A Decision

I'm visiting my parents, taking a shower when I notice that there are two variations of the same brand of men's body wash sitting next to the shampoo: Revitalizing Cool, and Invigorating Clean. Apparently my brothers have minor but important differences in their choice of body washes, and now I'm left with a choice. A big choice. The consequences could reverberate the rest of the day.

Do I want to be revitalized or invigorated? I assume both products get you clean, so does that mean one gives a bonus aura of "cool"? What do I want to say later in the day when someone asks how I am? Will I be telling a beautiful woman at a bar that I'm invigorated, maybe wishing I could be saying that I was revitalized...and cool, baby.

And there's more. The invigorating brand says it's "50% more value", yet it's clearly only a third bigger than the other bottle at most. Can I dock points from a brand for lying? Will using it influence me to lie? Will they be invigorating lies?

The decision was impossible, so I did the only logical thing: I used both. So, I was invigoratingly revitalized clean and cool. That's four adjectives to start the day.

Friday Night Lights

I'm trying something new today. I'm going to post a weekend re-cap on a Friday. Why? It's the kind of outside-the-box thinking that I've been doing lately. That, and I haven't made the time to write it until now.

Anyway, last weekend was great. It didn't get off to a great start. I had to work late Friday, and I barely made the ten o'clock bus to DC. The cut-off was about two people behind me. Those unfortunates had to wait until 12:30 am for the next DC bus. I was lucky. I had a psychic in front of me.

Of course it wasn't his amazing extra-ordinary mind powers that helped(after all, he didn't anticipate Port Authority, of all places, being crowded). No, what helped was he was going to Baltimore to "unhaunt" (I assume that was a technical tearm) an old motel. So when a separate bus to Baltimore became available, off he went, and up the DC line I went. Before he left, he did give me a nugget of paranormal knowledge I feel I should pass on: usually (but not always, mind you), if there is a ghost doing some haunting, it's because that person died possessed. Before you ridicule, keep in mind this man was financed by the Sci-Fi channel and wore a t-shirt from his TV show. That's credibility, folks.

So I got into DC around three in the morning. Luckily, my father and my youngest brother(who is 19, wow) were waiting for me. I was all prepared to get my geek on the next day. Considering the festivities started at noon, I went to bed right away.

Hahaha, I'm just kidding. I hardly ever do the reasonable thing when it comes to sleep. So, after getting lit up with two of my brothers, we went outside and I spent a good half hour watching them attempting to hit one their cars with a football. It's not as dumb as it sounds. The car was parked in the street, across the yard, underneath one huge tree with another standing between them and the car. So bullet passes were out; they had to launch the ball like an artillery shell so it would clear the first tree and arc through the branches of the second. In the dark.

OK, it is as stupid as it sounds, but after ten or twelve misses(we decided halfway in that 'off a bounce' didn't count) I was really invested. Someone had to hit it. Sadly, neither one did. Oh, and during this entire spectacle, a hot waitress from the restaurant all of my brothers work at watched the entire thing. That just made it more surreal.

Eventually, I made it to bed and somehow, I manage to get up in time.

The Magic festivities were fun. My father did the best in the tournament, finishing in the money, with the rest of us scrubbing out by round five. In fact, everything was going pretty smoothly until I unleashed the "six degrees" monster.

You see, Friday night, while I was working late, my co-workers and I started playing "six degrees" with various actors. For example:

Elvis Presley to Naomi Watts
Elvis > It Happened at the World's Fair < Kurt Russell > Bird on a Wire < Goldie Hawn > Everyone Say I Love You < Julia Roberts > Closer < Jude Law > I Heart Huckabees < Naomi Watts

So we start playing this game Saturday, and everything else took a back seat. All we did was name actors and movies while our bodies kept doing other activities like eating, driving, and playing other games. At one point, in attempting to like Robin Williams to Jack Black, we kept circling back to Robin Williams. The game can get confusing.

