A conversation with M-: Dying is easy, comedy is hard

Here's a little conversation I had with my 3-year-old daughter M-, who was drinking some juice while I sat here working my precious day away like a chump:

M- (with a serious face): Remember that time that I laughed and my juice came out of my nose??

Me: Yeah-- owie!

M- (confused): What?

Me: I said, "Owie!"

M- (incredulous): No... that's not owie, that's FUNNY. It came out of my nose!!

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You may enjoy my previous M- conversations, (6YO son) D- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations.

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A great deal extended through May - Magazine subscriptions on Amazon, 2 Years for the (deeply discounted) Price of 1! We've already ordered 3 different women's magazines-- guess who those are for??

* Of course, I receive a percentage of whatever you order, but that doesn't mean this isn't a tremendous value, right?

Things that amuse me, Vol. 3

Here, as the title might suggest, are a few of the things that have been amusing me lately:

1. They should print the tags of children's clothing in the front, so my kids might accidentally put some on properly one day.

2. This is a scrap I found from at least a year ago, about a Camry radio commercial I'm absolutely certain they're no longer running:

Totally Sincere "Customer" Voiceover (the culmination of a series of praises about the Camry's dependability and consistent reliability, including "It's good to know there are some things you can still count on"): "When I'm stressed out about something, I sneak out to the garage and look at the Camry, and I feel better."

Well, I have a Camry, myself, and let me tell you, much as I've always liked it [and still do!], this has never worked for me.

3. With the way he's been behaving lately, my 5-year-old son D- sitting up alone in his room playing his harmonica makes me picture him rotting in a cell singing, "No-booody knooooows, the trouble I've caused / No-booody knows but my-teacher-the-principal-the-bus-driver-my-parents-other-kids'-parents-my-grandparents-their-grandparents-and-just-about-everyone-ellllllllse".

4. I feel like I need to hang an announcement around my daughter's neck, to cover me in case of my untimely demise, that reads, "She dressed herself today."

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Cool deal for April! Magazine subscriptions on Amazon - 2 Years for the Price of 1

Reports of my death are only mildly exaggerated

Editor's Note: Please humor me by imagining this post being grunted over my shoulder as I slaughter mice by the thousands, sword and shield in hand.

Editor's Note: And a gun... a really big, cool gun.

Now that I've gotten my Internet service up and running, I felt honor-bound to offer you all some kind of post as a reward for waiting patiently this whole week. By the computer, quietly whimpering all along, no doubt.

As a bonus for me, your standards are probably set really low by now, much like a food critic on the brink of starvation. I've always excelled at soaring over low standards as easily as I take the high-standard bar right in the teeth.

But speaking of teeth, as I listen to our new house settle and make all those noises houses do, I recline with bated breath, like the world's laziest hunter, waiting to see if we can all (theoretically) feast on roast mouseflesh tomorrow at breakfast. Otherwise, it's back to good old ladybugs and houseflies. By the handful.

The story of my short time in this (wonderful, amazing, joyous, I swear) house has been undeniably written in blood, though thankfully not much of it has been human.

If I were to make a size-relative hash mark for every life I've taken in the past six days, I could have re-created Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte twice, or, more likely, covered several walls with thousands of tiny scratches forming no discernible pattern. Either way, I'm pretty sure I'd be in trouble once my wife saw it.

But what my wife would like less would be the sight of me getting ready for breakfast by dabbing at blood stains on the old carpet someone saw fit to put in the kitchen while yelling at our 2-year-old that I meant it when I said to stay upstairs for just one more lousy minute.*

For you see, since my wife already had quite a long commute from our old apartment, and our "new" 120-year-old house is 2 hours farther away, she'll continue staying at my parents' house most of the time during the week, probably through the rest of the school year.

Our 5-year-old son D- is there with her as he continues at his old kindergarten until Christmas break, and thankfully after getting to play in his new bedroom for awhile on move-in day, he's eager for the school transition instead of dreading it.

