The Summer Of The Murdered Trees
When people first come across this blog, they generally say one thing right off the bat: "Hey! This is not a gay porn website! False advertising! False advertising!"

The second thing they usually say is: "Jesus, why would you post six days a week?"

The answer to Response #1 is: Ha, too late suckers. SiteMeter has recorded your visit. Ego sated. You may leave.

The answer to Response #2 is: Because I have time. And my name is not Jesus. Good guess though as "Jesus" is a very common name where I'm from. Keep trying.

If I had a regular job like a regular person, sure, I'd probably post less. Probably. If I were serious about writing, I'd write fewer non-paid articles about Willie Aames and more super-exciting sale-able stuff about people in dysfunctional families who are sad. And had super-powers. You have to cover all your bases, commercially speaking.

As a stay-at-home parent, I am cognizant of the fact that the way I choose to spend the time I have is being observed by my children and taken as behavior modeling, actively fashioning the core of who they are and who they will be as adults with my every word, thought, gesture.

What can I say that they've learned from watching me directly? If you mix your drinking with your pills, you can take one hell of a nap.

Also, as we've been cooped up inside hiding from the oppression of the bastard sun, they watch what I do and model their behavior accordingly.

This is the work of my eldest child.



Hmm, something constructed out of paper and tape. What could it be? Let's open it up...



Ah, I see, it's a representation of a laptop. And look, there on the screen, there's what looks like a crude rendering of what might very well be the Blogger Create Post screen.



Oh, and look, lots of home-made computer-game CD-ROMs. What a treat; I can see myself as they see me! Now all they need to do is figure out how to make paper versions of questionable personal hygiene and a screaming case of hemorrhoids and they'd have my day down completely.

I guess I should feel good that the screen has a Blogger-related theme and not internet porn. But then maybe a rectangle is just easier to draw than boobies when you're seven.

I'm not really sure what to make of all this. I mean, on the one hand, it could be that I'm damaging my children's future by implanting it in their heads that sitting at home working on some goddamned blog is something they should actually aspire to rather than something that just happens by a series of very complicated, difficult choices presented by circumstance and timing.

There's no way they can really comprehend that I lived a life before they became the sole, central focus of it. I went to college and to graduate school, I had jobs. I was out there just long enough to realize how much being "out there" sucks. And that's something every child should learn for themselves.

My fear is that by pretend-blogging in their free time, they're seeing this life as a primary option, an end in itself, modeled by their dad, which will in some way limit their perspective when they weigh their options for their futures, leading them to make a series of bad choices that leaves them uneducated, unfulfilled and--worst of all--still living with me as adults.

I guess I could sit down with them and explain it to them, but really, I don't like to be interrupted while I'm blog-posting.

On the other hand, they also made paper versions of an XBox 360, which we don't have, so maybe it's just kids wasting paper because it's too fucking hot to play outside.

Either way, I've been sitting here doing this today for like a half hour, so... damage done. Sorry kids! Make sure you marry well!



This post on the Narcissus Scale: 10.0



Pops
- posted by Pops @ 10:38 AM