…or maybe i kinda dragged her back in kicking and screaming. could go either way. anywho, she’s now married, with a kid and a career. fifteen years ago she was a care-free college student with tons of brains, ambition, and potential. she’s utilized all of the above to get a nice house, a family life, and a career. nicely done, from where i’m sitting.

if it makes you happy, it can’t be that bad…or so sheryl crow tells me.

meanwhile, fifteen years ago i was a loud, obnoxious guy with tons of brains and wit, little ambition, and completely sure that my chosen field (radio) would take care of me even though at the time it was a really cool job with frighteningly low pay (i was paid $5 an hour for anybody who cares, and this was in 1995). fast forward my life to today and i’m STILL a loud, obnoxious, anything BUT attractive guy with tons of brains and wit, a little more ambition, and completely sure that i would rather sell fruit by the side of the road than ever work in corporate america again…or something like that.

basically, the whole situation has made me happy she’s back around (against her will or not, damn it!) and more than a little bit introspective. so, thanks to all that, i bring you…

six things that back when i was twenty-five i figured i woulda done by the time i was forty but with less than a year to go it doesn’t look like it’s happening…

(not to be confused with six things i WANT to do before i’m forty, like “set foot on irish soil” and “buy a harley” and shit like that…and it should be noted these aren’t in any particular order)

1. be world famous – now, one could argue with this site getting over six hundred average hits a day every month from every continent on the planet (save for antarctica) that i’ve slightly accomplished this, but i saw it being in radio…than i noticed that while maybe a quarter of my friends did radio full time and nothing else (some of which had loaded parents) the bulk of them had to take second jobs or share a house to make things work. i’ve never had a roommate and never will, so this woulda driven me batshit…

2. i’d be divorced – i’ve always said i’ll never get divorced ’cause i’ll be super choosy about who i marry, learn from my parent’s mistakes, etc, etc…but let’s face it, it’s more common than not in our generation to be married more than once – but given the fact you tend to lose half your shit, i don’t see this not happening yet being a BAD thing…quite the opposite, actually. and statistically me getting married after forty means i probably WILL be married only once…if at all.

3. i’d have kids – these were almost combined in number two, but i figured they needed to be addressed individually. even if i NEVER got married i figured i’d have “slipped one past the goalie” by now (sports analogy courtesy of my friend josh, who actually used the term to describe when he got his girlfriend, now wife, pregnant…). as mentioned a while back shane and i have a thousand dollar wager that i’ll hit fifty with no wife or kids (i.e. if i DO get married and have a kid i owe him a grand) at this point. he talks about getting me some uber-fertile mail-order latin bride if we start getting too close and i’m still single…but i did agree that if i got a vasectomy before i turn fifty (a distinct possibility) he doesn’t have to pay out to me when he loses…

4. i’d be out of lockhart – this is partially due to my knack for finding really cool jobs that pay very little but are fun. than i finally get one that pays well but wasn’t fun (dell) and actually looked into moving up closer to them. good thing i didn’t given how that all turned out in the modern obamaconomy, huh? but at this point i feel i’m almost TOO settled…it’s nice, and i’ll probably always own the house, but i think it might go rental after the toll road turns l-town into a commuter community for the reals and i’ll head out from there. maui? vegas? pensacola? time will tell…

5. i’d have a masters or phd – yeah, yeah, i know the argument on this…”it’s never too late”. but you remember that older annoyance when you were in college? typically female, and there for her degree now that the kids were out of the house so she can get her life back on track after having kids to early and having to give up all her ambitions for motherhood? yeah, she was the age i am NOW. i can’t be THAT guy…

6. run for the border – it’s sad, really…lived in texas my whole life, never been to mexico. why? ’cause i KNOW i’ll drink. dead on KNOW it. and when i drink, i get even more loud and obnoxious most of the time. the real problem? mexico doesn’t like you like that – especially when you don’t speak the language. i’ve avoided going to jail in america (sometimes miraculously) – i sure as fuck don’t need to do it in mexico…and, c’mon – we ALL know it’ll happen!

