Another Use For Your Closet

Lately, my seven year old son Alex is on a roll . . . at dinner Tuesday night, he asked to be excused after eating only a couple bites of his ice cream (he had just earned back dessert status) which was strange because he has a sweet tooth and always finishes treats-- and after Alex left the table, Ian, a model of discretion for his five years, said to us, "You know what was weird? Alex had a handful of green beans," and I was impressed that he didn't outright squeal on his brother, instead he alerted us with some subtlety and sophistication, but it was enough of a hint for Catherine to chase Alex upstairs-- he said he was going to write his friend a birthday card-- and when she asked him about the green beans, he claimed that "he ate them," but upon further interrogation it turns out that he threw them in the back of his closet-- the second time in a week he's made an absurd choice for hiding contraband-- so Catherine made him fish them out and she told them that as punishment he had to eat them, but he claimed that they were "dusty," and so I washed them off with some cold water and once again . . . he's lost dessert for a week.

I'm Not A Professional Actor

So it must hard for my seven year old son Alex when his younger brother churns out super-cool looking drawings on a daily basis . . . when Alex draws something we try to encourage him, but I'm sure he can tell the difference between our feigned enthusiasm for his mundane scribbles and our unabashed adulation for Ian's boldly drawn creations . . . and so-- as a person who experienced growing up with someone talented (my brother was a piano prodigy)-- Alex might be better off if he quit drawing altogether and focused on some other skill.

I Was Thinking (That You Were Thinking)

I Was Thinking (That You Were Thinking) by The Density

A new song by The Density . . . this one explores the most awkward of moments: when you put yourself out there and admit to someone that you think they are groovy and special . . . they they reject you . . . you can read the lyrics over at G:TB, but the lyrics don't do the song justice . . . the real content is provided by Whitney, my colleagues at work, Jim Carrey, The Farrelly Brothers, The Coen Brothers, Lauren Holly, Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Frances McDormand, and Steve Park and so I'd like to thank them for letting me splice, dice, and mangle their words . . . I appreciate it.

Busted!

My son Alex has had quite a week: first he confessed this lie, and then-- when he was on the way out the door for school on Thursday, my wife noticed a bulge in his sock, and when she asked him about it, he said it was "just bunched up," but upon further interrogation and a search, she found that he was attempting to smuggle "Now and Later" candies to school . . . and if he wasn't wearing shorts he might have gotten away with it (or if he would simply put them in his pocket, but he obviously knew he was doing something illicit and you don't put illicit stuff in your pockets, you put it in your socks).

Words Of Advice

Apparently, when your wife says, "I'm drawing a blank on what to get you for our anniversary," the proper response is not "We're getting each other gifts?" followed by "Do you want anything?"

Some Like It Hot (But They Are Idiots)

So the way I get my students to stop complaining about the heat (our classrooms are NOT air-conditioned, and they are poorly ventilated) is by complaining about it even more than they do . . . because I've stolen their gripe and added an unnecessary amount of hyperbole to it, their only recourse is to take the reverse position and so they eventually start encouraging me, they try to motivate me to finish class . . .they say things like:  there's only twenty minutes left-- you can make it . . . and I reply with statements like: THIS IS THE HOTTEST PLACE ON EARTH! MY ENTIRE BODY IS SOAKED WITH SWEAT! LET'S GO OUT IN THE COURTYARD, IT'S HOT BUT AT LEAST WE'LL BE OUTSIDE! I THINK I'M GOING TO PASS OUT! and the sight of a grown man behaving so childishly usually inspires them behave more maturely . . . and I just bought a wall thermometer at Home Depot, so now I'll be able to add a quantitative element to my complaints: IT'S 91 DEGREES IN HERE! THERE MUST BE A LAW THAT PROHIBITS THIS! WE NEED TO CALL OUR CONGRESSMAN! WE NEED TO ALERT THE AUTHORITIES ABOUT THIS! THIS IS A HEALTH HAZARD!

