll around in one month so I can get a small amp for the house and a cheap wireless system so Connor won't get tangled up in the cords, and so I can play while I walk outside and check the mail, and so I can play in the backyard while Connor and I play, and so I can...okay, you get the point.

Enough typing. The guitar is calling.

Parenting 101

After a little experience raising me boy, I look at parents a lot differently when Connor and I are out and about. For example, I can tell when a parent isn't paying attention to their woienvoioqndq....

Sorry, Connor just came up and wouldn't stop yapping. Something about the poop running down his legs. I took care of it. Don't he know I'm bloggin'?

Anyway, like I was saying, we were at Big Lots yesterday (we gotta find a new hobby) and these two little kids were wandering throughout the store while their mom shopped. It was as if she couldn't be bothered to w; oxNel7nweklv...

Oops, Connor again. He was rolling around on the floor whining about something, though I couldn't understand a word he was saying. After I dislodged the pretzel from his throat, though, he wasn't as eager to complain. Guess he's bored or something.

Speaking of bored, the two little boys in Big Lots looked like they were ready for some action, but whenever they'd see their mom, she'd tell them to keep playing while she shopped. So, they stayed mostly in the toy aisles, picking out stuff that avo[inwevokl.,s....

Okay, that was the last straw. I gotta go give Connor a serious spanking because he just doesn't respect my personal space. This time he's really got his nose out of joint. Seriously. He pulled the bookcase over on his face and dislocated his nose.

Jeez, kids today.

Shhhh

I am, by nature, a fairly quiet person, in both voice and actions (meaning that I could easily sneak up on you and kill you if I wanted to...just sayin'). Former co-workers of mine have always told me that they didn't know I could talk for several weeks when I'd first start a new job. I can go for days without using my voice — and have before. I even got through a day of high school without speaking once, just to see if I could.

[I've wondered what solitary confinement in prison — usually reserved as a last resort punishment — would be like for me. Would I actually enjoy the solitude? (Probably if I had a drooling rapist for a cellmate, I guess.)]

Anyway, when Connor naps, if I have my way, the only thing that will wake him up is his own internal clock. We have a white noise generator in his room to mask any noise that I might make in my daily routine of pretending to clean up around the house while I instead look at vintage guitars on the Internet. But, the past three days in a row, he's been woken up by forces outside my control...our unnaturally loud mail carrier.

We have a driveway that's probably about 50 feet long, and Mail Lady Doris refuses to leave her vehicle to walk down the driveway (even though every other delivery person to ever visit the house has done so) to deliver a package too large for the mailbox. That much, I don't really mind, except for when we have our gate latched. Then, she won't even bother, even though, once again, every other delivery person we get will unlatch the gate and walk up to the door. That's the U.S. gub'mint for you, I guess. Despite operating on federal funds (in addition to the money it earns from day-to-day business) the Post Office just can't figure out how to turn a profit, despite being in the same business — package delivery — as many highly profitable services of the same nature. Get a UPS delivery person and a U.S. Postal Service mail carrier to stand side-by-side and tell me which one looks more professional. Might be a clue there.

But I digress. Back to our lovely mail carrier. It's not that she drives down our driveway that annoys me, it's that she blares her horn as she's coming down, even though no signature has ever been required on any package she's ever left. Yesterday, I had the priv'lege of meeting her. I swear she was talking through a bullhorn, though it must have been invisible, because all I could see was her mouth — or her Uvula, since her mouth was open large enough to digest a basketball.

"HARE'S YOUR MA-YULLL!!! IT'S NASE TO MEET YA!!!!"

If Connor managed to sleep through the horn blowing, his chances of not waking up from this woman's megavoice were null and void. Had I stood at the foot of his bed and sounded an airhorn for 20 seconds, it would have made less noise than this woman's vocal chords.

I had planned to ask her nicely if she would mind not blowing her horn outside the house since I have a teeny baby sleeping inside, but after hearing her voice, I figured the horn was the least of the problem. How do you ask someone — nicely — to shut the hell up?

Much Music

The latest installment in "What is Connor listening to these days," features a fresh crop of records — actually, all of these are somewhat dated and they're technically files on my hard drive, not "records" — for your enjoyment...so, uh, enjoy.


Sam Cooke: Portrait of a Legend: 1951-1964
If you've been keeping up with this experiment, perhaps you've noticed that I've yet to include anything that Connor doesn't like. Mostly, that's because I rarely play anything that elicits a negative reaction. Consider this the first, though don't expect too many more, cause this kid is easy to please. Maybe he was in a bad mood (I hope that was it) but the instant that the opening track, "Touch the Hem of his Garment," started, our little burgeoning music critic was not happy. We got through about five songs, until I decided that we'd listen to something else. Don't think I won't try to sneak this one in again later on. Maybe I'll play it really quietly in his room while he's asleep, instead of that "I won't grow up and be a crackhead" tape we already play each night.

