Breakfast Epiphanies
Man, what a weekend. It was our first non-birthday non-holiday non-event weekend since probably February. In these moments, when the status quo violently reasserts itself in a wave of awe-inspiring and irresistable inertial momentum, we are given the rare, rare opportunity to see our lives and our predispositions--even if only for a second--from the outside, quasi-objectively, in that flash of transition when the chaos of abnormality, no matter how long it has persisted, is swept away by the old, safe habits of the soft, flannel routine. It is in these too, too infrequent instances of breached perspective that we can learn the most about ourselves, provided we act and think appropriately in that glorious, compressed speck of abrogated time that shoots away as quickly and easily as a watermelon seed pressed between your fingertips.

For me, this weekend provided just such a moment and I was fortunate enough to recognize it. Thank God it happened during a commercial.

Principally, there were two things I learned:

1) Gay men love to masturbate while reading my blog.

I'm not vain enough to think it has anything to do with me, but if you could see the number of hits I get for "brad pitt nude gay interest" (worded just like that), you'd be as awed and humbled as I am.

OK, it's less that rare-moment-of-self-reflection lesson than a Sitemeter fluke, but I'll be honest, I'm puzzled by the attention. I mentioned and linked to a naked picture of Brad Pitt in my boring-ass end-of-the-year-list-of-shit-I-did post back in December. Why they aren't finding the picture itself directly is beyond me. Mostly, why it would or should become, all of a sudden, the #1 reason people visit the Bucket is a total, total mystery. I can only surmise that it's the subtle sensitivity and heightened social conscience I show toward homosexuality on a regular basis here.

In all, though, I'm happy to know that maybe--just maybe--the mention of masturbating gay men would chase away any creepy homophobes who might happen on to my blog.

So I say whack away, gay men. You are doing my blog--and by extension, your country--a great and necessary service.

2) A little more on par with that weekend perspective insight thing, I found out just today (and this is huge) that Mrs. Pops is suicidal. Yes, that's right. She is determined to slowly and torturously murder herself by means of working herself to death.

Not satisfied with 50+ hour work weeks and the attached 60-90 minute (one way!) commute, she has used this weekend to do... well, everything that a person can actually do so long as it involves maximum effort repayed by the least amount of fun possible. I had a full day myself which included (if it can be believed) driving the van all the way to the tire store myself. While I was fantasizing about the Home Service Medal I would receive for my efforts, Mrs. Pops was determined to do me one better by (apparently) picking up every piece of furniture in the house and then putting it down again.

Upon my return from what turned out to be an effort-free visit to the tire store where I was waited on by a very pleasant white supremacist named Nikk (I'm not kidding), I found a sweating, wheezing, bedraggled and ill-tempered Mrs. Pops hunched over our dresser, picking up each and every speck of dust with a pair of tweezers, giving it a good scrub, and then setting it carefully back in its place. I suggested she might be over-doing it. She bit me.

Luckily for me she didn't have the energy to break the skin with her teeth, but I am glad I got home when I did. My casual return from a no-work environement turned into an intervention of sorts. I actually had to hit her over the head with a tire iron to get her to stop cleaning, but I did it. The duct-tape restraints were necessary to keep her from rearranging the kids' rooms, cleaning out closets, remodeling the backyard, overhauling our finances or volunteering to bathe the neighbors.

That pretty much sums up my role in our house. I'm the Fun Patrol. I've been known to stop cleaning binges cold with well-crafted and expertly timed suggestions that we "run some errands", which usually means going to a restaurant and then browsing in the Best Buy. It ain't much, but it's that or be on constant watch lest she sneak away to scrub the shower.

Besides my wife's death wish, there was one more thing I learned about her this weekend, something disturbing and emasculating and utterly humiliating. But because she keeps the mold off the counter-tops in the bathrooms, it is incumbent upon me to offer her something in recognition for her efforts, even though it pains me to do so. Here it is:




Live it up, babycakes. You people don't need to know who it is or why it's relevant. For most of you, it should be enough to know that it pains me so very very deeply. The only solace I get is that I have provided yet one more reason for gay men to visit here. God bless.



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 10.0



Pops


PS- USA 3 - 0 Costa Rica. Next round: USA vs. Panama in Panama City, Wednesday, 10pm Pacific/1 am Eastern on ESPN2. Set your VCRs, TiVos, whatever, accordingly.
- posted by Pops @ 9:36 PM