Notorious--Long Live The Queen

Today would have been my grandmother's 83rd birthday. In memory of her, I've been watching videos online that remind me of the two of us: Been Around the World, Can't Nobody Hold Me Down, Hypnotize. At this point, are you really surprised? It's been long established that there is something fundamentally wrong with me.

I don't know, our bond was unique. By the time I was five, I'd gotten so used to people warning her about treating me like a peer. "You treat him like y'all are equals. One day you're gonna regret it." I guess they expected me to grow up and not respect her like most kids would in that situation. They didn't know that interspersed between every conversation were a few "I'll bust your head wide open." I knew not to challenge the throne. That's why she's Biggie in all of the videos and I'm Puffy...or I'm Ma$e to her Puff.

Looking back, I miss her, of course. But she always told me to keep living, so that's what I'm gonna do. Now I'm listening to Jay Z:

Don't worry about Brooklyn
I'll continue to flame
Therefore a world with amnesia
won't forget your name
You held it down long enough
Let me take those reins
And just like your spirit, 
The commission remains

[caption id="attachment_3750" align="alignnone" width="215"] Man, did she slap the hell out of me when she got these proofs back from Montgomery Ward.[/caption]

Housekeeping

Just a quick heads up:

I've decided to take on the enormous task of redesigning the site from the ground up. It's a task I began two years ago when I said, "I'll just pick this god-awful dark theme for the time being." As you can see, I haven't made much progress. Anyway, in the meantime you'll probably notice some random changes. A professional would make changes in the background, and test them before finally making them visible to the public. I'm sure you can find a site like that somewhere. In the meantime, this site is hosted for free on Wordpress, and that option isn't available to me.

You may also notice that typing in Mentalstorage.com will soon lead you to a "PAGE NOT FOUND" message. That's because Wordpress wants about $12 for that service, and I'm not entirely sure I want to commit to them for another year. I predict about a week before I make up my mind. Indecision is the cornerstone to my procrastination. Anyway, if the site stops working for some reason...I'll be back!

In the meantime, examples of my considered changes include the lovely and completely random picture on the right of the screen. I've discovered the Instagram feature. That's a picture of my bathroom floor as it existed at the moment that I pounded my phone's screen while trying to figure out how to use the Instagram app. I also discovered the paint app on my computer. Just wait til I start drawing.

Anyway, this was supposed to only be a paragraph long. If the domain stops working, you can always find me at mentalstorage.wordpress.com

Home Alone

I just read this article about a woman who's been charged with child cruelty after leaving her six-year-old home alone. The gist of it is that the little girl woke up around her 11 and couldn't find her mom, so she just dialed random numbers on the phone until someone answered and told her to call 911. The lady came back home around 3 am and reported the girl missing. The cops then arrested her, and put the child in the care of another relative. The story has a somewhat happy ending, so I feel it's okay to make a few comments.

Is there a statute of limitations on this kind of thing, because with Christmas coming up I'm inclined to file a report against a certain parent if I don't get anything this year. By six years old, I was a pro at staying home alone. As a matter of fact, it was my preferred choice over:

• Go with my mother to rehearsal


• Go with my grandmother to Senior Circle (or whatever they called it) at church


• Risk my life riding around with my grandfather who drove like the traffic signs were suggestions


• Sit in the 9-hour-long Evening Service for the Pastor's/Usher's/Church's/Senior Choir's/ Trustees' Anniversary.

Now granted, no one ever left me home alone that late, but even if they did I don't think I would've panicked and dialed random numbers. My grandmother used to have me watch the evening news for her and recount the top stories when she got home from her night job, so by six I was mentally damaged enough to consider that one or all of my relatives could be brutally attacked by one of the 15,000 animals that seemed to escape from the National Zoo on a regular basis back then. Either that or they'd be swept up by the tornado watch, and taken to Oz. When my mother came home later than promised one time, I worried that she'd fallen into an open well like Baby Jessica. Real world events + six-year-old-imagination= loose interpretation of reality. The bottom line is that I knew that as long as there was a box of Cap'n Crunch downstairs that I had at least enough food to survive for a while. No need to call the cops just yet.

I still don't understand how the six year old didn't know the number to 911 or at least one relative. I guess we can chalk that up to stored numbers in cell phones and speed dial. Anyway, I'm glad the little girl is okay. I don't know where the mom had to go for four hours that late at night. Correction: I don't want to know. And I guess I can go ahead and pat myself on the back, because by seven I'd been promoted to caring for other kids as well.

Leadership potential!

Decking the Halls

"You need a woman in your life."

That was my friend's response to a picture of my Christmas decorations. My response cannot be published. Christmas is extremely important to me, especially now that I have a child. I used to send Santa schematics of toys that I wanted the elves to make for me. Every year, I'd put the old beat-up white Christmas tree together by myself, unravel the decades-old tinsel, and hang long-past-their-prime ornaments on the tree. No child has ever sympathized more with Charlie Brown than this guy.

[Cue the violins]
*sniff sniff* I even remember the year that no one came home when they said they would to light the tree with me. *sniff, sob, sniff* That was the year I sat on the floor with a radio looking for Christmas carols, but found Whitney Houston's I Will Always Love You instead. So goodbye. Please, don't cry. We both know I'm not what you need. And IIIIIII...
[End violins]

It was in that moment of despair that, deep within the recesses of my soul, a maniacal elf was born. I swore promised took a blood oath vowed that when I grew up I would have kids and my house would look like the North Pole. A few things that I didn't count on:
It costs a lot of money to go full North Pole
My daughter is three, so her enthusiasm is about 98% less than mine
I don't really have an eye for decorating, coloring, crafts, or organization

But I'm not gonna let a little thing like that stop me. I bought $50 worth of decorations from The Dollar Store, and a nice 7ft tall tree from Target. I put lights up in the window--the fancy kind that move in a pattern. I let my daughter put on the window decals, which kinda spell out HELP ME depending on how you look at them. I have Christmas cookie jars (no cookies yet, but we'll get there), a snow globe, some jingle bells for the door, a bow...A whole lot of stuff. I even cut out construction paper in the shape of trees, candy canes and ornaments, which I let my daughter glue together so that we could put them on the wall. We're doing it big, but at Black Friday prices.

So while it may not be the prettiest thing you'll see, I think we're really in the holiday spirit here at the North Pole Satellite Location.

