The Water Must Flow

So there we are. Last weekend. My wife’s birthday bash at our house. We’re all full of food, full of drink, full of the joy of each other’s company. Were you to walk through this gathering, you’d hear snippets of witty conversation and astute observations about any number of topics. But then somewhere in there, you’d hear something else. 

“Uh, dude, our sump pump’s making a fucked up sound.” 

Yes, it’s true. Right at the tail end of my wife’s birthday party, our house belched up the best gift of all: no more indoor plumbing. 

The long and the short of it is that it’s fixed now and we can once again allow water to flow out through its various exits, along with all the wonderful things that water sweeps away with it, only a small amount of which backed itself up into one of our bathrooms. Really, it could have been so much worse. 

The plumber that came to our rescue labored outside for several cold drizzly hours, and when he was done, I thought to myself, never again will I take our waste-water system for granted. But then I thought, wait, of course I will. I take stuff like that for granted all the time. 

Sure, in that moment, and now as I’m sitting here thinking about it, I’m quite aware of all the mechanisms in place that allow us to send water and its baggage on its merry way. And then last night, when somebody smashed their car into a utility pole and knocked out the electricity in our hood, I was very aware of it, too (that’s right, we lost water and power in one weekend. It was Little House On the Prairie up in here). But gratitude for everyday conveniences is a fleeting thing, am I right? We only think about them when we’re forced to do without them. And I know I’m not the only one here. I’ve seen your Facebook statuses. I’ve read your tweets. 

Truth is, though, I tend not to be as grateful of a person as I’d like to be. I’m aware, in a theoretical sense, of the power of gratitude to increase one’s happiness, but I’m not often so great at making the leap into actually being grateful. At least not on a regular basis. I have a shitty way of focusing on the things I don’t have instead of the things I do, even though I try to instill gratitude in my kids all the time. Be grateful, dammit! Honestly, on the list of things about myself that I wish I could just change with a snap of my fingers, this is probably in the top 3, right up there with the ability to draw and having a sixth finger on each hand. 

Maybe it’s the issue of it being a thing of being, of being a certain way, as opposed to doing something. Perhaps the doing leads to the being. Do the gratitude, be the gratitude, or some such snippet of wisdom.

So how’s this for some doing? A look back over this past weekend’s adventures with my gratitude goggles on. I present to you a list of things I’m thankful for, in spite of the shit.

• That we only had to do without indoor plumbing for about a day and a half.
• That my in-laws live just a few minutes away and let us use their facilities.
• That the sump pump broke near the end of the party rather than the start, because dude? We went through some beer.
• Speaking of beer, I’m very grateful that my friends all have such good taste in the stuff. Nobody shows up with piss.
• That I’m married to this wonderful woman and was able to celebrate her birthday with her:

So cute

• That so many of my friends are such fantastic cooks. Seriously, when we do a potluck, we eat well.
• That getting our plumbing fixed cost us far less than we were fearing, because bullets: we were sweating them.
• That it’s still possible to write even if you can’t flush the toilet in the other room, as evidenced by the fact that I still got in lots of writing. Yeah, that novel? Still writing it. Maybe one day I’ll even finish it. 
• That we all remained civil, even cheerful through the whole thing. 
• That the plumbing outage and the power outage did not occur simultaneously. 

I might be back to not thinking about the portal opened by the little handle on the toilet as soon as tomorrow, but for this moment at least, I’m pretty stoked that the damn thing works.

And Speaking of Ninjas...

The following story originally appeared on The Badgers of Uncertain Fortune where some friends and I endeavored to all write one short story a week. It was one of my favorites to emerge from my fingertips during that exercise. The writing prompt that started this one was "My Imaginary Friend." 

YOSHONGA

“Lie back on your mat and close your eyes.”

The instructor’s voice lilts across the room and the class gladly obeys. It has been an exhausting hour of stretching, posing, balancing, inverting. A bead of sweat races down my brow, but like everything else that vies for my attention during these rare moments of stillness, I do my best to ignore it. The instructor walks between us, talking us through the savasana, guiding our awareness from one end of our bodies to the other and out to its farthest reaches, urging us to release any tension that we encounter along the way.