…i decided against the “D.J.” or “Dude Junior” name and noticed that over the course of three days of hanging out a lot i just kept referring to him as “little dude”, so to give some street cred to the guy i’m going with “lil’ dude”.

and there we are.

so i’m running on sleep dep today. one thing i forgot about puppies – they don’t do well sleeping alone in the crate. just not their thing. he’s gotten better about crate time, but when it comes to sleeping he prefers my head – just like buffi used to. i figure i’ll give him the same deal…it’s all cool still he starts jumping on my head AND weighs over twenty pounds. that was when buff had to start sleeping in calum’s room…so it will go with him (but in a crate).

otherwise he seems to be integrating into the family well. and we’ll get on a new topic as of sunday…

…meet the newest member of the family, pooch numero ocho, D.J. -

only seven pounds and six weeks old, which as his THIRD owner that means he was weened WAY too young and will bond to me like i was his natural parent, which brings back calum memories (he was in the same boat when i got him). while i admit he bares an uncanny resemblance to the lucky dude (which is where “D.J.” comes from – “Dude Junior”) – so he’s in the same boat calum was when i got him, looks like lucky, and then whines loud and hard whenever i’m out of his site like copper did when she first moved in.

he’s like the whole crew rolled into one!

so, i guess enjoy him while he’s this small:

(i know my leg ain’t small but it’s not as big as his face makes it look)

’cause eventually this lil’ guy will probably top out around seventy pounds. nothing compared to harley at shane’s place, but still not small…

…a pup or not a pup. that’s the question. there’s good and bad to this – but first, a bit of back story. as most of you know, my youngest dog, lucky, died of a sudden heart attack (or so the best guess is – that or an aneurysm). well, i was perusing craigslist for jobs on friday night when i saw an ad for a “six week old american pitbull puppy – brindle.”

it was like a sign – and the pics looked he’ll just be a beefier version of lucky…at least in appearance.

after some debate and calls back and forth the guy decided that this was SUPPOSED to be my dog, and said he’d hold him till monday (today) so i could meet him and see if i wanted him…so, that’s my late afternoon plan.

the negatives:

the whole puppy thing. housebreaking. crate training. shit getting chewed up. having to watch his every move for several weeks till he gets acclimated and learns, for example, that my 1960’s era danish coffee table is NOT a chew toy.

the positives:

another dude in the house and, more importantly, somebody for copper to run around and play with. i love buffi and all, but a blind and arthritic twelve year old dog (or damn near it) doesn’t make for somebody you can run with and chase. okay, maybe in a lifetime entertainment movie…but this is real life!

re-reading those back it seems like the positives outweigh the negatives, eh?

…or so i’m told. don’t know if i buy it for sure.

but here’s how it goes:

despite the variations of facial expression, each of these women is about to go through the same physical experience – can you tell what it is?

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give up?
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they’re all about to SNEEZE! what were YOU thinking? perverts…

…but this time, i get to blame the KITCHEN SINK!

about a week or so ago i noticed that when i’d turn off the sink it wouldn’t turn off. at least, not completely. i saw this as a bad thing…but what i WAS able to rig up was the “hot side”. if i tried to pull the lever DOWN it wouldn’t just drip, it would actually still run a very slow stream – but if i turned the hot water off under the sink (i rarely have dishes to do anyway) i could turn the hot side all the way on and it slowed to a very, very slow drip.

i saw this as success, but keep in mind last week was a rough one for me so i basically didn’t want to exert shit for effort.

but towards the end of this last weekend it took a turn for the worse (when it rains, it pours, i suppose) and the “hot side” trick no longer worked…so monday i had to shut off all the water to the sink, which only REALLY inconveniences me when i have to get water for the girls (which is the new term for “the pups” as only buffi and copper, the two girls, are left) but tuesday was la tina’s birthday and a happy hour was in order so i used that as a reason to run to lowe’s and drop a bill on a nice brushed nickel faucet with produce squirter and the hoses to connect it all together since i KNEW the old copper pipes could probably stand replacing anyway.

the next day (yesterday) i started on the project. fearing the water pipes were gonna be the biggest chore i gave ‘em a go with an adjustable wrench, and while i didn’t COMPLETELY disconnect them i did get them only finger tight and they seem to play nice (time will tell – keep reading). realizing i was doing this in the wrong order i took a turn at the two anchor bolts that hold the faucet in place. first one started to loosen with a socket set, but the angle was awkward and towards the end there i had to get up under the sink on my back, and while dropping little rusty bits of metal into my face and eyes (ouch) get that bolt off.

on the upside the “finger tight only” water hoses had a very slow, but very cold, drip on my forehead, so that was at least a bit refreshing…

i crawled out from under to get some fresh air and reached around sink number two to feel for the second bolt – i found it, but no sooner did i do so and the nut on said bolt CRUMBLED into my hand in a pile of rusty metal…

…but it turned out only 80% of it crumbled. the remaining 20% was enough to hold the faucet firmly in place…with an emphasis on the “firmly”. while there was NOTHING left to get a grip on with a wrench or pliers, there was enough holding on that i couldn’t force it through – even a crowbar gently, but firmly, applied on the sink side cracked the actual faucet in two, but the half that was FIRMLY bolted in place stayed FIRMLY bolted in place.

