The Miraculous Immaculate Crack-Head Christmas Tree

ometime after we abandoned (were evicted from) our flea-bag abode, My Attorney and I found a spanking gorgeous condo and moved up in the world. It had a pool, laundry, air conditioning, two bedrooms, and two baths. It had sliding doors, a small balcony, a decent kitchen, a big open living room with cathedral ceilings--and crack-head roommates.

My Attorney has a heart the size of a 1971 Buick Riviera and has a couple of penchants which have thankfully tapered off since we’ve been together so long but which, in the beginning, were . . . frustrating.

Penchant (a) is a heartfelt and often overwhelming urge to rescue lost dogs. In the first years of our enshackenation, she rescued and cared for no less than six dogs. We had one dog as a pet and, off and on, a couple of cats. So there were times when the house, she was doggy.

When I say lost dogs, I mean, more specifically, the four footed dead. Because My Attorney’s penchant for rescuing lost dogs somehow only manifests when those dogs are on the brink of death with little or no hope for recovery and are certain, destined perhaps, to bring us heartbreak and vet bills like we’re trying to buy a private Caribbean Island.
Penchant (b) is similar but applied to humans and is a sudden and irrepressible urge to help people less fortunate than ourselves and by people I mean her secretaries and by less fortunate I mean crack addicts.

Take Christmas, 1990. My Attorney had both a doomed hound AND a crack addicted secretary living in our spanking new condo. This would be our first Christmas in a nice place where we could actually invite people over without worrying about them being hit on by the homeless and we were happy about it. But true to a form that has become life-long, at around Christmas, My Attorney got sent out of town and was going to return CHRISTMAS DAY.

I forgot about Penchant (c): My Attorney is a Christmasaholic and has a hard time if all the Holiday icons aren’t in their proper place. Growing up among Senators and Commissioners in a neighborhood that would’ve made Norman Rockwell kick a hole in a Harpers Magazine cover, she is used to a traditional Christmas. And by traditional, I mean turkey-in-the-oven-miniature-city-complete-with-a-petting-zoo-under-the-basement-tree-snow-on-the-ground-nog-in-hand-carols sung-garland-hung-candy cane-red-scarf-MARTHA STEWART BE DAMNED level traditional and being that we lived in a second floor condo in Borelando, FL., some of those things just weren’t gonna fly. In particular, we had the following:

• No tree. A sin against God.


• No presents. Too broke.


• No lights. Too broke.


• It was not cold.

Worse, before My Attorney had left for wherever she was going, we’d had a pretty bad week because the secretary she was loaning our spare room to had secreted her insane redneck tattooed criminal crack head boyfriend in her room and he went crazy EVERY NIGHT. He’d scream about being a “rock star” and then they’d Rock the Casbah. Noisily. The whole reason this girl was staying with us was because this reject had beat the crap out of her. Suddenly he’s there and it was very wrong. Finally, I kicked him out and he came back later and banged on the door and threatened to kill us all. Then, somehow, they got hold of our Texaco card and bought beer. For Daytona.

So we kick them both out and My Attorney flies out of town.

My Attorney was acutely aware of the nakedness of our Holidays. To make matters worse, I hate Christmas and always have. So here’s My Attorney, Xmas Addict like a meth-head, due in on the plane Christmas morning to arrive at our tropical condo with no fest.

Worse, I was not exactly working a sweet job. I was in my post-newspaper-post-band management-unemployed phase and working what may be my single least impressive job ever: the midnight sandwich guy at Subway. I would come home every morning, 2 am, smelling like onions and mayo. I got ripped off all the time by my crack head boss and I got hit on all the time by drunk guys coming home from Southern Nights, the tranny cabaret around the corner. And I didn’t make any money. It was horrible.

