Honesty is Schmonesty

I know people are reading this blog who know me in real life, friends, neighbors maybe family. I'm trying to be very honest on here regardless of how it may portray me in the cold harsh light of day ("offline"). I need to vent. I like to write. I'm using a pseudonym. That being said, if you "know" me, I hope this doesn't change how you view me in the real world, I hope this doesn't make you uncomfortable around me when we run into each other next time. If it does, there's nothing that can be done at this point, I just hope it won't. I especially hope this doesn't make you look at my wife in a different light either. My mom and dad? Fuck'em, I hope you can't stand them.

I have Reoccurring Female Issues "Down There"

I like to say that I was raised by my grandma. I like to say this because I "feel" like it's true, but in reality, it isn't and I wasn't. I lived with my grandma from birth to maybe 2 or 3 years old, obviously I can't remember, I was only 2 or 3 years old. Maybe it was even only for a year, I honestly don't know. When my runaway dad came back to retrieve my mom and I from his own parents house and move us out to Madison Heights, my parents were barely 20 years old so my grandma tried to help out with raising me, but I don't know if she was there every day or once a month, I just have no idea. I can remember my dad telling me that grandma and my mom were making me "soft", and babying me. I couldn't have been more than 10 years old when I was getting these speeches from him and by 11 or 12 years old the women in my life were gone and replaced by the revolving door of my dads wives and girlfriends. Because I had no women raising me (that mattered or stuck around) I am NOT a mamma's boy, in fact, I have no relationship with any woman who I would consider a mother/child relationship. Once I was old enough to be on my own, I established a relationship like that with my grandma, and she became my parental figure and remained in that role until she died a few years back. That is probably why I like to tell people she raised me and why I feel she was my only parent. All of this comes into play in the present because I was never taught how to interact properly with women. I ALWAYS get it all fucked up with females and not the normal, "why can't you talk about your feelings?" kind of fucked up, the kind where I have a difficult time separating being a female's friend and flirting to the point of danger and if I've been drinking, beyond flirting. 

I chose a woman to marry who, although beautiful and feminine, has more male characteristics when it comes to our relationship. She doesn't like to talk about her feelings. She doesn't want to have deep conversations about our life together. She doesn't want to put up flowers and decorate. She wants to be practical and be pals, parents and lovers. She also thinks my behavior with women, which most likely would be grounds for divorce in most other marriages, is fine. It's no big deal, she knows I love her and that's that. She has watched me in some pretty compromising situations with other women, she knows I flirt to the 9th power and she's read dirty emails between me and other women (thank you to that one special husband out there by the way who found them in his wife's inbox and sent those to my wife, really, you're a peach). She knows I have a difficult problem recognizing boundaries when I am drunk. Often the women I befriend do not recognize this about me though until it's too late and they have the wrong idea; not that I ever make unwanted passes at women, to the contrary, the women think we've moved closer than friends and WANT more, and I have to decline. In my mind, and my wife's thankfully, I don't cheat on my wife but lets just say I slip up when alcohol is in use. None of this is an excuse for my behavior, I AM a complete fuck up when it comes to friendships and relationships with women, I just don't handle myself very well. Add to this that I seem to be liked by women, comfortable in the company of women and am surrounded by females in every aspect of my life (4-kids all girls, 75% of the people I work with are female, 90% of my friends are female, 90% of the art I create is of a women AND my wife is a woman) and one may consider I have a perfect recipe for constant disaster. I do. I've gone so far as to apply for a FEMA trailer to be placed in my backyard just in case.  

Oddly enough I think I know women, as much as a man can know about women in general, and am raising my girls right and have a good solid relationship with my wife. It's a conundrum I have no answer for but I do realize I am simply winging it here, I have no well of knowledge to draw from, I have no history of experience, I have no mother that taught me how to treat a lady right. 


In the end I guess what I'm trying to express here is that you look really pretty in this light here at the bar and would really like to hear more about how your husband doesn't listen to you...can we get 13 more shots please? Great..go on...

I want to learn about Christmas, Fox News and Hypocrisy Please

I don't know why I participate in Christmas. My family is openly atheist/agnostic, my children are being raised to be proud of their belief system and quite honestly distrustful of organized religion of any sort. My wife, although she hates when I say this, is a hippy chic. She HATES consumerism, she hates getting rid of anything because she doesn't want it to end up in a land fill (I think the new hip lingo for that is "hoarder"?) and she believes we all have too much crap and too little connection with our fellow man. We joke every year about NOT celebrating Christmas but when it comes down to it, that would utterly crush the kids who have grown up with Christmas being about the celebration with family, the time off of work I get and the all around fun of the holidays, but NOT about the religious aspects whatsoever. In fact I'm not actually 100% sure that the little ones know who the fuck Jesus is let alone that Christmas has anything to do with him at all.

