Stall Worthy

Tell me, what do you think of when you see this image?




If you're honest with me, and with yourself, no doubt some seriously disturbing thoughts and scenarios flash before your eyes. Looks to me like the Zombies that used to entertain all of us on Facebook before Farmville and Happy Aquarium were invented have risen, and they want pure, unfettered brains.

Warning: Defenseless Babies Will Be Eaten.

Now, fine, this is just a picture of an emblem for a baby-changing station that I took with my cameraphone in the bathroom of a Borders in the Poconos, but, seriously, if I hadn't cropped out the words "Diaper Depot," you'd have thought the polygon people had seriously gone ape and were out to eviscerate all babies who are left lying on their backs on flat surfaces.

This image, and indeed the fact of well-dressed gentlemen using cameraphones in public lavatories simply underscores the inherent yuckiness that we all must face in bathrooms that are not our own.

I don't have to tell you that I'm a paranoid person. This is like telling you that you should be watering the ferns instead of reading this asscandy. But I heart and respect you and, therefore, I'll allow you to make your own (dubious) choices, especially if they're ones that fluff my ego.

Anyway, I'm a paranoid freak, though I used to be a lot worse.

I think.

I'm especially paranoid when it comes to a public bathroom. I'm more at home skipping barefoot through a needle-strewn alley or a refereeing a Jamaican pud-wrestling championship. I wasn't always this way, but, like lots of people who go off the deep end, the watershed event in my life was something relatively innocuous.

I was urinating in the school bathroom one afternoon when Jacky, one of the retarded boys who was inexplicably and constantly attired in striped shirts and knee pads entered the bathroom and took up residence at the stall next to me. My stream immediately ceased. Then, just as I had convinced myself that I was being stupid and I started to let it flow a little bit, I heard Jacky clear his throat and say,

"I like your watch!"

And that was that.

In high school, I would only use the bathroom before or after normal school hours. That's right, from 7:15am-2:25pm, Mondays-Fridays, from September-June, I didn't poop or pee. For four years.

When fresh-faced, lithe little Apron went off to college, he obviously didn't have a choice in the matter, seeing as his freshman dorm room was, well, a freshman dorm room. One day on the second week of classes, I walked into the bathroom and found that it stunk to high heaven of shit. The existence of the odor didn't surprise me, but the fact that its milky, copious source was located in the sink.

I tried to train myself to contain my bodily functions to the bathrooms contained within the academic buildings, hoping that these facilities would be more, well, academic. And they were. At least, I never found shit rivers resembling Nestle Quick in the sinks of the theatre or the science building.

Unfortunately, while taking a most philosophical shit while my philosophy class was in session, my proclivity for lavs in academic buildings took a wrong turn when the toilet upon which I was s(h)itting exploded on me.

In a cruel instant, I at once felt like I was porpoise at Sea World and a Saran-wrapped prostitute on a date with R. Kelly.

But that was college. I was crazy back then-- I even dated a Catholic girl. Now, I'm much better. I settled down, married a nice Jewish girl (my dead allergist would have been thrilled) and I can go into virtually any rest stop bathroom on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

However...

I still think that, while standing at the urinal, my face two inches away from the cold tile wall, that some crazy bastard is going to walk up behind me and donkey-punch me, slamming my face into the wall. Either that or he'll shoot me in the back of the head, spraying the admittedly shallow and perverse contents of my cranium all over the place for the toothless, mop-manning Manolo to squeegee.

God. I should never have seen "American Beauty." Every time I pee at a rest-stop, I picture Kevin Spacey getting his head blown off in his lily-white kitchen. And, every time I see a fucking plastic bag blowing in the wind, I make that joke. And every time I take a shower...

No, just kidding. Not every time....

Oh, I'm also afraid I'm going to see somebody's penis at a rest stop which, if you can believe it, has never happened to me yet. It's pretty surprising, considering most dudes are already fidgeting with their widgets as they're rounding the corner by Sbarros. Like seeing some poor bastard's slop-sausage should be my biggest problem in life.

Obviously, you who read my blog every day know that it's most definitely not.

However, after hitting the bathroom in the Bartonsville Borders, baby-attacking zombie mommies, though, are up there on the list.

Happy Sexy Novel

I may very well be showing my age by writing what I'm about to write, but I'm sprouting gray hairs here and there, and I've been known to like me a buffet or two, so maybe I ought to let it all hang out and say: oneof the nicest things about going away on vacation is having some quality time with a good book.

There. I said it. Kiss my sweet fanny, you snotty little tyke, you.

I'm reading "A Widow for One Year" by John Irving. I like it very much. He's a pervert with aharsh and bizarre world view, and maybe that's the attraction. I'd like to say it's because I observe and am moved by some deeply lyrical literary melody in his prose, but more likely it's because I'm a horny mother and his writing is virtually showered in cum.

Honestly- his novels are like a carnival log flume ride called "The Ejaculatorium." ("Yer gonna get wet!") I recently speculted to my wife that the pages in all Irving books should be laminated.

I wouldn't call my level of reading "voracious" and it's most likely a couple shades shy of "avid" too, but I read enough to have observed certain traits when it comes to contemporary novels, and the most starkl among the commonalities is that there is always at least one vharacter having sex with another.

Not that I mind.

Nor, I suspect, do all the prudish, haughtym thin-lipped critics of sex in television and film. Because a humparama is okay as long as it's cleverly ensconsed within flowing pragraphs describing Federal-style desk chairs and the hunting prowess of Mrs. Emmilina Fitzhume's Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

I wonder if any of the plays and manuscripts I've penned that have earned me a comfortable pillow-set of rejection letters would have been considered more marketable, or at least interesting to the reading public if there containeda pssage or two where someone was gently cupping someone else's breasts, or slowly undulating against her silken beauty beneath the damask sheets whilst Mrs. Fitzhume's Cavalier King Charles Spaniel effortlessly broke the regally-crested mallard's neck between its elegant though powerful jaws.

Maybe if I had used more of the words "quiver," "pulsate," "throb," or "heaving, rhythmic spasm."

Maybe.

Or maybe that was just the old way to get published. We're so porned out these days- unshockable. Everybody knows someone who's been asphyxiated with a feather boa or had their face used as a toilet during some off-kilter horizontal encounter.

Besides-- we shrewd, up-to-the-minute, iEverything 20somethings know how to get published; do something ridiculous for a year, blog about it, and pitch it to some gay NYC literary agent wearing edgy Danish eyeglasses and you'll be set.

See? We know how it's done. We just choose not to.

Motel You Something

Yes, we're in the Poconos.

No, we're not staying in one of those places with a champagne glass-shaped hot-tub/semen receptacle.

We came here to ski: even if it kills me. And today, after making a wrong turn, I thought it might. At the very least, I took a spill that I was sure had broken both my thumbs. And yetm here I am, blogging on a smartphone- thumbing my merry way into your hearts- God love you and your easily thumbed-through hearts...

So, obviously, my thumbs are okay.

While I'm not usually in the habit of making petty excuses for my varying and colorful ineptitudes, maybe I would have skiied better had I not been utterly sleep-deprived and operating my skis under more of a haze than the average inebriated, blonde-haired, snow-chapped Telemark d-bag, scuttling haphazardly in a fog of Natty Ice and a puffy, goose-down onesie.

The reason for the dearth of sleep experienced by Mr. & Mrs. Apron? Why, the peeps in the room next door.

Apparently, the cheaper motels in the Poconos rent rooms to hoards of donkeys. I was not aware of this little-known business practice, or I might have gone more upscale, you know, like one of those places with the rotating champagne glass jacuzzi and the vibrating toilet. From 9:30pm until at least 2:30am, the mothercunts next door brayed incessantly, at one point drunkenly playing either charades or Pictionary, when I finally acquiesced to my wife's begging me to call the front desk. If anything, this made the donkeys angrier. And louder.

I pictured their room-- hay and feces and donkey hair everywhere. Poor Conchita won'tt like refreshing those towels.

In the morning, I did something I hardly ever do: complain. I know, I do it on the blog all the time, but that's very different. I don't walk up to randomly french-kissing lesbian couples and pull down my pants in real life either. The long and short of it is that the woman at the front desk was very apologetic and moved us to a different room without hesitation.

We'll see if the skiing improves.

A Skiier's Prayer

Editor's Note\Apology:

My wife and I are on a vacation-lite in the Poconos for a few days. For webnotainment and blogging endeavors, I have only my smartphone on which to lean, and type. And the fucking keys are the size of a cricket's nipples. As such, you will observe that My Masonic Apron's blog entries for the next few days, while not as annoyingly brief as tweetledeetdeets, will be regrettably truncated.

**************
I'm going skiing tomorrow.

I know-- you're like, "B.F.D., loser. I pour lighter fluid all over myself, have some neckless guy named Bra shoot me with a Vietnam War surplus flamethrower and then jump out of a helicopter while strapped to nothing but a bag of broken glass and Oral Robert's corpse."

And I hear you. Really. I do.

But my family's idea of excitement was going to the King of Prussia mall or taking the Buick through the car wash. I never went skiing until a few years back when I let Mrs. apron pop my ski bunny cherry.

And I fell down a lot.

I still fall down, but not as much as I used to. I even go on some moderate-level slopes and I don't spontaneously start crying on the way down anymore. Now I sing Gilbert & Sullivan patter songs at the top of my lungs as I somewhat erratically cut through the obstacles in my way-- namely red-faced, drunken assoles in North Face jackets and giggling girls with jangly fleece jester hats.

So, wherever you are today, send up a quick prayer for me. And, if you're taking to the slopes somewhere in the Pennsylvania mountains and you happen to inexplicably hear "I am the Monarch of the Sea" sung out lustily behind you-- get the fuck out of the way.

No Good Deed

This afternoon, my red PT Cruiser will resemble Santa's fucking sleigh.

It will be crammed full of winter coats, six of mine, three of my wife's, and will be driven to the local Burlington Coat Factory to be donated to clothe the homeless and the needy this winter.

Before your pupils get all dilated and dewy in a veritable occular orgasm of affection for me based on this tremendous act of goodwill I am doing for the betterment of mankind, um, restrain yourself.

As is, I suspect, the case with most acts of do-goodery, this holiday-time mitzvah is not entirely altruistic. I was, shall we say, heavily prompted by circumstance.

For several days, my wife and I were vacationing in Providence with my in-laws. While we were there, it was difficult for me to not feel suffocated, or at least overwhelmed by, well, crap.

