bitchen!

OooH! I forgot to mention! I started the Atkins Diet on Thursday and I've already lost 7 lbs!

Yaaay.

w00t!

as the blog turns

SKB and I came to an agreement Saturday night to still see each other but to see others. I don't know how it will all turn out, but I think this is the best thing for both of us. I'm just newly divorced and want to date widely and she's in a similar situation.

Just so you know.

springeresque

I talked to the Ex last night. I implored her to stop disappointing the kids by breaking promises. I also told her to 'grow up.' Due to her advanced state of inebriation (and likely, self-loathing) it set her crying on the floor. How do I know? Because Pegleg got me on the phone a bit later to read me the riot act. It was a ten-minute screamfest, but we both got to say things we've been thinking, regardless of how rude or inaccurate. We gave up using names in the first thirty seconds of the conversation and resorted to me punctuating my sentences with "dickhead" and "asshole," and he responding with the predictable "motherfucker."

Him: "Do you think you're smarter than me?!"

Me: "Well, honestly, on an intelligence level I'd say we're about evenly matched. But I'd say I'm smarter than you."

Him: "How so?"

Me: "BECAUSE I'VE NEVER STUCK A FUCKING NEEDLE IN MY ARM, DICKHEAD!!!!"

Then, over and over, he asked me why she was still crying. I repeatedly responded with the truth as I saw it.

"Because she's DRUNK, dillrod. It's a depressant! Don't they teach you guys anything in rehab?"

We went on to debate the more technical aspects of the word "freebasing" and whether it applied to the unique method by which he took Oxycontion or only to his old, retired habit of cocaine.

This is more information than I've ever supplied here, I know. Just treat it as a nice story with questionable facts and move on to the next blog.


Rest assured, I'm keeping my kids safe.

[For a complete transcript of half this conversation, ask my neighbors. I was pacing the cul-de-sac with my cordless phone...]

You have a mysterious kiss. Your partner never
knows what you're going to come up with next;
this creates great excitement and arousal never
knowing what to expect. And it's sure to end
in a kiss as great as your mystery.

What kind of kiss are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

numb ear

My left ear has spontaneously gone numb off and on for the last three months or so. I first noticed it on the phone with SKB the week we met (you do the math). Anyway, it goes numb 30-40% of the time. I saw a doctor about it today and he said that I didn't have a brain tumor (whew!) but rather essentially "carpal tunnel of the ear" or a repetitive stress injury from years and years of cradling the phone on my left shoulder and driving a mouse with my right hand.

Ironically, it's not from the neck-over cradling, but from the compression of the left ear with the handset. The doc told me to get headsets for all my phones. Work has ordered one for me here and I bought a cell-phone one and a cordless-phone one for at home.

Just thought you might want to know.


I don't know abou the Jerry Springer post. I need to find a way to write it so you feel as mad as I was. That'll take some doing.

some more, from comments

shake the dew off my lilly
emtpy the tank
peddle some piddle
shoot some flys
drain the kidney
take a wazz
take a whizz
spend a penny
write my name in the snow
go to the deep end
drain the dragon
change the oil
make room
rotate the stock
introduce Droopy to his brother, Drippy
take target practice on some cigarette buts
pour a cup of "Moutain Don't"
drown some flies
fill the turd swimming pool
habeas penis
make a deposit at the Flushing branch
stare at some wall boogers

Superlatives:
pee like Peggy Guggenheim
piss like a racehorse

I sometimes joke that "I have to piss like a racehorse, but can't find a place to pee standing on all fours."

antiques roadshow

My Mother-Out-Law took her show on the road. With her she brought her two granddaughters, with whom she lives, up to my small town to spend four days with me. In small doses, it's novel to hear the antique talk about who was on the Oprah show and who she saw on "Larry King Alive." She informed me that they "caught number four in the deck, you know, over there in Iraq with them Palestinians."

That number four guy has got to know... That Saddahn is number one and his two sons are two and three. Anyways, that number four guy's gotta know a lot of the secrets, you know, like where Saddahn is and his sons. I bet they've got him somewhere nobody's gonna find him.