And he's making the most of the opportunity to start over fresh, it seems, by not only torching every bridge a 5-year-old could possibly have built, but first desecrating them and then laughing while they burn.

So you can see why I've been even scarcer than recent months around here. I do appreciate the Amazon click-throughs some of you seem to have made after my previous post, and also the comments on my handful of recent status updates on Facebook. It's nice to not be totally abandoned even when I've abandoned everyone else for the time being!

I'll try to cobble together some list posts and other fragments that don't require as much consecutive minutes of focus, to get back in the swing of posting on here.

In the meantime, keep an eye on my Facebook status to make sure I haven't joined the fried mouse corpses in a fuse box somewhere in our dank old basement. ...Which I love, somewhere deep down. Deeper than the source of water that bubbles up through the floor now and then.

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* In case you somehow missed her repeated announcements to the world at large, she will SAVE the mice. All the mice!**

** That was before I explained to her in greater detail this evening about the bathroom habits, or lack thereof, of housebound rodents. Now she "hates all the mice", and presumably thirsts for their life force.

Did you hear the secret about some stores having pretty big sales?

I don't know how you all do it in other countries, but here in America, today is the day that begins this magical time of selfless giving in the most frantic, sleep-deprived, violent way possible.

That's right, sharpen your elbows, cause it's time for... what's that? The day after Thanksgiving passed and took with it all those unbelievable deals?? Damn.

Oh, yeah, that's right... THAT'S what my wife was doing while I was sleeping yesterday... Saving almost $2000 on appliances we needed to buy for our new house anyway. Thanks, desperate retailers of America!

And a special thanks to you, Sears, for narrowly winning your own battle against poor planning and organization to barely not totally mess everything up!

As for you, readers, even if you think you could never be lured down from your lofty position of righteous judgment --a seat I kept warm for many years-- into the fray that is Black Friday, I urge you to at least consider bypassing all that famous interminable-waiting and running and scratching and occasional-murdering while still getting almost all the other benefits-- shop online!

The best part is, when you're online, Black Friday isn't just Friday, so this post is still useful and timely!

Yes, awaken yourselves from those tryptophan-induced comas and remember the spirit of the season: buying more things than anyone would ever need for everyone you know (not forgetting that you are the first person you ever knew), and singlehandedly reviving a sagging economy somehow by demanding to pay retailers less than their cost for a choice selection of the most-wanted consumer goods.

In that very sacred vein, I point you in this direction, to my good friend and partner Amazon, which is offering unbelievably amazing prices for many, many different products this week:

I've only just begun my shopping there for this year, but as long as you don't buy the last thing of something I didn't know I wanted yet, I won't have to track you down and push-trip you while you're triumphantly carrying it from the mailbox a few days later.

Happy shopping!


FULL DISCLOSURE: I might come trip you anyway, just for old time's sake-- you just can't get that full experience online!

Also, as always, I do receive a commission for anything you purchase at Amazon as long as you get there from my site, but don't let that make you think I didn't get involved with them only because I know all sane people shop there at least sometimes, except for those who just haven't seen the light yet. Come into the light!

Confirmation of Blogger-Authors' greatness

As I promised a month ago, I'm here to offer my thoughts on (Dad Gone Mad) Danny Evans' first book, Rage Against the Meshugenah, and (Baby on Bored) Stefanie Wilder-Taylor's latest book, It’s Not Me, It’s You, after reading them both in the past few weeks.

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RAGE AGAINST THE MESHUGENAH: Why it Takes Balls to Go Nuts

I wholeheartedly agree with every other reader I've heard from that this book is a must-read for anyone who knows someone (especially a man, or a generally reserved woman) who might be depressed.

This includes, of course, pretty much everyone, and I can't decide who would get more out of it-- people who know they know someone who's depressed, or people who haven't yet put all the signs together.

The tone of the book is not all dark and depressing, which would kind of defeat the purpose, nor is it all wisecracking superficiality. It's the same blend of both aspects (and others) that you get in the most rewarding, memorable conversations you have with good friends.

