Abu Halen

Fumungus

2012-02-12T10:51:00.001-05:00

While we were waiting in my podiatrist’s office yesterday afternoon, Grace asked a lot of questions about the Toe Fungus poster on the door. After I’d answered every question that could be answered by reference to the poster (because that’s pretty much all I knew about toe fungus), Grace was overflowing with toe-fungus wisdom. So she sang a little song. It went something like this:

“If you have fumungus, you are really itchy. If you have fumungus, wash your feet more oftener. And if you have fumungus, I’m sorry for your feet.”

It was the most uplifting song about toe fungus I’d ever heard. You’ve got to be grateful for the little things in life, you know?

Yappers

2012-02-06T16:41:00.001-05:00

A rare moment of silence.

I have a kid who talks A LOT. This evening he brought his newly constructed Lego rocket to dinner and immediately started describing all the cool things it could do, using every superlative in his vocabulary . . . and even some made-up superlatives, like “bikquazillion.” He was still talking when his sisters finished eating and left the table. He was still talking when Abu Halen finished eating and left the table. He was still talking as I inwardly cursed myself for being the slowest eater in the family.

Once, when he was four, he talked for twenty minutes straight about Chihuahuas: “Chihuahuas aren’t dogs. They’re animals. And they can run 30-50 fast. And they can jump so high. What happens to Chihuahuas when they’re old womans? You know what? If a Chihuahua chases you in the wilderness, you better get outta there, because Chihuahuas can kill humans so so so so fast. [Here he slurps back the saliva that has started out the corner of his mouth because he hasn’t yet paused long enough to swallow.] And Chihuahuas are the most dangerous animals, because they can sneak behind things like rocks and curtains and big houses and fences and little-small animals and desks and stuff. . . .”

Even if I had wanted to interject into that conversation, I couldn’t have, so awestruck was I at how he could go on and on about a dog he had never even seen in real life (obviously). Eventually I had to command him to stop. We needed peace. One can stand only so many Chuihuahua facts before one’s brain starts to deteriorate.

Should You Force Your Child to Play Piano?

2012-02-02T19:02:00.000-05:00

Modern humans fall into three main categories:

1. Those who were forced to learn the piano in childhood, hated it, and have little to no regrets over quitting

2. Those who were forced to learn the piano in childhood, hated it, but are glad their parents insisted with them

3. Those who have never learned to play piano

I’m a Category 1 human, with mild regrets. The regrets, however, developed very slowly. I was 22 years old and on an LDS mission in Cape Verde before I decided maybe it would have been a good idea to spend my teenage years acquiring skills like piano playing rather than wiling away my the hours consuming gallon after gallon of vanilla ice cream and admiring Rob Ross’s happy little trees.

I don’t think I ever actually practiced the piano, although I assured my grandma I did. But to my juvenile mind, Grandma was asking for it: first, she had posed a direct question that couldn’t be diverted to another subject; second, she was too sweet for me to disappoint. How could I have but lied to her? Not my fault. I’m not sure how Grandma found out that I eventually quit taking piano lessons; I wasn’t the one who told her.

Guitar was Savannah's "starter" piano until we realized it wasn't an actual piano.

So, back to that time when I regretted not knowing how to play the piano. It was like this: we were on this island in the middle of the Atlantic, and the only missionary who knew how to play the piano for our church congregation had left. The rest of us (who were all Category 1 humans) felt like I’m sure you’d feel if you were at 50,000 feet and the flight attendant announces that, coincidentally, both the pilot and the copilot of the plane have just had heart attacks, the autopilot is nonfunctional, and does anyone here maybe know how to fly an aircraft? I raise my hand and say, “Um, I took piano lessons for seven years.” And the rest of the missionaries breathe sighs of relief and then say, “Oh, good! What can you play?” And I say, “Well, maybe ‘Sweet Hour of Prayer.’” And they’re like, “Great, but what else?” And I’m like, “Well, . . . nothing else.” So I play “Sweet Hour of Prayer” for the introductory hymn, the Sacrament hymn, the rest hymn, and the closing hymn. Fortunately, Cape Verdeans are particularly fond of “Sweet Hour of Prayer,” so nobody seems to mind the repetition.

(My Grandma heard that story through the grapevine, and it’s all she could talk about it when I returned home. For her, that moment was the great and glorious climax of my eighteen-month mission.)

Reflecting on my own experience with piano has made me ponder on what category of humans my children will be. My nine year old has been taking piano lessons for six months now, and getting her to practice daily has been stressful for the both of us. So I asked myself, what if the three categories of humans are too simplistic, and force should play no part at all in learning piano? What about the importance of my kid’s free will? If I’m continually ignoring her free will and forcing her to do things my way, isn’t she going to start resenting me—I mean, before she’s even a teenager? Can a person even learn piano without being forced?

Coincidentally, the parenting book I’m currently reading had an answer for me:

“Our strong-arm tactics teach children that it’s legitimate to use force to influence others. Through force, we attempt to remove other people’s choices. By removing their choices, we remove their self-esteem and their ability to make commitments. . . . If you catch yourself saying, ‘How can I make my child [practice the piano]?’ change the question to, ‘How can I help my child to be more likely to choose to [practice the piano]?’” (Becky A. Bailey, Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline, p. 46).

I asked my wise Facebook friends how a person might go about helping a child to choose to learn the piano. Here are some of their ideas:

Find out what you have to work with by actually asking your child how she feels about piano. Discover what she likes and doesn’t like, and why. Ask her how you think you, she, and the teacher could improve her overall satisfaction with learning the piano.
Give the kid a break. You can stop lessons for six to twelve months and then start them up again to see if her attitude shifts.
Wait until your child is older. Sometimes maturity can uncover a new interest in piano.
Assess whether the child’s schedule or emotional tolerance is overtaxed. Maybe your child or your relationship would be best served by attention directed at something other than the piano.
Change teachers. The current teacher might not connect with the child, or maybe her technique doesn’t answer the child’s needs or learning style.
Explain to your child the nature of learning an instrument: sometimes achievement requires muscling through difficulties or periods of ennui (Isn’t that a great word? I rarely get the chance to use it. . . . Good times.).
Sit down with your child and set a goal—for example, maybe mastery of a certain song or suite of songs. (Make sure it’s her goal, not yours.) Tell her that when she’s competent enough to play those songs on the piano, she can choose a different instrument to learn.
Change songbooks. She might be more interested in learning how to play songs she’s familiar with. You might be able to find simplified versions of songs that catch her interest.
Consider changing your practice schedule. Maybe emotionally your child needs low-stress mornings (or afternoons) more than she needs piano practice. If the problem is the length of practice sessions, you might want to break up daily practice into two sessions.
Consider changing instruments; perhaps piano simply doesn’t interest your child. If she’s enthusiastic about a different instrument, that energy might carry her farther into musical education (assuming that’s your aim) than piano could.

With all of these ideas in hand, I sat down with my daughter and asked her how she felt about the piano—did she hate it terribly? She surprised me by saying that in fact she rather enjoys it. That is, she enjoys playing songs once she knows them; it’s the bit about learning notes and new songs that’s frustrating.

Then I asked her what she thought we could do to improve her experience with piano. She suggested that she might enjoy learning songs she’s familiar with. After a little more probing, we determined that she’d be excited to learn songs from Disney movies. I called up her piano teacher right away, and she was perfectly willing to pick up a simplified Disney songbook.

Voila! I had thought my daughter was ready to call it quits with piano (and I was just about ready to do the same), but all she really needed was a change in song types. I need to remember to ask and listen before I make firm conclusions about my kids’ preferences and prospects. As the Cape Verdeans say it, “The goat’s ear is older and wiser than its horn.”

Add a comment if you have more ideas to encourage kids to want to continue learning piano or another instrument!

Why Everything is Quite Splendid, Thank You

2012-02-01T20:32:00.004-05:00

People are asking me all the time about what it's like to be married to Um, Halen? By "people," I mean my imaginary friend Patrick. And by "all the time," I mean once in passing while we were playing Checkers.

Um, Halen? is correct that she's not a conventional girl. She gets giddy when the drain can swallow no more water, because that means she gets to take it apart and lick it like a lollypop. Just kidding. She doesn't do that; I just liked the alliteration of "lick it like a lollypop." She comes up with excuses as to why she can't come to the movies with me and the kids, because, think of all the work you're missing out on when you just sit there for two hours staring at a wall with light shining on it! And think of all the legumes you can't consume when your tummy is full of popcorn and Coke!

Um, Halen? spots a task that needs completing over there.

I could complain, but that would be pretty stupid. Sometimes, I admit, I do feel a little bad when the neighbors drive by and see my pregnant wife out mowing the lawn. Or painting the house. Or pruning the bushes. Or putting up lattices. Or excavating mummies. They probably don't realize that she is actually loving every minute of it and that, with each drop of sweat that falls from her brow, she's anxiously creating a mental list of additional projects she can't wait to undertake once this mummy is tagged and cataloged. They probably don't realize that Abu Halen begged and pleaded for Um, Halen? to wait two more days until Abu Halen had a window of time to mow the lawn, but that Um, Halen? just couldn't bear to see a perfectly ripe job sit sadly undone for a full one-seventh of a fortnight (that's how we keep track of time in our house: "When will you be home, honey?" "Oh, in about five ten-thousandths of a fortnight").

At the end of the day though, as I opined earlier, complaining about my ridiculous luck would be foolish. Let me spell this out in plain English: I never have a Honey-Do list because my wife hoards all home improvement tasks for herself. There's a second benefit to this arrangement: I never have to go to hardware stores.

I can't rationally explain my visceral enmity for hardware stores. Boys are supposed to look for excuses to go to hardware stores, and they're supposed to know the names of all the things with handles, and they're supposed to like the way their hands smell after they've been fingering the contents of the bins of nails and screws. I look for excuses to avoid hardware stores. I don't know the names of anything inside them, and when I learn them, I forget almost immediately because it's hard to remember things you never think about. And I strongly dislike how my hands smell after holding metal things. And, to take it a step further, I don't really like it at all when my hands are dirty. There. I said it. And, as long as I'm being scandalous, I don't really like John Lennon's solo stuff.

So I guess I feel like me and Um, Halen? have a pretty good arrangement. I help with stuff that doesn't require me to associate with guys that smell like sawdust. And she fixes stuff. The truth of the matter is, if I had a more mainstream wife that looked to me to complete home improvements, we'd just be a lot poorer, because I'd just hire people. In my opinion that's what phones are for: to call people who like fixing things, who are good at fixing things, and who make money fixing things. I think it's called comparative advantage: if you suck at something, stop doing it, pay someone who is good at it, and get paid for what you do well. But that model breaks down when Um, Halen? steps onto the scene, because Um, Halen? is good at virtually everything and can do anything cheaply and efficiently. So, basically, what I'm saying is my wife disproves conventional capitalistic thinking. Can your wife do that?

Reading Party

2012-01-26T18:28:00.001-05:00

I’m happy to say that it’s now unusual for Savannah to avoid eye contact and silently scowl when I attempt to speak to her after school. But yesterday she reverted to that posture. After several fruitless attempts to find out what was causing her sourness, I told her to let me know when she wanted to talk about what was bothering her. Apparently, that was the finesse she was waiting for.

Savannah muttered that her class had earned a party, and her teacher had asked the kids what sort of party they wanted to have. “The rest of the kids didn’t like my idea,” she said. “They thought it was dumb.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I told her. “That has happened to me before too—I offered what I thought was a good idea, and nobody liked it. It’s rough when you feel like no one likes the things that you like. . . . What was your idea, anyway?”

Savannah hesitated for a moment and then said, “A reading party.”

It didn’t take much creativity on my part to imagine what kind of response Savannah’s suggestion must have elicited from her fellow third-graders. It’s a bummer when nobody else seems to appreciate your preferred activity. I have a similar problem: I happen to enjoy working—for reals. I like all sorts of work: mental, physical, outdoors, indoors, in the morning, in the evening, when tired, when not tired. When I have the chance to listen to music, I listen to NPR or a podcast. When I have leisure time, I read the Economist. I am boring as all getout, I tell you!

I’m the kind of vacationer who would rather be sweating away in dusty ruins or hiking mountains than baking on the beach or losing my lunch on a rollercoaster or trudging around Disneyland. I love work so much that I make my husband look bad—I beat him to the lawn mowing every week, I fix plumbing problems before he knows we have them, and I prune the trees in full sight of our male neighbors. It’s shameful . . . especially when I’m roundly pregnant.

I have all the negative characteristics of someone who likes work too much: I’m bad at throwing parties, I’m bad at visiting friends out of the blue, no one invites me to girls’ nights out unless they don’t know me well, I don’t paint my toenails, and I’m bad at attending sporting events (I almost prematurely ended my dating relationship with Joey years ago when I told him I’d rather have thumb screws than go to a football game with him—luckily, he thought I was kidding).

The thing Savannah has got to learn is to embrace her weirdness. Then she’ll be wise enough to seek out complementary company—people like my husband, who’s content to let me be who I am and who encourages me to balance my weirdness with a smidgen of normalcy. For example, Joey encourages me kindly to be sociable, to get to bed on time, to pause to recognize the good in people who “unwind” by watching TV, and to notice when my little girl has had a bad day and needs some empathy. I’m not always great at these normal-people types of things, but I think I’m getting a little better at them all the time. And speaking of time, it’s late as I write this, and I need to get to bed or Joey will think I’m not on task.

Nigerians vs. Nigeriens

2012-01-25T16:17:00.000-05:00

A few mornings ago when I woke up the first thought that occurred to me was, I know people from Nigeria are called Nigerians, but what are people from Niger called? I could've looked it up on Wikipedia. But that day was Wikipedia's internet blackout in opposition to federal legislation that threatened to regulate the internet -- which power the Founders clearly chose NOT to grant to the central government via the Constitution, after a rousing reminder by Patrick Henry to the rest of the Philadelphia delegates that the colonists hated King George because he kept "hiding We the People on Facebook and ne'er returning Our pokes." So I couldn't look it up. And I don't know any other websites except Wikipedia and Emails and Social Medias.

So, I reasoned, people from Niger can't be called "Nigers," because that's what more than one Niger is called. Like if you pretend you're a whirling Dervish for several minutes, then you're all dizzy and stuff, then you look at a map of Saharan Africa, you probably see Nigers. I thought maybe they're called "Nigerns," like people from Utah are called "Utahns." There's no "n" in Utah, but we tack one on the end to describe the residents thereof. Maybe we do the same thing for people from Niger? Perhaps the correct noun is "Nigohnimo," and when they jump off high things they say, "Nigohnimo!" Leave me alone. I don't know for sure. I've never been there. Back off.

I think the truth is that there is no name for people from Niger, because no one actually lives there. I just looked at a map of Niger, and there are like eight things there, and five of those things are the letters in the word "Niger." Granted, according to my map there are only like six things in Mali, but right now I'm making fun of Niger. I can only offend one proud, sovereign, and dignified people at a time, even though I can offend several phyla simultaneously. Watch this: Hey, Gastrotricha, you're mom's so hairy, I bet she wishes she was a Acoelomorpha, cuz then at least she wouldn't have any guts. But that Chordata over there isn't even a vertebrate, so I bet your mom could beat him up, despite the fact that her brain consists of only two ganglia -- one on either side of her pharynx. Some of that sounded dirty, but I swear it's not.

Back to people from Niger. It turns out you call them Nigeriens. I suspect it's pronounced like you pronounce the name of the hockey team from Montreal. They're called the Canadiens, with the accent on the fourth syllable, not on the second syllable. So the only difference between people from Niger and people from Nigeria is which syllable you emphasize. How demeaning. Can't we get them their own pronoun? Pronouns are still cheap, right? I just think this lack of proper distinction between people from Niger and people from Nigeria leads to too much potential misunderstanding, which can only result in fisticuffs. Or deportation. Or not getting reelected.

I'm Good at Avoiding Comas

2012-01-24T16:29:00.000-05:00

I'd just like to welcome Um, Halen? to the fold of Abu Halen authors. Traditionally, we should pronounce Um Halen as "Oom Halen," but to me it's like, "Um, Halen? Could you pass the tater tots?" I think that Um, Halen? will add important dimensions to Abu Halen, namely those of beauty, grace, and actual writing ability. This will of course be added to Abu Halen's panoply of skills: distinguishing sheep from llamas three out of four times (under appropriate lighting conditions), growing his fingernails (and using them to open Tupperware containers!), and not having comas very often.

I think I could get more than the $50 per post that I charge Um, Halen? to contribute to my beautiful, aesthetically- (and athletically-) pleasing blog. I do, after all, have a meandering queue of would-be authors stumbling over themselves to obtain the wide exposure that my blog provides. Internet surfers the world over are pinging my blog like a freaking rapid-fire machine gun -- the kind of rapid-fire machine gun that fires once every 10-12 days -- as they Google search for terms like "fun with Maria Sharipova," "ripped black dude from Double Dragon," "light up velcro shoes," "blazing ball of testosterone," or "Night Ranger rocks." But I'm willing to forgo the embarrassingly large sums of money I could extort from the masses and instead take less in exchange for Um, Halen?'s winning prose. And charming wit. And alluringly punctuated pen-name. Three cheers for Um, Halen? Pretty please? Is this thing on?

Second Thoughts

2012-01-24T14:26:00.001-05:00

You know when you’re talking to a service representative over the phone, and you have to use the phonetic alphabet to spell out your name or something? Professionals use the NATO phonetic alphabet (think alfa, bravo, charlie, delta), but I’m no pro. So I make up my own phonetic alphabet as I go. However, I’m beginning to be concerned about what my personal phonetic alphabet Freudianly reveals about me.

Take last night, for instance. My dear old grandma called to wish me happy birthday and to get Violet’s birth information, and the conversation went something like this:

Me: We named her Violet Fe. “Fe” means “faith” in Spanish.
Grandma: Oh, okay. Violet Say.
Me: No, not “Say,” actually—it’s “Fe”: F-e.
Grandma: Oh. S-e!
Me: It’s F as in Fanny and e as in elephant.
Grandma: Oh, I see. S as in Shannie and e as in elephant.
Me: Hmm. Let me try this again. It’s F as in . . . Fat, and e as in elephant.
Grandma: H as in Hat?
Me: [Tossing my hands up in disbelief, only because Grandma won’t know how amazed I am that she can not understand me.] F! F as in . . . Fruitless!
Grandma: Oh! F! Okay, so F-e. Feh. Feh? Is it capital F and capital E?
Me: No. It’s one word: capital F and lowercase e. [For the love of Pete. It’s a two-letter name. Why are we having such a long conversation?]
Grandma: Alright—F and e.

So, Grandma finally got it (maybe), but not before teasing out the fact that while thinking of my daughter’s name, fanny, elephant, and fat were the first descriptors that came to my mind. Don’t get me wrong—I love fat babies (well, except maybe this one)—it’s just that fat elephant fanny wasn’t exactly the subconscious image I was going for with my little girl.

I’m not gonna lie—sometimes I do second-guess myself about the names we’ve given our kids. I did that the first time someone (yes, a foreigner) called my Halen “Helen” and then asked whether that wasn’t a girl’s name. And now, whenever I say Violet’s first and last name together, in my mind I see the cringe on Joey’s face when he said the two names made odd bedfellows. And then it dawns on me: I am no different from all those Wasatch-fronters who name their kids things like “Braker” and “Runner” and “Tricker.” My name choices are maybe weird too!

The funny thing about kid names is that they’re invariably more a reflection of the parent’s personality than of the child’s (unless you’re one of those lucky Native Americans who get permanent monikers only after their personality develops). Our culture is terribly presumptuous to saddle babies with names they haven’t earned. And yet, what’s in a name? Don’t we with the lives we live define our name on our own terms, even if it is common enough to have been defined a thousand times before? Heck yeah! Forget the naysayers. I love Violet Fe.

Have you ever had second thoughts about the name you gave one of your kids? Or did you get saddled with a name you would have rather declined to define?

Introduction

2012-01-22T23:31:00.004-05:00

Good news, everybody! Abu Halen has decided to monetize his blog by allowing me to contribute posts for a mere $50 a pop. Sweet deal, no? But wait, it gets better: since we share all our money in a single bank account, the transactions are oh so easy.

So, now that I pretty much have free reign to the blog and can say anything I want without fear of retribution, it's time for introductions. I'm Um Halen--the mother of one son and three daughters. I am the reason Abu Halen's life is full of joy and happiness. I'm his inspiration. You're welcome.

And now, without further ado, here's my first little blog post:

I consider Violet to be my last child—that is, the last child I’ll give birth to. It’s not that I don’t want to have more children, it’s just that each pregnancy has been more difficult than the one before. Children come at a price, and I don’t think my body can pay the bill another time.

That said, I love my kids, and for all the burden they’ve imposed on my life and body, they’ve given me treasure in return. In the weeks following the birth of my first three babies I felt like my infants were consuming me—that they were fattening up not only on my milk but also on my life. As they grew older, there were weeks when I lost my temper as often as they did—and that definitely wasn’t the me I had grown up with.

But as I look back at the journals of my life (I now have twenty-one years’ worth of them), I can see that it wasn’t such a bad thing to leave behind the me I grew up with. In fact, my journals really didn’t start becoming entertaining until my children came on the scene.

What have your children done to YOUR life?

Latchkey Kids Love Captain EO

2012-01-19T15:24:00.002-05:00

This is my baby. Coo.

Sometimes I think maybe I should change my blog's aesthetic scheme. Maybe have things in the margins like books or burping babies or pollywogs, and maybe also have ads in the margins, for stuff like Scentsy candles or midwives' unions or Jazzercise classes. Kind of bring my blog in line with what's cool, you know?

I remember when I fashioned my blog's look. It was 2006. It was a different time. I painted my blog with earth tones because earth tones were in. Sort of. Well, they were more in than they are now. In truth, they weren't really in then or now. Well, to be honest, I don't really know what's in and what's not. But this I do know: Germans love David Hasselhoff, and black widows eat their own children's fathers.

If you think about it, the world was a different place in 2006. Michael Jackson was still alive, and everyone hated him. You couldn't admit that you liked Michael Jackson without getting hauled into the police station for questioning. But then he died and suddenly everyone was crying and gushing about how much they loved him and his cute, slightly upturned nose and how they've seen Captain EO several glorious times and how the only reason they ever played Double Dragon in the arcade was when middle school latchkey kids were hogging the Moonwalker game instead of drinking Sunny D at home and watching Nickelodeon until mom got home from work like they were supposed to.

But I think I'll just leave my blog like it is. Plain and orange and khaki. Like the fake-baked girls from high school wearing khaki dresses to the winter formal dance.

We're Above Def Leppard

2011-12-16T00:20:00.004-05:00

Before Dad KILLED his finals. Post-Christmas tree set-up. Good job, amigos.

I finished my finals today. KILLED them. It's no big deal, really. I just sit down, read the question, apply reason to facts, then sit back and let the 4.0s roll in, sure as the tide. For instance, I had my Water Law exam today. Cool as ice, I read the first question and... BOOM! I understand every word. Just like it's no thing. "Water," for example, means the clear substance that rotates around the toilet bowl in a rapid, fascinating fashion when you flush. "Diversion" is what you do when your crime fighting sidekick needs to defuse the bomb but guys with fu-man-chus are guarding it, so you run out in front of them dressed as an attractive woman. Consequently, I confess I was confused for a moment during the exam by the phrase "diversion of water," because water is not attracted to girls, so how would you distract it? But then I realized with smug satisfaction that water IS attracted to electricity, so from there the question was easy. Reason to facts, my friends. Reason to facts.

Last week I had an exam for a class called Professional Responsibility, which is all about ethics. Everyone knows about ethics, but lawyers have special ethics. Like you can't sleep with your clients. Which puts lawyers a step above the guys from Def Leppard. So I memorized that rule, and I think it came up a few times on the test. BAM! Can't do it. The answer is C, for "can't." Then I flip the page with authority so the guy taking the test next to me comprehends without question that I. Know. This. Junk.

I think I had a couple other exams, but they were so far beneath me that I forgot what they were about. I vaguely recall something about cod fish and Wrigley Field, but it's like a fond memory of a vastly overmatched foe that succumbed meekly to the sheer force of my intellect. KILLED my finals. Hold on. The Supreme Court is on the phone. They want to go in halvsies on a book called "Things We Think About All the Time that You Can't Even Spell, and Other Ways We're Superior to You." I don't know. I just don't feel like I need to prove anything to the world, you know? Look, I know that if I concentrate hard enough I can set a MacBook Pro on fire just with my intelligence, but does everyone need to know? Probably not. All this talk is interesting and all, but I have a hankering to flush a toilet and watch the water spiral, sooooo... I'm out.