A tile in the ceiling above me slides away and a shadow appears in the opening, the blackness punctuated only by a pair of eyes. Ninja. The shadow looks down at the prone forms on the floor beneath it, at the instructor with her back turned, looking out the window. “Relax your toes, relax the space between your toes…” It then looks straight down at me, lying still on my mat with my eyes closed, trying - without trying to try - to be aware of as little as possible.

The shadow drops out of the ceiling. Falling faster than gravity, he pulls a saber from a sheath strapped to his back and pivots so that the point of the blade is aimed at my throat. The sunlight streaming through the window strikes the sword, only to be absorbed by the ninja magic that imbues the metal.

Barely the length of a baby cobra fang lies between the tip of the blade and the flesh of my throat when an arm clad in silks of green, pink, and yellow reaches down out of the hole through which the ninja just emerged and grasps the shadow warrior by the ankle, halting his descent. As he is pulled back into the ceiling, the ninja looks up into the blackness between the third and fourth floors and sees the face of his undoing. A whisper escapes his lips, the first word he has uttered since beheading his former master and entering the service of the shadow.

Yoshonga.

And then he is gone. No sound reaches my ears, nor those of my classmates. Our eyes see only the insides of our eyelids. The instructor thinks that perhaps she hears an insect flying through the room, but ignores it.

“Slowly bring awareness back.”

The instructor’s voice reaches me as if from the other side of a dream and I wonder, as I always do, if I have fallen asleep. I wiggle my fingers, wiggle my toes. I open my eyes and think nothing of the unremarkable ceiling above me.

Good Day To You, Sir!

Here's how we in the Holmes household feel about the end of Movember's impact upon my face:



Subtle, no?

Both of those lightsaberish instruments you see me using there came absolutely free from the nice people at Philips Norelco, but rest assured that the opinions you see below are mine. I call them nice folks because they donated an extra $15,000 to our team, effectively doubling our team's Movember contribution, and all they asked was that we use their stuff and put it on video. Why, that's just downright friendly.

The Vacuum Stubble and Beard Trimmer rules if for no other reason than it vacuums all the hair up as you slice it off of your face. NO MORE CLEANING UP STUBBLE OUT OF THE SINK! You can't imagine how happy this makes me. As for the SensoTouch 3D, I like the fact that it looks like a hydra, but doesn't yank the hair out of your face. Electric razor technology has clearly advanced since last I used one, many moons ago.

Okay Movember, that was fun. Now, on to writing about things other than facial hair.

Watch For The Stache Signal

So, Holmes...how's Movember going?

Glad you asked, friend. Tell you the truth, between the new glasses I got a while back and my latest facial hair configuration, I'm feeling a bit Detective Gordon these days.

Thanks to everyone who's tossed some 'stache cash our way. If you'd still like to contribute to the cause, just swing on over and clicky-clicky-typey-typey. Because cancer fucking sucks. 

My Name Isn't, But Could Be, Earl

Now lookie here, y'all. I ain't claimin' to be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I know a good cause when I see one. And a bunch of fellows growin' out their mustaches in the name of fightin' cancer? Well now if that don't beat all, then I don't know what. So if you would please, take a few minutes and clicky-click your computer on over to the Movember internet page and drop a few dollars in the jar, why that'd be mighty kind of you.

Thanks y'all!

Keys

I can barely convey to you with words how well these two simple phone-snapped pictures capture the wonderful differences between my two boys. So I'll hush and let the pictures talk.

Do The Ninjitsu

I was looking at a bunch of pictures of my kids from this past Halloween. They both wanted to dress like ninjas, to which my wife and I were like SCORE! because 1) cheap-ass costumes and 2) NINJAS. Everybody wins.

So I was looking at these pictures and it occurred to me that parenting is kind of like being a ninja in that it involves a lot of hard work with very little recognition. Nobody thanks the ninja for pulling off a flawless assassination, no matter that he or she left not a trace of their presence. There are no attaboys for the shadow warrior who successfully infiltrates the enemy compound and defeats scores of attackers. There are no ninja company meetings where the ninja CEO recognizes Bob and Steve for Excellence in Disappearing Into Clouds of Smoke. 