So I talk to My Attorney on the phone right after close the night before she’s leaving. I’m my usual mayo & onion smelling Bah Humbug self and she’s feeling pretty alone out wherever she’d been sent and she’s lamenting the lack of Christmas cheer and the fact that we can’t afford a tree (Christmas trees in Florida are 5 times what they are in Illinois) and I’m trying to be supportive but, again, I smell like lunch and I‘m wearing a brown nylon uniform and it’s 2 in the morning in December in Florida. I hang up, lock up, get into my pathetic tiny little car and drive home.
So, tally it up: it’s hot; we’re broke; we have no Christmas; we’ve been harbouring a fujitive; we got ripped off; I haven’t even mentioned the bats, but: bats; and I smell like onions.

I walk out to my car and somehow, in the middle of the night, the temperature has dropped to Orange killing cold. I can see my breath and there’s a freezing layer of fog everywhere. Driving along the deserted highway at 2:30 am through this fog is other worldly and I’m puttering along, muttering to myself about what a crap boyfriend I am to not have a decent Christmas for My Attorney—at LEAST a tree—when the mossy body of a beached whale looms out of the fog and I almost wreck my car.

I skid to a stop, bumper just touching it’s tail, get out of the car, right in the road, to find a 14-foot tall Blue Spruce lying in the road. A HUGE Christmas tree! Right in the road! At 2:30 in the morning! In a FOG! With NOBODY AROUND! Clearly I was experiencing divine providence. I didn’t hesitate. I slung that tree over the top of my car where it hung off the front and back by a couple of feet. I was only a block from our condo so I reached up and grabbed a branch and drove like a 90 year old Myopic gnome into the parking lot. I drug the damn thing up the stairs and wrestled it trough the door and propped it up against the living room wall where the tip of it stuck up past the railing of the second floor!

I knew My Attorney would be back in the morning so I had to work fast. I didn’t have any money so a late night Walgreen’s run was no solution. I needed ornaments and garland. (I thought about the bats, briefly.) I popped corn and strung it into a Garland. I gathered all the Christmas cards we’d gotten and covered the facing side of the tree with them. I found a lone box of tinsel. ONE of those tiny little flats, enough for one toss on a regular tree. I carefully separated EACH strand of tinsel and placed it on the branches so that—after an hour—the tree was passably tinseled.

When My Attorney arrived, she came in the front door desultory and dejected. She couldn’t see the tree yet and I took her bags and said I’d meet her in the living room.

I came back down and she was crying; she was overjoyed. She had her Christmas.

Proper Potty Training for People with Penises

For sending parents into drooling catatonia, nothing compares to potty training. It's first of the classic thresholds of child development and the first time you and your spawn have a shared weird experience. Trust me, there will be more.

All parents will have to teach their kids this simple skill. Every "What to expect when you're Expectorating" book out there has a chapter devoted to the minutiae of merde and most of them try to convince you that potty training is an intricate, delicate, and difficult period, requiring endless couch-time for the parents and their progeny. Most guides imply that improper potty training can lead to lifelong neuroses and Emo music.

My kids were so easy it was almost spontaneous. I sat the boy down on his little chair at exactly the right moment and the resulting efficacy of exporting his effluence sans diaper made an instant impression on him.

My great neglect at that moment was a lack of follow-through. I should have explained immediately that the chamber of reflection has a dual purpose, that one can use it for sitting or for standing. I figured it would come up in the very near future and shelved the whole idea and went back to doing laundry.

[My Attorney] was on deck for the next Number 1 and wasted no time in teaching the boy proper penis procedure: sit, release, wipe.

She told me she was teaching the boy how to pee in the bowl and I didn't think twice about it. I just crossed it off my to-do list. Only later did I wonder about the obvious mechanics and thought to myself, how does she know what to do?

"You taught him to shake, right?"

"What?"

"You know--shake."

"Shake what?"

"His thing."

"Why!?"

"Guys shake."

"Before or after?"

"What did you teach him to do when he's done?"

"Use a tissue, duh."

"Oh my god. Babe, how exactly did you teach my son to pee?"

"I don't know, like everyone pees: you sit down---"

"@#!^%$ ^$##@!"

I want all the new moms and moms to be to please listen up and listen up good: leave proper penile procedural to the papas.

