Advice From A Urinal

It is rare that one should seek or take advice from a urinal, not counting cautions against eating the urinal cake. In fact, it is very rare that the standing urinal, found only in men’s restrooms, is used for the pitiful cries of the drunken damned. Those bended knee prayers are reserved for what is appropriately called “the throne” or rather, the unisex toilet. (more on that another day.)
I was heeding the call of duty today at work, and I chose a urinal beside one I knew to be clogged, as I has already issued a work order for the maintenance department. This is where I saw the advice. Someone had covered the entire urinal with paper towels, secured them over the opening, and hand wrote, in ball point pen “Do Not Work”.


What sage advice, yet puzzling. The Buddha nature in me immediately starts examining it as a koan: Does it mean do not exert effort in urination, but rather to let it flow, as one should let life flow. Do not work, do not struggle against change, or wear yourself out applying force to what is inevitable. Do not work. Just be. It was like the Dalai Lama had his translator write wisdom on a paper towel.
Then again, there I was, nice shirt (very nice, thank you. 100% Pinpoint cotton) and tie, at work. Working. And there was this message, right in front of me. “do not work”. Did that mean I should take the advice and go home? Was it an omen? I decided against going home, but I was encouraged to spend the rest of the day loafing to the best of my ability, but not to work at it. I most certainly should do no work today. Then I thought, I really don’t work- that is- I love my job. I love the “work” I have to do. When you love your job, you really never work, do you? You just do your best. Again the urinal was right.
The phrase applies to all aspects of life, but does not encourage laziness. To be dedicated to laziness is, in itself, work. One must work at doing nothing, strive for inertness. For even at the beginning steps of meditation, the sitter has to learn to tame the cacophony of images and thoughts that flood the empty space he or she is trying to cultivate. Even then, it is best to just observe. Do not work, just live. When you change what you consider to be work, you can change everything. Thank you, urinal. I would also like to thank the Alabama public education system for giving me the opportunity to have this insight. Keep up the good work.

Advice for new Dads

I was recently giving a Dad to be some advice, and I thought- hey! The whole world needs to be exposed to this flash of insight. So I am here to share.
1. Remember this well: do not believe the hype about Dreft brand laundry detergent for babies. That stuff straight up stinks in an ungodly, "oh man I can smell pink", pervasive downright nasty way. The only way that's for babies is if you are sight impaired and rely on your heightened olfactory senses to locate your child at any time, and you like the lingering burning sensation it creates.
2. Odorless wipes: Smart people have told me that scent memories are the strongest. I have to take their word for it as I have zero recall prior to 1995. But, I can say that I do smell things good and bad, and have been through two newborns and their first bananas. Do not buy anything that is scented "baby fresh" there is no such thing as a "baby fresh" and if there was, I have no idea how it would be extracted or synthesized. The heavily perfumed reek of what is "baby fresh" brings to mind cackling childless chemists who have a bottle of Ouzo and are trying to get fired. Babies do not smell like "baby fresh" until you wipe that crap all over them. Also, the heavily scented lavender or 'fresh linen' wipes have to be ruled out.
This is just common sense. You see, even if you really, really dig lavender, you will be cleaning up smelly baby messes with it. This does not mask the scent, it just blends with it, forever associating the strong perfume that will stick to your baby with his excrement. So even when the diaper and sundries are properly disposed of, the lavender will trigger the scent memory of the time the baby didn't have very solid stool- and it achieved impressive distance when the diaper was off. same with any other cheap smell, and these are cheap scents. People do not wipe themselves with baby wipes instead of squirting on Tim McGraw's signature cologne. David Beckham and Naomi Campbell do not put their faces on boxes of baby wipes. So in lieu of squirting your child on the bum with 'Curious?', opt for the smell free wipes. Seriously.
3. Get in shape NOW. sure they stay where you put them for a few months, then they start moving. And they just get faster. You're the Dad, so your ass will be playing chase, swinging around, and being the human monkey bars. You want the kid to have a happy childhood? don't be a damn lardass. Kids were made to run, you have to keep up. No excuses, you've got 2 years before they really kick up the antics, maybe three, and that's plenty of time to get in Dad shape. So do it.
4. No matter how smart, imaginative, and quasi psychic you may be, you will not know reality until it is there, squirming in front of you. Then it's all there, and it all makes sense. You just hang on and try to do your best not to screw up and love them with everything you have. Forget about how screwed up your childhood was, and do your best. That's what they deserve.