I was gonna write about all that, but then I got distracted thinking about how there’s really not much of a place for ninjas in a democracy, not in an official capacity anyway, but I guess ninjas typically don’t function in an official capacity anyway, but I guess what I mean is that assassination -- covert and otherwise -- isn’t really a key driver of change in our country, which I would call a very good thing, none of which is to say that there are not shadowy figures doing shadowy things in the halls of power and perception, they just don’t typically carry throwing stars on their person...as far as I know. Then I remembered that I hate writing about politics because it’s not as much fun as writing about ninjas. All of which is to say, holy shit, ninjas.

Shadow Warriors

Dear Me, I Seem To Have Misplaced My Beard

No, actually, I washed it down the drain. Much to my wife's chagrin, I'm taking part in Movember again this year. For those of you not familiar, Movember is this thing where a bunch of dudes take November and we run the N out of town and replace it with an M. Kind of like October and Rocktober. Then we continue the party for the rest of the month by growing out our mustaches, and everybody gives us money in hopes that we'll stop it with the mustache action. About three weeks into it, we all sit down to a big-ass turkey dinner. It's called Thanksgiving because we give thanks for our beautiful mustaches that, by that point, are in full glorious bloom. Or maybe because people are thankful that it's almost over. Either way, when December arrives, we give all the money that everybody gave us to groups that fight cancer, but we don't give them the turkey dinner because we already ate that.

In order to do Movember right, you're supposed to start things off with a clean palate, which, for me,  meant parting with my beard. True, my beard is not as epic as that of my friend Bill (pictured below), but I was used to it. I like my beard. And yes, so does my wife.

Bill is a pirate

So in order to do this, I had to go from being this adorable sweetheart...

Wouldn't hurt a fly

To this fucking psychopath:

Obviously hacks people to pieces while humming along to Katy Perry

So yeah, Movember. Mustaches good, cancer bad, GIVE US YOUR MONEY!!!

I Am The 26th Best DadBlogger In The DadBlogospheriverse

Or, put another way, there are only 25 motherfuckers in the whole of existence that can top me in this dadblogging business. Thus sayeth Babble:

I have no words, other than these ones here of course. Truly, I'm speechless, other than this babble (ha!) that's dribbling outta my keyboard. It's cool to be on a best-of list, but I'm not really sure how I did it, seeing as how I hardly post in this space anymore. Looking through the most popular searches that bring people to my blog, I'm guessing that somebody over at Babble must like posts about Mickey's Fine Malt Liquor, werewolf zombies, Burt Reynolds, ninjas, militant Buddhism, atheists, and going to your happy place. Only possible explanation.

If I sound snarky, it's only because I'm confused, or maybe you are. Confused or not, I just want to say that I appreciate those of you who take the time to come by here. It's nice to have somebody picking up what you're laying down, you know what I mean? So yeah. Thanks y'all.

Far, Then Near, Then Far

A Lot Can Happen In 24 Hours - part 8

Once again, this year, I signed on to be part of the something-like-annual 24-hour theater event known as Slapdash Flimflammery. By 24-hour, I mean that a series of short plays are written, rehearsed, and staged for an audience inside that amount of time. This is the 8th year that Loaded Gun Theory Productions has put this on, and if memory serves, I've participated in all but one, maybe two, of them in some capacity - usually writing, sometimes acting, and a couple of times, both.

Yeah, those days of "both" are long over.

This year, the theme of the event was Time. When I got to the theater Friday night, the following things happened:

1. I wrote down a line of dialogue on a note card. This was to be the last line of my play. The other six writers did the same and we threw them all in a hat. 
2. We passed the hat around and drew. Whatever line you drew was your first line. 
3. We threw twenty-one note cards into yet another hat (or was it the same hat?), one card for each actor with only their gender written on it. Each writer then drew three cards to know what they had to work with sex-wise, though since we're all adults, that's really the kind of thing we should know already. 
4. Since the theme was Time, there was yet another collection of notecards on which the members of Loaded Gun Theory had written various dates, some future, some past, one present. Each of us drew one. This date was to be used somehow in the play we wrote. 
5. We all sat down around the table and made with the playwrightering. Our deadline? 6:00 AM.

Coffee station

I don't think we quite killed the coffeepot, but we definitely made a dent.

I'm 35 years old, so staying up all night is not the cakewalk that it once was. I had taken the day off from work and attempted a nap, but I've never been able to sleep during the day. I yawned on my way to the theater, then yelled at myself. "There'll be none'o that, Holmes!"