Tales of Birth and Love and Joy. And DDT.

2011-12-13T14:38:00.000-05:00

Da baby. Violet Fe. Like Santa Fe, but not in New Mexi

My eyes snap open from deep sleep. Pale, mute moonlight issplashed across the pillows. It’s not yet five o’ clock, I figure based on theangle and intensity of the moonbeams. And also based on the digital clock besidemy bed. I’m lying on my left side, facing north, instantly and completelylucid. Shannon is staring at me. Her eye whites are smiling from their shadowedsockets.

“It’s time to go to the hospital,” she whispers. She’s ninemonths pregnant in three days. I pretend I can’t hear her, because I’ve heardthat if you ignore your wife’s labor contractions they go away and you cansleep longer. But I change my mind a few seconds later, because maybe I havebad juju and the contractions won’t go away and I will deliver a slimy baby inthe kitchen with a soup ladle and a Crock Pot. And then of course you have toget a new Crock Pot, because, ew.

It’s 5:15. Our minivan glides down cold and silent citystreets, beneath tired orange streetlamps and past squat houses sporting lonelyoutdoor Christmas lights that look put out because they have to beam Christmascheer all night to bare pavement and sinewy stray cats. I want really bad todrive 110 miles per hour to the hospital while my wife screams inchild-birthing agony, because that’s awesome. The driving fast part, not thechild-birthing agony part. But Shannon isn’t doing her part. Instead ofproperly screaming to set the mood, she’s calmly telling me about a podcast shelistened to about how ticks suck. It’s hard to drive 110 to that soundtrack. SoI drive 25, and it’s lame.

The hospital is a colossal mess of glass and concrete andsoft-glow signs and parking lots sparsely speckled with all-night nurses’economy cars. I leave the minivan running outside the emergency entrance andask the bleary-eyed ladies behind the desk where I should go to have a baby.They tug uncertainly on their scrubs and chew their painted nails. One says thephysical therapy building is the place to go. The other one mocks her and says,no, I should go to the south entrance, which sounds more vague but also lessstupid than going to the physical therapy building.

Da girls. Boys are too cool for pictures with hearts and cutesy footprints.

One wrong parking lot later, Shannon and I are hobbling handin hand through an automatic door marked “Labor & Delivery.” But no one isinside the “Labor & Delivery” entrance. The clean, high-ceilinged lobby isempty. Good thing my wife isn’t in “labor” and in need of someone to assistwith “delivery.” I leave Shannon and speed-walk a hundred yards to a deskmarked “Surgery.” Someone is there, because if you need surgery and no one isthere, you will die. Whereas, if you need baby delivery and no one is there,everything will be fine if you can find your Crock Pot. The lady at surgery saysto take the elevator to the 5^th floor for “Labor & Delivery.”Duh. Self-evident, lady. I was only asking to make you feel useful.

It’s 7:30. Shannon’s hand is sucking on an IV. An hour ago,when the nurse inserted the IV, a geyser of blood erupted from the vein shestuck and soaked the bedsheets. We all got a good laugh. Good times. Laborpains and spurting blood. Good times. Now Shannon looks bored. Her contractionshave slowed. I have a law school final in an hour. I ask the nurse if shethinks Shannon will hold off until my final ends at 10:30. She says, yeah,probably. I quickly glance over my study materials a final time to kick startthe sleek, high-octane analytic machine that is my brain. It’s like aLamborghini. And when I say Lamborghini, I mean the Yugo kind. That runs onrabbit poop.

Shannon explodes into hard labor at 9:30. At the same time,two miles away, I’m scratching my head, swearing that the answer choices for thequestion about the In re Oracle Corp.Derivative Litigation case were all taken from the Marx v. Akers case. You know what’s cooler than a BusinessAssociations final exam? Chugging DDT.

Da Grace. Oozing with love.

The guy I left my phone with while I took my exam, and who Itold to fetch me from my exam if the hospital called, motions to me from theclassroom doorway at 9:55. I bolt through the parking lot to my car, hurdlingbenches and pedestrians and small Mazdas. I put the minivan through its paces,weaving in and out of traffic, even though there isn’t any, because changinglanes makes you go faster. I scream into the hospital parking lot, sprint tothe elevator, will it upwards, and burst into Shannon’s room at 10:04. The babyis on the scale, still mucky. Shannon is grinning, because she’s like fifteenpounds lighter. The baby arrived four minutes before I did. I apologize profuselyfor missing the baby’s actual birth, but Shannon shows once again why she’s theworld’s best wife. “Look,” she says, “it was just as well you weren’t here. Iscreamed, I cried, I begged for mercy. It was all over in 20 minutes. Youcouldn’t have done anything constructive.” She’s right. I only have threetalents: spelling, Googling, and triple lutzes. And having cute babies. It's a girl, BTW.

If We All Didn't Care

2011-11-30T23:03:00.001-05:00

If we all didn't care, we'd be a little more like Grace, whose foot I photographed, because it's such a precious little foot. I love feet encased in Dora. If we all didn't care, we too, like Grace, would wear shoes that make us happy. And all our shoes would fasten by velcro, because velcro is objectively, and in every way, superior to shoelaces. But adults don't wear velcro shoes, because we're afraid other adults will make fun of us. We're afraid they will think we are lazy, or that we don't know how to tie our shoes, or that we are having a mid-life crisis but have an embarrassingly low income so we bought velcro shoes as an alternative to buying a Porsche.

Secretly, all adults wish they had velcro shoes, because, no more tying double knots to make sure your dumb laces don't come untied. Also, when you unfasten velcro shoes, it makes an overwhelmingly satisfying ripping sound, a sound that says to the world "I am tired of wearing my shoes, and now I am going to take a bath! And in the bath I will play with Tupperware containers and pretend they are submarines or, better still, makeshift rafts that Cubans use to get to Miami!" Also, dandelion fluff sticks to the velcro on velcro shoes, and when we pluck it off it reminds us of fuzzy, lovable things like hamsters and kittens and Pokemans. But instead of showing our love for velcro by liking it on Facebook and pinning it on Pinterest, we eschew it publicly while we adore it privately. If we all didn't care, there would be no more pretending. We would run through the fields of gold in our velcro shoes, laughing and singing Kool & the Gang songs as loud as we can. And afterward, we would pant as we licked Popsicles, not caring that the juice was dripping off our chins and onto our ties and power suits.

If we all didn't care, our shoes would say Dora on them. Because Dora embodies America: slighly pudgy and frequently annoying and speaking Spanglish with unwarranted exuberance. We wouldn't care if others said, "Oh, Dora is so stupid, and you're so stupid because you're wearing shoes that say Dora on them. No quiero Dora shoes, dummy loco." We'd just shrug and walk away thinking, "Man, I love Dora, and I love my Dora shoes." That's what Grace thinks, and that's why I like having her and her Dora shoes around. She reminds me to care a little less about what others think of my shoes. And she reminds me to snuggle a little more. And she reminds me to refuse to eat dinners I do not like. Thanks, Grace!

Only Richard Simmons and Boy George Cry

2011-11-28T13:22:00.001-05:00

We spent Thanksgiving this year in Blackfoot. I don't know why you're thinking bad things about Blackfoot right now. I am clairvoyant, and words like "cold" and "windy" and "Baywatch" are running through your mind. I don't know why you're thinking about Baywatch. Well, I do actually, and that's why we're not better friends than we are. Adjectives like "cold" and "windy" are probably fair for Blackfoot in November, I guess. But it was pretty balmy this year. Daytime highs pushed into the upper-40s. For you Kelvin buffs, that's like 5,000 degrees Kelvin. Maybe 8,000. I actually don't know anything about Kelvin, and I'm too lazy to Google it.

Rifle kickback. Nice photo, Grammie.

Ten years ago Shannon took me home to meet her family in Blackfoot for the first time. We made the trip in my 1980 Honda Accord. It had a pretty sweet stereo system -- with a couple speakers that rattled with a tinny timbre at every thump of a kick drum -- and a ski rack on top, which I shoplifted from my parents' shed out back, and which predated JFK. This time around, we traveled in a minivan with a DVD player inside. (Italics added for false bravado). I'm not trying to brag or anything, but we're super rich. Basically, we can buy Twix like it's no thing. As long as they're previously-owned Twix.

BTW -- since the word "Twix" is plural, ever wondered what they're called in the singular? I guess a Twick? If McDonald's wanted to do awesome things, they would buy Twix wholesale and then resell them one and at a time in Happy Meals, and call it "McTwick." There might be legal problems with my idea, but then there are legal problems with lots of my ideas. Like borrowing those giant Maori statues from Easter Island and using them as stage props for concerts by my imaginary band, the Regal Beasts.

Also, when I went to Blackfoot ten years ago, I had to impress Shannon's dad so that he'd let her marry me. So I got out of bed at 4:00 a.m. to help feed the cows. It was like 12 degrees outside. That's like 40 Kelvin, maybe or something. I liked feeding the cows well enough. It was sort of dark so I couldn't actually see the cows, but something was eating the hay, and it wasn't sharks (sharks' teeth are ill-adapted for eating hay), so it must've been cows. Or snipe. Could've been snipe. Nowadays, I don't get out of bed to help feed the cows. Shannon's dad sold them a few years ago, and anyhow I'm not as helpful as I used to be back when I needed something from him.

Ten years ago, Shannon's whole family went outside and shot guns after Thanksgiving dinner. I participated, even though I was wearing a tie-dyed Grateful Dead shirt. Normally guys in Grateful Dead shirts don't shoot guns, but I pride myself in straddling cultural divides without splitting my pants. It turned out I was a decent shot with a pistol, which I think helped Shannon's family acquiesce to her marrying me despite my Grateful Dead shirt.

This year, everyone again went out to shoot guns after Thanksgiving dinner. I went along, but opted not to shoot, because the truth is I'm a sissy and a wimp. Ten years ago I was still under the impression that I was manly and that I could be president someday. Now, I've come to terms with the fact that I'm a girlyman and that the only thing I'll ever be president of is an ant farm, and only then if the ants are relatively passive. Even though I didn't shoot, after a while my son Halen wanted to be like the grown-ups and use firearms, in spite of being six. I probably should've helped my son shoot the gun, because I'm his dad and all, but I'd already gone inside because it was cold outside and I wanted to get snuggly in a sissy blanket and read a sissy book. Uncle Blaine helped him out, because he's not a sissy.

In the picture above, Halen's grammie expertly caught the split-second after the rifle fired. You can see the rifle's kickback shoving Halen's little head backward while inertia keeps his hair in its original position. The force of the gun's shot bruised Halen's chin and shoulder, but he wouldn't let himself cry. Cuz he's a real man. Only Richard Simmons cries. And Boy George. Only wussies like that cry.

Go Get Some Gummy Things!!

2011-10-30T21:45:00.000-05:00

So, it turns out my body is in its 30s, and that it's made out of Styrofoam. That has been marinated in cooking oil.

Grace can't play the piano, but she can snap.

Against my better judgment, I joined a flag football team this fall. It seemed reasonable at the time: I'd bounced back from my back surgery last April. A summer's worth of yoga had made my joints nice and gummy. Everybody else was doing it. I just can't think of a time when I've been led astray by "everybody else." The crowd just seems to know how to do things wisely, safely, and efficiently. That's what we tell our kids anyhow: "Listen, if everyone else is jumping off a cliff, there's got to be something awesome down there. Go get some!"

So far I've played in three games. I broke a finger in the first game, sprained a wrist in the second game, and sprained an ankle in the third game. And it's not like I'm doing amazing things, like hurdling lesser athletes on my way to the end zone or faking fleet undergrads out of their footwear or going horizontal for a pass in the corner of the end zone and dragging my toe just inbounds while I collect the ball like it's a freaking sleeping baby. No, I disassemble my body doing dumb things, like grabbing flags or throwing down a juke in the open field with no one within eight feet of me.

Savannah had a piano recital this afternoon. She played "Song With Two Chords" and "Song With Many, Many Quarter Notes." Another student -- who was dressed like a Smurf because it's almost Halloween -- played "Really, Really Hard Song That You Should Practice More Than You Did If You're Going to Try to Play It For a Recital." He messed up a lot. I was embarrassed for him, kind of because he was really sucking it up on the piano, but mostly because he was crashing and burning while dressed as a Smurf. Low point for that kid. Please, God, don't let his parents read my blog.

Shannon let Savannah wear a touch of eye makeup to the recital. I noticed with satisfaction that none of the boys in the room noticed.

Since my ankle is the size of a small pumpkin and I can't really do anything, we watched Joe Versus the Volcano as a family. You might think this is not a typical family movie, but you would be wrong. The fact that the entire storyline leads to a guy jumping into a volcano really interests kids, it turns out. "Is he really going to jump in the volcano?" "Would it hurt if you jumped into a volcano?" "When is he going to jump into the volcano?" "Why are they kissing before he jumps into the volcano?" "Is that a real volcano?" "If you jump into a volcano, can it really shoot you out into the ocean?" It was a win-win. We enjoyed quality family time, and the kids learned about true love and volcanoes. My work here is done.

Masters of the Creepy White Trash-stache

2011-10-07T18:44:00.000-05:00

For the past five weeks I have been a clerk at the courthouse here in Provo. Generally, being a law clerk is fairly prestigious. Which is why I think they should call them something besides clerks. The term "clerk" makes everyone think of the cashier at 7-Eleven, which is a decidedly un-prestigious position. But don't get me wrong -- 7-Eleven clerks are well-respected by society, despite their relative lack of prestige, because they and they alone control the levers of Slurpee in this universe. Well, technically, I guess each patron individually and respectively controls those levers on his or her own behalf, but 7-Eleven clerks make sure each patron pays for the privilege of manipulating those levers. And this, I think, basically makes 7-Eleven clerks the masters of the cosmos. Or at least the masters of the creepy white trash-stache (a distant cousin of the moustache).

Changing her name to "Isabella von Scaredofthewater."

My clerkship at the court is also decidedly un-prestigious, because I'm working for free. Working for free is just how I roll. I have a vague memory of legal tender, like a grainy black and white photograph buried somewhere back in the deepest recesses of my memory. I distantly recall it tasting like chicken. My clerkship is also un-prestigious because I'm not really a clerk. I only work for the real clerk. I'm a bit of a sub-clerk. A clerk's aide, if you will. A clerk maggot?

The courthouse exterior doesn't look like a courthouse. It looks like a building that houses three businesses: one that does your taxes, one that sells insurance, and one that does something else boring. It's nondescript, red brick, with a few bands of black reflective windows wrapped around it like so many ribbons. Friendly policemen man the metal detector at the front door. The elevators wheeze and inch you up and down their shafts like an aged ferryman. I always pray I don't have to share my rides with anyone, because I think it takes most of the morning to reach the fourth floor, and I don't like small talk. Or Smallville. But I like Orville. Redenbacher.

Most of the time the judge I work for (or, if you wish to get precise, the judge for whom the clerk I work for works) presides over hearings and trials. Stuff like trials for breaches of no-compete contractual provisions ("You said if I taught you how to sell overpriced vacuum cleaners really well you wouldn't start your own overpriced vacuum business and take my elderly and easily-swindled client base") and valuation hearings ("You're so dumb. You failed to account for the downward pull of the Indian rupee on call center profits on the subcontinent, which marginally relieved pressure on the derivative markets, thus increasing Americans grain consumption, which caused your financial analyst to grow a fraction of inch and so to misjudge his entry into his luxury sedan so that he hit his head and consequently performed faulty math later that morning when he was adding up how much the shoehorn business you sold me was actually worth. You dishonest wench").

One day I sat in on probate proceedings. The courtroom was packed with people wanting to change their parents or change their names. One elderly couple obtained a grade-schooler. Ugh. They just traded walkers, tranquility, and ibuprofen for acne, mood swings, and Lady Gaga. It's a wash. A Hispanic kid changed all three of his names, from three Hispanic names to three gringo names. If I were changing my name completely, I would try to make the whole world happy by changing it to something like Mordecai Abdallah Yoshi Luigi Dundee Bollywood Gonzalez Johnson. My nicknames would be "LaDamien Dexterousshark" and "He Who Clubs Seals." I am an internationalist.

Let Them Eat Pony

2011-10-02T21:22:00.001-05:00

I kind of failed to draw attention to Grace's and Halen's respective birthdays. They came and went, and I showed up, and I took pictures, and I boxed out my kids so I got more cupcakes than they did, but I didn't blog about their birthdays. And if you don't blog about something, there is some question as to whether it actually happened. Which is why now whenever someone asks how old Grace is, I say, "I'm not completely sure -- she's either three or four. Her precise age depends on the answer to the question: 'When a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?'" And then they say something about how lawyers are so stupid and pretentious and they walk away. And I head in the other direction with their wallet, which Grace fished from their pocket while they were distracted by my oral sophistry. It's a little routine we've been working on during family night.

"They never see me swipe their wallets. Tee-hee!"

So, Grace got a trip to Trafalga for her birthday. Trafalga is a fairly lame fun center here in Utah Valley. I realize that our gift to her was subpar, but I think it's smart to give kids really dumb birthday and Christmas gifts when they're too young to know any better. It just make sense to put away the hundred dollars or more that you would have spent every year on gifts and extravagant parties and just save up so you can buy the kid a pony when she's twelve. Then, every time she asks for birthday or Christmas gifts from then until she leaves home at eighteen, you can just say, "Be grateful for your pony." Maybe she'll get all smartypants at that point and say, "Oh, you mean the pony that you butchered for Thanksgiving dinner five years ago because you were tired of the neighbors complaining about us tying up our pony in the stairwell of our small urban apartment building?" And then you will say, "Yes, that pony. Be grateful." I think that will defuse the situation.

"Pony meat cupcakes for my birthday! Rad!"

Halen got a skateboard for his birthday. Shannon found it on Craigslist. I think it cost a small handful of quarters. Halen really likes it, but he can't ollie yet. This mildly disappoints me. I also don't know how to ollie, but I want my son to be so much more than I am, you know? BTW, I wonder where the word "ollie" came from. Is that Tony Hawk's middle name? If it is, I am uncertain as to why he chose to go by "Tony Hawk" instead of "Ollie Hawk." He really blew it. When opportunity knocks like that, you've got to let it in and feed it roasted pony!

Behind the Scenes at the Foreign Service Oral Examination

2011-08-29T21:18:00.000-05:00

I just took the Foreign Service oral exam yesterday. I thought I'd tell you about it, even though I can' t say that much. The State Department people said they would make us cry if we divulge specifics. Only girls and artists cry. And Abu Halen is neither a girl nor an artist. Nor is he a lobotomist. Or a phlebotomist. Or robot o' mist.

Hurricane Irene unleashes her fury on DC. Aaargh!! Noooo!! Not rain!!

There are a lot of blogs out there devoted solely to the Foreign Service hiring process, which is kind of lame. I mean, branch out, you know? Go to Little Caesar's and write about that. Mix it up a little. So it's not like there's a dearth of information on the test. But Abu Halen will take you behind the scenes and show you the exam's gritty underbelly. Like a reality TV show, except without the swearing and the bimbos, and also without very much detail. So, what I'm saying is you should stop reading now, because this will probably be boring.

Here's how it goes:

Test day, 5:00 a.m. I wake up after just a few hours of fitful sleep. I kept dreaming I was sleeping through my alarm, so naturally I wake up a half hour before my alarm goes off. I decide to get up and offer a prayer to the adrenaline gods that they will send me extra juice to get me through the day. I briefly consider taking matters into my own hands and asking the seedy looking dude down by the Metro stop if he's got any speed, but I decide against it because that's illegal and also I have little veins and it's hard to find them with a needle. So I tell all that to the adrenaline gods. They don't really listen though, because they're busy not existing.

5:10 a.m. I glance in the mirror before easing into the shower. Huge zit right on my lip line. Niiiice. I try to pop it, but it's one of those zits that doesn't pop. It just gets bigger and redder, and in your mind's eye it's so big that it blocks a nostril and you start having trouble breathing through your nose. But today I'm going to be optimistic, so I convince myself that the examiners will feel sorry for me and give me bonus points for being butt ugly.

5:45 a.m. I eat two NutriGrain breakfast bars. They're healthy, but they're really dry. I have cotton mouth after feeding myself, so I drink some water from the bathroom tap. The water may or may not be potable, but I don't have any rashes from my shower last night, so I risk it. Water that does not cause skin rashes = water that is potable. I think what I just did is called metalogic. It might also be called Alzheimer's. I'm not totally sure.

6:15 a.m. Strolling through the nearly-empty Crystal City Metro stop, I notice that the doo-wop foursome that was serenading evening commuters last night when I passed through on my way to my ghetto hotel isn't there this morning. Their subpar work ethic disturbs me; I make a mental note to walk up and take my quarter back out of their collection jar next time I see them.

6:45-6:50 a.m. I get two mosquito bites while walking the single block from the Metro stop to the testing building. One is in the middle of my forehead, the other along my jawline. Niiiiice. Because I'm being optimistic today, I think how lucky I am that it wasn't 10 blocks from the Metro to the testing building, because then I would have 20 mosquito bites, and my face would be the color, size, and consistency of a whoopie cushion. I doubt test-takers get bonus points for looking like a whoopie cushion, but maybe they do for sitting on a whoopie cushion?

6:50-7:00 a.m. A fellow test-taker I just met spends 10 minutes convincing me my mosquito bites aren't noticeable. (Me: "No, seriously, these huge red itchy bumps on my face? You can't see them?" Her [looking at the floor]: "You really have to be looking for them to see them." Me: "They're not zits. I'm just saying." Her: "Oh I know. Zits aren't rounded like that." Me: "See! You CAN see them!!")

[Test stuff I can' t talk about.]

12:00-12:30 p.m. We all get a lunch break. I go to Quiznos with a tall American dude who flew in from China for the test. He cut off his butt-length dreadlocks for this exam, and partially shaved. He helps run a language school in [insert name of any Chinese city -- they all sound exactly the same to me.] I get a Baja chicken sandwich and a Pepsi. Pigeons waddle up to the table and beg for food scraps. Weird! How would they like it if I waddled up to their nests and begged for spare regurgitated bird food?

[Test stuff I can't talk about.]

1:45-2:00 p.m. I exit from the final test portion and find only one fellow test-taker in the waiting room. The proctor just escorted the rest outside for a break. I sit down for a visit and ask in jest if the examiners made her cry. She says they almost did, because she's pregnant. I get all excited, because I think it's cool when people besides Mormons and Muslims have kids. She's from Chicago, so I ask if she's going to raise her kid to like the Cubs or the White Sox. She says the White Sox, so I leave.

2:00-3:15 p.m. Super long break while the examiners calculate our scores. I walk a block or two to Potbelly's because I think maybe they'll have bottled root beer, which they do. Stuff in bottles just tastes better. Including human brains. I'm told. I sit by myself in the corner and nurse my bottle while a dude playing live music on a tiny stage kills it on the guitar. He somehow manages to turn "Separate Ways" by Journey into a rollicking, bluesy number, and he also plays some oldies. I think about tipping him, 'cause he's pretty good, but all I have is a credit card and my passport. To earn my credit card, you have to play something by Cake. To earn my passport, you have to play something by Cake while jump roping over your own tongue.

3:15 p.m. We all get seated in a big room where we wait for examiners to open the door, call out our names, lead us into a small room, and deliver our respective fates. A few test-takers attempt small talk, but it's strained. It's like sitting blindfolded in front of the firing squad and striking up a conversation with the guy next to you about the Country Music Awards. Well, not quite like that, because getting shot and not passing the Foreign Service oral exam represent different degrees of disappointment, with getting shot of course being more disappointing than not passing the Foreign Service oral test.

3:30 p.m. They tell me I passed. It's the first time all day that any of the examiners don't read off a script. They smile. They're not robots! Or, if they are, they are robots who can smile!

There. Now you've seen the test's gritty underbelly. Happy birthday. Don't say I never got you anything.

Win a Eulogy from William Greider

2011-07-23T19:57:00.000-05:00

I think it’s been nearly 15 years since R.E.M. was cool, 20 years since it became a household name. I remember where I was when, as a pre-teen, I watched “Losing My Religion” on MTV for the first time. It’s the spring of 1991, I’m at a friend’s house because they have cable and good junk food, and… hey, what’s that funky arm-dance-and-loafer-shuffle that dweeby guy is doing on MTV? Angel wings, spilled milk, archery practice on an Asian kid, mesmerizing strobes – it was enough to make you go hmmmmm. But a weird, artsy video doesn’t make a song classic (see exhibit A: the video for “Total Eclipse of the Heart” [although this version borders on classic]). A song's sound makes it a classic, and R.E.M. was spot on with “Losing My Religion”: searching, vague, plaintive, soaring, and affecting. Then they almost ruined everything with “Shiny Happy People.” But I forgave them.