My mother-in-law, an ardent anti-cussiest, eschews all four-letter words except for "crap." It is, in point-of-fact, one of her favorite and most oft utilized nouns. For some reason, crap is acceptable for her to say, without restraint, but, when my wife's ear-bud fell out of her ear and she uttered a reflexive "shit!" in her mother's presence, her mother cleared her throat loudly and announced that, "Four letter words hurt mommie's ears."

It is a funny little coincidence that "crap" is my mother-in-law's favorite cuss, because her house is full of crap. The refrigerator is crammed tighter than the fiction shelf at your local public library. Drawers overflow with random, non-sensical items such as newspaper clippings and hair-covered dog toys, lipstick containers and expired JoAnn Fabric circulars. There are lots of batteries in the freezer. The basement is, well, frightening. When at the RISD museum, my wife noticed familiar-looking silverware on display there, and she recognized it as silverware that her mother sometimes used when there were a lot of people over for dinner at their house. Sure enough, as her mother dug through a wardrobe that lives, inexplicably, in the dining room, she found dozens and dozens of pieces of this apparently museum-quality silverware. It needs to be polished for a week or two but it should clean up nicely.

For what reason, though, remains to be seen. A complete set is worth approximately $6,000. But she won't ever sell it and I fear that, in thirty or forty years, it will wind up in our house.

There are also approximately 328 coats in that house, though only two people live there full-time. There are coat hooks on the wall all along the basement stairs and there are approximately four coats on each hook. You hang your coat up and it falls down.

This situation is, naturally, distressing.

What is more distressing is that my wife and sister-in-law and I went out antiquing, (to buy my mother-in-law a display case for her newly-unearthed museum-quality silverware) I saw a U.S. Navy pea-coat hanging up in one of the antique vendor's booths. I've never wanted a pea-coat before, but I was magnetically drawn to it. I don't know why. I took it off the hanger and I tried it on. It was $28.00 and dusty. The sleeves fit perfectly. But, when I buttoned it, I almost asphyxiated myself. It was much too tight. Apparently, 17-year-old skeletons enlisted in the Navy back in the 1940s. So, it was not meant to be. But the fact that I seriously considered buying this coat at all disturbed me greatly.

I knew that I had roughly nine or ten coats at home-- why did I want this one, too? Well, it's old for one thing, and I like that. Maybe I had never wanted pea-coats before because the only ones I had really ever seen up close were the gay, cheap-looking ones for sale at GAP for $88.00. I like old things. I went to the upper-level of the antiques mall and proceeded to inspect several pocket-watches, one of which I actually considered purchasing until I realized that it was thoroughly broken.

I have at least three pocket watches. How many pocket watches does a man in the waning days of 2009 require for life? One? None?

What the fuck is wrong with me? Six or seven typewriters. 10-ish desk telephones (the vast majority of which currently reside in our garage). Am I a hoarder? I don't think so-- but am I a collector and an accumulator? Yes, I am. Do I take pleasure from purchasing things? I do. Can antiquing get dangerous for me? It can. Do I usually let it? No-- I often go antiquing and leave with nothing, and that's good.

Yesterday, I didn't leave with nothing. I bought a gift for my mother-in-law's friend. She loves and collects ice-tongs. Hey-- a pot for every lid, right? I found a pendant watch that was a set of ice-tongs clasping onto a watch, shaped like an ice-cube. The ice-cube was made of clear lucite, so you can see the watch face inside. I wound it up and it ticked, so I reasoned that it was worth the $24.00 (and I got a 10% discount because I'm so sexy). Besides, I rationalized further, it wasn't something for me, it wasn't a lot of money to make someone else happy, and where the fuck was she ever going to find something like this?

And it was much cheaper than the set of vintage 1909 ice-tongs I also saw in the store for $395.00.

And so, because of my semi-disturbing weekend at my in-laws and the antique mall, I'm going to donate a bunch of coats to the homeless. What a guy, right? As a reward for my generosity, Burlington Coat Factory will offer me 10% off a new coat from their store.

But I think I'll pass.

Domestic

Charlie Sheen’s been arrested again.

Much to my disappointment, he wasn’t tased. I love it when that shit happens to people. I’m kind of low class that way.

Sheen was arrested for domestic battery, and he’s been nicked for that particular misdeed in the past as well.

Domestic battery, assault, violence, whatever you want to call it is a very sad crime to me. Taking an open hand or a closed fist or a tire-iron or a table-lamp to your mate, your spouse, your partner is such a disgusting, deplorable, denigrating act that I find it difficult to fathom how people even get up the nerve to do it in the first place. And the second. And the eighth. And the fiftieth.

It’s a pretty counterintuitive thing at best. You love someone, and then you lay some smack down on them because you found that your collar stays are missing or because they were out until 2am or because there isn’t any more microwavable bacon and Pathmark is closed. Is it really possible to smash somebody across the face and love them at the same time?

Hmm… I don’t think so.

Some people who hit their spouses like to refer to it as “a moment of weakness.” I kind of don’t think I agree with that. If you hit someone, then that’s a lifetime’s supply of weakness-- fuck the moment. If I ever hit my wife, and I never will, I hope that she would kill me because, after that, I’m just no good anymore. I wouldn’t be worth anything. Nothing. There is no way to come back from that in my view. There is no way to atone or repair or regain shattered trust. Smacking your wife across the face is no different than having an affair, in that it degrades and assaults and attacks not only the person but the sanctity of what you have entered into-- a partnership, a marriage, a union.

And yet, thousands and thousands and thousands of people smack the shit out of each other, and these unhealthy, dangerous, deadly relationships continue until progressively more regrettable things happen, or the victim grows some balls and leaves. Oh, he only hits me when he's drunk. He really loves me. It was just that one time. He didn't really mean it. I was asking for it.

Whatever.

My parents didn’t fight in front of us. We never saw it and we never heard it. They disagreed about things, and they talked their disagreements out at the dining room table or whilst my father was doing stomach-crunches on the living room floor, but there was no fighting. No raised or strained voices, no banging fists on the table and no clenched, set jaws. I know they fought, like when my father dumped all their life’s savings into his failing business in a last ditch effort to save it without telling my mother-- I have a funny feeling they fought then-- but we were spared all of that. As a result, my sisters and I were treated to an environment that was totally bereft of even the slightest hint of a threat of domestic anger or violence.

And that’s how I want my children to grow up.

My wife and I are pretty good at fighting fair. We’re able to talk most things out, and we are never, ever angry at each other for very long. I can’t have it. I’ve never gone to bed angry at her, and I hope she’s never gone to bed angry at me. Well, maybe when I’m snoring excessively, but I can’t help that short of surgery, so I think she understands. Just as I’ve often said I’d sooner dip my penis in a jar of acid than cheat on my wife, I’d rather stick both my hands into jars of hunny and then into a rabid Winnie the Pooh’s mouth before I’d ever dream of hitting her.

There could be no greater affront to the world.

Tonight, my wife and my sister-in-law and I were driving to Massachusetts to visit with friends and we were behind a RAV-4 with a portable cooler completely obstructing its license plate.

“I’ll bet, if you were a cop, you’d pull that guy over-- even on Christmas Day-- you’d love doing stuff like that,” my wife said.

And she’s right. I would. Because I’m a by-the-book, black-and-white kind of guy. But I wouldn’t love anything more than having the chance to take down some cowardly piece of shit who hurt someone he claimed to love.

Salinger at the Museum

I'm not ashamed to admit that, when I'm in a museum, I feel like a dickhead.

If I were a character in a J.D. Salinger novel, I would have written,

"I'm not ashamed to admit that, when I'm in a museum, I feel like a lousy goddamn phony." Fortunately, I'm not a character in a J.D. Salinger novel. If I was, I wouldn't be Jewish, I’d alienate everyone I ever cared about, and I'd probably have had gonorrhea and cirrhosis of the liver by age 15. If I ever write a post about how I wish I was a character in a J.D. Salinger novel, please remind me of all that, will you?

Thanks.

So, anyway, taking me to a museum is a pretty easy way to get me to feel like a dickhead. I’m in Rhode Island visiting with my in-laws, and a friend of theirs took my wife, my sister-in-law and I to the RISD museum, which opened its doors to the public for free, as their Christmas gift to Providence.

I’m a reasonably well-educated, liberal-arts kinda guy. I was, in fact, the only individual in the museum wearing a tie who wasn’t a security guard. And yet, though I’m sure I look the part, I find myself struggling in the museum environment, like a blind hamster who has just been thrown into a toilet. What do I do with my hands, I find myself wondering. How close to the painting am I supposed to stand? Am I supposed to talk to my companions about what I’m seeing? Does “that cloud looks like the Elephant Man‘s torso” count as a viable artistic observation?

I was looking at a table with was constructed over 7000 man hours and contained 750 pounds of ivory, sterling silver and mother-of-pearl inlay.

“That’s a nice table,” some driveling moron said. I looked up and realized he had said it to me. I laughed.

“It is,” I replied sputteringly. “It’s a nice table!”

Wow. Commentary that could easily have come from a flat-faced, slack-jawed man-child wearing headgear and a bike helmet.

My parents did not take me to museums when I was younger. We really weren’t the museum type, although I don’t really know what that means. I don’t think they found staring at paintings to be a worthwhile expenditure of time and money. My father, being Israeli, doesn’t do well in quiet, taciturn environments that encourage measured introspection and low-to-mid range decibel utterances. He’s more fun at, say, a Super Bowl party or a shooting range. My mother says she likes going to the art museum, “just not with you,” she said once. She likes to go with Paula, a friend of hers who loves museums and is a round and jolly person.

“Did Paula eat any of the paintings?” I asked at age ten when my mother returned home from one of her museum outings. It was probably the jealousy talking.

I realize that it’s very male of me to say this, but I get instantly bored the moment I set foot into a museum. I can write for days straight without so much as two hours sleep-- I can read entire books in one motionless sitting, I can listen to music twenty-four hours a day, but I can’t look at a painting for longer than seven seconds before I start to think about sex, a scene from a Three Stooges short, or my next meal. And I can’t help but look at the other people in the museum and think about what they look like while they’re having sex with each other, what they’d look like in a Three Stooges short, and I am absolutely convinced that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing there either.

There was one woman today at RISD with terrible bleached blonde hair who looked like she was dressed up as some 1980s version of Pocahontas.

She looked like a dickhead, but no more of a dickhead than I, I’m sure. I certainly felt like less of a dickhead today, though, because I got to feel bored, uncomfortable, ill-mannered, ignorant and out-of-place for free rather than for a fee of $38.00. Of course, I ended up buying two beautiful felted pins for my wife and sister-in-law at the museum’s gift-shop, which cost more than what the entrance fee would have. But it’s amazing how good it feels to do something nice for people you love.

