Monday, March 07, 2005
 
Doing Time
Hello fellow bloggers. Would you like to get your blog mentioned and linked in a post here at the Bucket? All you need to do is write a post praising me and my obvious genius! That's right! Follow the Dinner For Two plan (this guy Kris and his sister Dusti, plus a third person now which makes the name of the blog sort of silly, now that I think about it) and you can have your blog linked here! Think of the almost dozens of people who will be exposed to your work, like chicken pox in the ball-pit at Chuck E. Cheese.

They also later praised MPH, so I question their judgment, but still my offer stands: devote some or all of a post to how awesome I am and I will acknowledge it in writing! Act now! Mention this ad and get 10% more unnecessary verbiage devoted to you for no extra charge!

...

My first son was born at 3:46 am on a Saturday. Mrs. Pops had gone into labor at around 2 am Friday morning. I've been home with him (and the other little sprogs as they arrived) ever since, which means my last day working outside the house was that Thursday very nearly six years ago now.

Putting aside the fact that the job I was working was a temp position at a scuzz-ball Amway-style multi-level marketing pyramid scheme after I had finished my MA--waiting for my degree to come back from the framers so I could hang it on my wall after my long days of... filing and data entry--I wasn't particularly disappointed to leave the active work force.

People have some strange ideas about what it's like to stay home raising kids. They generally think a) you sit around doing nothing all day (the "Oh God, I could never do that... I would get so bored" response) or b) you are chased around the house from sun-up to sundown by screaming children armed with flaming, blunt and/or bladed weapons when not wading through pools of shit, vomit and laundry (the gasp-and-horrified-stare response).

Like everything else with two optional answers, the truth is really somewhere in the middle. I will say that I put a stop to the flaming weapons right away. Some things I just won't tolerate.

More often than not you get people who react with awe and wonder, most of it fake and condescending. If you say you stay at home, they say stuff like "Wow, that's really great. Really. It's great. It's really really great. You know, it's the hardest job there is." And then I have to punch them in the throat. I don't want to, I have to. It's the best part about being a stay at home dad. A certain level of social violence is expected from us whereas a mom would be forced to resort to dirty looks and starting rumors about eating disorders.

Not bringing in an income is probably the hardest part. You want to contribute, especially when the plasma big-screen TVs are creeping under $10,000 and you're still crowding around your 25" Magnavox concave screen with the little green blobby thing in the upper left hand corner of the screen. The desire to contribute is the reason why there are all those flyers on light poles and stoplights advertising WORK FROM HOME! FOUR HOURS A WEEK! EARN UP TO $9,000/WEEK! MINIMAL INVESTMENT! I won't say I've never been tempted.

OK, I've never been tempted (come on, people, seriously), but I can at least understand how others might be.

Not bringing in income is one thing, but I sure as hell don't miss work. Work involves interaction with other people, the gene for which I am sadly lacking (see: punching people in the throat, above). My kids I can relate to because I can build their entire reality up to a certain age. My kids, for instance, are convinced that my TV only picks up ESPN.

For workers, I think most wouldn't mind giving staying at home a shot. Usually this is right around the time their alarm clock goes off. The feeling generally goes away when one of the kids spills their cereal on the dog, but it exists.

For some, the desire to avoid work is more powerful than in others. There are people who devote their entire lives to the exercise of laziness until they perfect it. Perfect laziness involves career income--regular promotion even--with little or no effort.

A prime, high profile example of that is "journalist" Deborah Norville. Her chosen neglected-career is in television, so it's easy to chart. Remember when she was on the Today show? They did like 15 shows of her crying about replacing Jane Pauley. 15 shows where Deborah had to do zero work! And all she had to do was weather a little reputation-ding about her being a ambitious back-stabbing barracuda, which is something considering barracuda have no arms with which to stab.

Then Jane left, Deborah had nothing to do or say, so she got fired. Then she found a home at Inside Edition which, let's face it, involves no journalism work whatsoever. It's news for people who don't like news. Paris Hilton, Lacy Peterson, Michael Jackson, etc.

