Getting Shorter

I wonder when I'm going to start shrinking.

I'm six foot tall, and that seems rather excessive. I mean-- there's no real practical need for me to be six foot tall. Granted, height is useful in our house because Mrs. Apron is a full foot shorter than I, so I can be useful by fetching objects off shelves for her in the kitchen, and I can murder those flies that think they're safe by hanging out at the top of the windows. But, really, I don't need to be six foot for that.

5'10" would, honestly, be plenty.

Being 6 foot tall at 136 pounds is not anything to gloat about. It makes me look gangly and awkward, and nobody really likes looking gangly and awkward. If I were a girl, though-- I'd be a motherfucking knockout with a build like that. Just slap on a pair of 34-Bs and we'd be good to go for a roll in the hay, yo. But, as a man, it's just south of disconcerting.

When I am naked and I suck in my gut, I look like a Holocaust survivor. And barely a survivor, at that.

So, where lots of folks dread getting shorter, I'm not too terribly concerned about it. Shrinking a little bit will probably benefit my outward aesthetic, as will, most likely, developing a bit of that middle-aged paunch. A tad more weight would certainly not kill me. Yes, I realize that the skin on my arms will start to sag, and I might even develop minor-class bitch-tits, but I think it'll end up evening out, and I'll look okay as a middle-aged, or even elderly guy.

Let me get thick. Shave off an inch or too.

Whoa-- that didn't come out right. Not at all.

Things are getting short around here all the time. With gas prices going up, we're getting shorter on money, and our activities list is also getting shorter. I thought we might take a day-trip to NYC this weekend, but who can afford that right now?

As the weather gets hotter, I feel my patience threshold getting markedly shorter, too. Walking the dogs in blazing heat and soup-like humidity decreases my ability or interest in tolerating the slightest disruption to our little walkies routine. If Molly engages herself in placing her head through a bush, or if Finley dawdles too much in his elderly dog way, I tense up and I can feel myself about to lose it.

Over nothing. Because my patience is getting shorter. It's the heat. I don't do so well in the heat.

The grass and the hedges at our place got shorter on Tuesday. Because I had the day off, and because I was feeling guilty, I trimmed the hedges and cut the grass. Note: I didn't say, "I mowed the grass," although I did do that. But not before I cut it. See, the grass in our back-yard was so high that I had to cut it before I could mow it.

I had to cut the grass with the hedge clippers, like I was giving it a fucking pixie-cut. I'd say the grass was approximately a foot-and-a-half high in some places. Maybe two. I cut it, put the enormous clippings into a lawn bag that must have weighed sixty pounds when I was all done with it, and then I mowed the lawn.

And now, the grass is shorter.

Something else that's gotten noticeably shorter around here are my blog posts.

Have you noticed?

I have. It's not something I'm consciously doing, it's kind of just... happening. I don't know if I'm running out of steam, or if it's my subconscious telling me that it's time to throw in the gym sock, or if I'm realizing that the average modern attention span ought to be catered to more closely by those engaged in the act of writing, if I'm writing to be read, which I ostensibly am. I don't know what the reason is, but My Masonic Apron posts are getting shorter.

Sure, I haven't measured it empirically, and I certainly haven't done word-count analysis, but I know. I just don't know why. I suppose, though, that it's not really important, after all. My mission is to say what I've got to say and then get out, no?

Short and sweet and, if not short: shorter.

My Memesonic Apron

In addition to working at a psychiatric hospital, I also teach theatre to impressionable youngsters.

(Of course I do.)

Mostly, I do private audition coaching and monologue work, on an individual basis which, I guess, the word "private" implies. Just me and the student, one-on-one, sparring intellectually, dodging each other's witticisms and engaging in the kind of reparte that, I suppose, college professors find stimulating during office hours.

Occasionally, we also do scenework.

