More Old Pictures - London

Found it tucked in the pictures.



That's where I'd sleep when I would visit...right across the street from Kings Cross Station. It was run by a sweet old Maltese lady. She had passed away the last time I was around.

There was a Kentucky Fried Chicken around corner...and it was the setting for a very funny story involving Martha and her love of mashed potatoes...and a gigantic woman passed out on the counter.

Martha and Me

I don't remember where we were...maybe Paris.



I certainly remember where we were here. Graduation Day at Millsaps, but that's besides the point...the point is obviously Martha in that flowered dress.

Below is me...



after three hours of screwing with the scanner and finally getting the pictures on the computer...to be told by flickr that it can only upload two of a dozen photos...so instead of old pictures from London, Holland, Munich, Rome...I ended up with these two random shots.



Rome...I reckon.

enjoy

The Judgment of Parents and Children

Me and Martha have been parents now for two and half years. We're makin' it I reckon...he's healthy, we can take him out in public, people like bein' around him, he minds well. Well, at least he minds other adults...his "teachers", the lady who watches him at Church and The Sister.

He's constantly pushin' it with us...always schemin' and get's a little lippy sometimes. He's got his Moma's big, beautiful brown eyes and a stubborn streak that's force is as strong as it's origins are mysterious. :cough:

We were told that as parents we'd make mistakes...then we were told again, then again, and again. Got emails and text sayin' you will screw up...received a certified letter saying it's inevitable...some relative or close friend hired a sky writer. It was if we hadn't been raised by parents of our own :) .

I'm sure we're messin' up somewhere...not whippin' him enough I reckon. My Momma expresses regret now about every whoopin' she ever gave me, but the truth is I deserved 'em. I wasn't nearly as bad as The Sister of course, but if there was one or two that I didn't deserve...there was one or two things she didn't know about. It all evens out.

I'm not really thinkin' about parental regrets this morning though...it's too early for that anyway. It'll be years before we know just how badly we've screwed up. I'm thinking of things I should have done differently as a kid.

And not like handing my Daddy an atrocious mid-term report right after the Blues Brothers finished. I thought for sure he'd be in a better mood to take it after laughing for two hours straight...that just...that...that turned out to be a really bad idea.

I'm talking about the things I could've and should've tried to get away with like the all-ages Replacements show in the summer of 88. I was staying with my buddy for a couple of weeks in Tallahassee. We were millin' around pestering college kids in Vinyl Fever like we did most afternoons when we heard the Replacements would be playing that Friday night at the Musical Moon.

We knew we'd have to get permission but like most 15 years olds we never internalized anything...we were gonna be there. His momma was fine with it as long as my parents were. Shockingly the answer was no...they didn't want me getting a head-start hanging out in bars. Crushed...just crushed.

We should've gone...we snuck out of his house all the time anyway. The thing is we didn't ask permission to sneak out...we never had discussed sneaking out of the house so no one had ever specifically said we couldn't...it wasn't a matter of direct defiance you see.

My parents had done a really good in the sense that I hated the idea of disappointing them. The other thing was I just didn't want the hassle of getting in trouble...I'd be on my own soon enough. Plus that little town we lived in at the time was bad enough without being stuck in my room for a month. We went to the movies instead. Faced with a direct "No you may not"...I flinched. I should've run the risk...even if we'd gotten caught I'd have seen The Replacements* and chances are I'd be ungrounded by now.

Funny thing is that same summer or maybe the next...I ended up in a seedy apartment complex inhabited by a punk-rock car thief and the Filipino drug dealers he worked for. I had been give permission to go to the movies with an older associate that must remain nameless and ended up getting to know his friends instead...I actually thought we were going to the movies when we left the house. I hadn't been told I couldn't hang out with car thieves and dope pushers...besides what was I suppose to say when the little dealers walked in carrying Domino's pizza and automatic rifles...."I don't think my momma would want me here"?

Despite the danger and the illicit stench of the affair...I can't say I regret it. The car thief turned out the be the genuine article (to this day he may the only actual punk I ever talked to)...he had a bleached pompadour and his arms were covered in tattoos...this was long before every Sunday School teacher had a sunburst or a lily tattooed on her ankle. The only people I knew who had tattoos were old men like my Grandpa or fishermen. He was from Los Angeles and he'd seen everybody...Minutemen, Black Flag, Husker Du and on. He knew Billy Zoom from X.