But I can see now she's pushing it way too far. Her laziness is about to get the better of her once more. Ostensibly to recreate the experiences of Martha Stewart under house arrest, Deborah Norville has convinced her producers to bring the cameras to her house so she can simulate what it will be like to live as Martha Stewart will, hemmed in by her own walls.

That kind of moxie deserves recognition and applause, but she's playing a dangerous game. Martha at least gets to leave the house for 48 hours per week to go to work. Deborah has conveniently forgotten that part of the story and instead decided to focus on the part that lets her sleep in and broadcast from her own couch watching Jerry Springer.

If I'm on to her, it's only a matter of time until everyone else is. She may not be long for this job, bit I wouldn't rule out Deborah Norville yet. If she wants a job in TV journalism where no effort is required at all, there's always Fox News. It's just like staying at home with the kids, only more shouting.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 9.5


Pops

PS- Rude Pundit is especially good today. Go read it and learn something. Mostly just new swear words and disturbing visual images, but there are some current events in there too.

Comments:
Does this count for that 10% more unnecessary verbage?

"Thursday, February 24, 2005
...Also I decided to share some of my addictions... Links that I find myself browsing daily...

Someone's secret blog -
Minnesolong - I love her photography
Shawn Hogan's blog - a link I ran across while looking for billing software
Mopmonsters LiveJournal - my friend Jame's journal
Pops Bucket - a recent addition and find myself giggling/laughing heartily while reading
Marc N Jess - not updated regularly but I still check it daily"
http://www.achairslife.com/observations/ (I couldn't link to that direct post)
 
Your font is way way too small. I think I lost you at...wait. I didn't even start reading. Way too small. Hurts my eyes.

Working is horrible. I had one job so far in my pathetically short life and I really dislike working. A lot.
 
Dear Pops,

Your blog is the best thing that's ever happened to the internet. I especially love your complete mastery of cascading style sheets. I will now lovingly refer to you as Blog-Jesus.

Sincerely,
Brent
 
Charity: While I more than appreciate the mention, I'm looking for more of a all-out single blog tribute to the wonder that is Me. Less about "giggling" than about "life-changing". Again, I do appreciate the effort though, especially as there was nothing in it for you at the time.

K: My font or her font? My font is the same size it's always been.

Working is fine so long as the work doesn't suck and you can do it with no people around to bother you.

Brent: Sorry, I think you misunderstood. You have to devote one of your own blogposts to sucking up to me.

Hmm, maybe I'm being too cynical. Maybe you're just expressing you feelings without regard to reward or prompting. In that case, thanks.

MPH: Man, I knew as soon as Brent went with "Blog-Jesus" we were going to run in to a trademark issue.

Yoli: Which, the ones about earning ridiculous amounts of money to work at home semi-part-time? Because they want you to lay out a couple of hundred dollars for their software and "training" with no guarantee of any kind of work to bring in income.

Basically it's to separate you from your money and then they cut you loose.
 
Perhaps my comments would work better if I had a /sarcasm tag at the end of it.

Besides, everyone knows I worship some unknown Sun deity in my spare time...
 
Dammit, where the hell did my comment go? Now I can't remember what I wrote. Oh yeah, something about I know what you do all day: you lounge around in your negligee eating bon bons while blogging. Yeah, I think that was it...
 
Brent: No, shut up, don't deny it. You love me.

Steph: I knew I'd regret leaving the webcam on during the day.
 
Kris, I think a thumbwrestling match between you and MPH is in order.

And Pops, I too hate the "that's great" comments. I guess that I, not being male, don't have it as bad as you do, however. Props.
 
Rumour has it MPH has giant-ass thumbs and is champion thumb-wrestler at underground fight clubs.
 
Rumour has it, does it? You know, my in-laws are from Kansas and they never struck me as the Queen's English types. Actually, they say "warsh" instead of "wash".
 
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