I know I'm not saying anything everyone who's listening hasn't already heard before, but I felt compelled (as someone who has faced a lot of the same struggles as Danny) to build on my preview post to confirm that yes, you really, really should read this book, one way or another.

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IT’S NOT ME, IT’S YOU: Subjective Recollections from a Terminally Optimistic, Chronically Sarcastic and Occasionally Inebriated Woman

As much as I enjoyed Stefanie's first two books, Sippy Cups Are Not for Chardonnay and Naptime Is the New Happy Hour, I appreciated those on a much more superficial level, as a parent laughing at how ridiculous children and their parents can be sometimes.

Stefanie's new book is different, in that it's a straightforward, self-assured comic memoir, which is a genre (led by David Sedaris) that I particularly enjoy.

To keep you invested in her biography without getting caught up in a weepy tell-all, Stefanie sprinkles in just the right amount of references to the deeper drama and conflicts in her life that led to the amusing and occasionally bizarre stories that are the star of this book.

The result is a fast-reading collection of essays that can be taken all together in order, or separately and at random, without missing information that would keep you from appreciating her humor or storytelling abilities. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes humorous memoirs or personal essays.

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In unrelated news (about which I'm sure you'll see, hear, and read a great many more stirring tributes and remembrances than I can muster), today is of course the 8th anniversary of the hijackings of 9/11/01, for which I'm almost totally sure you can hold these two folks entirely blameless. How's that for an endorsement??

Given the economy, Santa may soon call in lots of "loans"

Alright, all you language lovers, now that it's been 10 years since Bill Clinton let us all know there was some uncertainty about the meaning of the word is, it's high time that a government corruption trial provide us with a new definition for what we thought to be a simple, unchanging word:

What's a gift? Sen. Stevens testifies on freebies

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"He bought that chair as a gift, but I refused it as a gift," Stevens said. "He put it there and said it was my chair. I told him I would not accept it as a gift. We have lots of things in our house that don't belong to us. ... I refused it as a gift. I let him put it in our basement at his request."

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Given this wonderful new definition of gift, here's a helpful (for you) list of things I'd like to indefinitely borrow from any or each of you:

• Your car.
• Some* of your money.
• A bunch of your coolest stuff, hand-selected by me.
• Your clicks on the Amazon links to the right whenever you're heading there to do your Indefinite-Loan-Granting-Season shopping. Nearly starving** would-be orphans will thank you for their commission.

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* By some, I mean most. Thanks for understanding.
** Fussiness is an acceptable reason for starvation, right? I may need to give the Red Cross a call.

Umm... see my list of bad habits*

I'm writing this post as a confessional-- I don't have my homework.

Yes, instead of writing another one of my (self-issued) award-winning posts today, I have blown all my "free time" this morning reading blogs. Any chance you'd accept me tracking down a bunch of the comments I left and just cobbling them together into a list post? Nah, probably not.

So, in addition to a confessional, this is also an apology. That is, unless I commented on your blog this morning, in which case you should feel honored by my selfless exaltation of you and your work over my own. Also, you should feel exceedingly guilty for your undeserved moment of apology-accepting, but you can make it up to me by, shall we say, exploring some of the tempting offers placed around the page or by shopping at Amazon via my link to the right.

Based on the number of people (at other nominated blogs) who misread my noncommittal offer of a magical tote bag for one's eternal soul instead as a legal promise of a regular tote bag for voting for me in a mere blog contest, I just might need all the cash I can get.

Even though that wouldn't personally cost you anything, as a show of gratitude, I still might be able to repay you with a free extra soul.** They're great to play with when you're having a rough day, like a stress ball.


* Here's a link to my list of bad habits (among other things)-- most of them are applicable today.

** Hey, if someone is willing to trade their eternal soul for a tote bag just to make a point, I am certainly going to fulfill my end while also capitalizing my new asset. See Milhouse v. Simpson for legal precedent.

Let's play dress up

Apparently Amazon thinks my audience is at least heavily made up of people interested in dressing up like "Asian" caricatures, based on this ad I caught in the sidebar the other day:

I highly doubt this is so, but then again, how would I really know the tastes of all you folks? Who am I to question Amazon's mighty recommendation engine?

