Staycation

"Well, do you have any time off?" said the therapist to his nail-bitten patient, who looked crumpled and harried in the thinly-padded black Ikea chair before him.

"Um, yes.  I suppose-- I think I do.  I do," muttered the $50 co-pay in corduroys.

"Then take it," replied the therapist, who isn't always so direct.

"Oh," the patient replied, tracing the top of his worn and scratched travel coffee tumbler, "okay".

------------------------------

Monday, the nanny came, and I left.  I was bewildered and stupid, like I was feeling up a girl for the first time and her bra was a combination of barbed wire and a Rubik's Cube.  I wandered out of my house and got behind the wheel of the CR-V.  I turned around and looked in the back and saw only two gigantic, empty car seats.

No babies.  I don't have to drive cautiously.  So I threw the column shifter down three notches and floored it.  As it's a CR-V and it drives like an old mail truck, not much happened, but it was still exciting to me.  I got its oil changed.  My old Israeli mechanic made fun of me.  I didn't care, because it was my week off.  Also, I was there for an hour-and-a-half, while he stopped changing my oil to answer the phone (six times) and to make coffee and to bullshit with random people dropping off keys and cars and was generally absent-minded, or maybe just ambivalent.  He also took time out to scream at some dissatisfied customer whose car was returned to him two days earlier, and died again.

"I TOLD YOU, THEN IT'S A PROBLEM WITH THE RELAY TO THE COMPUTER AND I CANNOT FIX THAT, AARON!"

Then there were some Hebrew epithets that I vaguely remembered my father shouting at slow-moving motorists when I was a boy.

After the oil change, I went to some hipster trendy emo annoying cafe to meet a friend of mine for coffee.  She's a flutist and she has a tattoo (I mean, I only know of one) and earrings made of petrified Alaskan something tusk.  Wolf ribs.  I don't know.  I have no business being friends with somebody this cool, but life's funny that way sometimes.  The flat-chested, nose-ringed crunchy Vermont-wannabee barista got me coffee in my worn and scratched coffee tumbler and it cost me $2.00.  My flutist friend got a for-here mug with endless refills and it cost her $3.00.  She insists she got the better deal.  I said you should be rewarded for bringing your own mug.  We talked about our various and sundry neuroses.  She can't go into a mainstream, big-chain supermarket with its floor-to-ceiling shelves and fluorescent lights without having a panic attack.  I hate myself.  So, it was like that.  She gets her packages delivered to the cafe.  I had half a bagel.  She took the other half home.  I thought that was funny-- it's something that someone who lived through the Depression would do.

Weirdo.

The library was my next stop.  Time to renew my card.  It expired four years ago.

"There's a six dollar and fifty-cent fine, too," the librarian said, "would you like to pay that now?"

Of course, I thought to myself, then I'll gleefully slit my wrists with my newly-renewed library card.  I smiled at her.  My smile is solely meant to creep people out.

Off to the computers downstairs to search for a job.  Soul-deadening-- worse than making a sandwich for tomorrow's lunch-- sifting through the meaningless job descriptions the 4-6 years of experience necessary, the ambiguous non-profit titles that mean absolutely nothing: program manager, program specialist, program assistant, associate program specialist, program coordinator-- they all mean the same thing: you sit on your ass in some rented office, answer phones, write emails and newsletter articles, copy shit and blog and silently wish you and everybody you know would die emphatically and expeditiously.

I applied for three jobs Monday.  God, I hope I get it.  How many boys, how many girls.

Tuesday and Wednesday I was with the babies.  I really like being a father, but I don't really know what it means yet.  I have twins, and they have me.  That's about all I know.  And I make dumb voices and faces a lot, and it seems to do the trick.  They like the nanny better than me, though.  I always knew they would, even before we had a nanny.  Or kids.