well, fuck.

so, i borrowed a dremmel tool from a buddy of mine and planned on fixing this bitch so the bit had a happy ending – but i need to go by cutting discs and i am SO not in the mood to deal with “the people of wal-mart” tonight, so it’ll wait till tomorrow morning when i hit the gym as wallyworld is across from the gym any way.

so, there we are – here’s to hoping sparks from cutting metal don’t catch the bare wall insulation behind the sink a’blaze and burn the house down.

wish me luck…

…so, let’s giggle a bit with some funny shit. first off, where i was LAST tuesday:

we’ll start with this, which i took at the bar of sean pat’s at some point that evening AND decided it needed to be my FB profile pic, which it sat as for damn near a week. a pint of smithwick’s and an irish car bomb. had a round for me, a round for a friend who couldn’t make it, and a round in the lucky dude’s honor (which was totally his fault for not only dying earlier than he needed to, but doing so the day BEFORE st. practice day). that was dinner. but here’s where it got sad the next morning for me (“sad” more in the “pathetic” sense rather than the “depressing” sense):

a few things should be noted here – while it does say “4pm bar” and then shows me cashing out at “5:34″ i was NOT there an hour and a half. keep in mind i WAS solo, and not even my imagination can keep me mentally preoccupied in a bar for ninety minutes unless UFC is on – but the notable on the receipt is the patron name: “REGULARGUY”. the bartender wasn’t there when i started and the waitress apparently knew me, but not well enough to know my name…so i got to be the “REGULARGUY” on their all day happy hour day. why do i feel that speaks volumes about me?

moving on…i got this sent in an email from a friend (who, ironically, is a social worker at a hospital/nursing home facility) and thought it was brilliant:

The New Plan

The “criminals” would get cold food, be left all alone and unsupervised, lights off at 8pm, and showers once a week. Live in a tiny room, and pay $5000.00 per month and have no hope of ever getting out. Justice for all.

not bad, eh? so, let’s end this bitch on a sticker than pretty much sums up the next couple days for me:

…but hell, i added my own captions. and if you hadn’t seen ‘em, they are kinda funny – the six best homeless signs (according to a dog groomer in seguin, texas – which i’m still trying to figure out how she got my email address…)

what’s sad is that DESPITE britt’s success (still blows me away her private school girl attire from the ‘hit me baby one more time’ video is placed in a display case next to hendrix’s monterrey outfit at the hard rock in vegas) there’s enough of a white trash element to the event that this guy MIGHT have actually been on the guest list. just sayin’. can’t rule it out.

the first of a few geeky homeless references – hey, at least they don’t ALL appeal to the lowest common denominator, right? my question is, if he ONLY needs the flux capacitor, why can’t he just pawn the delorean for a meal? (and yes, shane, i knew you’d appreciate seeing a dirty hippy on the street which is why i put this so high up in the countdown as this is being written on your birthday and all…)

the second geeky homeless reference – never heard about the tryst anakin skywalker had in that fucked up bar twenty years before luke met han solo there, did you? the night he and obi were doing shots? how do you think obi knew about the place? well, he made it out alive…and solo. anakin didn’t. meet luke and leia’s illegitimate half brother, larry skywalker. amazing how low you sink when people don’t just GIVE you the keys to an x-wing fighter and an R2 unit, huh?

i knew things might get ugly for this guy when they killed his character off so early in the ‘harry potter’ series, but jeesh! sad true story – i once saw a guy with a sign like this, so rather than give him beer MONEY i gave him a cold beer (i’d just left the store). a smithwick’s, to be precise. heard from a buddy a couple lights behind me that HE saw the cops writing the guy a ticket for panhandling (illegal in austin) AND an open container. oops. it’s the thought that counts, right?

if i saw this guy i’d have to give him TWO dollars – one for the creativity, and one ’cause yes, i did in fact read the sign and hence lost the bet…and did anyone notice the black flag bars tattoo on his left arm? shane wants that – might wanna re-think that plan, huh? oh well, henry rollins has ‘em and he seems to be doing okay…

and finally…

maybe not the FUNNIEST on the list, but definitely the most accurate – and in more ways than one as the obamaconomy strangles us all. sure, he didn’t CREATE it, but i haven’t seen any of that dramatic change we were promised, which his proponents point out we’re still “a bit early in the presidency”. really? two years is early? what’s three? as my buddy’s mom says (and i feel i can quote her on this knowing she didn’t vote for the man since he’s one of those “n-word people” (meant as “Nasty liberals – not the other “n-word”)) – “want in one hand…” – eh, y’all know the rest of how that goes.