When it comes to penis training, the dad has the upper hand because the dad, presumably, is furnished with the same equipment as the son. He has, in fact, been training his entire life in peni practicalia, and, again, presumably, knows things that, as a mom, you don't know.

Specifically, and this is paramount penis procedure, are two habits unique to the water closet ways of woman-kind: tissues and sitting.

Pay very close attention: men don't sit down to pee. Pay even more attention: when we're done, we S H A K E. We don't W I P E.

I realized [My Attorney] had been teaching the toddler to touch up his tallywacker with a tissue for two weeks before I found out. Then I realize that it is too late--TOO LATE--to change. He's been trained.

Then it really hit me: my son pees like a girl!

His life as a man was finished. Now when other boys make jokes about writing their name in the snow, the Roon will have to ask them what they're talking about. I had a vision of him walking into the urinal bay at school and wondering out loud,  "Dude, where are the wipes?"

He would be an urinary outcast; a pee pariah.

I acted fast. I called him over.

You know you're supposed to pee standing up.

Gross!

And you don't wipe.

What? Well . . .  well . . .what do you do?

You shake.

Shake what?

What do you think?

Oh my god! Dad, that's gross! Gross! It'll go everywhere!

I was too late.

I went out to the garage. I dipped my hands into a bucket of crude oil, lit a cigar, and thought about guns. I had to protect my manhood and for some reason I thought it was at stake. I thought maybe the boy's manhood was at stake too. I remembered great pee moments from my childhood:

• Peeing into the wind off the back of a moving pick-up truck;


• Peeing onto an electric fence;


• Writing my name in the sand at the beach then drinking three whole cokes because my name is 22 letters long and I was trying to write in cursive and I ran out at christopher pa--


• Peeing off the side of a boat


• Peeing off the top of a building under construction


• Peeing into the campfire


• Peeing into the bait-well in our boat


• Peeing on a cow


• Starting a forest fire . . .

Those are cherished memories, the very building blocks of a boy's life. How was my son supposed to ---

Hey dad, you're right. It totally works. I can pee standing up.

Awesome. You made it into the toilet?

Toilet?

My New Years Resolution:

rite and publish one story each week for an entire year. I'm already on my way--"Scooby Doo" was published this week at The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, which I am particularly proud of since I really appreciate their attitude. Please visit their site and check out my story, my southern legitamacy statement, and the other authors writing for Dead Mule.

If you didn't know I was a writer, then I haven't been tooting my own horn quite often enough. I am currently polishing off a screenplay which my wife will sell for a bajillion dollars, a novel set in heaven, and the aforementioned slew of short stories. I am also assisting my radio partner, Dave Haynes, to write an updated to the Streets and San Man's Guide to Cheap Eats--Chicago. I have a potential table-top book in the works if I can secure the rights to the pictures I found recently in a secret library the name of which shall remain . . . secret.

I write a blog for the Masonic lodge I belong to, and, yes, I am a Freemason and, yes, we are secretly plotting to take over the world in preparation for the arrival of the Great Mogwai currently traveling Earthward from the Dominion of Phlrgt (stay tuned). I also write articles for the Masonic newspaper published here in Chicago. Back in the day, I wrote occasional features for Florida Magazine, Orlando Magazine, and other Floridian publications.

In 2005 My Attorney finished law school and stepped into one of the coolest, most prestigious law firms in the world and it was pretty clear that our plans for me to stay home as support were going to be bumped up. I'd planned to start a business writing business but My Attorney stopped me at the last minute and requested that I spend some time writing what I like to write--stories.

Since then, I've been published several times, though I haven't made one red cent at it. Stay tuned here for links to more stories.

Resolution 2: Use Death By Children to dominate the world.

You'll be seeing more posts in 2008, particularly, the following standard features:

1. "13 Things . . ." usually a list of things I don't like but there's hope I'll find something to satisfy me
   
2. "Recipes for Real People" unmeasured, cranky, and weird.
   