I'm fortunate enough, pretty much, to have my pick of the litter. A student gets recommended to me, or referred to me, or suggested to me, and I get to give thumbs up or thumbs down whether I want to work with him or her. For the past year, I've been working one-on-one with a fine, upstanding young man whom I will call Jack, because that's not his name. Jack is a rabbi's son, comes from a pretty well-to-do family, and travels quite a distance for our lessons, which is kind of flattering. I have little doubt that there are perfectly suitable and competent acting instructors closer to his front door, some of whom would probably be willing to travel to his front door. But I'm not. I make him schlep out to see me, and, for the past year, he has done just that.

Apparently, it's paid off. Last month, he applied to and auditioned for, and just got accepted to my alma mater. And I didn't even have to grease a single wheel.

Jack works hard, and he works on hard material. I throw challenging playwrights his way-- Sam Shepherd, Harold Pinter, Arthur Miller, Samuel Beckett, Israel Horovitz, just to name a few. He doesn't blink, he doesn't say "I can't," and he never comes to class unprepared. He knows I would kill him.

We have a great relationship. I'm casual in demeanor with him, loose with my language, but, when it's time to work, it's time to work-- I'm supportive and encouraging, but I'm also firm, demanding, and, when I spy bullshit, I call him out on it. If he's mugging or indicating or phoning it in, it does not continue. He likes to be called out. "Nobody's ever done that to me before," he says. Well, welcome to Hell, son.

Sometimes, the hour we have together stretches into an hour and fifteen minutes, or an hour and a half. We philosophize, we story-tell, we talk shop, but also we talk life. I remember one conversation recently we had about television. I was in the midst of enjoying a significant amount of "The Carol Burnett Show" sketches on YouTube, and I asked Jack,

"As someone who has grown up completely saturated by and with reality television, can you tell me honestly, from your perspective, why television is all shit nowadays?"

He smiled at me.

"Uh-oh, I just said something cantankerous about television, and I also just used the words 'nowadays' and 'cantankerous.' Did I just age in your eyes by forty-five years?"

Jack laughed.

"Yeah, you did. You talk like my Zayda." Then, like in our lessons, he got serious. I could tell it was coming by the way he furrowed his brow. "Look, what is reality TV? Shows like 'Teen Mom' and 'Jersey Shore'? They're people behaving badly-- like idiots. Assholes. And what is everybody obsessed with? The latest YouTube clip of some asshole doing something idiotic."

"Right, or it's a cat belching the French alphabet," I chimed in, "or a baby creating a telescope out of a paper towel roll."

"Yeah," Jack said, "and that's all bullshit, and I think the television producers and execs see us going ape over this dumb, mindless crap and they say, 'That's it-- that's what they want to see!'"

As someone who spends an inordinate amount of his day off watching Tim Conway breaking up the late Harvey Korman with just a knowing, sideways glance before an expertly-placed bit of improv, this precient statement by my pupil struck a chord in me.

"It's as if there's nothing well-crafted anymore, like, the market for that has simply dried up," I complained, as an elderly man might when confronted by a poorly-constructed corned beef sandwich at a faux-deli.

"Right, that's because there's nothing well-crafted online either. It's all drug-addicted retards doing crappy animation in their basements being funny or 'Shit My Dad Says' or blogs that are all just pics and videos or other shitty user-generated content, like, I don't know if you know what a 'meme' is--"

I stared at him.

"I want to murder you right now," I said. He cracked up.

"Okay," he said, "sorry, but, like Double Rainbow guy-- like, that's just total bullshit and, in two weeks, nobody's going to give a shit about that,"

"Right, because this culture is so vapid and ridiculous that a video of a 4-year-old ballerina dancing with a terrier is going to take the country by storm."

"Right," Jack agreed, "we're all about the next meme. Who can share what with whom first. That's what we're all about."

And that talented sonofabitch is right. And that gave me pause. What also gave me pause was that an eighteen-year-old high school senior suddenly suspected that I might be too old, no, perhaps too out-of-touch to know what a "meme" was.