Steppin' to the OCD

Like most people who've suffered a decrease in physical activity after enduring a marked increase in nighttime screaming and predawn eyelid yanking, I've gone a bit soft around the middle in the past 3 years or so.

To combat this, I've enlisted the help of my comically debilitating obsessive-compulsive disorder, through the use of a pedometer.

As ridiculous as I may look, I've clipped this thing on my left front pocket every day for over a month now. Since the "other mothers" at library storytime pretty much ignore me anyway, I can unselfconsciously^ drive my way upwards towards the Minimal Acceptable Level For Physical Activity, which is 10,000 steps a day.

It's a lot easier to cite this nice, round number as a baseline than it is to walk it when the people you are chasing only measure their stride lengths in inches. I mean, what are the odds that this magical minimum for all humans is such a perfect number? Did the Masons arrange that, too? Just like they designed the Great Seal of the United States, and the way they planted this clever ruse now that Nicholas Cage has been hot on their trail for 3 years with no signs of slowing down?

...You might think my tendency to be easily distracted, which I'll tell you about some day, would interfere with my quest to achieve 10,000 steps per day. But, my friends, you would be discounting the awesome power of my OCD, which has spawned several worse nicknames for me than LiteralDan.

Do I have a fully calculating spreadsheet on which to record my daily steps and view my monthly average as it changes each day, you ask? You'd better believe I do. And will this spreadsheet only expand exponentially in complexity over time? My Magic 8 Ball says... All Signs Point to Yes. I think it's only basing that on my spreadsheets for our DVDs, Books, Bills, Presents (to give), and... that's all I have, really it is. Well, entirely by accident, I did recently create a spreadsheet for the pledged delegates in the 2008 presidential race. I swear I will delete that one once Obama wins the nomination. (You wouldn't think such a thing would really require a solemn oath, but when freed from the limitations of physical space, you'd be surprised by the useless s**t I have kept "in case I ever need it." Come to think of it, you should also come see the physical space in which I live...)

Anyway, because I'm such a gentleman, I did J- the courtesy of cloning my Steps spreadsheet for her, since she received the same pedometer from my sister this Christmas. All I can say is thank God the thing stores the previous 7 days' totals, or I would never be able to accurately record J-'s steps for her once a week. For some reason, she just doesn't seem to be consistently drawn each day to the computer to fill in the little cell with a number to see how all the other numbers change. And for the record, of course the spreadsheet is for her, not for me-- I am not now helplessly bound to fill the empty box I've created.

Alrighty... after walking around our apartment at least a dozen times just before midnight (I needed to beat my February average, to keep moving forward, and then I couldn't not break 6000 after getting so close), I'm ready to do that thing I do sometimes between feeding people dinner and breakfast... no, after sitting on the computer for a couple hours... for some reason, I can't think clearly enough to come up with what you call that... I'd better go lay down.


^ I've decided that this is a word, and that this is how it is spelled. I bet there's already a German word for it, though, and it would make me sound much more sophisticated.

A breath of fresh hypocrisy

For Christmas, M- got a toothbrush that plays music for 2 minutes, to serve as a reminder for how long one should brush (though with only three tooth-tips so far, 2 minutes would seem to be beyond overkill). The brush has a sticker on it that says "For better sound and a better planet -- turn off the water while you brush!"

Very subtly on the back of the package, it also says "Batteries included! Contains two AAA or R03 size non-replaceable batteries", and in case that wasn't bad enough, they add "Brush head is not replaceable." So the water-saving tip hardly evens things out. But at least all the ocean life living off the East Pacific Garbage Patch will have sparkling white teeth...

Beyond the environmental damage, though, these things cost $15, so your choices are to either spend $90 annually on toothbrushes (or a lot more, considering how quickly you'd get sick of hearing the same song, which plays louder the harder the kid brushes), or you could spend $10 on toothbrushes and $5 more on one stopwatch.

(Thanks to Amazon for the product image.)