Kids, Let's Leave the Shtick to the Professional. Okay?

My family is at it again.

Ever since going public with the man boobs debacle my home life has been anything but the unnormalness that it usually is. There is no escaping their not so subtle reminders that I need to lose some weight.

Perhaps it’s that I’ve started taking everything my family says out of context. Traci likes to remind me that my version of the story isn't always exactly how events unfold. Yes, it’s possible my perception of how things really happen might be a bit askew. Not much. But maybe a little.

Take the other day for instance.

In an effort to wean myself off sweets during the week, Traci had came up with the plan that a few Peanut M&M’s after dinner might be a sufficient way to squelch the desire for sugar. In theory it was a good idea.

Anyway, we’d just finished dinner and I was on my second handful of protein fortified candy while watching the last bit of evening news before “Wheel of Fortune.”

“Daddy,” Brady said, climbing onto the arm of the denim chair I’d nestled myself into, “you can’t eat those. You’re fat, remember? Better eat some fruit. It’s more helfy.”

I explained to him why it was okay to eat a few M&M’s.

“No more candy. You need to make better choices.”

My first mistake was trying to rationalize with the four-year-old about the nutritional value of a peanut covered in chocolate when he’d clearly heard Mommy harp on his big sister about her after school snack choices one too many times.

Knowing Kacie like I do, I glanced at her as she watched from the kitchen, perhaps feeling her perch on the stool behind the island was a safe enough distance to provide some sort of smart-aleck conjecture.

I stared her down, making sure our eyes held the other’s gaze long enough to convey telepathically that she had better not pipe in. She smiled, acknowledging her acceptance of the terms set before her. We were bound by a silent pact.

“Maybe you should give Daddy a vitamin, Brady,” she said. “That’s healthy.”

Having felt her idea was a solid one, Brady hopped off the chair and made his way to the kitchen, where he labored to drag the unoccupied barstool across the faux hardwood floor to the set of cabinets where the bottle of sour Toy Story chewy children’s vitamins were kept.

After climbing the impromptu trellis, maneuvering the landmine of dirty dishes on the counter, and climbing back down, Brady stood in front of me, gummy vitamin bottle in hand, waiting for me to complete my part in the mission as the child-proof cap impeded any further progress on his part.

“I want some too,” Kacie said.

I twisted the cap off with extreme ease, making sure he noticed my bulging bicep as it played its part in conquering the villainous bottle.

“Okay, Kacie. You get one like me. Daddy gets two,” he said, making no mention of having the strongest father in the world.

“Why does he get two?” she asked.

Something in her voice struck me as odd. I let it slide. The sour goodness of Buzz Lightyear and whatever other character Brady had handed me were begging to be devoured. M&M’s were a nice treat in their own right, but the chewy children’s vitamins were the real prize in our house.

“Because he’s fat and needs more vitamins to be helfy.”

Say what? How could my only son betray me like that? And when did I start raising a family full of traitors?

Kacie giggled. What looked like guilt behind her blue eyes made me question if the two of them had previously rehearsed the details of their little ruse. Somehow, when I wasn’t looking, my baby had girl turned into Geppetto and learned how to control her little brother. Brilliantly, I might add.

I made reference to kicking a dog while he’s down.

“You said we couldn’t have a dog until we got a house,” Kacie said, breathing more life into an already inextinguishable fire.

“And a baby,” Brady chimed in. “We get a baby when we get a house. Right, Daddy?”

“Not necessarily.”

“That’s what you said!” he cried, his voice changing from an ornery tone to pleading one. It was as if he’d just been told his destiny to be a middle child was no longer fated and that he’d have to suffer the miserable journey of loneliness while being the youngest.

I wasn’t about to explain to him that what I’d actually said however many months prior was that we couldn’t have a baby until we got a house, not that we can’t. Instead I let him sulk off to his bedroom and pout until he felt like he no longer needed to hide from the horrible father that didn’t love him enough to provide him with a baby brother or sister.

It could be said that I’m the one to blame for their dissention. I guess it’s inevitable that by being a wise guy dad my kids will grow up to be wisenheimers in their own right even though I’ve explicitly told them on numerous occasions that I’m in charge of comedy hour in our family. Throw in the X-Factor of telling the world via a media with which your 12-year-old daughter and her friends have total access to that your wife thinks you have man boobs and you may as well admit defeat before getting out of bed.