Though he sometimes places his foot strategically inside his mouth when he's in my company, he is a smart kid. But I'm sure my alma mater will fix that.

And What's With This Masonic Shit Anyway?

I had a blog before this one, but I killed it, and it's dead. I cut its nuts off, and they rest, in a state of unsettling decomposition, inside a little velvet-lined gilded box on my nightstand.

This blog got bornded on Friday, March 13th, 2009, if you can believe that. We're just about at 611 posts or so, for those insufferable pedants who like to keep track of such things, and I'd like to say that "we've come a long way together" but, um, it's been largely a lot of the same around here. Fortunately, you probably hadn't noticed, until I was kind enough to point it out to you. I guess you won't be coming back here anymore. But, before you let the door hit your tight little ass on the way out, I think I at least owe you a post about the name of this here bloglette.

My Masonic Apron.

What the fuck is that about anyway?

Well, I don't know, really. Blogs need to be called something, don't they? Especially "anonymous" blogs. Because, if it wasn't anonymous, I could stick my name in the url and we'd be all gtg and shit, but, you know I can't do that. Because, in 2009, I worked with children. And, in 2010, I work with psychotic people. So, we're going to keep me in the shadows a little while longer, if that's okay with you. Because I don't want my nuts ending up inside some velvet-lined gilded box.

Anyway, when I was thinking about what to call this blog, one of my favorite Monty Python sketches of all time popped into my head. No, it's not the motherfucking dead goddamned parrot or the jesuschristing gay lumberfuckingjack.

Sorry. I just get so... you know.

It's the sketch that leads off Episode 17-- the Architect Sketch, which I first saw at age 12. In this sketch, John Cleese, a burgeoning, young and enthusiastic architect shows off his scale model of a block of apartment flats to two prospective investors, Terry Jones & Michael Palin. Unfortunately, Cleese is a bit manic and homicidal and the apartment building he is proposing is actually an abattoir, complete with "rotating knives" and "the last twenty feet of the corridor are heavily soundproofed. The blood pours down these chutes and the mangled flesh slurps into these..."

Whereupon he is cut off, in the polite, goodnatured fashion that British people have cut other British people off in for centuries. Cleese leaves in rage-filled, frustrated embarrassment, also an English tradition, and in comes another architect, Eric Idle, to have a go with his model, which falls apart and spontaneously catches fire during his presentation. His proposal is unanimously accepted by Jones & Palin's characters, because Idle's architect character is, say it with me now: a Mason.

And they all do a super-cool, secret Masonic handshake that gets done again in a super-cool, secret, slow-motion BBC Action Replay.

Can you discern why I was not universally liked by other twelve-year-olds?

So, Masonic business was funny to me, because I learned about it from Monty Python. I mean, it is funny, just like the idea of the Church Police is funny, and just like men wearing women's clothes is funny. When I went to New York City with my long-defunct best friend to visit the grand lodge of the white knights of the masons or whatever the hell it was called, I was on the verge of cracking up the whole time we were there, because of Monty Python.

That sonofabitch.

Apparently, there is this great, vast mythology surrounding Masons that goes back a long way. George Washington was a Mason, and he was pretty cool, even though he looks like an elderly lady. My wife's uncle is a Mason, apparently. He is short, overweight, bald except for a Hershey's kiss swirl on top of his head, and his voice is a mixture of Pee-Wee Herman and Buddy Hackett. So, I don't know what's so cool about being a Mason, but it can't be that cool.

And I've further urinated on its real estate by defaming their most sacred symbol, the masonic apron, by making that the title of this here bloggery.

What kind of monster am I?

How many self-respecting masons have Googled "My masonic apron" in some misguided attempt to learn how to fold or wash or starch or embroider their own towelette and found their way to this blasphemous, pornographic, Jewish little blog? Many. I have no doubt. Masons Google themselves a lot. I read about that on the handmirror of a Korean prostitute somewhere.