It even helps you feel like less of a goddamn phony bastard.

The Imagination of Children

Terry Gilliam has a new film that's coming out soon, and that's almost always a good thing.

He was interviewed recently about the movie, and was asked about why his films tend to perplex movie critics. Rather than saying, "Well, I suppose my films must be very perplexing to people who aren't very bright," like I would have said, he instead answered thoughtfully and eloquently,

"Over the years they want their films to be neatly packaged with a nice narrative that tells you exactly where it's going all the time.

I fight that, because I suppose I'm still trying to make movies for myself when I was a kid and I was constantly surprised by what was going to happen next. People would then say, 'Oh, it's incomprehensible.'

It's only because they don't have the imagination of children anymore."

The imagination of children.

If I were Christian, on this Christmas Eve, you can bet that's what I'd be asking Santa for. Put it under my tree or in my stocking or in my pocket-- slip it into my right ear canal while I'm sleeping, curled up against my wife, holding onto her for dear life.

When I look at all of the accoutremonts that we "adults" feel that we "need" in order to be entertained-- I seriously want to stick my head in the sand and vomit continuously for ten or twenty minutes. What happens to us? What becomes of that innate ability to fantasize and create something magical from pipe cleaners or Lincoln Logs? Scissors and paper.

What happened?

When you get older, you get to call yourself "creative" if you can write a monologue or paint a picture of seagulls or fiddle-dee-dee on the violin at a pub's open mic night. But is the "art" that we sophisticates create-- the Herman Miller aeron chairs and Afro-Hebrew fusion music-- just piss-poor substitutes for the otherworldly, unobtainable, and unfathomable creativity that spawns effortlessly from the brain of a child?

Were our best, most expressive and creative days spent toppling over in the grass wearing lurid striped shirts underneath corduroy Osh-Kosh overalls?

I get very hot under the collar when I listen to interviews or read biographies of artists or musicians who state that they are at the absolute apex of their creativity when they're stoned off their porch on mushrooms or irradiated Kool Aid or Nixon-era Velveeta that's been left out in the sun. Is that what creativity is, I wonder to myself, you hitting the sauce and seeing what kind of mind-drippings you manage to plop onto a page or into a microphone?

And then I think to myself-- maybe they're trying to reach back into something long forgotten, long, long ago. Maybe these people are trying to get back to their childhood brains, to see what shards of their former, more "free and unfettered" minds they can retain or reawaken.

I don't know. Maybe my blog would become revolutionized if I blogged while shitfaced. But I doubt it.

People who have reached the point in their lives where they're referring to themselves as grown ups often bemoan certain admittedly regrettable aspectsof becoming a grown-up. Yes, there are bills to pay-- easily the number one complaint of twentysomethings. Yes, there is the curse of greater social awareness that comes from exiting the college bubble and realizing that there are actually bigger problems in the world than your meal card being depleted or being closed out of "Theoretical Analyis of Oral Sex in Non-Western Civilization." Yes, you have to watch your parents age and forget where they put things. Yes, you have to deal with them constantly asking if you're seeing anybody, getting married, having a kid, having more kids, are getting a better job, moving into a better neighborhood, have a 401-K. These things, somehow, they never forget.

But the single most lamentable fact of growing older is that your imagination, no matter how "creative" you consider yourself, how many pithy Facebook status updates you can come up with in an hour, how good a blogger you think you are, how earth-shattering your thesis on Andy Warhol is, you'll never be a fraction of the engaging, inspiring, wonder-struck being you were when you were a child.

Back in the Osh-Kosh days.

I once read a blog somewhere, I don't remember-- maybe you wrote it, and it was a letter from the blogger to its child version. I wouldn't bother writing my child version a letter, because he wouldn't be able to read it, even though he was pretty precocious, and he wouldn't sit still long enough for me to read it to him.

It would be very long: trust me.

He'd be far too busy for me anyway. I wouldn't know what to do with him. No, I wouldn't write him a letter, but I would just kind of like to hang around him, for a while, and watch. I'd like to watch him, and I'd be invisible if it would be too creepy, if that would make it okay.

I'd love to watch him practice his funny faces in the mirror, and practice his prat-falls in the doorway. I'd love to watch the 6-year-old me fantasizing and preparing to grow up and be Peter Sellers.

I'd love to watch him in his sport coat and tie, sitting at his 1970s-era metal desk, hunched over a pile of haphazard papers, reciting invented, whining monologues about airplane travel and the cost of coffee, fantasizing and preparing togrow up and be Andy Rooney.

I'd love to watch him memorizing the New York City Police Department radio's 10-codes and practicing arrest and search procedures on his stuffed animals, fantasizing and preparing to grow up and be a police officer.

I'd love to watch him sitting on the floor in his sweatsuits and socks, chatting with truckers on his CB radio.

I'd love to watch him drawing rudimentary and strange comic books about a balding businessman whose dog talks and whose car is constantly in for service.

I'd love to watch him dressed in truly bizaree costumes, rehearsing "Monty Python" inspired sketches-- being filmed by his father as he paraded around the neighborhood dressed as an elderly woman, a police constable riding a girl's bicycle, a Christmas caroler, a grapefruit tester, and a nun.

I'd love to watch him test out new vocabulary words on unsuspecting mothers in the supermarket, and his own mother-- everywhere.

I'd love to watch him.

If, of course, I could stand it.

What Are You Searching For, America?

While Mr. Apron is hip, snarky, up-to-the-minute and checks his email using Gmail, I, the scoliosisy, asthma-afflicted, mild-mannered human doppelganger utilize Yahoo! Mail, as I've done since the year 2000, when I became convinced that Y2K was going to assrape my Hotmail account and destroy all my rejection emails from publishing companies, law schools, area non-profits and girls.

Because I use Yahoo! Mail, I am treated to an endless supply of ridiculous, thoroughly un-newsworthy Yahoo! News headlines, such as

"NFL Team's Disastrous Trick Play"

"Regifting Rules to Abide By" and

"Wacky New Year Glasses Live On For 2010 Despite the Pesky '1'"

(I swear to God, these are all real. If I'm lying, let my dick turn into a clown's nose.)

Not only do I get to be kept informed of the latest happenings in the vast and colorful world of newsyfluffnotainment, I get a helpful little box in the upper righthand corner of Yahoo!.com called "Web Pulse." It's a list of 10 persons, places, or things that are, presumably, the hottest Yahoo! searches of the moment. Here's what people are getting all searchy about today:

1.) Alaina Reed Hall

2.) White House Christmas

3.) Heath Ledger

4.) Serena Williams

5.) NFL Power Rankings

6.) Christmas Cupcakes

7.) Brady Quinn

8.) Susan Boyle

9.) Stonehenge

10.) Citibank

That, I think, gives you a pretty solid idea of where we Americans are as a society. My first reaction upon digesting the compendium of terms and names that make up this list was,

"Stonehenge?! What the fuck is that doing there?"

Then again, maybe I have underestimated us as a people. But probably not. Stonehenge is probably the nickname of some gay porn star wrestler who spraypaints his balls gray.

I think it's very interesting to have this little "Web Pulse" at my disposal, because it gives me a good idea of what makes the web-crawling populous tick. Not that I especially need to know, but I like to nonetheless. The Web Pulse gives me a window not only into the lives of people out there, but it gives me a more accurate picture of where I stand amidst the throng.

It usually lets me know that I am out-of-touch. For instance, on this particular sampling of the Web Pulse, I did not know what 3 out of the 10 items meant. I don't know who Alaina Reed Hall is, I don't know who Brady Quinn is (I don't even know if it's a guy or a girl), and I don't know what the NFL Power Rankings are, although I'm going to go tap-dancing on the ice and guess that they have something to do with professional football.

I'm going to go Googling these three terms and educate myself-- and I'm going to go Googling because people don't go Yahooing. Sorry, Yahboys.

Interesting.

So, when you Google "Alaina Reed Hall," the Google search bar suggests that you might want to Google the following:

Alaina Reed Hall wikipedia
Alaina Reed Hall husband
Alaina Reed Hall pics

or

Alaina Reed Hall breast cancer

See? The internet is fascinating. I'm in the nascent infancy of my Alaina Reed Hall education, and, without having clicked "Search" I already know that she has a wiki entry, a husband, pics, and breast cancer. This is going to be fun!

Aaaaaaaaand........ SEARCH!

Oh.

She's the woman on Sesame Street who just died. Of breast cancer. Well. That's depressing.

Moving on-- who's Brady Quinn? Sounds like someone who either plays baseball or is on "American Idol."

Aaaaaaaand........ SEARCH!

Hey! Look at that! He plays fucking football! I was so close! Maybe he's power-ranked or something. There's a whole shitload of stats and shit on his Wikipedia page that I don't understand, but I do understand that he's dating Olympic gymnist Alicia Sacramone whose name, I'm sure, has seen its fair share of time up on Yahoo's! Web Pulse.

And, last but not least, to complete my education for the day.... NFL Power Rankings. Oh, things I put myself through for you....

Aaaaaaand......... SEARCH!

Oh my God.

I think my cerebellum just exploded and is leaking down my spinal column. This is about ten trillion times more confusing than Brady Quinn's Wiki-page.

I'm frightened, Mommy.

Fortunately, there were plenty of items on this Web Pulse that I did understand-- like Christmas cupcakes, which even a slithery little Jew like me knows are delicious! Mmm! I wanna take a big red velvety bite out of Santa's big ol' sleigh-ridin' butt!

I also definitely understand peoples' desire for harmless voyeurism by learning all about what a White House Christmas must be like. How do the servants set the silverware? Are they going to use crimson damask napkins? What will the centerpieces be like? What will Michelle Obama be wearing? Will Secret Service agents wrestle Santa to the ground, water-board and interrogate him about the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden? Who will slice the Christmas ham?

Even though I'm admittedly out-of-touch, I think I even know why people are searching for Serena Williams. She's been in the news lately because she unleashed a foul-mouthed, Dear Apron-like tirade at a line judge during a game a while back, threatening to kill her and stating that she was going to shove a fucking tennis ball down the bitch's throat, or something to that effect. The tennis overlords came down hard on Serena and fined her a shitload of money, which she will probably proceed to shove down other line judge's throats.

Americans like it when athletes go apeshit. We also like it when they have hot wives and fuck lots of other hot chicks, and some who are not-so-hot, too, and some who look like they couldn't even get a day-shift at a local beaver hut in Paducah, Kentucky.