Of course when I asked about him some years later I was told he'd been killed by the cops. I wasn't sure how my...associate...had come to know these jokers, but if I had to guess it was probably at an all ages show :).

Anyway...

*I get what comfort I can by reminding myself that by this point Bob Stinson had been kicked out of the band...so it wasn't really the Replacements anyway.

More Texting

Me: Have you just stopped participating.

Sister: No dear-heart. I'll post soon...been swamped.

-She's swamped with what...making up a menu for the next Junior League Tea?-

Sister: You were pretty rude with Adam.

Me: Really? I was just clownin' around.

Sister: I think you owe him a full post apology.

Me: Seriously? I was that bad?

Sister: No not-serious you Nimrod. You make it too easy.

Me: Do you really want to go there? Do you want me to borrow Martha's cell phone tomorrow.

Sister: Youre a Donkey!

-One day I'll describe all the thrid-degree ice-burns she's gotten from me pretending to be Martha on the text. She fall's for it every time. -

Me: I've known him for a long time. I think he was over it...I think he was ready to reach through the nets and smack me.

Sister: Which person that reads your blog hasn't wanted to?

Y'all don't really want to smack me do you?

Where's you Dinner Mommy?

Before we get back to work...I just scored a victory around here. They don't happen very often so I thought I'd mark the occasion with a post for prosperity.

It's around noon and the boy is eatin his applesauce and fish sticks. Martha's sittin' with him when he looks up at her and asks...

"Where's you dinner Moma?"

She's been tryin' to feed him something called lunch at midday and then dinner at like 5:00 in the evenin'.

Southerners, like my boy, like me and like his Grandaddy, eat their dinner at midday and eat supper in the evenin'.

Lunch? Beats me...sounds more like a respiratory condition than something you'd want to eat.

2011 The Goals - Part Two

Turns out Martha has also written down her goals for the new year. She told me at dinner time...I asked her if she wanted to put them on the blog?

"Heavens No."

"I put mine up there."

"Yeah but those aren't real"...very dismissive like until she thought about it for a second..."are they?"

If you can't count on your spouse to get behind you in support of your goals....who then?

As you can see below I can't count on much support from freinds...Adam's already eggin' me on to push my luck with the Highway Patrol.

It's gonna be a rough year.

"Those Aren't For You...They're for People."

That's what Martha told me when I tried to snatch a couple of these yesterday.


Guess I'm lucky she didn't hit me with the squirt-gun we keep handy for the cat when she gets a little too curious about what's on the counter.

"Fine then...Merry Christmas. I'll be in the pantry eatin' Pounces and Fancy Feast with Mary-Cathcart."


I managed to sneak a few eventually. Turns out they aren't poisonous to non-people, but are instead the Form of chocolate and peanut butter...the Form of deliciousness. I hope those people enjoy 'em.

Then there was this....



The Boy has been tellin' us for weeks now that Santy Clause was gonna bring him a red g'itar, but on Christmas morning when he was actually confronted with it...he hesitated. He stared in silence...took a few steps toward it and then backed up. Maybe he just couldn't believe it was actually there...that he could actually touch it, play it...that it was actually his.

"What did Santa Clause bring you...What is it bud?" Martha asked...tryin' to prod him along a little.

"Don't be silly Moma," the boy said with surprising deliberatness for a two year old, "that's my g'itar."

In other words butt-out of my moment...at least that's what it sounded like.

I hope y'all had as Merry a Christmas as this one did...



P.S. We went to the Sister's for breakfast on Christmas morning...she served us cold grits...on Christmas morning. For real. Fortunately her Mother-in-law was there to save the day with some scrumptious monkey-bread.




It was all actually very tasty and she did a great job, but she'll be so mad when she reads the last paragraph that she won't see this one...so, I haven't actually ruined my little joke by telling the truth.

Post #20

What a ramshackle operation I am.

I've got a hole in the sole of my shoe. I was aware of it but I don't think I had really internalized the fact until a minute ago when I tried to stomp out a cigarette...like bein' struck by lightening on the ball of my foot.

Let's set the scene for next sales call.

I've pulled up and gotten out of the car...
"Mr. Bottums. There's a man holding a gift bag..hoping around on one leg in the parking lot. Oh, he's just taken a tumble...he's spread eagle on a pile of what looks like...pecans? He's got a hole in his shoe...brown socks? With those pants? Reckon we should call somebody?"