[caption id="attachment_3740" align="alignnone" width="225"] It's like knocking on Santa's door.[/caption]

African-American Friday

Well, my first Thanksgiving since The Fall went off without a hitch. It'll take a while to get used to spending the holidays without a complete family unit, but I think me and Mini-Me did alright. I made two stuffed cornish hens, yams, baked mac and cheese, collard greens, ham steak and a sweet potato pie. Three hours, I cooked. Three hours, and all my daughter wanted was the marshmallow topping on the yams. Oh, and "I want the macaroni in the refrigerator!" She was talking about the leftover Kraft from two days ago. I just scooped her up in my arms and kept whispering "I love you" over and over until I believed it again.

This whole week has been a learning opportunity. I realized that my idea of family and holidays will never actually materialize...and that's not a bad thing. The vision that I had in my head for Thanksgiving was very picturesque, very cliche and very stale. The two of us would sit at the table with hands folded and talk about what we were thankful for. She'd say something adorable like toys or candy, and I'd laugh. The 80s sitcom music would play as I told her that I was thankful for her. We'd embrace. The credits would roll.

Instead, I said "Come sit down" so much that I woke up saying it in the middle of the night. I watched her run away from the table screaming, "I'm late for school!" before putting her foot on top of a sheet of paper on the floor and pretending to skateboard away while hanging on to the back of the chair/car a la "Back to the Future."

After giving up on getting her to eat, we put up the Christmas tree. Again, reality trumped expectation. I couldn't even put the tree together because as I sat on the floor she kept creeping up behind me like a lion or something before leaping onto my back. I eventually put it up, and you can tell her contribution just by looking: All of her ornaments are bunched together 3 feet off the ground.

Finally, our very Brady Christmas photo was photobombed by her. I bought a santa hat for myself and an elf hat for her. Forty-seven pics, and every single one has her making a crazy face. The final one when I decided to just let go is the one I'll hang up: Both of us screaming at the camera with our tongues out. There's a fake Target tree in the background leaning to the right because someone tried to climb it.

I think these are much better memories than the preprogrammed ones I had in my head.

Crossroad

Le sigh.

I'm still alive, and no I haven't forgotten about the blog. Believe it or not, I have about fifty unpublished posts sitting in my draft box. They just don't feel right. I'm going through a period of transition. Before you start writing me words of encouragement, let me say that I'm not depressed in the slightest. I'm just...changing.

I remember being in gym class one day when all of my friends just started cutting up. Normally, I'd be the class clown joining in with them, but on that particular day I didn't find any of our usual hijinks funny. My teacher was like a stand-in parent to me at the time, so I talked to her about it. "I don't find the usual stuff fun anymore. I feel really serious and contemplative lately." She told me that sometimes growing up happens gradually while other times it happens in leaps and bounds.

I've been in a leaps and bounds mode lately. I had a lot of life events happen close together this year. When there's extensive structural damage to a building it's often cheaper to just demolish it and rebuild. With that, however, comes the very rare (and very, very fortunate) opportunity to decide whether or not you want to rebuild exactly as it was or make something new. I'm going for the latter.

So what does any of this have to do with posting? My posts were usually about my daughter, my grandmother, my childhood or my life as a stay-at-home dad. Well, my daughter has some things going on--things for which writing would be very therapeutic for me, but it's her life. When she's older she may take issue with that level of personal stuff being online, so I deal with it on my own.

My grandmother's gone and with her passing I kinda locked away the nostalgic part of me.  It's not out of pain or anything. I just don't need nostalgia anymore like I once did. There used to be a hole in my emotional cup. I'd keep pouring in memories to fill it up, but cleaning out my grandmother's house over the course of a month somehow sealed the hole.

Now that my daughter's in school there aren't as many stories to tell. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, then you get to hear snippets of my day. We had a Bobby Flay styled throw down last week. We each made a pizza. She beat me on taste, but I won thanks to the category of "Paid for Ingredients and Utilities."

So yeah, that's pretty much what I'm up to these days.

I've posted this a million times before, but it plays in my head a lot lately:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSBt94MuNnU

Jack.

Well this will be quick. I have two minutes to go to bed and still get eight hours of sleep. Wish me luck. Anyway...Guess what I did this weekend.

I had whiskey for the very first time. Guess what else I did this weekend. I had whiskey for the very last time. Now if you're just tuning in then you missed the post I wrote a few years ago talking about what it was like being the only person I knew who didn't drink.

I went something like, "Blah blah blah, I don't drink because I don't really like the taste of alcohol. I have no moral opposition to it. It just isn't for me."

Then...my daughter left the (totally under appreciated) "I can't move on my own" stage. Many a naive parent mistakenly believes that their kids will be "more fun" once they learn to walk and (I laugh most about this one now) talk. So yeah...I drink now. Because I waited so long to join the club, wine was doing it for me. Occasionally I'd go to a Yelp event where they give out free drinks, but I'm pretty certain that those are watered down.

My host this weekend seemed to take special pleasure in the knowledge that I know nothing about nothing. I sat there and drank it like it was a soda. Then came the warning, "You're supposed to sip, not gulp!" But it was too late. You know that cliche action scene where there's some large metal door slowly descending and the hero has to run to get to it and then slide Indiana Jones-style under it? Well that's what I felt inside my head. I felt the alcohol slowly lowering down through me, and I knew that once it reached the bottom...Nothing but bad times would follow.

I'm a horrible drinking buddy. I'm a nerd, and like most nerds I believe that I have a really powerful brain. About 90% of my brain power is used to keep my thoughts at bay, because...I'm a nerd. The whiskey turned that off. You know the first thought that popped in my head?

"Hmm, I feel inebriated. Let me count how often I blink. I imagine that my glossy eyes will somehow have a bearing on my blinking. Yep...blinking more than average.The room is tilting left to right. I know this isn't really happening, but it feels so real. Perhaps the part of my brain that is perceiving this artificial vertigo could be tapped into for virtual reality simulators and flight training. I'm too drunk to consider patenting that. Now I wonder what effect a gyroscope would have on my perception of balance. If I could stare at the gyroscope and see that it is not moving, then perhaps my sense of balance would return..."

Yeah. Who the hell wants to drink around that guy? So...that's pretty much all I have to say for now. I'm going to bed.

Mustachioed

Over the weekend someone told me that my blog is starting to get depressing. I tried to explain the concept of "Tears of a Clown," but she brushed that off and suggested I write about something...anything. She suggested I write about all of the "perks" that she assumed came with having a mustache at 10. So here goes...