So Sunday, I'm on my way to my brothers' baseball game, when I bring the game up. Everything is going great until my youngest brother suggests Meg Ryan to Drew Barrymore, which we don't solve before arriving at the ball field. Long story short, I place all the blame for my brother's error on a fly ball to left field on "six degrees" and his mind wondering: so wait, Meg Ryan was in...with whats her name, who was in...oh fuck the ball! They won, despite Meg Ryan.

The game was like no other I've ever been to. This was my first time at a non-high school, non-college game that didn't involve being at Camden Yards or RFK. You see, my brothers are playing in a semi-semi-pro league that has existed since 1886. There are teams in cities throughout Maryland, and these people take their baseball seriously. Lining the chain-link fences along the base-paths were throngs of old men talking trash. Serious trash:

"What the hell is wrong with you boys? You're bunch of sissy girls, the bunch of you! I'll fuck you up if you don't play some god-damned ball! I'm fifty years old and I ain't afraid of any one of ya!"

Yikes. A far cry from the -- relatively -- quiet stands of a Little League game. These guys would grind on you, and they wouldn't let up. One error, and they'd be on you the entire game. And it wasn't limited to players; umpires, coaches, opposing fans, and even the damned PA guy.

"That guy says 'last-call for lottery tickets' one more time I'll go over there and stab him! It's fixed anyway - someone from Charles County always wins! I was born on a farm, you can't put that shit over on me!"

The other weird interesting part of the league was that it was all ages. I saw a 46 year old hit a home run off of a twenty-something, and it didn't involve Julio Franco.

I was sad when the weekend had to end, and I had to get on another damn bus back to NYC. I need to find another way to travel.

Rap Brings Brothers Together

Ghostface Killah thunders from the blue car's speakers. My two younger brothers sit up front; Scott(four years younger) driving and Mike(eight years younger) beside him going through CDs. The blue car is a Saturn Ion. My entire family owns Saturns, so we differentiate them by color. Mike's car is the blue car, my mother's is the black, and Scott's is the white.

Normally we would be in the white car, but someone stole Scott's massive speakers out of the back while he was at work.

"Did you hear? Someone stole my fucking speakers, right out of the back of my car!" he says.

"How much was all that shit worth?" I ask.

"...a couple grand," he answers.

"Well...fuck."

He asks Mike to skip to the last track, "Three Bricks.", featuring the from the grave flow of the Notorious BIG. I ask Mike to instead to play the badmouthed kid skit. He chooses the latter and we all laugh at the child spewing profanities at Ghostface while he laments the perceived lack of discipline in today's children:

"That's the problem, ya'll kids don't get beat no more..."

I get Mike to play "The Champ" next, my favorite track. The fusion of lines from Rocky III and the boasts of Muhammad Ali delivered in guttural rage along side Killah's rapid-fire delivery is sick.

Mike moved into rap from metal during his last couple years of high school, though he still wears a Tool hoodie. The fact that we both own Fishscale -- though I bought it from Best Buy like a sucker -- is comforting. To say nothing of the nearly decade age gap it bridges, to me it shows that I haven't completely shed my connections with them and the old neighborhood. Or at least I hope it does. I've always had the sneaking feeling my brothers suspect that since I left PG County to live in relatively quiet Towson, then Foggy Bottom and now Columbia Heights, that I became somewhat...too highbrow for Laurel. Or that living in walking distance to Georgetown, having a real job and briefly being a married man, that I had grown up and looked back at them the way an adult might marvel at his baby pictures.

Ghostface brings me back to them, albeit with tons of obscenity.

We arrive at their gym in Bowie. Years ago when I still lived close by in Laurel, I worked out here. There was a Laurel location, but the basketball courts here are 94 feet long, like God intended.

The place hasn't changed much. The walk through the gravel parking lot; the climb up the stairs; the glass double doors; the familiarity is thick and I have to remind myself I wasn't just here yesterday. They even have my old information in their computer, and I spend a few minutes explaining to the front desk man that I don't live around here anymore, I'm just want to workout with my brothers today. Somehow, giving a former member a guest pass -- even at the absurd price of twenty dollars -- feels dirty to this man.

Catching up to Scott and Mike, I get berated for asking how much the guest pass was.

