The Wee-Wee Thing That Makes You Not Get Hit By The Baseball

My cell phone rang while I was at work. It was Diane (it's always Diane). "So...did you leave something out that you shouldn't left out for the girls to find?"

My mind raced and I suddenly had the feeling of being sent to the principle's office. Chainsaw? No, I don't own one. Nudie books? No, I don't own any of those either. Condoms? No, we haven't...never mind. I couldn't think of a single thing that I could've left out that was about to get me in trouble. I was hardly even home today because I had gotten up early to go....ohhhh...

For the past few months, a couple of my co-workers have been badgering me to get up early in the morning and drive 30 minutes to a park on the other side of town to play baseball. Not softball. Baseball. Not on a team. Not in a league. Just a handfull of guys getting together for batting and infield practice. Now I haven't thrown a baseball in 20 years, which, after throwing softballs for the past 20 years, is a bigger deal than one might think. And while I wasn't completely disinterested in playing baseball, I was infinitely more interested in gazing at the insides of my eyelids while enjoying the relative comfort of my bed.

This week the stress level at work has ratcheted-up two or three HUNDRED notches due to renovations that will add six radio stations and three more TV stations to our building. Around Wednesday I noticed a knot in my stomach that would not go away, and I knew I was reaching the limit. I also knew I needed a release (besides heavy drinking), so on Thursday morning I reinstated my free weights workout, and that afternoon I told my co-workers I would meet them at the ball field on Saturday morning. I am now reminded why exercise is such an effective means of stress-relief: your body is in such pain that your worries are now focused on whether or not you can stand up, pick up a pen, comb your hair, or blink rather than all the other random crap going on around you.

Saturday morning I got up early and met three other guys out at the ball field for a two hour workout, at the end of which I knew I was in trouble. Still, it was good to get out there and be active for a change. We finished up, and I rushed home for a quick shower before heading in to work. It was in my haste to get ready for work that I committed my transgression: I left my cup out. It's not like I left it on the kitchen table or counter top or anywhere that needed to be completely re-sanitized. I just left it out on my dresser, where Kyra found it. Apparently, when she finally figured out what it was for, she freaked: "YOU MEAN IT GOES ON HIS WEINER??"

I got her on the phone where she took her turn chastising me. "Dad, did you know you left your thing out?"

"What thing?" I teased.

"YOU know...the wee-wee-thing-that-makes-you-not-get-hit-by-the-baseball."

I had to laugh at that, like my cup has magical powers to steer baseballs away from my nads.

"My cup?"

"Yes, you left it out and it was really gross."

"I'm sorry, Sweetie. I won't let it happen again."

"Good."

Today I'm paying ten-fold for my transgression. It hurts to breathe.

What a Pain in the Neck!

Yes, I've been reading Bram Stoker's Dracula, which I'm thoroughly enjoying, but it's merely coincidence to the neck pain I've been experiencing lately. I think. I haven't noticed any puncture marks in my throat lately, besides the ones Diane put there the other night (rowr).

A couple weeks ago I wrote about my pillow dilemma, where I bought a couple of "Super-Ultimate-Premium-Non-Allergenic-Extra-Firm pillows for $14.99" from Target. Well they turnout to be not as "Extra-Firm" as advertised, and in fact, like Dracula, they sucked. Big time. I tolerated them for a couple of weeks until I tired of waking up with neck pain that lasted throughout the day. It was time to bite the bullet.

I had a 20% off coupon to Bed, Bath & Beyond, and decided to take Muddleman's advice to check out their inventory. They have an overwhelming assortment of pillows, and after consulting an associate, I settled on a couple of $60 synthetic down side sleepers. And the greatest thing was that the associate assured me that if I wasn't satisfied with the pillow I could return it. How sweet is that?

I was pretty excited to give my new pillow a test run, and my initial impression was positive. It was firm and supportive, just what my neck needed over the course of the evening. Or so I thought. The problem with synthetic down is that it settles under the weight of my huge, brainy head. When I awoke in the middle of the night I could hardly move, with stabbing pain running from my right shoulder blade through the top of the back of my neck. It was so bad that I couldn't even sleep. Every time I'd move my neck screamed out in pain. So I packed up my $60 pillows and headed back to BB&B where I returned them with no questions asked.