My turn signals have mysteriously stopped working...meaning I'm risking, if not life, a limb everytime I have to make a left turn.

My antenna doesn't work either...meaning I have to stop and wrap a piece of coathanger around it between sales calls (stopping to take it down before pulling in someones parking lot of course). This bit of redneck engineering mortifies Martha and the Sister, but they don't spend 5 hours a day in a car that doesn't have a radio.

Yeah I get some funny looks. Maybe if it was an old truck (I wish) people wouldn't think twice about it, but it's a zippy little volvo with a big Yale sticker across the back window...and a coat hanger waggin around off the antenna. They stare sometimes...

"I'm sorry I can't hear your puzzled look over Britney...Hold on a cecond...OOOps I did it AGAIN...OK What? What are you lookin at?"

Once in New Albany an old man drinkin' coffee at a curbstore asked me "if it only got reception in the closet?"

Everybody's a flippin comedian..

Y'all Vote! Testify!

Martha bought a chair at an estate sale yesterday...that's it, sitting in it's future home in my office.

She wants to put it in a reading nook in the dining room...please. That chair has a home and it's right here behind my desk. Look at it. Normally I don't get too worked up about a chair...if I could type from a gaudy reclining la-z-boy I'd do it....but that's real cow hide y'all.

It would be like sitting on a ZULU shield...I must have it.

I need y'all to vote...I need a witness. Y'all let Martha know why this chair can't be placed anywhere else but right here in front of the computer.

Post #17

This is a Public Service Announcement.

Y'all don't take a pillow to a knife fight...especially, and I can't stress this enough, if your wife is trying to sleep on it.

I don't know what happened last night. I probably shouldn't have eaten that second Ho Ho just before layin' down, but I had the most exhausting dream...stop wincing, don't log-off...I'm not gonna tell you about the "strangest dream I had." All you need to know is that it ended with a knife-fight in an airport. It was a pretty rough scrap...

I awoke strugglin' to pick up what felt like a bag of cement. Then I heard Martha's voice...groggy but forceful...

"WHAT on Earrrth...?"

Instantly I realized what I was doing...if not exactly why.

"I'm so sorry Sugar...dreams...sorry 'bout that...sorry" she growled a little bit and we both went back to sleep.

The next morning though she comes into the kitchen givin' me this cockeyed look...like don't you have something you'd like to explain.

"It was a dream Sugar...crazy dream...I was in a knife fight."

Her eyes narrowed...lips pooched out. Her face jutted toward me..."What were you gonna do with my pillow in a knife fight?"

Like it was something that actually happened. I could see it her face..."this is the joker that's supposed to be protecting me and the boy. I sleep better at night when he's here?" I could hear her thinkin' "I gotta get a gun."

I tried to plead my case..."It was a dream...I don't know...", but what could I say really? In the eyes of Martha,...my wife, my boy's mother...I had failed at knife fighting.

"My pillow...to a knife fight?"

"It was a dream."

Cast of Characters

I think this has gone on long enough without y'all havin' some idea of what these people look like. These characters who work so hard to make my material existence the absurdity that it is...need faces.



Wren - A Southern lady of class and great taste...obviously.
She's also the wife of....



Allan - He is a distinguished professor of philosophy...here setting out to create what he likes to call "the beautiful negation." He's also an expert in claiming that my blog won't let him post.



Adam - A Northern (not a yank** the English kind) husband, father and archeologist...and electric guitar player. Ironically Adam is most well known for his hatred of rocknroll...you can see how passionate he is on this subject in his frequent rants against the Fall.



The Sister - This was the most gussied up picture I could find...musta been right after Church...maybe a wedding. Is anybody suprised to read that I recieved the following text from her lastnight..."Kiss my grits"?

(Disclaimer...to those who don't know. My sister, like the other ladies in this post is also a lovely and gracious Southern Lady...she does not smoke...even cartoon cigarettes, does not have a tatoo, and doesn't shop for herself at Baby Gap. She is good humored about everything except her fabulous looks.
The red hair though...is very real.
I aaam not wri-ting thiiis undeer dureeessss).



The Boy - What a rock star. (He doesn't wear that outfit everyday...his Momma won't let me get away with that...it was football team day at his little school)



Martha - the very lovely, beautiful, and gracious Martha...organizing something.

That's them y'all...that's what I'm dealing with.