Thursday I had the day to myself again, and it was largely a repeat of Monday, only without coffee-with-incongruous friend.  I got my eyes examined.  Got lenses installed into an amazing pair of antique glasses that I got in a dramatically-sniped eBay auction.  No, they're not Warby fucking Parker, they're REAL.  And I love them.  My prescription changed, and I'm still adjusting.  It feels like I'm looking at the world through an astronaut's helmet.

At therapy yesterday, I thought my therapist would congratulate me for taking his advice to skip this week of work, but he didn't, and I was pissed.  It was really hard for me to do, I had to challenge feelings of guilt and obsessiveness and love of routine and a feeling that I don't deserve to do anything nice for myself.  Instead, we talked about me going on anti-depressants because I made the mistake of saying "I don't enjoy anything" and "I don't really want to do anything-- I don't want to stay home, I don't want to call people and I don't want to go out and I don't want to go to work".

Whoops.  Guess that must have sounded off an alarm bell or two in his well-coiffed head.  Thing is: I've always been this way, and I don't know who I'd be if I wasn't, and maybe meds will make me feel better and maybe I don't wanna feel better.  Maybe I'm a big baby.

Waa.

I don't know what I want to do for a job, and I don't know what I want to do when I'm not at my job.  And isn't my life terrible and hard!?  Aren't I just having such a rough time of it!?  Don't you just want run up and give me a big squelch and tell me it's all gonna be okay?  Give my hair a tussle?

Validate me.

Vindicate me.

Valorize me.

Save me.

The fact of the matter is that, a week away from an inpatient crisis psychiatric hospital is no small thing, whether you're taking the babies for a walk or getting new eyeglass lenses in an old frame. I think too much about things-- did you know that?   But it's Friday now and I return to work tomorrow morning for it to all begin again and anew.  I'm already fretting about who's been admitted, who's been discharged, what groups I'm supposed to run, how will it all ever be okay again and how did my babies get to be one year old?

Tomorrow.

I guess I should have written about that instead of this.  There's that judging mind that I can't seem to turn off.

-------------------------------------------------------

"You know, a lot of people say that medication helps with that," the therapist said to the $50 co-pay.  He stared at him and crossed his legs tightly.

"Do they?"

A Tramp Abroad

It wasn't cackling, I don't think.

And I wouldn't call it "cavorting" either. That almost sounds too refined. Too many syllables, I think.

Braying, maybe. Because braying implies assery and, as a contestant on last week's "Project Runway" stated, "It's either classy, or assey."

Well, these guys were assey. As in, behaving like asses.

At Dublin Airport.

At a gate reserved for U.S. Airways passengers.

Americans.

And, as I sat there, with my legs tightly crossed and my fingers bracing against my temples as they hooted and yelled and whooped and cut through the air with accents that would have put the street urchin flower seller Eliza "Awoowaaowwaaah!" Doolittle to shame, I wanted to dig up the flooring of that airport terminal and disappear beneath it.

"This is what it is," I said to Mrs. Apron, "this is what I have been struggling against so hard for ten days-- to not be associated or lumped into a category with these... people.

Categorius Americansus.

Universally despised and stereotyped for having no manners, no class, no appreciation or respect for other cultures, no indoor voices, no knowledge of another culture's history (much less their own), garish, harsh, inconsiderate, packed to the hilt with complaints, cellphones, and bad attitudes.

Oh, and fat. At least we all know I'm not that.

The lady on the plane smushed up against my poor wife for seven hours and forty minutes was, though. Hailing from New Jersey, she smelled like New Jersey-- an odd combination of old tires, a toilet, and bay water. Easily tipping the scales at around four hundred pounds, she billowed over into Mrs. Apron constantly.

"Eating left handed sure is a challenge on these planes," she said to my wife.

"It's all challenging," was Mrs. Apron's demure reply as she dodged a dough-like elbow to the chin.

I'm discovering that I am very much encumbered by a desire to always do "the right thing", to "behave", to "be good". Those compunctions were amplified a thousand-fold on this vacation to Ireland, where I was hyper vigilant about not being the last one back on the tour bus. ("Oh, we're waiting for the Americans.") To not make uninformed comments about the history of the Northern Ireland/Southern Ireland/British conflict, to not turn my nose up at the local food, (black pudding? Seriously?), and to not say or do the wrong thing culturally, morally, ethically, etceterally.

