More Comfortable Then Making Love in the Back of a Volkswagen

This blog will be short.

Many a time I have mentioned that I am beginning to feel the strain of time on my psyche. But in spite of my slowly approaching expiration date, I still dig the occasional use of penises and flatulence as a vehicle for laughter.

I bring this up because tonight I find myself sitting in front of my TV watching Mallrats...arguably Kevin Smith’s most sophomoric film. This may be my kabillionth time watching it and like Bettlejuice said, “It keeps getting funnier every time I see it!”

For real…

I can’t think of many movies outside of Smith’s that always leave me reminiscing about the good ol’ days of late high school and early college with such fond reflection. It illuminates some of the best memories I had of those time periods.

Not chasing skirts. Not swilling barley and hops. And not rounding the bases after saying “buh-bye” to Mr. Softball.

Nope, some of the best times I can reflect on were laughing and discussing Smith-ian dialogue and Tarantino’s intentionally missing plot threads with the likes of Big D and Carter.

And regardless of Smith’s ever expanding waist band and over blown since of geeky divinity… I will always like him and the other directors like Robert Rodriguez, Tarantino, and David Fincher. They are what kept me going to the movies and inspired me to enjoy more depth in my stories then I would have thought entertaining just short years earlier.

So I guess I am trying to say thanks to tuba tubby for making the films that can still remind me what it feels like to relax, laugh, and enjoy when relaxing, laughing, and enjoying were really all we had to most days.

Blog over, slightly shorter then Smith’s time on Southwest Airlines… BONG!!! - J

Caffeinated Snobbery

As recent as four or five years ago I would go to bed with calm anticipation for the next morning’s predetermined offerings.

Some days I would be looking forward to things like softball tournaments. Other days it would be to hit the hard court for some day long basketball. Sometimes crazy nights led to morning after trips to my favorite greasy spoon for breakfast (that was Colonel’s for all you people familiar with Joplin MO). Most days it would just be a lackadaisical wake up to watch Sports Center.

Last night before bed, I pointed out to my wife the further realization that I am getting up there in age.

Because now, every Friday and Saturday night when I go to bed with my wife… I think to myself, “I cannot wait to wake up tomorrow and make a full pot of MY coffee.” And what makes me feel so much older then those four of five years ago is that as much as I liked those things and looked forward to them… it doesn’t hold a candle to how I feel about that pot of coffee.

In all of it’s pretentiously priced caffeinated goodness.

And it can’t be just any coffee. Monday through Friday doesn't cut it because I’m drinking work coffee… a far inferior blend. It must always be whatever coffee I pick out from the gourmet section of my local grocery store.

Not only has my aging papillae habituated toward that little brown bean, but they’ve became quite the little “budding” snobs.

The awful play on words aside… this is proof that the older we get, the more life’s simpler things become the most fulfilling.

Luckily for me my wife is going through the same thing with men - J

We Aunt Talking About Jemima

Last week was a rough one.

Well rough at least from the perspective of a struggling blog writer.

I had no less than four or five really good ideas for writing and scripting my comic strip. You might’ve said that… and I’m paraphrasing Hedley Lamarr here… that my mind was a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives. Only like Ryan Franklin at the end of last season… when I sat at the laptop or drawing pad, I couldn’t close on any of them.

So when I sat down today at work to make some “sales calls”, one word came to my mind and an entire blog materialized behind it.

That word… syrup.

Now not just any syrup; we’re talking about what I, in my esteemed opinion, consider the crème de la crème of syrups… Log Cabin Maple Syrup. And just so you know, when I say that the L.C. is the top dog of all maple goodness… you should consider it the gospel.

You see the amount of work and what not that my mom had to effort in order to clothe and feed the likes of my brother and I led to a lot of fending for ourselves. Many a mornings were kick started by three primary meals; cinnamon rolls, Homestyle Eggo Waffles and canned biscuits. The later is quite delicious when buttered and dipped in syrup (and don’t judge… this is one of those 'don’t knock it till you try it' things). I just fear that the shortcoming of the canvas that is my blog doesn’t offer enough clarity needed to paint the kind of picture I want to convey toward the abundance of syrup based breakfast I’ve digested for damn near a decade of my childhood.

Just buy into the aforementioned gospel of me… Log Cabin is the cat’s pajamas.

And luckily for me, in spite of a myriad of disadvantages both self inflicted and out of her hands, my mother tried her damndest to never let me want for anything. I never had all the things that made the other kids jealous, but I possessed all the necessities and entertainment I needed to not only survive, but also thrive as kid. While we didn’t always have the money for steak, mom never skimped on breakfast food. And the one breakfast item she never missed when picking up groceries was Log Cabin syrup. Log Cabin isn’t the cheapest of syrups. But she loved it and because of that we loved it too. So she bought it for us all.

I guess the destination that the syrupy path I’ve been trying to lead you to here is this… I sincerely feel that as a current and soon to be new parent, I have a leg up on my mother based merely on lifestyle choices alone. But the thing is, being a good parent isn’t always framed in a Norman Rockwell painting. Sometimes providing love and care in face of incredible odds, even those avoidable and unnecessary is enough to make for an amazing parent. I just hope that like my mom, Missy and I will always be able to provide our children with Log Cabin Maple Syrup.

If you didn’t get it, that last use of syrup was meant to be symbolic.

And yet still very yummy - J