3. "Manday" (on Mondays) wherein I submit a brief discourse on the condition of being a male.
4. Guest posts on other blogs, with links.
5. "The Featured Article" what you're used to, a 500+ word scree on the condition of parenting smart kids.
6. "Pictures" from Chicago and Dad life.

I hope you like it. I hope especially that you email every one of them to your hundreds of friends and link to me on Facebook. The goal is to get DBC popular enough to have it published. A couple other blogs have made this glorious leap and I'm at least as funny as they are. But, it's not enough that I'm good looking and talented: I have to be very popular to garner the accolades of Madison Avenue. So grease up your email buttons and fire up the contact files and let's do it!

13 ways to say "My Cousin Marge is Visiting"

1. Rampaging Orc Horde.


2. Pierre is in Town.


3. Crimson Tide.


4. Monsoon Wedding.


5. Mighty Mighty Bosstone.


6. My Little Hula Girl is Playing Ragtime.


7. Punctuation Marks.


8. SHUT UP! JESUS! CAN'T YOU, JUST--GOD! I HATE YOU! GIMME A CIGARETTE!


9. I LOVE YOU!


10. SHUT UP!


11. I'm working on my ribs sauce.


12. You don't love me any more!


13. Mommy's special time (hide the knives . . . )

------

Don't Try This At Home: The Disclaimer Page

verything on this blog is entirely true, though some parts are exaggerated in the telling in order to appear far more dramatic and hilarious than they actually were. I do this because I am a fantastic and highly gifted genius writer and it cracks me up. I could look at all the crazy, silly, bizarre events in my life and decide to lock myself in a closet, soaked in sweat, in fear of imminent mutilation. Or, I could experience these moments of extreme parenting, these sublime insights into the Jungian father-mind, and keep it all to myself. I could join a support group, I could talk to Jesus, I could meditate on crystals, I could chant. Instead, I choose the path of the smartass. Even the scariest, craziest, most forqued-up things that happen to people, even to my own kids, in retrospect (which usually starts less than six minutes after the blood dries) is frikkin hilarious and sends me into spasms. However, not everyone is born with a sense of humor. For those of you afflicted with a fear of glee: The Disclaimers.

1. Dude! You talk about your daughter’s boobs way too much!

I don’t talk about my daughter’s boobs enough. You obviously don’t have a daughter whose mother flies halfway around the world to buy her camo miniskirts and fur-lined sleeveless leather vests from the leftover Hamburg porn bins. Also, you’re probably so sexually repressed you eat a banana sideways. Put yourself in my shoes. My daughter was born well into the fruition of women’s liberation and the sexual revolution. She is acutely aware of her own sexuality and the incredible freedom she will enjoy as an adult. She’s not at all shy and the minute we give the OK to date she’s going to HUNT some boy down and make him kiss her. I am the primary caregiver in this family (re: mom) and when she needs a kotex she exercises no restraint in screaming “PAD!” expecting me to get it post haste. She is in training for a career in Hollywood and I am her intern. She’s mooned me. She walks out of her room in a shirt that would embarrass Madonna and asks me if I think it’s OK for her to wear it to school (no!)--Her boobs are the least of my problems and ought to be, by far, the least of yours.

2. Dude! You wrote about scratching your Huevos!

You obviously don’t understand. They yearn for it, they cry out “SCRAAAAATCH US!” Besides, if . . hang on . . . [scritch] excuse me while I [scritch] . . . oh yeah . . aaaaah. . .oh . . .yeah. . . [scritch scritch scritch]

3. "You clearly have a vested interest in your children getting maimed."

I bet you’re fun at parties. If you’ll read closely, a lot of the really crazy stuff is about me when I was a kid. These are taken from my award winning lecture series, “Subarticulate class behavior in subset male pre-adolescents as indicia of subnormal cognitive skill set distribution” also known as “The Adventures of Stupid Boy!” My kids have hardly scratched the surface of dangerous and weird. My stories are meant to serve them as beacons of warning, an abjuration to SWERVE lest they suffer mutilation. I’m not encouraging them. Of course, on a slow week, when I’m having a hard time coming up with an article, who knows. I might nudge the kid over a cliff.