There were no perks. The "I have a mustache before everyone else" perks don't begin until junior high school. That's when I started having 16 year old girls hitting on my 12 year old self, only I was completely stupid back then. "I'm only 12" still echoes in my head to this day, and every single time I hear it I want to go back in time and slap myself.

Anyway...as I was saying, there were no perks. The peach fuzz started shortly after fourth grade. Back then, people just assume that you're dirty. "Did your mama water get cut off or something? Why your face dirty?" I had a substitute send me to the bathroom because she thought I had on makeup.

Sidebar: Remember when the networks used to play movies on Sundays or sometimes during the week? I think Fox used to play two or three movies back to back on Sunday afternoons. They called it the Triple Feature. Well, back then they used to play the hell out of Teen Wolf.

Once all the kids figured out I wasn't dirty, they started calling me a werewolf. I was an easy target. I was ten years old in the fifth grade with a mustache and size 10 mens shoe. Little did they know, the hair was starting to appear other places as well, and without a man around to talk to, I didn't know what the hell was going on. That human sexuality class with the light blue/pink pamphlets and the weird looking kids on the front was a year away. I wasn't stupid. I knew that men had mustaches, but I figured it was supposed to start way later...like 20. I assumed I was broken. I had to fix myself.

The hair in other places had started a few months prior. A pair of scissors and a few band aids later...I was back to normal. That wasn't an option, however, for the hair on my face. It was too low. I tried washing my face a lot, hoping that the hair would dry out and fall off. That brilliant idea came from a Salon Selectives commercial that talked about "other leading shampoos" drying out hair and causing split ends.

Eventually, I found a box in the basement with my uncle's old stuff in it. There was a rusty razor in there. I didn't know that the stuff men put on their face was shaving cream. I thought it was soap. I took some Ivory soap and applied it ALL OVER MY FACE.  Then I started shaving. Left to right, up and down...pretty much any direction that can cause lacerations.

Then I accidentally cut off a part of my eyebrow. Now how did I get all the way up there? Well, I saw faint baby hairs on the side of my brow. I just assumed they were mustaches in wait. So I tried to get those too. Since I cut one eyebrow, I had to even it out on the other side, only I made that one too narrow. I had to make them even, and eventually they were. The only problem was that they looked like dots on an "i" by that point. I cut them both off completely and prayed to God that no one would notice.

I don't remember exactly what my mother said when she got home. It took her a minute to notice though. I remember that. I do remember my grandmother telling me that I was too stupid for my own good. I also remember the praying the whole weekend that they'd grow back by Monday. I kept putting conditioner and that blue hair grease that my mother had on my face hoping that it would speed up the process.

If you thought they had jokes before, you should've seen my classmates that Monday.

Next time on MentalStorage, we'll talk about how puberty-stricken-me came up with the idea to put baking soda under his arms to stop the sweating...or maybe we won't. 

 

 

Harmony.

I'm actually writing this while visiting my grandmother's grave. I can't say that it just hit me that she's gone, but I guess you could say that I'm experiencing an aftershock. Supposedly they lessen with time.

So anyway, I'm sitting here watching the sunset. I picked an area on a hill next to a tree with a view of the city and the sunset. My grandmother wasn't very sensitive or girly, but if she was at church or trying to put on a front for someone important, then this is something she'd pretend that she liked.

While sitting here, I remembered that there will be no more memories. No more new stories to tell. The last actual memory is her taking her last breath. So as I sat here thinking about the cyclical nature of things: she was there in the delivery room for my first breath, and I was there in the ICU for her last.

As I thought about that, I felt this wave of grief. I don't think I felt it after she died. I was too busy planning things. So I was sitting here about to tear up, and I decided to pull out my phone and play a song she used to play all the time when I was little, Rough Side of the Mountain. Just as I was about to hit play, I heard her. I literally heard her voice.

"What the hell are you about to play that for. Turn that thing off. You ain't wanna listen to it when I wanted to hear it. Stop being stupid. What are you crying for. You better get in that damned car and go get something to eat. You wanna remember me...then go to Golden Corral and get a little piece of cornbread or one of them rolls. Wrap it up in a napkin and bring it back here, if you wanna do something for me. I told you, you can be sad but don't sit around here crying like a damned fool."

You know what? I feel a lot better. LOL
I'm going to get something to eat.

A Day in the Life

I have been trying to post something for the last few days, but every time I sit down to write...she happens. It is 10:14pm on 11/13/13. I feel like it's about 3AM. I'm tired, and I know that I sound like a broken record at this point. I don't care. The struggle is real, and my story needs to be told. In the event that my daughter succeeds in killing me, I'd like this to be read at my funeral.

[5:40 AM]
Wake up...barely. The oven was programmed the night before to cut itself on 20 minutes prior. All I have to do is open the Pillsbury biscuit canister and put them on the parchment paper that I lined on a baking sheet the night before. I do that, put them in the oven, and start the bacon.

[6:00 AM]
Co-Parent drops off the child, so that I can take her to school. It is my daily task. I am Lord of the Drop-Off. The child immediately demands a biscuit, bacon and orange juice. They're already sitting in her spot at the table.

[6:30 AM]
Time to go. The child wants to play with her toys. She refuses to put on her coat. I wrestle her to the ground using a jiu-jitsu move I learned watching Ninja Turtles II years ago, and I entrap her in her coat.

[6:45 AM]
We're a half mile from home headed to the train. It is 32 degrees outside with a wind chill of "wasn't it 70 degrees two weeks ago." The child is on my shoulders, because it's too damned cold to force her to walk in this weather.

[7:00 AM]
Metro happens.

[7:05 AM]
The child is bored on the train. She is 2 minutes away from Katie Kabooming the car. I open my backpack aka Metro Survival Kit. It contains four books, four toys, Goldfish, bottled water, tissues, sanitizer, band-aids, and an emergency biscuit and strip of bacon in a ziploc bag. We read Curious George and the Car Wash 17 times.

[7:30 AM]
Off the train, the child is back on my shoulders, and we're walking one mile to her school. I will the vertebrae in my spine not to collapse with the 40 lbs I'm carrying on my neck.

[7:40 AM]
Child is dropped off, as is the second breakfast and lunch that I made her that morning since she won't eat the food provided by the school. I begin my 3 mile walk through Rock Creek Park back home. It's 33 degrees, so I decide to jog.

