When They Still Have a Little Puppy in Them

My 8 year old just joyfully asked, ‘Hey Daddy? What’s a Muslim?’ and I giggled at the sweetness and out-of-nowhereness of the question and gave him a brief bullet point version of Islam. I love small moments like that.

Prohibited Activities

I’m guessing everything listed beneath skateboarding is meant to refer to things you can with a skateboard, but to me, this sign is telling us not to ride a skateboard, not to use your legs to momentarily propel yourself into the air, not to gnash your teeth or grind your pelvis against another person in a sexually provocative dance, and not to apply hot wax to your body in order to remove hair. At least not here.

Men and Cars (and Maybe My Childhood?)

I am not really a car guy. I remember the first time I actually wanted a car: it was in high school, and I saw a BMW Z3 in front of a pool hall one night. I asked my friends to hold up so I could check it out. ‘What’s the deal here?’, one friend asked. ‘ I want to have sex with this car’. I said.

Just now, for whatever reason, I pull up next to this Le Sabre, and I’m like, ‘I need this car’. I need a Freudian to help me translate this urge.

Your Next President. If You’re Good.

Famous Presidential Quotes

"Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error." - Andrew Jackson

"Labor disgraces no man, but occasionally men disgrace labor." - Ulysses S. Grant

“It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life, we get nothing save by effort." - Teddy Roosevelt

“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” - John F. Kennedy

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” - Ronald Reagan

“I want nothing! I want nothing! I want no quid pro quo!” - Donald Trump

It Turns Out God is a Surrealist French Filmmaker From the 1940’s

What the actual fuck. After I watched this weird, tragicomic meltdown, it took me a minute to realize my mouth was still agape and my eyebrows were still raised to their limit. Signs and wonders, folks.

Freud Was Right About Everyrhing.

For real though, the world wouldn’t be in the condition it is if a handful of white men had known how to talk to their fathers. 

West Clermont Local Schools

(this post is re: my community, but probably indicative of practices across the country):

An administrator from West Clermont Local schools called me to inform me that my son would be given detention for being late to school 20 times this year (no later than 10 minutes), and I explained to him that this practice is discriminatory against different family types (a stay at home parent who lives a block from the school and has one kid will have a much easier time than a kid with two brothers who each go to different schools and live in different houses different distances from the school twice a week). The administrator seemed to accept this, and my son wasn't given detention, but this baseline is still discriminatory—and West Clermont Local for some reason doesn’t seem to allow public posts—so I’m posting this here on my page for other families who find this unnecessarily punitive practice unacceptable. Hopefully if enough of us speak up, they will stop punishing our children for not living in homes that fit their cookie-cutter expectations!

Spreading the Gospel

Years ago, I would blare bands like Hatebreed, Pantera, Down, Helmet, Eyehategod, and Goatwhore in the morning as I was getting the kids ready for school. They definitely didn’t find it as motivational as I did, but endured it. Finally this morning I had a breakthrough. I put on ‘Becoming’ by Pantera as I drove Eliot to work, and asked him to read the lyrics. He was like, ‘Oh, this is nice! I like this. Who is it?’

I can only imagine the way I felt at that moment was most analogous to a door to door evangelist who actually got someone to listen to them and invite them back next Saturday.

\m/

Birds of a Feather

Her: you should go.

Me: no thanks. Too many white people. I don’t feel comfortable in that kind of environment.

Her: but you’re white.

Me: tell me about it.

The Glow of a First Time Voter

To be honest, I wasn’t planning on voting today. There were only a handful of local candidates on the Clermont County ballot, none of which I knew or really cared anything about. My 18 year old, however, was stoked about his first opportunity to vote, and was up and ready at 4:30 am to make sure we both got to the polls and were first in line. He’s a good citizen already, and I thank him for keeping me on point. I look forward to voting for him someday.

Always Share Your Enthusiasms!

Question: is this driver telling me to ‘run a dick’ as a creative variant on ‘suck a dick/go fuck yourself’, or is it more of a helpful recommendation, like, ‘You know buddy, I never thought I’d be the kind of guy to get into running dicks, but I tried it on vacation a few years ago, and it’s actually really great. Me and the fellas actually run dicks every Saturday now. Very relaxing. I think you’d enjoy it’.

Respect Where It Is Due

God is a total bastard, but dude can paint.

Idiots, Working Happily in the Fields for the Boss

I have never experienced the kind of primal revulsion that I’ve experienced when seeing those disgusting, vile, pop-up trump merchandise tents that show up periodically in gas station parking lots in Clermont County, where I live. It’s never been more difficult to resist the urge to pull my car over and yell at, punch, or spit on these gross, smirking swine, selling swag for their fascistic clown overlord. It makes me angry on a level I can’t find words for. Maybe it’s because these smirking assholes are the marks in Trump’s long presidential con, and they seem to absolutely revel in their own complete debasement. Maybe it’s because they set up their shops so close to my own house. I don’t know.