"You never ask how much," Scott says. "They might say 'fuck it' and just let you in, they don't care."

"I know, I just froze up. Technically I think I still owe them for four months back in 2002."

I have my own routine to do, so Scott and Mike go off to do their regular workout. I walk to the mat area, still in the same place. The machines are set up identically, though some are new. The walls are still lined with before and after pictures of the more persevering and disciplined members, portraits of the personal trainers, and basketball and racquet ball sign-ups.

Has nothing changed in Bowie?

It's painfully obvious one thing has when I rejoin Scott and Mike. I haven't worked out with Scott since before his stint as a Marine, and even then I considered it an accomplishment to lift the same weight, do the same amount of reps, or just to plain keep up with him since he was the athlete of the family. That was about four years ago.

Today, I find the Marines combined with his own discipline turned him into a machine. After watching him tear through an exercise, I don't even consider trying to keep up -- lightening the weight each time it's my turn. Mike does the same, though it doesn't seem to bother him at all.

"I don't think the kool-aid worked," he says.

The kool-aid is some kind of energy drink mix they took(and made me drink) before we left. It tastes like a sour version of it's namesake.

"This will get you jacked, son," Scott had said. "And this time, you won't puke."

Brothers never forget. Before a workout -- five fucking years ago -- Scott and his best friend(and current Marine) Greg coerced me into drinking a protein shake concoction of theirs. I downed the entire thing quickly, held it with a smile for a split second, promptly walked to the kitchen sink and heaved it all back up. Somehow, I still worked out that day.

Scott was right this time; I kept the entire thing down. Unlike his previous drink, this one doesn't taste like liquid feet.

Anyway, it doesn't seem to be working for Mike.

"Maybe it's because your working on four hours sleep dude," Scott says. "You stayed up all night again."

"That...could be it."

Good, two things haven't changed.

And Duke Lost Too

I was already having a good weekend Saturday. I was watching football with friends and family on my parent's brand new 46" high-def television, playing pool, snacking and just relaxing. I asked myself, can things get any better? And then, they did: my weekend achieved perfection with 1:19 to go in the Cowboys/Seahawks game.

Romo dropped the ball.

I don't usually partake in schadenfreude(no more than any other American), but I gorged on it Saturday night. The failure, the shock, the head hanging, the barely held back tears during the press conference, all of it was such a delight. I'm still half wearing the same shit-eating grin I had while I was pointing and laughing at the TV while NBC showed Romo on the bench, all alone, staring at the ground. If karma really does exist, I'm sure all of this will come back at me three fold, but I suspect the payback for laughing at multi-million dollar athletes fucking up routine plays will be having to wait an extra five minutes at Starbucks or something.

My friend Jamie wondered aloud if this was the end for Tony Romo. After all, such a confidence shattering mental lapse during the biggest play of his young career could send him into Chuck Knoblauch forever choking territory. As Jamie noted, the re-play of "The Drop" will be played during the off-season, the preseason, next season, and any playoff game where a field goal is kicked for the rest of eternity. And people will post the video on their blogs, like this:





I don't think Romo is done, however, even though all the Carrie Underwood hummers in the world will never make Romo feel better. I'm sure that won't make him turn them down, though, would you? I can just seem him now:

ROMO(driving): This just isn't helping like I thought it would. (Carrie's head pops up from under the steering wheel) I didn't say stop.

Anyway, I can't wait to see the Super Bowl on that high-def set(official motto, provided by Jamie: A picture so good, you can see Shannon Sharpe's razor burn). Everyone I know is unofficially invited.

After that, the rest of the weekend was a blur. I think I went to Best Buy to spend a gift certificate for Christmas, but who the hell knows. Romo dropped the ball, and that's all that matters.

Oh, and this(as the title of the post says):

The Holidays

I hope all of you had some good old fashioned holiday fun. My family managed to avoid the emergency room this year, so I think we are ahead in making 2007 a good year(last Christmas Eve, my youngest brother James was stricken with horrible stomach pain at the Redskins/Giants game - it turned out to be appendicitis - and we all took turns at the hospital until he returned on the 27th).