Post #13 Installment 2

NO. I hadn’t discovered a tear in time…I had just bounced my melon off the floor after passin' out. I tried get to my feet but the nausea knocked me back down. I had to get to the breaker box in the hallway. I figured there was at least a chance that the sound was of this world...and if it was it would need juice. If I could cut the electricity maybe I could kill it.

I crawled and stumbled my way back through the hallway…a hallway that seemed to be spinning into a tube...the hardwood was crawlin’ the walls. I pulled my self up to the box. Pain piercing deeper into my ears with every breath my heart sunk as I pulled each switch..nothin'...nothin'...nothin'...until the last one...nothin.

That left one explanation...there was a ghost, a shade, a specter, a spook, in the attic...and I wasn’t hangin around for that. Me and my adrenal glands were up and out the door and onto the back deck...into a torrent of acorns and leaves.

After being in the house, what had been intolerable in the front yard was now manageable in back.. There weren’t anything left to do but call Martha. She’s not a medium…that's just what I do..."have you seen my keys? Are my grey socks clean? There's a banshee in the attic."

"It's probably the carbon monoxide detector."

"Say what now?"

"Yeah the detector I got the other day."

"We have a carbon monoxide detector."

"Yep. It's been on my to-do-list for a while now."

"Well...it's goin' off. What should I do?"

"I don't really know honey. You probably shouldn't be in the house though."

"That’s good advice Sugar, but I don't need it. Is there any way to stop it?"

"I guess you could take the batteries out.”

Let’s stop a second here…I don’t know what was more irritating her nonchalance or the idea that the belligerent assault I’d just endured was powered by a cheap battery from Sams.

“Where is it?”

“Under the desk in the kitchen."

“In the house?”

“Well yeah.”

"OK"

"Good Luck.”

I had no choice but to go back in…only this time I had to hold my breath. Push ups on a tilt a whirl woulda been easier but I reached the detector and snatched it out of the wall. Got the battery out…and called the fire department.

"It's probably just a dyin' battery, but if you want to be on the safe side"...really..."you could open some windows."

Do I need to explicitly articulate the insanity of this episode or can y’all read between the lines?

It’s not the first time an item on one of Martha’s to do lists has nearly killed me, but I’d say it was the closest call.

'Course the ultimate irony is I probably couldn't last more than a week without her.

Love you Sugar,
efb

Post #13 Installment 1

Take your pick...

You can leave this world in your sleep...like having a dream of warm milk and snuggling under the covers.

OR

You can go out on the kitchen floor face down in a pool of tears and blood from your ears...stone deaf, your last earthly memory a silent kaleidoscopic vision of floor tiles and nausea.


I bring all this up 'cause Martha bought a Carbon-monoxide detector sometime last week.

First I knew of it was yesterday when I pulled on to our street a couple of miles from the house...I could hear a faint but persistent whirring sound. With every turn of the wheels it got louder until it was a piercing shriek...by the time I pulled into our drive the windshield was wobbling.

I cut the car off...and sat, surrounded by throbbing glass, trying to gather myself to get out of the car. The shriek was so loud that the only other sound I could hear was the hairs in my inner ear snapping like pines in a tornado.

I had to get out of the car...all I could think was that if we're under a nuclear attack I don't want my atoms intimately mingled with the volvo's.

At that point all I knew was that the sound had gotten louder. I didn't know where it was comin' from...but I found out when I opened the front door. There was a burst of pure light and then the silence of the void...the shriek had taken on a physical form morphing into a vision of Jeff Davis sittin' in a Mies' chair with my Great Great Great Grandson on his lap.

I had walked into the violent sound of time and space being ripped apart.

To be continued...

Post #12 Sorta

My sister says there's not enough about her on the Blog..."that's what the people want" she says...that and pictures of my boy. According to her those are the blog's biggest flaws....not enough about her and not enough pictures of my son.

Also, Martha's been readin' the blog again. How she managed to find the time I don't know.

"Well?"

Her response was a suspiciously cheery "It's good."

"That's it huh...it's good?"

"Yep."...still cheery.

"It's not depressing or confusing...just good?"

At that the smile and the cheery look in her eyes thinned out a little bit.."I'm not giving you any more material."

We'll see about that...see if she can avoid it.

Post #11 1/2

I shouldn't have said that yesterday was completely forgettable.

The Missus did pick up a new nickname that's likely to stick. From here on out she will be referred to as Martha.