A Good Thriller You Probably Haven't Seen

For once, my wife gave me a task that was in my wheelhouse . . . . a task which I not only completed, but also enjoyed (unlike the time she assigned me the Christmas mission of buying her some sexy lingerie and I went to Victoria's Secret in the mall and saw the word "panties" and started blushing and then a cute girl asked if I needed help and I got nervous and ran out of the store and then got my friend Celine to go to the mall and pick out some things that Catherine would like and on Christmas when Catherine saw what Celine picked out, she was happy and amazed by my good taste and I told her Celine "helped me," but didn't tell her the truth: that I didn't even go on the mission . . . and I would have gotten away with it if another teacher hadn't spilled the beans and told my wife the whole sordid tale-- that Celine picked out the lingerie and showed it to all the women in the English department, so Catherine made me return the lingerie-- except for one item she couldn't part with-- and then she made me go buy lingerie all by myself as punishment . . . even though I thought it was pretty clever of me to complete the task in the fashion I did) because this task-- to use the internet to find a good movie-- was right up my alley . . . she said, "Find us a good movie to stream on Netflix," and so I went on-line and found some spectacular reviews for a thriller from 1991 called One False Move, starring Billy Bob Thornton as a violent drug dealer from Los Angeles and Bill Paxton as the small town Arkansas sheriff that collides with him and his violent companions . . . it's tense, graphic, ambiguous, and well-acted-- and you never know which direction it's going to take . . . is Dale "Hurricane" Dixon a heroic small town cop like Marge Gunderson in Fargo . . . or is he an inept yokel like Marshall Link Appleyard in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance . . . I'm still not sure of the answer, but I do know this: the film may be worth watching just for Billy Bob Thornton's hair: ten mullet pony-tails out of ten.

That Was Close

Alex came home with a bloody nose the other day and he told us that a certain wild kid punched him in the nose and that this wild kid was sent to the principal's office and that Alex was sent to the nurse, and Alex has talked about having altercations with this kid before, and so I sat him down and had a man-to-man talk with him about bullies and how he might have to punch this kid back-- right in the nose-- to make him stop bullying-- and then my father told Alex about how I beat up the neighborhood bully at the bus stop one morning (it was a scene right out of A Christmas Story) and Catherine was concerned that the school didn't contact us about the incident and questioned Alex about it and Alex said he reported it to the teacher who was watching the playground and he asked us not to write a note and that he would handle it himself-- which I could understand because you never want to be the kid that squeals to his mom-- but we were discussing it a couple of days later and Catherine told me she still wanted to alert Alex's teacher to the situation and Alex overheard us talking and started crying and said, "I have to tell you something," and then he told us: apparently, he made the whole story up . . . he had been picking his nose and it started bleeding and he didn't want to get in trouble for picking his nose so he made up the whole punch-in-the-nose-tale so he wouldn't get in trouble for picking his nose but then when he heard that Catherine was going to write a note to the teacher, he figured out that he was eventually going to get caught in his lie, so he came clean, and hopefully he learned a valuable lesson (he's got a week with no dessert as his punishment, but his punishment would have been worse if my wife wrote that note because then we would have been embarrassed for falsely accusing some kid of punching our son in the nose and that kind of thing can get real ugly).

Peacock Tail = 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Tail Fin

During an alcohol-fueled discussion on the evolution of the automobile with my friend Roman (who is also willing to discuss whether the ratio of pi is the same in base seven) we got stuck determining what parallels are accurate between a technological process and natural selection-- and whether perhaps a technological process exhibits Lamarckism-- and in the midst of this I stumbled on a super-excellent corollary to the analogy: outrageous tailfins-- which add no "survival" value to an automobile-- tailfins are not a product of typical technological selection of the automobile, where more efficient parts and better performing models are selected and the Edsel becomes extinct, but tailfins are instead a product of sexual selection . . . like the peacock's tail, they don't enable the organism to survive, but actually are detrimental to efficiency and exist solely for attractiveness, and this attractiveness requires more strength and metal and chrome and horsepower to lug the sexually selected trait around, so perhaps the organism with the largest trait is exceptionally fit, just because it can carry the trait around . . . and, similar to the peacock's tail, the evolution of the tailfin took on a life of its own and the tailfin got far larger than necessary, unless you're talking about attracting a mate, and then your traits can never be too big . . . and, of course, there's something aesthetically similar about the peacock's tail and the tailfin which makes me far more pleased than I should be about the fact that as far as the internet is concerned, no one else has ever come up with this analogy (so maybe the parallel doesn't hold water at all and I am insane, but I think this may be in the running for my best idea ever).

