Bananas and Chocolate

Yesterday @Sukie80 and I dipped some Strawberries in chocolate using Saco’s Chocolate Dipping Stuffs and it turned out good. But we had extra. So, me, being so damn crafty, I said, I know what I shall use this for.

I cut up a banana and got out a bamboo skewer and dipped me some bananas in chocolate, dropped it in the fridge for about 3-5 minutes and ate it up. Damn, bananas is good in chocolate. I was in flavor country.

Then some people we know came over and we ate a big meal. It was good.

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Nobody Blogs Anymore

I tweet, I think, but I just don’t blog.

My wife just told me that I better not blog about PAX, which I didn’t go to. So I won’t. I won’t even mention Wil Wheaton and his brown beard.

So I basically can’t find words to express myself these days. I’ve been working long hours, trying to keep my sanity together, but I’d seriously love to just be ahead of the curve for once.

I just don’t feel like blogging anymore.

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words i writ and thence

on a dark path
all things that were to be were seen
and scratched and clawed
and made nice and embraced
but all the hurt poured in to every stress fracture
and made the thing start
and was too late for pittance
and plenty
too late for much of anything
but still you look upon the cracked and ragged peices
and ask again for forgiveness and redemption and other sunday promises
frown down upon the free and thriving thing
that which is good and holy
and untouchable by your redemptions
and sanitations

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The One Where I Reveal My Parenting Strategy

Ok so it’s time for me to update this here blog. I’ve been to Disneyland, Disney’s California Adventure, and it is worth noting that the service of park employees is better at Walt Disney World. The castle is bigger, so that must be it, right?

Well, I’m becoming obsessed. I’ve put a reserve on the ‘Be Our Guest’ book that supposedly explains why WDW service is so damn kick ass. I don’t kick that much ass, but I’ve worked in customer service for a while and there’s a focus on customer service at my work right now so I’m interested in doing it right. I learned to talk nice to people (I have a specific tone of voice when I’m doing my best service) a long while back and it helped me scoot along until I started getting engineering work and later became a manager. Somewhere along the way of being responsible for people and then being leaned on an UNGODLY amount at work, I’ve got no game for charming the socks off of people.

I also read the first half of a book about Civility while I was on vacation several months back (by P.M. Forni) – it was on Oprah a few months back. I have to say that I’ve really enjoyed recalling pieces of it over the last several months.

I have been spending time in reflection, thinking about what I want to impart to my children – I think that choosing to live a moral life based on principles is great, but since it is apart from my parent’s religion I have to think about how I will impart my sense of morality and principle on to my children. I think that it is interesting that religions (many of them) have built in instruments of passing on morals to children – as I am fond of telling my son, it’s my job to make sure he’s a decent person.

And soon, it’ll be my job to make sure I raise a decent daughter. It’ll be interesting, because I think women should be on the strong side, so she’ll be raised to be strong and capable. Good luck to my future son-in-law, cause he’s in for it.

From day one when The Boy was born and cried about things (as babies are to do) I said I’d raise the first child that could be reasoned with. And that means I’d stop whatever I was doing, and take the time to explain things to him. I don’t know why people don’t do this more often, because young children are capable of being rational. I guess it’s just my way of doing things.

I also really like teaching kids – it’s really just amazing how quickly they learn – and if you do it right, they get excited abou learning. After a certain point, The Boy was off and running, he had learned to read and could read anything and learn anything. I look forward to teaching my daughter all the same stuff, and I think The Boy will love having a sibling and helping us out with her.

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Zombie Poetry I

Upon this world of rock and ruin
Hate and trouble often brewing
Few who live to love are left
Many follow hate in word and deed
And the rest are consumed by zombies

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The Drowning of Wudan

Sukie, my wife of 10.5 years, is pregnant again.

Planned, of course. After having a child so young, the one aim I had for my future offspring is that their arrival would be planned like a million dollar diamond heist, and they would be brought in to a world of order instead of chaos. Years went by, and it became clear (to me) when we didn’t have another child when our only child was 6 years old, that the world of order wouldn’t exist. Wars waged, the economy tanked, personal dramas ensued. If we waited for a more perfect time, it certainly looked like we would be too old.