As for searches for "Susan Boyle" and "Citibank," I guess that's just a reflection of the American public's two most frequently-asked questions these days,

"Ugly people can be talented?"

and

"Where the fuck did all my money go?"

I was somewhat surprised and yet heartened to see Heath Ledger ring in at number 3 on today's Web Pulse. Only in America can you be dead, and named "Heath," and still be the third most searched item on the Yahoo! Web Pulse.

Good for you, Candy Bar Dead Guy.

Innocent Until Proven Jewish

As we attempted to dig my wife's Honda Fit out from 18 inches of snow on Sunday, our neighbor, Thomas, was just arriving, sailing his Chevy Trailblazer into his pristinely-trailblazered parking spot. He exited the car with a couple of white plastic bags and made some genial, unhelpful comments about shoveling and snow and winter in general.

"How was your holiday?" he asked.

And I answered, "Fine. Thanks. It was quiet, which is just how we like it." As opposed, I guess, to a particularly loud Hanukkah, though I don't exactly know what that would sound like-- a load of tanked-up, kinky-haired frat boys shouting the dreidel song in a slurry, discordant cacophany while pounding Manichewitz wine out of red plastic cups and peeing in our bushes.

I turned away from Thomas and drove my shovel deep into the snow, sending, I hoped, the unmistakable signal that I was finished talking to him, and done being P.J.

Presumed Jewish.

Though I don't want to be perceived as a whiny Jew, being a minority isn't easy. As I looked at the Asian guy waddling down our alley, offering to share his bag of Halite with anybody who needed it, I thought, would Thomas approach him and say, "Hey, did you enjoy yourself some Chop Suey last night?" Why is it that some people think it's okay to make assumptions about a person's religious affiliation?

And, by that same token-- why does it bother me so much?

I know I've blogged about this before-- I'm too lazy to sift through the archives to be absolutely sure, though (if you want to, go right ahead) and I don't really know what it is about the fact that people who don't know me just assume that I'm Jewish. It's not as if I'm particularly ashamed of being Jewish. I'm much more ashamed of the fact that I have toenail fungus and that, when I was in middle school I used to get hard looking at the models in the Wintersilks catalogue.

I guess it's just the presumptuous, ballsy attitude one takes when making assumptions about someone else that pisses me off. I would never wish someone a Happy Ripened Ovary Day unless I was sure they were ardent tomato worshippers.

Even if you're right-- don't assume. Because it's embarrassing if you're wrong, and it's offensive if you're right. Or wrong.

A few days ago, there was a thread on http://www.20sb.net/ that asked the question, "Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays--Which Do You Say?" Well, I don't see really how you can in good faith go up to somebody you really don't know and wish them a "Merry Christmas" or a "Happy Hanukkah" for that matter, if you don't know that's what they celebrate-- that this is their faith. How are you acting in any sort of benevolent holiday spirit by making a judgment about someone else's beliefs? Maybe if they're wearing a green and red goddamn snowflake sweater with Blitzen's ass on the back and a red flickering light where his hemmhroids are, and they've got a crucifix around their neck the size of a windshield wiper and Jesus Air sneakers, fine, maybe you're safe wishing that person a "Merry Christmas." But, you know what-- maybe they just have eccentric taste in clothing and personal adornment items.

This holiday season-- play it safe. Wear a condom. And sunscreen. And shoulder pads. And don't make assumptions.

What Do You Expect?

Last night, I got an email from one of my precious few readers who has the misfortune to know me not just as a blogger but as a human being. The email directed me to a post on a blog called "The Art of Manliness" and the post was called What Can Manly Men Expect of Women.

You can read it here, if you're the bookish, sensitive, intellectual type of person who likes to know both sides of a story before just blindly trusting me and letting me touch you in the dark while you're asleep.

What?

The post makes the argument that men ought to be manning up, in many various ways, but that women ought to be expected to follow suit-- by feminizing up, as it were, because that-- like the handlebar moustache and the word "hosiery" seems to have gone out-of-style.

The article even quotes some "professor" as stating the following:

"But the younger generation is looking at getting dressed up and making their mark,” Mr. Cohen continued. “It’s a real generation gap here. I teach at three different colleges, and I am amazed how dressed up some of the students are. Girls still come in their hoodies and pajamas, but boys come in their suits.”

That's funny-- I care way too much about my suits to come in them.

But seriously, folks-- where the fuck does this guy teach-- the Sorbonne? My freshman year roommate barely attended class and, when he did, he sported a wifebeater and track pants, if he was feeling chipper. The amount of smelly, unshaven, hair-across-the-eyebrows guys who came to class wearing flannel pajama bottoms and hoodies outnumber the amount of recall notices on the Ford Pinto.

The post then goes on and on to whine about the "double standards" that exist in this world that have heavily stacked the deck against men. Well, let's all just back away from our monitors and have ourselves a good old manly cry about that, why don't we? Of course, if you look at the media, you start to see that it's true. Look at any situation comedy. You've got a rail-thin, high-titted, intelligent, world-weary wife inexplicably married to some semi-retarded, usually obese fuckjob whose job makes inappropriate choices like it's his job-- if he has one. You want to rise up and say, "Hey, wait-- that's not fair!" until you realize that all of these fucking shows were created and written by men.

Oops.

The post then goes on to point out the following contradiction:

"Could we perhaps say that equality shouldn’t mean embracing and outdoing men in things that were traditionally considered masculine? That making out with other chicks for attention and lifting your shirt for beads and getting smashed and burping the alphabet and dressing in sweatsuits really has very little to do with being “liberated?”

Wow. Sounds like the writers of this blog (apparently a hubband-and-wifey team-- awww!-- almost makes them immune from critique, don't it?) have been watching too many "Girls Gone Wild" videos, or at least too many episodes of "COPS: Live & Tasin' at Mardi Gras" to me. What percentage of the population of 18-24 year-old women behave like this, I'd like to know? And, while we're on the subject: how many of them have webcams?

The article also makes lots of claims, presenting them as fact but without citing any sources or evidence, such as "did you know that 2/3 of divorces are initiated by women?" Well, define "initiated." Does that mean the actual legal proceedings? Does that mean bringing it up at the breakfast nook? Does that mean that she was the one who took her ring off first?

Oh, and does that figure include all the instances of divorce that began due to the husband's sticking his dick in a hole where it didn't belong at a Motel 6 during his lunch hour?

The post ends by asking a very simple question, though, and I think it's a question that I should be answering on this here blog of mine because, really, I have a big mouth and sometimes I feel like I need to use it for something important.

And the role of men and women in our society is important. Isn't it?

Here's what I expect from women as a whole:

Nothing.

And I hope to God they expect the same, or less, of me.

You know why? Because I'm a human being, and I fuck up a lot. I say the wrong thing and I use the steel wool on the bundt pan and I zone out at work and I can't spell "synagogue" correctly without really thinking about which vowels go where and I spend too much time fantasizing about owning some impractical, crazy fucking car like a 1973 Mercedes 220-D with tan leather interior and wood inserts on the dash and I have anxiety about dying all the time and I'll never play the banjo as well as Steve Martin.

We're all hopeless, even those of us who make it big. Especially those of us who make it big. Christ-- look at Steve Martin. If you think his Inspector Clouseau is funny, you can just un-follow this blog right now, because you're dead to me.

Actually, maybe I mis-spoke a while ago when I said that I don't expect anything of women. I guess maybe I expect them to not be assholes. You know what I mean-- the kind who feel they are entitled to things. When a woman budges in line at the post office or reams me out at work, she's a bitch. When a man does the same things, he's a dickhead.

But those are just words-- they're just names. Would I be some kind of kerchief-mouthed revolutionary if I started referring to annoying women as "dickheads" and annoying men as "bitches?" Look, I'm too tired and too insignificant to start reinventing the wheel. I already tried that with "LMT" and "Keep Fucking That Chicken" and I don't think it worked.

I just want people to be good to each other, for Christ's sake. Figure it out, people. Start fighting fair with each other. Stop accusing and blaming, take responsibility. If one of you doesn't like doing laundry, then make that your thing. She'll walk the dog or iron your pants. Who gives a shit? Stop looking for excuses as to why your life is so unfair and why your race is so downtrodden and why your gender is so maligned. Stop complaining to each other over cosmopolitans or coffee. Stop writing into Dear Abby. Actually, don't do that.

Today, my wife and I went outside three times and did battle against a foot-and-a-half feet of snow with a shovel each. First we dug out her car, and then we dug out mine. She shovelled the walkway, I shovelled the sidewalk. Why? Because we're goddamn partners. I didn't go out there myself because I felt the need to prove that I'm "the man" with my big dick and balls, and she didn't do it to prove that she's a modern, empowered woman with a clit of steel and a snarky New York-state-of-mind disposition.

Man-- fuck that.

Gender roles and gender stereotypes are what we make of them-- they were invented long ago and we insist on either inventing new ones or perpetuating the old ones. Either way, we do a disservice to each other when we do it. What do you expect of women? What do you expect of men? You have to start smaller, by expecting things of individuals. We wouldn't permit, as a polite society, reading a post entitled, "What Do You Expect of Blacks?" or "What Do You Expect of Jews?" would you? Let's just take each other one at a time.

And those of us who are lucky enough in this life to have partners, well, we can start there.

My Sister; The Writer

If you think I'm the only person in my family who's a wordsmith, you're wrong, damnit.

My eldest sister, whom I introduced to you a few posts ago (and who is not autistic, Jay) is quite a pronoun princess in her own right. She probably could have been a pretty decent professional writer, but, then again, so could Mitch Albom.

So enamored I am with her own quaint, eccentric skills with the written word, I am content to let her take over for me here at My Masonic Apron. After all, it's a snowed-in Sunday, and nobody's reading blogs on a snowed-in Sunday anyway, right? You're out chopping wood or sipping lattes on your microfiber couches whilst lazily glancing at the New York Times book review section or fornicating through strategically-placed holes in your flannel L.L. Bean adult onesies.

Actually, most of you are probably reading blogs. Losers.

But, you're lucky that you're doing that today, because you get the rare treat of two members of the Apron family for the price of none. On Friday, my sister had to take her BMW in for service, and she was given a Mini Cooper as a loaner car, and she informed me of this via email. I emailed her back and said, "Oooh, a Mini? What's it like?" Six minutes later, I received this reply:

"Wellllllllll-

The outside is white (dirty) and seems to me to be a bit creamy.

Black top.

The inside is black—the rental man said it’s leather seating---hrumph.