By the time the directors arrived at 7:00 AM, we were all plenty zombiefied. After conversing  briefly with the director that drew my script, I went home to make a futile attempt at a nap while she went off to rehearse with her actors. They had just under half a day to get the thing on its feet.

As always, it was a great time, the plays all came off really well, and everybody - as far as I could tell - had a blast, made all the more blasteriffic by the keg that followed the show. Have you ever stayed up all night and then the whole next day and then downed a beer? Your shit gets loopy, my friends. No joke.

This year's crew of writers

Anyway, below is the script that I came up with over the course of Friday night - Saturday morning. The date I drew was October 31st, 2364. I could have kicked myself for the last line that I came up with, but it worked out, I guess. Your brain goes weird places in the middle of the night.

Hollow Steve

Melba is seated cross-legged on the ground picking her nose. Downstage from her, off to one side, is a gargoyle up on a pedestal of some kind. Gozz enters from behind her. She is carrying a large futuristic-looking gun. She stands behind Melba and points the gun at the back of her head.

GOZZ

What about the pterodactyl?

Melba looks up at the gargoyle.

MELBA

That’s a gargoyle, gorgeous.

GOZZ

No, stupid. I mean for Hollow Steve.

MELBA

Oh. A pterodactyl? Like a flying dinosaur?

GOZZ

Yeah!

Gozz shrieks and flaps her arms in flying dinosaur fashion. She’s very into it. No really, don’t puss out. Get Mesozoic on this shit.

MELBA

That’s impressive.

GOZZ

Fucking ptero-ma-dactyl, bitch! Great idea, huh?  

MELBA

I don’t know.

GOZZ

What’s not to know? Need me to do it again?

MELBA

No. I mean, you can if you want. I just mean, dinosaurs? What are we, five?

GOZZ

No. I’m eleven.

MELBA

Yeah, and I’m going to be twelve next month.

GOZZ

So?

MELBA

So, don’t you think maybe we’re getting to be too old for this Hollow Steve stuff?

GOZZ

What? No way.

MELBA

Look, Gozz, gorgeous, I’m not saying we can’t mutate this year. I’m just saying, let’s be cool about it.

GOZZ

Pterodactyls are cool.

MELBA

No. They’re not. They’re really not. They put dinosaurs on little kid tee-shirts and in little kid read-books and on little kid table-mats for gross little kids to spill their dinosaur-shaped mac-and-cheese product all over. Face it. Dinosaur equals little kid equals not cool.

GOZZ

A dinosaur would tear your head off.

MELBA

Maybe if they didn’t go extinct thousands of years ago.

GOZZ

Millions.

MELBA

What?  

GOZZ

Dinosaurs went extinct millions of years ago, not thousands.

MELBA

Congratulations.

GOZZ

A pterodactyl’s wingspan could reach up to twelve meters. Or as my great great great

Counts the “greats” on her fingers

great great grandpa would say, forty feet.

MELBA

Look, if you’re so hung up on going out for Hollow Steve mutated like a pre-schooler, be my guest.

GOZZ

But the three of us always mutate as the same thing.

MELBA

Well maybe things change this year.

GOZZ

Well, what do you think we should go as?  

Before Melba can answer, Comet streaks in with all the energy of a preteen who has downed five too many energy drinks.

COMET

AH MAH GAW! AH MAH GAW! AH MAH GAW! AH MAH GAW! AH MAH GAW!

And so on and so forth as you see fit.

MELBA

Comet!

GOZZ

Comet!

Melba and Gozz both yell at Comet, trying to catch her attention while she runs around screaming in full-on freakout mode, seemingly unable to control herself. When shouting at her fails, they resort to physical restraint.

MELBA

Comet, gorgeous. Use your words.

COMET

You’ll never guess what Ethyl and them are going as for Hollow Steve.

GOZZ

What?

COMET

Robots.

GOZZ

Robots?!

COMET

Fifteen meter robots.

GOZZ

What?! That’s like fifty feet!

MELBA

Rolling eyes

Ahm gaw.

COMET

With flames.

GOZZ

Flames?!

COMET

And lasers.

GOZZ

Lasers?!?!!

COMET

I know, right!?

MELBA

What the ever.

GOZZ

Examining gun

I don’t even think my mutator does robots. Oh yeah it does. But they’re only six meters. No flames or lasers either.