Okay. Um... I don't know exactly what the hell this post was, but it's done now, I swear. I'm good. You can... you can go now.

Jesus Told Me I'd Live To See My 500th BLOG-DAY!

Here we are, friends.

Do you believe it?

500 posts.

Five hundred.

Like the Ford Five Hundred. Do you remember that car? Why the fuck did they call it that? Doesn't make any sense. It's good they started calling it the Taurus. Everybody loves a sequel. That reminds me-- this blog is a sequel. Maybe there's one or two of you here who remember the first blog I created, called "Pudd'nhead Nathan." Is the sequel better than the original? I don't know... hard to remember, really. Probably it's just more of the same mullarkey.

I started this blog in March of 2009, on Friday the 13th, to be precise, and we all know how much I love being precise.

One might think that it would be unwise to commence a blog, or any endeavor really, on Friday the 13th, that it would be some sort of doomed adventure, star-crossed, if you will. But I’m the kind of guy who lies on the floor naked and tries to shoot pee-pee into the ceiling fan. Well, not really—but, if I ever got drunk, I’d probably be that kind of guy. Think about that next time you muse quietly to yourself, “God, I’d love to see that Apron guy drunk!”

Trust me. You wouldn’t.

I don’t know that I realized I had started my blog on a Friday the 13th but, looking back on it, I’m glad I did. It’s symbolic and shit. It’s maudlin and funny and depressive and balls-up, and I like to think I embody those adjectives, even if I don’t, or I don’t all at the same time.

I’m not sure how many bloggers out there these days make it to 500 posts, and do so in just over a year and three months. Pretty balls-up, yeah? I don’t know if it’s stick-to-it-ness or O.C.D. or loneliness or mania or a love of words or a love of you or an incessant desire to be heard—I don’t know if it’s the Chilean government that keeps me going every morning, but we can’t blame drugs. I don’t know if it’s Mrs. Apron. My blog is my way of reaching out to her, every day, in addition to the emails and the text-messages and the voicemails we zip back-and-forth to each other throughout the workday. They’re all really love letters to my wife, if we want to be honest here, and all you creepy voyeurs are kind of peeking through the window treatments.

And I may be an insufferable pervert, but I kind of like that. Kin. Kay.

She’s the one who told me I should blog, and I listened. She’s the one who told me I should become and EMT, and I listened. And now we’re talking about becoming a cop—a day I never, ever thought would come. But I’m listening. Anybody who loves to complain in rote, Sex-and-the-City fashion that husbands don’t listen should come talk to me. Or listen to me. Or… they should do… something. To me. I’m very glad that my wife told me to start blogging. She thinks I’m a real writer. God, I love her.

I was thinking about what I ought to blog about on my 500th Blogday, and I really still can’t decide. I write stream-of-consciousness, and I often don’t think about what a post is really going to be about until I’m at least five or six paragraphs in. My wife wanted me to devote a post to an article that appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer recently that bore this title:

“Cornhole Tournament to Benefit Wounded Veterans”

While it feels admittedly a little puerile, a little Jay Leno, it is pretty funny. May I never be accused of turning my nose up at sophomoric humor. Never. I mean, haven’t the organizers of this event ever seen “Office Space”? (“Watch out for your cornhole, bud.”) Truthfully, though, as funny as it is when naïve individuals without a vulgar bone in their body make an inexplicable blunder like that which opens themselves up to torment and ridicule in the blogosphere by more culturally-aware individuals with middle-school sensibilities, I’m kind of just not fully feeling the cornholeness today. I mean-- it's Sunday. Is anybody reading this sacrilege on Sunday anyway?