Here is a picture of the dash & you can enlarge the photo I think to see the details: http://miniusa.com/sections/gallery/image/1024x768/CH77482_1024.jpg the dash controls stuff lights up the red color of my car that you saw.

Weird to me that the tachometer is above steering wheel and the speedometer is off to the side, smack in the middle of the dash---looks like a Produce Scale!!!!!

Check out the gas gage in the middle of the speedometer. The slots light up.

All the controls are in the middle too, like the window rolldown (which is a silver metal switch like in old sci-fi movies) switch, etc.

They do have a circular computer key which you insert the whole piece and then push the “Start Engine” button like in my & Dad’s cars.

I guess it has antilock brakies because I almost had an accident on the way to work and I had to stand on the brakes and it made that grinding sound……

I kind of feel like I’m driving in something from Hammacher Schlemmer catalog --hahaha

In the photo, there are radio buttons on the steering wheel……in the one I have there are NOT, but there are shift paddles above the cross bar….the rental man said he didn’t know anything about them.

I don’t know if the top comes off or not, because there are switches above the rearview mirror & I don’t know what they are for.

The heat is barbas*—my fingers were frozen, but the seat warmers work and have 3 settings like the ones in my car now.

The radio station display looks like the one in my car, but the controls are all silver and instead of old timey looking, I think the looks & feel is space-age.

Is this a rear wheel drive car? Don’t know.

Xoxoxo,
Sister Apron"

* The word "barbas" is a touch of Apron-speak. It means "shitty."

Raise your hands if you think my sister should quit working for my dad and get a job at "Car & Driver."

Hair Cut(e)

I don't need it to be TMI Thursday to talk to you about things that happen to me while I'm sitting on the toilet.

You know me well enough by now-- I don't care. I'll even go into the splatter pattern with C.S.I.-like detail.

Today, though, something happened to me while I was sitting on the toilet that isn't gross or pornographic or necessitating notification of the local authorities.

I got a haircut.

See, back in November when I was Major-General-ing in Pirates of Penzance I didn't only grow out my walrus moustache and mutton chops, I also grew out my hair. Since the show ended, I've been trying in vain to schedule a haircut, but my barber, who is approaching elderly, only works Thursday nights, Fridays and Saturdays-- so it's a challenge to get in to see him.

So, the long and short of it is, my hair is long, not short. I haven't had a haircut since probably late August. The back is starting to curl around my ears, making me look like a stereotypical used car salesman or a local news anchor from 1974.

While at work, I called my barber yesterday afternoon at around two-thirty. The receptionist who probably has laryngeal cancer and throat AIDS answered the phone. She talks like a combination of the nasty woman from "Throw Mama From the Train" and a herpetic toad.

"Hoiya, hun," she growled happily, sounding today more like Columbo's car exhaust.

She told me I could get a haircut if I got there immediately.

"Well, I can't do that," I said, "I'm at work."

"Well, Merry Christmas. God loves you, baby," she purred, about as sexily as Mike Mulligan's steam shovel.

That meant I wouldn't be getting a haircut until well after New Year's, which was patently unacceptable. The back of my neck looks like it's covered in a patch of brown broccoli.

I asked my wife yesterday evening if she would cut my hair.

"No," she answered.

I asked her this afternoon if she would cut my hair-- after making her a large cup of Mocha hot chocolate.

"Yes," she answered. Note to self: next time you want sex-- start warming up the soy milk.

"Where do you want me to give you your haircut?" she asked.

"On the toilet, of course," I answered readily.

When I was a little boy, that's where my mother gave me my haircuts. I would sit on the toilet, and she would spin me around to get to the sides and back of my hair. We had a large bathroom-- lots of room for her to work and for me to spin. Though I wouldn't let anyone else near my hair until I was 6, I was embarrassed by even her haircuts, and frequently wore a hat for a week or so after I received even just a trim.

As I sat down on the toilet of the home I bought with my wife, as she tucked a towel under my t-shirt and snipped away, well, there just wasn't any way I was going to escape this haircut without getting all nostalgic. They say that, in lasting relationships, we look for a partner who is expected to undo all of the wrongs done to us by our parents. I guess we also look for a spouse who can give us haircuts on the toilet, too.

I smiled when, not five minutes after my wife completed my haircut, the phone rang. It was my mother. I told her what had just transpired in our upstairs bathroom.

"That's very nice, honey," she said. "Are you wearing a hat?"

The Sainted Son

"Phillip," the elderly lady named Margaret whispered in a hoarse, coarse, needy, weepy voice, "is she gonna look at my eyes?"

"She is going to look at the skin around your eyes. We're here for the scalp, not the eyes. We've been to eye doctors, now we're at the dermatologist. We're trying something else."

It's 6:12pm. My wife and I have been in the dermatologist's office for just over forty-five minutes. My wife is trying to pretend she's reading "Glamour." There's a man in a black Porsche sweatshirt leaning his head up against the wall. There's a twenty-ish young man iPoding and texting. I stare over and over again at the cover of some magazine with a cartoon of Sarah Palin at a swearing-in ceremony with her hand on a bible with the caption "Is This Possible?"

I don't want to be here.

Neither, apparently, does Margaret. She says so approximately every seven minutes. Margaret is probably around eighty, maybe ninety, and her two sons who have accompanied her to this doctor's appointment are easily in their sixties. One of them, Donald, pretends to be asleep, leaving his brother, Phillip, to reply to their mother's incessant complaints, questions, fears, and repetitions.

"I wish Ernie were here."

"Mother," replies Phillip with a finely-tuned mixture of deft compassion, palpable exhaustion, and factual stoicism, "Ernie has been dead for twenty-four years. He's been gone a long, long time."

"Phillip, is she gonna look at my eyes?"

Margaret is like a Chatty Cathy doll from the 1980s. She has approximately eight or nine phrases that she recites when there is a silence lasting longer than thirty-two seconds. This is Margaret's repertoire:

"I'm scared-- I don't wanna be sick. Let's go home."

"Phillip-- I'm suffering. I've got so many things wrong with me."

"Is she gonna look at my eyes?"

"Is Donald sleeping?"

"I want to die."

"I wish Ernie were here."

"Where's Roseanne? Where's Brendan? Nobody comes to see me. Nobody cares."

"Why should other people be okay and happy and I'm so miserable?

"Does she know what's wrong with me?"

Phillip could have chosen to ignore his mother. He could have gotten frustrated and shut down. He could have woken up Donald and said, "Hey-- your turn" and walked out of the waiting room. He could have suffocated her with a throw pillow. Instead, he deftly, calmly, rationally responded every single one of her redundant observations or comments. It didn't really matter what he said-- nothing changed her outlook or altered the manner in which she expressed herself, and nothing changed the content of her utterances. at 5:46, he could have answered "Does she know what's wrong with me?" with "Yes." and, at 6:04, he could have answered the exact same question with "No." and it wouldn't have mattered, but he was consistent, and factual and he was doing the best he could.

If I had the power, and the sword, I would knight him tomorrow. Forget W. S. Gilbert, Paul McCartney, and Elton John. Loudly let the trumpets bay and make way, please, for Sir Phillip, the Sainted Son.

There are Sir Phillips all over the world, performing homespun eldercare services for their parents who are in advanced stages of mental and physical decline. Our modern, American society espouses the philosophy that, when you're old and used up, the nursing home is good enough for you. I hear people moan and cry about "how hard" the decision was to put mom or dad away in a home, and I'm not trying to judge, for Christ only knows what the hell I'm going to do when/if the time comes-- but I'll bet it's a damn sight harder to do what Phillip does.

"You're always so busy," Margaret says to him.

"Busy? What am I busy with, Mother?" Phillip asks, not confrontationally, just really asking.

"Busy with me."

"You're right," he says, "I am busy with you. That is what I do."

"Is Donald sleeping?" she asks, because it's 6:14.

"Yes, Mother-- he's probably tired. We were up all night with you, do you remember?"

She looks at him.

"And you were hungry at 4:15am, and we brought you up the toast and the cantaloupe and you ate in bed-- do you remember that?"

She looks at him.

"No."

"Okay, Mother," Phillip says, putting her dry, trembling, gnarled hand in his. "Your left hand is cold, from the surgery."

And Margaret says, "I'm scared."

Last Blog Post

Now, before you all go start preparing to sue me or picket outside my house-- relax. This isn't my last blog post. This is a post about other peoples' last blog posts.

So cool your jets... your lovely, lovely jets.

Sometimes, when I'm painfully bored, I go trolling through the seemingly infinite profiles of www.20sb.net to see who's blogging about what, who's holding a camera up in front of her face, who's posting YouTube videos and pictures of cats in septic tanks, who's being snarky and tell-it-like-it-is-y in the D.C. Metro area, who's giving profanity-laden advice to Dear Abby readers-- oh, wait, that's me.

Also, who's out there putting their nose to the grindstone and creating consistent, quality work that will improve my worldview by reading it. That's how I found some of you goobersteins. I mean, it's not like the goddamn Blog Faerie is whispering hot referral tips into my ear or rolling around on my desktop rubbing pixie-dust onto her twin sister bare midriff.

Oftentimes, when I stumble upon a blogger with an interesting and engaging profile and I click on the link to their blog I am dismayed to see a last publication date of 02/04/2008 or maybe three or four months ago. Some of them have that cold, antiseptic, marble-hued "The blog you are looking for is no longer available." or "This Blogger account has been disabled by the administrator."

The absence or removal of a blog always piques my curiosity, so much more than any one single extant post could. Sometimes, the blogger leaves a fare-thee-well message-- like one I recently stumbled onto where the last picture is of a proudly outstretched left hand bearing a shimmery engagement ring. Obviously, this blogger has wedding plans to attend to and blogging no longer fits in with her single-life routine. I get that-- but lots of times there is no good-bye message, just an ordinary-sounding final post about American Idol or a home-made macaroni and cheese recipie and I wonder-- what the fuck?

What happened?

Did the person just run out of steam? Were they out of inspiration or ideas or motivation? Were they hit by a mass transit vehicle? Did they collapse from too much froth in their mochaccino? Maybe they were arrested for running a crystal meth lab or a kiddie porn... amusement park...

While I have absolutely no statistical information to back this assertion up, I feel like maybe a reason why a significant number of bloggers give up blogging is that they've been "found out." Now, obviously, this doesn't account for bloggers who use their full and real names, have linked up their blog using the Networked Blog feature on Facebook-- I mean, they're not afraid of getting outed. It's us anonymous bloggers, or the ones who think we're anonymous. One day, most, if not all of us will get that dreaded email, or comment, or follower that lets us unequivocally know,

"I found you."