COMET

Takes gun from Gozz and examines it

I think you have to pop in a Moleculo upgrade clip.

GOZZ

Ahm gaw. Those are like three-million dollars.

COMET

I already spent my allowance.

GOZZ

Okay, you know what? That’s fine, because I know what we’re going to mutate as this year and it’s going to fly circles around Ethyl and her stupid robots. Li-tuh-ruh-lee.

COMET

What what what? Tell me tell me tell me.

MELBA

Dinosaurs.

COMETS

Dinosaurs?

GOZZ

Hey, I wanted to say it!

MELBA

Flying dinosaurs.

COMET

Flying dinosaurs?! YOU MEAN PTERODACTYLS?!?!!

GOZZ

I KNOW, RIGHT!!!

Gozz and Comet both do the shrieking arm-flapping routine that Gozz did earlier. Seriously, go nuts, y’all. They take to snapping at each other, as one could imagine real pterodactyls might do with those long sharp beaks of theirs. Comet makes the mistake of snapping at Melba.

MELBA

Would you two stop it?

COMET

You don’t want to be a pterodactyl, Melby?

GOZZ

Melba thinks flying dinosaurs with wingspans of up to twelve meters and talons that could slice through steel are lame.

COMET

They could slice through steel?

GOZZ

Probably, sure, yeah, totally.

MELBA

They are lame. This whole Hollow Steve thing is lame. Who was this Hollow Steve guy anyway? And why do we mutate into things because of him?

COMET

I think Steve was the name of the guy that invented the mutator gun. I don’t know why they call him hollow, though.

GOZZ

My great great great great

counts on her fingers

great great grandma said it used to be called something else. Like Hollow Eve or something.

MELBA

So who was Eve?

GOZZ

I don’t know. But supposedly, the way it used to work was, kids would go around to people’s houses and knock on their doors and ask for stuff.

COMET

Like money?

GOZZ

Yeah! Or food.

MELBA

Wow, that actually sounds kind of fun.

COMET

I want to go to people’s houses and ask for food and money.

GOZZ

But how would you do that if you were a pterodactyl? Or a fifteen meter robot?

COMET

Or even last year when we all went as horses. I guess you could put the money in your saddlebags.

GOZZ

But pterodactyls don’t wear saddlebags.

COMET

But they could. We could make special pterodactyl bags. OH! Or we could carry baskets in our steel-shredding talons!

GOZZ

Totally!

They do the pterodactyl routine again, this time holding bags and baskets.

COMET

I’m a pterodactyl! Give me your fucking money!

GOZZ

Or I’ll tear the roof off of your car!

COMET

And give me some ice cream while you’re at it!

GOZZ

Or I’ll stab you with my beak!

Beak-stabbing motions!

COMET

Chocolate ice cream!

GOZZ

Chocolate, bitches!

More pterodactylling.

MELBA

STOP IIIIIIIIIT!

Silence. Comet and Gozz freeze mid-flap and look at Melba in shock. Comet lets out an inquisitive pterodactyl caw.

MELBA (cont’d)

I don’t want to be a pterodactyl.

GOZZ

I think you’re outvoted.

MELBA

But I, I...

She breaks down sobbing.

GOZZ

You’re still outvoted.

COMET

Hey, Melby, don’t cry. It’s okay.

Comet puts her finger in Melba’s nose in a gesture that is meant to be comforting.

Are you crying because you don’t want to mutate as a pterodactyl for Hollow Steve?  

Melba nods.

GOZZ

Picking her own nose

This from the person who was going on about maturity.

COMET

Melba, is there something else you want to be for Hollow Steve?

Melba nods again.

COMET (cont’d)

Yeah? What is it?

GOZZ

If it’s anything less than a pterodactyl, you can forget it.

COMET

What is it, Melby?

MELBA

Through the sniffles

A unicorn.

COMET

A unicorn?

GOZZ

No. We went as horses last year.

MELBA

They’re not horses, they’re unicorns.

GOZZ

Whatever. I’m not going as one.

COMET

But we always go together. As the same thing.

GOZZ

And she always picks it! Every year! Who decided we should be horses last year? Melba. Who decided we should be giant balls of yarn the year before that? Melba. And when we were in kindergarten, who decided that we should be giant hamsters in giant hamster wheels.  

MELBA

Hey, we won the school mutation contest, didn’t we?