My girlfriend stayed with me up until this morning, when she left to go back to New York. It seemed we spent most of our time either at my parent's house, her mom's house, or travelling to one of those places. We did manage to get in some quality alone time somewhere in there, but the holidays sure can drain away from that.

We saw so many movies: Apocalypto, Rocky, Blood Diamond and Night At The Museum. Apocalypto was a very good adventure movie, though it has noted historical inaccuracies. It was still very well made and visually stunning. A lot has been made of the blood and gore, but it's really not that bad. Maybe people are more affected because this depicts things that have actually happened in human history, but I think that's giving people too much credit. It's because of Mel Gibson, and despite that Apocalypto isn't nearly as gruesome as Passion Of The Christ(Side Note: I first saw the trailer for this movie at a theater near 86th street on the east side of Manhattan, when I saw The Departed with my girlfriend; the audience hissed it incessantly and then booed when Mel Gibson's name appeared).

Rocky is the feel-good movie of the season. Don't listen to the naysayers, they are all cynics who still hate the Academy for giving Rocky I the Best Picture Oscar in 1975(despite the fact that the sequels did diminish the franchise, that movie deserved the Oscar - yes, even considering the other nominated movies like All The President's Men, Network, etc.) Stallone is excellent, the supporting cast is excellent, and the entire movie just feels right. People cheered when I was there. I can't remember the last time that happened at a movie I was at.

Blood Diamond is exhibit B in Leonardo DiCaprio's case for the Best Actor Oscar, with The Departed being exhibit A. In both movies, you forget that DiCaprio is playing a character. Diamond's other leading man, Djimon Hounsou, is also excellent. Maybe it was residual enthusiasm from Rocky, but when Hounsou's character finally gets some measure of revenge, I was pumping my fist.

Night At The Museum was really, really forgettable. Fun, but...eh. Everyone else seemed to really like it.

I haven't been writing much about music lately, but you can see more of my reviews at BigYawn. Specifically, my reviews of Don't You Know Who I Think I Was? the best of The Replacements, Food & Liquor by Lupe Fiasco, and Shine On by Jet. Two more reviews, of Mastodon's Blood Mountain and The Coup's Pick A Bigger Weapon, should be posted soon.

I hastily put together my official Top 10 of 2006 for BY, but I wish I could have devoted more time to it. Holiday related activities and work(which had a late holiday push) and took up most of my time the last few weeks, so the Top 10 I'll write here before the end of the year may be different than my "official" BY one. Really, there are just a few albums I wished I could have listened to more(or at all) so I could have made a better list: Once Again by John Legend, Let My People Go by Darondo, The Information by Beck, Return To Cookie Mountain by TV On The Radio, and The Greatest by Cat Power. Some of these I've had and just neglected, some were delivered to my desk just a few minutes ago. Now that I write for an established website, I should be able to get some free copies of new releases, and staying timely won't be so hard(on me and my wallet).

I spent a lot of time the last two weeks scanning old family photos, mostly Christmas related. My mother wanted a slide-show of them on a CD to show the family. I one-upped her and put it together on my MacBook and made it into a DVD instead, along with a bonus slide-show of non-Christmas family photos showing how much we have all changed(to the tune of John Legend's "It Don't Have To Change"). It was fun, and I'll admit a little tear-jerking, to spend time with all of those old photos. A lot has changed, but our love hasn't. I also put together a slide-show with photos of my late grandmother, on my mother's side, for my mom and aunt.

My family loved all of them, especially the bonus show. That felt real good after putting a lot of time and effort into picking out photos, ordering them, and finding good music to go with them.

I need a digital camera. That's my one New Year's resolution, buy a digital camera.

The Game

The game Sunday was fun, even though the Redskins lost. They lost, after going up 14-0 early, in the first game I've been to in almost twenty years. Which means, as a friend pointed out, the last time I was at a game my youngest brother James - who was sitting next to be - had yet to be born. Of course I was eight then, but that's beside the point. I was there with Scott(my other younger brother, but the oldest of the three), his girlfriend Devin, and James.