Really? Which suit?

I'm Dan Elias, and today the Antiques Roadshow is headed to Columbia City, Indiana, where nothing, including time passes quickly.

[CAPTION: Elmer Winegate, Retired Appraiser] I see what you have here is a fairly rustic Retired Woman. What can you tell me about her?

ME: Well, she's not very well educated and she's got some damage from being moved. She also has a few parts that aren't original.

ELMER: How long has she been in the family?

ME: Well she was in my ex-wife's family for years and years, but somehow I ended up with her in the divorce. I'd say she's a little over 60 years old.

ELMER: Well if you look at the markings on her ass we can determine her exact age to be 64 years old. What did you pay for her?

ME: Thirteen years of marriage.

ELMER: Well, you might be disappointed to learn that your ex-wife got the better end of the deal by leaving her to you. Not only is she not worth anything at auction, she's pretty much a liability at this point.

ME: Gosh! Wow. Well, thank you.


Next: The Jerry Springer Show

here come content

I'm going to try to post good stuff every day. Bunnie's chastisement yesterday really hit home. How dissappointed my regular readers must be. I admit, I read blogs that post every day a lot more faithfully. I guess it's Pavlovian classical conditioning. If I reward the behavoir, it will enforce it.

Wish me luck.

bitchen.com '03 u.s. tour itinerary revised

I've secured (I hope) Aug 8 - 17, 2003 off of work for my trip.

After talking to a few people, I've slimmed down my itinerary. Feel free to speak up if I'm coming through your town. I'd love to go out for a drink or something. Let me know.

Depart	Arrive	Destination	To See	Miles	Hrs
Fri a.m. 8/8	Fri p.m. 8/8	Kansas City	Jimmy 'Fingers'	600	12
Mon a.m. 8/11	Mon p.m. 8/11	Denver	Mag/Yndy	610	12
Tue p.m. 8/12	Tue p.m. 8/12	Colorado Springs	Aunt Karalee	67	1
Wed a.m. 8/13	Wed p.m. 8/13	Albuquerque	Unknown	373	7
Thu a.m. 8/14	Thu p.m. 8/14	Oklahoma City	Cowboy Museum	540	11
Thu p.m. 8/14	Thu p.m. 8/14	Tulsa	SP Halo	105	2
Fri a.m. 8/15	Fri p.m. 8/15	St Louis	Unknown	395	8
Sat p.m. 8/16	Sun a.m. 8/17	Ft Wayne	Home	373	8

What's nice is that this trip gives me a goal. Something to work toward and look forward to. It's really improved my outlook.

road trip!

I'm thinking about taking a week off when The Ex has the kids in August and making a road trip. Here's the first draft:

Depart	Arrive	Destination	To See	Miles
Fri p.m.	Sat a.m.	Kansas City	Jimmy 'Fingers'	600
Mon a.m.	Mon p.m.	Denver	Mag	610
Tue a.m.	Tue p.m.	Albuquerque	Bugs Bunny †	440
Wed a.m.	Wed p.m.	Oklahoma City	SP Halo	540
Thur a.m.	Thur p.m.	Houston/Galveston	Gulf	480
Fri a.m.	Fri noon	New Orleans	French Quarter	350
Sat p.m.	Sun a.m.	Nashville	Hatch Show Print ‡	530
Sun p.m.	Sun p.m.	Ft Wayne	Home	380

I know it's 12 hours of driving a day (except the first weekend) and it's incredibly ambitious, but I have fifteen years of wanderlust to get out of my system. The driving doesn't bother me as long as I have audiobooks and a tape recorder to audio blog with.

Any you people live in any of these towns? I'll stop by and visit!

† Doesn't Bugs always forget to take a left at Albuquerque? I actually know no one there, I don't think. But it's hard to tell on the Internet.

‡ Is Hatch Show Print open on Sunday? Anyone know?

leaving the church : lunch with pastor

"How is your constitution?" I ask him as I set my orange tray of food on his table.

He looks up from his baked ziti, "It depends on what you mean?"