F- Tacos

The boys and I went to the delicious Mexican place in Princeton on Friday and I was going to get a taco to increase my 2011 Taco Count, but I didn't want a taco, I wanted a chorizo burrito and a chicken tamale-- smothered in mole sauce-- but I felt sort of guilty that I was squandering a chance to up the taco count, but then I got angry because the taco count was my own invention and why should I let something that I invented seep into my consciousness and affect my decisions . . . why should I be beholden to something that I jokingly created . . . especially since it was about satirizing New Year's resolutions . . . and if I wanted a tamale and a burrito then I was going to get a tamale and a burrito, especially since I was rarely in Princeton and I deserved a tamale and a chorizo burrito because I just did a scavenger hunt in the Princeton Art Museum with my children-- which was both fun and educational-- and so I deserved to order what I wanted because I was a good dad and there was no way I was going to let my life be controlled by tacos and some stupid number posted on my third rate blog . . . and so I said to myself, "I am not a number! I am more than a number (of tacos)!" and I ordered the tamale and the burrito and they were delicious.

A Brief But Inconclusive Tale of a Tail

So Connell, Roman, and I are walking back from the Park Pub late Thursday night and we pass by the laundromat next to the dollar store on Main Street and we glance into the laundromat and we all start laughing, as there is a brown-skinned man in very tight jockey briefs floating in the air and doing something to the ceiling . . . all we see is this white ass high above the dryers . . . and we were laughing so hard that we never debriefed each other on what we thought the guy was doing . . . I made up a little story in my head that went like this: the laundromat handy-man somehow got his clothes dirty and decided to wash them, but then while they were in the wash he realized that he had to fix something on the ceiling-- maybe a light or some gadget above the dryers-- and it was really late and he wanted to get home and so he clambered up there in his briefs . . . but when I told the story to my wife, she laughed and said, "He was standing on a table and painting-- he didn't want to get his clothes dirty," and when I asked her how she knew this, she said that Roman had gone to visit her mother in the hospital and told her the story and so she had heard it third-hand from my mother-in-law and yet she still understood more about it than me-- but of course I was in no state to make any logical deductions as it was 2 AM when I saw it-- and so I tried to confirm the painting hypothesis with Connell so I could give you, my faithful audience that demands and deserves veracity in all my prose, an accurate story but Connell does not remember any paintbrush or paint, although he does think the man-in-briefs was standing on a table (and not levitating, as I saw it) and so the reason why the man was up there in his briefs will forever remain a mystery, but one thing is for sure, if you pass by Lakewash Laundromat at the right time of night, you might see something that you don't fully understand, but it is something that you will never, ever forget.

Wild, Wild Life

So this is as wild as it gets for an aging 41 year old athlete: a 10 PM adult league soccer game (congratulations to Terry for his hat trick) followed by a night of drinking at the North Brunswick Pub . . . which was surprisingly crowded for late on a Wednesday night . . . or it was surprising to me, as I am in bed by 8:30 on most week nights.

A Stupid Use For Time Travel

Everyone has a favorite t-shirt that has succumbed to the ravages of time, but what if you could travel back to your past and bring back one shirt . . . which t-shirt would you resurrect? . . . for me, it's a dead heat between my original "Cult Electric" concert shirt-- the white one with the guns and roses on it (Vincent Chase wore it on Entourage . . . they must have gotten it from a vintage shop) and my official Middlesex County "Mosquito Control" shirt-- it was bright yellow with the obtuse Mosquito Control in block letters and it always elicited weird looks when I wore it around campus (I was lucky enough to have TWO friends that worked for the Mosquito Control, so I had several of these t-shirts-- one survived until the mid-90's and then finally disintegrated).

There Must Be Some Misunderstanding

Sunday morning, after a long day of imbibing on a bachelor-party-camping-trip, I misread a sign on Route 18-- and the magnitude of my misread might indicate just how long a day of imbibing it was . . . and my only excuse for my egregious comprehension error is that I read the sign through a tree and so perhaps the branches made me parse the words the way I did; the sign was for a store called "Carpets and More," but I read it as "Car Pets and More," and spent several seconds puzzling over what kind of pet would live in a car and why anyone would want to have a pet that they kept solely in their car . . . and then, finally, my consciousness snapped back to normal and I realized that my brain was broken and would probably never recover (and as a side-note, I have hit the unfortunate age of the two day hangover).