I only have a couple pictures of us tailgating:

Scott, drinking while wearing his Laguna Beach sunglasses.

James, who only slept two hours the night before(Scott, zero)

We waited for the local liquor store to open at 11 am before heading over to FedEx Field. Without a parking pass, we had to pay $30 for the privilege of parking in a nearby strip of brown office buildings and taking a Metro shuttle to the stadium. We managed to kill about half of a 30-pack of Coors Light(Scott's girlfriend's preferred beer, which does taste as if it was brewed in a mountain stream: cold, watered down dirt). In the middle of our Rocky Mountain fun, though, a man walked up and asked us:

"Are you under the influence....?"

I panicked. Was James(who is underage) drinking? Are we going to get busted?

"...OF THE REDSKINS!" he finished, producing some Redskins buttons. He asked for a donation of a couple of bucks to some charity in return, and we obliged, even if the charity was probably "The Button Guy Charity".

After this, Scott announced for at least the fourth time he really had to pee. I gave him my advice, which was to think about fucking(I read in Men's Health that this helps by blocking the urinary tract, but I could be mistaken). Since his girlfriend was right there, I didn't think it would be too hard, but it only worked for about five minutes. We set off to find him a bathroom.

Circling the brown office building(which was locked), all we could find were some small bushes surrounded by other Redskin fans. The only possibility was to run across 202 to the woods on the other side, or pee in some empty AMP and beer cans in the car. He took the second option.

James, Scott's girlfriend Devin and I surrounded the back of the SUV to prevent any peeping and Scott proceeded to fill up one tall can of AMP and half a can of beer. The AMP can was a stroke of genius; before disposing of it he loudly announced if anyone wanted anymore "AMP" before he poured it out.

On the way to catch one of the last shuttles to the stadium, we found a porta-potty just over the crest of a hill. Scott was not nearly as amused as I was.

The bus dropped us off on the opposite side from where our seats were. After a little hike to the correct gate, we split up; James and I going to our seats, Scott and Devin going to theirs.

I gave James twenty dollars to get us two hot dogs and a soda before we went to our seats. If I hadn't actually seen the lady ring the items up, I would have accused my younger brother of trying to steal from me when he gave me my change: $4. I finished the hot dog before we even got off the escalators up to the upper deck.

You can read about the actual game here.

Afterwards...well, right now I'm finding it hard to write because I keep getting up to help my roommate clean the kitchen. Every time I feel we've finished and sit down, she starts cleaning something else. She's sweeping the front room as I type this. I'll get the dust pan.

Anyway, after the game, we couldn't find the right shuttle back to the parking lot. Scott tried to get us to board the bus back to the Landover Metro, despite the fact that we didn't park at the Landover Metro. We found what we were told, by a Metro employee, was the correct bus.

The bus was packed; Scott and I stood while Devin and James sat. We traded disappointed banter and looks of dejection and fatigue. Suddenly, I had a nice kick in the shin to go with my dejectional bantering.

A drunk girl seated behind me was going on and on about her asshole boyfriend, and in between repeated exclamations of "is it me, do you understand?" to her friend, she was kicking her leg out with an exasperated sigh before bringing a hand to cover her bloodshot eyes. What followed was the most cliched conversation I've ever heard: the dying relationship pep talk. The girl's friend and the friend's boyfriend kept telling the drunk girl how strong she was, how independent she could be, and that she was too good for the asshole boyfriend. Before the bus ride was over, everyone in the back of the bus had shared knowing glances of annoyance and laughs under their breaths. Scott and I wondered if we should turn around and offer some kind of intervention in the form of an inspirational rap, or repeated slaps to the face.

After running off the bus, we realized we were in the wrong parking lot. Sure enough, there was a brown building, just not our brown building. In fact, there was nothing but brown, nondescript office buildings for as far as we could see(if you didn't count the stadium mocking us in the distance). We wandered between the buildings, crossing grass fields and hedges, ending up behind a warehouse.