All of this, I am sure, made travelling with me at times uncomfortable and annoying for my dear wife. And I regret that. Could I have done anything differently to ease up a little bit? Probably, but, in the moment, it's hard to say. It's a terrible thing, being hyper vigilant-- about anything really, because your asshole never unclenches quite enough for you to actually enjoy a good shit, or to just enjoy yourself-- whether you're shitting or not. I know that, at home or abroad, I'm a good boy, and that I shouldn't have to walk around apologizing for the fat, braying troglodytes who came before me and who will come after me, no more than white folks down south who are trying to lead normal lives shouldn't have to walk around apologizing for slavery.

Unless they're racist pieces of shit, of course.

My Masonic Vacation

Having queer little psychological personality quirks/disorders is a bit annoying. It's not like a full-blown thing that everybody's heard of that one can read all about and cite clever examples of "famous people who had this Axis and were still cool" or take medicine for in the hopes that symptoms would become manageable.

While I haven't been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I have been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. The main difference between OCPD and OCD is twofold: 1.) I don't do super annoying shit like tap my wife on the shoulder thirty-seven times to make sure she doesn't die today or go around licking mailboxes and 2.) people with OCD have largely unwanted thoughts and/or feel shame relating to the things they do and think-- people with OCPD take pleasure in their rigidity and routines, and often are convinced that their thought processes and behaviors are correct. OCPD is classified by

* feelings of excessive doubt and caution;

(check)

* preoccupation with details, rules, lists, order, organization or schedule;

(check, mostly re: details, rules, order, organization. I'm not big on lists.)

* perfectionism that interferes with task completion;

(check, though it doesn't usually interfere with task completion, but only because I used to take 15-minute lunches)

* excessive conscientiousness, scrupulousness, and undue preoccupation with productivity to the exclusion of pleasure and interpersonal relationships;

(major fucking check)

* excessive pedantry and adherence to social conventions;

(check)

* rigidity and stubbornness;

(CHEEE-YECK!)

* unreasonable insistence by the individual that others submit exactly to his or her way of doing things, or unreasonable reluctance to allow others to do things;

(no check here, I'm way too scrupulous and conscientious to allow myself to insist that others do anything)

* intrusion of insistent and unwelcome thoughts or impulses.

(check. Why, right now, I'm thinking about having impulsive sex with your mother. Think I welcome that?)

While having Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder can be a real drag at times (read "always") the thing that's good about it is that, while my wife and I may very well be in Ireland from now until August 11th, you will benefit from my funny little Axis II, Cluster C personality disorder because you will get a new post every single day we're away!

Vacation? Not from blogging! After all, it's not a job, so why would I take a vacation from it? That would be... oh, what's the word I'm looking for here... unscrupulous!

See, I thought about blogging from my smartphone whilst in Ireland, but the guy with the pussy-tickler at the AT&T store was talking all kinds of smack about purchasing a whole new data plan for some ricockulous amount of money, and I wasn't about to do that. So, what I've decided to do is pre-load a whole mess of blog posts (while under undue preoccupation with productivity to the exclusion of pleasure). I'm doing this on Tuesday, July 26th, which is my last work-day off until my wife and I go bye-byes on the plane. Admittedly, they're not going to be anything like the posts that are traditionally viewed on this site under normal circumstances but I knew I needed to have something new go up here every day because you need something to read.

Oh, no, wait-- that's not why. Oh, right-- it's because I have a fucking DISORDER!

Okay. Good. At least we're being honest with each other. That feels better.

Here's the thing: while I'm away, what I'm going to require from you lot is a bit more audience participation than I normally get around here. I mean, I know that there's folks who like this blog, and read it with at least moderate regularity. There's my main harem of regular commenters: Mrs. Apron, (who, not gonna lie, is, like, as addicted to this shit as she is to GoComics.com) Paige, Curly Su, KLo, etc, and they're pretty much in an ivory tower as far as I'm concerned.