I’m putting up this post mostly because I just kind of think R.E.M. deserves a post on Abu Halen, you know? You haven’t really arrived until Abu Halen has blogged about you. So, basically no one has arrived, ever. The music-buying public largely left R.E.M. for dead after 1999’s critically-disappointing album Up, though their albums since typically peak quickly somewhere in or near Billboard’s top 10, before quickly fading away. I think basically R.E.M. has a core of followers between the ages of about 50 (these folks would’ve been hip college kids when the band pioneered “college radio” in the early- and mid-80s) and 30 (we were teens when the band literally conquered the world in the early-90s). This core has likely been the only demographic buying R.E.M.’s stuff for the past 15 years. Which is a crying shame. I don’t really think my opinion will convince anyone who is only casually interested in music to up and buy some recent R.E.M. but it’s kind of like the starfish story, right? If my informed opinion sways just one person to listen to some recent R.E.M., and their life then overflows with joy, my efforts mattered to that one soul.

R.E.M. put out a new album a few months ago, called Collapse Into Now. I think it’s a classic, though it’d be wrong to say it’s a “return to form,” or something stupid and cliched like that. Such a statement implies that a band had a formula at one time, tried something else that sucked and flopped, and thus meekly shuffle back to their money-making sound. Instead, Collapse Into Now is the first album since 1996's New Adventures in Hi-Fi that consistently employs what I think makes R.E.M. R.E.M.: wry, kaleidoscopic, freewheeling lyrics, soaring arrangements, and a pervading sense of self-assuredness (to demonstrate what I mean, I cite one of my favorite of R.E.M.’s nonsensical, yet somehow insightful, verses. It comes from “Departure” on New Adventures, in which Michael Stipe describes someone recently departed on an airplane [note: I don’t condone f-bombs, but sometimes other people use them effectively for alliterative purposes]: “Departure, Godspeed, bless his heart, good Lord/what a !*@& up, what a fighter/a freak fall, motorcycle, hang glider/hung on the line like a poison spider/win a eulogy from William Greider/car crash, Ptomaine, disposable lighter/a bus plunge, avalanche, a vinegar cider.” You can’t whip up a verse like that unless you’re Michael Stipe. Or Franz Kafka).

Throughout the 80s, it seemed that everything the band put to tape bled these qualities. “Moral Kiosk,” “Harborcoat,” “Fall on Me,” “Finest Worksong” – they were all hummable, unintelligible yet intelligent, and completely un-self-conscious. R.E.M.’s post-Bill Berry material was, in my opinion, brilliant on various levels, but lacked consistent R.E.M.-ness. Still, some of my favorite musical and lyrical moments come from this period. For instance, on Up’s “Lotus,” where Stipe waxes autobiographical: “I was hell/sarcastic silver swell… storefront window/I reflect/just last week I was merely heck,” or that same album’s gorgeous “sing along” chorus on “Diminished,” as well as the best ballad of R.E.M.’s career in “At My Most Beautiful.” The entirety of 2001’s Reveal is gorgeous: mellow and sun-kissed. I love it. The politically-charged Around the Sun contains the first song a child of mine mimicked – the lilting “yeah, yeah, yeah” chorus on “The Ascent of Man.”

Accelerate, released in 2008, received critical acclaim as R.E.M.’s comeback album, but I found it cold and a bit lifeless. The band seemed to take itself overly seriously on the album, like it was consciously trying to make a bold statement. It just didn’t feel like R.E.M., though there were a few sun breaks where the band’s essence shone through, particularly the album’s throwaway closing track “I’m Gonna DJ” (with a wonderfully off-the-cuff verse “Death is pretty final/I’m collecting vinyl.”)

Collapse Into Now is a winner because, for the first time since the mid-90s, R.E.M. fills a full album with unabashed melodiousness and that distinctive touch of disjointed lyrical mischievousness that marks the band’s best moments. They poke fun at their long absence from pop music’s center stage (“It’s just like me to overstay my welcome,” Stipe observes in “All the Best”), while summarily dismissing the past with a shrug and moving on (“It was what it was/let’s all get on with it,” is all Stipe has to say on the matter in the clean, high, jangling “Discoverer”).

“It Happened Today,” and “Mine Smell Like Honey” feature Stipe and Mike Mills throwing their intertwining voices joyously upward in unapologetically majestic and distinctively R.E.M. choruses, reminiscent of album tracks from the band’s early days like “Pilgrimage” or “Shaking Through.” “Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter” surges forward on a furious punk rock beat, while “Walk it Back” strolls along on a warm piano cadence and Stipe’s rich vocals. On Collapse Into Now, R.E.M. sounds like a band once again sure and unapologetic of where it came from, confident in what it does, and fully comfortable in its own skin. They were aggressive on Accelerate, political on Around the Sun, mellow, subtle, and introspective on Reveal and Up. Now they’re R.E.M. again; it’s unfortunate that a lot of folks aren’t paying any attention. Kind of like you stopped paying attention three paragraphs ago. I can’t really blame you though – whenever I start talking music, eyes glaze over and their owners try to edge away from me. I create boredom in others that they themselves can’t fully understand.

Oman is Really Clean (And Other Stupid Things to Say)

2011-07-18T20:56:00.000-05:00

Me and Shannon went to an "Ambassadors' forum" in Salt Lake City last week. Ambassadors from Tunisia, Oman, and Morocco addressed a room full of be-suited business folks on the subject of "business opportunities in the Arab world." You may be wondering why I went, seeing as how I possess little to no business acumen, am wholly uninterested in business, and have a hard time spelling "ambassador." I always want to spell it "ambassadore," because ambassadors are so cuddly (the trick is to remember that it ends like "matador" and "not like "You can't sue me for my long iron shot hitting you in the neck because I yelled 'fore.'"). In truth, I went because the event was free, and because I was kind of counting on there being a free meal afterward. There wasn't a free meal afterward, which left me disenchanted with this whole "Arab Spring" thing (I think most people associate greater autonomy with free meals, right?) To its credit, however, the event organizers did splurge on some above-par hot chocolate, which was a pleasure to consume, and quality notepads, upon which it was a pleasure to draw gnomes jump-roping.

Fortunately no rabid Tea Partiers attacked the dudes in the Canada chairs.

A couple of good friends from my past lives happened to attend as well (I mean "past lives" in the metaphorical sense, not the Indian religion sense). This was both positive and negative. It was positive because I got to see old friends. It was negative because I was reduced to hitting them up for work ("So, listen, I bet you're tired of washing your boat. I will give you a smokin' deal on a boat wash. On a related note, can I borrow all the equipment necessary for me to wash your boat? It's kind of expensive for me to buy my own.")

Probably the biggest negative of the whole program was the 45 minutes they built in for networking. I'm not bellyaching that networking was an integral part of the program; that seems natural, seeing as how this was a gathering of business-minded folk looking to streamline workflows and pad their bottom lines. And bottoms, too, I guess. Who doesn't like a padded bottom? Besides Karen Carpenter.

I'm good with networking when the goal thereof fits my own. For instance, networking at career fairs is up my alley, because I need to find employers looking for my unique skill set (large Jewish nose, fluoride-stained front teeth, and uncanny hopscotch skills). But this event's brand of networking focused completely on linking businesses for the mutual and symbiotic benefit of both parties. Students didn't fit into the mix ("Hi! I'm Harvey. I own a company that provides forensics services for foreign governments." "Oh. I'm Abu Halen, aaaaaaaaand.... I don't really have a job right now. But have you ever been in a car accident and felt that your insurance company kind of stiffed you? If so, you need a lawyer, and I'm not really a lawyer yet.")

It was tempting to find a dark corner and suck my thumb while everyone else networked, but instead I gamely stood in line to speak to the Omani ambassador. Once I reached her, however, I realized I had nothing to actually say. So I welcomed her to America -- at least it's not like she lives here or anything -- and told her I heard Oman is really clean. Sometimes, my friends, the tongue isn't silver, it's lead.

Think First, Sell Your Non-Essential Body Organs Later

2011-07-11T19:31:00.000-05:00

People are always asking me, "Knowing what you know now -- that being that the universe is completely out of legal jobs -- would you have still gone to law school?" In truth, no one really ever asks me that, but I believe a healthy imagination will help me live longer and be able to do headstands well into my 70s. So in this post I will answer the question that nobody is asking. For the sake of headstands.

First, if you're thinking of going to law school, or know someone who is, ask yourself or your friend these three questions: 1) Do you disagree with virtually everything that anyone else ever says, as well as most of the things they think and feel? 2) In group settings, do you struggle to wait your turn to speak and instead find yourself blurting out your opinion all the time? When you're required on pain of death to raise your hand before you speak, do you stretch it high above your head, using your thigh, back, and abdomen muscles to push it higher than would otherwise be possible, all the while unconsciously saying "Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!"? (That's actually two questions, but law students don't have to count very well). 3) Do you believe that you know almost all of what God knows?

If you can answer each of these questions affirmatively, you'd probably be a decent law student, and, later, a decent lawyer (I've never been a lawyer, so I don't really know what makes a good lawyer, but not knowing something isn't exactly the best reason to not act like you do. Just ask Michele Bachmann). I jest, of course. Not about Michele Bachmann, who is a cretin, but about the characteristics of law students. True, a very small handful of my classmates come close to fitting the stereotype, but the vast majority are interesting and intelligent and grounded human beings.

And this is the best element of law school: associating with gifted classmates and professors for three years. Odds are, I keep hoping, that at least a smidgen of somebody's intellect will rub off on me. A second boon, in my estimation, is that a law degree is versatile. There is some intellectual debate on this, with some insisting that JDs are only truly valuable for practicing law, while others believe the degree handy in other analytically-based fields. I tend toward the second opinion, with an important qualification I sketch below. Because society generally values (at the same time it mocks) law degrees, and because I believe that the types of people with whom we form bonds of friendship and professional association are critical in both professional and personal development, I don't regret returning to school for a JD.

All I really need in life: Shannon and this purple-ish umbrella. That's all I need.

That said, there is at least a qualification or two I think it important to add. First, a law degree is not versatile if you incurred $150K-$200K in debt to obtain it. If you're in your mid-20s or, worse, your 30s, and you're crushed beneath that size of debt, there are only two things you can do: 1) take the highest-paying job at the least humane law firm you can find, or 2) sell all non-essential body organs on the black market, so that you're just a beating heart and a brain stem in a large Tupperware container that your mom carries around in a plastic Target bag. Only having two options is the opposite of versatility. I'm fortunate to have saved a lot of money prior to law school, to have a spouse with a pretty kick-butt from-home job, to attend a mind-bogglingly cheap law school, and to have renters who pay almost all of our mortgage. Without any one of these elements, I think I'd really regret getting a law degree at this moment in history.

Second, it's a little frustrating that law school is the only graduate program I can think of that doesn't actually prepare its students to function in their field. Business school and MPA/MPP programs ensure from day one that students are marketable and equipped with the skills necessary to contribute in the private or public sectors. PhD programs teach students how to plum the depths of a topic's literature, write, network, and act like a total snob (though not always to teach... disturbing). Law school, by contrast, doesn't really focus so much on teaching law students how to be attorneys -- if individual students learn it, it's because they affirmatively sought out clinical courses and summer training alongside real attorneys. This type of practical instruction is peripheral to law school's time-honored and completely outdated core: teaching students really old case law that hasn't been in effect for, at best, decades, and teaching students current law for jurisdictions in which most students won't practice. I won't say this is utterly useless, because it seems true that when a recent law school graduate studies for a particular state's bar, at least he or she knows the vocabulary of criminal or contracts law, as well as the very basic contours of the foundational bodies of law, from which many jurisdictions' modern law has grown. Still, though, a little modernity and innovation in legal education would be nice.

Moreover, it seems that legal education is pedagogically unsound. Now, I'm not a pedagogue. I'm not completely sure what that even means. But it seems that everyone, including Michele Bachmann, knows that people learn best when given feedback. Do parents sit silently by for four months, watching their kids do anything and everything they want, then at the end of those four months beat those children senseless for all the things they failed to learn and therefore did incorrectly during that time span? Only in trailer parks does this happen. Yet this is legal pedagogy. Grades typically rest on one exam, administered at the end of the semester. It seems that in a profession full of allegedly smart people, we could improve on this formula?

I suspect one reason legal education and the legal profession remain mired in less effective practices is that -- my third point -- legal education, like the practice of law, is a business. And US News and World Report is the CEO, the prison foreman, the pimp, whatever you want to call it. The system is fairly simple -- I don't think I'm oversimplifying, though I'm not the brightest bulb so I could be wrong. US News tells large law firms which schools are best. Large law firms select top students from the best law schools, thus bolstering the firms' image as home for the best and brightest (and of course top students go to large law firms because that's where the money is).

But the system needs a mechanism to identify the top students, and that creaky old mechanism has been for decades and remains, for most core law school courses, a semester of Socratic questioning followed by a single exam. Whether or not this mechanism accurately or effectively identifies the best and brightest students isn't really what's important; what's important is that the legal profession either believes it does or is simply too risk averse to accept an alternate mechanism for fear of losing track of who's who in the hierarchy of law students and thus suffering the indignity of large law firms inadvertently hiring idiots. So legal education's poor pedagogy (man, I hope that word means what I think it does or even KFC won't hire me) perpetuates itself, because if a non-elite law school changes its mode of education and student assessment, employers could balk at hiring that school's students -- how will employers know, after all, who's smart and who's not if students' GPAs aren't based on single exams, the way it's been for so long? And if employers balk at hiring from this non-elite law school, students might balk at enrolling. And if students balk at enrolling, who will pay tuition? It's a business.

I could go on, but I've made my point. In my view, there are serious flaws with the landscape and functioning of legal education, but I'm nevertheless satisfied with my choice to engage it, because I'm both an idiot and a masochist, and, more seriously, because my wife and I prepared well financially and chose an affordable law school so that I'll finish next year with virtually no debt. This will make my JD vastly more versatile than it would otherwise be.

Those considering law school should think it through really, really carefully. Only tribes in the Amazon jungle don't know that the legal job market is severely constricted, and that law schools nevertheless continue to pump into that constricted market more and more graduates each year. It's not a pretty scene. To get more specific, I really question whether it's a good idea for students to move directly from an undergraduate education -- with all its associated debt -- to law school without working for a couple years at least. I just don't see very much that's smart about that, unless someone knows that they would sooner die than not be an attorney, and that he or she is willing to pay off debt well into his or her golden years to achieve that goal. I think that's really stupid, but whatever. Out of the 12 people who will read this, I'm guessing that at least a third will think I'm really stupid, so it's all relative in the end I guess.

I'm Not Afraid of Dennis Rodman, But I AM Afraid of Ole Einar Bjørndalen

2011-07-06T20:00:00.000-05:00

The radio has been being heard a lot by me over the past couple weeks. I emphasize the passive voice because I feel that it's shameful to voluntarily listen to the radio. Listening to the radio on purpose is the equivalent to going to a vast buffet bursting with wonderful, succulent foods from all over the world, and then letting some bald greasy guy hand feed you one chicken gizzard after another. And about once every hour or so, he dropkicks you in the gut so you barf out the gizzards he just fed you, and then he feeds them to you again. That's what listening to the radio on purpose is like.

I hear the radio a lot because I've been hanging out at a waterpark. They play this one radio station that is supposed to play songs "from the nineties to now," except really all they play is like twelve songs over and over. Like they play this one song all the time that has a beat like "We Will Rock You." Do you think it reflects disfavorably on me that Queen is basically my reference point for everything? ("Nice mustache! It's three-fourths of a Freddy Mercury." "I really liked your jumping splits, but where was your campy Freddy Mercury yowl?" "You're putting a lot of effort into your white-man 'fro, but it's only about a tenth of a Brian May." "I'm impressed that you wear that tight singlet around town despite the fact that you're a male, but you're only about 8% of the way to going fully Queen.")

Silver Lake, Utah, 4th of July.

They also throw in a Taylor Swift song or two. Or 90. What I like about Taylor Swift is that at least she gives us some variety in her music. We might get the song about how she's mad at a boy, or we might get the song about how she's mad at a girl. It's like the world is your oyster when you're jamming Taylor Swift. And inside the oyster is poop. By the way, ever noticed that Taylor Swift cannot rhyme to save her life? "Can't" and "understand" don't rhyme. But "pop star" and "crop czar" do. I'm just saying.

Sometimes they play a Sugar Ray song, because it's July. Summer is the realm of Sugar Ray, much like elevators are the realm of Celine Dion. As a sidenote, I think Sugar Ray gets the prize for Most Incoherent Verse Ever. It goes, if I remember right, "All around the world statues crumble for me/who knows how long I've loved you/everywhere I go people stop and they see/25 years old/my mother, God bless her soul." What does that even mean? Who's 25 years old here, me or my mom? Does my mom know how long I've loved you? Is that why God's blessing her, or did he bless her to know how long I've loved you? Why are statutes crumbling? Are people stopping to see the statutes falling over, or are they stopping to see my mom? It's giving me a headache. I think I'm going to buy me a Sugar Ray album, because headaches make me feel alive.

If I could be reincarnated as anything, I would want to be reincarnated as the guy who sings background in the Sugar Ray song "Fly." ("Haba haba haba haba up in da sky so high.") What a legacy!

Then, if we're lucky, we get a Lady Gaga song, hopefully the one where other people sing and not her. That's a genius move. Other people sing, and she gets to put her name on it. And wear meat. Holy waste of a human being, Batman.

Today they threw in a twist and played "Don't Stand So Close to Me" by the Police. But they called it "Don't Stand So Close," which tells me that the DJ had never actually listened to the whole song, she just listened to the chorus for like four seconds, and then she played it. This song is not from the nineties, nor is it from today, but I didn't complain, because I like that the song rhymes "cough" with "Nabokov." I don't know who Nabokov is, but I'm thinking he was okay at hockey or the biathlon. BTW -- all athletes, including football players and rugby players and triathletes, are total wimp sissy pansy girly underpant wearers compared to dudes who do the biathlon. I'm telling you, these guys cross country ski for like 50 miles, then they take off their skis, lay down, and stop breathing while they shoot the stuffing out of a target like a football field away. You try to cross country skiing for 50 miles and then just holding your breath for a minute. These guys are black angels. I'm telling you man, they get their powers from Lucifer. I'd rather have Dennis Rodman chasing me, trying to kill me any day of the week before I'd want to have a biathlon dude vigilante-ing me. It wouldn't matter how far I ran, biathlon dude would just calmly follow me on a pair of those skis with rollers on the bottom -- across several states if necessary -- and then shoot my eyes out from across the county.

Why didn't I go to biathlon school instead of law school?

Take That, Life

2011-06-28T21:58:00.000-05:00

Life's kind of bossy sometimes. It pushes you around. It tells you to jump, and it tells you how high. And if don't do what it says, it's not above kicking you in the jimmy to remind you who's in charge. Some fools think life isn't curmudgeonly enough, so they go to law school. During law school, life loses any personality it may have had and becomes one-dimensional. Whereas it was once deferential on occasion ("Well, Abu Halen, you could eat that hot dog, or you could eat that scone! You choose!"), and even sometimes merciful ("You're overworked and underpaid, Abu Halen. Take a vacation! And then come back and be overworked and underpaid again."), life dipped in law school pushes you relentlessly toward one goal, and one goal only: make enough money to buy the Caribbean Sea.

If only life were as nice as Shannon.

Whenever you peel yourself from studying to, say, go pee, life follows you to the john, whispering over and over in your ear, "How will you ever buy the Caribbean Sea if you stand around (or sit around) peeing all the time?" When summertime rolls around and you think maybe you'll step outside the library and see how old your kids are, life sternly reminds you what's really important: "Listen, Abu Halen, your resume sucks. You need to go work somewhere far away for free, and kiss butts that are bruised from being kissed so much. That will enhance your resume, and then you will give it to people, and they will give you enough money to buy the Caribbean Sea."

Now, I'm a decent fellow. I don't like to argue or fight, mostly because most fights to which I'm a party end with me crying in the school nurse's office with the nurse on the phone telling my mom to come get me. So I've gone along with all of life's demands. I wrote the law review case note last summer when I could've been watching Sweet Home Alabama over and over. I worked for free at a big law firm and got mistaken all the time for an administrative assistant ("Hey, New Guy. You look desperate enough for a job to go get me some water on the off-chance that I'll tell a partner that you don't smell all that bad.")

But this summer, I'd had enough. I grabbed life by its big, stupid, foofy lapels, pushed it up against the wall, and said, "Listen up, you bossy, pretentious metrosexual sycophant." That's what I said. But I had to pause several times to look up the words I was using, which I think significantly decreased the impact my statement could've otherwise had. And then I said, "I've had enough of you pushing my tush up your imaginary ladder of success, okay? Your stupid ladder leads to a horrible place where people work their fingers to the bone and their nose to the cartilage and their brain to the pituitary gland, and then they stand there looking in the employees' bathroom mirror at 2:00 a.m. at the hideous boney and sinewy and bloody mess they've become, and then they notice a clear, transparent substance seeping from their chest and realize that it's the joy slowly oozing from their once-red-and-healthy-and-now-black-and-shriveled heart, never to return."

And then I bought a subscription to MLB TV and I bought passes to a big waterpark where people laugh and smile and I shook my kids' hands and reintroduced myself to them ("If you're really my dad, then why aren't you at law school?"), and when life tapped me on the shoulder and said, "How will you ever afford the Caribbean Sea if you act like this?", I whipped around and kicked that arrogant lickspittle right in the jimmy and said, "It's not even possible to buy the Caribbean Sea because no one even owns it, dummy! Go pick on someone with an ego to stoke!" And then I sat down to watch some baseball and have a Coke. A little anticlimactic on the conclusion there, but I'm all out of ideas.

Of Yellowstone and El Segundo

2011-06-24T19:42:00.001-05:00

Within two miles of Yellowstone's west gate, traffic stops. Because of buffalo. Everyone stops to see the buffalo, but not on the side of the road. The side of the road is where you go when you're moving slowly, so others can pass. When you wish to come to a complete stop, you do that in the middle of the road. I'm told this whole "Look! A buffalo! Within a quarter mile of the road! Stop the car! No, don't pull over! Just stop the car! I'm certain my point-and-shoot camera with barely-perceptible zoom will render the distant buffalo recognizable when I never actually look at this picture after this trip!" thing is a Yellowstone endemic. I didn't know, because I'm not well-versed in baffoon. I am, however, well-versed in baboon. I'm actually quite brilliant for an ape, though I'm kind of dumb for a human.

Norris Geyser Basin

Now I'm looking for a campsite. I pull into a campground with a big fat "FULL" placard hanging below the entrance sign. But I think maybe this is like the roadsigns that indicate a sharp turn ahead and say you can only go 45 mph around the bend, but really you can go 70 mph as long as everyone leans into the turn and you're driving a Formula One car, so I check out the campground anyhow. There are lots of empty sites, but most have some object laying in the parking spot indicating that you can't camp there because the site's taken, like a cooler or a cooking stove or an IED. I look for the ranger, hoping she is also well-versed in baboon so we can communicate on equal footing.

I find her further around the loop, standing by the side of the road with a clipboard, observing some mulch near the road shoulder. She looks up as I roll down my window, but instead of focusing on my face as my mouth begins to formulate my question, her eyes sweep past me and focus on something across the road.

"A partridge..." she intones excitedly, soiling herself out of sheer joy. Note that we have exchanged no pleasantries. These are the first words spoken in our budding friendship. I follow her gaze and spot a large bird waddling across a campsite. "Yeah, wow, a partridge," I say, faking interest. It's a bird, lady. They got birds in El Segundo. I didn't drive all the way to Yellowstone to drool over a dumb bird. I drove all the way to Yellowstone to drool over a dumb hole full of hot water, take a picture of it with my cell phone camera, post it to Facebook so as to maintain the illusion of having a rich and meaningful life, and then drive home to my actual life that revolves mostly around raisin bran and baseball.

Ranger lady pulls herself away from the partridge long enough to suggest that maybe a walk-in site over on loop A is open, so I thank her and drive off, swerving to avoid hitting the partridge, which had waddled into the middle of the road. Ranger lady shakes her fist at me in my rearview as she scurries to the partridge to make sure it's okay. Man, what a fat old bird. And the partridge was abnormally large, too.