GOZZ

I’m not going as a stupid unicorn.

MELBA

Unicorns and beautiful and magical.

COMET

Puts her finger in both of their noses

Okay, you guys, wait, hold on. Maybe we don’t have to go as the same thing this year. Maybe we could just do like, you know, a theme.

MELBA

What do you mean?

COMET

Well like, we could all go as things that fly. Gozz, you could be a pterodactyl. Melba, you could -- wait, unicorns have wings, right?

MELBA

No.

COMET

Oh. Well, could yours have wings?

MELBA

Uh --

COMET

And I could be, uh, uh, a comet! Since that’s my name!

MELBA

Unicorns don’t have wings.

COMET

Could you just work with me here, Melba? I’m just trying to--

Gozz grabs the mutator gun and points it at them both. During this exchange, Melba backs away while Comet inches, er, centimeters closer to Gozz.

GOZZ

No. No unicorns. No comets. No real comets I mean. People named Comet are okay.

COMET

Gozz, what are you doing?

GOZZ

Get away from me. Put your finger in your own nose.

COMET

Gozz--

GOZZ

I’m setting the mutator gun to pterodactyl--

COMET

Gozz, put it down.

GOZZ

And I’m turning all three of us into motherfucking pterodactyls.

Aims at Melba

COMET

Gozz!

Comet jumps, but she is too late. The mutator fires and Melba is hit. The force of the blast knocks her back. Offstage, in fact. From backstage, there is a furious roar. The walls shake with terrifying violence. Melba emerges back on stage in the process of mutating into a pterodactyl. She flaps her mighty wings and advances on Gozz and Comet, who are both now screaming their fool heads off.

COMET

You turned her into an angry pterodactyl!

GOZZ

This thing doesn’t specify emotional state!

COMET

Hurry! Change her back before she takes flight!

Gozz fiddles with the dial and fires again. Melba stops shrieking, drops her wings, halts her advance, and speaks in an even, if not somewhat condescending tone.

MELBA

So you admit that you have sexual feelings for your mother?

COMET

Gah wha?!

GOZZ

Dammit! I set it to psychoanalyst.

COMET

What?

GOZZ

It’s the next thing down from pterodactyl in alphabetical order!

MELBA

How does that make you feel?

COMET

Yanking the mutator away

Give me that! You have to set it to undo.

Comet fiddles with the mutator and fires at Melba again. Melba reverts back into dinosaur rage, picks up her wings, etc.

GOZZ

Undo it again! Undo it again!

Comet fires again. This time, Melba’s transformation back into herself is slower, as if she is resisting it. Comet keeps hitting her though. At the end of it, Melba is down on the floor, motionless. Gozz and Comet look at Melba’s prone form in shock for a moment, then snap out of it and run to her side.

GOZZ

Melba!

Gozz and Comet kneel next to their friend and roll her onto her back. They help her sit up, but her head dangles. Gozz is crying.  

GOZZ (cont’d)

This is all my fault! I’m so sorry! We can be unicorns for Hollow Steve, Melba, I don’t care!

Melba looks up at Gozz.  

MELBA

No. We will be pterodactyls.

GOZZ

We will?

MELBA

Yes. We will all be pterodactyls.

COMET

Oh good! I’m glad that’s settled.

MELBA

I can’t even describe to you...I’ve never felt anything like it. The cells of my body weren’t simply jostled into the form of some other creature. I was taken somewhere, somewhen. I became something else. I saw the world through whole new eyes. I felt so much power...the power to fly, to rip, tear, destroy, kill. I didn’t want to come back.

COMET

So you don’t want to be a unicorn anymore?

GOZZ

Because we can if you want. I’m so sorry.

MELBA

No. I don’t want to be some stupid unicorn. I want to find a unicorn, swoop down on it from on high, grab it in my talons, and tear its magical hide to shreds.  

GOZZ

But there’s no such thing as unicorns.

MELBA

A horse will work. The point is, we’ll all do it together.

COMET

Together! Yay!

MELBA

And then, we’ll set our sights on Ethyl and her stupid giant robots.

COMET

Robots are made of steel.

GOZZ

So you’re not mad at me?

MELBA

Mad?

Laughs, puts her finger in Gozz’s nose.

Go ahead, gorgeous. Stick your finger up my nose. See what happens.