…he’s our number one reader, he’s our number one commentator, and while mom was good and saintly shane is…well…NOT saintly. but a damn fine guy, who turns a year older today. i won’t say how old, but let’s just say whatever year it is, he’s still sixty-one days younger than me. and he won’t let me forget that…ever.

moving on…sorry, bud – but today i gotta return to a previous topic:

it kinda freaks me out that this little ball of life, the lucky dude, who was a friend, a son, a great puppy, and a SUPREME alarm system ran outside less than four days ago (at 6:40am on monday) and within ten minutes i was carrying (what i would later come to realize was) his lifeless body back in the house and rushing to the vet only to confirm the worst…

…monday morning, 6:40am, the picture of health – running to the door he BEAT miss copper out so he could be the first one to hit the yard. fast forward to 3:52pm thursday afternoon and i get the call that his urn (with him inside) is ready to be picked up and that they’re “open till seven”.

i couldn’t do it. i know i NEED to, and later today i probably will. but it was just too soon.

of course, this is one of the reasons their vet said he switched services on the cremation services – they’re a lot quicker. calum took two weeks. lucky only took three days – and lest you think the obvious, thanks to age and losing a limb calum barely outweighed the lucky dude by fifteen pounds by the time they both passed…it’s just that, even with cancer in the mix, calum lived to be twice as old. when he went, it hurt, but it was expected – this completely blindsided me.

no more doggy funk (as in the smell OR the “lucky dance”, that very few of you got to witness as he wouldn’t do it in front of just anybody)
no more constant whining for NO reason (okay, that part i won’t miss)
no more barking

that last one creeps me out the most. see, it wasn’t just a lucky thing – he picked it up from calum. it seems that both MALE dogs were on barking detail – the girls, not so much. so calum was announcing people’s presence from september of 1996 until his death in november of 2007. lucky started chiming in december of 2004 and kept it going till the first of this week.

now i come home to silence. the girls are here, but it’s an eerie silence. sure, i’m sure if somebody broke in there would be a ruckus…but when i just get home? like from the gym in a bit? nada…

…so, one last look and i’ll let it go:

best guess is either and aneurysm or a heart attack – the latter being more likely due to his lineage which most likely had it’s share of inbreeding (it was pretty obvious he was the runt of a pure-bred pitbull litter, possibly from a fight house, since day one – explains the muscle but lack of size, slight aggressiveness and distrust of others) and inbreeding tends to breed in heart conditions…makes you realize how fleeting life is, so i was gonna close with a quote a buddy put on his facebook page that i read bleary-eyed at 4:30 this morning (yeah, i’ve been up THAT long…it’s gonna be a long day) that said, “It never fucking ends until you do something about it.”, which i meant to describe the funk in me this inspired and, to a degree, the funk that was pre-existing before lucky even died…but then i noticed moments later he changed his status to “single” – the most common way any of us keep up with our friend’s relationship status these days…

…oops.

so, we’ll just close on “lucky dude, we miss you”

happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you…

…i’d have sung this in person, but i can’t ’cause you’re dead.

okay, to some of you that may seem a bit morbid. but with how shitty certain aspects of my life are going i just HAVE to laugh about some of the stuff other people typically wouldn’t (which, let’s face it, i tend to do any way you slice it) because otherwise, quite frankly, my life is kinda depressing. add to that today’s mission – to go under the needle about twelve hours from when this is being written to update/revise/resurrect the cross around my bellybutton.

why? three reasons on “why?”:

1. it’s becoming part of a larger piece
2. it’s eight years old needs some help in looking the part with the newer ink
3. it was done when i was 270 lbs and had a 42″ waist so now at 225 and a 35″ waist some adjustments are just needed

hopefully when all is said and done i’ll be back down a 33″ waist and more like 210, but that won’t effect it NEARLY as dramatically.

as to “why now?” (which i realize none of you asked but i’ll throw it out there anyway) it’s because the original cross was done on 2/7/2k1 – the fifth anniversary of her passing. some revisions were done here and there, and all was finalized on 2/7/2k6 – the tenth anniversary of her passing. as it’s now gonna be part of a larger piece, which i am looking to finalize on 2/7/2011 (you can do the math) i figured refreshing the cross was needed, and so i’m doing that today, when mom WOULDA turned seventy had cancer not cut her down at the age of fifty-five.

so there we are.

a bit of a somber AND joyous occasion with a little gut pain (in more than one sense of the phrase this time around) associated with it. mom would be so proud!