I love my life.

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You Dirty Birds

What is it with these flippin’ birds? Why are they so angry?

Our kids have been playing the demo version of Angry Birds for weeks now. I have friends that have been playing it for much longer and have insisted that I should give it a try because it’s fun and addicting. Apparently I need another diversion in my life because I have too much time on my hands.

But I finally gave in.

My Angry Birds obsession began on Saturday as Traci and I sat through what was supposed to be a ninety-minute timeshare spiel about how each of us deserved to take a vacation at least once a year, and that for just under four grand down and just over eighty bucks a month we could do exactly that.  

We had no intentions of or even money to buy a timeshare but wanted the free Dallas Stars tickets and three-day, two-night stay at Great Wolf Lodge, so our Saturday afternoon was simply a cost of doing business. Turns out it was so much more.

While waiting for our sales representative to rescue us from the filled to capacity lobby, Brady and I sat together in one of the overstuffed leather chairs so that he could show me the finer points on how to play.

Talk about a mistake. I’ve barely been able to put the game down in the twenty-four hours since being released from timeshare prison.

This wouldn’t be that big of a deal if I didn’t have two tests to study for. But if I’m being honest about the whole ordeal, I have to blame my children. They were in serious danger of getting into trouble with the Bedroom Inspection Nazi this morning for not picking their crap up, so I bribed them with the full version if they could just manage to cooperate and make magic happen and keep the ruckus to a minimum while they did it.

What seemed like a brilliant idea at the time has proven to be a potential source of blame should I fail out of college at thirty-five, because every time I start making some semblance of progress with my studies, one of them calls to me from the living room in dire need of my help in moving on to the next level.

Because I am a loving father and want my children to succeed at everything they attempt in life, I oblige. I mean, one level of Angry Birds won’t throw me too far off track, and I’ll have the satisfaction of being a hero and the eternal gratitude and love that they will look back at on their wedding days when they officially begin their own families.

Twenty minutes later I return to my studies, armed with my own satisfaction that after beating an additional seven new levels I have shown those pigs who really is boss and in the process have indeed obtained true hero status in my son’s eyes, who has given up on ever getting to play Angry Birds again and has moved to the couch with his Leapster.

Again I manage to settle into a good study groove, and again I hear the call of the wild from just beyond the closed door.

“Daddy, I can’t kill those pigs. Will you help me?”

Private Daddy reporting for active slingshot duty, sir!

“I’ll do it, Brady,” Kacie calls from the kitchen. Bird-blocked by my own daughter. Like a cobra she’d been biding her time, waiting to strike. I’m going to have to remember to make up some cockamamie reason to ground her.

“Kacie,” her mother shouts says almost instantly, “you need to be done with Big Birds and finish your homework.”

Yes. Bedroom Inspection Nazi to the rescue. I am going to have to remember to bring her flowers tomorr--

--Wait. Did she really just say what I think she did? No way. Traci has to know that it’s Angry Birds and not that yellow dude from PBS. She can’t possibly be that out of touch with reality, can she?

Who cares. Luckily for Kacie she has at least one cool parent. Even luckier for me, I’ve just been unbird-blocked. Sweet.

Like a ninja I begin to silently open the bedroom door and prepare to launch into a tuck and roll, snag the iPad off the couch in one effortless scoop, and lay my claim to Angry Birds once again.

“You need to be done too,” Traci says before I can even get the door half-way open. “Have you finished your homework?”

Dirty birds. All of ‘em. Brady for getting me hooked. Kacie for trying to steal my hero status. Traci for throwing down the gauntlet. Those flippin’ birds for being so angry and taunting me like that. Don’t they know who I think I am?

I let my silence do the talking as I shut the door and slink back to my cave with a major case of blue-bird. This one’s gonna smart.

But eventually they have to go to bed. When they do, those Angry Birds are all mine.

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Um, My Eyes Are Up Here

I’ve been giving a lot of serious thought lately to riding a bicycle to work. I live thirteen miles away.

