Got an idea? I bet I could make it better! Gimme a couple of days and you won’t even recognize it, because I’ll have made it awesome! Seriously, I’m like the Burger King of Ideas, and my snack wraps are better than your original McConcept.

Take that picture, for instance. It could use some lasers or action lines or something! I don’t know how to do that, but somebody who does should do it. It was my idea, afterall, so it’s gold. 

When you have writer’s block, it can seem easier to fly to the moon by flapping your arms than it can to come up with something original. While that goes on, anything from basic cable movies to missing dog signs receive heavy rewrites in my head. I know the way to make anything better, yet cannot myself make anything good. Oh, the pain; the pain of it all. When will this burden lift? When will I be able to think clearly again, or at the bare minimum, cloudy enough to think that an okay idea is good enough to devote some time to? Hopefully soon, cuz’ this accidie is killing me, ya dig? If that doesn’t kill me, the Redhead will, because she’s tired of hearing how things can be done “better.”

I need an idea. Or better yet, a large sum of cash to improve someone else’s idea. The ball is in your court, universe.

The Redhead just emerged from another relatively successful yet grueling performance of putting the kid to bed. I don’t tell her enough, but she’s doing an incredible job. I can’t be too much fun to begin with, what with the constant moping about cleaning the bathroom and the propensity to stub my toe on every freaking baby thing imaginable because they’re all over the GOD DAMN FLOOR, add to that the little mumbling drool monster, and she’s got a pretty heaping plate full. In spite of all this, she still found the time to record a TV show with a really fat cat to show me.

Truth be told, it is a very fat cat. Still, I’m not sure why this is business that applies to me. I am not a pet person, having had 2 younger siblings, and am even less so a cat person. She thought it was of note. As she stated, “How could you not DVR that?” Just so. However, upon seeing my slightly blank response to the DVR’ed cat video, she started to cry. My poker face is a little out of practice, but I was still bewildered by that reaction. It’s just a fat cat. Then she really cried.

She felt for the cat. The video was never meant to be humorous, but I’m pre-programmed to view everything as a joke. She felt bad for a poor cat that, okay, has packed on a few pounds during the winter months and is now being paraded in front of some woman named “Hoda” on network television (like that means anything anymore). I would have found this odd, but she’s been a little kooky lately. By “little” I mean a lot, and by “kooky” I mean fucking crazy. The other day I handed her a styrofoam cup, but before I could insert the straw in the lid for her, she felt the need to spin 360 degrees. This is my wife, not my daughter. The straw was in my other hand, and she felt she needed to reach that hand more easily, by the three-lefts-make-a-right logic, I suppose. She is clearly delirious, exhausted, and scatterbrained during this period of child rearing and family insanity, and I love her for it. I couldn’t love her more.

Thank you, honey. You are the most fascinating, weird, beautiful creature I have ever encountered, and everyday I fall in love with you more. Don’t worry so much. While we can sometimes feel like we’re drowning, we’ll be there for each other, using the buddy system like at Lake Anawanna, to keep each other afloat and prevent cramps. You’re top shelf.

And that was a fat cat.

It’s a gloomy day in LA, hey hey, hey hey. Time for a cup of coffee and some “home office” time.

We don’t have any coffee. Oh, well. Maybe a bowl of soup? Out of that, too. Well, shit. Somebody’s going to have to leave this comfy nest and venture out into the overcast misty afternoon. It’s almost 60 degrees out there. It will require full length pants! This is a hopeless endeavor. I know it’s going to be me. Once I go, I may like it out there and change the whole day’s breakdown, understand. This happy nest will disappear in the blink of an eye, replaced by a bitter trek through a windy park or a walk to Walgreen’s. If you send me out there, I may bring you all with me. It’s how I roll. Why suffer alone, when one’s family can accompany? 

Put a hood on that child, Red. We’re going out for skittles and Folger’s.

During the week we’ve been home the semblance of order has decayed: nap times are erratic if existent, feedings are annoying if not tiresome. Time is irrelevant… mood swings plentiful. And that’s just us. To add to it, the kid is teething.

She’s a little trooper, that one, but there’s definitely an issue of another growth spurt taking place. She’s hard to put to sleep, she’s hard to get to stay asleep, and Mom and Dad are losing sleep. Our television sits paused more than it does turned off. It takes us hours to get through even a half hour show. Hulu, Netflix, XBox Live, they’re nothing but expensive desktops and pause screens.

