The Year In A Bucket
Friday July 9, 2004. Sunrise was a little brighter. The air smelled a little sweeter. Flowers bloomed and birds sang. Where a regular, boring, personality-free human once existed, "Pops" was born. A regular, boring, personality-free human with a blog. Here's the aftermath:

January through June: Events probably happen. It's hard to say for sure as there is no blog record of any of it.

Related: trees fall hundreds of miles from closest pair of working human ears. I have no idea if they make a sound or not, but the idea of deforestation makes me smile.

July: A combination of painkillers prescribed after an unfortunate attempt at home fireworks along with some gaps in the community service portion of my sentence lead me to create this blog.

Lots of awkwardness and flailing. I throw out random half-remembered phrases and concepts from grad school, the last time I wrote anything anyone else ever read. Rita arrives and points out that I may actually be full of shit. Panicked, I collapse into a defensive ball, retreating behind a shield of easy dick and poo jokes. I hope one day to emerge.

Also, being a political year, content provides itself. The Democratic Convention drops in Boston. I said this:

It was a good speech by Kerry (short attention span remembers), but he's still kinda... bleh. Uninspiring in alot of ways. The one things he does have going for him is that it would take Abu Ghraib-style genital electrodes to get me to vote for GWB. Not just owning them either, I mean attaching them and probably turning them on.

An ominous portent in retrospect.

August: Despite serious content competition from politics and the Olympics, my simmering, roiling hate of hippies bubbles to the surface like white-hot magma that only burns Grateful Dead albums and pants made of hemp. I also display a strange inability to distinguish between hippies, Baby Boomers and Marxists. I blame my hippie Marxist Boomer grad school professors.

We commit my firstborn into the care of Catholic education, guaranteeing that he will one day reject me for being a) too Jesus or b) not Jesus enough. That's worth the cost of tuition right there.

September: Fall begins. Odds are that it would have done so anyway without me to document it in my blog, but it's good that I was here. You know, just in case. I said this about it:

And all that leaf changing stuff? Yeah, the whole place turns an even lovelier shade of dirt brown. And that's only for the trees that actually shed leaves. Most of them don't even bother. Don't get me started on palm trees, either. They just sit there, impassive, all year, never failing to ruin Christmas.

I would revisit that palm tree theme later.

God tries to erase Florida from the map. I cheer him on.

Within two weeks of starting school, my kid caves his face in on the playground. I convince the doctor to prescribing me some Oxy-Contin.

Turns out I dislike George Bush.

And God bless Alan Keyes.

October: The month before the election.

Layoffs are threatened (again) my wife's work and I wring ever last drop of drama out of it for my blogging pleasure. Riots in cities across the Midwest and South. Governors call in the National Guard, but they're all over in Iraq. Bad luck. A Chick-Fil-A is burned to the ground. Nothing to do with me or my blog as far as I know, but the timing is suspicious.

I reach 100 posts and calm descends.

Jon Stewart says the word "dick" and breaks the blogosphere.

The last presidential debate happens. I said this:

Now we come to it: Who won?

There can only be one answer: John McCain. Have you ever seen one politician not in the race get so much goddamn air-time? I like John McCain too, but Jesus. He only gets one vote, fellas. I know Bush has got some bad karma to work off from the 2000 South Carolina primary, but Kerry is just all over the guy's ass. It's enough to make you wonder if McCain might just know which Vietnamese hookers John Kerry got syphilis from and where to find them on short notice or something.

The Bucket becomes a magnet for all those on the internet searching for information on Vietnamese Hookers.

The debate is one-sided and the party in expectation of the inevitible Kerry landslide begins.

I begin to eat Halloween candy.

November: I cry a little bit. I eat alot. I said this:

No, that's what blogs are for.

I can vent my political spleen all over the walls of the internet(s) and affect some kind of catharsis that obviates the need to actually leave my seat and do something socially productive.

And also I said this:

As my martial arts class has been in limbo for the last month (it starts again Monday), the combination of lots of quality Ass Sitting time with my new hobby of chewing and swallowing anything and everything within arm's reach, Pops is starting to get a little paunchy. By "a little paunchy" I mean I'm sitting here typing this in my wife's maternity clothes. Not the girly stuff, but just a plain black cotton/lycra blend top and elasti-pants (with stretchy gut-panel!) to comfortably accomodate my improving girth. Not really sure why she complained about wearing it when she was pregnant. It's very forgiving and the black is slimming.

Other shit probably happened, but I'm depressed again.

Oh wait! I changed my blog template and my growing throng of readers reacted with revulsion (but probably less alliteration). I ignore them, gambling that the boredom that drove them to read this in the first place will be stronger than any principled aesthetic. I win.

Also, we bond over making fun of Colin Firth.

December: I run out of ideas entirely, filling the gaps with memes and dick jokes and making fun of Canada. I try serious satire and scare people.

Holidays give me a few blessed days off where I don't have to think of anything to say and I can write meaningless retrospective nonsense in lieu of manufacturing original content.

Happy New Year.


[The Narcissus Scale has been given the day off. It was last seen sitting in stand-still traffic on I-15 near Baker heading for Vegas.]

Pops


PS: And if I had to pick a "Best Post" it would probably be this one. All the rest are tied for second.

- posted by Pops @ 12:57 PM