So I guess my original statement was false, I DO know why I participate in Christmas, because my kids enjoy it. To me, the reality is that if we removed all of the lights, and the trees and the gifts and the rampant consumerism associated with Christmas and ONLY celebrated it as a religious holy day, like say Palm Sunday or Ash Wednesday, most people wouldn't give a shit about it, not even christians. It would turn into another one of those, "I haven't been to church all year I better not miss it today" holidays (which I guess it kind of is now, except now you also get candy canes). Although most people think of themselves as affiliated with some organized religious group, my guess is that's a carry over from their parents, not because they're religiously attending church or a synagogue or anything (see what I did there?). So the whole insane pageantry of Christmas really is what keeps it in the front of our mind so to me, it's ironic that it's the political party that is screaming, "let the market decide our fate" that is also screaming, "you're ruining the true meaning of  Christmas!".

I know the second everyone reads this next sentence they're going to cringe and a lot of you are going to tune out, but honestly, I don't get it; Republicans profess to be for the small business owner and always preach that we CANNOT raise taxes on the ultra wealthy (or on anyone or anything) but are also backed strongly by the Christian right wing moral majority groups, which I'm not sure how you can easily reconcile. How can cold corporations that are obviously ONLY in existence to make as much money as possible at almost all costs coexist hand-in-hand with good, kind, put people first charitable groups? So you're a small business owner, or a MASSIVE business owner, and you find out that rolling out a huge marketing campaign that reads, "HAPPY HOLIDAYS!" is amazingly more effective and spectacularly more cost effective than, "MERRY CHRISTMAS!", you find this out by the response you get from your customers by way of MORE dollars and cents transactions resulting from your marketing. So you stick with the HAPPY HOLIDAYS, because that's what the market is dictating. You are letting the market decide how you market yourself, and those decisions based on such a routine seems like it would be firmly in the wheelhouse of the Republican party. But then along comes FOX News with a video camera doing an expose on your store and how you're "ATTACKING CHRISTMAS!". Um, what? I don't get it either and I"m not being anti-Republican or anti-Christmas, I just don't understand the dichotomy of these two apparently diametrically opposed positions.

This is just all too KOOKY for me, this shouldn't even be an issue. So here I am, asking you out there to explain this to me, because honestly I cannot figure it out as it is currently being viewed by me. I am looking to be corrected here I want to learn...I'd also like a special massage from you if you're cute, I'm under a lot of stress, it's the holidays after all....

I've Come to a Sheep in the Road and I need to Make a Decision

I don't know if you call what I have, "a mid-life crisis" but whatever it is, it feels urgent. I used to think that I needed continuous change, my childhood had ingrained some deep need to always be changing my situation, so as an adult I sought out that change and intentionally looked for something to disrupt the norm and thereby shuffle in some sort of change. I used to think that, before I was married for going on 17 years and worked at the same job for 15 years and lived in the same city for 12 years and so on and so on. Now it's pretty fucking obvious I'm OK with things staying the same...except, now I want to disrupt all of the stability I have and make a, quite frankly, unneeded and unnecessary change. I've walked this weird line for so long, I grew up with such instability the one thing I always wanted to be stable, to have a family and kids and a job and a house and just be "OK", not even exceptional, just "OK". I didn't look for excitement or thrills,  just "safe". Well I've accomplished that and now, I kinda want to take some risks which is hilarious because those risks could fuck up all of this stability I've busted my ass to gain over the last 2-decades. In addition, I'm responsible for 5 other people's entire lives. If I fuck up and lose it all, THEY lose it all too and they didn't actually decide to take any risks. I could easily sit tight, do nothing, be happy that I have come so far in my life and continue on the current path, maybe take a yoga class, learn not to be so antsy, so unsettled. I'm not sure if that would work or help though, I don't know if I can know what will help or work until I start trying different shit to see what happens, but with those attempts comes the risk of things not working out OR actually working out and thereby ushering in drastic and dramatic change. This is all very scary and although they always say you should confront your fears they never mention the wife and four kids that not only don't have a say in said confrontations, they don't really get to opt out of the consequences of the results of my decisions. Fuck. I'd like to sign up for the guaranteed results no risk happy ending life now please. Thanks!