4. Actual email: “You understand that if you decide to get rid of your dog that no one else is going to take him, right? If he goes to a shelter with that kind of behavior background odds are that they are going to put him down, no question. His behavior with children will be considered unacceptable and he will be euthanized. Please think long and hard before you do that.” ‘Posted by Anonymous’

I have. You’re right. Thank you for your sage advice. I’ve taken your plea to heart and have decided not to send him to the pound. How cruel to blithely list the hideous sins of my dog, least among them his ceaseless boy humping, then eject the poor creature into the cold Chicago snow, vilified as a pervhound. No, you’ve made me a new man, “Anonymous’. I’m going to give him to an all boys orphanage. Then everyone is happy. By the way, that was sarcasm. No, wait this is sarcasm. No WAIT—no it’s not. (Yes it is).

5. You cuss too much.

What the hell are you talking about? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have a potty mouth. And I know some parents claim that my kids will model this behavior and, gasp, work blue. Well, that’s only half true. My son will not curse. He bleeps with abandon, however. My daughter is already exhibiting a skillful disregard for convention and her cursing is so subtle and appropriate that I forget I’m talking to a teenager and it’s only hours later that I wake up and think “Wait a minute, did she call Bill O’Reilly a ^$#%@%?! And then I smile, go back to sleep, and remember that it doesn’t matter a bleeping bit.

6. Laying out your children’s misfortunes and capricious behavior for the world to witness might cause them undue stress and psychological damage.

Have you even read this blog? These kids are not normal. They’re skilled. They’re devious and cunning. They plot and connive and lie in wait until the last possible second then WHAM! I’m calling poison control, fetching underwear, or peeling the dog off their back. I’m not causing them damage—I’m fighting back.

7. Yes, My children do read this blog.

I kid you not: they are my biggest fans. They think it’s better than sponge bob and they tell all their friends

8. Did you just say retard?

I did. And I don't care. Sue me. If I were in the presence of a kid who suffered from down's syndrome or mongoloidism or any of the other isms that keep them out of the debate club I'd probably curb my lip. But if they're reading my blog, they're sense of humor is far too advanced for them to be retarded. Unless their an idiot savant, or republican, in which case, it doesn't matter.

9. Did you just say your dog was gay?

I did. And I don't care. Sue me. If I were in the presence of a [gay dog] who suffered from [gay dog] syndrome or [gay dog] or any of the other isms that keep them out of the [gay dog] club I'd probably curb my lip. But if they're reading my blog, their sense of humor is far too advanced for them to be [gay dog]. Unless they're an [gay dog], or [gay dog], in which case, it doesn't [gay dog].

Limp Wristed Limey Linguisticates

We're all watching My Fair Lady. Leslie Doolittle is killing Henry Higgins and my daughter says Jesus, Dad, he's just like you. Then comes the "rain in spain" scene extravaganza she says God they're so GAY and Col says, they're not gay, they're British!

Message to my New Readers from the Blink 182 Forums Pages

Welcome! I won't be mad if you refer all your friends here.

The Joys of Scouting

Roon crossed over into scouting recently and I became a leader in the scout troop: I am the senior patrol advisor for the Funky Ninjas. This means I'm responsible for standing around drinking coffee and yelling such precious nuggets of wisdom as Who left their plastic spoon on the table? If you don't keep your plastic spoon then you'll be eating your ice cream with your fingers tonight, freaking spaz!; the incessant plea of put that knife away; this sage advice: peeing in the woods means BEING IN THE WOODS not standing five feet from your tent under a streetlight while half the troops in the council are pulling in to set up camp, spaz! and the classic WHAT. THE. HELL. ARE. YOU. DOING?!!