That's about all I could think of as main advice items without sounding like a pompous ass. Whether or not my children are as perfect at I think they are doesn't matter. What does matter is that they don't stink like cheap baby oriented fragrance. Baby fresh my ass.

On Blogging

I really am trying to get into the blogging frame of mind. It's just somewhat difficult to process anything profound and then have enough recall to pad and edit it into something readable and actually profound, or fake it really well.
When one sees the mountain of well written blogs setting atop the crushed and discarded landfill of crap blogs, live journal and Xanga, one can easily become overwhelmed by the long hard climb to make it to the top of the blogosphere. Some may say, why bother? while others may really, really, want you to appreciate how cute their kitty is or why their baby making junk don't work.
Being insane, I have decided to take another view of the mountain that I just now made up for illustrative purposes. It was a profound illustration. It is not a mountain, but more like a disco runway. Yes, a disco runway. Were I a crap movie director in 1977, and I wanted to make a movie about the brave new futuristic world of 1989, Airplanerockets would land on brightly lit, multi colored flat runways that flashed to "Boogie Oogie Oogie" bye A Taste of Honey.
Now that that profundity has manifested, one can see a long flat line of flashing colors. For those who really, really dig blue lights, there are many. Some close, some far, some burned out, covered with soot, etc. Same with all the futuristic disco colors of all the lights. I'm partial to electric green.
So the blogosphere is flat. And if you sail too far you will fall into space, and your online presence will be whittled down to your attempts to be king/queen bully on the comments space of someone's superior blog and or kitty picture website.
So what motivates bloggers? The hell if I know. I barely know what I'm thinking half the time, so egocasting takes more effort than pretending to meditate. (See, you sit zen, then it's all boobies, all the time. Thich Naht Han would not approve.)
Lots of Bloggers are really damn good writers. I imagine if you ask, all bloggers would say they were damn good writers, damn the publishers, full babble ahead. I have no delusions of being a damn good writer. So I tell you, my faithful nonexistant audience, my motivation for blogging. It gets the old crazy out to make room for new fresh crazy. It helps me remember some of my better ideas, and it gets me back in the habit of fluffing out lines of gibberish for when I eventually complete my Master's degree.
This rant is my pledge to the universe that I will blog more, finish my novel, start my novel too, organize a thought, and pretend I'm interacting with more humans than I really am.
Break out the champagne muthafuckas.
-Nate

A Million

Good lord, the boy wanted a "star wars toy" of unknown description yesterday. He saw it on TV, and he wanted it. I decided to prod his young mind with questions, to determine the nature and origin of his desire, and to explain that accepting "No" is a good idea, as not accepting "No" means he'll need more practice, and will receive ample "No's" until he can learn that "No" means case close, move on.
So, why do you want this toy?
It's Star Wars it's a robot, and two robots and it shoots the bad guys.
What kind of robot? (I'm thinking maybe an AT-AT)
a big robot.
How many legs does it have? (yeah, probably an AT-AT)
It has a lot of legs. it has a million legs.
That is a lot of legs (Okay, not an AT-AT).
I want to buy it!
You have no money.
Do you have money?
Not for that. Now listen, when Mom buys food, who gets to eat it?
Me?
And...
My Brother?
And...
Mom?
And...
Dad?
Exactly. It's better to buy things that the whole family can share. We use money so you can wear clothes, and shoes, and use electricity. If we bought that toy, the small parts could get lost, your brother could get hurt by them, or the dogs would chew it up and that would make you sad.
How about we keep it in my room and nobody can get it?
Because you can't share that way.
But I really want it!
I know. But do you know what star wars is?
It's a commercial!
It's a movie. Do you want to see the movie first?
No. I don't want to watch a movie. I want the toy!
The answer is no. I suggest you say yes sir and move on.
Yes sir... I have cars in my room.
You do. Lots of cars.
Will you play cars with me when we get home.
Yes. I will.
Okay! (star wars toy forgotten)

This morning he saw a picture of a group of about 20 raccoons.

That's a lot of cats!
Those are raccoons.
That's a lot of raccoons! That's a million raccoons!
More like 20.
A million raccoons is a lot!

Somehow he went from conceptualizing the idea of vast numbers as "more than eight" to "a million"

Kid inflation is crazy these days.