The Cult: Electric
I have probably listened to this album at least 1,000 times since it came out in 1987 — yes, I had a bootleg version of it on casette, intentionally mislabeled so that the parentals wouldn't confiscate it — but I like it more each time I hear it. If you've ever listened to this record, you'll remember that singer Ian Astbury frequently growls throughout the tracks. Connor was already rockin' out to the music, but when he heard the growls, he apparently thought he was hearing the call of the wild...for toddlers, I guess. He growled like a maniac the entire time we had this on.



Eric B. & Rakim: Paid In Full: Expanded Edition
You might think it's strange for a 1.5-year-old to be jamming out to Eric B. & Rakim. I would say that you're strange. Call it a draw?

Alison Krauss & Union Station: Live
Okay, this one is a gimme. Any live record with audible applause, Connor is all over it. As soon as he hears clapping, he immediately stops what he's doing, looks at you with a huge smile and claps like that crazy lady who's always down front at Showtime at the Apollo, expecting you to reciprocate in kind. It doesn't hurt that the AKUS' bluegrass/country music is a pretty good match for little kids as well as adults. Kind of like Bugs Bunny...without the racism.

The End

When I was 13, I saved up my nickels and dimes for what seemed like ten years to buy my first guitar — some hunk o' junk made by a Japanese company named Mako — and an even worse amp, called a Gorilla. Despite its many horrid flaws, I loved that guitar (it's still at my mom's house, despite my best attempts to get rid of it). It opened up a new world for me and felt like what I had been born to do. When I was about 15, I started playing shows with my first official band and for the next nine years, or so, there wasn't a moment that I wasn't in a band, playing shows, and occasionally touring the country.

(By the way, if you want to be one of those dopes that always asks me how much money I made or how many girls I "got" playing in bands, stop reading now. You don't understand music and you never will.)
When I left the last band I was in, I felt confident that it wouldn't be long until I joined up with another group of musicians and continued on with making music. After a few false starts and several years passed, the possibility of me joining/starting another band began to seem pretty remote. I toyed with the idea of making a serious stab at becoming a touring musician with whatever band I could glom onto, but once I got married and officially became responsible for someone other than myself, that became an impossibility. And now that I have a kid, it's beyond impossible. It's unpossible.

Last week I made the decision to trade the bulk of my gear in and downsize dramatically. That bad boy you see to the left is the main reason I made this decision. I've lugged that ungodly loud thing with me every time I've moved only to store it away, pulling it out only occasionally, because it's too damn big to keep in the den and too damn loud to use recreationally.

Over the weekend, I pulled out all my electric guitars and gave them all a good cleaning, hoping to maximize my trade-in potential. Next weekend, I'll head to our storage unit (Stacey's sister and brother-in-law's basement), gather my 5150 half-stack and head to the local music store with the hopes of not getting completely screwed. If you wanna buy any of my stuff, here's your last chance.

Even though I've had this equipment for a long time and been through a lot with it, parting with the gear isn't the tough part. What's hardest about all this is knowing that once all this heavy duty stuff is gone, I can't jump up at a moment's notice and join a big bad rock 'n' roll band — especially since I'm too poor to buy a decent replacement rig, should such an opportunity suddenly arise. Unless some dramatic offer comes my way, my days of rocking your town are through. It's not a midlife crisis, but it's gotta be close. Maybe I'm getting mine out of the way early?

I'll have to settle for with rocking the den with Connor. He's my biggest fan anyway, so I don't imagine it will to too tough a transition.

Tuff Guyz

Today was "every other Thursday" — meaning that Connor's great-grandparents were in town to hang out with the little guy and be his punching bag for the day.

Liberated, I did what any parent with a free pass would do — I hid out and watched a movie in the bedroom, far away from the action of lobbed utensils at the kitchen table and the constant drone of Connor repeating the phrase "Bown" [meaning that he wants to watch "Barney" again].

Separated from the chaos, I endulged myself in a viewing of The Big Red One: The Reconstruction, starring none other than the badass of all badasses: Lee Marvin, star of my most favorite film of all time, The Dirty Dozen. After the movie and requisite documentary that accompanied the DVD [or D-D-D, in Connorspeak], so inspired by Marvin's performance as tough-as-non-liquid-nails Sergeant Samuel Fuller, I found myself wandering around the yard for a rock to shave my face with and a tree branch to brush my teeth with, while trying to push over a 100-foot-tall pine tree with my bare hands.

Realizing that I probably wasn't quite ready for the "rock shave," I came back in the house and began an online search for a straight razor for shaving instead. After reading a horrifying "how to" which contained the sentence "or you'll be duct taping your Adam's Apple back on," I instead decided that tomorrow Connor and I will go get a nice, safe plastic razor at Wal-Mart (if the Big Lots search is unsuccessful, of course).

Some dudes are tougher than others, I guess.