[3:30 PM]I deny the urge to buy myself the porterhouse steak that's smiling at me from behind the "SALE" sign, in favor of something my daughter will enjoy as well. I settle on wings. I want to make mashed potatoes, but I want to make something new that my daughter will like. Rice-a-Roni. It's processed to hell, but it's the cheesy kind. She likes cheese, so I get that.

[4:00 PM]
I'm home now, and standing in front of the stove making Rice-a-Roni while the lemon pepper wings are roasting in the oven.

[4:40 PM]
Food is done. I now leave to make the 3 mile trek through Rock Creek Park to go pick her up. It's getting dark earlier than I expected.

[5:00 PM]
It's dark as hell in the park, and I just know in my heart that someone will turn up missing and I'll end up a suspect because I'm walking through the park at night like an idiot. I start to run, then wonder if that makes me look guilty of something to the cars going by. I go back to walking. Then I start to consider that I could actually become a victim myself. I go back to running.

[5:30 PM]
Arrive at the school. Sign my daughter out of kiddie jail, take her to the bathroom, hunt down my tupperware that carried her lunch, and promise the front desk person to get her dental forms updated by the deadline. Begin the one mile walk to the train. A gust of 33 degree wind hits us. I put her on my shoulders again and start to walk.

[5:50 PM]Child loses her mind and throws a tantrum on the platform because I won't let her get on the elevator. Too many witnesses to handle appropriately. I try talking to her. She stares at me, assumes she's won the battle of wills, and proceeds to shout triumphantly on the train. People stare. I stare back and then try the "mommy" church pinch. It is unsuccessful. I hand her toys from the survival kit.

[6:00 PM]
Metro happens...again.

[7:00 PM]
Arrive home after another half mile walk. Wash child's hands, prepare her plate, and hope for the best. The child looks at the lemon pepper wings, the rice-a-roni, the green peas, and the cup of water with fish-shaped ice from the Ikea toddler mold. "I want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!"

[7:01 PM]
I barricade myself in the bathroom for the child's protection.

[7:03 PM]
I return to the dining room and inform the child that she will not leave the table until she finishes her food.

[7:45 PM]
The child is still sitting at the table. It is now time for a bath. I do whatever the food equivalent of waterboarding is. I place the child in the tub.

[7:48 PM]
I begin to eat my food.

[7:50 PM]
The child is too quiet. I make sure she hasn't drowned, although I'm pretty certain that only fire can kill her.

[7:59 PM]
Bath is done. Begin reading two stories. FaceTime Co-Parent so that she can say goodnight. Brush her teeth. One last potty run.

[8:15 PM]
Sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Turn off the light. Head back to dining table to finish food that has begun to fossilize.

[8:20 PM]
Start making tomorrow's lunch. Set the oven to cut on for tomorrow's biscuits.

The Dark Knight

The theme for 2013 seems to be letting go. Letting go of the illusion of control is something that I'm still coming to terms with. I was watching Kevin Hart yesterday and he had a bit about realizing that eventually his ex-wife will have another man around his kids. That's something that I'm just not ready for. It has nothing to do with me trying to control what my ex-wife does. I'm concerned about my daughter.

Every man--at least every decent one--wants to be his child's superhero. You want to be strong, you want to be everywhere at once, and you want to protect them from everything. The truth is that it's impossible. I'm not Superman. Long before the divorce I had to accept that I couldn't protect her from life. And even if I could, I shouldn't. Some things she'll just have to experience in order to learn to stand up on her own.

I stopped trying to be Superman. Not only did I stop hovering over her, I also stopped trying to appear invincible to her. She needs to see a man being vulnerable. She needs to learn that how a man handles his insecurities is far more important than him pretending they don't exist. Instead of being Superman, I relegated myself to being Batman. I don't have any superpowers. It's what I do with ordinary that makes me extraordinary.

But now I'm divorced and this job just got a lot harder. My daughter is now split between two houses, with two totally different parents. Remember, opposites attract. That worked when we were married. We balanced each other out and we compromised in order to present a unified front to our kid. That's just not possible now. No matter what anyone says about being on the same page, there will always be differences.

My house looks like Disneyland. Her house looks like a museum. She plays music and has flowers and stuff up. My house looks EXACTLY like a man lives here. It took four different women coming by to finally convince me to buy one of those little trashcans for my bathroom. And these are just cosmetic differences. Don't get me started on our personalities. So right off the bat I'm trying to figure out to adjust to the new parenting dynamic.

But that's an adjustment I'm trying to make with a person that I know extremely well. If that's difficult, then imagine how hard it's gonna be to add in a person I know absolutely nothing about. I'm sure that when the time comes I'll get to meet the guy, but that's about it. In a perfect world, I'd be given the names and social security numbers of every guy she's halfway interested in from the guy at work to the guy she locked eyes with on the train. Then, I'd take their info, run some background checks, kidnap them and inject them with truth serum to find out if they're pedophiles or not, and then let her know who passes ROUND ONE of my tests.

But something tells me she just won't go for that.

So here Batman sits...wondering. When the time comes will the guy by worthy? This sounds harsh, but I could give a damn what makes my ex-wife happy. The ideal guy to be around my daughter, besides myself, is a 70 year old blind, impotent, and extremely patient old man who enjoys nothing more than telling my daughter a bunch of cool stories about being in the Navy and the importance of financial responsibility. Anyone else is on my terrorist watch list. And trust me...the NSA ain't got nothing on my detective skills.

My daughter was invited to a play date once. Within five minutes I had the woman's name--but more important to me--her husband's name, where he worked, a deed and layout of their house, their 5 year old wedding registry, pictures from the wedding and a list of sports they played in high school and college.

Know your enemy.

I say a lot of this half jokingly, but the truth is that I was eleven the first time someone ever shared with me their secret of being raped by her mom's boyfriend. Back then I didn't know any better and kept her confidence. Since then, I've heard similar stories at least three dozen times, and they haunt me to this day. Coworkers, friends, classmates, ex-girlfriends...so much can happen when love is mistaken for trust. And all it takes is one time to ruin someone's life forever. So, I'll happily accept paranoia over the alternative.

Ex-wife knows this about me, and that's probably why I won't meet her future beau until five minutes before the wedding. What she doesn't know is that within three I'll have a blood and urine sample, and either a right hook or a handshake for the guy. Even in the case of the latter, I'll still be sitting on the roof across the street watching for my daughter's bat signal...

Because I'm Batman.

