The Future is There's

The following was scrawled - presumably by a 6th grader - on the MetroRail crossing guard down the street from our house.


When American kids are falling behind the rest of the industrialized world in math and science, it's sad.

When our middle schoolers can't lob an insult without scoring an own-goal, it's probably not a bad idea to start stocking up on bottled water, canned peas and ammunition.

Drank Up, Kids

Here's an interestingly sad piece of trash I found several days ago down the street from the middling middle school across from our house.


There's a new canned drink in town called "Lean," which is branded to emulate the purple-hued mixture of Sprite along with codeine and promethazine-laden prescription cough syrup that first came to prominence as a lifestyle acoutrement in the chopped and screwed wing of Houston's hip hop scene. The mixture was implicated in the deaths of both DJ Screw and Pimp C.


The text on the side of the can makes it clear that Lean is being marketed to "sippers of all ages." I don't have an problem with adults using recreational drugs so long as they don't drive, steal or pee on my lawn, but selling this faux-syrup to kids is the worst kind of cynical bottom-feeding.

Moreover, one of the "pharmaceutical grade herbs" contained in Lean is valerian root, which I take in small quantities to go to sleep at night. Melatonin and rose hips are also included. If that's the kind of buzz kids are looking for these days, they'd be better off in the vitamins and supplements aisle.

A Weekend in Waiting

Our baby boy's Feb. 16 due date is fast approaching. More than a few friends have said they have a feeling he will be born early. That could very well be the case if he takes after Kate. If he takes after me, he'll probably arrive late, but not too late.

Regardless, I've been treating the last few days as though he'll show up this weekend just to make sure the critical tasks are well in hand if Kate suddenly says it's time to go to the hospital. Some part of me thinks the thing to do in the final days of pre-fatherhood is to gorge on garbage food, see a lot of violent and/or sexually gratuitous movies and cram in as many domestic beer-drenched rock shows as I can.

But then I look at the yard or the shower stall and realize our soon-to-be harried home life will be marginally less harried if I get those things into some semblance of shape before the baby comes. I've never been much for housekeeping, but when I think about not being able to readily devote a large chunk of time to it for months and months, it makes me want to try and start off with as clean a slate as possible.

When SWAT came a-callin'

It's been a crazy day here in the soul-crushing, pedestrian-hostile North Dallas suburb of Addison. I got no sleep last night, which left me less than fully charged for a full slate of Texas HIV/STD Community Planning Group meetings.

Just as we were wrapping up, I checked the web to see what was going on back home and found out there was a SWAT team standoff on our block. I immediately called Kate and she rushed home from work only to find our street blocked off by an army of APD officers and vehicles.

Fortunately for everyone, the standoff (which, as it turned out, wasn't actually a standoff at all) ended peacefully and without injury around 5:30. The bomb squad truck drove away and Kate was allowed by the authorities to go home and use the bathroom. Good thing it didn't drag on any longer because denying a pregnant lady restroom rights could've easily spiraled into Dog Day Afternoon.

I've got a tiger by the tail

I've long resisted the urge to lower this ol' blog's discourse with indulgent kitty porn, but since I'm combining it with a Buck Owens song reference, I think I'll skate on a technicality this time.

Crime watch

Kate and I were walking around the neighborhood around 9pm last night when we heard a bunch of sirens screaming by. It turns out there had been a fatal shooting on the other side of the railroad tracks.

This is the second murder we've had in our area this summer. Both have occurred near slummy, run-down apartment complexes that dot the neighborhood. It's a bad situation that seems to be worsening along with the economy.

Hopefully APD can step up their presence and weed out the criminal element so the people who live even closer to it than we do can rest easy at night.

Nothing to Look at Here, Folks

Yesterday's big standoff ended peacefully just before 11 p.m. last night. That was good timing. I wasn't looking forward to attempting sleep against the den of a circling helicopter.

Sunday Morning Standoff

Another day, another police standoff around the corner from our house.