Colorful tourists, Upper Terraces, Mammoth Hot Springs

There's an open site over on loop A about ten feet from the sites on either side. As I'm erecting my tent on site 9, a mousy old guy wanders over from site 7. "Nice choice," he says cheerfully. "Thanks, (?)" I reply, looking around to make sure that I had indeed selected the only open campsite in northwestern Wyoming. He motions with his chin to a small blue tent a few feet away at site 10. "Cute single girl's camping right there. Nice choice." I think I know what he's thinking, and, even if I was single, and even if I was into fraternizing with unshowered grizzly chicks, there's no way two people could fit in that blue tent. Maybe two German Shepherds, but not two people. "Oh, I'm married," I tell Mousy Guy. "Me too!" he chirps. This guy's really happy about stuff. I like him, even though he did try to hook me up with Blue Tent Girl. After Mousy Guy leaves, a guy in red fleece and his girlfriend/wife person in black fleece walk past as I'm staking down my tent. I ask if they're looking for a site, and then I point out that the peeps at site 8 just left. I calculate that it's better to have Fleecy Couple at site 8 than to risk being sandwiched between Blue Tent Girl and Unknown Entity, which could end up being Guy Who Smells Like Asian Food or Quasimodo-esque Backpacker Girl or, worst-case scenario, Large Energetic Family with Child-Discipline Issues. Camping is so complicated.

Who's Your Daddy? Odds Are, Not Me

2011-06-19T20:10:00.000-05:00

Fathers' and Sons' Campout. Mackay, Idaho (no reason to have ever heard of the place unless you're extremely cool and intrepid and adventurous, like me, and unless you, like me, mooch rides off people who know where it is). Halen rides the merry-go-round too long and wants to ralph. I won't permit it, so he just whimpers and snuggles with me as we sit with our backs against an elm tree. We're camping with a bunch of farmers, ranchers, and cowboys, so I pretend I'm not enjoying snuggling with my son, even though I'm sort of hoping he feels like he needs to ralph all evening so we can perma-snuggle. But I would never say that word out loud around these guys. They'd throw hatchets at me.

"I will ride this John Deere to the very gates of Mordor."

Pretty soon Halen stops wanting to ralph and runs off to play with kids who are cooler than me. I mope about it for a few minutes, but then I get over it and wander around taking pictures. I'm kind of the misfit guy, because I'm not wearing cowboy boots and I'm sort of doing artsy-fartsy things, like taking pictures of hoses. But no one beats me up, so basically I consider it a decent day.

Even though it's a "campout," I stay in a motel room because, man, it's really cold when you sleep in a tent. Like, tent walls are pretty crappy at keeping the cold out. And I've also heard they suck at keeping bears and orcs out. So I sleep in a motel room -- the "suite" of the Wagon Wheel Motel -- with my brother-in-law and three little boys. Halen sleeps on the floor of the motel room with his cousins, I take one bed and my brother-in-law takes the other. I fall asleep at 11:30, and at 2:00 a.m. Halen wets the floor.

It's a near disaster, but I possess the superhuman ability to awaken completely and instantly from deep sleep in emergency situations, like when it starts raining outside and my Jeep's parked out back without a roof. Or when tiny fairies knock on my window and I need to throw on some jeans and a hat before they pixie-dust me and I go to Neverland and counsel Peter Pan about just picking a gender, for crying out loud (this only happens twice a month, max).

This time, I'm beside Halen and whispering to him milliseconds after his first whimper. "It's not that bad, buddy," I calmly assure him. "Yeah, so you peed all over the floor. No big deal. We have no stake in this place. It'll dry by morning and the next people won't have any idea where that faint, slightly unsettling scent of urine is coming from. Look, if you start crying, everyone will wake up and they'll see you standing here soaked in your own whiz. Is that the image you want to present to your older cousins? Do you think Uncle Blaine is going to buy you a motorcycle if he finds out you pee on motel floors and on yourself? He's not. I know Uncle Blaine, and he doesn't buy things for people who pee on themselves. I'm just saying. The choice is yours. You can cry if you want, but things will be a lot better if we just keep this between you and me. We'll get you in some dry jammies and no one will even know this ever happened until I tell everyone at breakfast tomorrow."

So I quickly and masterfully dress Halen in dry pajamas without waking anyone, then I let him climb in bed with me. He immediately falls asleep, turns sideways, and jabs my face with his feet all night, like a prize fighter who fights with this feet instead of with his hands, which keeps the number of prizes he actually wins to a minimum. Halen wakes up at 7:00 a.m., but everyone else in the room is still asleep, so I let him play Angry Birds on my phone. He's not very good, but it keeps him quiet and distracted as I chase off the tiny fairies knocking at the motel room window ("How'd you guys find me here? Leave me alone. I'm on vacation. And if the farmers find me talking to fairies they'll burn me alive! Or at least not talk to me for awhile.") Then I have a quick shower and deflect questions from my roommates as they awaken (Them: "Kind of smells like pee, right? Anyone else smell pee?" Me: "Last one to stop trying to unearth the truth about how Halen peed all over the floor last night is a girl!") Quality bonding time, my friends. Quality bonding time.

"Here we are now, entertain us."

This poor kid has, not one, not two, but THREE imaginary friends, and they're all ugly.

It's a dog's life. And a shovel's life. It's a dog's and a shovel's life.

Qatar is Meaty and Andrew Jackson Fights Dragons?

2011-06-11T21:00:00.000-05:00

A few years ago I had a two-week assignment for work at a military base in Qatar. I'm not in the military. I think I'd be a crappy military guy, because I don't like guns and I'm comfortable talking about my feelings. If I joined the military with these traits, at the very least I'd get locked in a Porta Potty in Alabama. With a wild boar. Another reason I'd wash out of the military is that I'm not from Texas, and I think high school football is a stupid way to spend a Friday night.

Look, I just have to say something, and I'm sorry if you're from Texas, but when an entire state revolves around high school football, that state is not well-positioned to secede. If you want to secede, you need something that can fight back against stuff like Andrew Jackson. And teenagers in jock straps can't take down Andrew Jackson. Bullets can't even take down Andrew Jackson.* The only thing that I think might be able to take down Andrew Jackson is a monstrous flying dragon that emits radiation. With Vesuvius riding on its back, erupting and stuff. So, Texas, high school football sucks, dragons and Italian volcanoes are cool. Capiche?


Cupcakes. Not as good as meat, but close. But, what if... meat cupcakes?

* Andrew Jackson was in a duel once -- at least once -- and I think this particular duel was over a woman. And Jackson is so manly that he lets the other guy take the first shot, which of course hits him. Wounded and bleeding, Jackson then takes his shot and kills the other guy, and lives the rest of his life with that bullet in his shoulder. I hope I have the details right -- I read this in American Lion about three years ago, but I'm too lazy to pull it out to refresh my memory. Either way, Jackson could pulverize any of the sissy candidates we're forced to deal with today. I'm not saying Jackson was great -- most native Americans would probably think he was not -- but I am saying he could beat you up while eating mashed potatoes and gravy with one hand and playing horseshoes with the other.

So I went to Qatar, but I wasn't in the military, because I like hair and I hate socks. And also America only has wars in lame, hot places. I might sign up if we attacked the Seychelles. Qatar was okay. I was there during Ramadan, and I went to an iftar at the Ritz-Carlton. I won't tell you how much it cost, because then you would mug me and think I wear polo shirts. But I don't. I hate them, like I hate dung beetles. It was spendy, but worth it, because I sat in a big tent inside a big hotel, and I ate meat and I watched a whirling dervish and I got dizzy and a little queasy and then I ate more meat. One of the better nights of my life, to tell you the truth.

But what I'm really trying to say about this trip to Qatar is that I'm really glad I went. Not because it was all that cool, but because it seems to always be something I add to conversations, whether or not it really fits. For some reason, my brain always thinks my trip to Qatar is relevant to the matter at hand.

It works with military dudes
Military dude: Dude, I'm in the military.
Me: Oh really? I went to Qatar once.
Military dude: You mean Cutter?
Me: Yeah. I saw a guy with a gun there.
Military dude: Serious?!! That's &!%$ing awesome!!
Me: I know.

It works with white-collar workers talking about work trips
Wussy white-collar guy: I just got back from a work trip to San Diego.
Me: Oh that's neat. What were you doing there?
Wussy white-collar guy: Auditing a company that makes desk legs.
Me: Oh wow that's super lame. Listen, so I went to Qatar once for work.
Wussy white-collar guy: Oh that's neat. Do you still have a job?
Me: No, not really.
Wussy white-collar guy: Oh wow you're pretty pathetic. Listen, I have to go do wussy work and make a whole buttload of money, soooo... catch you later.

It works with academics
Professor guy who is too smart to shower: I know everything about the Middle East.
Me: I went to Qatar once for work.
Smelly professor: What did you think of the culture?
Me: [remembering that glorious night at the Ritz]: I'd say it was... meaty.

And it works with anyone who has ever traveled anywhere I don't really know anything about
Pretentious world traveler: I just got back from a trip to [insert weird and tiny African nation no one has ever heard of that is ruled by a crazy guy who used to eat the flesh of members of opposing tribes back in the dark days when a European colonial power ran things and who still eats the flesh of members of opposing tribes, but only on special occasions].
Me: [to myself] Holy, I've never heard of that place. I'll look like an idiot if I can't think of a good comment about that place I've never heard of. I don't want world-traveler over there to think he's more cultured than me and that he's seen gangs of tweens hopped up on LSD set fire to entire villages and I haven't.
Me: [to pretentious world traveler]: Oh sweet. So, did you have a driver drive you everywhere? Because when I went to Qatar, someone drove me everywhere I wanted to go.
Pretentious world traveler: You mean like a taxi driver?
Me: Sort of. Well, yes. Except they're not called taxis in Qatar.
Pretentious world traveler: Are they called the Arabic word for taxis?
Me: Sort of. Well, yes.

Soooo.... I've been to Qatar. And I went to the mall there. And swam in a pool. And played computer games in my barrack on my day off. Be honest, I'm sounding pretty awesome now, right?

I Hope My Legs Don't Break (Walking on the Moon)

2011-06-08T21:46:00.000-05:00

It's time for me to swallow a bitter pill: I will never be an astronaut. I don't know exactly where I went wrong. It could've been when I failed to major in "Astronaut Studies (Swimming in Bulky Clothes)," or perhaps that one time when I don't really know what NASA stands for (I'm thinking the "S" stands for "Sonny Bono," but after that it's a crapshoot). Or maybe it was all over when I dropped high school physics after three days when the car I built out of toothpicks and Wheat Thins didn't actually locomote, so I kicked it, called it "Ugly and Too High in Gluten," and took study hall instead. Or maybe my astronaut dreams fizzled much earlier, when I watched The Right Stuff as a six year old and got so bored that I was begging someone -- anyone -- to put on Amadeus ("Oh please oh please, I'll watch the crazy guy in a wig chase girls in foofy dresses around a harpsichord, just please don't make me watch more Ed Harris being macho!").

So I'm not an astronaut. But I went to Craters of the Moon National Monument in Idaho, which isn't the moon, but which is like the moon, in the sense that they both have rocks, and in the sense that people don't go to them very often. Behold... the moon!

"Soooo... I hear I'm your dad."

I was in this cave, and I was thinking to myself, “What is this life really all about?” And then I looked up, and I saw a light… and it all made sense in that instant. What it’s really all about is this rock. This one right here. This is what it’s really all about.

Grace isn’t really sure where she’s going, cuz this stupid hat, but she knows she’s taking this sandwich with her.

When Robert Redford was just a baby, the same mantle hotspot that now lies beneath Yellowstone, and which powers its famous geothermal tumult, drove volcanic activity on the portion of the North American tectonic plate where Idaho’s Craters of the Moon National Monument now sits. When it was beneath present-day Craters of the moon, that mantle hotspot released large amounts of magma that hardened into lava tubes through which park visitors can now walk. The volcanic activity produced pretty igneous rocks such as this one that has been sitting in a cave for eons, looking pretty.

“Kids, why would you be looking at that fabulous, blazing blue sky when you could be examining this dirt? It's special dirt, because we're on the moon. You know, you're looking pretty lucid. Here, have another pill.”

Robert Redford’s face only looks marginally better than this. Why am I getting all up in Robert Redford’s grill today? Man, lay off Abu Halen.

Cheap, Homemade Family Pictures with a Camera, a Tripod, and a Remote Control Shutter Release

2011-06-04T21:16:00.004-05:00

"Quick! Pretend you're BFFs for a second!" "Okay, but only for a second." So they're more like BFFAS.

One of the downsides of taking your own family pictures: you don't know until you're finished and scanning through the photos on the computer that your son thinks that "smile" means "try to look like you're enjoying some juicy Copenhagen."

If Grace gets this happy staring at a camera on a tripod with no one standing behind it, I wonder how happy she would look if someone stood behind the camera and said "Smile!" And if Halen looks this dumb staring at a camera on a tripod with no one standing behind it, I wonder how dumb he would look if someone stood behind the camera and said "Look dumb!"

"I'm only happy if I don't have to share the swing, or ANYTHING else. Ever."

It kind of looks like Savannah has a lazy eye. But she doesn't. And it kind of looks like Halen has a lazy brain. But he doesn't. And it kind of looks like Grace insisted on bringing her tiny stuffed horse to the family photo session. And she did.

I'll Tell You What I Want, What I Really, Really Want

2011-05-31T18:49:00.000-05:00

I think what's so ironic about the stupid Spice Girls is that they start out their dumb "Wannabe" song telling us that they'll tell us what they want, what they really, really want, but then they never actually tell us what they want, what they really, really want. All we learn from "Wannabe" is that if you wanna be a Spice Girl's lover, you gotta get with her friends. Doesn't that seem kind of backwards? It seems that most girls tend to frown on their boyfriends getting with other girls. Not the Spice Girls. I'll tell you what they want, what they really, really want: 1) to make empty promises about telling you what they want, what they really, really want, and, 2) for their boyfriends to get with their friends. That's all they want, all they really, really want.

I did a really awesome thing this past semester. I had to write a paper for this class I was taking on feminism and the law. Don't get all nosy and start asking why I was taking a feminism class. Look, I've got a lot of layers, like a seven layer bean dip. There's a lot to me. I'm confusing and mysterious, like an elf lord -- except I'm like an elf lord with a manly beard who's bad at archery, and I don't wear girly clothes and I don't have a stupid long elf name. So I'm basically like an adopted elf lord.

So I had to write this paper for this law class. Except -- get this -- my paper was about rock 'n' roll and not about the law. All my poor sucker classmates were all, like, researching for their papers by reading cases and stuff while I was sifting through websites with titles like "&%!@yeahkathleenhanna.tumbler.com." I don't think you should visit that website, I'm just name-dropping so you can see how cool I'm pretending to be. I'm going to paste in the opening paragraph of my tush-paddling paper, which I titled "I Love Rock 'n' Roll (But I Hate Confining Gender Roles)":

"I headbanged to “Smells Like Teen Spirit” once when I was fourteen and home alone. All the kids in the gym on the MTV video did it.[1] And the cool guys in Goodwill corduroy pants and Vans at my high school dances did it. So I tried too, but I pulled a muscle in my neck. For some time afterward, I had to rotate my entire torso just to turn my head, but I wouldn’t tell anybody why. Maybe I sensed the situation’s irony. Nirvana, and the deluge of dense and thunderous grunge that followed it, signaled a musical catharsis of pent up adolescent frustration and angst, to which I frankly only marginally related. All my peers were mad or disillusioned with life or confused after their parents’ divorce or tired of TV—stuff like that. So I thought maybe I was missing something by feeling content. But my attempt to mimic that iconic release of adolescent anguish—headbanging—only gave me a kinked neck, which, ironically, made me feel kind of frustrated. Nirvana did its job."

[1] Music Video: Nirvana, Smells Like Teen Spirit, on Nevermind (Geffen Records 1991), available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTWKbfoikeg.

You have to admit that it's at least kind of cool that my paper's first footnote cites to a music video, right? Seriously, compare that footnote with this footnote: [1] Juris. Statement App., O. T. 2009, No. 09–416, p. 56a (hereinafter Juris. App.). One footnote is awesome and the other is lame. I'll give you a hint: the one leading the reader to video of kids moshing in poorly-lit high school gym is awesomer than the one leading readers to page 56a of a Juris. App. Whatever that is.

You're probably curious as to whether my awesome paper received high marks. But, really, my friends, is life truly about marks, or is it about mulattoes, albinos, mosquitoes, and libidos? I think we all know the answer to that timeless question.

Rubber Bands and Money. That's All I Remember.

2011-05-21T23:01:00.000-05:00

I remember when people used to pay me for stuff. Like when I was 11 and I had a paper route.Those really were the glory days. Rubber bands and money. That's all I remember. But then I remember the money being gone after I went to the book store. It's true other 11 year olds spend money on cooler things than books, but where are all those 11 year olds now? Dead or in jail. I'm telling you this because it's true, and because I care about your children. But not in the same way Michael Jackson cared about your children.

I kept my paper route clear through high school. Lesser people would've given up on their paper route when it was no longer "in vogue" and other kids started "punching them in the neck during lunch" and "calling them Ugly Poop," but I don't believe in doing things because they make people love you. I believe in doing things because they're intrinsically awesome. Paper routes don't really fit into this paradigm, because they don't make people love you, and they're intrinsically juvenile and stupid. And they don't build character, either, (dude, seriously, all you do is roll paper and throw it -- that builds autism, not character). Regardless, I kept my paper route. And I got paid for it. Except I had to collect my income door-to-door from my customers.

Me: Hi I'm the paper boy and I'm collecting money.
Confused old person with house that smells like Ovaltine and codine: Aren't you a little old for a paper route? [Except it's really hard to understand him, because he is so aged and his teeth are made of linoleum.]
Me: Yes. But I don't have any life skills yet. That's why I'm saving for college except I'm not saving for college I'm spending all my money on Smashing Pumpkins CDs and bowling.
Confused old person with house that smells like Ovaltine and codine: Which paper do you deliver?
Me: I don't really know. I've never looked at it. Look, Encino Man, I'm in it for the money, not Dear Abbey, okay?
Confused old person with house that smells like Ovaltine and codine: How much do I owe you?
Me: Two dollars [since that wintry 1985 day on the K-12, all newspaper subscriptions cost two dollars].
Confused old person with house that smells like Ovaltine and codine: Okay, here. [Hands over two dollars].
Me: [Taking the money, then pumping both fists with knees bent, eyes scrunched closed, and an Elvis sneer smeared across my upper lip] Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss...
Me: [Later, at the bowling alley, after I knock down seven pins with one throw, pumping both fists with knees bent, eyes scrunched closed, and an Elvis sneer smeared across my upper lip, clutching Siamese Dream in one hand and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness in the other, and balancing Pices Iscariot on my nose] Yessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss...

Those days are gone though, my friends. Nobody pays me anymore. I had greater earning power as a bespectacled 'tween with huge front teeth and oversized Air Jordans back when Michael Jordan could literally aviate from one end of the court to the other without touching the ground (and perform loops at will, notwithstanding the high G-forces) than I can as a law student. I'm currently editing academic papers written by Europeans who are sort of not quite there yet with their English. It's a lot harder than a paper route, yet I get paid three dollars an hour less than I did as a paperboy (I got paid three dollars an hour as a paperboy). It's a good thing things don't cost very much anymore.

Good news though. I still have two kidneys in case things get dicey.

Read Me the News in a Sing-Song Voice (With Huge Guitars in the Background)

2011-05-09T18:27:00.000-05:00

To prove that Abu Halen knows about things besides Bon Jovi, Buicks, Lancias, and how burps taste, I will share some musings on the demise of Usama bin Laden. That's right -- Abu Halen reads the news (actually, Abu Halen likes to listen while his mommy reads him the news, but Abu Halen calls this "reading the news.")

Look, here's the deal. I have two points to make. First, the death of UBL was and is a major symbolic victory for America. But that's all. It had been years since the guy played any meaningful practical role in global jihad. True, he remained a religious icon to jihadists, representative of violent struggle against so-called oppressors of Islam, but his significance to violent jihad was, I think, almost entirely symbolic. Thus, I believe his death will influence America's struggle against terror only insofar as the elimination of a critical spiritual leader knocks terror planners back on their heels. I don't anticipate that this will happen, however. The hardened jihadists that plan and carry out violence against the innocent will carry on as usual. Consequently, the American intelligence and military apparatuses that carefully and professionally tracked down UBL should remain vigilant, as should American citizens at home and abroad. Breathing a collective sigh of relief that the GWOT is over and we can all go back to carrying swords onto airplanes would be an unfortunate American reaction to UBL's demise.

Second, let's not really trust the Pakistanis. They knew UBL was there. Imagine the Unabomber living in Fort Belvoir and the Army not knowing about it. Now here's where I qualify my statement. Somebody, somewhere in the Pakistani intelligence or military communities knew who lived in the compound in the middle of a city with a large Pakistani military presence. If it's true that Pakistan's head brass didn't know, this is the product of an unwieldy and decentralized security mechanism. When a state's intelligence and military institutions are as sprawling and compartmented as Pakistan's, and when a society is as ethnically divided as Pakistan's, it would be a lot easier for certain intelligence or military components to know about UBL without the apparatuses as wholes knowing. If it's true that not a soul knew UBL was there, then that's pretty pathetic.

It is, of course, not America's role to instruct Pakistan in the ways of information sharing (even though, of course, our intelligence community is expert in that area). But it is in America's interests to deal warily with the wily chameleon that is Pakistan. And, truthfully, I think America has eyed Pakistan warily for some time. But, recognizing the obvious reality that Pakistan's relative cooperation is critical in helping contain terror threats, the Bush and Obama administrations have struck the requisite tones of friendship with Pakistan and have justifiably avoided voicing suspicions about the veracity of that state's assistance. In this light, Abu Halen appreciates the Obama administration's insistence that Pakistan investigate it's error while at the same time avoiding bellicose rhetoric that could damage America's relationship with the shifty Pakistan. But here's hoping America doesn't really trust the Pakistanis. As is the name of the game in interstate relations, they -- and any of America's other allies -- will stab us in the back if they need to, just as America will to them. Sleep with one eye open. Grip your pillow tight.

On an unrelated note, why do guys go hiking in polo shirts? Abu Halen will make this as simple as possible: polo shirts are for trying to look "business casual" but really looking "sort of disheveled." I'm sorry, I just think polo shirt collars are horrible things made on the shores of the Styx. Also, there are only so many ways to make horizontal stripes look original, and they all got used up by 1995. So give Abu Halen an Oxford dress shirt if he has to dress up, and, for the love of everything holy, please wear t-shirts to go hiking. Think of the children (bringing up innocent children always strengthens a point).

The Wonder of You

2011-05-01T21:10:00.000-05:00

This woman's name is not Pepper Nix. I wouldn't stand for it!

Happy nine year anniversary to me! And, I guess, to my wife too. We have to share everything anymore. This post is a brief tribute to my Shannon -- not Sheila I changed my mind dumb idea holy cow where-were-you-on-that-one -- who most of you like better than me. And for good reason. She's nice, she shares her stuff, and she won't call you a prairie dog behind your back. Not that I would either, I mean, gosh, you're not anything like a prairie dog, right? Except you live in a house and sometimes you smell outside to see what's going on. But that is all you have in common with prairie dogs. Period. I just stomped my foot while I said that.

When Shannon married me, she looked way hotter and more regal than that stupid pampered princess chick from England. And she didn't mind that my dad thought her name was Sharon. Or that I wore a visor to school. And thought it looked cool.

On our wedding day, sun rays danced off puffy white clouds during pictures, hail beat against our windshield on the way to lunch, and the thunderheads split apart under the dazzling stare of the evening sun, showering our reception with clean, bright sunshine. We smiled a lot. And kissed a little. But only when we had to. Worst thing about weddings: you have to kiss a girl over and over again in front of your parents. And your grandparents. And anyone else who happens to walk by and feels like stopping to watch two kids get forced to make out.

Now we're a little older. Just a smidgen. We still kiss a little. But only in front of our parents, because we never want to leave the magic of our wedding day behind.

Shannon is a priceless locket full of goodness. She's even more priceless than I thought she was nine years ago. And don't go calling me out about how something can't be more or less priceless because once something is priceless, that's it -- it can't be more or less priceless. Look, if you're new to my blog, this is a magic place where I just say stuff and then it's right. So I say Shannon is more priceless now than she was then. And I'm right. So sit down and get all snuggly with your logic. I hope it keeps you warm at night. And I hope your grandma's watching while you and your logic get all frisky together. And I hope she hits you with her cane. On your shin and not in your groin. I don't actually want you to get hurt.