This Meal Isn't Big Enough For The Both Of Us

I may have to duke it out with my five year old son at dinner, if my 2011 Taco Count is going to proceed unimpeded-- he ate three tacos Monday night, as did Catherine-- and there are only twelve in a packet, so I had to make do with a soft taco in order to eat a seventh . . . eventually our kitchen is going to be a two taco package town.

The Right Decision Is Not Always Fun

I asked my wife if I could show this YouTube video to our children, and she said that it isn't nice to laugh at other people's pain . . . but I think in this one instance (and maybe this one as well) it is okay to do so.

You Thought You Were A Nerd . . .

High school students of the world-- if you ever wondered what goes inside the English office once the door closes and the teachers are no longer with the students, you might be disappointed, or you might find the answer strangely satisfying: Lego Sporcle!

Thus Endeth The Streak

We went down swinging, but-- tragically-- our salamander streak is over . . . I lifted up every rock, cement block, and rotten log in the Meadows, but even though it was a damp night, we had no luck-- just ants, centipedes, worms, and a giant hairy spider, and this makes me wonder: Where the f-%#  did all the salamanders go? . . . it makes no sense, we found them by the dozens earlier this spring, but now they have vanished . . . and, to add insult to injury, my kids stepped in dog-shit and-- defying the laws of dog-shit physics-- they managed to transfer the dog-shit from their Crocs all up and down their skinny bare legs . . . and now that our run is done, I can honestly say that our attempt to match The Yankee Clipper is certainly a reminder of just how stupendous his streak really is.

Clutch Lifting

As far as our salamander streak was concerned, it was the bottom of the ninth, with two out and two strikes-- we had lifted up every log and rock in our secret salamander spot, but because of the previous week's dry weather, the ground wasn't as damp as usual . . . and the patches under the rocks, logs, and concrete were full of ants, termites, centipedes, black beetles, and fat worms . . . but no salamanders; both my children had given up (after asking me if we could "forget" this trip) but as we exited the woods, I gave the last (or first, depending on your perspective) log a quick check, and underneath was one scrawny red-striped salamander . . . a "Texas leaguer," but a hit nonetheless, and so though we are still forty-five shy of DiMaggio's magic number, our streak rolls on.

No Principles=Happiness

Last week, I received a phone call from my wife and she told me she was at the gas station and had been waiting for ten minutes but hadn't gotten any service-- she said she even tried to pump the gas herself but you needed some sort of code to do that in New Jersey-- and so she was pretty irate and then she said, "Oh here he comes," and I heard her ask for "thirty dollars of regular, cash," and then I didn't hear from her for a while-- a long while, because she was supposed to come home and cook some pasta for the kids while I went and retrieved them from the trampoline in our neighbor's backyard, but when I got home from that errand, she was nowhere to be found, which was annoying, because now we had to rush to eat, and then my cell-phone rang again and it was her and she said, "I'm still at the gas station, I'm waiting for the police," and then she told me why: the attendant had filled her tank, despite the fact that she asked for thirty dollars cash, and she didn't have any more cash and she refused to pay the extra twelve dollars or give the attendant her credit card because it was his mistake, so he threatened to to call the police on her because she wouldn't pay the full 42 dollars and he wrote down her license number, so she turned the tables on him, and she called the police on him, for threatening her and writing down her license for no reason, and eventually the police came and sided with her (she was in Edison, and she is an Edison teacher after all, and the attendant admitted his mistake, and after trying to negotiate-- "you pay six and I pay six"-- he told her that he was very poor and that the manager made him pay for mistakes such as this out of his salary, and so then my wife got out of her car and gave the manager a piece of her mind, and said that if he made the attendant pay for the mistake she was going to tell all her friends to boycott this particular Raceway) but of course my advice to her before she told me the whole story was, "Just pay the twelve dollars and get out of there! Come home to your husband and children! We need you!" but my wife said that she had to stay and fight the good fight because it was a "matter of principle," and she was emboldened by the fact that an old man at the station told her: "They did the same thing to my wife last week!" and so she felt she was standing up for everyone who had suffered over-charging at this station and had to set things straight and after it was all over I asked her a stupid (but sincere) question: "How did you call the police? How did you know the number?" and she said, "I dialed 911."