APD isn't divulging the exact address at this time, but Kate says they're using the Ross Dress for Less parking lot on Burnet Rd. as a staging area, which is too close for comfort in any case.

UPDATE (7:32pm): The standoff continues. Apparently, a felonious burglary suspect is holed up in a duplex on Pinedale Cove because he didn't want to go to jail again. It was the top story on KEYE's 6pm news. The police copter they reference has landed in the field across the street.

Wooten Elementary Locked Down

The elementary school that bears my neighborhood's name was put on lockdown this afternoon because of a nearby burglary. Neighbors reported several men were walking down Gault Street with weapons. Police suspected there was a man holed up in a house with a weapon, so the school was locked down as a precaution. Four people were ultimately arrested and charged with burglary of a residence.

I haven't looked up APD crime statistics for Wooten in a while, but there has definitely been an uptick in property crimes reported on the neighborhood newsgroup over the last several weeks.

I Don't Like Mondays (Or Tuesdays)

I've recently developed a well-timed morning routine in which I turn on the shower and then spend two minutes brushing my teeth while the water gets warm.

This morning, much to my chagrin, the water was still cold when I finished brushing. I waited another minute or so and the temperature failed to change appreciably. As valuable commuting seconds ticked away, I finally had no choice but to jump in the cold shower and quickly wash my body in befuddled anger.

Upon finishing, I beckoned Kate and asked her if she'd had hot water. There was no problem on her end. My mind immediately jumped back to my months-long shower debacle and I began to panic. My face contorted into a scowl and I informed Kate in a breathless, clipped tone that I'd probably have to move my man-gear back into the main bathroom she uses for lack of warm water in mine. It wasn't even 8am and the entire day was now a great big pile of misfortune.

As it turns out, I was turning the wrong knob. It never even occurred to me to try turning the other knob. I just assumed the hot water on my shower was broken.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the same brain I use to operate a two-ton motor vehicle each and every weekday morning.

Shacked Up

Kate moved in with me yesterday. Actually we've been living together for a couple of weeks, but yesterday was when the movers brought in all the big stuff.

Once everything was put away, we celebrated our sinful living arrangement with a bone-chilling dip at Barton Springs. Take that, Satan!

Because Kate has a military-caliber ability to seek out and eliminate clutter, the house actually looks more orderly even though there are two cats and more than twice as much stuff here now. I'm not exactly sure how we did it, but everything seems to have its place.

Today our house feels way more like home than it did when it was just me living here. I couldn't be happier about that.

Shower Holds for Now

Since I divulged the details of last week's shower-related mental meltdown (that'll look good if a prospective employer decides to Google me), I suppose an update is in order.

My contractor came by last Friday and adjusted the flange around the drain. I've used the shower three times now (though those are not the only showers I've taken in the last week) and haven't noticed any more leakage. Of course, the shower didn't leak for a couple of weeks last time, too.

I'm not yet convinced the leak is really fixed, but in this particular case, I don't think my hardened veneer of cynicism is necessarily without warrant. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, though.

Six Months in a Leaky Shower

Not to put too fine a point on it, but my goddamn fucking shower is trying to kill me.

After noticing some minor leakage between the shower threshold and the floor last week, I called my contractor over to recaulk two days ago. After waiting for the caulk to cure, I climbed in the shower this morning and a large volume of water began pooling on the bathroom floor.

Having already been awake and unable to sleep since 4am, I couldn't contain the sudden rush of white hot anger I felt. I started pounding on the front door until my fists hurt and screamed profanities at the top of my lungs before collapsing in a sob-choked meltdown that morphed into a paralyzing spiral of self-loathing once my girlfriend left for work. This is roughly the same reaction I would've had to adversity when I was four. It made me feel undignified, unmasculine, immature, scared, ashamed and more than a little crazy.

Not wanting to chance a repeat performance in public, I took a few hours of leave and embarked on what must've been a very wooden and deranged-looking walk about the neighborhood to calm myself down. A retired lady walking her dog eyeballed me suspiciously from the opposite end of the street, but then an older man with a T-shirt reading, "When in doubt, sing loud" greeted me warmly. I'm grateful to that man and his T-shirt for steering me back toward the living. The walk worked just enough for me to make it through the rest of the workday.

