I stole the idea for posting this video from my friend Johnny the Jeweler who posted it on Facebook but he doesn't read this blog so I figure he'll never realize I'm a big stealer.
It’s not as if I’ve been updating this site with any regularity of late but I’ve come here today to recommend that you lower your expectations even further this week.
Outside all my regular duties – working, working out, cleaning up after two lazy cats, maintaining a rock star image and just generally living fabulously - I also have a house guest arriving on Wednesday just about the same time I am taking off for Boise, Idaho (Idaho? YOU da ho.) to attend a settlement conference for work.
I get home so late on Thursday that it might as well be Friday and, after working another full day, I have a birthday party to attend Friday night, a wedding to attend on Saturday, and on Sunday The Culture Club is meeting for brunch and then viewing the latest exhibit at the Contemporary Art Museum, “For the blind man in the dark room looking for the black cat that isn’t there.”
I’d say something silly like “Please know that I’d rather be blogging”, but we all know that isn’t true. This week may kick my ass before it’s over but it’s going to rock. I hope you all enjoy yours and I’ll see you on the other side of it.
Ten years ago I was a lean, mean fitness machine. I was a size 2 and on a good day I ran a nine-minute mile. I was trying to get a job with the FBI as an agent (me? with a badge and a gun? yes!) and was training to pass the next round of testing: the physical tests. I loved it. I loved feeling strong and powerful and being lean but I ended up shredding the cartilage in my right knee and finding out I had arthritis, the kind you're not supposed to get until you're well past 60. I let it get the best of me, physically and emotionally, and stopped working out altogether about a year later.
Well, it would seem that SOMEONE is trying to blackmail me:
The joke's on her, though, because if I'd been in a threesome (also known around this blog as a Taj Mahal because it's funny) with Eric Dane I wouldn't be ashamed of it or try to keep it quiet. Hell, I'd probably rent a billboard:
I was in small appliances; you were in the young men's department. I couldn’t hear her words but I could hear the tone she was using with you. She just kept repeating your name. It was incredibly annoying and we both wanted her to shut the hell up. Listing all the good reasons not to have children under my breath, I continued perusing coffeemakers.
Louder now, “Michael, we are leaving. You are just going to have to do without it."
I gathered that it was over a belt and that the belt was very important to you.
“Michael.”
“Michael."
“Michael."
I watched her beckon an elderly store clerk. While wondering what in the world she expected that poor woman to do, I heard her ask the woman to call security on you. My stomach sank. I chanted, “Don’t do this. Don’t do this. Don’t do this to him."
“I don’t want to go. Don’t do this,” you sobbed.
It broke my heart, Michael. Your boy’s voice, laced with strains of looming manhood, shoved me back in time. I recognized that voice, with its helpless frustration and anger, because it was mine. My throat closed, my hands shook, my eyes watered; I reeled.
I was wrong to think that your interaction had anything to do with a belt. It wasn't about holding up your pants or looking snappy. It was about a need to be heard and respected. A need that you're too young to recognize and one that you certainly don’t know how to request.
Not knowing any other way to make it stop, you fight. “I hate you! I don’t want to live with you. When I get home I am going to kick your ass. I’m going to kill you.” You choked on the words as they came out. You fight hard and you fight dirty because you are desperate.
You are also done for. Your meddling little sister takes this opportunity to show how adorably reasonable she is by announcing that she’s "going to go wait by the make-up counter", the pint-sized bitch. The store employees, attending your melt-down while waiting for security, have heard you; they’re on mom’s side now. You are clearly a demented beast.
The way you moaned when she announced, "Now I have to call 911.” (as if you had forced her), made me die a little inside. I wanted to run over there and hold your hand. I wanted to mediate. I wanted to tell you it was going to be okay. I wanted to make it stop because it was clear you didn’t know how.
I left a piece of myself with you today, Michael. I hope you’re okay.