Exploding Babies

"Dad, what makes babies explode?"
The big one starts pre school today. It's in a church. This is going to be funny.
His favorite music video is "Would You Love a Monster Man?" by Lordi. In the video, toward the end (he can tell you exactly at what point when the song is playing in the car) a little girl hands a generic baby doll to Mr. Lordi. The doll bursts into flames, and is dropped to the ground. When asked why this happens, I explained to him that if kids tried to give monsters kids toys, the toys would blow up. Same would happen if a monster tried to give a kid a monster toy. This is why he is not allowed a battle axe.
The other night, he insisted on watching The Incredibles bonus feature "Jack Jack Attack" over and over again. In this feature, Jack Jack bursts into flames. Kari, the babysitter, screams repeatedly that it was "and exploding baby! have you ever seen an exploding baby!?"
as a matter of fact, he has. This is now what happens to the doll in the video. It doesn't catch fire, it explodes. So, mental shorthand has him simply referring to them as exploding babies.
There were two of them in his future classroom.
We are sooooo getting a phone call.

Jesus Exempt

We live in the county. This means, pretty much anything goes. I'll tell the story of the feral cats later. The county means that anybody in the neighborhood with the means can put on a fireworks display similar to the millennium celebration displays around the 4th of July. (In Alabama the 4th of July begins sometime in early June and continues through mid August).
Being in a neighborhood in the county makes us ripe for canvassing. Door to door solicitations for magazine scams, fund raising for the local whatever, "hey wanna pay me to fix yer roof", and other forms of gentleman's panhandling. After several nap interruptions, my wife placed a very discreet notice on the front door: "No Soliciting".
Too many syllables for the county.
While the random knocks have settled, there seems to be one group of solicitors that feels themselves exempt from my bold letters of authority. Those representing religion.
"Knock Knock"
I open the door, and give them my warmest "what the hell do you want" glare.
"Hello. would you be interested in some bible based literature?"
...
"no"
"No?"
"bye" slam.
In retrospect, I should have offered a fair trade. Bible based literature for Satan based metal. I've got the whole Mercyful Fate catalog at my disposal. Invite them in for a cup of tea, and have "black funeral" playing in the background. We can discuss bible based matters while King Diamond seduces their ears. If I hadn't been deeply involved in a project (read Xbox), I may just have. I suppose that's something I'll save for the next girl scout/volunteer firefighter/ handyman for the lord.

The Marathon

Almost every night I settle my 3 year old into bed with some quality books and one (to quote him) "story in your mouth". These stories in my mouth are freelance jazz parenting. I get to riff between logical progression and lay out stories with no boundaries. The mostly include him as the main adventurer, with friends picked up from TV, Movies, books and other kid approved sources as accomplices. He lives on the Island of Sodor with Thomas and friends, but as of late, he has not been spending much time in his station. See, he is the station master at Carnival station. A stop on the island of Sodor not mentioned in the TV show. It lies east of the haunted cemetery where the zombies used to attack the trains until they all moved to Zombie island. That's another story. I should mention that the island of Sodor is quite close to the Island of frogdor, which is pretty much the same- except it is filled with train frogs and regular frogs. Sir Topembottom is the head frog there.
One of the cardinal rules one learns very fast with children is "do not do anything you do not wish to repeat 9,000 times." I forgot this rule when I busted out my Shaggy impersonation. Now when I come home from work, does he want to talk to Dad? Zoinks, like no way dude. So Scooby and the gang have moved in to the Island of Sodor to help solve mysteries.
Here's more backstory: Dad and the little guy opened up shop as Ghostbusters on the Island, and all was quite groovy. This was until I tried to sing (I cannot sing well) the Ghostbusters theme as Ray Parker Junior. To his ears, it sounded like Simon BarSinister from the old Underdog cartoons, so guess who became the 3rd Ghostbuster? Simon. Another voice for dad. No worries.
I decided to make up a story where everyone, I mean everyone who inhabits his world of fictional characters runs a marathon. I did not realize that it would be a marathon of voices for old dad. Here's the breakdown of runners:
Optimus Prime
Bumblebee
Mr. Lordi
Shaggy
Scooby
Fred
Stitch (from Lilo & Stitch)
Simon BarSinister
The entire cast of the Mr. Men show
Random Zombies
Peter Pan
The trains of Sodor
Mickey
Goofy
Donald
The Thing (fantastic 4, not John Carpenter)

Somehow I managed to pull a story out of that as well as succeeded in impersonating every one of those voices. The child is the harshest critic "No dad! Optimus Prime doesn't talk like that!"

I've gone back to solving mysteries with Scooby and the gang and hanging out with the band Lordi and the friendly monsters on Zombie island. That's another post all together. I just know when he goes to the day care at the local churchery, I'm going to be getting curious letters. Mom's going to have to explain how Dad's "kinda special". I'll go into how he learned headbanging in another post.