Now I was back at square one. I knew that I needed the firmest pillow I could find, one that wouldn't sag under the weight of my head. This time I found a couple of therapeutic side sleepers for half the price. Whoo hoo! They're almost uncomfortably firm, but I think they will be fine once I break them in a bit. They give great support, and though my neck still hurts from sleeping on the other pillows, it's much better than it was. The next step is to replace our mattress, which we most likely will do courtesy of the government's recession-inspired economic stimulus package. God bless the USA!

One of Those Weeks

This past week has been a draining one, physically, mentally and emotionally. I've sat down at the keyboard countless number of times the past few days to write something, anything, but ended up staring open-mouthed, dumbfounded, at the blinking cursor, unable to think of a blasted thing to write. I think I even drooled a little bit. Either that or I have a leaky roof to fix. Great.

The main bane of my week has been work. We've been trying to install a new automation system to run most of our on-air hardware for more than a year now. This week the higher-ups decided that come hell or high water, we were going to put that system on the air. Lots of bad things happened and I spent a lot of extra time at work "training", time that I could have been Christmas shopping, hanging lights, or, oh yeah, spending time with my family. These "training" sessions consisted mostly of standing around with arms crossed, watching engineers and system techs scratch their heads in wonder as to why things weren't working combined with several choice expletives.

This was the second time I've been "trained" on this system. The first training session took place way back in February when they were working some of the bugs out of the system. That training went mostly like this: "Well if the system worked, this thingy would do this," or "Now if you encounter this problem, you would do this, if the system were up and running, that is." So basically I spent my days off in a retraining refresher course on a system that should have been up and running ten months ago. And this weekend I have been running solo on this system that was declared "functional" at approximately 5:00 pm on Friday, or quitting time for those 9 to 5er's.

At about 9:00 on Friday night, Diane called me to tell me that the van wouldn't start due to a dead battery. She was at her folk's house and her dad was able to jump start the van so she could make it home, but that meant that I was up early Saturday morning getting the battery replaced. I white knuckled it all the way to Sears Automotive Center as I watched the dashboard digital display blink on and off with every bump in the road. I made it there without incident and later discovered that my Die Hard Gold battery was still under prorated warranty (of course, I missed the full replacement warranty by two months), so I only paid $30 for the new battery. That's the best news I had all week.

And to cap it all off, this morning as I stepped out of the shower I counted no fewer than four grey hairs...on my chest. It's bad enough to have grey on my head, but my chest?

Oh, yes, there will be drinking tonight.

You Know You're Out of Shape When...

Last week the girls started practices for Fall Softball, aka Fall Ball. They practice twice a week, one practice focusing on defense, the other, on offense. Tuesday night was an offensive practice, and I decided to lend a hand. One of the coaches was pitching for batting practice, the other coach and a dad were working with pitchers, and they had set up a batting net in order conduct soft toss drills. In soft toss, the batter faces the net while a coach softly tosses the ball just slightly in front of the batter. The batter then drives the ball into the net. The drill teaches batters to maintain balance, to keep their eyes on the ball, and to reinforce proper swing mechanics. I decided to be the soft toss guy for the evening.

One by one the girls came to me to work on their swing. I would ask them what their name was, then introduced myself as Kailey and Kyra's dad, and briefly explained to them what we were going to do. I had three balls to work with. I dropped to my left knee and held up the first ball while the batter crouched into her batting stance. Then I tossed the ball, allowed the batter a few seconds to reset her stance, tossed the next ball, etc. When I had exhausted my limited supply of balls, I stood up, collected them and resumed my position on my left knee. I repeated this routine, the equivalent of a right leg lunge (that IS me in the pic, BTW), roughly one million times. By the end of practice, my shirt was soaked with sweat and I was in desperate need of a beer, er, water. It was completely insane!

Yesterday morning I almost fell to the floor while getting out of bed as my thighs and my, umm, gluteus maximus, screamed out in pain. How pathetic is that? And today the pain isn't much better. I'm a little paranoid because I think I'm walking kinda...funny, which doesn't help the situation either because in my attempt to avoid using the muscles that are hurting, I'm using OTHER muscles that I don't normally use for walking which causes THEM to hurt as well. I'm a frickin' mess! Methinks this is a bit of a wakeup call. No, not to exercise. That's too much work. I think I need to let the more in-shape mommies and daddies help out at softball practice from now on. Sorry girls.

Has It Really Been That Long?

My best friend from high school called last week to inform me that our twenty year reunion had been scheduled for the end of September. Twenty years. Ho-ly cow. I know I'm not the first person in the history of humanity to ask the question, "Where did the time go?" but it feels unique to me. I can't be twenty years older. My body may feel the effects of nearly 40 years on earth, but in my mind I'm still a spry 25.