Co-workers ask if it’s the sudden spike in gas prices that’s caused my most recent hairbrain idea. I can’t deny that the pain at the pump doesn’t play a part, but the biggest reason behind my current motivation is the series of events that have come up recently that play a bigger role in defining who I am. Lemony Snicket might even call them unfortunate.

About six weeks ago, Traci and I were in the car driving from Point A to Point B when she asked “Are you getting man boobs?”

Natural instinct told me to pull the car over and tell her she was walking the rest of the way to Point B, which according to proposed Bike Route #1 would be a little over six miles. I mean man boobs? Really? How is that even remotely close to an appropriate question to ask your husband?

“I do not have man boobs,” I replied, which was true. Sure, my pects probably weren’t really pects capable of jolting to life on command and performing a series of dance moves underneath my t-shirt , but I was certainly in no danger of having to ask Kacie for advice on buying a bra for the first time either.

We rode in silence the rest of the way to Point B, where I pouted on the couch and watched television for the remainder of the night.

A few weeks later Traci called me at work and asked if I had a minute. All of her phone calls to me at the office begin that way. One day I’m going to respond with “For you? No. Goodbye.” and see what she says. Any bets as to how that will finish playing out when I get home? At least it’s not as bad as asking someone if they’re getting man boobs.

So anyway, she called me at work, and after we'd concluded that I did indeed have a minute, she proceeded to inform me that Brady had just informed her that when he grows up he wants to be just like daddy…fat.

“Did you wash his mouth out with soap?” I asked.

Her laughter implied that she hadn’t. In fact, she was laughing so hard she could barely continue the conversation. I hung up on her.

There is a multitude of ways that I’d be a proud father if my children took after me. Fat is not one of them.

Then, just the other day, a friend said to me “Brad, you have serious cookie issues. Cookie intervention may be put into play…” My thoughts? Friends let friends eat cookies, Susan. I’m just saying.

For fear of sounding like a chick, I want to look good in a bathing suit this summer.  The BP oil spill wasn’t the only thing that tainted the Florida beaches last year. This go-around, when I put on my swim trunks, I want find solace in knowing that my board shorts are not bored shorts and that they actually enjoy hanging from my body rather than clinging to it for dear life.

The only thing holding me back in my quest to ride a bicycle to work, besides the cold mornings and not actually having a bicycle is that I am trying to iron out the details of the route I will take both to and fro. Thirteen miles translates into just over an hour of intense exercise. Obviously I want the quickest route with the least amount of random incline, but I also need to find the safest path. Dallas drivers are crap, and I’d really like to not wake up dead one day because I was hit by a car. That would just piss me off.

Traci thinks I won’t do it. She says the distance is just too much. Perhaps after nearly fifteen years of marriage she understands my propensity to come up with what seems like a good idea at the time only to never follow through.

For me though, I guess it’s as good a time as any to find a jumping off point in my life where I can try and retake control.  What other choice do I have? I’m certainly not okay with walking into Victoria’s Secret on my 40th birthday for their Buy One Get One sale only to have my wife respond to the sales associate by saying “Oh, it’s not for me. We’re shopping for my husband.”

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Monday, Meet Manic. Manic, Say Hello to Monday.

Seriously. Who wears pajamas to work?

No, lingerie models don’t count.

Anyone that knows me knows that having to wear business casual to work Monday thru Thursday isn’t my idea of a good time. Forget about wearing a suit every day. Just thinking about it gives me an anxiety attack. I’m a jeans and a t-shirt kind of guy, so I totally understand wanting to be comfortable. But pajamas? And it’s corporate approved? Seems a bit much if you ask me.

Granted, it’s not our office wearing said PJ’s to work, but I still had to witness this carnival sideshow every time I ventured into the communal areas when the need to refill on water or the urge to empty the tank struck.

Think I’m overreacting? Try walking into the men’s restroom only to discover the reincarnation of Andre the flippin’ Giant standing there, hand against the wall in front of him for support, urinal-blocking you...bathrobe spread wide open with the tie thingy dragging the ground. Apparently the fates felt that seeing Joan Rivers dressed as a GoDaddy girl last night on TV didn’t scar my psyche enough.