"Well, this is liable to be an uncomfortable conversation."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah, but first off let's talk about the email you sent."

The email addressed an issue with the sound system. I am in charge of the sound system. He concluded that the sound had been crappy the last few weeks because we hadn't allotted enough time to set up. This is bullshit. It was crappy because I wasn't doing it for once. We have an alternating schedule, but I usually run the mixer anyway. He said the ideal solution was for me to do it every week unless I couldn't. I had agreed to that, he said. "We only have one chance to make a first impression," he pontificates, "and a good sounding, professional service is the goal."

"Okay," says I, "that being said."

"Hmmm?" He has bad hearing.

"I said, 'that being said.'"

"Oh"

"We reach the uncomfortable part."

"Okay."

"We need to come up with a plan for ramping me down."

"Pardon?" he says, his hand behind his ear.

"We need to ramp me down from the sound system, because in the very near future I won't be attending anymore."

Through a pained expression he says "I know" and tosses his napkin to the table and stands, tears welling up in his eyes. He gathers his tray and keys and apologizes but he has to go now. I explain that it's not personal and it's a theological issue, but he clearly doesn't want to break down in front of me.

At the trash bin, he regains composure and comes back. "Did I get my keys?"

"You picked them up. I hope you didn't throw them away."

He fetches them from his back pocket.

"This happens, you know. Something comes up that takes people away from the church. When do we need to meet about a plan?"

"As soon as possible, I guess"

He sits. "Let's talk about it now. Who can do it?"

I nominate a worthy successor.

"Well, we'll be short-handed once again," he grouses, "it'll be crappy for a while, but we'll stretch people even farther to cover the bases."

Hmm. Self-centeredness and a guilt trip all rolled into one.

"So what's your theological issue?"

"I've basically become an agnostic. I don't believe it's possible to know the true nature of God."

"Uh-huh."

"I'm of two camps."

Hand behind the ear. "Pardon?"

"I said 'I'm of two camps.' There's the camp that says there's no such thing as supernatural and paranormal, and another camp that says 'except on Sunday morning.' I have trouble reconciling that."

He nods.

"I also have trouble reconciling an uninterrupted 60,000-year genetic lineage with the Bible. As in no interruptions like Adam and Noah."

Blank stare.

"Bottom line is that my heart's just not into it."

"Okay." He stands, shakes my hand. "Take it easy, Ric. Send me an email on your timeline."


So essentially he was more worried about losing a sound engineer and less worried about losing a parishoner.

Go figure.

first photo essay

I've proven it. It takes hours to make even the crappiest of photo essays.

I have more respect, now, for what Tony does.

Feel free to link it. Use: http://bitchen.com/images/blog/essays/dells/

note to comments users

If you use my comments system on your blog, there is a change you need to make to make it work with the new Blogger software. (They updated their site.) Email me or drop me a private comment (include your email) and I'll send details on how to fix it.

leaving the church : put yourself in my shoes

I am on the worship team at church, and I lead praise singing next week. Ironic isn't it? I just got this e-mail from the worship-leader-in-chief:

I heard you saved the day on 6/1 when you got Susan's laptop to work with the church projector. What would we do without you??

I almost responded with "you may find out sooner than you'd like," but decided against it. This is typical of the things (along with my mother's attendance) that make it so hard to do this.

[title changed 6/12/2003 --ric]

leaving the church

For more than thirty years (not counting the year I took off to get married) I've been going to church with the same congregation every weekend. For years it was on Saturday, recently on Sunday. Sometimes we kept Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and sometimes it was Christmas and Easter. Sometimes we were saved by our works and at other times we were saved by grace. Early on we were The One True Church, now we're so fucking ecumenical, it's nauseating.

"Why?" you ask? The answer is simple.

I do not know and cannot know if there is a God.

I am, in a word, agnostic. How did I become agnostic? Am I mad at God? No. I can simply no longer rationalize what I believe about the physical world I live in with what I've been taught to believe about the Christian God. There's far more than this. I'll be happy to write all about it unless somebody threatens me with a lighted cross in my yard. As with everything I write about here, I think you'll find my approach logical, sensible and refreshing. No cliché rhetoric here. I won't be quoting things I've read unless someone just happens to say what I already believe more eloquently than I.