Creation is one of the absolute highs of life, as any artist can tell you. Emotionally, the process has been fraught with strange flashbacks to how difficult it was the first time around, being pregnant. In a way, Sukie and I bore that load independently, as it is apparent to me (now) that I did not participate in her side of the process. As a father, and by nature, a hunter / gatherer, and finding the task of providing to be an exceptionally unreachable goal at the young age of 18, it did not work well with my already manic depressive tendencies. The disapproval of nearly every single one of our friends and subsequent alienation shook me hard.

It was OK at first, like a strange trip in to the unknown, and it sounds strange to me (now) that I would ever have been OK with that. I believe the process has altered me; the trauma left it’s marks deep inside my psyche. I felt thrust in to a world of uncertainty, living with my wife’s parents, living in a different schedule, a different rhythm entirely. It was difficult for me, and the general atmosphere broke me down more than once. I was drowning in a situation entirely of my own creation.

Don’t feel bad for me, though, I write about a tough time that was an eternity ago. I was someone else, immature, who thought magical things would happen for me, as if by chance. Well, as 10 years have passed, I can tell you, I first believed that, then I stopped believing it, and now I am back to believing it again. Magical things did happen for me, but I was too inexperienced to enjoy it.

Life was hard, and took on a new rhythm, but in the process I became a much stronger person. I learned that I was capable of managing the struggle, capable of escaping a collapsing world, and taking precious treasures with me as I left. It took me a while but I finally grew up and stopped moping about life.

I am glad that I did grow up, because I finally could focus on being a father and husband.

For one, I have an incredible bond with my son, I love him very much and I am proud of his smarts and his conduct (most of the time.) I recognize that he, myself, and Sukie, are products of those early years, and that this story belongs to us. I know that other people had it harder than us, and I’m OK with that.

I believe that it took me a while to become a stronger person, and I have more growing to do, but I can stop, look at what I’ve accomplished, and look forward to new challenges. It’s important to stop, and look at what you’ve accomplished. Reflection and introspection are important tasks on any to-do list.

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take time to enjoy the little things

I’ve been stressed out to new horrible levels, but you have to take time to enjoy the little things:

always funny to watch somebody get scared

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Family: Here and Now Edition

In 10+ years of marriage and familyhood, Sukie, the boy, and myself have gone on a few short sojourns; a weekend in California, a weekend in Moab (two times!) – but this trip we embark upon in 32 hours or so will put them all down. Perhaps.

You see, I have this approach to things. They test me, and so I test them, and often, I best them, and so I must jest them. Often in reverse, for I am a man who loves his wit like he loves his life; a little on the dirty side, but mostly clean.

So, when the great kingdoms of Walt and Disney test me, I shall savour their delicious fruits as they churn through my inner workings; am I improved, or are they improved, in this exchange? Who can say? It most certainly will rain, and I loves the splendours of the rains. I delight in its life-giving powers, it’s tiny, life-giving, vestibules of the purest varieties. The impudence! The impropriety!

Ah, I slipped in to a strange verbal trance there. You see? Even I have capabilities!

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I Have it on Good Authority

That this is a good time of year to go to Florida and the rain stays mainly in the plains. Well, that it rains like somebody just dropped a water balloon on the state, but that it stops raining just that fast.

Here’s to the longest 3 day work week in recorded history! (Though I worked on both weekend days so really this is day 8 of my work week!)

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Long Awaited Friday

So if you’ve had to be around me at all this week you’ll probably have seen a different Wudan – depressive, cranky, moody …

Oh wait, I’m like that a lot. But I guess I don’t think I do, or something. It rarely bubbles up to the surface, I think. I push all those upset feelings down deep in to a vault that has a label on the door that says “Open In Case of _____” so I’m never sure when the denizens of the vault of upsettness will claw their way through my innards and show themselves to the my waking worlds.

Thank goodness I’m going on vacation next week. The 10-day forecast was looking like rain, EVERY DAY. So in my mind I was thinking, I’m going to the happiest place on Earth and it will rain EVERY DAY.

I like rain, but not EVERY DAY. Well, I checked yesterday and the first Saturday is SUNSHINE.

And so I have at least one thing to be happy about.

In fact, I’m goddamned ecstatic.

ECSTATIC. EXHILARATED.

So I’m glad it’s Friday. HUZZAH!

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