Our troop attended the annual Lincoln Pilgrimage, camping at New Salem, a living rendition of Abe's hometown and birthplace. We camped in a slough by the parking lot after snaking our way through the maze of campsites in the dark watching people put up tents in the glare of halogens and hearing snatches of conversation like "Well it's gonna be a long weekend if you two are fighting all the time" and "Stakes? Tents have stakes?" Grinned like a stuck pig the whole time because our troop is old school. We don't use inflatable tent furniture, pop-up dome tents, and portable gas grills. We sleep on the ground in Vietnam War era canvas a-frame tents, make the boys do all the work, and we cook over an open fire. Our camp looks like a set piece from "Follow Me Boys."

Cub Scouts always felt like an obligation to me. It was alright but for the most part, the boys were snarky and high on sugar all the time, could barely tie their shoes, much less get a project done, and didn't listen to me if their life depended on it. Which is fine. We had a great time anyway but the adults involved do get the feeling, eventually, that they're a breed of specialized volunteer babysitters. Scouts is different.

First of all, all the scouts refer to each other as Mr. So one scout will call out to another who has, for instance, gone off toward the latrine in a hurry and say "Mr. Skidz, I hope everything comes out alright!" I hardly ever heard them call each other by their first names. Oddly, this eliminates nicknames which I kind of miss as I was prepared for a slew of monikers. I even tried to label a couple of kids, like my favorite Ninja, a 5th grader whose hormones are biding their time, a kid as small as a second grader. I love this kid cause he's always smiling, always throwing himself into the crowd, and kills himself to keep up on hikes even though he's literally walking twice as fast and twice as far as everyone else because he's half their size. He never shuts up, seems to bilocate all over the campsite, and has a voice like a cartoon squirrel. I think he eats sugar coated helium pops for breakfast every morning. I tried calling him squeaker and thinmint but the scouts wouldn't have it: as much as they tossed him around and made polite fun of his helium voice, the boys in the troop fully adopted this boy, never made him feel bad about lagging behind because of his size. At the end of the hike, this kid was beat. He really had walked twice as far as anyone else. His feet were killing him and he was exhausted. But, as always, he was all smiles. Even when he told me he was dead on his feet, he smiled.

And here's the astonishing, amazing thing about scouting. One of the other boys, a ear or two ahead of Squeaker, took a hard fall early in the day. Our first aid scout patched him up but you could see in his eyes that it hurt pretty bad. Then we hiked five hundred thousand miles and he never complained. At the end of the day, this scout, injured and tired, heard Squeaker complaining and without even thinking about it, hauled him up for a piggy back to the campsite.

There was an article in the Trib today about how Scouting is working hard to make itself relevant. As Scouting nears it's 100 year anniversary (2010) it faces dwindling numbers and criticism for some of the principles by which the organization is run.

The biggie: Boy Scouts excludes openly gay men from becoming scoutmasters or leaders in a troop. Although I'm not going to be carrying a sign anytime soon, I don't agree with this policy. I think the times are generally past the days when homosexuality is considered uncommon. It's becoming part of mainstream culture, losing it's taboo, except in certain highly fraternal cultures--like Scouts. I've had some gay friends, work friends. One of them was so flamboyant he made Rip Torn look like an Amish preacher. I didn't know the other guy was gay until he mentioned it one day. In both cases, I loved these guys like all my friends. They worked hard, treated people fairly, and stood by their principles. In both cases, these guys were legendary managers and everyone who worked for them became their friend. They would have been great leaders in any organization and would have done a great job as scout leaders.

The thing is, we don't sit around talking about sex in scouts. And a Scoutmaster is so busy ordering people around and cooking dinner and organizing a campout, they don't have a lot of time to exhibit their nascent sexuality. This weekend, even when the boys were finally asleep and in their tents and the men sat around the fire to bullshit with each other, even then we didn't talk about sex. This may come as a big surprise, but men, generally, don't sit around talking about their sexuality. We talked about leadership, cigars, writing, gear, our own legendary car wrecks, old jobs, and the efficacy of spaghetti dinners over golf tourneys for raising money. We didn't talk politics, religion, or our respective tendencies when getting it on. It just doesn't come up.