We found the road to our lot at the front of the warehouse, where Scott and James also found two small pumpkins. In the middle of an asphalt parking lot, just chilling, doing whatever it is pumpkins do in the wilds of Landover business parks. Whatever that is, it couldn't have been has thrilling as the aerial ride the pumpkins took before their untimely demise a half mile before we finally found the car.

We had dinner at Outback, and there - in the usually tranquil burg of Bowie - something happened that will now forever be known as the Tabasco Incident.

After Scott and Devin went to the bathroom, I dared James to put Tabasco sauce in Devin's cosmo(because I'm an evil asshole), but he put Tabasco sauce in Scott's water(because, being related to me, James is also an evil asshole). The trap was set, and what James did when Scott got back should be in the set-up hall of fame. It should be framed and studied by spies, negotiators, and con artists.

Scott sits down, and James simply says: "H20!", to which Scott replies "H20, yeah!" and takes a HUGE gulp of water. There are no words, in English or any other language, that can accurately describe the look of horror that was on Scott's face when the taste hit him. He froze for a second, then spit the water back into the glass.

"You FUCKERS! Watch out! Watch out, see what happens when you get up!" he said, pointing his steak knife at me and James.

James' plan for me was almost as brilliant. When I returned from the bathroom my potato soup and obviously been tampered with, so I reached for a piece of bread. Luckily, one side was very, very damp from the Tabasco sauce and I didn't eat it. If he hadn't gotten greedy and soaked it, he would have fooled me too.

And that was the end of that. It was a good day.

Avec une araignée

Ah, the morning shower. I like to run the hot water for a bit before I get in, brushing my teeth and letting some steam build up. That's my perfect morning shower: hot water, steam, and a spider.

Right. By. My. Head.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see something dangling at eye level. For less than a split second, I thought I was losing my hair(the spider was dark brown, which is what dead, wet falling out blond hair would look like I guess). Then it wrangled it's legs around it's little spider sling and paused right in front of my face as if to say, "Hey, how's it going. Nice shower this morning. Whoa, calm down fella...what are you doing with that tissue paper?...you know what, I'll just be going."

It climbed back up to the ceiling, where I killed it. Sorry, it was a primitive reaction. I flushed it and still had the willies all morning.

It's a mad world.

I'm going to the Redskins game Sunday; my first at FedEx, and the first since 1987. The only thing I remember about that game was my father seemed to be some sort of giant among men(I was eight). I'm going with him again, two of my three brothers are going but they will be seated elsewhere.

Again, congrats to my friend Jamie and his new job, hope the first day is going well.

A Late Weekend Recap

Friday

A Foosball table cut my wrist up good this weekend. It looks like I tried to kill myself with a slab of concrete, skinning my wrists instead of slitting them.

I was helping my friend Jamie unload the table at his house; he's storing it for our friend Aaron who is moving to an apartment too small to handle his table. One of the sides caught my wrist when we turned it over. I didn't even notice cut for a while.

Jamie picked me up at the Greenbelt Metro, in a truck, with a small wooden table in the passenger seat. That I was expected to have in my lap for the drive back to Baltimore. Not exactly the ideal set up for having good conversation ("Sup, table bitch!"), to say anything about safety. So I shoved that fucker in the back, despite Jamie's reservations about being decapitated.

"Well, before I would have been decapitated."

"Yeah, but I was fine with that."

On the way to Baltimore, we stopped at my parents' house in Laurel. They were painting the kitchen(they means my brother Scott, which is the real reason I wanted to stop by; I hadn't seen him in at least two months). Now, the last time I saw the kitchen it was in a series of re-paints. I had misunderstood my mother's explanation on what part of the stage they were at, and I thought the color I was looking at was the old color. I said it was hideous; then she told me that was actually the color they had settled on.

"Oh...well, it's dark in here. I'm sure it will look great with all the lights on." I said this in the midst of broad daylight with a straight face.

Anyway, the room Friday night looked great. The hideous color actually looked gorgeous once it dried and was set against some white trim.

Scott seemed a little out of it; I learned later he was taking sleeping pills because he had been staying up for 40 hours at a time the past two weeks. Jamie, Scott and I admired my parents new HD TV for a while, talked some bullshit about football and I agreed to be at my parents house to watch the game with Scott and my Dad.