Me Time

There's an episode of The Cosby Show that brings tears to my eyes every time I think about it. It's the one where Claire is about to put some of the children up for adoption, because they won't leave her alone (or something like that). As an alternative, Cliff converts an empty room into her own private soundproof, electronically locked sanctuary. I need to marry a woman like Cliff...a Cliffette.

Since 12:30 today my daughter has been following me around...literally. If I sit on the couch, she sits on the couch. I went to the kitchen for some water, and I looked over to see her grabbing one of her little tumblers out of the dishwasher. I went to the bathroom and (no lie) she grabbed my waist from behind and started doing the conga line chant (dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-HEY!) as I walked to the bathroom. She let me close the door, but as soon as she heard it flush she burst through the door.

When she realized that my sitting on the couch to watch the game was gonna take a while, she started asking me to do things with her. "Let's play hide and go seek!" "Can we read The Three Bears?" "Can we go to Giant and get Goldfish?" Now mind you, we sang and danced and colored and recreated the Michael Jackson Scream video with two Penguins for at least two hours prior to me watching the game. It wasn't enough. Her affection requires a blood sacrifice, and in this case it was every touchdown, interception or Red Zone play.

A normal man wouldn't have made the cut, but not me. I kept thinking about how much I love her and that she was worth it. Okay, that's more like the theme of what I was actually thinking. It all boils down to love, but my actual thought was, "She's gonna end up on the pole, because I wanna see if they get a first down." I have to say that The Players Club has encouraged me to be a better parent than any parenting book out there.

So I ended up missing most of the game. She stretched out on the kitchen floor directly behind me while I cooked, and she pulled up a chair beside me ten minutes ago when I sat down to check the weather on my computer. It was when she started reaching for the trackpad in an attempt to navigate to the bookmarks in order to get to her Youtube playlist that I decided enough was enough.

"GO SIT DOWN ALL THE WAY OVER THERE!"

She wasn't amused. She screamed, hollered, shouted, and kicked, which normally would've been followed up by a scene from my upcoming play, "Joe Jackson: The Musical," but when she kicked she accidentally hit the table with her foot. I think God beat her to save her life. So anyway that prompted her to just sit on the couch pouting. 63 seconds later, I heard her snoring. That was 17 minutes ago. It's 5:25pm...too damned late for a nap, but I need some me time. This is my sanctuary. In the last 17 minutes I've eaten, read the news, played a round of Tetris on my phone, watched highlights of the game I missed (with the volume completely down), eaten the last Reese Cup out of the freezer, and now I'm just waiting out my last minute and eighteen seconds before I have to wake her up. I can live a whole lifetime in that amount of time.

*and of course the *$*$&#&#@* fire drill just went off in my building!

Gotta go. I bet she set that ______ off with her subconscious.

Reorganization

[caption id="attachment_3698" align="aligncenter" width="300"] What the hell is this?[/caption]

I know she's only three, but this is the worst Halloween score ever. Now granted, my feet were hurting and I was tired, so we only did two blocks, but still there is no excuse. When I was her age I could've hit up a diabetic wing of a retirement village and gotten a better take. Who is this kid?

We went up to houses where there were Reese's, Snickers, and M&Ms. She picked the York Peppermint Patty. WHO TAKES THE PEPPERMINT PATTY!? One woman told her she could have two pieces, she only took one. I just stood there with the Joe Jackson smile. "Thank you so much. Have a good evening!" That's what my mouth said. My eyes said, "I'm putting you up for adoption tomorrow." Ike Turner said it best, "Tell her if she miss a step tonight, she gonna be frying fish tomorrow."

She's out the family.

I remember one year I dressed up as Superman. I WAS Superman. I embraced that ish. We left at 6:00 and I didn't come back home until 10:30. My feet hurt. I was about six or seven. Of course they hurt. That cheap ass mask was soaked with sweat and condensation from my breath. My tongue had that red ring around it from me scratching it against the tiny slit where the mouth was. Hell, I think I lost the cape somewhere between my house and Hechinger Mall. But guess what...Superman doesn't quit. I didn't come home until I had three grocery bags full of candy.

I knew what the deal was. My mother was going to check my candy, and long before I'd ever hold a retail job I was well aware of the concept of "shrinkage." There was no way in hell that all of those Snickers looked tampered with. But that's the cost of doing business with the mob. I overcompensated for her protection money.

But that was me and my hustle. This little girl has none of that.

A peppermint patty. Really?

What's wrong with kids these days?

[Sidebar: I'm going to chaperone my first field trip today. Pray...a lot.]

The Halloween Dilemma

God grant me the serenity to...scratch that. God, please give me the strength to walk three miles to this little girl's school, and, when I get there, please bless her with a pleasant disposition that matches the reward she's going to get tonight in the form of me walking around the neighborhood begging strangers for candy. Lord, let not her heart be full of "three-year-old-isms" that cause me to regret spending the last week going from Halloween store to Halloween store, which is incredibly tedious when you don't have a car, all in the name of finding her a costume. And Lord, heal her feet which I'm certain she'll claim are too tired to walk from her school to the Metro. For whatever reason, the minute she sees me she instantly becomes unable to walk four feet without wanting me to pick her up. And if it be your will, may we not have any parent-child altercations that make me say "Forget it, we're not doing anything tonight" thus hurting myself in the process, because all of this will have been for naught.

Amen.

When I was little, Halloween was the ish. I couldn't wait to go make my rounds. My daughter doesn't even know the holiday exists. She's three and kind of...above this whole childhood thing. This is one I wish I could blame on Co-parent, but it's my doing. You see, like me, she suffers from motivation-deficit-disorder. If there's no incentive to care, then she doesn't. Brace yourself...she's never had candy before. I'll give you a minute to digest that.

By the time I was five, I had a mouth full of dice. I've responsible for more dentist retirements than anyone else in the eastern US. So, when she was born, Co-parent and I made a pact that she'd never know about candy or sugar or fast food until it was absolutely necessary. We kinda treated it like adoption. "She doesn't need to know. Apples are her candy now." Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those parents. You know, the kind who feel like kids should only drink agave nectar-sweetened beverages and eat less than 1 gram of fat a day. That's not me at all.

I truly believe in my daughter's God given right to eat after midnight and wreak havoc on the town with all of the other gremlins hopped up on sugar. Just not now. Give it time. Let me enjoy having a sweet, loveable child as long as possible. Then when the time is right she can turn into a caffeinated hellion. I'm the same one who has her thinking that those 39 cent toys from Party City are high quality AND believing that Toys R Us and Target are places people go to play with toys INSIDE the store only. Whenever we get to the register she hands me the toys back by default.