Maybe it's an ex-lover, a former or soon-to-be-former friend, a sibling, a parent (oy), or perhaps most disconcertingly, an employer. I'm sure some bloggers have said "bye-bye" to their privacy, their anonymity, their reputations, and their jobs all in a matter of minutes once the wrong person has stumbled across their blog.

Take mine, for instance. At 308 posts, (not including this one) there's a lot of shit in here that could seriously fuck me over, personally and professionally, if the wrong people found their weary way here. Is that a risk that I take by putting myself out there? Absolutely. Do I believe that people should have the privilege to express themselves freely and without identification if their words are not causing direct or indirect harm to another person? Well, obviously. Is that always the case?

No. It isn't. And I think that, more than anything, is why bloggers disappear on us.

Of course some of them just plain don't give a shit anymore and give up-- I know that. Between this blog and my last blog (oh, yeah-- I shut down a blog of mine before, too, and it's because I was almost found out, no-no style) I've been blogging for just around a year-- so maybe I'll be burned out somewhere around year three or four. I don't know-- maybe I won't get there altogether.

I don't know how "My Masonic Apron" is going to end, but I think I'm kind of okay with that (notice the confidence?) See-- when I'm writing a piece of fiction or a play (not that I've done either of those in a while) I don't know how those things are going to end either-- and yet I go through with it, and the ending, well, it always comes... and usually without much of my help. Create characters and a situation and it all comes to a head quite naturally. Certainly a blog isn't the same thing as a story or a play-- and there are outside influences at work here in terms of readers and followers and Google-snoopers, but all things end-- somehow, some way.

I just hope that, when the end comes, I'm in the driver's seat, that the end is my choice and is not made in haste to save my ass, or after it's too late.

And, more than anything, I hope I get to say goodbye.

Let's Make Dear Abby Vomit In Her Grave With DEAR APRON!

I've said it once, and I'll say it again:

Boy, DEAR APRON is like a table-spoon of sulphur & molasses: it's the cure for what ails ya!

DEAR APRON:

How do you explain to a man how uncomfortable hot flashes are? I'm a perimenopausal woman who has been married for 12 years to a sweet husband who loves to "snuggle." But when I'm having a hot flash, the last thing I want is a warm body touching me. My husband thinks I'm "mean" and that I'm one of those "freaky females."

How can I make him understand that hot flashes happen, and that it should be OK for me to ask for some space until the feeling passes? -- HOT FLASH HILDA

DEAR H.F.H.:

Is your name really Hilda? I hope so.

Well, I'm in a bit of a pickle here. See, my gut instinct is to suggest sitting down with your husband (not too close, of course, in case you have a sudden equatorial meltdown) and having something called "a discussion" with him.

Now, you're obviously incapable of doing this, or you'd have already done it, instead of writing a frustrated cow letter to some random person you've never met and whom society has deemed a sage advice-giver to societal dregs who are too mentally and emotionally incompetent to handle their own problems.

Since you're such an obvious pro at letter writing, why not pen your sweet, snuggly husband a letter? Not that you need the guidance, but here's a sample of something you might deem appropriate:

"Dear Vlad or Whatever Your Name Is,

You might have noticed that I've been a real bitch to you lately. This is because I am entering a stage in my life as a woman known as perimenopausiation. I know what you're thinking-- you thought I was all done being a bitch once my periods were done.

Well, no.

See, my skin is getting all leathery and my hair is falling out and the area under my eyes looks looks like two handbags. My breasts resemble deflated whoopie-cushions and my moustache is now more prominent than Borat's. My ass looks doughy and misshapen and has more pock marks than the moon or Bill Murray's face.

It's a miracle that you still even want to cuddle with me at all, but it probably says more about your declining eyesight than it does about my physique. Perhaps you want to cuddle with me more because I more closely resemble a 20-year-old down pillow than I ever did before.

Either way, I hate you more than I ever did. If you come any closer, I will cut you so bad you'll look like a motherfucking Jackson Pollack painting.

Sincerely,
Hotflash Hildabeast"

DEAR APRON:

My husband and I are in our 80s. For many years we used to entertain during the holidays. Now we wonder where all our former guests have disappeared to.
Our annual parties grew to include more than 80 friends. Dinner was prepared by a chef; we had a bartender and a pianist. People said they looked forward to those gatherings year after year.

We never expected anyone to entertain us in the same way, yet even being asked out for hamburgers would have been such a treat. Very few reciprocated in any way except to bring a few bottles of wine. We miss them and wonder if people realize that a simple get-together is always appreciated. -- FOOD FOR THOUGHT, SPARKS, NEV.

DEAR CRUSTACEAN:

Are you kidding me? Look at these two sentences, please, and draw your own conclusion, if you can. (If not, I'll help.)

Sentence #1: "My husband and I are in our 80s."

Sentence #2: " Now we wonder where all our former guests have disappeared to."

Honey, they're fucking dead. They're groovin' it to Benny Goodman tunes in Hell waiting for Bernie Madoff to show up so they can all gang-rape him. All your old buddies are rotting away in crypts or shitting themselves in Craftmatic adjustable beds and you're miffed that they haven't been inviting you out for hamburgers?

Well, Merry fucking Christmas to you, too, Mrs. Thurston Howell, III.

DEAR APRON:

I work at a public library and live not far from where I work. A lot of people who use the library live in my apartment building and I run into them often. These people never hesitate to stop me when I'm clearly off the clock to ask me a slew of library questions.

I confess I'm a bit of a doormat, and I'm afraid to ask them to leave me alone. Is there a way to tell those people to quit harassing me when I'm not working? I'd feel so much better about myself if I learned how. -- THE ANSWER LADY

DEAR ANSWER LADY:

Of course you're a doormat, you're a public librarian. Meekness and subservience were all part of the contract you signed, don't you remember? You are also required to wear brooches on your sweaters and take up quilting, and I hope you've remembered which of your favorite patrons has given birth this year so you can send a gender-appropriate baby quilt in time for Christmas, because you signed on for that, too, you dowdy little twit.

Now you get down on the ground and spread out like the filthy, smelly doormat that you are! I will bombard you with questions about Mitch Albom books and quiz you on the Dewey Decimal System while I assault you with my muddy galoshes! BOW TO ME, FOR I AM THE PATRON OF YOUR NIGHTMARES!

And, finally, a bonus Dear Apron for that special d-bag on your gift list!

DEAR APRON:

With the holidays here, I know people are considering gifts for older friends and family members. My 83-year-old mother still lives in her own home. She doesn't want more "stuff," so every year we give her practical things we know she already uses on a daily basis, including laundry detergent, bath oil beads and soap, toothpaste -- even bird seed for her bird feeders. By the end of the year she has used up everything we have given her and is ready for new supplies.

Mom is happy with these gifts and says it saves her from having to go out and spend money on these things herself. Practical, everyday items make the best gifts for the older person on your list. -- MARY IN RICHARDSON, TEXAS

DEAR HEAVEN-SENT DAUGHTER:

And where, might I ask, are they holding the Daughter-of-the-Year Award ceremony this year? Will it be in the Netherlands, so you may follow in the esteemed footsteps of Nobel Peace Prize winners like Barack Obama? I do hope you have something oh-so-special to wear to all of the affiliated cocktail parties and social events that come with such an honor. Maybe Mom can come along as your special guest. You can just buy her something to wear-- a jumpsuit or whatever-- at Salvation Army.

I was very taken with your list of gift items for your frail, aging mother. You neglected, however, to mention a few other gifts that would no doubt be appreciated by your mother and other geriatrics. Allow me to supplement your excellent and delightful list (toothpaste and bird-seed-- who'da thunkit?!)

* A Home Healthcare Aide.

I realize that you're the perfect daughter, but even the perfect daughter can't be bothered with mom's incessant needs like water, food, and companionship all the time! Why not hire an Eldernanny from www.bigassbootyoldfucknannies.com? These highly-trained, $8.50-an-hour certified assistant nurses assistants-in-training would be the perfect addition to any old crow's filthy apartment. Choose from a wide array of home healthcare professionals funny-sounding names and professionally-maincured nails, some that are at least two-and-a-half feet long! Careful when wiping those asses, girls! And speaking of which....

* Commode Liners.

Nothing says "I love you, Ma" like a Cleanis Care Bag Commode Liner, that "holds up to 16.9 ounces of organic liquids!" These bags have special inserts that turn human waste "into a gel for easy cleanup!" You can get ol' Ma a case of 400 bags for only $369.00! That's so many bags, you can even line her Christmas stockings with them!

* A Coffin.

While you're shopping online, why not head on over to www.casketxpress.com and pick out a box for mom? Nothing wrong with a little pre-planning now, is there? Sure, she won't be inviting Mrs. Howell over for hamburgers anymore, but she can still party like a grand old dame in her "Cherub Angels Art Casket." Yes, it's exactly like what it sounds-- a casket with a fucking airbrushed painting all over it. Only $2,997.97-- reduced from $5,995.00! I think I see Santa's sleigh pulling one of those bad boys over to your neck of the woods!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM YOUR FRIEND, DEAR APRON!

Fantastic Mr. Apron

My oldest sister is 42 or whatever. She lives in a spotless condominium that contains super-expensive white leather furniture that she is afraid to sit on. Nobody else lives with her in her condo, save for two stuffed dogs whom she calls Genevieve and Bedford.

Her idea of a good time is going over to my parents house so my mother can make her toast and eggs, and my father can make her coffee. Actually, she never really has a good time when she's there, so maybe it's her idea of a bad time, just with food. She is very fond of the coffee. After she's efficiently polished off a cup, the manner in which she attacks the innards of the basically empty mug borders on pornographic.

She has some sort of gastrointestinal malfunction that severely limits what and when she can eat. Though my oldest sister burps frequently, seismically, and athletically, I don't think she has farted since 1997.

She is frequently berated, belittled and beseiged with the inanities of an unappreciative family and an unkind world. It is because of this that my wife and I take my oldest sister out to the movies.

They're usually kid movies, because that's sort of where she's at. I don't suppose it's any coincidence that one of her favorite television shows is "Arrested Development" because that basically describes her perfectly. Her second favorite show, by the way, is "Sponge Bob."

I don't mind going to kids movies with my wife and my oldest sister. She can saddle up that tricycle anytime she feels the need to. Sometimes, though, I get sad when I think about what might have been for her. If my mother didn't get pregnant at 17 or 18 or whenever it was. If her first marriage didn't collapse. If my other sister and I hadn't come along. Would it have been radically different? Would we be seeing her on "SNL" or be greedily reading her "Going Rogue" right now?