It feels like all we do is sleep, and yet, we never sleep. Everything is paused. The record is skipping, and we’re going to have to put a dime on the needle to get that thing to stay in the groove, ya dig? We also have a lot of dishes to do. That can prove to be a noisy affair when a munchkin sleeps a few feet away.

Tomorrow is another new week. Tonight, we’re turning in early and sleeping in a big pile in the middle of the bed. Dishes, groceries, vacuuming, unpacking… all this crap can wait. The new week starts at 10ish tomorrow morning. Not too early, though. We’ll probably be up half the night.

Holy cow, who woulda thunk spending 18 days out of town and out of touch would amount to a lot more to do when I got back? Most people, I imagine. Afterall, it’s a pretty logical conclusion. This is not the case I find myself in.

(Most illogical.)

I am instead, left with only a little to do and the squandered time between when I learned of it and now. I have “now” to do it all. That’s all the time I have. Shore Leave was cancelled today and I had to be in Space at 5:30 AM. So I’ve already been awake for like, days.

Oh, sure. I had all week. And what did I do? Who the hell knows… Sure, there’s a baby involved, and yes, that takes a lot of time, but it’s already Thursday night, and I have a bitch ton of stuff to record, I gotta warsh the cloths, and… well, that’s pretty much it. Seriously, not a lot piled it up. It’s kind of sad, really. Anyway, I think I can handle this. A nap would be be nice, but I may not wake up until 11. No, focus! I need to stop procrastinating things that take 20 minutes, because now I have 8 different “20 minute jobs” to do. And I’m so tired, Internet. Maybe if I rest my eyes on the couch…

I have a lot of a little to do.

Tim Lincecum has lost his fastball.

As a particularly upset Giants fan explains but AOL assures is NBD, Tim Lincecum has had great difficulty getting his fastball above 90 mph. He’s also had some trouble getting out of the 5th Inning. He sits at a 10.54 ERA, acting as a one-man anchor in my Fantasy Team’s Bullpen. Look, I know it was risky taking him and Wainwright. If they figure it out, we’ll all be happy. If not, something’s gonna have to happen. I’ll drop you into the Free Agency pool and let the dogs toss you around weekly, never feeling the comfort of a home team again.

So please, Tim. Start smoking again.

Short Story Long:

We were on the plane back to Los Angeles, and Fyona needed to be changed. Since I had a couple of beers while watching the White Sox game at the Airport “Let Them Eat Cake,” I was also in need of a restroom. I figured we’d go together, underestimating the degree of difficulty.

(Easy.)

I also underestimated the ability to find a bar in a Chicago Airport that was showing the White Sox Game. Miller’s Pub and Harry Caray’s were both showing the Cubs on all of their televisions. Finally, after a search, we found it at a cake and pie shop that also had a full bar for some reason. We watched with an Irish Dance instructor (who herself wasn’t Irish) and a businessman who put down two pieces of apple pie and 4 Miller Lites. Ah, airports.

So 2 hours in and somewhere over the Great Plains, Fyona and I had synchronized calls of nature, ones that couldn’t wait the 2 more hours until we were on the ground. The Redhead looked at me and said, “good luck.” I shrugged it off. How hard could this be?

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I often state that my blog is nothing more than me bitching about traffic, when it’s really more about me bitching about work and drinking. This should balance the scales, because shitty driving is not the exclusive property of Los Angeles. 

I am happy/sad to report that shitty driving is a national problem. I hate to lose one of my chief gripes about the Left Coast but the fact is, people don’t know what they’re doing behind the wheel from coast to coast and all in between. Unlike LA, most of them are on cellphones. Just like LA, there’s a crippling sense of entitlement. Cars roll through stop signs, they turn right from the left lane, and they give you a dirty look while doing it. 

My own driving has gone through a drastic change in the last few months, as I feel I should paint my car yellow with bold letters reading “BABY ON BOARD,” (no single window sticker is big enough) to convey the danger other drivers are putting my family in when running to the White Hen for Skittles, (Yes, White Hen went went out of business years ago) but that still doesn’t change the fact that people are driving like jackasses. Let’s all take a tylenol and breather after that mess of a sentence…

Long, but not too long beyond this….

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