Rather than doing an awkward about-face and hightailing it to a different restroom, I did what any self-respecting man in my position would do: I hid from Andre in the darkness of the lone remaining depository, which was located next to him and conveniently shared a burnt out light bulb.

He flushed (points for that), and as he turned to leave our eyes made contact in a way that one dude should never have to make eye contact with another.

“Morning,” Andre said, gazing at me long enough that he should have offered a cigarette and a cuddle.

I said nothing. I didn’t feel the least bit rude about it either. I mean, you wanna chat me up, do it in the hallway. Don’t try and peek over my privacy fence because you’re curious to see what kind of irrigation system I’m rockin’.

On the way back to my cubicle, I found myself trying to purge my mind of everything that was already starting to bog it down at 7:43 in the morning. That’s when it hit me: Just go home. Go back to bed. Pretend like the day never began. Try again tomorrow.

Instead I wrote down the top five things that came to mind and seemed to be holding me back as I tried to start my day. This is what I came up with. More or less.

1)      Too many emails waiting to be answered – all of which seem to be more important than the next. After four unexpected days off of work, perhaps it’s best to just find a new job rather than even try to make magic happen in a land where fairytales don’t exist. Or hit the delete button. Yeah, that’s probably easier.

2)      I can’t believe I finally gave into my curiosity and wasted fifteen minutes of my life on “Jersey Shore” yesterday. I’d have been better off watching Gigli over and over again on a continuous loop.

3)      Did I really only bring a strawberry yogurt and chicken-noodle soup to eat today? If I keep this up I’ll fit into that polka-dot bikini by Spring Break for sure…

4)      Send GoDaddy.com a thank you card for burning the horrible, horrible image of Joan Rivers in my mind. Gag. Me. Spoon optional. And no, Joan, we cannot talk.

5)      I totally get having an off-day at work. I have them all the time, actually. But when your only job as a Grammy-winning artist is to sing the National Anthem at the Super Bowl, please get the words right. A lot of men and women have fought for and given their lives for your right to bastardize the song with your “soulful” rendition. You want to take a song and make it your own? Try out for “American Idol.”

Perhaps I was suffering from the side effects of too much cold and flu medication over the weekend. Maybe cabin fever had taken total control of my sanity since I’d been trapped inside the confines of our apartment for six out of the last seven days thanks to the ice and snow storm that hit Dallas last week. That much “quality time” with the wife and kids is enough to drive any sane man mad, and my degree of sanity was already questionable to begin with.

Because things are never as nice and neat as we’d like to pretend they are, my list of top five had six notes of random thought on it today. Fitting for a Monday wrapped in chaos.

6)      Time to buy a house.

That may just be the most grown-up thought I have all year.

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Center-fold of Attention

There’s something about settling in for the night to read The Great Gatsby from the solitude of your bedroom, only to have the silence broken by an unexpected tap, tap, tap-tap-tap, tap. A chorus of instruments comes alive from the television speakers, and even though it’s faint, I instantly recognize the melody of this particular classic.

“Does she walk? Does she talk? Does she come compweet?” my four-year-old croons from the living room as he keeps rhythm on the drum-kit.

I laugh. Hysterically, actually. Even the noise cancelling headphones that had just come in the mail today on loan from a friend can’t drown my son’s serenade to the much heralded homeroom angel.

It’s awesome. I mean seriously - who doesn’t love a little of The J. Geils Band every now and then? I definitely do. My wife does…ish. Brady certainly does. I know this because he plays the song three more times, each time banging the drum sticks together at the intro to cue the other band members of Her Living Room Hero on the PlayStation.

I find myself wishing that my parents could see this. Especially my mom. She’d be proud – her little drummer boy has not only grown up, but has his very own modern day Partridge Family, courtesy of Rock Band 3. With me on lead guitar, Brady on drums, Traci on vocals (very much against her better judgment), and Kacie on the keytar, we’re ready to not only see, but rock a million faces on any given night.

Perhaps I should have known that Brady would get the most out of the game. The kid not only tried to play the guitar behind his neck the first day we had it, but he also tried throwing it from left to right around his back. Just when you think there’s nothing else your kids can do to surprise you…

“Where did you learn to do that?” I asked of his ability to display such a degree of showmanship.