So, Shannon, we've had a good run. I like where this thing is going. How about we make it an even ten years next year, and then let's just keep cruising. The weather looks good. But even if it turns sour, we can roll up the windows and crank some Yanni to drown out the rain. I'd prefer something else, but, you know, whatever. Pick your battles. And... sorry this post is partly about getting frisky with logic in front of grandmas and not entirely about the wonder of you. It's hard for me to stay focused sometimes.

Unmarried Lovers, I Cannot Speak Spanish

2011-04-30T13:35:00.000-05:00

Freaky ghost building where good things die.

I went to a career fair in Portland in February. I road-tripped there with two unmarried lovers. This was truly risky. Unmarried lovers are time bombs; they could erupt at any moment into a kissy fit or, worse, an exchange of googly eyes. But I am fearless. I do risky things like other people do lunch.

One risky thing I did is I did the Man Jump at the Oregon Coast on Memorial Day, 1996. I was only sixteen. It involved leaping off the side of a steep hill, plunging fifteen feet, and landing in a tight circle of jagged rocks. I'm so glad I did it. If I hadn't, the guys would've mocked me, and... my intrinsic worth would've been compromised and my future opportunities would've been restricted? If I had died, well, there is always a risk when, like me, you do risky things.

So, about this road trip with the unmarried lovers.* I knew I had to handle things just so in order to keep them from procreating in the back seat. First, I claimed I get car sick in the backseat. That meant I had to either drive or sit in the passenger seat. Second, to ensure that they couldn't procreate in the passenger seat while I drove, I made a "no procreating in the passenger seat" rule, which I think was an inconspicuous way to achieve my objectives without letting on what my objectives were. Third, I insisted that we listen to Taylor Swift's new album all the way the way through. I have the deluxe version with an extra ten songs. Fourth, I sang along to "The Story of Us." Next chapter.

In Portland, I managed to secure a couple interviews at the career fair. The interviews were for unpaid summer positions. They are unpaid because money doesn't exist anymore. Haven't you guys heard about this? See, they keep telling us at law school that unpaid positions are just as good as paid positions in this economy. And, since the only way that could be true is if by "paid position" they mean "position in which you get 'paid' with high fives and butt slaps," I just assumed money doesn't exist anymore. There's no way I'm mistaken about this. I'm a sharp guy. I won several academic awards in elementary school.

One interview in particular was pretty awesome too. Keep in mind, as background, that these guys selected me to come up to Portland for an interview. So I sit down in front of a young chick and an old dude. The first questions are easy:

Them: "Why are you interested in working with us?"
What I want to say: "Because it will be something to do this summer that I can put on my resume, which will potentially help me get a better job than working with a granola non-profit like yours."
What I actually say: "Because I love helping the poor and destitute. And I know a ton about immigration law, seeing as how I have had six class periods of exposure to it."

Them: "What experiences have you had with immigrants?"
What I probably should say in the interest of truth: "Well, Taco Bell, I guess."
What I actually say (I had known this question was coming): "My grandfather was an immigrant from Nicaragua. He worked very hard providing for his family so that his grandchildren could have a better future. Now I am in law school thanks to his hard work, and I want to give back."

Notice I don't actually answer the question. That's how I got into law school. But then they ask me if I speak Spanish.

What I want to say: "Don't you think I would've put that on my resume if I did?"
What I actually say: "Uh, no?"

I expected the question, but I thought that since they invited me 800 miles for an interview, they were potentially willing to look past my lack of Spanish. "Oh, gee, that's too bad," the guy says. "Ninety-eight percent of our clients only speak Spanish." I'm suddenly somewhat irked at this guy and his idealistic co-interviewer kid. "Oh, wow," I say, "that's a lot. Well, I don't speak Spanish. But I'm pretty good at Arabic." The guy laughs softly. I almost recite the first chapter of the Qur'an to him to prove my point.

I start to feel sort of hungry and uninterested in the interview, now that it's clear I'm out of contention as a simple gringo. But I harden. I set my jaw. This road trip will not end like this. Not with me on my heels and grandpa over there thinking he's got the best of me. Not today. Not on Rex Manning Day.

I tell him: "Well, my wife speaks Spanish. My kids speak Spanish. I'm the only one in my house that doesn't speak Spanish." He's confused. His child lawyer friend is confused. Why is he telling us this? Ha! I have turned the tables! Whereas I was confused at why they had invited me for an interview, now they are confused at why I'm accentuating how pathetic it is that I don't speak Spanish. "It's funny," I continue,"that with my mom having a Nicaraguan father, she never learned Spanish. And, obviously, if my parents don't speak Spanish, and if my resume doesn't say I speak Spanish, I don't speak Spanish either. But I know a ton about the Middle East." And so, since we still have ten minutes left, the guy starts quizzing me about the politics behind the then-current uprising in Egypt. I provide a detailed analysis. His kiddie interview helper absently sits there, thinking about Grey's Anatomy. The interview ends. I go have a sandwich. Interviews are lame.

* -- the unmarried lovers I speak of deserve praise for being the least sappy, most socially appropriate pair of unmarried lovers I have ever had the pleasure of road-tripping with. There were no kissy fits or googly eyes, no syrupy verbal exchanges. K & A will marry in one short week, and I wish them the very best. They are both very, very wondreful. And... there was never really any risk of procreating in the car. But you have admit, any talk of procreation really seems to attract reader interest.

Anesthesia and The Bandit

2011-04-26T16:36:00.000-05:00

The Bandit loves bunnies. And surgery.

Yesterday I had surgery. I think. I don't remember much. And I can't actually see my back, which is where the doctor surgery-ed (I just made that word up, aided by Percocet). Can you see your back? If you can, your head's on backwards, and you need to get that fixed. Or perhaps you use a mirror to see your back, an intelligent manipulation of a reflective tool for which I commend you. Because I rarely look at my back, even using a mirror (all the twisting and grunting that it requires somehow makes me feel really vain), I can't be totally sure the doctor actually surgery-ed me. But, using my law school-sharpened analytic skills, I infer from the fact that I'm in pain and I can't walk that something very likely happened back there while I was anesthetized. And it probably had to do with pirates stabbing me with cutlasses, or sabre-toothed cats fighting on my lower back.

I had been instructed to arrive at the surgical center at 5:00 a.m. It was dark. The fish in the office aquarium were still asleep. The freeway cams on the morning news traffic report were showing black, blank pavement. The doctor had instructed me to arrive wearing "easy-on/easy-off clothing." So I wore a bathrobe with nothing under it, because one tug and -- tah dah! -- you're ready for the hospital gown.

Just kidding. I wore sweats with a hole in the butt (way sexier than sweats that say "Juicy" across the butt, right?), a hoody, and black socks with Birkenstocks. I think I would've been less embarrassed wearing the bathrobe.

After I checked in, I got weighed. Every time you go to a doctor's office they always weigh you with your clothes on. I guess I see why they do that -- "professionals" already look at your private parts enough at the hospital. But, seriously, we don't we all actually weigh three pounds less than we do with our clothes on? In a society plagued by obesity, can't the medical community help us out a little? Subtract a few pounds from what the scale says. Everybody wins. Except Mary-Kate Olsen. Leave her clothes on, please.

Then the lady tells me to take off my clothes and put on the hospital gown when she leaves the room. No problem, right? But then she points to a marker on top of the paper towel dispenser and tells me to draw an "X" on my back on the side the doctor is supposed to cut on. Does this concern anyone else? In this, the 21st century, an epoch in which we're blessed with robotic car washes, instant streaming of the royal wedding to locations worldwide, cures for smallpox and polio, machines that take pictures of your bones while they're still inside you, and Angry Birds, this is how we communicate to doctors where they're supposed to cut a person open? A black "X" drawn by the patient himself? Trust me, people, I spent 5 entire minutes double and triple and quadruple and quintuple checking where I was drawing that freaking "X," holding my hands up in front of me again and again to see which one made an "L," and then double and triple and quadruple checking that to make sure I wasn't going dyslexic at a really, really inopportune time.

After dressing, I laid down on a hard bed. The nurse sat down beside me and caressed my hand with gauze, keeping up an endless stream of chatter. Why is she telling me about her dog in such great detail? I wondered. So your husband loves running in the mountains. Big deal, I thought. Seriously, the woman had to have been inhaling occasionally, because that is a prerequisite to being alive, but I couldn't identify when she was doing it. Then, without warning, she stopped mid-blabber and said "1-2-3 stick!" And she said it in under a second, so it wasn't like she was counting, like "One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand stick!" It was super fast. And then she shoved a little tube into the big vein on my hand. I'd been duped! Hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Swindled! Conned! Sigh.

After she'd inflicted pain on me, the nurse wasn't interested in talking anymore, so she left. She said the doctor would come in a half-hour. I examined my room. Curtains. Surrounding my hard bed on three sides. Behind me there may have been neat medical thingies, but I thought if I got up to look then my hospital gown would come open and my butt would burst forth and it would be hard to get the gown on right again, so I just laid there. There was a huge vent opening directly above my bed with a large duct curving away into the ceiling. I noted that the opening and the duct were easily wide enough for a human soul. I wondered if there was one above every bed, ready to suck the spirits from the people the anesthesiologist accidentally killed, and whisk those souls to the afterlife

The anesthesiologist entered my curtains sometime later and pulled up a stool. I sized him up distrustfully, my eyes darting from him to the ceiling vent and back. Murderer, I thought. He said he'd whipped up something nice for me to suck on, then he made a motion like he was smoking weed. He laughed. How much does this guy make again? Dude, I left the weed jokes in high school (I didn't really, but let's pretend I did); shouldn't you? All I'm saying is that if i made like a thousand dollars a minute like this guy does, I would at least make like I was professional. I suddenly feared for my life, but, reasoning that he would probably win in a fight if I jumped him right there, and that even if I won and made a dash for the exit I would still be standing outside on a busy city street at rush hour in a hospital gown with my butt showing, I signed the stupid paper that said it was okay if he killed me and the vent sucked my soul to Hades.

They wheeled me to the operating room. The wicked anesthesiologist plugged a new tube into my IV. He smiled. I scowled. I grew impossibly drowsy, and then nurses were shaking me awake, offering me crackers and pudding. Is this heaven? I thought. (Look, I'm pretty easy to please. If all they have in heaven is crackers and pudding, I'll be just fine there. I don't need a stupid harp). I faded in and out of dream state for at least an hour. I saw my kids playing at the foot of my hospital bed. "Be careful, Smokey," I croaked through my surgical tube-scratched throat. Then I woke up, and no one was there except a nurse, who smiled at me the way one would smile at a toddler.

She asked me questions and I responded very slowly, fighting through the fog to find vocabulary words. "I... Yes! I...like...crackers. I think...wait. Did you...did you...say...pudding? Mmmmm...putty." The nurses seemed to enjoy my stupor. They called me "Buddy" (as in, "Easy, buddy, left foot, right foot, ooh you look kind of pale, bad to bed, buddy!") and "Mr. Sleepy" (as in, "Hello, Mr. Sleepy! Your wife is here to see you!" [Me: "Who?"]).

The real hero of the day was The Bandit, pictured above, who held my hand on my first very slow full lap around the recovery room, led me very slowly to the car after release, and napped with me while I drowsily slept off the rest of the anesthesia at home. With friends like that, who needs pets?

A Post About MLB Opening Day, Which Was Weeks Ago, But Which I'm Only Just Now Writing About

2011-04-23T17:52:00.000-05:00

Nice! Left hand under right hand! Back down, Verlander.

Burt sensed it was opening day. All little boys can. They feel spring knock the hard edge off of winter, they smell the pine tar wafting up from training camp in Arizona, they hear the far-off muffled phttlph of baseball players' loogies settling in the freshly-cut grass. That's what it sounds like. Phttlph. Go ask any little boy and he'll tell you. Phttlph.

And even though Burt doesn't know anything about baseball -- because Abu Halen is a bad father -- he just sensed down in his gut that he needed to swing a stick at a ball. Something ethereal was whispering to him, "It's opening day. You need to swing a stick at a ball." This probably frightened Burt a little -- he tends to be afraid of disembodied voices -- but it just felt right. Natural. Instinctual. From the tips of his little boy toenails that sort of need to be washed and clipped to the roots of his baby teeth that he grinds in his sleep, just like his dad.

I'm honestly not sure where the fat bat and the whiffle ball came from, but Burt had both tools of summer in hand as he waited excitedly for me to exit my car upon arriving home from school. "Dad, can you teach me how to play baseball?" His eyebrows arched hopefully. In his eyes I could see the ghosts of baseball legends of the past, and lots of them played for the Yankees, which gave me a sudden urge to poke Burt in the eye because I hate the Yankees. But I quickly realized that it wasn't Burt's fault that he had Yankees in his eyes, so I didn't.

I was conflicted. It was finals season. I was busy. But Burt was the picture of opening day. Plus, I read somewhere that you go to hell if you refuse to teach your son how to play baseball. So, experiencing a wave of affection for my little boy and a wave of fear of going to hell, I put down my books and my computer. We played ball on opening day.

I'm not going to lie. Burt stunk pretty bad right at first. He kept putting his right hand below his left on the bat handle. "Switch your hands," I reminded him over and over. "Try not to close your eyes when you swing," I suggested, which is an iteration of the old adage "keep your eye on the ball" that you use for little boys who aren't advanced enough for such complex baseball instruction.

Time passed. The smell of supper wafted across the backyard. "One more pitch, buddy," I said. Burt smiled. "Okay dad!" I lobbed one out over the plate. Burt closed his eyes -- don't do that! I thought -- and swung as hard as he could. Bapt! That's the sound of a fat, hollow bat hitting a whiffle ball. Maybe. The slightly misshapen whiffle ball arced over the parked vehicles, bounced once atop the seven-foot white fence separating our yard from the neighbors', and then left the yard. Home run.

Burt grimaced. "Sorry dad. I guess I lost the ball." "Burt," I said, except I didn't actually call him Burt because that's a really stupid name, "you just hit a home run. That's the best kind of hit in baseball." (Except for bloop singles, which are truly spectacular -- but I thought that truism could wait for another day). Burt brightened. He pushed out his chest a little, and together we walked over to the neighbors' house to fetch the ball, Burt chattering about how he can't wait to hit another home run and how his muscles must be huge, and me absently tousling his hair and fondly watching our two shadows lead us along the sidewalk. Mine always looks the same anymore. But his keeps getting longer and longer, and I wish it would stop. Pretty soon he's going to stop calling me daddy and start not calling me at all.

"I need to practice baseball again," Burt chirped happily, looking up at me as we strolled back home, whiffle ball in hand. I tousled his hair again -- dads just have a sense of when they're supposed to tousle their little boys' hair. "Sure thing, buddy," I said, getting a little misty eyed and glancing quickly over my shoulders to make sure none of the neighbors could see. It's only opening day. There's a lot of season left yet.

My Fortress Will Scare You and You Will Wet the Bed

2011-04-22T10:14:00.000-05:00

The Bandit and Burt enjoy cherry trees, gravity, and their new monikers.

Sometimes I think I should give my family members blog nicknames to protect them from evil. I have one. It's Abu Halen. That's so no one knows my real name is Joey. Because if someone on the internet knew that, he or she would kill me. That's just the way of things: when people on the internet find out your real name, they kill you. It's inevitable, like gravity, except deadlier. Not that I'm not saying gravity isn't deadly, because it is -- just ask this guy. I'm just saying that not having an internet moniker is even deadlier.

So from now on, my wife's name is Sheila, instead of Shannon. And she has a cat (which isn't true but it will throw off evil people). And she pets the cat (which also isn't true but I'm making this really confusing for her safety). And my son's name is Burt, instead of Halen. But I'm still Abu Halen, not Abu Burt, because Abu Burt is a horrible name and makes you think of mustaches and coneheads and Lonnie Anderson. And Abu Halen does not wish to be associated with any of those things -- only with grape-flavored Big League Chew and mako sharks and moonwalking. And my daughters are Smokey and The Bandit, respectively, even though they used to be Savannah and Grace. We are all now safe from premature e-demises.

I have just built the internet equivalent of a fortress around my family. With laser guns mounted on the towers that shoot acid instead of lasers. Which I suppose makes them acid guns and not laser guns, but this is my fortress and I want them to be laser guns that shoot acid, so back off. And there are rabid unicorns patrolling the perimeter, with blood dripping from their once-snow white horns, because they gore anyone who approaches the fortress, whether they be hackers or cute fairies or close friends who failed to phone me before they just came traipsing up to my fortress. And the unicorns are perpetually twirling huge maces. With one hoof, I guess. So they limp a little as they walk on three hooves, but they're still freaking scary. And there is a moat, and it's filled with colossal squid. And sperm whales. And they're fighting. All the time. It's a big moat, obviously. And winged lions are circling in the skies above my fortress, and they're really hungry because I only feed them on Thursdays, and even then they only get Jell-O, which surprisingly doesn't really fill you up even if you eat a lot of it, right? Oh, and the sky is purple, and it's raining flaming orcs. And the walls of my fortress are made out of static-y televisions full of poltergeists. And Nickelback is standing on top of the fortress walls playing "How You Remind Me" on an endless loop. You'll never make inside. Give up now.

Why Can't You Understand That Nobody Likes Turkey Bacon

2011-01-15T22:28:00.001-05:00

Oh man this January has to be the worst January ever since that one January when my wife went out on a date with some other guy on her birthday. But to be fair to Abu Halen's wife, it was a work meeting. Also, she was alone in a Middle Eastern country on her birthday, Abu Halen having fled the country to watch pay-per-view movies in a hotel room in America. Work-related. And, in the interest of full-disclosure, Abu Halen is so pathetic that he only watched one pay-per-view movie during the entire two weeks he stayed in a cushy Hiatt hotel, and that movie was The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Can we please not tell anyone else about this.

So what's so bad about this January? Oh I don't know, maybe it's just that my second-favorite North African strongman lost his job this month. My favorite North African strongman is, I'm pretty sure, everyone's favorite North African strongman. I don't think he'll ever lose his job, because he has bodyguards. I'm kind of going gonzo with the links, and even linking to my own blog, which I once mocked my friend Jeff for. But I'm not really above thinking one thing for awhile, and then, when I get bored thinking that, thinking something else for awhile. Like, once, right after I got home from my mission, I met this cute older chick in my ward, and I thought about asking her out for awhile. But then I thought about something else for, like, three days, and she got a boyfriend and they got married. So the moral of this story is only think about one thing unless you want it to get married. So when I met Shannon, I was sort of at an impasse because I wanted her to get married, but I wanted her to get married to me. So I wasn't sure whether I should stop thinking about her, which would lead to her getting married, or keep thinking about her, which had no knowable outcome. Sometimes brilliant logic just leaves you in knots, you know? We got married, by the way. And every day is bliss. Except when she cooks turkey bacon. Seriously. Turkey bacon. WTF. That stands for "What the forrealsifyou'regoingtocookbaconcookthefreakingporkkindmydearthankssmoochespunkinlove" in our house.

Getting back to bodyguards, I think I'd like to have bodyguards someday. You know, now that I'm thinking about it, I kind of already had bodyguards. When we lived in Jordan, a Jordanian soldier with a Kalashnikov was always pacing back and forth outside our house for security purposes. And also to make sure I didn't drink more than three Pepsis per day. And to mostly prevent the sheep from grazing in our yard unless the soldier didn't feel like preventing it. And to bring our kids back home when they escaped. Like once Grace, who was probably 13 or 14 months old at the time, went all Marco Polo on us while playing outside. She climbed through the fence and took off down the street, bound for Petra or something. All the advertising hype really works on kids. Like the awful parents we are, we never even noticed she was gone until this Jordanian soldier strolls up to the door with Grace grinning in his arms, fingering the nozzle of his rifle. The exchange between him and Shannon went something like this.

Soldier: (something in Arabic)
Shannon: Holy crap my kid where was she I can't believe I'm so sorry not a bad mother mopping I love podcasts about the Peloponnesian Wars.
Soldier: (something in Arabic)
Shannon: My husband's in America. Want to go on a date?
Me: I'm actually sitting right here at the kitchen table having a Pepsi.
Shannon: (To the soldier) Raincheck, then?
Soldier: (To me) That fourth Pepsi you drink today. Bad.

So, actually, we've already had bodyguards. We've arrived. And Shannon never really asked them out. I'm just experimenting with rhetorical devices.

The more I think about this January, the more I'm sort of coming around to the feeling that it's actually been a pretty good month. My oldest daughter, who is a raging genius, won this contest thingy for the whole school district for her age group. She wrote and illustrated a 35-page book about fairies, which I swear was not inspired by me. If it had been inspired by me, it would've been a book about scorpions or fake tattoos or video game prowess. Still, the book about fairies annihilated the competition and so we got to attend an awards ceremony where my little girl went up in front of the whole crowd with her head down and her long hair covering her face Trent Reznor-style to accept her excellence award in the category of literature. We're so proud. Woot.

You know what? This January rules. Put your cell phones in the air and sway.

When Telling the Truth Could Snuff Out Your Sad Little Life

2011-01-02T19:27:00.003-05:00

Sometimes me and my wife spar over whether honesty really is always the best policy. She thinks you ought to tell the truth all the time. I think telling the truth all the time is something you tell little kids to do, because they don't understand relativism, and they can't tie their shoes or say their "r's" either. And most of the time they smell like dried up saliva. I'm not sure what that has to do with honesty, but sometimes when I have a stream of thought I just ride it, you know? This tactic really helped me out once when I called to ask this older chick on a date when I was a junior in high school. I was pretty nervous, but riding my stream of thought brought me safely in to harbor. The phone conversation went something like this:

Older Chick: Hello?

Me: Hi, is this Older Chick?

Older Chick: Yes.

Me: Hi, this is Abu Halen.

Older Chick: ...

Me: From trigonometry. I sit by the window. Where it's kind of cold because I think the windows are single-paned. That's why I always wear my stupid corduroy jacket that makes it look like I'm trying to be Eddie Vedder. But I'm not. I don't even listen to Pearl Jam very much. But I will when they're not so trendy.

Older Chick: Oh, hi.

Me: Hi. Sorry to just call out of the blue. I got your phone number from Your Good Friend Who's Not As Cute As You. She said you wouldn't report me to the police if I called you. So I called you. Er, I'm calling you right now. Obviously. So... what's your cosine?

Older Chick: Yes I'll go out with you you're so witty and funny and I bet you're a good kisser. But I'll dump you in three months after the Winter Formal.

Me: Okay, sounds good. Let's do this thing.

Man, that worked out well. So, back to my thesis that sometimes it's better to lie than to tell the truth. Here's a good example.

But before my anecdote, that's Grace up there frolicking in the grass, looking for Orion or perhaps suffering from vertigo. Back to my story.

I got a couple of hundred dollar bills for Christmas from sources that shall remain unnamed but which may or may not be Saudi in origin. I carefully folded the bills and put them in my wallet so I can spend them later on Ritz crackers and cheese whiz and ice melt and a cubic zirconium nose jewel. Then, yesterday, I went to Big K, which I still like to call K-Mart for nostalgic reasons. It was late. No one was in the parking lot. It was pretty dark. It was like 13 degrees Kelvin. I was walking to my car when a kind of scruffy homeless guy sidled up to me and asked if I had any money to spare so he could get some meth get a hotel room for the night.

Now, I'm an upright fellow. Just ask my Saudi handlers. I'm big on putting things back where I found them, turning off lights when I leave the room, and helping out the destitute. I'm also big on telling the truth most of the time. So, brother man asks for some money and, before I can even think, I tell the truth. I say, "Sorry, man. All I've got is two one hundred dollar bills."

As soon as I spoke, I braced myself to be punched or shot or stabbed with a rusty switchblade. Then I felt kind of bad for stereotyping the homeless guy. Then I wondered, if he did kill me, and if no one found me till morning, whether the bitter cold would preserve my body so that they could bring me back to life like they did Mel Gibson in Forever Young. Then it occurred to me that maybe he had thought I was joking about the big bills, because I bet nobody had ever given him that excuse before for not giving him change. Then I wondered if maybe he thought I was a rich guy getting sort of snooty with him, all like "Hmph... I'd give you money, oh simple member of the proletariat, except we bourgeois only carry large denominations." Then I laughed a little to myself because I'm far from wealthy, and I wouldn't even have big bills in my wallet if it weren't for the Saudis my mother-in-law. Then I had a flash of self-awareness and realized that me and the homeless guy were just kind of standing there in the dark parking lot, looking at each other, while I thought all these things. So I shrugged and walked to my car and he didn't follow me, which is good because my Jeep -- which I named Jeep -- can run over people as well as rocks and I swear would've run over him if he'd stood in front of my car and demanded I hand over the big bills. Or even if he had a stood in front of my car and danced an Irish jig, I still would've run him over. Because life doesn't present you with very many chances to run over a guy dancing an Irish jig, so you should seize those opportunities when they come along.