Jamie and I went the rest of the way to Baltimore with the table still in Jamie-decapitating position; thankfully we made it without any heads rolling. Our friend Paul met us for dinner at a nice Chinese restaurant, were we learned that Jamie and Paul were born in the year of the Monkey, and I was born in the year of the Horse. According to the calendar, I should marry a Dog. Which, according to my ex-wife's birthday, I did. The description of the year of the Dog said Dog's were known for their loyalty.

What do the Chinese know?

Afterwards, the three of us and Jamie's wife Cheryl played a fun game whose name I can't remember. It involved playing roads, castles, and churches(some with roads, and some in the middle of nowhere I guess). Paul was hyped and couldn't stop from looking at his piece before his turn and come up; I was forced to hide the box with the pieces in it.

I slept on a couch in the basement and had a dream that Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers was force feeding me the world's worst chili at the DC 101 Chili Cook Off. This reminded me I had to buy some cans of Turkey Chili Sunday when I went grocery shopping(I forgot, and I'm terrified of what dream Flea will do to me now).

Saturday

"Your face it dances and it haunts me
Your laughter's still ringing in my ears
I still find pieces of your presence here
Even after all these years"

- Colin Hay, I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You

Saturday morning I awoke to Flea's voice morphing into Jamie's. It was 10 am; time to head over to Aaron's to help him move. We stopped at McDonald's for some breakfast. The cashier in training had a unique way of handing me my change: she just stuck her open hand out, palm up - evidently expecting me to snatch it out of her hands. Jamie observed the trainer of the trainee struggling with removing his ordered milk without spilling the coffee creamers that were piled on top of the milk.

"She'd be a shitty Jenga player," he observed.

We arrived at Aaron's to find his parents, his sister and her husband were already there. Aaron raised his hands in exasperation at our time of arrival, which was curious because he must of known there was no way we would be there any earlier that 11 am on a Saturday.

Things went very smoothly. We loaded most of Aaron's stuff into a large crate for storage; the care was being picked up later and driven to a warehouse. I was completely unaware that such a service existed.

The only thing that went wrong was when Jamie, Aaron's brother-in-law Glenn and I dropped Aaron's mattress in a puddle. It was only one corner, but it was very noticeable since we dropped it right in front of Aaron, in the parking lot. Technically, Glenn lost his grip and it caused his and Jamie's end to drop. However, whenever Aaron referred to the incident again, he eyed me and Jamie exclusively. Such is family loyalty.

After the bed, Aaron's bedroom was barren save a few discarded items from his desk on the carpet. Aaron asked me to get a box from his room. It was near his closet, and next to it, out of the corner of my eye, I caught something peculiar. A flash of some familiar colors. Two pictures were partially concealed beneath a sheet of printer paper. Through the paper I could make out one of the pictures.

Me and my ex-wife, on our wedding day. Probably the last thing I expected to see while helping my friend move. She looked beautiful; I looked happy. I wish there was a word for all the sorrow, foolishness and grief I felt. Only for a second. I wiped away a few tears(thankfully I was alone), asked if I could throw them away, and that was that.

Sunday

I went over to my parent's house to watch the game. The Redskins lost 20-17 to the Bucs, and Scott, James, my father and I screamed at the TV the entire time. It was a frustrating loss.

Afterwards, I helped Scott move a couch and love seat into his girlfriend's house. He and his girlfriend both work at Outback Steakhouse; the furniture was generously donated by a regular. An older, almost sad regular who was giving three waitresses some furniture because he probably gets a thrill getting some bought attention from young, pretty girls.

Sunday night I worked on some record reviews(that hopefully you will be able to read soon), bought some songs off of iTunes(including the Mad World cover from Donnie Darko and the Gears Of War commercial).

Waterfalls

Today's weather is three kinds of shitty: wet, cold, and dark. This morning, I woke up late, realized I forgot to dry/iron clothes for work, and then spent a half hour looking for my umbrella. My search was not successful.

