Squeezing the Charmin - Part I

A friend of mine scolded me. He told me that blogs should be updated daily.

Wait, I mean:

An unmarried friend of mine who has no children scolded me…

Just a little more:

This unmarried guy I work with who has no children and won’t make me a "friend" and give me access to his My Space page (if you read last week’s entry, you know what THAT means… but I digress) scolded me. He said that blogs should be updated daily. I told him, “Yeah, but I have a life.”

While I’m sure that it would be a great thing for all of my fans to be able to come to Nebulous @ best everyday and receive some pearls of wisdom, a poem that would touch their hearts, or a dirty limerick to keep them smiling as they trudge on through the day, it just isn’t meant to be. It would be awesome to spend my days lying on the beach writing the great American novel or the next Academy Award winning screenplay. I’d be happy to just be able to contribute to this blog more than once a week. Heck, I might even settle for enough spare time to write a quick haiku on a friend’s birthday card. But this is not my life.

My life is house payments and crooked teeth; standing in the rain watching a soccer game and trips to Sam’s Club with the WHOLE family to buy bulk toilet paper. I’m up at 5:00 a.m. and three days a week I don’t get back home until almost 9:00 p.m. Fridays, I’m zonked. Saturdays, we’re racing around and Sundays …let’s just say Sunday is a work day not a day of rest. Right now its 10:30 p.m. and I’m writing this to the sound of my wife in the bathroom drying my son’s school books with a blow dryer. (C’mon, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried!) You know, this is not what I had planned. This is not the life I would have pictured for myself. I wonder if I even had a say in all of this or if it just “happened” to me. I look around and there are a lot of people even busier than me; single parents going it alone; married couples struggling to make ends meet.

Is this the life we chose or did this life choose us?

Know what? It really doesn’t matter. This is where I am. This is where you are. What are you going to do about it? As for me, I don’t have a house; my wife is building a home. The braces are coming off next week but it’s not his straight teeth that bring joy to my heart when I see my son’s smile. Hannah is an awesome soccer player and she gives 100% even in the rain. And I must confess nothing gets me hotter than a trip to Sam’s Club. I don’t know if it’s the fact that we’re all together; or that you can buy the good 2-ply bathroom tissue in 18-roll packages; or if it’s the hand signals I’ve worked out with my daughter so I get two free samples of the good stuff. Every time I go to Sam’s Club I regret my vasectomy.

Maybe I did stumble into this life but it's like stumbling into a bowl of peanut M&Ms. I am deeply in love with someone who loves me. My wife knows that no matter what, I’m not leaving. (I’m reasonably sure she finds comfort in that) After I get the plank out of my eye, I’ll start looking for the speck in hers. I spend Monday through Thursday doing things I love with people I cherish. Friday’s I’m zonked but I enjoy a sound sleep at night. I’ve already mentioned what Saturdays do to me. And my Sundays are filled with so many hugs, smiles, giggles and most importantly an understanding of what really matters that I am both humbled and overwhelmed. There's more…

Just one of the crowd

When I was a teenager, I remember one time Uncle Angel and Aunt China came to visit. Aunt China was talking to my mother and my grandmother about someone else’s kid hanging around a person she didn’t deem appropriate. “Show me who you’re with, I’ll show you who you are,” she said. I didn’t like it. Maybe because at that particular moment I was a teenager at home on a Friday night, hanging around with two old ladies, a woman who slept in hair curlers with cold cream on her face, and an old man with hair growing out of his protruding ears (believe me, I’m not throwing that stone). I should have been hanging out with my dad. He was upstairs watching television in his underwear.

For whatever reason, that statement bugged me more than kissing my aunt’s hairy cheek goodbye.

Do I hate this statement because it’s wrong or because I’m in denial about its truth?

Let’s assume it’s true. Since starting this blog, I’ve been poking around looking at other people’s pages. If this statement is true, I’m not as cool as I imagined. There are a lot of stange creatures in the Blogspot zoo I checked myself into. (No cracks) On that same note, do I judge my family by the people I see on their My Space pages? Twenty-five years ago we had the good sense(?) to commit our sins in the dark where they belonged. Today, kids take pictures while they’re in the middle of it and post it for everyone to see.

Now to be fair, this sword should cut both ways. My good friends, Slugger and Jack, own tool belts and can do things with them. Does hanging out with them mean I’m handy? (In reality, I can’t figure out how to work a Dyson and Slugger hung my Christmas lights last year while I held the ladder.) I think there lays the answer. Anyone who knows me knows that if I could do a repair I wouldn’t have had to sell my last house. Hanging around with sinners doesn’t make you one, just like hanging around Christians doesn’t make you one of them either. It does put you in a position where you can be influenced and overcome by your surroundings. (Good in one instance, bad in the other.) It can also get you on someone’s My Space page. It’s best to have your eyes open at all times except when they should be shut tight. (you know what I mean.) I’m reminded of a song sung by Amy Grant.

I looked into the mirror,

Proud as I could be,

And I saw my pointing finger

Pointing back at me,

Saying, "Who named you accuser?

Who gave you the scales?"

I hung my head in sorrow;

I could almost feel the nails.

I said, "This is how it is

To be crucified and judged

Without love."

My reason for being here

That's right web browsing world, I have arrived! There are many reasons for my starting this blog. Funny, I've never even commented on one of these things. I was tempted a few times when viewing the blog of an old (historically not chronologically) pastor at a church I used to attend. Check his spot out www.mikeduran.com. Mike is a man I don't always agree with, but will always respect.

One good reason to start this is the fact that I am a man of many opinions and even more words. My wife has actually looked at me in the middle of one of my ramblings with her eyes almost completely shut and whispered, "You make me tired." The sad part is that she was driving at the time.

Please respond. I need feedback. I'm very needy like that. If no one ever responds, I'll probably just keep posting the message, "helllloooo..." while I sit in the corner and cry. I'm half joking. (which means, sadly, that I'm also half serious.) I've already have lots to talk about; for example, naming this dumb space. You'd be surprised some of the freaky names I considered that were already taken. I'll tell you that story on a later entry.

But (drumroll, please) this is what got me off my bottom (not literally, I'm still sitting) and actually start this thing. View it, share it, realize this is the real deal. I'll comment more about this and a lot of other things later.

http://www.godtube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ee73e63418003b47d7d5