Anyway, about these cornhole people: they’re just two good-hearted folks trying to organize an event to raise money for wounded soldiers—and am I crossing a line by belittling them, and poking fun at their little faux pas? Maybe I’m getting old. A sixteen-year-old asked me yesterday if I texted and, when I answered “yes” she cracked up. Little does she know I also blog. And that’s a good thing.

Happy 500th blogday to me. Thanks for coming to the party.

Watch out for your cornhole, bud.

Blogsumer Confidence

Citizen's Bank wants you to know that there's still loans and credit available for your small business.

Toyota wants you to know that their engineers are hard at work, toiling around the clock to figure out ways to prevent your Camry from becoming the Herbie Antichrist.

When consumer confidence gets shaken, companies with a lot to lose often spend some serious advertising dollars on feel-good, security-blanket-covered ads that are supposed to let us know that, yeah, they know they've fucked up-- but they're working on it. With these commercials in mind, I thought I'd send a little message out there to my readers because, really, we're not immune from feeling insecure or fearful of the future. Right?

Dear "My Masonic Apron" Readers:

These are troubling times.

The blogosphere is awash in a sea of witticisms, snarkitude, YouTube clips, "Lost" commentary, and banal stories about how so-and-so blogger encountered thus-and-such homeless guy and had an inspirational experience, only to realize later that her wallet and iPhone were missing and she was now peeing seafoam green, with a red shank around her anus.

We cannot spend ten minutes in the blogosphere without reading the word "random" or the paraword "WTF," and we hunger for a blog post from a 20something blogger that does not include a quoted drunk text, a reference to Lady Gaga, or a bright pink background. Indeed, surfing the blogosphere is a dangerous and often thankless endeavor, and that is why I created "My Masonic Apron," as a place where we can all go for ribald rants and unfettered unction, and inquisitive individualism, unmarred by pictures of clowns or intoxicated chicks showing their left nipple or song clips from "The Black Eyed Peas."

But, lately, this blog has been failing you.

The posts have gotten shorter and perhaps more obtuse. My attention often wanders while I blog, and, while I would never disgrace you by blogging completely in the nude, I have found myself so absent-minded of late that, at times, I have observed that my fly is down mid-blog. And, while you couldn't possibly have known that, I feel that you are so observant, so tuned-in that you can't help but notice that something's up, even if you can't put your finger on it. You may not know exactly what the problem is, but you've got a hunch, and sometimes that's all Columbo, T. J. Hooker, and Mr. Tibbs had to go on.

Let's level with each other. You know one thing and one thing only: your blogsumer confidence has been shaken. And I know that you know, and now you know that I know. So, now: we know.

I want you to have my assurance, as the Chief Executive-Officer, Founder, Creator, and Almighty Exalted Uberominlordio Christifferous Leader of "My Masonic Apron," that underpaid East Indian technicians with unpronouncable names, outdated eyeglasses, and patchy facial hair are hard at work on this problem. They are working around the clock in their chambray shirts with visible wife-beaters and ambiguous gold chains embedded in countless layers of thick, black chest hair and will not stop working until this problem is solved. Our commitment to excellence has faltered, and, at times, cracked-- but we at "My Masonic Apron" have never promised perfection, and is not the Liberty Bell more beautiful for its cracks?

We think so.

Because, in these uncertain times, you deserve a better "My Masonic Apron."

A "My Masonic Apron" that consistently delivers-- on time, undamaged by sun, heat, or rain-- a "My Masonic Apron" that works for you, that's there when you want it, when you need it.

A "My Masonic Apron" that you can can be proud to tell your friends about, to speak about with your head held high in the confessional, to gleefully hyperlink to in your own blog, to admit that you read on your Blackberry under the tablecloth at banal family dinners and insuferable faculty meetings.

A "My Masonic Apron" you can follow with apron-waving pride.

You haven't gotten that "My Masonic Apron" lately, and we at team apron know that, and we're hard at work on a solution.

Trust us.

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.

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.