I know that this world will eventually come crashing down, so I'm enjoying it while it lasts. Still, this all presents a problem tonight. How do I convince her to leave my side to go retrieve candy from complete strangers when she has no interest in it whatsoever. I really want her to experience Halloween and trick or treating. Okay, I'm lying. I really want some Reese Cups for myself, and I don't want to buy them. They taste better when they're free (and after they've been in the freezer for a minute). I'll figure something out.

Let Your Fingers Do The Walking

I was at a bar the other day that had the old X-Men 4-player arcade game. Seeing that thing triggered memories that I'm certain my brain worked really hard to repress. I'm the poster child for the other side of child neglect. Yeah, you got your hungry malnourished kids who (rightfully so) get the bulk of the attention, but there's a whole different sect that no one acknowledges...the bored kids.

Saturdays were the worst part of the week for me. I had to be the only kid who actually liked going to school. There was stuff to do there. Half of it I didn't want to actually be bothered with, but still you get what I'm saying. Around 10AM every Saturday my grandmother would leave to go to choir rehearsal. My mother would go to... I honestly have no idea where she went. She was like Batman in the sense that she just disappeared mid-sentence. I'd wake up just as she was leaving and see her throw down a smoke pellet before hopping out the second floor window.

Once cartoons went off, my Saturdays freaking sucked. I was an only child back then, and because I was home alone the only rule was that I couldn't open the door for any reason. That meant no going outside. The first hour or so was fine, but after a while I had to get creative. Seeing that X-Men game reminded me of what I call "The Phone Book Period."

You know how kids used to call and make prank calls back in the day? That was me minus the prank call part. I used to just call places for the hell of it. The MLK Library used to have a number that you could call that would play recordings of a new children's story each week. The number was in the blue "information" section of the phone book. One day I noticed that there was a number for the historical weather data. Why not? What else was I gonna do to pass the time? I listened to that. Then I called the Boys Town Hotline, not really knowing what that was for. When they realized I wasn't at risk for anything they told me to hang up.

That led to me just calling all kinds of numbers:

• Metro for bus times just to see if they could accurately predict when the next bus would go around the park up the street.


• I called the city to report a dead cat.


• I was famous for calling to request "more information" on...everything. Lincoln Tech, D-I-Y home repairs, The Army

After a while I ran out of places to call in that section and started going through the actual Yellow Pages. I'd tell people I was doing a report on something for school and needed information. I talked to lawyers, electricians, plumbers...anybody who would talk to me.

Now that I think about it, I used to do the same thing when I was even younger. I'd dial 7 numbers at random and talk to whomever answered. "Hi. I'm Ordale. What's your name?" "Does your mother know you're on the phone?" That stopped when some man said he was going to track me down and kill me. I was either five or six, so...welcome to DC in the 80s.

Anyway, this all goes back to the X-Men game, because I remember calling every listing under "Arcade Games" to see if there was somewhere I could buy the game. I was tired of losing quarters and assumed that it must be cheaper to just buy the whole thing.

"Hi, my name is Ordale and I'm trying to buy the X-Men game." If they didn't hang up after hearing my prepubescent voice, they sure as hell hung up once I told them that I had a whopping $77 of birthday money to spend on one.

"Now, my grandmother said she's gonna give me $25 for my birthday, so I can go as high as $100 if you can hold it til July."

(Like most things, there's no reason for this story...just popped in my head just now as I was going to bed. And just that quick...End of Story)

Mocha Svelte

I haven't had much time to post anything lately. I've been running around a lot. Literally. It's awkward to talk about break-ups and divorces and people dying. Well, actually it's not awkward for me to talk about it. I guess what I mean is that it's probably awkward for you, the reader. I've been there on the receiving end before. What sounds like humor could really be cries for help or something. You never know if you should laugh or call someone. I guess you just have to take me at my word when I say that you can put the phone down for this next one: I kinda wish I'd capitalized on that divorce/break-up/heartache thing a little more.

I was too caught up in being sad and feeling betrayed to really appreciate the positives of what was going on. I'd never gone through it before, but now that I'm on the other side of it, I look back and see all of the pictures I took during the spring. The first thing that comes to mind is...Damn I was skinny!

Now if you've never seen me before in person (the beauty will captivate you), then let me describe myself to you. I'm very pretty in a handsome way. I'm an Ikea mocha dresser color, and I look tall if you kneel down at the base of a hill. Weight-wise, I'm....I don't know. In my head I'm stocky, but most people say I'm average. I don't have low self worth or anything. Clearly, anyone who describes himself in the pantheon of do-it-yourself furniture has high self esteem. I just remember what it was like when I ran track and was really, really skinny. Back then I looked like a crackhead. Now I just look like a recovering crackhead.

Anyway, right after "the fall" I lost about 20-25 lbs. It just happened. I wasn't hungry. Too busy crying and moping around. But I remember the day that I went into Nordstrom and tried on clothes. I realized that I dropped three pant sizes. I remember thinking, "Man, if only I could afford to buy something out of here." So then I went to TJ Maxx and balled out of control. I was svelte! And I never get to use that word enough when it comes to describing myself.

Two weeks ago I went back to Nordstrom to pretend that I had money, and the same shirt that I said I'd come back to buy in the fall didn't fit like it did in the summer. There's a quart where my six pack used to be. So that prompted me to go for a run...like, immediately. I don't have a car anymore, so I ran home from the train. Since that time, I've been doing my usual 3 mile walk to and from my daughter's school, plus running 3 miles a day, and riding my bike whenever possible.

I lost five pounds last week, which is cool, but I had to work for it. That sucks. Like alimony, I've become accustomed to a certain lifestyle. I should just be able to listen to a Mary J Blige song or something, and then lose all desire to eat for two or three days. So anyway, I say all of this for two reasons:

1) I had nothing else to write about, but my readership has doubled in the past three months, and I don't want to lose you fine people. I had to write something!

2) It's encouraging to put your weight loss goals on the internet, because it forces you to stick with it out of sheer fear of embarrassment after talking a good game. I could've just put this in a Facebook post, but my friends have that on lock with their Runkeeper posts and their "I think I just invented cooking" food pictures.

So after all of that plus running behind a three year old who runs on nuclear power...I'm tired. But guess what, I'm not gon' cry, I'm not gon' cry, I'm not gon' shed no tears. (Damn, doesn't work anymore. Guess I'll go do a sit up or something.)