I haven't attended any of my previous reunions for various reasons. Either the timing was bad, I had a conflict in scheduling, or was simply disinterested. But there's something different about the twenty year reunion, and I've experienced a change in attitude. I recently reconnected with my best friend from high school after over ten years, and we've kept in good contact since then. Now I'm genuinely interested in returning home and catching up with several of my classmates. Perhaps that's the difference between being 25 and nearly 40. The 25 year-old is in process of establishing himself in life and is inwardly focused, while the 40 year-old has gained a little more perspective and is more able to see the big picture, focusing on things that are truly important like friends and family. At least I hope this is the case.

I don't think I'm going to be able to attend my 20 year reunion, and for the first time in my high school reunion history, I'm bummed. We already have vacation planned the week before, and I'm not sure that I can swing the tight turnaround. I'm looking into the options, but it's not looking good. It sounds like things fell through the cracks in the organization of the 20 year reunion, but should be more in line for the 25 year, so perhaps we'll shoot for that.

It's Nothing...Just an Old Dusting Injury

I'm getting old, and getting old sucks. Every day it seems I wake up with a new pain somewhere in my body and I'm not even 40 yet. And I hear that it only goes down hill from here on out. Great.

I've struggled with lower back pain for the past couple of years, and the only way I've been able to keep it relatively in check is to keep active. Sounds weird, but it's true. The more I move, play, workout, the better it feels. The longer I sit or lay down, the harder it is to get up, and I take on the appearance of an eighty year-old man.

Yesterday morning, I woke up with a new back pain: a little tweak right in the middle of my back, nothing major. I eased myself out of bed and into the morning routine...coffee, breakfast for the girls, and breakfast for myself. I then engaged in some of the domestic activities of the day. I started out dusting as it was getting pretty thick around the house. I was going to follow that up with vacuuming and then head outside to mow the lawn.

I didn't get very far. I finished dusting the piano in the living room when I grabbed the piano bench and attempted to lift/slide it back into position. WHAM!! That little tweak in the middle of my back exploded, leaving me flat on my face on the floor, writhing in pain. And no matter how I moved, I couldn't find a position that was void of pain. So I'm laying there moaning and gasping for breath because breathing hurt, and wondering if I was going to die right there on the spot. After what seemed like an eternity, the pain subsided enough to where I could sit up. I had a hard time standing, though, because I couldn't lift my arms to support my weight. I spent several more minutes kneeling on the living room floor, which was convenient because I spent that time praying to God for the pain to go away.

It didn't, but Kyra did eventually wander by and I enlisted her help...to finish dusting the living room. I couldn't leave the job unfinished. After much pain on my part, we did finish the job and I retired to the comfort of a heating pad for the rest of the morning. Vacuuming and mowing would have to wait. I'm going to have to come up with a better story, though, because when people see me doubled over like the Hunchback of Notre Dame and ask me what happened, they're probably going to be quite amused to hear my less-than-manly explanation that I injured myself dusting.

Use It or Lose It

All my life I've had a tendency to take the more difficult route in learning life's lessons: pull-ups on the clothes bar in your closet is not a good idea; flipping someone off in front of your history teacher will draw you a little time in detention; stealing the lids to the brand new garbage cans in order to play Knights of the Round Table will get you chased down by your mother; and peeing directly into the wind...well, you get the idea. Granted, these are all examples from my childhood and early adolescence, but trust me when I say that the process has followed me into my adult life. I've heard my most recent life lesson expressed thousands of times, but for me, lessons just never seem to sink in and take hold until I experience them first hand. And the lesson is this: use it or lose it.

Last week, a friend of mine informed me of the American Idol Songwriting Contest and invited me to submit a song. I guess another lesson I should learn is always see what you're up against before agreeing to do something. Since I was feeling cocky over completing my first song in three years, I took on the challenge. That was a week ago, Tuesday. The next day, a thought occurred to me: I wonder when the contest deadline is? I looked it up and my jaw dropped: April 17th, tax day. I had one week. Game over. Not gonna happen. I was already in the process of putting in twenty hours of overtime at work, and my taxes still weren't done. How in the world would I write and record a song in seven days?