Nevertheless, my mind was literally reeling as I tried to focus on my work. It was like being high and not in a good way. I felt dizzy, like I'd been strapped upside down in a flight simulator for too long.

I know the leaking shower is just a mundane household nightmare with an end point, but that point is nowhere in sight. Besides, my anger over the shower is only a metaphor for how I feel about all my perceived inadequacies. I thought I was starting to get a step up on my crisis in confidence, but today's outburst just washed it all away. All I can do now is start rebuilding.

Shower Power!

I believe my shower woes are over! My contractor completed the job this afternoon. The second bathroom is fully back in business after a five-month hiatus.

There have been no more shower leaks since the gap between the shower pan and the threshold was properly caulked. In addition, the whole bathroom looks better because he installed trim around the paneling. I'm thinking I might paint it once I get a free weekend.

Shower of Shit

Almost five months after my shower first started leaking, I climbed in my $2,500 rebuilt shower for the first time this morning and it started leaking right where the old one leaked.

I lost my shit upon discovering the water pooling on the bathroom floor. I pounded my fists on the chest of drawers and bellowed out a fusillade of fuck-laden invective. I’m not proud of my inability to manage anger in such situations, but my current state of sleep and confidence deprivation was bound to allow an outburst to slip through sooner or later.

The contractor is coming by this afternoon to look at it and try to figure out what’s going on. Apparently it worked fine when they were testing it. If he can’t figure it out, I suppose I’ll have to find someone who can, which is a daunting prospect on many levels. Who knows when the goddamn thing will be fixed?

Of course my anger over this goes way beyond the rather mundane pain in the ass of not having a working second bathroom I don’t really need. Getting the shower fixed was one tiny aspect of my anxiety flare-up that was about to be resolved. Now it’s not and that’s what pisses me off more than anything.

UPDATE: My contractor came by and he thinks the problem was a missing layer of caulk between the shower pan and the threshold. I hope he's right, but I'll have to wait for the caulk to dry to know.

Gone Daddy Gone

I live across the street from a middle school, which means I have to contend with lots of school-related litter in my yard.

Mostly it's empty cans, candy wrappers, ice cream sticks and wadded up worksheets.

It gets to be a real pain in the ass to have to pick up all this crap every day.

But every once in a while, I find something wonderful...

Tree with All the Trimmings

This past weekend, I ended my self-imposed two-year sabbatical on Christmas trees with a vengeance. Kate and I picked out this six-foot Douglas fir and decorated it Saturday night to the strains of Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas and Phil Spector's A Christmas Gift for You.

I'd planned to put the tree near my front door, but it was too wide and unwieldy to fit there. Instead we placed it in the converted garage den, or as I call it, the Rompus Room. Hopefully I won't accidentally kick it over while singing along with Van Halen's first album.

The other good thing about this year's tree placement is that it's further away from my bedroom. I used to have bad dreams about Christmas trees coming to life and attacking me.

Goddamn Shower Pan

That's right, folks. I have just asked God to damn my shower pan, for it has failed me by leaking all over and under my bathroom floor, as well as through the exterior wall of my home.

Because the base of my shower is made of fiberglass, they're probably going to have to rip-and-replace instead of repairing it. I'm told there may even be a jackhammer involved.

Anytime someone has to bring a jackhammer into your bathroom, invoking the lord's wrath can no longer be considered to be an act of vanity.

The Guest Room

For nearly three months, the guest room of my new home sat empty and unfurnished except for the obscene amount of vinyl I've crammed in the closet.

That all changed this weekend, courtesy of my folks and my Uncle Mark. They brought an old family dresser up from Houston in Mark's truck and went one better by picking up my new guest bed. Then we all had barbecue and ice cream.

I spent Saturday night buying linens, which may be the lowest-key thing I've done on a Saturday night since 1980.