Crazy Sexy Cool

Well, as a NonCablelite (like the famous tribe from the Bible), I wasn't able to watch the TLC movie last night. I doubt I would have even if I did have cable. I can guess what happened though. They made a bunch of records, but not a bunch of money. One of them dies at the end.

Okay, that was wrong. I take that back.

I was actually a huge TLC fan back in the day. I got my first CD player for my 13th birthday, and I literally ran 3 miles to Nobody Beats the Wiz in order to buy CrazySexyCool and II. Those were the first CDs I ever owned. A part of the original trilogy of "Wow, CDs cost more than tapes. I guess I'm not buying any more of these." For two years I held it down with Boyz II Men, TLC and Bone's, E. 1999 Eternal. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Like getting a CD player in '95, I was late to the pop culture party when it came to TLC. Once again for those just tuning in, I lived with my grandparents who listened to gospel and talk radio 24/7. Add to that the fact that I didn't have cable or know anyone who did, and the only time I ever saw TLC was when they were on Arsenio. As a matter of fact, I didn't see any of the videos from Oooh On the TLC Tip until I was in college. But I remember exactly when I first saw Red Light Special.

There's a special moment in every 12 year old boy's life when his family finally joins the 1980s and gets cable. For me, this was 1994. I spent the first night trying to squint through the scrambled lines of the premium channels (Yeah, those channels too). I stumbled across The Box (Music Television YOU control) during that special scene of Red Light Special. You would've thought I'd discovered fire. I went to school the next day with a ton of questions: "I just saw this video with these three girls playing cards and halfway through one of them..." My friends knew what I was talking about when I said, "I just saw this video..."

I ran to the library with my new knowledge of TLC and checked 1994's version of the internet, Infotrac. It was like the Atari version of Google: All of the magazines in one CD-ROM! With the magic of a dot matrix printer, it only took 2 hours to print off 20 pages. I tore the little holes off and headed home. For the next few months, you could find me in the magazine aisle of the  Safeway on Naylor and Good Hope Road at least once a month reading up on the exploits of my future wives.

You could also find the posters that magically disappeared from Word Up and Right On hanging up in my locker. Just Chilli though. The other two didn't interest me. I thought T-Boz was playing for the other team, and although she was fine, I felt LeftEye was more trouble than she was worth. But Chilli...sweet, innocent, "Now every black girl with curly hair is gonna lie and say she has Indian in her family" Rozonda Chilli Thomas. We were gonna get married and have cute, dark skinned, curly haired, 4 foot tall children. She was so bad that not only did she have teenage girls lying about their heritage, they were doing everything except hold a magnifying glass up to the eight or nine strands of baby hair that they had gelled to the sides of their head.

But such a thing isn't meant to last. Aaliyah blew up a year or two later, and suddenly TommyGirl, long weaves and the possibility of a lazy eye were in style. I never looked back. Chilli settled for Usher and that was that.

We'll always have The Box and video #440.

Testify

You accuse me of a, please let me testify
You accuse me of a, you accuse me of a
Please let me testify
Before you lock my love away...

If you were in Giant at 7pm last night, you no doubt witnessed what you think was bad parenting. There was a handsome 5'7 lad with a 3'4 kid in tow. The kid was crying and saying she was hungry. She was begging for things that would make the average parent cheer with delight: apples, bananas, rutabagas. You might have even heard her say "Ow, help me. My eye hurts." After watching the guy, let's call him "Me" for simplicity's sake, ignore her and walk out, you probably said to yourself, "He's a horrible parent."

You accuse me of a..., please let me testify
Before you lock my love away...

If you'd been a fly on the wall 5 minutes earlier at 6:55, you would've seen her screaming outside the Giant saying that her eye hurt. You would've witnessed me scrambling to check her eye as I tried to keep her from making it worse with her Metro-germ-lined fingers. At 6:55 you would've seen me running full speed with her in my arms into the Giant and heading for the bathroom to wash her eye out.

But that still wouldn't help your opinion of me at 7pm as you saw me walking out of the store and ignoring her as she continued to scream that her eye was hurting.

Please let me testify. You accuse me of a...

You had to be with us on the train about 30 minutes earlier around 6:30. You might have noticed it, but I sure as hell didn't catch it. I have a great memory, but it's more of a long term storage thing. I can tell you what happened 3 years ago, but not three minutes ago. It takes a major event to jog the short-term memory.

So if you'd been there at 6:30, then maybe you would've realized right away the correlation between that moment and 25 minutes later at 6:55 after I'd run full speed into Giant searching for the bathroom as my "frantic" child screamed and held her eye.

6:55pm- "My eye hurts. Help me. My eye. [screaming and holding eye]
6:30pm- Her: "Can we go to Giant?"
Me:  "Not today. I don't need anything from there."
Her: "Can we have Cookie Dough Ice Cream?"
Me: "No, you can't eat that everyday. You had it yesterday. No ice cream today."
Her: [crying]
Me: "Sit back and stop whining. I said no."

6:55pm- [On the walk home, passing Giant] "My eye hurts. Help me. My eye. [screaming and holding eye]
Me: Okay, keep your eye closed. Let's run in Giant and find the bathroom. I'll wash your eye out. Don't touch your eye!
Her: "Ow, ow, ow, the agony, woe is me, vision is fading, blindness is imminent."

6:59pm-Me: We're almost there. Keep your eye closed.
Her: [Both eyes wide open] Can we have cookie dough ice cream?
Me: ...

I turned around, and walked out as she began proclaiming how hungry she was. She began yelling for anything she saw that would keep me in the store. As I walked out, I was tried and convicted of bad parenting by a jury of my peers.

[In my head I heard the last verse of Common's song, Testify]
Common:

The court awaited as the foreman got the verdict from the bailiff

Emotional outbursts tears and smeared makeup

He stated, he was guilty on all charges

She's shaking looking like she took it the hardest

A spin artist, she brought her face up laughing

That's when the prosecutor realized what happened

All that speaking her mind, testifying and crying

When this [kid] did the crime, the queenpin

California Love

Whenever I travel I take one of my daughter's toys with me. It's a ritual that started by accident a long time ago. Small kids are squirrels in the sense that they hide things everywhere. You never know when you'll be standing on the subway and reach into your pocket to find eight cheerios and a half-eaten hot dog. I went to NC a couple of years ago and found one of her toys in my bag. Now I make it a point to take one with me every time I travel.