Although the cards seemed to be stacked against me, I decided not to pack it in. I mean, I still had seven days, right? Actually, six. I spent Wednesday getting our taxes done. At some point, I don't remember exactly when, a concept came to mind that I thought I could run with, and I spent the next several days jotting down ideas and experimenting with rhyme schemes. I also pulled out my guitar and played around with several chord progressions until I settled on one I liked. After filling several pages with my scribbles, I finally sat down Monday morning to organize to my thoughts. I worked for about an hour and made significant progress, but that was the only free time I had. I entered Tuesday the 17th, deadline day, with an incomplete song.

I figured I had maybe two hours on Tuesday to finish, then record a demo of the song. HA! I pulled my Fostex MR-8 digital multitracker, and it's user manual, out of the drawer that housed it for the past year, and blew off the dust. Kyra was excited because she likes to put on the headphones and sing into the microphone while I accompany her on guitar. To her, this was playtime. To me, it was time to get everything set up so that when I took her to school, I could get down to business. We played for about an hour, taking turns singing songs. I love playing the guitar and having the girls make up tunes and lyrics on the fly. More often than not, they come up with some good stuff. I've been tempted to use some of it, giving them credit, of course.

I took Kyra to school, then went to work. I pulled out my guitar to lay down the guitar track to my demo. Remember, I didn't have a finished song yet. I thought I'd lay down the accompaniment track and then fashion the lyrics and melody to fit. After about ten false starts, I finally laid down an acceptable track. It was only a demo, after all, and I had already given in to the idea that whatever I presented was not going to be perfect. I just didn't have the time and I was OK with that. I recued the track to listen to it, but there was nothing there. Silence. What the crap! I forwarded through the track and found the beginning, roughly a minute in. Since I hadn't used the recorder in such a long time, I forgot to recue it after all of those false starts. Oh well, at least it was there.

I turned my attention to the lyrics, and after massaging them for close to an hour, I came to something I could live with (by American Idol standards, anyway). I then began to rehearse them with the guitar track I recorded earlier. This was the first time that I would attempt to sing the song in my full, head voice. As I was writing the song, I would rehearse it in a light falsetto that was usually audible only to myself. As soon as I sang the first verse, I knew I was in trouble: the key I had written the song in was too high for me to sing comfortably. Crrrrrrrrap! It wasn't always this way. I used to be able to sing up in the rafters with little or no problem, but since I haven't really used my voice consistently over the past few years, I've gotten a little rusty. OK, a LOT rusty. Life lesson? If you don't use it, you lose it. I got it.

Normally, I would say "No problem" and just transpose the song into a lower key, but I couldn't do that because my guitar is jacked up. It buzzes when I play certain chords, which is the reason I wrote the song in the key of E...no buzzing. So I was stuck. I also realized that the song was too long. If I was going to gut out the song in the key of E, I was going to have to shorten it, which meant re-recording the guitar track. What the CRAP!!

By this time, Diane was home from work and the girls were home from school. My "two hour project" was stretching to four hours and beyond. I recorded the guitar track over, this time with only a couple of restarts and recues, and then moved on to my vocals. I figured I'd give it one run through and be done with it, but I screwed up the first verse. I hit the "Undo" button which was only supposed to delete my vocals, but it also erased the intro of the guitar part. MOTHER PUS-BUCKET!! WHAAAAT THE CRAAAAAAP!! I was furious. It was late afternoon, I had been working on this song for most of the day and had nothing to show for it. I'd had enough and was ready to pack it in.

"Don't quit," Diane admonished. She assured me that she would keep the girls busy and gave me the green light to finish the job, so I returned to my makeshift recording studio. I laid down the guitar track AGAIN and quickly moved to the vocals. I practiced them a couple of times to warm up my voice and to ensure no screw ups, then hit "Record". I got through the first verse fine, but began to struggle at the end of the 1st chorus. Verse 2 was OK, but I was outright hurting by the end of the chorus. I mustered all of my strength to get through the bridge, but by the final chorus, I was flat out croaking the melody. It wasn't pretty. "It's a demo. It's a demo. It's a demo," I kept telling myself as I finished the song. Only later did it occur to me that I could have recorded the vocals in sections, taking a breather to rest my voice. But I wanted it done, and I got it done.

I walked into the kitchen where Diane and the girls sat at the table, grinning. Kyra had her hands over her ears, Kailey mimicked me singing, and Diane asked me if I was OK, all of them basically busting my balls. "It's not pretty, but I'm done," I replied. Not really. It took me another couple of hours to read the manual, then go through the long and tedious process of converting the tracks to a stereo .WAV file, uploading the .WAV file to my computer, converting the .WAV file to an .MP3 file, and submitting it to the Idol contest. But I eventually got it done and I was exhausted. And even though I got it done, it felt like I had wasted the day.