“Yo Gabba Gabba,” he said, as if I should have already known this and was a fool for asking.

But in the four weeks since his debut as a guitarist, he’s abandoned its weightiness for the sexiness of the drums. Somehow my son already knows that chicks dig drummers, which probably explains why he’s not wearing any pants at the moment.

I peek from my hiding spot and see the seriousness and purpose with which Brady’s hitting the pads. He’s surprisingly nailing a high percentage of the colored notes AND singing. With a little less hair, he could be the next Phil Collins. Easily. Or not. No pressure, son.

I continue to watch his facial expressions with every strike of the drum pads. I take note of the emotion with which he sings.

Traci's now standing behind him, smiling at me as I watch him. All eyes are on our little musical prodigy, and that's just the way he likes it.

My internal dialogue begins to practice a response for the first time he asks what a centerfold is.

Something tells me that showing rather than telling will not be such a good idea.

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Wanted: Driver for Out of Control Cable Car

Some days I swear that parts of my life have been taken right out of an album by The Fray. Between work, school, family, and whatever issues the Mustang decides to throw at us on any given day, I can’t help but feel I’m in over my head.

The new semester starts today. I’m nowhere near ready for that to happen. I’m not geared up to give my nights and weekends back to the University of North Texas and its English program. I’m not prepared to put my DVR and Netflix queues on hold for the next few months because I’ll be too busy studying. From the assigned book list for my American Fiction class, it seems I will be reading seven or eight novels between now and the beginning of May. I didn’t read seven or eight novels in 2010.

I’ll also be retaking the Spanish class that I got an “F” in last semester. Nothing like being told you suck in a language you have trouble comprehending. Someone should suggest to the colleges and universities in Texas that they consider offering Restaurant Spanish as an acceptable option for those pursuing an English degree. I'd even settle for Landscape Spanish.

The brakes on the Mustang are dead. Again. Not dead, dead like last time. Just different, dead. I guess there’s a leak? Or maybe it’s that not enough of a vacuum is getting created in the something-or-other? I’m thinking it’s a wheel cylinder. Or a master cylinder. But like last semester’s Spanish class, I don’t have much of a clue. They’re just dead. Muerto.

Various heater components, ignition switches, and wiring harnesses have taken up residence in the corner of our bedroom waiting for me to do something with them. I’d love to oblige, but the Mustang has been at the mechanic’s shop for two weeks. He hasn’t been able to even assess the situation because the cold weather has him too bogged down with work to be able to thoroughly dig into the latest situation with the brakes and tell me just how dead they are. I was supposed to work on the car the last two weekends. Now I don’t know when I’ll have another free weekend, leaving the parts to continue to collect dust.

Because we’ve been down to one car the last six weeks, I’ve been working from 5:30 in the morning until 5 or 6 in the evening. That’s not to say the extra hours haven’t been beneficial to my workday, but now that the winter break has come and gone I feel like I’ve barely spent any quality time with my family. All I want to do when I get home is veg on the couch and stare at whatever’s on the television.

This isn’t so different from every other day, but at least on those days I was coherent enough to talk to or interact with my family. Now I’m like the crotchety old uncle on an episode of "Murder She Wrote” that keeps hanging on out of nothing more than spite to prevent his nieces and nephews from collecting on his will. Fortunately I’m worth next to nothing, so the chances of my being murdered in a room that’s locked from the inside are pretty slim.

The ability to get a good night’s sleep has abandoned me. That’s not to say I’m not sleeping at all, because I am. It’s just that what sleep I am getting is not restful. My mind won’t shut down and I’ve been having at least five or six different vivid dreams a night. Usually those dreams are a welcome respite from the things that bog me down during the day, but not lately. These particular dreams are chaotic. Nightmarish. I’d give just about anything right now for the oldie but goodie that leaves me showing up to the first night of class wearing only boxers and a t-shirt. When I got dressed this morning I made sure to match – just in case.

I get that I need to do a better job of thinking “big picture” and understand that I can’t carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. It’s a mantra I’m trying to incorporate into my daily life, but it’s a slow-moving process. My wife wishes I could disengage. She's constantly reminding me that as hard as I try, I’m not Superman (or even Clark Kent) but that with the addition of several new gray hairs I am more like Perry White.