Well, maybe it is good we came along after all.

When she was still living at my parents house at age 26, it was easy, and funny, for me to envision what the next fifteen-or-so years were going to look like for her. As we've grown older, I suppose it is still easy, though sharply less funny, to picture her future. Needless to say, it will most likely involve lots of plastic-covered furniture, a Jamaican nurse, a 20-year supply of Chocolate "Ensure" drinks, and several restraining orders.

Earlier this year she announced that, if her life doesn't change drastically by the time she's 50, she's buying herself a Maserati. Or maybe it was 45. I suppose I wasn't really listening closely enough-- which is typical, really. Not, of course, that her acquisition of a Maserati will encourage people necessarily to listen to her-- but they'll certainly see her coming.

My wife often tells me that I'm "a good brother." I don't really know what means. Is it sending holiday cards? Because, I don't do that. Is it sending funny emails to my sister when she forwards me text alerts from the local police department about college students getting donked on the head and robbed at gunpoint? Well, that I do-- but that's kind of just what I do. Is it taking her to the movies whenever something rated PG comes down the pike? Maybe.

Two weeks ago, we saw "The Fantastic Mr. Fox," and we all loved it mercilessly together. I think mostly because it's about a fucked up family that has a penchant for dressing interestingly and saying the wrong thing.

The Don't List

"Don't do laundry before having coffee."

While this admittedly sounds like the punchline to a crappy "Cathy" cartoon ("Size 10 swimsuits made out of burlap?! AAACK!") it's really just the ignominious beginning of a paternalistic, negative-nellie My Masonic Apron Don't List.

* Don't do laundry before having coffee.

If you do, every single one of your wife's shirts that you try to line-dry will fall on the floor. Not only will they fall on just the floor, they will fall on the doggie-fur-layered floor. Now, maybe this would happen even if you did laundry after having coffee, but it is likely that, had your internal chemical homeostasis been achieved through caffeine and sugar, you might have had a more cause-proportionate response to this event than,

"CuuuUUUUuuUUUuNT CUuUUUUUM MOOTHER-FUUUUCCCKKKKK!"

* Don't tease the dog by squeaking the new squeak to you just bought for him incessantly.

Just give it to him, or he will leap up, smash you in the balls with his muzzle with the inertia force of a Smart ForTwo hitting a brick wall and he will drag his claws all over your right hand. Then, he will proceed to play with the squeak toy for 4 seconds and ignore it for the rest of his life.

* Don't throw wadded up tissues into a trashcan from across the room.

You always miss and, on those precious rare times when you don't, there's nobody there to see it. D-bag.

* Don't have a conversation with your penis while you're peeing.

Your wife can hear you in the next room.

* Don't buy that really cool coat at the vintage store.

You have, like, forty-seven coats. What the fuck are you: metrosexual? Next thing you know you'll be understanding perfume commercials and waxing your eyelids.

* Don't grow a moustache.

You'll never hear the end of it, even after it's gone.

* Don't forget to clear your history after looking at porn, even if your wife is totally cool with you looking at porn.

Do I really need to follow this one up with a snarky little explicatory sentence?

* Don't try to do your sister favors.

You'll cringe every time you get a text message, voice-mail, email, telegraph, aldis lamp, signal flare, or semaphore.

* Don't pray in public without a Bluetooth headset.

People will just think you're fucking nuts.

* Don't go to your parent's house expecting to have a nice family dinner.

You'll be woefully disappointed, even if the cinnamon cake is good.

* Don't eat three pieces of the cinnamon cake.

Your dump the next morning will all but crack the porcelain.

* Don't chew with your mouth open.

Didn't anybody ever embarrass you enough as a child?

* Don't get listed in the phone book.

Remember the cautionary tale of Navin R. Johnson; random sonofabitch bastard.

* Don't call your attorney during a traffic stop.

The officer will most likely think your cellphone is a gun and then you'll have bigger problems than being out $126 and 3 points on your license.

And, last but definitely not least:

* Don't wash your feet in the airport bathroom sink in Jakarta, even if your feet really do smell like vinegar.

Aack.

Scent of a Man

My wife likes to say that I have a "bridge brain."

I don't know what her precise definition would be (perhaps she will regale us appropriately in the comments section while she is "working" at her "job") but a bridge brain is something that enables me to enjoy shopping for clothes with/for her at Anthropologie, talk openly about my feelings, obsess over what belts go with what socks, and generally know what members of the opposite sex are talking about a high percentage of the time.

Having a bridge brain, I realized this morning with some dismay, does not, however, enable me to understand perfume commercials.

Every time I am watching television and a perfume commercial comes on, I feel like I am on drugs. Bombarded with visuals and sounds I don't understand-- waves crashing over a small dog, the woman in gold throwing her necklaces and bracelets and shit all over the floor, a girl in a crinoline dress and cat-eye sunglasses ascending heavenward clutching balloons, WASPy people at a wedding giddily chasing each other around Nags Head, Matthew McConaughey-- I am left feeling a variety of unkind and unpleasant emotions ranging from embarrassment to desperate confusion and an acute sense of vertigo.

This must be what it's like for thirty-something women who happen to walk into a room where a "Three Stooges" short is playing on the TV.

I like my bridge brain. I really do. I think it's something I have that lots of men don't have and maybe some wish they did. I think it helps me communicate well with my wife, my mother and sisters, and my female readers (I guess you're really the judge of that, my little Canadian harem) but I sometimes wish it better equipped me to fathom what the hell is going on in the average perfume commercial.

I definitely understand the six-second bit at the very end where the breathy, slightly and ambiguously-accented forty-something-year-old tells you to buy the so-and-so bag-o'-fun from Macy's for $75.50 (a $100.00 value). That I understand. I don't understand cello music playing while two Mer-people undulate against each other in a green lagoon.

You foreign readers will probably tell me that I'm "too American" and potentially unsophisticated to comprehend the creativity that is exuded by scent commercial directors, how they're really producing the artistic equivalent of a 22 second Fellini film, but I'm just not so sure. Those of you who do drugs will inevitably tell me that I need to start doing drugs and that, once I do, I'll get the commercials-- just like doing shrooms in the early 1970s helped you understand Terry Gilliam's "Monty Python" animation sequences.

Or maybe I just need to start wearing cologne. Of course, I never understood that either. Why shower, get all clean and nice smelling, and then apply a hyper-expensive liquid to yourself that makes you smell like my Great Uncle Martin's liquor cabinet?

I know. Some bridge brain, right?

I'm Frightened

It's true, folks. I'm very, very frightened.

Hold me.

I think.... I think..... Dick Wolf may be God.

I think he is trying to eat our brains through his numerous and bountiful "Law & Order" incarnations. I think he is trying to use Ice-T and the Belz as vehicles or body-pods to spread his metaphorical (and literal?) tentacles across the globe for the purposes of international, and possibly intergalactical domination.

I think he wants us to bow to him and eat our own children while muttering his name.

Sorry-- His name.

Dick. Wolf.

Speaking of his name: look at it. It is the essence of virility and dom. What do you think of when you hear his name-- I mean, besides Detective Stabler getting shot every third episode-- you think of a throbbing, veiny, bulbous cock, coupled with an insidious, salivating, stalking woodland creature, ready to pounce on you and eat your kneecaps-- possibly while raping you.

This is no coincidence.

I also don't think it's any coincidence that he's basically overlording over cable and network television at the same time. You can watch some iteration of "L&O" at any time the clock might read-- in fact, you can even invent a time that doesn't actually exist, turn on your television, and you'll be assaulted with a snarky interrogation room tango or the late Jerry Orbach's teeth. Try it at home, if you dare-- make up a time and see what happens.

I...... I think you will need to be held.

He's probably inserting subliminal messages into each episode-- he's doing it right at this very moment. No doubt his production meetings take place underground, and the writers wear crimson-colored hooded robes and chant his name while playing with themslves with one hand and ritually strangling kittens with the other. And there's Dick Wolf, at the head of the table, laughing hysterically-- rubbing apple sauce onto his nipples while he sets fire to Saturn simply by lifting his right eyebrow.

You know it's true.

You know he's eaten S. Epatha Merkerson's brain years ago and all that's left inside her cranium is Dick Wolf's vomitus, sloshing around in there every time she does a prescription drug commercial-- which only further his mission of total inter-global conquest. He will not stop until he's feasted on the brains of not only every fictional homicide detective in his faux-NYPD, but every wide-eyed actor and starlet who comes to New York dreaming of being on Broadway, but gets stymied as either a rabid psychopathic rapist or a bloodied, semenized victim, staring up at the fluorescent lights of the basement morgue.

Have you ever wondered why every single actor you ever see in a play in NYC has a "Law & Order" credit in their bio? It's because it's their first stop on the train-track to Hell. It's because Dick Wolf is always hungry for brains.

Blessed be He.

My New Skill

There is a new skill I've been demonstrating at work of late, and that's good. It's always nice to demonstrate new skills.

Unless, of course, that skill is data entry.

Back in middle school, when crusty Mrs. Droopy Cheeks taught us typing on baby blue Remington electric typewriters, I averaged 60 words-per-minute, and I expect my pace has increased since then. My boss has frequently marveled at the speed and alacrity with which I bang out letters, emails, and other correspondence.

Sadly, she realized that I would be a right down reg'lar whizz-bang at this snappy little database enhancement project we've got going on 'round these here parts.

Street address. State. Zip. Name.
Street address. State. Zip. Name.
Street address. State. Zip. Name.

Lather. Rinse. Hate-fuck me raw with a broken Coke bottle. Repeat.

This, apparently, is what my life has become. I am now, unofficially, a data-entry clerk. Shall I introduce you to my Master's Degree? It's in the house somewhere, under some dust, shame, and possibly dog pee.

Rather than bitch and cry and moan about how I'm now a data-entry clerk, I think I'd (and you'd) be better served if I presented you with a list of things I'd rather be than a data-entry clerk....

* Tied up inside the trunk of a Gotti's Cadillac.

* Imprisoned & sharing accomodations with a prisoner named "Baby Fuck Johnson."

* Unemployed.

* A retarded rabbit being product-tested upon by crazy Revlon lipstick scientists.

* Trapped in a broken elevator with the Lawrence Welk Show.

* An ICU patient.

* Onstage with no trousers and no memory of what my lines are.

* Hairless.

* Have a disease that only enables me to blink once every New Moon.