The Secrets of a Successful Blog

If you've decided to read my post because you're a.) longing to know the secrets of a successful blog and b.) thinking you'll find them here, then I'm very sorry for you.

Very.

Someone once told me that THE secret to a successful blog is to "post regularly, each day, and at the same time each day." I don't remember who the hell it was-- someone with a successful blog, apparently.

As I'm sure most of you who are by now familiar with my dickhead-may-care attitude, this piece of advice certainly wasn't given in response to my asking this person, "Hey, what are the secrets of a successful blog?" Most of the advice I receive is unsolicited, not to mention unnecessary, and unused.

Truth be told, (that's why you come here, isn't it?), I don't even know what a successful blog is, and, even if I found out, I'm not even sure I'd want one. Is a successful blog defined by the number of hits? The number of visits? The number of times some random person in Perth gets directed here by Googling the phrase, "foaming neck pussy?" Is it defined by the number of readers? The number of followers? The number of comments per post? Per week?

Jesus. It seems like, whatever success is typically defined as, it has an awful lot to do with numbers. Well, I don't do numbers. Just ask every math teacher I've ever had since 2nd grade.

Frankly, I think my blog is successful because I'm writing it, and you're reading it. And, if I haven't thanked you for that in the recent past, thank you. You rock this pissparty. Hard.

Whether or not it's a component of "success" or not, I do try to post at the same time each day. Posting every day isn't a problem for me, since I have obsessive-compulsive tendencies, blogging fits in nicely to the various routines I find so comforting in life. However, it's not always possible for me to blog at the same time every day. Take today, for example. Maybe, for some of you, at 7:31 (EST) you checked out My Masonic Apron and you were like, "What the fuck? Where is this little twattard?" Well, I was at the garage getting the oil changed in my wife's car. This requires much humorous banter with Soly & Jack, the Israeli and Chinese mechanics with whom I would spend every working day of my life if I had any mechanical competence whatsoever. So, that took a while. Then, I had to come home and walk the dog. Then I had to buy my wife an anniversary card (3 YEARS, PEEPS!) and, while I was doing all of these things, I realized:

"Wow. It's a good thing I'm a blogger and not a writer."

Because, really, you can't walk into your editor's office and be like, "Hey, Mr. Jimmerjims, sorry that piece was late-- I was bullshitting with my mechanics and walking my dog and stuff."

You know? You'd get a size 11 Florsheim in your crotch for pulling that kind of shit at work.

And I realized that I really, truly, madly, deeply, obscenely LOVE being a blogger. And it's, of course, you who have made me a blogger. So, I guess, in some weird, syllogistic way, I... love... you?

Whoa.

That's hot.

And maybe that's the secret of being a successful blogger: embracing your readers, and embracing who you are to them-- and who you are to yourself. Fuck what you're not. That's just a head case waiting to happen.

One thing is for sure: there are many rules of the blogging world that I don't follow. New templates. Advertising. Giveaways. Award regulations. Responding diligently to commentatortots. Keeping posts short. Adding music, pics, links, eye candy, suggestive pictures of self draped around telephone poles... um.... cute puppies and shit?

But I'm pretty sure I have a successful blog anyway. And now I (and you!) know the secret.

Tongue-Tied in Oakland

I don't know what to say about the cop-killings in Oakland, but I feel compelled to say something.

It's expected of me, law enforcement advocate and supporter that I am. You knew it was coming. You knew it was time for another sad blogpost, one that would not make you giggle or titter, or comment. A sad one. As it says on the banner a'top "My Masonic Apron," this is a sometimes sad place.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, here we are. It's time to put a strip of black over the badge. It's time for the white gloves. It's time to acknowledge a sacrifice greater than ourselves.

They're saying a lot of things in Oakland this morning, and much of what they're saying has to do with the killer. They say that he was "frustrated with the parole system." They say that he was "trying to better himself." They say that he "wasn't being treated right." They say that he "wanted to get rehabilitated and to find a job."