Oh, and there's my troll, who can go fuck himself up his own asshole repeatedly with the pitchfork from "American Gothic".

But, the rest of you need to step up your game a little bit. Because, while under normal circumstances this blog is really about me, we're going to turn the tables a little bit while I'm laughing it up with those crazy, inebriated sheep-molesters (or are those the Scots?). I'm not saying that you have to comment more-- fuck that, commenting is for babies-- I'm talking about participating. See, in order to make the posts that are to come, every day, as scheduled, 7:18am, EST (remeber: DIS-ORDER!) interesting, you're going to have to pitch in.

How?

You'll see.

I love you-- unless you're the troll. I hope your penis gets caught in a sewer grate. And I can say that because I know you're a guy. No girl could be make James Joyce that fucking annoying.

Diecation

On Tuesday, Mrs. Apron and I are leaving Pennsylvania for Ireland. It's kind of like leaving Joan Plowright for Halle Berry. While I feel kind of badly for Pennsylvania, it's not like we're not coming back. Halle Berry's just a fling (that'll MAKE ME FEEL GOOD!) but we all know that my heart and soul belong to Dame Plowright.

In short, in spite of the fact that we're going to a historically-significant, lush, beautiful, cultured part of the word where it's approximately 60 degrees during the day: we'll be back.

In case you lack certain powers of observation, due to some cognitive disorder, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, or the fact that you're half Betta fish: I'm pretty excited about the fact that we're going on vacation. We haven't been overseas since our honeymoon to Bali, and that was.... wow.... four years ago. We've been to Maine twice since then, but this here trip coming up is the real deal. The dollar against the euro sucks lumpy walrus nippies, and I'm kind of disappointed by that. In Bali, we were able to live like early 19th century plantation owners-- staying in five-star hotels for approximately twenty-two American dollars a night. In Ireland, it's not going to be that way. Of course, I haven't lowered my standards any to accommodate for the poor exchange rate; we're just going to basically go broke.

But that's okay, because it's not like we're saving up for anything important and supremely expensive coming up on the horizon. You know, like twins.

But, really, we know that we need this. This last opportunity to see strange sights without little knuckleheads screaming in the not-so-distant background, to have quiet meals, to have casual, kind of loud sex in another time-zone, to viciously judge (and not be) the annoying couple with ferociously wailing children on the airplane.

We need this. We need Ireland. And we're taking it by its sweet, pale, freckled titties.

I just hope we don't die.

There's lots of ways to die on vacation.

Don't look at me like that. If you think about it, you'll agree with me, because it's true. I won't even go into the airplane ride, which I am dreading. I'm really trying to not talk about it too much, but, obviously, I'm failing at that. I know all 136 people just survived that Guyana plane crash, and that's great for them, but two people were just killed in the Wright brothers replica plane crash. And these things happen in threes.

N'yah mean?

Seriously, though, it would be so cliché if we died on this plane. The "Today Show" and everything would make a huge deal about it, because we'd be two of the annoying Americans who died, and, of course, they would elevate our otherwise relatively meaningless deaths beyond any and all reasonable proportion because we're pregnant-- WITH TWINS!

Oh, God, I can't stand thinking about Matt Lauer's carefully creased brow and Ann Curry's empathic hand-wringing on the desk next to her "Today Show" coffee mug. Of course, we'd get lots of media coverage because we're white, but we're not blonde and/or hot, so maybe the coverage wouldn't be as extensive as it otherwise would be. You know, if we were hot and/or blonde. But we're definitely white, and definitely pregnant (WITH TWINS!) so that would get us on at the 7 o'clock hour for sure for realsies.