Lesson learned? Use it or lose it. If I used my multitracker more often, I'd know the ins and outs and not have to rely so heavily on the user's manual.

Use it or lose it. If I sang more regularly, I'd maintain some of my range. Granted, getting older will suck some of that range from me, but still.

Use it or lose it. If I'd write more regularly, I might have had a song already in the can that I could have tweaked/submitted instead of killing myself to write and record a whole new song.

Use it or lose it. Lesson learned? Probably not.

The Vanity of Man

The Good Book tells us that a woman's hair is her glory (whatever that means), and I can't help but think that it's a good thing the Good Lord didn't waste that glory on men because most of it would end up in the bathroom sink or down the shower drain. Like the 80's hair band, Cinderella, prophesied: "You don't know whatcha got 'til it's gone!" Amen.

My hairline has slowly been receding over the past several years, and truth be known, it really hasn't bothered me all that much, which is surprising. My dad is bald, his dad was bald, and his dad's dad was bald. Hell, even my younger brother is bald. Compared to them, I have a beautiful, lush, full head of hair. Over the past year, though, it seems that the desert has been sprinting into the grasslands. It sucks, but I've always resolved that when my hair became too thin, I'd shave it all down. I'm not there yet, but the day may come in the not-too-distant future if the thinning continues at its current rate.

I mentioned this to my sister-in-law who was in town this past weekend. She's a color technician for a hoity-toity salon in the Seattle area, and she immediately replied, "I need to hook you up with some Nioxin! We've had several customers tell us that it works to stop the hair from falling out. Rogaine didn't work for people because it was too high-maintenance, having to use it two to three times a day. Nioxin is a once a day application." She was really excited about it, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I had nothing to lose except more hair, right?

Two days ago she walked in the door after visiting the local beauty supply store with a large smirky-smile on her face. "I got you a present!" she sang as she handed me my Nioxin starter kit ("For Fine Hair"). In it were three bottles: a shampoo, a conditioner, and a small "Scalp Treatment" bottle with an ominous applicator. I flipped the box over to read the back as Debbie gave me instructions on how to apply the Scalp Treatment. I nearly choked on my own spit as I read the following glowing endorsement on the back of the box: "Consumers told us...9 out of 10 people perceive a THICKENING EFFECT." Perceive? Thickening EFFECT? What the hell is that?!! And just how desperate are these people who are using this product. I can see them now, nose to the mirror, staring at their hair follicles and looking for the slightest signs of movement. Hey everyone, I think this stuff is really working!! I'm suddenly aware of a thicker head of hair!

I decided to set my cynicism aside and give the Nioxin a try; it was a gift after all. Besides, I also decided that I could fit in nicely with that random sampling of desperate, follically-challenged Americans willing to shred every ounce of dignity to "perceive" a thickening "effect" within their head of hair. I guess if you want something bad enough, and if the fix makes you feel good enough about yourself, the mind can trick you into thinking anything is OK. I mean, look at all the guys wandering around wearing horrendous toupees. Everyone in the world knows how ridiculous they look, but they still wear their rugs with pride because they (were tricked by their minds) feel better about themselves sporting a full head of Chia-pet hair than they would going bald. I figure if these guys can exist in the world, it's not going to kill me to spend a few weeks boosting my self-esteem with Nioxin. That'll at least give my brain some lead time to do whatever it needs to do in order to give me the perception that this stuff works and to further instill in me the need to fork over serious loads of cash for the rest of my life in a vain attempt to preserve my luxurious locks.

Yesterday morning, I set out on the maiden voyage of Nioxin. I applied the shampoo and conditioner, which cleared my sinuses with their minty-menthol-mediciny aroma. I could just see my co-workers walking by me with their noses wrinkled upward and asking, "What is that smell?" Just another deposit on your way to glorious hair, mediciny though it may smell. The directions on the conditioner said to leave it on for one to three minutes. I lasted a minute because I couldn't help but think that the tingling, slightly burning sensation was the result of mind-altering chemicals seeping into my brain. I counted to sixty and rinsed for my life.