Of the 14 boys I hiked with this weekend, I couldn't tell you if any of them are gay, if they're Mennonite, or if they believe in God and I just don't care. When you see them working together, teaching each other, helping each other; when you see one of them cheerfully binding some other kid's wound--with great skill; when you sit around the fire and listen to them tell stories, bust each other's chops, and talk about what they learned on their hike, you realize that the program is great. That these kids will do well. That they will easily and happily join in, help out, organize.

What really struck me was how the new guys took to it. My son, who's future appears to involve a lot of lounging, some flopping, and a propensity for couches, worked his butt off. I can barely get this kid to take out the trash without having to pay him off but when he was made the bungie carrier while the troop assembled their enormous tarp, he was into it. Through out the weekend, he pitched his tent, unpitched his tent, gathered firewood, cleaned the campsite, loaded and unloaded the troop trailer, and various other jobs. He pitched in, without me screaming at him. He took responsibility and he acted independently on it. At the same time, I saw the other scouts just assuming positions of leadership. I mean, they jumped in and took control. They were quickly able to take on a task, grab some other scouts, organize the thing, and follow through to getting it done and done right. These guys, as much as they desperately want to push their online kill ratio in Halo 3, are also becoming leaders. It's obvious when you're with them. And the merit badges they earn are all lessons in living in the real world, they're all about civic duty, character, honor.

I'll happily defend a program that makes that happen. I look forward to when the organization finds its way to 21st century policies like any other but their arcane policies are minor when compared to the good they do. Find me another organization that's generated these kinds of principled graduates.

Dear Dawn Olsen at Glosslip

Dear Dawn;

You recently posted a comment on my previous post regarding your web site's article regarding Britney Spears' menstrual cycle and your ambitious charting thereof. In that delightful and exceedingly polite email (included), you intimated that you care about Britney Spears and that I am a device for remove small particles from hard to reach places. I assure you, I am not such a device. And I assure you, you don't care about Britney Spears.

GlossLip is a collection of articles about celebrities and near celebrities. The subject of any one of your articles will surely match one of Google's top-ten search phrases, a tactic sorely proven to generate hits and links over time and move your blog, as I'm certain you hope, higher into the Googlespheric strata and closer to right hand of God, the number one result, the first thing people see when they type in Amy Winehouse or Britney Spears--the holy grail of the internet.

Imagine for a minute being Britney Spears, existing on the tip of the tongue for pretty much 70% of the western world, a person more easily identified than Jesus or Angelina Jolie. She doesn't have a life; she exist as an object of pursuit by everyone, even those people closest too her. She can't blink without having it analyzed for frequency and arcane meanings.

Then imagine all the people out there who beg off her name by sprinkling it all over their blog like some kind of memetic censer, people who will not only analyze her eyelashes but take hi-def video of them and post 'em frame by frame. These are people desperate to capitalize on her breadcrumbs, its the paparazzi times ten million. Then find out that one of them has the audacity to chart her cycle and claim that it's because they care. No wonder she wigs out. It's worse than being pope.

I'm certainly not defending her, I think she's a half-retarded monomaniac sloven onanist and should be relieved of her duties. However, I'd take her over people like you any day of the week. She's not riding on anybody else's coattails and last time I accidentally paid attention to her, she was dealing with her own problems, not pretending to care about someone else's--or profiting from them.

Your blog is and all blogs like GlossLip are a blight, a cancer, a cold sore on the pouty lips of the world's attention span and you ought to stop, turn off your laptop, and take a walk outside.

With love;

The device for removing small objects from hard to reach places.

P.S. ( I chart my wife and my daughter's invading orc hordes so they don't run out of supplies because I am the rigorously supportive homemaker for two highly ambitious and successful women, a fact that is generously distributed throughout my blog. Furthermore, my audience--vast and literate--is about 90 percent women, a fact easily gleaned from reading even one string of comments on even one post. As you advised, a little research goes a long way.)
P.P.S. (Dude.)

(letter from Ms. Olsen)

Hey buddy, how about you read our entire body of work on Britney for a better representation of who we are.