So, in sum, I think that was a bad time to tell the truth and a good time to lie. I'm so glad I lived to pass along the moral truth that you'll live longer if you lie on occasion.

I'm Telling You, Man, Time Travel is Possible

2010-12-30T18:17:00.007-05:00

Christmas was pretty good this year. I got some cool stuff. But, for the 31st Christmas in a row, I didn't get a time machine. I'm not gonna lie -- it's a little disappointing. I don't know what I have to do to get Santa to bring me one. I mean, this year I gave the equivalent of like 4 bucks to a British beggar in London. That should count for something with the big guy in the red suit, even if the only reason I coughed up such a large charitable donation is that I couldn't tell a 10 pence coin from a 2 pound coin.

That's Savannah over there when she dressed up like a native American for Halloween. She pulled it off well, because she's a freaking amazing human being.

One year, when I was seven, I thought for sure I was going to get a time machine. But instead I got an Atari 7800, which was kind of like a time machine I guess, except it didn't really actually help you time travel. But it did have lots of wires, like a time machine would probably have. It had some sweet games like Food Fight and Asteroids. I'm not trying to bag on contemporary video games or anything, but I don't think any video game on Earth today is more awesome than Combat was. Does anyone remember Combat? I just remember sitting around playing Combat with my friend Lewis for like six hours at a time until the sound of those stupid tank bullets bouncing off the walls was permanently seared into my brain. I can actually hear them bouncing right now, and I'm having a seizure. Mario Kart is fun for 45 minutes, but it can't touch Combat. I don't think anything can touch Combat, except maybe Double Dragon.

See, this is exactly why I want a time machine and why I might take a semester off school to build one. A lot of people would want to go back in time and do really lame stuff, like work out more or hit on the girl at Baskin Robbins they were too chicken to hit on back in 1990. Not me man. I just want to go back in time and stand stupidly at the Double Dragon machine at Fred Meyer's, pumping in quarter after quarter, trying to get past the jacked shirtless black guy at the end of level one. And then, when I ran out of quarters, I'd just get back in my time machine, come back to the present, withdraw 20 bucks from my bank account replete with student loans, and then go back to Fred Meyer's in 1988 and play Double Dragon some more. It's a pretty awesome plan, you have to admit.

Here's what would be doubly cool though: playing two player Double Dragon where you're player one -- you know, the guy in the blue sleeveless vest and pants -- and your younger self is player two! Psychedelic, man! It could totally happen, because if you went back in time it's not as if the younger you would just disappear. He'd still be kicking it in like 5th grade. So you'd walk up to yourself and say something like, "I'm from the future, and I'm a bad-A at video games." I don't know about the 5th grade you, but the 5th grade me would respond pretty positively to that kind of swagger. Especially if the me from the future coughed up a bunch of quarters from subsidized student loans to share with the 5th grade me.

Imagine how killer that would be -- two me's playing Double Dragon at Fred Meyer's. The world would probably just implode from the sheer force of the awesomeness of two me's beating the holy crap out of an arcade game in 1988. Man, pleeeze I want a time machine for Christmas next year.

Total Sports Hero

2010-11-21T10:50:00.009-05:00

Many of you have probably noticed that over the past several weeks I have shown a remarkable increase in physical strength. Also, my body has become lean and chiseled. Some may have spotted me hoisting several pencils high above my head with nary a grunt or climbing stairs while carrying my lunch without crying very much from the exertion. This is because I now have a personal trainer to help me become muscular and awesome. I work out with friends almost every morning now, unless I decide to sleep in because I'm having a cool dream about being in the band Styx or unless I feel like watching Garfield and Friends before breakfast. My workouts consist of doing push-ups until my biceps explode (happens after seven or eight push-ups and leaves quite a mess for the janitors), blasting out loads of pull-ups ("loads" being defined as almost one), maybe pumping some iron (like the heavy kind with steam action that takes out wrinkles quicker), and running a mile (give or take a mile).

[That's Grace over there throwing leaves. She's not my personal trainer.]

My personal trainer, who doubles as my buddy Spencer, and who really isn't my personal trainer in the sense of being "personal" or a "trainer," makes fun of me while I kick and squeal trying to do a pull-up and urges me to not whimper in the corner and suck my thumb when I trip and fall during the box jumps and make my shin bleed. He also won't let me wear band-aids, but I think it's because he's jealous of my Little Mermaid adhesive strips.

Really, my current state of rippling physical fitness is not unprecedented. I've been fit basically my whole life. I can't remember a time when I couldn't do a 30-minute mile or stand in place for 10-12 minutes before feeling winded. Plus I've always been the sporting kind.

-- Once, when I was in second grade, I played basketball on recess. I think I got the ball once and threw it out of bounds toward the wally-ball wall. It's easy to get those two games confused.

-- I was on a soccer team when I was six. Our team name was the Cobras. There was this kid named Shane on my team, and he was kind of a prodigious soccer talent. So while he hogged the ball and scored 40 goals per game, I usually got a head start on eating the after-game treats. My mom was so proud of me for thinking ahead so that I always got to eat the cupcakes and never got stuck eating the stupid carrot sticks.

-- My friend Danny and I used to play home run derby in his backyard. To get a home run, you had to hit the sock ball across Danny's backyard, over the alley, and over the neighbor's back fence. Most of the time I struck out, because Danny threw a pretty good knuckleball, but once I hit the sock so that it rolled into the alley and Danny counted it as a home run so that I wouldn't quit and go back inside to watch the ABC after school special.

-- I played Little League baseball when I like 11 or 12. I was pretty good, so I played almost every position. Like I played first base for awhile, but then when one of my teammates actually stopped a grounder and threw it to me I dropped the ball, so I got moved to short stop. When someone hit a ball to me I stopped it with no problems, but then I threw it into the other team's dugout, so I got moved to pitcher. But then I walked 13 straight batters to reach the 10 run-per-inning limit, so I got moved to the outfield. I was really good at being an outfielder because no one ever hit it that far.

-- Once when I was missionary we had a big group game of paintball. I shot my zone leader in the stomach at point-blank range when we both walked blindly around a corner into one another and he didn't talk to me for like a month after that, which was fine because he always quoted scripture and never laughed when, instead of singing "God be with you till we meet again," I sang "I will beat you till you bleed again." I guess this anecdote doesn't really articulate athletic prowess per se, but you have to admit it's still cool that I shot a guy in the belly button without even looking. Everyone wants to do that deep down, but so few actually realize the dream.

-- Once in college I played a pick-up game of football with some guys out on DT field. "DT" stand for "Deseret Towers," but the guys all called me "DT" for "Double Touchdown." You might think that was my nickname because I scored so many touchdowns, but it was really because whenever someone else scored a touchdown I tried to count it for 14 points instead of 7.

So during this game, we decided to do a reverse, where the quarterback would hand off to me and I'd run like I was doing a sweep, but then there'd be a guy going the other way and I'd hand off to him. Except, when I had the ball and I was actually running at full tilt toward the other guy to hand the ball off to him, and he was running full tilt toward me, we had one of those awkward things where you aren't sure who's going to go to the left and who's going to go to the right. Like, sometimes that happens when you're walking on the sidewalk toward someone, and you and the other person sort of stutter step and fake left and juke right, and then you both laugh awkwardly and stare at the ground when you almost bump into each other. But there's no time for social niceties like that when you and the other person are running toward each other at like 80 mph. Because that's how fast I was running. He was probably running slower than me, because he was a wimp. We only had time to commit to one side and hope the other guy committed to the other side. Except we both went to the same side, me to my left and him to his right. I might have fumbled when we collided. I'm not sure. All I know is someone said "dude" right before impact and then I woke up on my back on the field and I've been stupider ever since that day.

But at least I'm a total sports hero.

Cap'n Bucky

2010-11-09T22:29:00.002-05:00

I rode in a taxi from Baltimore to Washington D.C. with Bucky and two other strangers. Bucky drives a taxi. He’s been doing it since 1963. He told me that 11 times in just over an hour. He also says he knows a place just off I-95 south of Baltimore that has the best crab cakes “you ever did have.” I know these crab cakes are, in fact, the greatest crab cakes in the whole entire universe because Bucky guaranteed it. “I tell you what,” he told me, slipping his words out through the holes where his teeth used to be. “If them crab cakes ain’t the best you ever had, I’ll done drop you in DC for free.” I raised my eyebrows in polite surprise, privately thinking to myself that this was kind of a stupid guarantee. If we did indeed stop for crab cakes, and even if they did completely blow my mind, all I would have to do to get a free ride to DC would be to say, “Nope. Sorry Bucky. These are good, but I had better crab cakes when I was in Alaska that one time back when I’ve never even been to Alaska.” But then all Bucky would have to do to get out of giving me a free ride would be to say, “You stupid whippersnapper. You’re wrong. These is the best crab cakes you ever done had, dad gum it. Yous ain’t got no taste buds.” I would then, of course, be forced to point out that, although I got no taste buds, Bucky got no teeth. So instead of starting a fight, I told Bucky I wasn’t hungry, and we didn’t get crab cakes.

[That's Halen up there in the picture, thinking things over. He's my buddy, so I can put pictures of him in my blog. Buddies do things like that.]

Bucky says there’s no money in driving a cab. He says he makes ends meet by playing poker. “Just a few games a week,” he gums apologetically. His ex-wife likes slots, he says, and that’s why they’re not together anymore. I can see how that difference would tear a couple apart like a freaking bobcat. Nevertheless, Bucky says, making way too much eye contact with me as he multitasks at both talking and driving, he and his ex-wife still get along well. Every year they go to Vegas together for three days for Bucky’s birthday. He plays the tables, she plays the slots. “You gotta enjoy life,” Bucky says, slapping the steering wheel for emphasis. I wish he wouldn’t do that. It sort of makes the taxi swerve, dad gum it.

The other two strangers were pleasant enough. The man behind the driver’s seat was a lawyer from Ohio. He talked a lot. The lady behind my seat was a commercial real estate broker from Connecticut. The lawyer kept calling her “Blondie,” like, as in, “So, Blondie, what do you do for work?” or “I bet Blondie over here likes the Redskins.” I thought maybe Blondie would sue his butt for sexual harassment. If she did, I think Lawyer would have a good case – all he’d have to do would be to stand up in court and say, “Your honor, would you sexually harass a woman in the back seat of a cab with Bucky and Mormon Guy sitting in front?” Of course not. No one would do that. Only Lucifer, that mangy chauvinist bigot. He hates Mormons.

Bucky didn’t like Lawyer one bit. After we dropped Lawyer off at his hotel, Bucky told me he should’ve dropped that “damned, rich lawyer” right there on the freeway when Lawyer started complaining about the traffic. I made sure I casually mentioned at that point that I quite like traffic and that I am neither “damned” nor “rich.” In fact I hate money. Gives me diarrhea. Blondie didn’t like Lawyer either. She said he talked too much. But I think she secretly liked him. I think love had been blooming in the back seat while me and Bucky talked crab cakes. Blondie has four dogs; it’s pretty clear she needs a boyfriend. Lawyer likes dogs too – he just dropped $17,000 in cancer treatment for his dog, which dog then died. As a result, Lawyer is emotionally vulnerable. And Blondie is an aging dog lady. Emotionally vulnerable lawyer + aging dog lady = XOXOXOXO. Go carve that in a tree, Bucky.

But Seriously Folks

2010-10-22T12:35:00.005-05:00

Went to Portland yesterday for a job interview. I think I kept it real. My tactic of putting "cosmology" as one of my "personal interests" on my resume continues to pay dividends. Everybody asks about it, and it gives me the opportunity to bust out my well-rehearsed joke dialogue:

Interviewer: So, I just have to ask, what's cosmology?
Me: Well, I can tell you what it's not. It's not cosmetology.

[Wait expectantly for laughter and applause.]

Me: But seriously, when I was a freshman in college in Physical Science 100, I meant to say "cosmology" but I said "cosmetology." Everybody laughed. Oh man, I tell you what. What a hoot. You have no idea. What. A. Hoot.
Interviewer: Really. [With a period, not a question mark.]
Me: Yeah. It wasn't quite as bad as the time in 7th grade when I got de-pantsed in the hallway at lunchtime.

[Expectant pause, hoping interviewer will beg me to tell the whole story. As a sidenote, this is the same tactic people use on Facebook when they post an obtuse status update, like "OMG. I can't believe it." or "Dying right now." or "I just fell in love -- please, pleeeeeze ask me with whom." in hopes that you'll ask about it and thereby validate their entire existence.]

Interviewer: Really. [Checking his cell phone, hoping somebody will text so he can have an excuse to end the interview early.]
Me [kind of disappointed interviewer didn't ask me to rehearse my de-pantsing story]: Yeah. So I got de-pantsed in the 7th grade. Great story. No joke.
Interviewer: Listen, good talking to you. You'rrrrrre... not hired.

So, later on I was walking through downtown Portland to the light rail stop. Portland really has some eccentric folk. One part of me thinks that's cool -- you know, like people who just do what they do regardless of what society thinks. Another part of me, however, thinks there's a point which, when your eccentricity crosses it, you stop being a "cool" and "individualistic" "trendsetter" who's just "doing your own thing" and "not hurting anybody" and you start being a "sociopathic," "unstable" "burden on society" who "can't hold a job" because doing so might "compromise" your need to "smoke as many different types of flora -- and, potentially, as many different types of fauna -- as possible." I'm not trying to judge or anything. I just think the guy wearing a heavily-body pierced Jedi getup on his lunchtime stroll with his girlfriend was just taking it a little over the top, you know?

Recapping Madman

2010-10-19T21:42:00.005-05:00

Recap of the awesome events of my interesting and note-worthy life that have occurred during the past 10 weeks, during which I haven't blogged, for reasons largely relating to me being truly important and in-demand, and also possibly related to me forgetting that I had a blog.

-- Wore the same pair of jeans, two t-shirts, and two pairs of underwear for six days while biking around the Scottish Isle of Skye. Smelled absolutely ghastly on the 8-hour bus ride back to Glasgow. Felt supernaturally uncomfortable when 20-something college girl sat next to me for the last hour and a half of the bus ride. Scrunched myself against the window so my mind-numbing aroma wouldn't pulverize her brain stem and give her seizures, which would have been awkward for everyone on the bus, but which, I suppose, would potentially have given me more room, as she would have been seizing in the aisle and not on my seat. Every cloud has a silver lining.

-- Got a new pair of running shoes for my birthday. They're gray and make me run faster than I could before. But they don't have velcro, so the kids on the playground still call me "Pooper Duper" and won't let me play wally ball with them.

-- Let my kids make a "secret potion" to administer to "bad guys." Suffered for my naivety when they added mace to their "potion." Coughed a lot and got stingy eyes when I burst into the bathroom to find out why the kids were coughing a lot and screaming about having stingy eyes. Called 911. Felt sort of dumb when like 10 firemen showed up. Used the opportunity to teach the kids about how 911 is for emergencies.

-- The next day Halen called 911 when he had to go pee but Savannah was using the toilet. It was, in Halen's words, an emergency.

--Watched 10 minutes of an episode of "Lost." Got confused when the chick got captured by Latin drug cartel members and taken to a Mayan temple thingy and then, seconds later, opened a can on a guy in a suit inside a woman's bathroom in the airport, all while wearing handcuffs. Started playing with my son's Lincoln Logs because they're more interesting.

-- Went to the Great Salt Lake's Antelope Island, which actually has antelopes, unlike Crater Lake's Wizard Island, which disappointingly has no wizards. Or, perhaps it does but they've all made themselves invisible. That could very well be the case. I'm surprised I've never considered that possibility before.

-- Rode a float in a parade. But it was no big deal. Man, I've been on so many floats in my life that I can't count them all. Well, maybe I can. One... two... yep. Turns out I can.

-- I (heart) Tootsie Rolls.

You Say Tomato and I Say You Said It Wrong, Dummy

2010-07-31T12:38:00.004-05:00

I’m always surprised at how much people hate flying. Although I’m not in the business of arguing with strangers on airplanes, I always think to myself, while listening to someone complain: would you rather take a boat? Dude, it’s possible to fly from one side of the globe to the complete other side in under one freaking day! If my math is correct, that means one could fly clear around the world in under two freaking days! That’s 78 freaking days less than it takes in a hot air balloon! (But only 79 normal days less – freaking days are shorter than normal days). Look, all I’m saying is let’s put things in perspective. Even if you get stuck in security at the airport and you miss your flight and you have to sleep in the terminal and then when you finally get a flight the next day you sit on the runway for three hours and when the plane takes off you get motion sick and throw up on the stewardess and you land and they’ve lost your luggage and you don’t get it until two days later… this is still way, waaaay better than taking a boat.

First off, your travel time – even factoring your delays and losing your luggage – was two weeks less than it would’ve been on a boat. Plus, you only threw up once on the plane – you’d be horking for hours on end when your boat hits a mid-Atlantic storm. Plus, did you get scurvy on the plane? What? No? Oh, that’s what I thought. Did your plane hit an iceberg and sink and leave you floating in the ocean screaming, “Jack! Jack!”? No, it did not, did it. I agree it sucks that you lost your luggage, but odds are the airline finds it in a day or two. No one, on the other hand, will ever find your luggage after you threw it overboard in an attempt to lighten the ship so it won’t sink after it got bombarded by pirates’ cannonballs. Pirates are, of course, better than icebergs, because after tossing your luggage overboard following the pirate attack, you won’t have to scream “Jack! Jack!” unless, I suppose, Jack was in your luggage when you threw it overboard, in which case you’d be justified in screaming “Jack! Jack!” at your luggage. You would also be justified if your luggage was named Jack. Finally, don’t forget that when you’re on a plane, you’re flying. Literally flying. You’re 40,000 feet in the air, flying inside a huge thing with wings. Just to put things in perspective, flying is an awesomer way to get across the ocean than sailing. No sharks in the sky, now, are there? Krakens? Nuh-uh.

On a separate but similar note, when I was at Heathrow waiting for my flight to Glasgow – actually, hold that thought. Can I just say that I so wish I had an awesome accent that allowed me to pronounce “Glasgow” as “Glahz-goh”? My flat American accent insists that it’s pronounced “Glaass-co,” as if it’s a huge, white trash superstore somewhere in Middle America where all your glass needs can be met in one handy stop. Ugh. British/Scottish accents of all kinds are so beautiful. I just try not to speak because my voice is an unwieldy cutlass that punctures the beautiful bubble of gorgeous accents that surrounds me.

British airport worker person with the most wonderful accent in the universe: Where will you be traveling today?

Me: Glaass-co.

Airport worker: I beg your pardon?

Me: Glaass-co!

Airport worker: Glahz-goh?

Me: Glaass-co, Glahz-goh. Tomato, tomahto. Whatever, dude. Look, just let me through. I’m harmless. I don’t even know how to operate a butter knife.

Airport worker: You’re a sad little man. You may pass.

So, back to when I was waiting for my flight to Glaass-co. Just a few minutes before boarding for my flight was to start, I reached into my back pocket for my boarding pass… except there was no boarding pass. Mild panic! Hysteria brewing! I’ve never lost a boarding pass before! I’m not sure what the punishment is. Prison time? Flogging? Being force-fed turnips? You scoff at my naivety, but you have to agree that airports just aren’t like other places. They’re serious, serious locales. I wouldn’t put it past them to exfoliate the undersides of your arms – you know, where all the flab is – with a piece of pumice for losing your boarding pass. I’m serious. I don’t smile in airports. I never skip or crabwalk. I remove all my clothes at security, just in case, and then put back on only the articles that they tell me to put back on. I find it just saves a lot of time and usually gets me tazed, which is all kinds of awesome, and then when I wake up after being beaten senseless by nightsticks, I'm on the plane! Yea! Except that before I can go to my original destination I have to layover in Guantanamo, but, hey, Caribbean layover! Hurray!

Well, it turns out that all you have to do when you lose your boarding pass is go up to a counter and say, “Hey, I lost my boarding pass.” Then they give you a new one. But this tactic wouldn’t work on me if I worked at Burger King and someone came up to the counter and said, “I lost my Whopper.” I’d say, “I lost your money.” And then I’d probably slap them. Just to make sure the pecking order in this mixed up world was clarified somewhat.

Skye-Bound

2010-07-28T21:54:00.003-05:00

3:53 a.m., Gloucester Green, Oxford -- I'm waiting on the bus to whisk me to Heathrow Airport. It won't "take" me. It will "whisk" me. I'm fairly excited to be whisked. I catch a 6:55 a.m. flight to Glasgow, from where I'll ride a bus for 8 hours to the Isle of Skye. Skye is one of the inner islands of a group known as the Scottish Hebrides. "Skye" is one of the more attractive place names in the area; the competition isn't very fierce, however -- "Uig" and "Dultulm" come to mind as particularly clunky.

After striding through Oxford's empty streets at 3:30 in the morning, carrying 50 pounds of gear in my backpack, and nervous that perhaps the bus would leave early just to spite me, I arrived at the bus station unpleasantly sweaty. Ish. 3:30 a.m. is a lovely hour to be walking city streets. The pubs have mostly closed, so the drunks have almost all staggered home, or at leats to a park bench somewhere (incidentally, I'm guessing that the guy that my bus just passed on the side of the street, who waved so vigorously that he fell over, and who then saluted from his seated position, is drunk), and it's still 30-60 minutes before the uber fit, so-self-disciplined-that-they-cower-from-themselves-if-they-accidentally-think-of-meat runners take to the streets in seriously short shorts and activist t-shirts they got at a non-violent rally where everyone ate straw to demonstrate solidarity with farm animals. Nevertheless, in spite of the early hour, I still passed a few people. One couple loped down the empty sidewalk, the 20-something girl in her skimpy sundress leaning lovingly into the swarthy, lightly-bearded guy. They laughed and talked loudly in bland American accents. Then I passed a couple of British intellectuals having way too serious a discussion for 3:45 a.m. "But what's really important," one said to the other, "is the amount of clean energy we can harvest from it..." and then I was mercifully past them and out of earshot. Dude, get yourself home and read some Harry Potter, I thought to myself.

Well, now that I'm carsick, that's all. Hello 28 July, and hello a full day of bus riding.

This Life is a Roller Coaster, But Its Not Scary Enough to Make Me Hurl

2010-07-26T01:03:00.005-05:00

[In keeping with Abu Halen Tradition, this photo of princesses is unrelated to this post -- I simply believe these to be the two cutest princesses that have ever donned cheap plastic tiaras and jewelry and, seeing as how this is my ugly blog, you have to behold and admire them. Behold! Admire! Okay thanks. Let's move on.]

Oh man, what a roller coaster the past couple weeks have been! Here are some of the ups and downs of my crazy life! Oh wow! Just one more exclamation point for the road!

Roller Coaster #1. I totally thought I was going to get my fascinating, interesting, and thought-provoking externship story posted to the BYU Law School website. Totally thought so. So, some brother named Gus emails me and asks me all about my experiences here in Oxford. I'm all excited, repeating "Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh" aloud to my comfort blankie, because this is my big chance to go big time, you know? One day, BYU Law School homepage, the next, Broadway, and the next, dictatorship of a small but resource-rich breakaway African state. So I hurry and make up a bunch of lies about myself to respond to Gus: I can write simultaneously with both my right and left hands, I never missed an episode of Lost and I think it's better than chocolate, Clarence Thomas is my godfather, etc. Then, just when my excitement has reached a frenzied pitch, Gus emails back and wants a picture of me for the story. Ecstasy! So I send him a snapshot of Fabio, which I've slightly edited to look more like me by adding a larger nose and fluoride-stained front teeth. But then -- roller coaster! -- one of the other Oxford externs shows up on the homepage and pilfers my fame! Oh my. I'm so glad I had my comfort blankie to help me through those dark hours.