* Naked, wrapped in cheesecloth and defecated on by the Oakland Raiders.

* A devout Catholic.

* A thong worn by any daytime performer at the club "Castle Muffenstein."

* Be a guest at Martha Stewart's house for Christmas.

* Sixteen and pregnant.

* Whole-Milk-Boarded by America's bravest.

* Conjoined twins with Jesse Ventura.

* A herpe.

* Forced to eat one (just one) of my late great-grandmothers blackened liverwurst hamburgers.

* A twitchy, one-eyed cat at a pet adoption agency.

* A night neighborhood watchman in Harlem.

* The butt of a Borat joke.

* Tased on COPS.

* A hemophiliac descendant of the inbred, chinless ruling class of the Hapsburg monarchs.

* Fingerless. Try giving me data to enter now.

If It's for Morons You're Achin, Then Why Not Try DEAR APRON?!

Happy Friday, you lovely bitches. Welcome to DEAR APRON, where we take real letters that were written into Dear Abby, and treat these letter-writers they way they ought to be treated: like intellectually-challenged first graders.

DEAR APRON:

My husband, "Bud," and I have been married more than 50 years. It has been a great half-century. We have good jobs and a fantastic family.

A problem has arisen recently that I need advice about. When I met Bud, I wasn't a virgin. I wasn't promiscuous, but I did end several dates with a "grand finale." Bud knew about it and was OK with it then, and he's still OK with it now. But he keeps asking me to describe those dates down to the most intimate detail.

He says they are part of our "family history," just like our school activities and other events with family and friends before we started going together. I'm not sure I can remember everything, but Bud wants to hear about those things I can recall. What do you think about this? -- CAUGHT OFF GUARD

DEAR WHOREBAG OF YORE:

A "grand finale" you say? My goodness-- that sounds very exciting indeed. If that is the way you refer to your sepia-toned sexual conquests that no doubt occured within the vinyl confines of a Ford Fairlane, then of course Bud's going to want to know more about all of that. I certainly do. I mean, did you let any of these guys take a shit on your tits? Were vomit, the police, or rubber squeakie-toys involved? These are the kind of things that Bud needs to know, obviously, to complete his family history.

And, really, can you blame him? Most peoples' family histories are pretty fucking stale.

"This is when Bubba Blamma came over from the village of Potzekiasa to Ellis Island and they changed her name to George and she had TB but they let her in anyway because she showed them a bit of ankle."

"In 1921, Zayda Pearlsteinbergdorffgoodman opened up Shemp's Clothing Store at 4th and South and sold 3-piece-suits at a 400% mark-up until the blacks started moving into the neighborhood and now they sell neon-blue pimp suits and crack."

"This is a picture of your great-great-gread grandmother. The moustache is real and we just had it appraised on Antiques Roadshow for between $4,000-$6,800 dollars."

I mean, come on, honey-- give Bud some props for trying to spice up his family history with cum-ridden details of your whorey sexual exploits from the days where you'd lift your poodle-skirt for any loser with a cucumber pointed in your general direction.

DEAR APRON:

I work for a national package delivery company. It's nearing what we refer to as "peak season" (Christmas). We try our best to deliver the much-anticipated packages on time, but sometimes we are unable to find the addresses. If there are no names or numbers on the mailboxes or on the houses, we waste a lot of time trying to locate the right residence through the process of elimination.

What concerns us most is, if we -- experienced delivery people -- have problems finding a residence, we know an emergency vehicle will encounter the same problem. A few minutes' delay can result in a tragic outcome if an EMT is unable to find a house.

Please advise your readers to post their addresses clearly. If they do, it will help all of us to have a safer and happier holiday season. -- SANTA'S HELPERS IN ALABAMA

DEAR BOX-JOCKEY:

So, you really think you'd get fired from UPS if they found out that you wrote this milquetoast letter to Dear Abby? "A national package delivery company." What do you think, we're all morons here? Give me a break.

You're seriously trying to tell me that, with GPS, which all of your trucks have, you are still bitching and moaning about how you have difficulty finding peoples' houses because their addresses are done in fading paint or are partially obstructed by a fucking azalea bush? Boy. I've heard some punk-ass excuses for incompetence in my life, but this is stretching it pretty thin. Put a little effort into that sweet job of yours, pal. From what I hear, you've got one of the best benefit packages of any employer in the country. Work for it.

And, by the way, I'm an EMT, and I know that, even if they do find the address where a true emergency was taking place with all possible speed, most of the folks I used to work with wouldn't know what to do once they got there.

DEAR APRON:

Would it be improper of me to write the owners of a house we are buying to thank them for selling it to us? My wife and I keep getting conflicting answers.
They have small children, so they're probably moving to a bigger place to accommodate their children. Selling us their house is allowing us the opportunity of starting a family like they did.

What do you think? Should we send it to them directly or to their real estate agent? We don't want to overstep our boundaries. -- SOON-TO-BE HOMEOWNER IN PHILADELPHIA

DEAR YOUNG, STUPID PEOPLE:

Awwww... that's sweet. You know, Mrs. Apron & I bought a home together last year, and the thought of sending a thank-you note to the sellers of our home never occured to us. Maybe that's because the sellers repeatedly screamed at our real estate agent, refused to pay liens and outstanding bills, re-negged on offers, and threatened to call the police if my wife or I set foot on the property, after they had permitted us to do so.

Ah, memories.

While I don't know if a thank-you note is exactly in order, here's a list of things that I would consider sending to sending to the folks who sold us our home:

1.) Anthrax.

2.) A home-baked lasagna, containing ample layers of noodles, ground beef, horse vomit, fresh vegetables, fontina cheese, grizzly bear semen, tomato sauce, and seasoned with fresh basil, oregano, anthrax, and fresh ground pepper to taste.

3.) Photographs of me target-masturbating in every room of their old house with a dead chicken tied around my neck, like a shawl.

4.) A collection of Neil Diamond CDs.

5.) A DVD of Bud's wife's sexual exploits (family history).

6.) A forty-pound box of my yellowed toe-nail clippings.

7.) Several hungry, destitute, alcoholic immigrant families.

8.) Kanye West

9.) A free membership to the Puppy Poodle Tongue-of-the-Month Club.

10.) More lasagna!

If you really want to send that thank-you note, though, you just rock on with your bad selves. I might wait a little bit, though, until you've done battle with all the rats, termites, mold, carbon monoxide, leaky roof, broken pipes, sinking foundation, rotted walls, cracked walkways, and shitty wallpaper that they've left you with.

Like Pussy On Toast it's... MY MASONIC APRON'S 300TH POST!

There's a demented black beggar in Clint Eastwood's otherwise forgettable 1999 flick "True Crime" who mercilessly hounds Eastwood's character, named Steve.

"Steve!" the toothless, crazy bastard shouts as Eastwood's journalist character passes by in a huff, "gimme some-a-dat pussy on toast!" The beggar clasps his outstretched hands and arms together like a child might do in an imitation of an alligator's jaws.

CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!

"Gimme some pussy on toast!" he screams. Later on in the film, evidently feeling less horny and more poverty-stricken, he requests "money on toast," though I don't especially know what he'd do with either, and why necessarily he requires it on toast. I guess because he's fucking nuts or just loves carbs.

You're unmistakably drawn to this character, who appears twice or maybe three times in the film. I saw the movie once the year it came out, and that was ten years ago. I couldn't tell you anything really substantive about the plot, but I remember Mr. Pussy-on-Toast vividly, partly because I can remember almost exploding my pancreas laughing when I heard that line.

That's easily one of the best lines in American cinema today-- in entirely another league than "Frankly, Scarlet...," "Soilent Green is People...," and "Welease Wodewick!"

I hope I never become a crazy, homeless black guy but, if I do, I sure as hell hope I run around screaming stuff like, "Gimme some-a-dat pussy on toast!" and I hope I get to know people well enough to call them by their first names when I make these requests.

At this stage in my life, I think becoming a crazy, homeless black guy is pretty unlikely. I'm a relatively sane, caucasian homeowner. I'm gainfully if not happily employed, and I'm married to the cutest, most loyal, intelligent and snuggly buddy in the world. Hell, even the dog is clean and smells delicious, having just gotten "the works" at the local groomer yesterday. Life is pretty solid today as I pen my 300th blog post, and so, as a result, you're being treated to a relatively upbeat Mr. Apron.

Lucky you!

When I wake up in the morning and I go through my morning routine (tippy-top secret, bitches) and I get around to looking at Blogger.com and I see the lovely avatars and faces of "my followers" (whoa-- that makes me sound like David Koresh or, worse, Oprah) I can't tell you how proud and soupie-glowy it makes me to know that you're sitting around in Meadville or Princeton Junction (yes, I have tracking software and I use it!) saying to me:

"Hey, Apron! Gimme some-a-dat blog on toast!"

I'm accountable to people, good, fun, engaging, interesting people, and that feels really good. You expect something of me, and it's my responsibility in a way to deliver. When I was in college, I had an independent study in playwriting where I was required to have fresh material each week-- at least three or four pages of dialogue or monologue. Because I have OCD-type-issues, I wrote a one-act play a week for ten weeks. That was 2002. I haven't written a one-act play since.

There is something to be said, people, for accountability.

This is not to say, of course, that, if I didn't blog every day, your worlds would implode and your dog would nuclear-shit all over your dry-cleaning and your eyelids would disintigrate and all of your coworkers would immediately vomit into each others' shirt pockets while performing "It's Rainin' Men in sign language.

I know that. But, still, you'd be kind of bummed. Right?

You'd be all like, "Apron! Where's my blog on pussy? You toast."

And I hear you.

I was very skeptical about blogging in the way way beginning. "Blogging," I said derisively, "Isn't that for self-absorbed prats?" I asked my wife. "I think so," she answered, "but so is therapy, and you did that almost all through college."

She had me there!

Of course, I guess, if you think about it, I was dubious about blogging before I had ever met any of you, well, most of you, and maybe that's the reason why I didn't know if it would be the thing for me. After 300 posts, I know that it is. Maybe it won't be forever, but it's done the trick beautifully so far. And so have you.

To those of you who are regular, loyal readers who comment all the time: you're like Jesus on toast as far as I'm concerned.

To those of you who are regular, loyal readers who smile silently and move on to something else: I like the strong, silent types. Don't sweat it. You're awesome.

To those of you who pop in once in a while: I'm grateful for your visits, however infrequent.

To those of you who don't read my blog: give me your home address so I can break into your house, put hardcore gay porno mags inside your sock drawer and rub my naked ass all over your sofa.

On toast.