Wanderer

Shaolin shadowboxing,

“Hmm?”

and the Wu-Tang sword style.

“Whazz?”

If what you say is true, the Shaolin and the Wu-Tang could be dangerous.

“The hell?”

Do you think your Wu-Tang sword can defeat me?

That’s the kind of question that pulls you out of your sleep, especially when you haven’t the faintest idea who’s asking it. It was then that I rolled over to find the almost-two year old, my almost-two year old, sitting on the floor next to the bed holding my swiss army phone. He had pulled up the iPod and found his way to the Wu-Tang Clan’s 36 Chambers album, and hit play on track 1, “Bring Da Ruckus,” which opens with the dialogue sample above. He smiled up at me, overjoyed either by his own cleverness or by the fact that I was awake.

This was how I started that day.

We only just switched the little guy from his elevated cage of a crib to a toddler bed that he can easily climb in and out of. Actually, it had gotten to the point where climbing in and out of his crib was only a slightly greater challenge for him. We had this silly notion that when he woke up in the morning, he would enjoy being able to climb out of bed and play with his toys while we slept soundly. This vision has not yet manifested itself in our reality. Instead, he’s developed this pattern where he toddles downstairs to our room, walks his little self all the way around the bed to my side, and climbs in with me. He brings Cookie Monster too. He wiggles and talks and makes with all manner of the cuteness, which is nifty and all, but it brings the sleeping part of bed occupancy to an end. Apparently, he likes his parents better than his toys. Which is just goddamn inconvenient.

Protective helicopter parent that I am, I snatched the phone out of his little hands before The RZA began shouting for somebody to bring the mothafuckin ruckus. Not sure who he’s talking to, but he really wants them to get on with this ruckus bringing business.

The second night he was in the new bed, The Ash awoke to the sound of a repetitive clicking noise somewhere in the house. Just imagine that. Dark house, middle of the night. All is quiet save the hum of the baby monitor, and somewhere across the house, click.......click.........click. She followed it out of our bedroom, past eldest’s room, through the living and the dining where she found the little guy standing at the door that leads out to the garage, locking and unlocking the knob-lock. Had the deadbolt not been set, he’d have wandered into the garage where we would still be searching for him in all the accumulated debris.

I wonder what he thought about as he wandered through the house in the dark, unmonitored. I’m free! Free! I have vague memories of being little and wandering around the house at night. I remember doing that at my grandparent’s enormous house and feeling like I was really up to something dangerous, even though I never set foot outside. Freedom is relative, I guess. And the little guy just acquired a wee bit more.

Dispatches from the Holmesfront

Blurbs of a random flavor.

These are the things that occur to me
I think it would be really cool if Wu-Tang would take a sample from the show "Deadwood" from any one of the thousands of instances where Al Swearengen says "Fucking Wu!" and then use it in a song. My apologies to those of you who are not familiar with "Deadwood" and/or the Wu-Tang Clan, but you can trust me that it's a really great suggestion.







Fucked Statements: Statements Which Are Fucked
One should refrain from making statements structured according to the following pattern: "I'm not [blank], but [blankety-blank-blank]" where blank = a label or descriptor, often of a negative nature, and blankety-blank-blank = a declaration that clearly indicates that the speaker is in fact what they disclaimed to be in the first portion of the sentence. Examples:

"I'm not a prude, but when I'm in a crowded public place, it sometimes occurs to me that every person I see has genitals and I get so upset that I have to sit down!"

"I'm not a racist, but I sure liked this neighborhood a lot more before those people moved in."

"I'm not an especially vulgar person, but motherfuck this cocksucking son of shit."

To prevent such inconsistencies, one should consider one's disclaimers before appending them to the beginning of any statement. If any incongruities are detected, one should remove the disclaimer before speaking, and simply accept the fact that one is what they would perhaps wish not to be.

The E is for Electronic
An old friend from college whom I've not seen or heard from in over a decade found me recently. Since then we've been emailing back and forth, and it struck me as interesting and kind of cool that we were communicating through a medium that was hardly even on my radar the last time he and I spoke, which in the grand scheme of things was not that long ago, but in technology terms was eons ago. Trippy.

Helper Toddler is Helping
Henry seems to be big on housework these days. His latest thing is loading and unloading the washing machine, a task which seems to bring him enormous pleasure. He'd love to try his hand at the dishwasher, but we keep him away from that for now since we can't afford to replace all of our dishes. Soon enough though. Perhaps he'll be like David Sedaris and ask for name brand appliances at all gift-giving occasions. Then he'll grow up to write fabulously hilarious stories about his childhood and growing up with his quirky but lovable parental units.


I are tawk funny sumtim
I am beginning to believe that regular viewings of ICanHasCheezBurger may be having detrimental effects on my command of the English language. Sitting in a meeting at work the other day, someone made a suggestion that I really liked, and the thought that passed through my mind was "dat am da ossumest ideeyuh evr!" Fortunately, I was able to translate it into something coherent before I opened my mouth.