After my shower, it was on to the Scalp Treatment, which needed to be applied to my wet head. I turned the bottle over and read the directions for the thousandth time: "Use daily. Apply directly onto ENTIRE scalp. Gently and evenly distribute. Comb through. Do not rinse. May cause temporary redness after application." I combined this information with Debbie's instructions, took a deep breath and like a psycho playing Russian Roulette, I pressed the applicator to my hairline and pulled the trigger. Now I was expecting a kind of a foam to emerge from the applicator. Don't ask me why. Nobody told me it was a foam. The bottle didn't even say it was a foam. I suppose I just assumed that that fancy looking applicator was a foam dispenser. So you can imagine my surprise when I pushed down on the applicator to discover it was nothing more than a spray pump and that the Scalp Treatment was a liquid and not a foam. And since gravity still works, the liquid that I sprayed at my hairline cascaded down my forehead toward my eyes. "HOLY CRAP!!" I think I screamed as I stemmed the flow then furiously rubbed (rather than "Gently and evenly distribute") the remainder into my scalp.

I repeated this process at least three more times and no matter what I did to try to avoid it, the result was still the same: a steady stream of Nioxin flowing down my vast expanse of forehead. I finally gave up (or wised up) and squirted the crap into my hand. That was when the "temporary redness" showed up. It wouldn't have been bad if my whole forehead was red. Instead I had a network of thin and widening red streaks from my hairline to my eyebrows, and I looked like an idiot with a really bad sunburn. "I can't go out like this!" I told myself. I was planning on running errands while the girls were in school, but those were put on hold while I waited for the temporary redness to subside. After a half-hour of temporary redness, I decided I couldn't wait any longer and threw on a hat, with little fingers of redness still poking out from under it, and headed out the door.

A traumatic experience? Enough to scare me off of Nioxin for eternity? No way, Jose. Because this morning after I woke up and stumbled into the bathroom, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Shocked, I peered at my hairline, and, crazy as it sounds, I swear by all that is holy and good that I perceived a thickening effect in my hair. And that's all I need.

Why Do I Even Bother?

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I'm building a super-freeway. It's really great...as of now it has ten lanes, all one-way, of course, so there's room for everyone. As I get older, I'll just keep adding lanes so there will be no traffic jams, just free-flowing traffic straight to hell.

I recently read my list of "resolutions" for 2006. They were truly inspiring and not overly-ambitious. I categorized several of areas in my life in which I desired improvement, things like family, work, finances, etc, and I listed one or two goals under each category. It was awesome. 2006 was going to be the best year ever. Except I accomplished exactly none of my goals. Oops.

So this year I am again tempted to resurrect the list. But why? Why should I torture myself again? Why should I waste my time? Because, dear reader, that's what I do best. So here I go again, putting together my list of resolutions and goals for 2007. I'll keep you posted on the progress. Like you care.

My Profile Pic

Last night while at (looks to the left, then to the right)...work...I updated some of the things on this blog, and my co-worker saw my profile pic. "IS THAT YOU? That can't be you. I mean it looks like you, but it doesn't LOOK like you...you know what I mean?"

I knew what he meant. My profile pic DOESN'T look like me, while still looking like me. I love this picture for many reasons: first, and most of all, because Kyra, my 5 year-old, took it. Not too shabby. We were at my in-laws celebrating a birthday when she popped up in front of me and yelled, "Say cheese!" Instead, I hammed it up for the camera. I gave her a goofy, annoyed look and the rest is history.

Look more closely. My eyes look tired. There's a hint of a five o'clock shadow above my lip and on my chin. The hair that continues to recede rapidly from my forehead now grows in my eyebrows, ears, nose...and back. Sick? Tell me about it! The bangs on my forehead are the last refuge. They are my last vain attempt to cover the ever-expanding desert frontier that is my forehead. It is not a comb-over. My bangs fall freely across my forehead, and the day that they fail to provide adequate coverage, I will shave it all off. Just like my dad. Just like my YOUNGER brother. Sorry bro.

My bushy right eyebrow is raised in its increasingly familiar "What do you think you're doing?" position, which, by the way, is not limited to my time at home. It makes frequent appearances at (looks to the right, then to the left)...work. My mouth is shaped in more of a grimace. That definitely happens more at work where this look becomes my "What the hell do you think are you doing?" face.

I love this picture because I know I'm being silly, but I look a little worn and annoyed. I'm posing for this picture, but it's different from my normal smiley-happy pose. It accurately reflects how I feel more and more often, even though I don't allow those feelings to reign supreme in my life. It is the perfect picture for this blog.