A little research goes a long way DUDE.

What, do you think only you are allowed to talk about Britney? You aren't even a woman, WTF do you know about periods and how they affect the mind, let alone the affect of having two children in such a short period of time.

We care about her and want her to get help, so don't be such a presumptuous prick.

Thanks and have a nice day.

Dawn Olsen
www.glosslip.com

Mefistopholes' Parenting Manifesto

Rebel Dad asked people to give him their parenting manifestos, 500 words or less. Here's mine:

---

Instead of a manifesto, here’s a list of “I WILL NOT” promises based on my own experience. Hope this works.

1. I will not insert Bigfoot or flying saucers into my readings from the bible just to make it “more interesting.”
2. I will not teach my son that mooning is considered a polite greeting in Papua New Guinea.
3. I will not teach my son that burping aloud is OK when you turn it into a word.
   
4. I will not consistently offer that the sound of my own fart was actually that of a rare “barking spider.”
5. I will not fart on my son.
6. I will not teach my son the ancient rubric “Why fart and waste it, when you can burp and taste it.”
7. Apparently it is NOT OK for him to have a Mohawk when he attends a private upscale catholic school.
8. Peanut butter and Hershey’s Chocolate Milk mix is not an acceptable substitute for a healthy sandwich.
9. I will not teach my son to forgive the fat bully kid on his basketball team for being such a dickwad by patting him on the shoulder and saying “It’s OK, being adopted must be hard.”
10. I will not laugh uncontrollably when my son shoots himself in the finger, point blank, with the compressed air nerf-pellet gun I told him he couldn’t play with.
11. I will not tell the story about how he thought he’d lost his balls. Anymore.
12. I will not convince my son, over the period of one year, through subtle ‘slips’ and through stories of his ‘difficult capture and hair removal surgery’ that he’d started life as a monkey.
13. Or a girl.
14. I will not wait until we are deep into a forest trail to talk about how people who get pythons from pet stores secretly release them into the forest preserves when they get too big.
15. There is no such thing as being able to kill someone with a single touch.
16. You’re best friend is NOT a ninja ‘in hiding’.
17. You are NOT ‘every once in a while’ possessed by the devil.
18. The TV remote will NOT work on the neighbor’s set ‘if you try hard.’

13 Things on Thursday Thouroughly Athenticating that the Terminally Stoned Have Finally Found the Internet, Dude!

1. They've posted their favorite arts & crafts projects.
2. They've taken up farming and are reporting their successes (hint--that ain't no monkey daddy)
3. They're publishing their insane hippy ideals as progressive low tech solutions
4. They're ranting about cow farts but totally disregarding whale flatulence. Maybe Greenpeace is wrong?
5. They're posting proof of their grueling, ridiculous, volunteer vacations.
6. They STILL THINK plants can talk
7. They're think they're sh!t don't stink.
8. They wrote this book and are promoting it as healthy yet not on any page is there a hamburger.
9. They're using the internet to promote ACID!
10. They're using the internet to flaunt their blatant bicyclism!
11. They have used the power of the internet to design the perfect bong!
12. They use the internet to hone their camouflage skills.
13. They're green car kicks your green car's ass.
    

The Logo!

13 Great Motivational Speeches on Thursday (I Think)

I stumbled onto this brilliant video from overthinkit.com when I was reading my new favorite magazine, Film Drunk. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did and if you don't cry in the end then you're just not spartacus.

13 things you don't want to hear from your daughter's boyfriend

1. How's the weather down there?


2. Sorry about breaking your fingers with my handshake.


3. I was voted most likely.


4. My Dad works in, uh, waste management.


5. Your blog is cute.


6. I bench 300.


7. Here's a hundred--buy yourself something nice.


8. Yeah, the '07 Mazarattis are nice but I prefer the custom '08 model my dad bought me--faster, you know?


9. My parents run a nude beach--we're meeting them for dinner.


10. I'll have her back by eleven. AM.


11. Yes, Ma'am.


12. Wanna see my Elvis impersonation?


13. Dad?