Like the movie Inception, it's my own personal totem. Boy, did it come in handy this weekend. I just got back from L.A., and if not for the totem, I would've gladly stayed in that dream world. I had no desire to come back to DC...at all! If not for my daughter, I'd still be there.

If you read my last post, then you know that this was a consolation prize since Mother Nature has apparently banned me from all islands. It was a star-studded flight. Goose and Maverick piloted us there, while I sat next to the monkey from Outbreak. After 6 hours of her non-stop coughing and sneezing, I realized that I should probably enjoy L.A. as fast as possible before I died or turned into a zombie or something.

I landed at 1pm. By the end of the day I'd been to:

• The Griffith Observatory where I took pictures of the LA skyline


• The Hollywood Sign


• The Warner Brothers Studio Tour where I saw the set of Two and a Half Men, all of the cars from Batman, took pics on the couch from Friends, and saw Rebel Wilson (Bridesmaids, Pitch Perfect).


• The Walk of Fame where I saw the saddest street performers and impersonators (more on them later)


• The Grauman (TCL) Chinese Theater where I saw Gravity in 3D in their newly renovated IMAX screen


• Rosco's Chicken and Waffles


• The Santa Monica Pier

Believe it or not, I didn't rush through anything. I only slept a total of 9 hours over the four days that I was there, so I had plenty of time on my hands. The WB tour was fantastic, but the Walk of Fame has to be the most depressing thing I've ever seen. I heard about the impersonators and the folks walking around in costumes begging for you to take pics with them, but I really wasn't prepared.

The first thing to catch my eye was the 5'10 black guy who had to weigh about 230-250 in black pants, a stretchy shirt, a green vest like something you'd rent from Men's Wearhouse for a wedding or prom, and a black mask. You know who he was supposed to be? The Green Lantern! Then there was his buddy, Batman, whose costume appeared to be carefully woven from Hefty trash bags. Then there was Catwoman who had a body to die for and probably the diseases to die from judging by her "costume." Honestly, if she took her mask off at night and worked a few corners away, it would not surprise me.

The WORST offenders, hands down, were the Michael Jackson impersonators. There were three: Black Michael Jackson, Brown Michael Jackson, and Gray Michael Jackson (Charcoal "Wesley Snipes" skin + White makeup=Gray). Gray Michael Jackson wasn't that bad. He just kept prancing up and down the street like it was the Billie Jean video. Black Michael Jackson...where do I start. This dude stood at the end of the block in a frozen pose pointing at a sign that said, "tips make me move." I stood there for five minutes waiting for someone to put money in the jar (I wasn't going to). He never moved. I was impressed that he held that pose for so long. Finally, some kid gave him a dollar and he started dancing. What...the...hell? An epileptic having a seizure could've done better. And that leaves my favorite, the highlight of my trip, and the reason I had to leave the walk of fame...

Brown Michael Jackson looked a hot damned mess. He had plastic surgery to try and make himself look like him, but I swear to God he had it done at a daycare with some left-handed scissors. He looked horrible and had a jheri curl that looked JUST like the one Randy Watson had in Coming to America. He was wearing what I can only describe as a fire engine red onesie. It looked like the pajamas you wear to go to bed as a kid with the feet in them.

He was blasting Thriller and walking down the street with a large American flag draped over him as if he'd just won the Michael Jackson Olympic 100 Meter Dash. He had a single stem rose in his mouth. He put the flag over Michael's star on the Walk of Fame, and walked around it like three times. Then for no reason whatsoever he did a cartwheel over the flag. Not even a good cartwheel. It was like a "I'm out of shape" fat person cartwheel where your feet aren't even vertical. Then he sat down on the flag, started crying and shouted, "I LOVE MICHAEL JACKSON! I LOVE MYSELF!" Then he got up, picked up the flag and reset back down the street so he could do it again. I had to walk away after that. I completely left the area. I could take no more.

I didn't mean to dedicate so much of the post to that, but it's a tragedy that had to be told. LA is the city of dreams, and that stretch of Hollywood Boulevard is the septic system where the broken dreams flush back out into reality. I hate when these posts hit 1000 words, so let's wrap it up:

I paid extra for the VIP tour of Universal. I got to take pics on some movie and TV sets that are usually closed to the public. I went to Malibu for a day and FINALLY got to a beach! Anyone who knows me personally can tell you that I'm a HUGE Back to the Future fan. As a kid I tried to build a time machine at least once a week. I have the near-electrocutions to prove it. Anyway, not only did I see the original Delorean from the film, but I also went to Marty's house. The owners weren't thrilled about me taking pics of their house, but they'll get over it. I also went FULL GEEK and drove my car around the mall parking lot from the movie all while making the time travel noises in my head.

I ate a lot of good food, saw every tourist attraction I could think of (Venice Beach is a horrible, horrible place), crashed a banquet at a hotel that was much nicer than the one I was staying in, and I put 400 miles on the rental car. I had a blast! Then I looked at my totem, and drove myself back to LAX. 12 hours later, I was back in DC taking my daughter to school this morning.

Awesome, awesome, awesome trip! After the year I've had, it was just what I needed.

If you're reading this

First let me say that I'm writing this from my cell phone which wouldn't mean much if I were a constant texter, but because I'm not this is very tedious. Who knows what havoc autocorrect is gonna wreak.

Secondly, if you are reading this then it means that I have safely landed in the Los Angeles. I'd like to thank god and the wannabe fighter pilots up n the cockpit of my plane. What they call turbulence I call a laxative.

Originally I was suppose to be going to The Dominican Republic. Mother Nature has apparently forbidden me from going anywhere near the Caribbean. This is the fourth trip to be rained out by one of her mood swings/tropical storms. On second thought, forgive me Mother Nature...my plane hasn't landed yet and all it takes is a gust of wind to give the happy to lucky cowboys up in the cockpit another reason to play Top Gun.

I've always wanted to go to Cali. We were poor when I was a kid so the closest I got was a palm given to me at church on Palm Sunday. So wish me luck everyone. The flight attendants are telling me to power down my phone. It seems like a Windows phone, not an iPhone, would crash first. (Horrible joke considering I can't jump out the plane from here).

I'm hitting submit even though I'm sure this will hang until I get service again. If you don't hear from me again next week the.ln either I was discovered and am hobnobbing with celebrities, or I've succumbed to whatever virus the Outbreak monkey sitting next to me has been coughing into the air the entire flight.

Gotta go. Angry flight attendant. If you don't hear from me, see to it that my daughter gets my makeshift Palm Sunday Palm Tree.