You Should Always Try Not to Care

Dear Mom, who never responded back with whether or not she was coming to Thanksgiving dinner at our house, who my wife has spent the last 10 years listening to all of your problems and helping you and being your only friend, who's ignored me, who we've tried to help ad nausea with money and support and love, who I convinced to get up and allow me to take you to the ER so you wouldn't die where you lay, who has made us always feel like we're a burden if we ask if you can see your grand-kids or god forbid babysit them once a year, who has chosen a drunk over her children over and over again. It was great to hear that you had a wonderful thanksgiving dinner at your house with your husband, my aunt, my younger sister and my younger brother. Thank you for acting indignant that my wife was hurt that you never even bothered to call and say, "I can't come to thanksgiving dinner at your house, but thank you for the invite" and thank you for not calling to let us know YOU were actually planning on having thanksgiving dinner at your house with your family who obviously doesn't include me, my wife or your 4 grandchildren (your only grandchildren). I'm sorry that we have tried to be a part of your life, I'm sorry my wife always had hope one day you'd realize I just wanted you to act like a mom and a grandma. Have a merry christmas, a happy new year and a wonderful life, I hope you find peace.

Family Sucks my Cock.

Tomorrow is thanksgiving and I will be spending it with my family, my immediate family; my wife and I and our 4 kids. That's it, that's all. There is no grandma's house to go to or family gathering to attend. There are no crazy aunts or wayward cousins coming over to make things awkward and uncomfortable. My wife's dad and step-mom live in San Diego, CA. and we only see them a few times a year. My wife's mom passed away a few years ago from ovarian cancer. I'm sure my dad is out there within 50 miles of me, but I have no idea where exactly and no interest in finding him. My mom, well my mom had an aneurysm burst about a month ago and if I hadn't gotten her to the hospital when I did she would have died. She's home now, and we invited her (and my step-dad and my 16-year old half sister) over for thanksgiving but it appears she won't be coming. The last phone conversation we had she was non-committal and was supposed to call us to let us know and well, it's Wednesday and thanksgiving is tomorrow. I'm not surprised but I am a little disappointed in her not showing up this year. I've never had thanksgiving with my mother, ever. Her and I are not close, she didn't raise me and she has a family of her own with a daughter nearly the same age as my oldest daughter. Recently her husband filed for divorce and we've been helping her deal with that, emotionally and financially. Then a few weeks back this medical emergency came up and I was the only one around to help save her, and I did, and I thought it made us closer. It didn't. Her ex-drunk but always super awesome husband has generously pressed pause on the divorce proceeding apparently and she's right back into old patterns, which is fine, I understand from people who have them that they're safe and comforting. My wife has always tried to be super supportive of my mom and super helpful with anything she needed, my wife always thought that if WE just made more of an effort to be close to her than she'd open up and we'd act like family. She's now aware that no one in my family acts like family.

Going Blind

I have four children. I have a 14 year old daughter. This, in the current context, means two things; she is of the age where we have to discuss sex with her AND since she's a girl, my wife got 95% of that responsibility. I have 4 daughters, this means only 20% of ALL of the sex ed talk we'll ever have to do will fall on me, I am, in a word, relieved. As you're figuring out I was raised by my dad, around the 12 year old mark my mom existed the scene and hence my dad took over all duties in regards to all things regarding me and my brother. My dad was a liberal man and the fact I was only 12 didn't really dissuade him from talking to me like I was a 40 year old trucker...which is funny because when I was 12 he was only 30. His age comes into play here because he obviously had me when he was 18 years old and my mom was 17 years old. I was not a planned event a fact I was often reminded of by him when things weren't going right, and they OFTEN weren't going right. So, since he screwed up his life by knocking up his high school girlfriend, he was apparently going to make damn sure I did NOT do the same thing, which in itself is admirable. How he did this though was to tell me, ever since I was old enough to hear, that if I ever got a girl pregnant, I was out. I would be kicked out of his house and he would not be raising my child for me (the irony here is palpable, but that's for another blog entry). He had been telling me this well before we ever had the talk about what sex actually even was let alone how you do it and what the consequences are if you've done it properly. Needless to say, when he finally sat me down and told me that he knows I touch my little dick in the tub and that's ok, and that I may want to experiment and touch other guy's little dicks and THAT'S ok and eventually, I'm going to find a girl who will let me put my little dick inside of her pussy and it is going to feel sooooo good and that's when I know I've totally fucked up my entire life and everything I knew would be over. All this time during this heartwarming talk about my little dick and how it's going to end life as I know it, he had Penthouse Magazines with him, showing me what exactly pussy was and where I would, but should never, put my little dick. He then let me know that there was an entire box of Penthouse Magazines in the garage, and I should limit my sexual activity and the range of my little dick to the garage and this box of pussy. It was all very Norman Rockwelly and I cherish that moment to this very day. The good news is I didn't have intercourse until I was 18 years old and even then my long term girlfriend had to literally talk me into it...it lasted about 2 minutes and didn't ruin anything other than her expectations of what a real man was.