Post #7

Seersucker pants, so I've been informed by a stylish woman who would know, are meant to be neutral...in other words, it's OK to wear a shirt that isn't blue or white with them.

I think it's a ploy by my wife to get me to wear this green shirt that she likes...cause I asked about a check shirt once, and the overall look on her face was one of amusment, but in her eyes I could see a twinkling desire to smack me for bein' a hassel.

I think the blogs turnin' out like that...I've gone out in public wearin' a checked shirt and seersucker pants..in October. She hasn't smacked me, but she has made some casual suggestions, in the way that only a wife can, about topics for the blog. "Now that" would be a good thing to write about kind of thing.

Do y'all really want to hear about my humiliation with a seven year old LSU fan on Sunday morning at Church?

Probably.

I thought I was gonna miss him. J.C. had the nursery so I went to the early service, and the little Tiger doesn't show up til 9:30 giving me just enough time to get clear of the place...except that I had forgotten to deliver some diaper boxes into the nursery (I'm still not clear on why I was asked to do this...but that's life as a husband)...took just long enough for me to be standing in the parking lot when his Momma's minivan pulled up.

Who knows how his tiny little face covered an entire window with teeth. He never said a word as he got out...just stood in front of me with his hands in his pockets grinin'. He was wearin' sandals. I coulda stomped on his toes, but we were in the Church parking lot...it just wasn't the place.

I'll catch 'im on the street eventually.

Post #5 1/2

In the same patient and deliberate tone she uses when telling my son he can't wear his tennis shoes to church, the wife has informed me that...

"Nobody wants to read a blog about tHE Fall Honey."

Fine then.

I'll let it go...for now.

Post #3 1/2

The wife's been reading the blog...again!

I guess at least this way I don't have to watch her looking at me like I've got a peanut bush growing from my head.

Post #2 was depressing...Post #3 is confusing.  This was her response...

"I was anticipating something specific that happened prior to your non memory of memory."

This is the mental hall of mirrors that I live in.

Sugar it's just an observation about memory as memory...I'm not even sure if I remember the actual event at all any more.

Love, e.f.

Post #3

My Daddy's comin' today. 

He'll be here for a week or so, and among other things we'll be playin' golf...lots of golf.  Some of my favorite memories are of being on the golf course with him...favorites and one very frustrating memory...if you can call it that.

I was pretty young...3 to 5 maybe (who knows really). I had tagged along for a lot of rounds of golf but never at this particular course.  All I can remember is images from the first two holes....I have no recollection of the rest of the course.  Being on a golf course is not like being at a park or a store...it's a course. It has specific stages that are separate but connected to form a path...they're even numbered. 

So, unlike a memory of roaming the toy aisles at J.C. Penny...I know there's supposed to be a certain path this memory should follow...the nature of the event demands sequence.  All I got is the beginning though...we crested a hill to the second green, walked to the 3rd tee box, then the void. 

It just so happens that the first two holes can be seen from the road...a road that we traveled a lot. In other words I was already very familiar with that part of the golf course before this "memory" occurred.  The images I have left from that day are most definitely from the perspective of being on the course...not seeing it from the road, but I don't have any images from portions of the course that couldn't be seen from the road.  Obviously there is more at work in my memory than the single event.

What kinda smoke and mirrors is this?  What about the rest of my memories...what other hocus pocus is going on there?

Furthermore, I've handled this particular "memory" so many times that it has less meaning as a "memory" than it does as a reference point for an internal debate...X(!

Anyway, I remember very clearly what a good time I had the last time we played and I'm looking forward to doin' it again.

Post #2 1/2

My wife read the blog this morning...I know, I know...and she said Post #2 was depressing.

That was not my intention...I do not hate my job.  It has it's moments and I really like the people I work with and for.  I certainly do not begrudge my life for making me go to work...it's a very small price to pay for the life I am blessed to live. 

I was just trying to use a circumstance that I thought everybody would be familiar with (especially on a Monday morning) to ask a question about desire often being at odds with Truth.  I feel myself sounding dumber as I try to explain...

How bout this Sugar...

A. You can sit under a rainbow, in a lawn chair, eating Dilly Bars...while a monkey shapes helium balloons into kittens and bunnies, or
B. You can drive across town to help your friend who is stranded on the side of the interstate.

Which would you do?

Which would you rather do?

Why doesn't doing what's right cause the same reaction as the possibility of getting one of those balloon bunnies?

She also said I need to use spell check.