Aside from the obvious possibility of perishing in an air disaster, there are tons of ways to die once in Ireland. While provisional violence has calmed down recently, there's always the chance that some IRA lunatic will blow up a department store or a café that we happen to be walking past. Our tour bus could hit a suicide sheep rigged with explosives. We could be mugged and killed so some red-headed thug can make away with the waterproof shoes I just bought at Salvation Army for $5.99 in preparation for our trip. An inebriated pub patron could fall into us, causing us all to tumble down like dominoes, causing fatal noggin injuries on the curb.

Sorry, "kerb".

Weirdos.

We could fall to our deaths at the Cliffs of Moher. It happens. Apparently, in 2007, two people died there, though the Garda Síochána ruled it a murder/suicide, probably to keep the tourism trade humming along.

All this is to say that my wife deserves a shitload of props, because traveling with a neurotic asshole can't be all that much fun. This is also to say that, of course, having sex with Halle Berry might be extraordinarily jubilant, but it's probably safer to ball Joan Plowright.

Dorit

Hello, my little Masonites: meet Dorit.


If you're looking at this picture thinking to yourself, "Jesus Titmouse, old Apron's finally cracked-- two dogs, impending twins, AND he got himself a fucking cat!" please, calm thyself. We didn't get a cat. This cat currently resides approximately 330 miles away from my home base. It lives and thrives well below the Mason/Dixon Line, and there it shall remain, until its owner, Bernie, the shoeless bed-and-breakfasteer extraordinaire deems otherwise.

Mrs. Apron and I befriended this cat during our all-too-brief, and all-too-ballsweat-hot stay in Lexington, Virginia last month. We first set eyes on her the first day we arrived, and she was curled up in the lap of some random woman on the generously-sized front porch of the Federal-style B&B, and we assumed that the woman was Bernie's wife, and that the cat belonged to her. We were wrong on both accounts. Bernie's wife was deceased (it's amazing how quickly you learn about people at B&Bs, and, frankly, awful) and the cat belonged to Bernie, not this random woman who was, in fact, a guest. Her husband was hiking the mountains daily and she hung out at the B&B getting drunk on wine and beer with Bernie.

It wasn't until the next day that the cat decided to make our acquaintance, and that I decided her name was "Dorit."

That next day we actually met quite a few cats. A cadre of them, or a gang, if you will, hung out in the gravel parking lot of Duke's Antique Barn and, as I noted in an earlier blog, one of them was kind enough to demonstrate the awesomely fountainesque spectacle that is male cat urination/spray. It was indeed a sight to behold. Not only that, the sight of eight or nine cats sprawled out unceremoniously on the gravel, warming themselves in the insistent sunlight reminded me of a bunch of strung out opium-addicts. Except these cats use their tongues as toilet paper, which I don't think most opium-addicts are capable of doing.

Then again, I haven't met many opium addicts.

Later that night, when Mrs. Apron and I came back to the B&B after a heady day of antiquing and romping through a nature preserve, we were greated by this beautiful cat, just sitting on top of the outdoor table pictured above. She looked up at us almost questioningly, and responded well to a few well-timed head rubs. She was more into me than Mrs. Apron, but there's no accounting for taste.

Later that night, sitting outside as the sun set, I sipped on an unreasonably thick chocolate milkshake as the cat came bounding over to me like a dog, and leapt up onto my lap, inserting its claws leisurely into my knees and thighs. I was taken with her that I bit my lip and bugged my eyes and tried not to make too much of a fuss.

"What do you think her name is?" Mrs. Apron asked me.

"Well," I said, "Bernie's English, so she's got to have an English name." I cocked my head to gaze into the cat's electric eyes. "You're a little Dorit, aren't you?"

She responded by injecting her claws into my leg and purring seductively. I love a girl who gives mixed messages.

People I've spoken to about Dorit have said that the name sounds more Jewish than English. "That's because you're pronouncing it "Dor-EET", which, yeah, sounds Hebraic. I'm thinking more "Dahr-it"."

Of course, upon looking the name up online, it's a fucking Greek variant of "Dorothy" or "Dorothea" so go blow, right? It means "Gift from God" which, the more I look at baby names lately, it seems like that's the English translation of about half the fucking names out there.