Surprisingly, walking to work in a steady cold rain is making me feel like I'm about to be sick. It feels like my body is glowing red at an increasing frequency, like a video game bomb about to explode(if you never played Legend of Zelda or it's many incarnations, this makes no sense, and I'm fine with that because you are obviously some kind of heathen). I'm hoping a nice hot dinner and some rest will reverse things.

My usual cold lunch was not going to cut it on a day that looked like the day before the apocalypse, so I set out to a nearby Subway for something hot and more filling. As I sat down to eat, TLC's "Waterfalls" came over the restaurant's radio.

I hadn't heard "Waterfalls" in at least seven years, possibly more. There was a brief period in 1995, however, when I heard it at least 100,000 times a week. Besides being all over the radio and MTV, my brother Scott loved that song and played it all the time. Tionne Watkins, Rozonda Thomas, and the late Lisa Lopes where in my house, my friend's houses, the family car, and even school. There was no escape. Even at Pizza Hut.

Once a week my family would eat out, and "Waterfalls" was the soundtrack to every one of those meals for at least a year. My brother would get a dollar, play "Waterfalls", something by Mariah Carey, and maybe something by Oasis, I can't remember. I, being in a defiant classic rock phase, would play "Free Bird", "Walk This Way", and "Go Your Own Way". It was always a game to see who could get their songs to play during the main part of the meal(which was pointless because the jukebox seemed to play the songs in a random order). Our waitress did compliment me on my taste in music one day, making me very happy. Which was strange since she was basically saying "You like music that people twenty to thirty years older than you enjoy, way to go!" and I was at the age when that should have been devastating. My brother(being more socially aware) picked up on it though, and it validated his musical tastes as well. What a waitress.

Anyway, today - with no sibling rivalry to give the song context - I really enjoyed the 13th greatest song of all time(according to VH1, I shit you not. What, can you name twelve songs better? Are you thinking 'Do I have to stop at twelve?'?). I probably enjoyed it 1995 too; though I would never have admitted it. Though the narrative is pretty depressing(drug killings, AIDS), it has a great hook and a memorable chorus. Plus, Chili looked killer in the video. You could eat off those abs.

The Boys

A father and his boys. I found this picture while going doing some late(by about three months) unpacking. It was taken - I think - three years ago. I don't remember whose idea it was, but all the boys of the family where asked to stand together: My younger brother Mike, me, my younger brothers Scott(the Marine) and James(in the red), and my father.

It's the only picture I have and may be the only picture that exists of all five of us together. In the three years since it was taken, Scott has left the Marines with an honorable discharge, Mike and James have both graduated from high school and gone on to college, and I've gone through a divorce.

For most of that, we weren't together. Mike and James still lived in the house we all grew up in, Scott was at various times in California and North Carolina, and I was in between places in DC. Wherever I was, I had this photograph. At one point, I had two copies; one for work, and one on my nightstand, resting on the lamp(I was always meaning to get a proper frame, but I kept forgetting).

Through the hard and hardest times, the photograph would remind me I was not alone. It was taken before my grandmother's funeral, one of the hardest. And even in the wake of grief, we managed some joy. We were all together,all four of us; and when that happens, something unspoken - that assurance of home, comfort, and belonging - takes over. It's having three best friends who will always be there; they will always have your back.

Now, instead of four boys, my parents have four men. James, the youngest, is 18, and I, the eldest, will turn 28 soon. The bonds that bridge ten years are strong, but men need more room then boys do. As boys we played, went to school, fought, cursed, and laughed with each other for what seemed like endless days. As men, the times together are shorter, and they come less and less. School, jobs, careers, and girlfriends all take up our time now. The endless days have ended.

Yet, when we get the chance to hang out, get drunk and play some video games, and fuck with each other the way only brothers do; we get to go back in time. Even if it's only for a night.

My father has one brother, and they rarely speak. That's what years, distance - life - can do. I can't imagine that happening to us, even though as of today, I haven't spoken to Scott in weeks since he moved to a new apartment in Crofton. Where do we find the time? Besides, I will see him(and the rest) at Thanksgiving. Right?

I hope that photograph is never the only reminder I have family.