Well. That's what they say anyway. People say a lot of things that don't make any sense when they're upset, and Lovelle Mixon's family has every right to be upset over the blood that this man spilt in Oakland on March the 21st, 2009.

I just don't understand how arming yourself with an assault rifle is a logical component of a plan to "better yourself." Maybe one of Lovelle Mixon's family members can explain that to the people of Oakland or, better yet, to the family members of the deceased officers.

You know-- this isn't what I want to say. This is coming out all wrong. I'm sorry. Let me try again.

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

It is a rarity when I am at a loss for words. This is one of those times. I felt sure that I could sit down at the computer this morning and just start clicking away, and that, as usual, something cogent and passionate would pour out, but I'm not getting anything. Maybe I'm just spent. Maybe all the death and despair of Philadelphia has bled me dry, and has disabled me to the point where I cannot respond to what has happened 3,000 miles away. 3 dead cops, one brain dead-- a police department in shambles and a city in fear and despair because some fucking bastard was "frustrated with the parole system?"

How, exactly, do you respond to that?

What do you say?

Someone wrote a comment on the Oakland Tribune's website that said, "They all got what they deserved. Everybody knows cops are brutish thugs."

And how, exactly, do you respond to that?

What do you say?

Here's what I have to say personally, and it's nothing that I can say in any commentary or any editorial or any newspaper: if this tragedy doesn't move you in some way-- if it doesn't make you see that the criminal element of this society has effortless access to a plethora of guns that they are unafraid to use, if this doesn't give you a pang of guilt for every "cop-with-a-donut" joke you've unthinkingly made, if this bloodbath doesn't give you a moment's pause: then I guess I just don't know what to say to you.

I guess I'm just tired. Tired of the violence and the meaningless words that follow afterwards, from them, from me, from the governors and the mayors and the presidents. From everybody. I'm just so fucking tired of it.

So, go on. Play your bagpipes. Write your hateful, spiteful comments to the newspapers, and your supportive ones, too. Send your flowers. Lower your flags. Cross your breast.

Just get on with it.

With Every Welcome Comes a Fare-thee-Well

As I warmly welcome you to My Masonic Apron, I bid a fond farewell to P'H N.

He was a close, trusted and dear friend to us all, and to me, although I admit that he sometimes got on my nerves. I know he will be missed in many various ways, but his spirit will live on at My Masonic Apron. For those of you who missed it in The Philadelphia Gay News and the London Telegraph, here is a copy of P'H N'ss obituary:

"P'H N, a resident of Blogspot.com, died today at the age of 8 months, 336 posts. He suffered from a massive case of indigestion coupled with the concurrent complications of traumatic vaginal dissection, renal insufficieny, rheumatic bolero, and a piano being dropped on his head.

While rescue personnel from several agencies responded to the scene of the incidents and tried to revive him, P'H N expired in the arms of a novice EMT who was attempting to affix an oxygen mask to his left ear. Before he passed, P'H N was overheard saying,

"That goes around my nose and mouth, you fucking retard."

P'H N leaves behind scores of random, pimply, skeevy Googlers as well as 14 dedicated followers who, for some reason, hung on his every word as if it were a missive from the Messiah or at the very least, Jim Cramer of CNBC's "Mad Money."

In lieu of flowers, which are always left in the vase far too long until they end up smelling like the carcass of the hamster that escaped from its cage when you were a boy and you found seventeen years later, rotting away in the basement, donations may be made to The United Society of Bloggers Who Have Had to Abandon Their Blogs and Create New Ones for Some Unknown Reason. Donations may also be made to Victoria's Secret, which was P'H N's favorite shop. Well, catalogue."

So, as we raise a glass of whatever's laying around in the fridge to P'H N, I urge you to join me in forgetting about the freeloading bastard as quickly as possible and, in turning your back on him, make My Masonic Apron your new drug-of-choice.

You won't regret it.