I probably shouldn’t tell her that my internal monologue has started referring to her Lex. 

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Welcome to My Life, 2011

A new year is here, and with it the promise to be better than the last. Show of hands. Who’s holding their breath?

We’re thirteen days into this sucker and I am proud to say that I have yet to break a single New Year’s Resolution. No, I’m not perfect - just wise enough to know I don’t need to throw some well-intentioned decree into the atmosphere about how I’m going to undergo this profound change and why this is the year I’ll get around to becoming a better person. I’m thirty-five, and frankly I’m finally beginning to understand myself well enough to find comfort in knowing that like Popeye, “I am what I am and that’s all that I am.”

It’s true. I’m an enigma. Just when people think they’ve figured me out they realize that they’re barely starting to unravel the mystery that is Me. But let’s face several obvious facts: I will never wear a pair of size 32 jeans again. My hair is graying a little more every day. Each new semester only proves that the students in my classes continue to get younger while I only get older. And now, as I just typed that last period, I realize that I sound like a woman. Not awesome.

But rejoice, for the first few days of 2011 has brought with it and laid upon me some wicked cool (yes, Susan, that was for you) knowledge that I am willing to impart on all of you. For better or worse. Sicker or in health. Funny or just TMI. Mostly I just need to write something. Anything. And also because a friend was sort of having a cruddy day today and said that she needed a good laugh. Hopefully this helps – even if it’s just a little bit.

Eddie Rabbit might have loved a rainy night, but I heart random, and the following list of randomness is what I am willing to throw into the atmosphere to begin 2011…

1)   Wandering the streets of Washington DC at night is truly amazing. Wandering the streets of Washington DC at 1AM? Totally rad and worth the price of admission. There’s just something about the cat and mouse game of dodging potential muggers or cops posed as prostitutes while navigating your way through the streets of our nation’s capital, all the while hoping to catch a glimpse of the President. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t eagerly check the screen on my digital camera after every shot in hopes of finding an orb or two as I photographed various monuments. I guess the rumors of ghosts roaming the White House lawn got to me. My bad.

2)   I don’t talk to my kids nearly enough when I’m travelling. I like to pretend it’s because I don’t want to disrupt whatever groove they might have going on at home and that they’ll hang up the phone and cry to my wife for hours of how they miss me terribly and don’t like it when I’m gone. Truthfully? I’m afraid I might realize their lives actually do go on without me.

3)   DC cab drivers? Nuckin’ futs. Not NYC crazy and all horn happy. Just dangerous. A forty-five minute cab ride from the hotel to the airport is just too much for one man to endure when all he wants to do is get home and see his wife and kids. I didn’t think it was physically possible to get a headache from clenching your butt cheeks together for so long. It is.

4)   I need to lose some weight. Or a lot of weight, depending on who you ask. No matter how you slice it, there are a few leftover Oreos managing to hang around the house party that is my waistline that clearly don’t get the subtlety behind the phrase “you don’t gotta go home, but you can’t stay here.” You remember how weird it was the first time you saw the polar bear running through the jungle on the first season of “Lost” a few years back? Imagine opening the shower curtain and seeing one staring back at you from the mirror. So not cool. Especially when you thought you’ve rid yourself of said polar bear once before.

5)   It is entirely possible to both sweat and freeze your nuts off the same time. Yep. I said it. I know this scientific anomaly is true because it happened to me the other night as I made the two-mile walk from Wal-Mart to home in 28 degree weather just two days after we got 5-inches of snow. I no longer have an appreciation for icicles. And no, I didn’t have to walk home because my wife and I got in a fight because she said we couldn’t buy Oreos. It was a purposeful attempt to start exercising again.

All kidding aside, I want to start 2011 by expressing how grateful I am that you take the time to read, care about, and enjoy the sheer randomness that can be my imagination. I’m appreciative of your texts, emails and Facebook messages that ask when I’m going to publish something new. It’s amazing how something that started out as a joke between a co-worker and I turned into a blog that’s been read in fifteen countries.

Thank you for helping to bring Her Living Room Hero to life.

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