I'm setting up a lunch on Thursday with my minister to tell him.

Wish me luck.

bruce allllrighty then

I saw Bruce Almighty the other day. I didn't need to. I could have written that myself. So could you. Just watch the trailer and add the tidbit that at one point in the movie he says "yes" to everyone's prayers, including those who prayed to win the lottery. Now write.

See? You just wrote Bruce Almighty.

Jim Carrey is good. Better than in some recent films. The fellow playing the news anchor performs the astounding task of making the audience believe that he is being controlled by Jim Carrey. So much so, in fact, that you don't really realize it's not Carrey doing that schtick until you see the outtakes.

Wait for the video.

...then for it to rent for a dollar.

something to read

Kevin, nee LilFluffy is posting again. Interesting.

Below is a picture he took of himself. Will sombody please confirm that he bears a striking resemblance to Colin Farrell?


click to enlarge

a quote for all the misunderstood grammar nazis

"Respect for the word is the first commandment in the discipline by which a man can be educated to maturity—intellectual, emotional and moral. Respect for the word—to employ it with scrupulous care and an incorruptible heartfelt love of truth—is essential if there is to be any growth in a society or in the human race. To misuse the word is to show contempt for man. It undermines the bridges and poisons the wells. It causes Man to regress down the long path of his evolution."

Dag Hammarskjold

from here via here.

And for the truly anal: everything you ever need to know about typesetting punctuation in HTML

burning

Why doesn't this girl have archives?

shoulda woulda coulda

It should have been a great day.

• It was sunny.
  
• My house was cleaned by other people.
  
• I got tons of sleep over the weekend.
  
• I blogged finally, and I liked what I wrote.
  
• Mary-Kate and Ashley have a new poster out.
  
• Tony Pierce linked me.

But...

• It turned cloudy and muggy.
  
• I can't find anything.
  
• I squandered my sleep reserves on bar-hopping and infomercials.
  
• Mary T. thought it missed the mark.
  
• The poster just isn't that sexy.
  
• Well... Tony did link me.

tony pierce is king

funhappy

Dave was fun. Maddie was fun. "Moonlighting" was fun.

Then it happened--they got together.

Dave and Maddie were happy. Dave and Maddie were no longer fun. "Moonlighting" was no longer fun. For a while, after Robin Williams stopped doing cocaine in the mid-eighties, he was very happy, yet not nearly as fun. When Fonzie got a girlfriend on "Happy Days," Fonzie was happy, but no longer fun.

Fun comes from angst sometimes. Sometimes angst comes from fun. Sometimes they seem to be joined at the keister.

The Half Mad Spinster (no hyphen, thankyouverymuch), is gone. Mary T. felt she was beating a dead horse. In it's heyday, halfmadspinster.com was fun. It was fun not only in a sitcom way, but also in a very deep, emotional way that you call a weekend with a new love fun. The kind of fun that comes from sharing tears and tortures as well as aphorisms and anecdotes. She was Half Mad, after all. She was a spinster--an unmarried woman in her mid-thirties searching for her Missing Piece. And we could all, on some level, relate to that. I had fun, the way I had fun walking the ten miles with 25 of my peers to A Safe Place after our church bus broke down on our teen trip to the World's Fair in Knoxville in 1982. The safe place made us happy. But it wasn't fun.

Maybe fun is a journey and happiness is a goal.

Mary T. reached her goal. She met Boyfriend Bob. And she stopped being fun and started being happy. She kept writing, but it was tantamount to my teen group to walking past The Safe Place just because the walking was fun. The walking was more than fun. It was hot, grueling, and exhausting. The Safe Place made us happy. We stopped.

We knew that it was much better to be happy than have fun. And until I wrote that sentence, I always thought they were the same thing.

Godspeed, Mary T.! Congratulations on happiness. We'll miss the blog...

Send a wedding invitation.