Roller Coaster #2. For a moment, a common house fly became symbolic of my entire existence, and then it wasn't anymore. Roller coaster! So I'm sitting at my computer, trying to translate Arabic scribbles into English, which evidently Google can do more cheaply and effectively, and I notice this fly repeatedly hurling itself against the closed window. And I think to myself, flies are the dumbest things in the world, right behind Sarah Palin. Then, as I'm wont to do, I begin to speculate about what the smartest things in the world are. I'm about to capitulate to mainstream thinking and crown homo sapiens the smartest things, but then I realize, no, it's dolphins. They smile all the time, as if they know something we don't. Things that smile all the time are always smart, except Joe Biden. Now, you might be asking, if dolphins are so smart, why do they get caught in fishing nets and drown? To which I would respond, getting caught in fishing nets isn't a function of intelligence -- it's a function of the socialist plot, clearly masterminded by President Obama, the Kennedys, and the city of San Francisco, to rob Americans of their crushing credit card debt -- er, I mean, hard-earned money, and give it to university professors. To which you might respond, what does that have to do with dolphins and fishing nets? To which I would reply... don't forget to spay and neuter!

Back to dolphins and house flies. What if, I thought, me watching the fly pathetically cling to one side of the window, only millimeters from freedom but unable to reach it, is analogous to dolphins watching humans pathetically cling to boats, or to the dry side of the plexi-glass at Sea World, so close to the freedom of the open water, but unable to reach it? Oh that I could hold my breath for thirty minutes at a time and have a perma-grin like those wise and self-actualized mammalian dolphins! But then, I remember I have a lot of translating to do. Roller coaster!

Roller Coaster #3. My wife, on the other side of the Atlantic, totally toys with my fragile emotions. So I'm writing a paper when, plink! Shannon sends me a chat. My heart soars! Oh soft! What light through yonder window breaks, I gush to my blankie! Just as I'm about to chat back, she adds, "I'm going to eat lunch now." Oh! Crestfallen! Shattered! Gutted! Roller coaster! But then she beneficently decides to forgo lunch and chat with me instead, at which point I realize I don't really have that much to say. So I make up some stuff about chiasmus and comparative hermeneutics and the symbolism of the menorah, because she likes that stuff and it makes her miss me, in spite of the fact that the house smells better without me around. But, alas! The countless swells of the mighty sea yet separate us, though yonder sea is full of smiling, scheming dolphins, o great rulers of the sprawling realms of the mind! Roller coaster!

Man, I'm telling you, what a roller coaster life. The drama! It's crushing! You know what? I'm hungry.

Bizarre Druid Flashdance

2010-07-10T03:44:00.005-05:00

Last night I was laying in bed getting ready to drift off to Happy Land of the Dodo Birds and Yummy Shaved Lemon Ice. What, don't you have a special name for the part of your brain that gives you pretty dreams? Oh. I see. Me neither.

So there I am, my eyes shut, feeling kind of excited about maybe dreaming about touring with Pearl Jam -- again -- when suddenly unnatural light starts piercing my eyelids. Somewhat startled, because the last time aliens kidnapped and studied me and siphoned all the information from my brain, they'd been so disappointed that all I had in there was a list of the top 8,000 rock albums of all time, multiplication tables, and a few scattered sentence fragments like "a tort is not a pastry" and "mmmmm.... cheese" and "never karate chop a John Deere" and "heh-heh, the operation gave him a hairy hand, heh-heh," that they'd dropped me off at the Plaid Pantry on the corner near my house and asked if, in the future, I'd kindly keep my windows closed and locked so they wouldn't waste their time kidnapping me again, I opened my eyes to see what was going on. Oh wow, that could be a record run-on sentence. So masterful. Anyhow, so I open my eyes to see why light is penetrating my eyelids, and I see strange, orange light rhythmically pulsing through my second-story window. And then I notice a sound, like a flag rippling in a breeze, timed to throb with the flashing orange light.

If you think you know where this is going, I promise you're wrong. I mean, you're usually right. You did really well in 3rd grade and everything. I remember something about the teacher thinking you were a pleasure to have in class. Well done, you know, kudos or whatever. But, really, I'm pretty sure you're wrong on knowing where this is going, because what I saw was easily the most bizarre, unexpected thing I'd seen since, I don't know, somebody throwing shoes at the leader of the free world during a press conference.

So I creep up to the window, and I've got my bow and arrow ready to shoot the dragon in its weak spot, you know, on its left breast (so glad I paid attention while reading The Hobbit as a nerdy, be-pimpled, friendless tween). And I pull the curtains -- and there is my Swiss roommate, dressed in a black tank-top and black cap, standing beneath my window on the lawn in the dark, his back to me, twirling flaming torches.

Truly bizarre.

I sit there and watch, and I consciously double-check to see if I'm dreaming, because this is just the sort of weird thing that your brain might toss out in the middle of the night when it's all out of fun, happy-colored scenes of dodo birds munching on cotton candy and then vomiting it back up to feed their young. What, you've never dreamed about that? Oh. I see. Me neither.

But wait. It gets weirder. So I watch this surreal scene for a couple of minutes. I'm entranced -- mesmerized. Which may have been Swiss-boy's aim: hypnotize the American and then steal his sweet-action Stonehaven Dental shirt that says "Wake up to a brand new smile" on the front. I've seen it all before; everyone's after me lucky Stonehaven Dental shirt. So his flaming torches are arcing through the dark and it's really amazing and I'm thinking "Holy crap this is so weird that it's 11:00 p.m. and Swiss-boy is standing alone in the pitch black yard swinging flaming torches," and then, at the edge of the pulsating light the torches are casting, a face appears, peering over the fence into the yard.

"Hello," the face says in a cheery and lovely and proper English accent. "We're having a party. Would you like to come hang out with us?" Swiss-boy continues twirling his flaming torches as he considers the proposal. The only sound is that of fire whipping through the sultry night air.

"Yes, I think I'd like that very much," Swiss-boy finally responds in his equally lilting English without slowing his twirling. "Which house is it?"

"Oh, yes," the face says politely. "Two houses down, I believe... I see you've a way with fire," the face adds, acknowledging for the first time the fact that the young man with whom he's speaking has two huge flaming balls attached to ropes orbiting at high speeds around his head and body in random, beautiful, terrible patterns.

By this time, several more faces have joined the first and are ogling at the Swiss Fire Master. The squeals of young English women pierce the evening as they watch Swiss-boy defy death by fire and melting flesh. Then, suddenly, one of the faces steps confidently into the circle of fire light and produces a long staff. As I watch, dumbfounded and befuddled, both ends of the staff burst into bright flame and the face, now attached to a body, begins madly spinning the staff above his head, behind his back, like he's Donatello the freaking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle warding off like 85 of Shredder's stupid henchmen. And Swiss-boy ups his performance, now no longer standing stock still like the bassist from the Who while twirling his flames, but instead spinning and weaving his body to add new loops to the torches' arcs.

I can't believe it. In the yard beneath my window I've got a full-on ritualistic Druid solstice oh-pagan-gods-please-send-us-beautiful-maidens-to-sacrifice-for-no-real-reason-except-to-give-us-something-to-do-in-this-weird-circle-of-tall-pointy-rocks fire flashdance thingy erupting... and it's freaking awesome.

It's like a bizarre dream you could only have in R.E.M. sleep, because the shallower sleep stages produce only weak cheese nocturnal visions, like maybe your pants falling off at school as you try to make your way across the monkey bars. Several times I literally slap myself to be sure that I'm not just mired deeply in one of those dreams where you dream you're wondering if you're dreaming, so you try to wake up, but you don't so you think it's real even though it's still just a dream. But it's not. It's the real deal. Finally, reality intrudes -- one of the young English maidens beholding the spectacle says softly, "Do you think this is legal, then?" No one answers, and the fire's spell regains control.

I don't know how long this went on, because when I came to it was 8 a.m. Dude, I swear it really happened. You can't make this stuff up. When I talk to Swiss-boy today I'm going to ask him if he'll show me his flaming torches, and if he shakes his head slightly and asks me to repeat the question, I'm going to never again eat a block of extra sharp English cheese right before bed.

10 Statements With Which You Cannot Disagree

2010-07-08T14:05:00.005-05:00

If you went to Venus, you would sweat a ton. And probably break out in hives.

Getting hit by a semi truck traveling at 40 miles per hour would crack the iPhone in your pocket, so your heir would inherit a brand new one. Yea!

If you ever drop your camera into a pool of molten lava, forget it man. It’s gone. You can't argue with magma. Well, you can, but you'll look stupid.

Mu'ammar al-Qaddhafi, the president of Libya, has the best bodyguards of any Muslim ruler.

Listening to Chicago makes girls want to kiss somebody. Except for Shannon -- listening to Chicago makes Shannon want to do dishes really bad.

A Sherpa's lungs could beat up your whole face.

Nickelback sucks so bad that they warp spacetime and cause beings on other planets to cradle their young to their bosoms and stroke their hair and tell them they hope the gods will stop punishing the universe soon.

Odds are something bad will happen to you if you cut off your hand, jump in the ocean near the Great Barrier Reef, and just tread water for a few hours.

Nobody in Louisiana carries the first name Mephistopheles. Guar-on-teed.

You will get beat up if you go to Mogadishu wearing a wrestling singlet

Thanks, Hyena-Boy

2010-07-02T15:12:00.003-05:00

I don't know how anyone can say airports are boring. Nineteenth-century rural Episcopalian church services? Boring. Airports? Not boring. I hung out at JFK for quite awhile yesterday, because that's what all the cool kids do these days. Hang out at the airport. Like in the 90s they'd hang out at the mall, but today we hang out at the airport. It's so awesome. Seriously. Awesome.

But then Airline X announced they'd overbooked my flight to London and wondered if anyone wanted to give up their seats in exchange for airline credit. I asked if, instead of airline credit, they could just have Aerosmith come play at my 31st birthday bash, which will consist of me sleeping until 2 p.m. and then eating vanilla yogurt until 7:00 p.m., at which point I'll check my email. Then maybe I thought Aerosmith could play a set in my backyard. Just for me and my kids. And it would be great if they didn't get mad when I sing along to the part in "Dream On" where Steven Tyler starts singing really high. I don't think Shannon likes Aerosmith, so maybe Airline X could also have Yanni come and be the opening act? Shannon knows the words to all the Yanni songs.

Airline X balked at my suggestion, so instead I got some food vouchers, a free room at a hotel, and a business class seat to London today.

I'm not going to lie -- the hotel was a little iffy. But, really, when something's free, can you justifiably complain about it? Like you don't see people on The Price Is Right, when the little door thingies slide open and Bob Barker says, "... a new car!!!" you don't see those contestants kind of groan and slump their shoulders and say, "Oh, man, I hate white cars. Do you have any champagne-colored ones back there?" No one does that. Or, if they do, the TV station edits it out or something.

So I didn't complain about the iffy hotel with the room that was like 46 inches from the freeway. And I didn't complain that my breakfast voucher was sufficient to pay for only 25% of my breakfast. Like the voucher would've covered it if I had just trimmed my fingernails onto the table and bought some ketchup in which to dip the clippings before I ate them. That would've been under 6 bucks. Maybe.

I didn't complain for two reasons. One, I already mentioned -- it was free. Two, things weren't as bad for me as they were for the guy who I think was about to kill an Airlinee X employee last night. This story bears repeating.

So I'm at the counter after having given up my seat. I'm waiting for them to throw some Franklins at me or whatever. And there are a lot of other people at various stages of distress hanging around the counter. The employee behind the counter asks this one guy, he says "Do you want to give up your seat in exchange for money?" The guy responds, "Absolutely not. I need to get to London by tomorrow morning." So the employee proceeds to silently and inexplicably give the guy's seat away. I don't know if the employee just wasn't paying attention or was preoccupied with other stuff, or just hated guys wearing loafers or what, but he did the precise thing the customer had said not to do. Of course, nobody realized it at the time because the employee had said nothing.

Twenty minutes later the guy's like, "Are you going to give me back my boarding pass so I can board?" And the employee's like, "No, you gave up your seat." And the rest of us standing around the counter kind of backed up a step, because we've all watched the Discovery Channel enough to know that when a wild animal gets mad it's liable to do crazy things like eat its own children or, I don't know, chase its tail in circles so quickly and so many times that it suddenly explodes into a shower of quarks and neutrinos. And this guy had a look on his face like a scrawny lion -- or perhaps a well-fed hyena -- so we all backed up because heads were gonna roll, and no one wanted it to be theirs. Except for the one guy who I think was from Eastern Europe and had a noticeably large head -- he probably wouldn't have minded if his head had rolled, because I bet he secretly wants a new, smaller one.

Anyhow, I suppose the end of the story is somewhat anti-climactic. There was a lot of loud swearing, but I didn't see any quarks, and Euro-Head left with his neck still groaning under the weight of the asteroid it was doomed to support for at least another day. And Hyena-Boy made it onto the flight. So, yeah, I didn't complain about the iffy hotel. Hyena-Boy put it all into perspective for me.

Airplanes vs. Crappy, Girly Priuses

2010-07-01T19:42:00.003-05:00

I know there's really high demand to hear the story of how I got a free lunch at a pub, drank lemonade till I was tipsy, and then had to hire a designated driver to get back to the office, but it'll have to wait. Because right now there are equally, if not MORE, tantalizing things to discuss. And by "discuss" I mean I do all the talking and you sit there staring straight ahead, drool trickling out of the corner of your mouth, kind of like the drummer for ZZ Top.

Over there is an unrelated picture of a waterfall. Isn't it pretty?

So, I rode in an airplane today. Man, it went really fast. Did you know those bad boys get 55 miles to the gallon? I bet you can't get THAT kind of mileage in your crappy, girly Prius, can you? +1 for airplanes. -1 for crappy, girly Priuses. But then again, you don't have to go through security to get into your crappy, girly Prius. That equals the score. As fun as this game of Airplanes vs. Crappy, Girly Priuses is, I'm going to move on now.

On the plane, I sat next to a lady from northeastern England. I didn't understand a thing she said. I told myself it was because of the engine noise and not her accent, but I lied.

Me and English lady bonded instantly because she's from England and I'm going to England. It was like we had all sorts of stuff to talk about. For 180 seconds. Then things got a little quiet. She taught me how to pronounce "Hebrides," as in "the Outer Hebrides," which are the islands that make up the extreme northwestern boundary of Scotland. And I'm so glad she taught me because it's lame when you pronounce things wrong in a place where you don't live. It's like walking around with a t-shirt that says "Hate Me; I'm Both a Foreigner and a Poser." It's like when people come to Oregon and then pronounce it as a three-syllable word, like "Ore-ee-gun" or "Ore-a-gun" or, worse, "Ore-a-gone." When you hear that, you say, "You're not from around here, is ya?" And when they say no, you say "Are you from California?" And if they say no, then you discreetly put away your nunchucks.

So English lady saved me from that fate. I was all set to pronounce "Hebrides" like "Hee-brides" or "Heb-rides." But, surprise! It's pronounced "Heb-rid-ees." Log that one away, my friends, because you never know when you'll be stuck with your head in a guillotine and your captors will say, "If you can pronounce the following word properly, we'll let you go and call you Awesomehead forever: H-E-B-R-I-D-E-S." And you'll think to yourself, "It's hard to put into words how much I love Abu Halen." And I'll say, "Stop because you're embarrassing me. I'm just an average Abu Halen with extraordinary powers of pronunciation."

Big Money, Exploding Cars, and Ninjas: An Untruthful Title Aimed at Getting You to Waste Time Reading About My Uneventful Externship (Part 1)

2010-06-09T13:47:00.007-05:00

When I step off the bus in downtown Portland, it's raining. I repeat over and over in my head the address of the law firm at which I'm to spend the next four weeks. My plan is that if I think the address a lot I won't forget it. I could've written it down, but then what would I have thought about on the bus all the way downtown? You thought you had me there, didn't you. But you didn't. (Here I stare menacingly at you and you stifle laughter)

So.

I hurry past the homeless guy asking for change and the Bible Basher sitting on a chair outside a coffee shop reciting Bible verses about evil and damnation. I bet the coffee shop owners don't like that guy very much, I think. I think some more: I bet it must really stink to be friends with that guy because he probably never talks about sports or Wheel of Fortune or bacon bits or even that girl on Transformers. And then I think, Abu Halen, stop thinking about this stuff or you'll forget the address of the law firm.

But it turns out I quickly find the right address. It's the tallest building in Portland. You can see this place from like Venus or something. And by Venus I mean anywhere within two or three miles of downtown Portland. Three minutes later I'm on the elevator to the 23rd floor. I check my tie, smooth my hair, make sure my fly is up. Then I make sure my fly is up two more times, because that's super important. If you're trying to make a good first impression with lawyers, the 12th worst thing to do is have your fly down. In case you're wondering, the 3rd worst thing to do is to speak Elvish to them, and the absolute worst thing to do is to have a voodoo doll of their likeness in your hand and then, after they greet you, start frantically stabbing the doll with a dull pencil while shouting things in Afrikaans.

Stepping off the elevator, I sez to myself, I sez, "Self, this is just what I thought a law firm would look like." The walls are fitted with wood paneling. There are glass salmon above a leather couch in the foyer. I KNEW law firms had glass salmon on the wall. I just knew it. I smell one to see if it's real. Phew! It's not. Just kidding. I didn't do that.

The receptionist tells me to sit beneath the salmon and wait. So I sit there, and I try to figure out how to look. Don't slouch, I tell myself. You'll look like a slacker. But now I'm sitting really upright and I look like a coat rack because of my big nose and brown suit. My legs are tight together. I wonder if I look like a girl. So I spread them apart a little. I look down and wonder if the angle should be larger or smaller. Then, inexplicably, I try to remember the Pythagorean Theorem. Is it a+b=b+c, or, wait, didn't it have something to do with triangles? Then I stop myself because -- whoa, man -- I'm thinking about something Greek that's not a gyro. I've got to get myself together and figure out how I'm supposed to sit in the foyer so I don't look like a stupid extern. So I look out the window and try to appear as though I'm inventing new legal doctrines and it doesn't give me a headache or even cause me to crinkle my eyebrows.

Then, mercifully, because I'm starting to get a headache from the stress of trying to not look stupid, the recruiting guy shows up. What the-? He's not wearing a tie! And he's got a beard! And his fly's down! Just kidding. It's not. Maybe. I don't really know for sure, actually. I didn't look.

So.

We shake hands and I try not to squeeze too hard, but then I also try to not give a fishy handshake either. Then, as I think of fishy handshakes, I think of the glass salmon and I almost ask him if he caught them himself, but I stop myself just in time. OMG. What a fantastic save Abu Halen. Think of the disaster if this had been your first exchange, aside from telling the receptionist your name, with a real person at a real law firm.

Real Person at Real Law Firm: Hi, I'm So-and-So. (extends hand for me to shake it)
Abu Halen: (shaking hands) Hi. I really like the glass salmon on the wall over there that don't smell like salmon. I smelled them. Did you catch them yourself?
Real Person at Real Law Firm: . . .
Abu Halen: (still shaking hands, but at a tapering speed; still lightly chuckling) Heh heh.
Real Person at Real Law Firm: . . .
Abu Halen: (realizing a change of subject is appropriate) I'm a ninja sometimes.

This gripping tale of intrigue will be continued next time, because right now I'm bored of writing. Next time I'll tell you about me getting free lunch. It. Will. Be. So. Awesome. I. Can't. Hardly. Wait. To. Not. Be. Bored. Of. Writing. So. I. Can. Tell. You. About. Free. Lunch.

I'm Tired of Living a Lie

2010-05-31T09:26:00.004-05:00

Look, I'm not gonna lie to you. I kind of like Taylor Swift. Does it make it hard to feel good about myself? Is it a constant drag on my self-esteem? Are those Bugle Boy jeans I'm wearing? You're asking an awful lot of kind of personal questions and it's making me uncomfortable. Give me some space, Matlock.

No, seriously. Hear me out on this one. There are at least two good reasons to like Taylor Swift. Don't be getting all snobby with your "I only listen to indie bands" thingy, because that's annoying and we all laugh at you behind your back because you wear pegged jeans.

Reason 1: C'mon, don't you feel just a little bad that that horrible Jonas Brother dumped her like two years ago? I really feel like Taylor got the short end of that stick. No way no how she's a high-maintenance pompous teenage ball and chain that made unreasonable demands on Jonas Brother, like requiring him to text her between songs at all his concerts.

On an only partially related note, the Jonas Brothers are only half as cool as Hanson. Name me a Jonas Brothers song that can touch "Mmmm Bop." Even if you could, it wouldn't do much for me because I don't know the names of any Jonas Brothers songs. I've been boycotting them since dude broke Taylor's heart. Now that I'm thinking of it, name me any song that can touch "Mmmm Bop." That's right. You can't do it. And that's why you're sitting there with that dumb look on your face. Or it could be because you can't quite believe you're reading somebody trumping up Hanson. And you could tell me I'm a pansy for liking Taylor Swift and praising Hanson, but I'm not listening -- la la la la la la la la la la la.

Also on a partially related note, I think the Jonas Brothers is a dumb band name. If I was in a band with my teenage brothers, we would not name ourselves something with our last name in it. That's hokey. Only Van Halen can get away with that, and that's just because they've got such an awesome surname. Aye, Van Halen is the surname of all surnames. Dude, just sitting here I can think of like five band names cooler than "the Jonas Brothers" without even thinking about it: 1) Habeas Corpus 2) Bro-hawk 3) The Oversized Wicker Men 4) Malleable Consternation 5) Natty Nick and the Nestorian Knickers. See?

Reason 2: It's kind of a fun game to think, if you were a teenager and you dated Taylor Swift and then you dumped her, what would the angry song she wrote about you be called? Mine would be called "I'm So Embarrassed That You Took Me to Prom in a Volkswagon Bus (a.k.a. You're So Classless)," and the chorus would go something like, "You didn't even have the class/to hang an air freshener pine tree/in your stupid orange bus/so it wouldn't smell like 1973/and then you took me to Chuck E. Ch-ch-ch-ch-cheeze [that part would be kind of funky with sort of an offbeat high-hat symbol in the background, and in the video Chuck E. Cheeze himself would be dancing in a parking lot in the rain, playing the maracas]." Wow that's kind of a cool song I just made up.

But then, after she wrote that song about me, I'd write a response song and it'd be called "If You Would've Loaned Me Some Money I Would've Taken You To Dinner At Some Place That Requires Reservations (a.k.a. After All, You're a Billionaire Singer and I Work at the Mall)." And the chorus would go, "You've got so much money I can't believe it/why won't you gimme some/oh yeah, gimme some money/I'll pay you back when I get paid next Wednesday." I don't think that song would do very well because it doesn't rhyme and there are no maracas.

Three Cheers For Portland

2010-05-23T19:04:00.004-05:00

Man, what a great city Portland is. I like how people just chill outside quaint little neighborhood cafes, sipping lattes they bought with food stamps. How do I know these people bought their lattes with food stamps? Because NO body would hire somebody wearing a dog collar to do ANYTHING. Except maybe an animal clinic would hire someone wearing a dog collar to stand outside the building on the sidewalk of the busy street and lick themselves as a means of advertisement/marketing.

I like how everything is called a bistro. Setting up a coffee shop? Make sure you work "bistro" into the title (i.e. "Bright-Eyed and Bistro-Tailed Coffee"). Want to open a nickelcade? You've got to call it a bistro (i.e. "Whacky Willy's Bistro-cade"). What about a home improvement store? No problem (i.e. "Bistro the Builder -- Can We Build It? Yes We Can"). Law firm? We can make it a bistro ("Bernstein, Bingo & Bistro, LLP"). I'm no longer sure what a bistro used to be before I started this paragraph.

I like the budding relationship between the driver of the afternoon bus and the emaciated lady with Elvira hair and painted-on jeans, who always sandwiches a Harry Potter book under her arm. She never sits down. She just casually fingers a pole for balance as she stands and chats up the bus driver. He likes it. I can tell, even though he tries to play it cool behind his highway patrolman sunglasses. I can tell because he doesn't tell her sit down like he did the slightly challenged Bill Murray lookalike guy who tried to strike up a conversation with him about Scentsy.

I like the jobless people who stand outside the courthouse protesting things, as if it will somehow make them less of a loser if they have a cause. Dude, chick with the magenta hair and holey fishnets, newsflash: hating Judge So-and-So because he isn't vegan isn't a cause. Just saying. But, you know, do your democratic duty or whatever.