I don't know if she's any gift from God, but she's sure a cutie. The next day, I asked Bernie what her name was, even though I knew whatever he was going to say was going to be a disappointment.

"Misty," he replied.

Hmpf, I thought. Fuck that.

Lessons Learned

Back in Southeastern Pennsylvania

*** Thanks for putting up with the short, not-especially-creative, exceptionally-shittily-spelled blog posts done from my Blackberry Whatever whilst we vacationed in sweltering bliss in Lexington, Virginia. I'm back now, in the sweltering familiarity of our 2nd floor office/craftatorium, and I hope you will find the quality back up-to-snuff. Speaking of back up-to-snuff, I seem to have gained another follower! What the fuck?! I ought to go away more often. Welcome under my apron, Kari. That's hot. ***

They say you never stop learning. Of course, they also say that you can't take it with you, and that is so not true. You totally can, especially if your trousers have cargo pockets and your rear seats fold flat.

Idiots.

Anyway, getting back to learning-- they say you never stop, even when you finish school. And that's a good thing, because I was last in a classroom in 2008, and that was grad school, and I don't think that anybody particularly learns anything in grad school. You're just there to get another essentially meaning-free degree so that you're not earning $11.00/hr so you can afford to pay back all those bum-hole-busting student loans.

(Woot?)

They're probably right about this learning shit, and I say that because I was just on vacation for a few days (as you know, because I go on and on and on about it like I was bouncing around on the goddamned lunar surface, for Christ's sake) and I sure learned a hell of a lot. Don't believe me?

Well, while in Lexington, Virginia, I learned that...

* The further South you drive, public radio starts to sound more like Christian radio.

* They still manufacture and sell C.B. radios.

* The best innkeeper in Lexington, Virginia is British. And he rarely wears shoes or socks.

* Ham, bacon, and sausage can, and should, be consumed together at breakfast in one sitting. It's the Pigfecta!

* There is a certain type of frog that makes a "BOING!" noise as it lazes around.

* We were worried that we wouldn't be able to understand any of the locals. As it turns out, none of the locals could understand my wife.

* I am physically and emotionally incapable of safely mounting a hammock.

* Cats (female ones, I'm assuming) piss in a most extraordinary way. We saw one urinating in the parking lot of an antiques mall. It just stood there, arched its back, lifted its tail straight up in the air like a flag pole and let loose an inelegant yellow fountain all over the place. My wife and I watched with our mouths agape.

* Irish Spring soap smells like farts.

* Nothing is open on Memorial Day.

* Michael Palin (whose diaries I'm reading) sometimes waxed philosophic about the state of his feces, which makes me feel strangely better about doing same.

* You're supposed to spend inordinate amounts of time making polite conversation with your innkeeper/bed-and-breakfast residents.

* When returning home on Memorial Day, don't pee at a highway rest-stop unless you're prepared to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with an Indian man and a 12-year-old boy at the urinal. I nearly died.

But I sure learned a lot.

The Weirdness That Binds

I just got off the phone with a man named "Bernie."

"Short for Beh-nehd, actually."

He's English, and the proprietor of a bed and breakfast in Lexington, Vermont, where my wife and I will be staying this weekend.

(If you're into fabric with frogs on it or antique typewriters, robbing our house might very well be on your agenda, then, this coming weekend. Please just try not to leave too much of a mess. And feed Finley.)

My conversation with Bernie lasted exactly 6 minutes and 26 seconds, but, two minutes into the conversation, we were fast friends-- united by our common association with another British hotelier, Basil Fawlty.

Ordinarily, I don't bring up 1970's-era British situation comedies like "Fawlty Towers" with bed and breakfast owners, but it just came up so naturally with Bernie, so organically. In truth, in faith, I just couldn't help it. It was so easy. So... right.

He was taking me through the list of rooms available.

"Well, there's the Pheasant Room, which, in my opinion, is the nicer of the two, but it's got two twin beds in it, and I don't know if that would suit your particular situation."

Instantly, my brain was flooded with images, dialogue, and memories of episode three of "Fawlty Towers," called "The Wedding Party" in which scandal erupts when an unmarried, lascivious couple try to rent a room with a double bed from the obsessively prudish and notoriously repressed Basil.

Basil: "It's against the law."

Guest: "What law?!"

Basil: "The law of England, nothing to do with me!"

Later in the scene, the guest temporarily relents, saying that he and his lady friend will take the room with the two twin beds, "if that's alright with the police."

I told Bernard that Mrs. Apron and I are, in fact, married, and that we'd take the room with the Queen-sized bed, "if that's alright with the police." Bernard howled with delight on the other end of the phone.

"Oh, God!" Bernie cried, "don't get me started on 'Fawlty Towers,' you'll have me going on all day. I've seen them all a thousand times! My favo(u)rite is the one with the Germans-- 'Don't mention the war! I mentioned it once and I think I got away with it alright!'" he quoted with precision. I couldn't help but chime in.

"A Prawn Goebbels, a Hermann Goering, and two Colditz salads!"

It was like talking to an old, um, gay friend. Not that Bernie's gay. He's just English. And I know they're basically synonyms. Basically. I didn't know that I was going to hit it off with the innkeeper at this place. I didn't even know he was an ex-pat. I swear to God. I didn't know.

I guess some people would be disappointed to know that their Southern-fried bed and breakfast isn't managed by some overalls-wearing good ol' boy named Hanky Lee, like they're somehow not getting the full, below-the-Mason-Dixon-Line experience, but I'm not disappointed. Not one jot. I'm elated. I am, however, a bit worried that they won't have any salad cream.

Stupid.

Quality, Not Quantity

Because you're smart, you may have noticed a steady decline in the quality of posts on this here blog, beginning on the downward slope on Christmas Day.

Or, you may not have noticed anything amiss at all, which says to me that the quality of this blog has been toilet doo-dooworthy for some time-- which is also possible, I have to admit. Hopefully, you've observed a difference. If not, well, I'll try to step up my game.

The reason for the deterioration of bloggy goodness is that, since Friday afternoon, my wife and I have been on vacation in Rhode Island and Massachusetts and environs. Ever the procrastinator, and ever-stricken as I am with my own quaint version of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, I sat down on Thursday evening, the night before Christmas Eve Day, and hammered out blog posts for December 24th, 25th, 26th, 27th and, yeah, today. (It's funny, because I'm writing this on the 23rd, and calling the 28th "today." Maybe it just sounds funny to me because I have turned my brain into something resembling eight-day-old French Onion Soup.)

Why do I do it to myself? I don't know. Because I kid myself into thinking that you expect it of me, and that there is a "you" to begin with. Because, since I don't know when, I've done this every day, and I would feel terrible and naked and sad if one day rolled around and I didn't do this anymore. Of course, there was a me before blogging, and there will be a me after blogging, and one day I know I will stop for good, because that's what bloggers do (we're very good at stopping, at one point or another-- just ask any of us) but I'm just not ready to do that yet.

And, yeah, I could (and have) blog from my super-snappy, four-year-old smartphone with its QWERTY keyboard, but my thumbs aren't eighteen anymore. Back when my thumbs were eighteen, texting didn't exist, as hard as that is to believe. The most significant thing I ever did with my thumb before texting was shove it up my butt during thirteen years worth of mathematics instruction.

I've now officially been blogging for so long that I don't even remember what I like so much about it. It's changed, I know that. I remember why I started-- to get back at the oppressors who censured me and maligned my good name after finding something I had written online that bore my name. My real name. The one I keep hidden. So who am I getting back at, really? In the shadows, under the covers. Ridiculous. What am I afraid of, still? Well, the fact of the matter is that, if you're employed by anyone other than yourself, and you write like I write, you just can't use your name.

You just can't.

I can't.

But the tradeoff is that I can pretty much say whatever I want, at 7:18am, Eastern Standard Time.

And I think I really, really like that.