I like the bottle and can refund system. People, I'm telling you, it really encourages recycling. How can it not work? You get PAID to recycle. I'll be honest, if I'm in a state without a bottle and can refund, and I'm driving around and I finish a can of Coke, I'm going to throw it in the trash. But if I'm getting PAID to recycle it, I'm going to clutch it in my non-shifting and non-steering wheel hand (that's my mutant third hand, evidently) like it's a glorious, shiny nickle with a picture of Neil Diamond on the back or whatever. And guess what, even if I DO do the socially irresponsible thing and throw it away, there's a decent incentive for jobless protester chick to leaf through the trash and collect my can. Then she can cash it in. Everybody wins. The can gets recycled and she's 1/80 of the way to new set of fishnets that the rest of us can quickly glance away from as we throw up in our mouths.

The only thing I don't like is the roadkill removal service, or lack thereof. Fluffy Squirrel that got smooshed like 10 days ago in the middle of the street, upon which I must walk twice each day to and from the bus stop, is still there. Let me tell you what a pleasure it was to watch the gradual effect of rain, countless car tires, scavenger birds, and bacteria on Fluffy Squirrel, day by day, by day, by day. And on that note, I leave you. Alone. With your nightmares of Fluffy Squirrel dancing beside the ghoulish Michael Jackson in the "Thriller" video.

Observations at the DMV

2010-05-08T22:21:00.001-05:00

The DMV is the great equalizer of humanity: all, rich or poor, who wish to drive an automobile legally must muddle through the DMV. Except Paris Hilton. Somehow I can’t imagine her waiting at the DMV for her number to be called. Each time an employee called a new number Ms. Hilton would have to lean over to the person next to her, show them her number, and ask them whether it was the one just called; I question whether she can independently count past 14. I suspect she pronounces the number 15 as “fiventeen.”

Because all drivers must run the DMV gauntlet at some point, it’s a wonderful place to people watch. I typically pass my time there simply observing the fascinating people around me. They look so interesting. They do such strange things. They behave so exotically. Gleaned from just one 30 minute DMV wait a couple days ago, I share a few person-sketches.

Not long after I take my seat, an old man with a walker pushes through the door. Plastic grocery bags—like 12 of them—dangle from the walker’s cross-bars. I study them as they sway while he inches his way across the sterile blue floor. What the crap is he carrying around in there? Lunchables? Human heads? Maybe this is one of those homeless guys who carries everything he owns with him. But, seriously… a walker? Doesn’t the government give out motorized carts to homeless people? I know it gives them cell phones and satellite TV and X-Boxes. He’salso wearing a neck brace—perhaps he got going too fast with that walker and spun out of control and hit a restraining wall? So, the old man finally reaches a chair and tenderly seats himself, panting like he’d just done 45 one-handed push-ups. I sit there trying to figure out what this dude could possibly be doing at the DMV. No way no how this guy drives a car. I’m not entirely certain he’s safe with his walker judging from the neck brace.

In bounces a guy who looks like Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber. Really happy guy. He smiles and calls the old guy with a neck brace “Buddy” as he passes. The old guy is still catching his breath from the exertion of having been alive for 250 years, so he can’t answer, but he kind of waves and, I think, pulls his deltoid, judging from the way he winces afterward. Lloyd has really awful hair. He’s bald on the tippy-top but he’s let the rest of his tightly curled gray hair grow out really long. And he has hat hair. So he’s got three layers of hair awfulness. 1) Bald on the tippy-top; 2) hair down to about ear level is plastered to his head due to wearing a hat all day; 3) tightly-curled hair beneath ear level is out of control, frizzing everywhere, threatening to cause traffic delays. But I like this guy. I like how he called the old guy “Buddy,” and how he jokes really loudly with the DMV lady. But, alas, what’s going on with his shorts? The right leg of his shorts is fine, but he’s rolled the left leg of his shorts up past mid-thigh. Why, dude, why? I can see the little pouch of his left side pocket coming out the bottom of his rolled-up shorts. I can see the bulge of his keys in there. It’s weird. But I still like him because he’s got a bouncy step and I think nobody’s called that old guy “Buddy” in over 100 years.

There’s a guy sitting a few couches over with a Sturgis shirt on. I find myself question whether he actually went. His short hair is neatly combed. His jeans are pressed. His shirt is tucked in. I didn’t even see a motorcycle in the parking lot, so this guy either walked or drove a car. I think he may have just got that shirt at a garage sale. I bet his name is Ernest or William, and he hates it when people call him Ernie or Billy. A guy who really went to Sturgis would not only not care if someone called him Billy, he’d tack a catchy nickname on there too, like “Bullet Billy” or “Wild Boar Billy.”

Two Hispanic kids are chatting in Spanish off to my left. They must be in their late-teens or early 20s. One was just finishing a driver’s test when I walked in and now he’s laughing and chatting while he waits for the results. A starchy DMV lady calls him up and, loudly enough for everyone to hear, tells him he failed. This kid wins the award for Best Attitude After a Miserable Failure. He smiles and shrugs and returns to his seat to continue chatting with his buddy. Later, as I’m taking care of my business at the counter, the lady at the next booth calls up the second kid. He’s reporting an accident. “Do you know anything about the other person involved?” the lady asks. “Yes,” says the kid. “Why didn’t you write it down on this form you just gave me?” she replies. “Because the other person was a tree,” he explains. Silence. +1 for Hispanic kid. -1 for DMV lady.

I notice a grungy looking kid, probably 16 or 17, reading a magazine while his mom, her back to me, picks stuff out of his hair. I don’t really mind if gorillas do that. I don’t really mind if humans do that, as long as they’re in Michigan and I’m in Montana. But, really. At the DMV? What was she looking for? Oil deposits? Moths? If my mom had ever pulled that kind of crap on me in public, I would have declared independence—signed a piece of parchment and threatened her with a bayonet and everything. You know, dumped all her tea in the bathtub. That sort of thing. But this kid—man, what a lump.

Then there’s the ubiquitous 50-something guy in a polo shirt and slacks talking on his Bluetooth. He’s clearly a business owner, and his business—breeding rabbits or welding shovels or repossessing furniture or something vital like that—is so important that he can’t not talk loudly about it in the quiet of the DMV waiting room. Because if he doesn’t arrange this deal, right now, people will die. No, not just people, but children will die. More than all of the other oddities of the DMV, this guy bugged the most. I had to restrain myself from walking over, grabbing his waxy Bluetooth out of his pretentious ear, and throwing it against the wall while shouting “I hate capitalism!!” But I didn’t. And I left the DMV kind of glad that not everyone is just like me. Because then think how boring the DMV would be: everyone would just be sitting there, watching everyone else, waiting for them to do something funny. Ugh.

Right On, Write-On

2010-04-29T09:46:00.003-05:00

One of law school's rites of passage is the write-on competition at the end of the first year. It's where smart people vie hungrily for limited and coveted spots on the law review. It's called a "write-on" because the competition involves writing a scholarly article on a particular case. I opted not to participate because I would've lost. You can call me a defeatist if you want, but don't challenge me to a game of badminton, because I'll probably lose.

See, I'm not very good at competitive things, like basketball or football or tetherball or golf or bloody knuckles or drag racing or Pictionary. I think the only competition I've ever won was in 2nd grade when we had a competition to see who in the class could write the numbers from 1 to 1000 the fastest. I know, with such prodigious talent it's a wonder I'm not the governor of some bankrupt state by now.

Far more interesting than my lone competition victory, however, are my many spectacular losses. I share a couple with you in short-form so you can share with me in partaking of the agony of defeat, which, unknown to habitual winners, actually tastes somewhat like chicken.

In 4th grade I was on a Pop Warner football team. We lost every game. We didn't score a single point until the fourth game of the season, although we did score a touchdown in the third game, which unfortunately got called back due to a holding penalty. On me. Like the biblical Jonah, I knew that my loser-dom was the cause of our troubles, but unlike Jonah I was unwilling to fess up to the fact that God was punishing the team because of something I'd done -- punching the deaf kid down the street for saying something unintelligible that I interpreted as a prediction that the Chicago Cubs would lose the NL Central to the Cardinals.

In 2nd grade, I entered a community drawing contest with my best friend Curtis. He drew a dinosaur and won first prize. I drew a picture of Planet Volt, an imaginary world I'd made up that electrocuted any spaceships that flew within 12 parsecs of it. No one lived there because, well, living there would put them within 12 parsecs. So they'd get electrocuted before they could settle down and plant crops. Did you really need me to explain that to you? Clearly, the judges of the 6-7 year old contest failed to appreciate my superior powers of imagination. Curtis got a $25 bond that should be maturing later this year. I vented my frustration at losing by drawing a picture of Planet Volt exploding. It was a stupid planet anyhow.

So, given my history of punching deaf kids and blowing up planets, I opted out of the write-on competition. Also, I question whether the skills required by the write-on contest, and, later, participation in law review -- such as editing and writing scholarly articles -- are actually skills that lawyers use. I've never been a lawyer, so, I don't know, maybe lawyers write academic papers a lot. And maybe the partners come several times a week to the junior associates, throw 40 page articles by a law professors on the associates' desks, and say, "Here, I really need you to edit this article on how nice it would be if the law were different than it actually is. Meanwhile, while you're doing that, I'll be trying to figure out what the law actually is, which you could be doing, except you're busy editing that article that I don't think any actual practitioner of law will ever read, but which I have no doubt two or three law professors will read. Maybe." Nevertheless, I salute those bringing honor to the profession by participating in the write-on. And, for those of you that win the competition and make it on law review, can you loan me a few thousand dollars in five years when you're a wealthy and successful attorney at a large, prestigious firm and I'm waiting tables at Winger's? I might be needing some help with my back payments for my subscription to People magazine. Write on, write-on writers... right on.

In Loving Memory of March

2010-04-14T22:28:00.005-05:00

Oh dear. March went loping by and I didn't even give it a head-nod or a chest-bump or a gangsta hand-slap or some other hyphenated "body part-verb" combination. For shame, Abu Halen.

In loving memory of March, let's relive our favorite March memories. Readers, please join me in commenting and reminiscing on your fondest recollections of your wintery-springish March exploits, if you will. And you will.

For my part, my favorite March memory was when we took our kids skiing. It wasn't their first time; that was in February. But this post isn't about February, is it? So back off, February, with your pretentious spelling that no one pronounces right. You think you're so cool, all "Feb-roo-ary" and stuff. But I can see your underpants when you bend over to tie your shoes, you freaking sissy.

That was kind of an unnecessary dressing down of an actually quite decent month. My bad.

So we took our kids skiing at a little place in Idaho called Pebble Creek. It would be an overstatement to call Pebble Creek Sun Valley's red-headed stepchild. Maybe something more accurate would be to say that Pebble Creek is Sun Valley's red-headed stepchild's pet caterpillar's carcass that mom found in the bottom of the pear jar two weeks after the stepchild put the caterpillar in the jar but forgot to poke holes in the lid. But for a few hours of teaching little kids how to ski, Pebble Creek fit the bill just fine.

Savannah did quite well. She figured out quick how to make an A with her skis and how to go faster by making the A taller and skinnier and how to go slower by making the A shorter and fatter. Halen didn't catch on quite as fast. He's only four, so we didn't push him. But he loved swooshing down the hill between mommy's legs so long as he didn't have do anything himself. Grace is only two, so we left her with her little cousins at home. I think they might have blown something up. That's what cousins do when they get together.

The only other cool thing that happened in March was when my mom bought a new DVD for the kids. She also bought Halen a sweet-action Spiderman watch -- it was Halen's first watch and he was so excited to have it. When we pulled out the movie to watch it, Halen was just as excited as the girls until we told them the movie's title: "The Princess and the Frog." Halen's anticipatory countenance fell. Then he looked hard at his new watch and declared in a firm voice, "My watch says we don't have time to watch that movie."

Well, his watch was WRONG, sucka! We DID have time to watch the movie! And we took his watch back to the store because it gives the WRONG TIME! Cheap piece of garbage! Anyhow, once we broke out the popcorn and apple juice, Halen brightened right up. And we all liked the girly movie.

So there's my head-knod/chest-bump/gangsta hand-slap for you, March. Don't say I never gave you anything.

Pros and Cons of Law School -- Buddhist-style

2010-02-20T23:25:00.004-05:00

You know, lots of people think about going to law school. Most keep thinking and realize that law school costs more than some African countries' yearly GDP. But some people don't count very well, or else they think that the little "$" symbol is an "S" so they think that "Tuition = $45,000" actually reads "Tuition = SAS, OOO" and they're like, "Ooooo, this school's cheap. All they want for tuition is a little sas. I'm sassy. I'm going there." Then they get the tuition bill and they're like, "Dang."

Anyhow, I'm in law school, and I thought people thinking about law school or just wasting time reading stupid blogs might want to know what's cool and what sucks about law school. Look, don't argue with me, just pretend you're interested and keep reading.

Here are the top 5 awesomest things about law school:

5. Telling people you're in law school. Simply by virtue of you being enrolled in classes about the law, people assume you're smart. Here's a tip: don't talk to the people that think you're smart. The longer you're silent, the longer the illusion of your intelligence will persist.

4. Torts for breakfast every morning. Man, I love warm, crumbly, chocolate-filled torts for breakfast.

3. Going to class with a laptop. When I was in college, computers sat on your desk. And you needed three people to move the monitor. I remember my freshman year when BYU gave us all email accounts. We thought it was amazing -- it was like writing a letter and mailing it to someone, except it got there instantaneously and it didn't even cost 37 cents! So we'd just sit by each other in the computer lab and email each other back and forth, even though we could've saved time by just turning in our chairs and, you know, talking to each other. But it was more fun on email. Now your computer fits in your backpack! And Russians still upset about losing the Cold War can send you pornographic spam while you're in class at law school in Middle America! Here's to the continuing progress of humanity!

2. Homing pigeons. They have little to do with law school, but aren't they awesome? They look like everyday fowls, but, seriously, can they ever home. Whatever that means.

1. What happened in 8th grade finally makes sense. I don't know if you, like me, learned all about the Revolutionary Era and the founding of America in 8th grade, but for me, it didn't make a lot of sense. I remember we watched some documentary about slavery on a LaserDisc. That's right. A LaserDisc. They looked like records, except they were shiny. If you were to throw one for your dog to fetch, and it was a sunny day, it would probably blind the dog. Then you'd have this awkward moral dilemma where you're trying to decide if you should put the dog to sleep because it's blind and keeps missing when it tries to lick itself, or if you're kind of responsible for the dog's unfortunate discombobulation and so should "be there" for Fido in his time of need.

I forgot what I was going to say about 8th grade.

Here are the top 5 lamest things about law school, since I believe in balancing the good with bad, and the bad with good, Buddhist-style.

5. Torts aren't actually breakfast food. You can't even eat them for dessert. If you get a tort, it means you just got a barrel of flour rolled onto your head from a second-story window, or you just got your left leg blown off by a spring-loaded shotgun, or the clock repairman just came on to your wife. So not warm, crumbly, and chocolate-filled.

4. Philosophy majors. Just when you think you've got a decent, practical solution to a legal problem, these guys come in all Descartes-like and start questioning your premises and getting all uppity about how you're confusing your sufficient conditions with your necessary conditions and how you really ought to be using inductive reasoning for this problem and not deductive reasoning, and you're like "What the crap dude. I'll tell you what's a sufficient condition. Me waterboarding you." But you don't actually do it because it's illegal now that Obama's president.

3. Books cost more than my car. And weigh more too.

2. Law professors don't lay off you when you're clearly too stupid to answer their questions. It just seems that, under normal circumstances, when someone asks you a question and your answer makes it painfully obvious that you're truly stupid, the person lays off, because, you know, you're clearly stupid and no one wants to listen to stupid people talk. But law professors seem to believe that, over a course of 4 minutes of machine-gun questioning, they're going to transform you from a moron into an archetype of competence. I can't speak for others, but, upon close Socratic questioning meant to reveal my pulsating core of sheer brilliance, it only becomes more and more apparent that my idiocy is substantial and stubbornly resistant to most forms of medication.

1. We have to pay them. I don't know. I just think it would be cooler if the law school paid me to attend. I don't really have any sterling reasoning to back this up, I'm just saying. You have to admit, it would schweet. Man, talk about ending this post weakly.

That Time I Played Scrabble With Maria Sharapova

2010-02-12T22:29:00.004-05:00

I really like Scrabble. Did you know they now have a Scrabble application on Facebook? Scrabble is now the coolest thing on Facebook, having seized that honor from the "Hide" button, which is the button with which you can hide certain people's inane status updates from ever disgracing your news feed again. And they never even know it. With the "Hide" button, you don't ever have that awkward Facebook moment where a person you un-friended four months ago sends you another friend request. And you're thinking, "So, do they realize I un-friended them and now this is kind of a militant 'be my friend or I'll send you a letter with anthrax in it' type of thing? Or do they simply have like 12,000 Facebook friends, so they can't remember whether they were ever friends with you in the first place or not, so they're like, 'Oh, gee, I really though I'd friended Abu Halen, but I guess I must've overlooked him -- but I shouldn't feel bad because it's hard to keep track of all your friends when, like me, you have more Facebook friends than there are people in Wyoming'?" You can just "Hide" them, and both of you go blissfully onward -- them blissfully unaware that you think their status updates are inane, you blissfully not having to inhale anthrax. Just out of curiosity, did you notice how I flawlessly punctuated that quote within a quote a sentence ago? Thanks. Some law students are born litigators. I'm a born punctuator. Not sure how to spell "punctuator," but I'll choose to spell it "-or" instead of "-er," because "-or" makes it look more like "Terminator." "-Er" makes it look more like "Gerber."

So, yeah, there's this sweet Scrabble application on Facebook. It's not really like actual Scrabble I guess, because there's a built in dictionary into which you can just type words to see if they're actual words. If it's a word, it turns green. If it's not a word, it turns red. So I guess playing Scrabble on Facebook is kind of like bowling with bumpers. Or like playing tennis with Maria Sharapova standing behind you, returning the shots you miss.

Actually, that would be really awkward to play tennis with Maria Sharapova standing behind you, returning shots you miss. Seriously, I can't listen to her play tennis. She makes me blush. I mean, can't the woman control her screaming? Look, we all have habits we have to learn to control because they're not socially appropriate. I, for instance, have to control the urge to raise my hand during my law school classes, when the students around me begin to take themselves too seriously in their comments, and say something like, "I'm a Leo," or "Once I went to Boise and stayed at the Holiday Inn," or "Sumo wrestlers look like Japanese butter." But I don't. I control myself. Can't Maria Sharapova do the same?

Now that I'm thinking about it, do you know what would be even more awkward than Maria Sharapova standing behind you while you play tennis and returning the shots you miss? Maria Sharapova standing behind you while you play Scrabble on Facebook and screaming every time you try to play a bogus word. Awk-ward. Or Maria Sharapova standing behind you while you grocery shop and screaming every time you put something in your cart. Even Wal-Mart might ask you to leave if you brought Maria Sharapova with you.

This is definitely the most fun I've ever had with Maria Sharapova. I predict that, having penned that last sentence, I'll get a ton of hits on this blog from people Googling "fun with Maria Sharapova." Schweet!

Buffy the Killjoy

2010-02-04T22:02:00.003-05:00

Today is my half-birthday. I'm 30 and a half. Just think, yesterday I was merely 30. Now I'm 30 and a half. It's like my life is there in front of me in sharp focus, beckoning me onward. "Jump in, the water's nice," it says. "But probably don't bring in the plugged-in blow dryer your holding. You'll kill us all." My life is such a killjoy.

So, I've had some pretty sweet half-birthdays. Once, my family went skiing at Whistler in British Columbia. Because we're yuppies, that's why. So yuppie, in fact, that we didn't even call our accommodations a "hotel." Nay, we called it a "chateau." And we all called each other "Buffy" during the whole vacation. I admit it got a little confusing, because you could never really tell who was talking to who.

Dad: "Hey, Buffy, could you throw me the remote?"
Me: "Do you mean me? Or her?"
Dad: "Doesn't matter. Just one of you Buffies please throw me the remote."
Sister: "You throw it, Buffy."
Mom: "Did somebody say something to me?"
Me: "No, Buffy."
Dad: "Did you call me?"

Man, that was a great half-birthday. That's all I got. Leave a comment. C'mon, what else have you got going?

Chihuahuas Are Just Probably the Most Amazing Thing

2010-01-08T22:14:00.004-05:00

Halen has had a fixation with chihuahuas lately. We think it's because the neighbors have a dachshund, and Halen can't say dachshund, so he calls it a chihuahua. And it's hard to blame him -- it's much more delightful to say "chihuahua" than to say "dachshund." "Chihuahua" has a nice, staccato quality to it, while saying "dachshund" feels like a sausage coming out of your mouth. Oh, wow. I just inadvertently created a ghastly mental picture.

The neighbor's chihuahua, you should know, is extraordinary. This morning Halen schooled me in some of the finer points of chihuahua feats. "Daddy," he said earnestly at the breakfast table, "chihuahuas can jump so high. They can jump higher than anything." "Is that right?" I responded. What else do you say to such a flagrant massacre of reality? Halen breathlessly went on about the super-canine things chihuahuas can do. Finally, he was overcome at the awesomeness of chihuahuas. "They're so... amazing," he sighed. "They're just probably the most amazing thing."

In the spirit of family solidarity, I add a little-known chihuahua fact to Halen's assertions that chihuahuas can go faster than airplanes and jump higher than jaguars. I bet you didn't know that when Santa reaches the border of Mexico, he unharnesses his reindeer, slaps a feed bag on each, ties them to a cactus somewhere near Brownsville, and replaces them with a pod of flying chihuahuas to pull his sleigh. Mexico is too hot for reindeer, what with all that Scandinavian fur. Santa needs nude little dogs to deliver gifts to all the good Mexican children.

By the way, is there such thing as a wild chihuahua? If you were, say, lost in the desert in Baja, do you think there's a chance you might be mauled by a group of hungry chihuahuas? What would you call such a group? A pride of chihuahuas? A pack of chihuahuas? A squadron of chihuahuas? Can you imagine a more grisly way to perish than to be slowly gnawed to death by a squadron of wild chihuahuas, as if you were a human gordita? It would probably take them days just to get one of your toenails off. But, man, that would hurt. Viva gorditas.

Abu Halen's Picks for 2010

2010-01-02T22:16:00.002-05:00

I have a variety of talents, including doing double-unders while jumping rope and bending spoons with two hands and a welding torch. A talent I lack is clairvoyance, but I won't let that stop me from making 10 predictions for 2010.

1. The Chicago Cubs, tired of being unable to compete with the other Major League Baseball teams, will petition the league to let them participate for a season in the South Chicago teeball league. They'll finish as runners-up to McDonald's, who have that killer 2nd grader whose parents didn't let him start Kindergarten until he was 7, so now he's like 5'1'' and can hit the ball so high that Alfonso Soriano drops it every time.

2. The Beatles will get a Grammy Award, even though they broke up 40 years ago. I hate it when dead people get Grammys. Unless it's the Grammy for "Best Album by a Dead Person." The only Grammy the Beatles deserve is "Best Group That, Like a Golden Retriever, Seems to be Everywhere You Are and Licks."

3. My kids will tell me several dozen times that I have yellow teeth. I'll explain that they are fluoride-stained and that it's Jimmy Carter's fault. Then I'll send them to bed even though it's 3:30 in the afternoon.

4. We will learn that Tom Brady has been cheating on his model wife. The media will merciless flog him and the NFL will force him to not play for the Patriots anymore, because no true Patriot would cheat on a model. Instead, he'll have go play for the Raiders, because no true Raider would not cheat on a model. Then the Raiders will win the Super Bowl. Then Tom Brady get all excited, throw the football into the stands, and propose to that one Boise State running back's wife, because no true Raider would not propose to that one Boise State running back's wife.

5. Mu'ammar Qaddafi, Libya's eccentric president, will take it just a little too far this year, slapping German chancellor Angela Merkel's butt as she walks past his chair at a summit meeting, giving her a full-throated kitty growl, and saying "Libya's ripe for investment, hot stuff."

6. I will do zero chin-ups this year.

7. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie will cut to the chase and just adopt an entire Namibian village.

8. Men Without Hats will do a global reunion tour. During their Mogadishu concert, when they perform "The Safety Dance," the crowd will laugh and then club the band to death with spoons.

9. Everyone in Phoenix will suddenly look at each other and say, "Hey, wait. We live in a freaking desert. There is nothing that isn't a freaking desert for hundreds of miles in all directions. Let's go to Las Vegas where at least we can gamble while we dehydrate."

10. Thanks to the "Twilight" movies, guys without fangs will continue to not get dates. Dentists will begin to offer specials where you can "Get fanged for half price with purchase of a cleaning."

Man, the tarot cards were really luminous tonight.