Barb is spending her Mother’s Day enjoying the clean house and doing nothing more than whatever she wants. This could be less about the holiday and more about relaxing post 2nd year of Pharmacy Grad School. We will let you decide.
The kids let her sleep in. Even when our girl tried to wake up our boy and he sleep popped her in the nose she brought the screaming and crying down here. Overall effect, Barb did not wake up, our girl had a red nose, and our boy stumbled down the stairs, offered an apology and explanation before collapsing into a heap of body parts in front of the television.
Two days prior Barb got her Mother’s Day gift of a large stuffed kitten and a card. Why early? Our girl cannot keep a secret.
Today, she got a gift our boy made at school and then we took her to Biggby coffee for a Mother’s Day coffee.
Meanwhile, my creative juices for creative, non-school type, writing is starting to come back. I have a couple of ideas for some stories that Mrs. Fever might enjoy and the long dormant gamer muscles are getting stretched out as I find myself working on a small role-playing campaign that would be good for Pathfinder or Star Wars.
Now I am going to enjoy the rest of this day with the family.
This will be a short, but happy post. Today was the second grade class’s poetry tea. No there was no tea, there was lemonade and cookies though. We arrived early to find a packed or soon to be packed house of parents. My boy’s class walked into the gym first, but our boy was missing. Then the next two classes and still no boy of ours. Nobody seemed worried. Suddenly our boy bounces into the gym, hugs his sister, and flails his way to his classroom (pre-bathroom break).
The three teachers each read a small poem and then the classes got their chance. In groups as small as three and as large as five, the children would get up from their seats, take their places, holding onto a poster that they designed. Together or as close to together as they could they announced the title, the authors, or in a few cases announced the title, started reading, had one of the students tell them to stop and announce their names. Regardless of how they got their the students would announce or shout out their poem. Ranging in topics from Moms, Dads, to Dinosaurs. They were cute as hell.
Our boy being our boy leapt to the front of his group, all girls by the way, stood their facing the large crowd until the girls got him behind the poster. He shouted out his name and the poem. It was AWESOME. He has come a long way from when he spoke in my college speech class, which I would link to but is one of the last ramblings I ever did for Scrawlings of a Mad Man…how time flies. He doesn’t mumble he enunciates. He didn’t look down or hide behind the poster, he eye-balled the crowd with a smile.
As we were getting ready to leave my boy reminded me to get his other poem off the wall. Here it is:
As of 20 minutes ago, how long it took me to walk home, my semester from HELL is over. I licked that semester good, despite professors and the school’s attempts. I should get an A in the class I hated. I got a 95% on my marketing final. I should get a low A or high B in the writing class with the man who allows no humor in his class. I should get an A in the sex class which is the final I just finished.
On a high note, I gave out my business card to two people who I wanted to keep in touch with, the third person didn’t show up until the exam so maybe next year.
Now I can focus on fun again. Like the blog, like the summer research thingy, like the class I am to teach next semester, like the summer, like…well FUCK ALL anything other than how much I wanted to kick people this semester.
As a final note I came home to find four pieces of spam, no comments (have I lost my sex appeal?), which made me sad until I read this piece of spam:
We are a bunch of volunteers and starting a new scheme in our community. Your site offered us with valuable info to work on. You have performed an impressive process and our whole neighborhood might be thankful to you.
Why thank you spammer. I hope you and your volunteer crew with your new scheme take my advice, which by the way was a part of my Stories from Stroud, and make your neighborhood, which I can only imagine is a wonderful place to live, an even better place to live due to my impressive process of imparting valuable information for you to work on. I await the thank yous from your neighborhood.
On this day in history I got an A+ on my final in the class I hated. I also found out I got a B on the Spongebob paper, but given that I softball pitched that over the plate AND embarrassed the professor I am happy with that grade. That means one final down, the one I did not want to take, and one final to go. Given that the remaining final is sex I am pretty sure I can drop my pants and perform for an A+.
After class I got to go to Mama Lee’s. Thank you S & Z for taking me along for the ride. I had a blast and I brought home a box of Asian goodies. Look upon my box of goodies.
I love going to Mama Lee’s so many goodies and I wasn’t able to get them all. Next time bring a cooler and mochi for everyone!
Now I am going to unpack and step outside to enjoy the weather.
Yesterday, if you read Speaking Out on Life you would have read about my boy’s “slip” of the tongue in the middle of class.
I was not happy with him and we talked about proper usage of language both from a definition and time and place point of view. Once the talk was done with I was done with the subject. He was appropriately punished and that was that.
Until…today…the next day…
When I picked up my boy his teacher approached me quicker than normal. Oh crap I thought, did he do it again!?
“Your son (she used his name) apologized today.”
“For what? The language incident?”
“Yes, in circle he stood up, announced that he had something to say, and apologized to the entire class for his language.”
I almost had a language incident of my own. Expressed in joy of course, but I bit my tongue.
“Really you did that son?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t ask him to do that. Barb did not ask him to do that when she dropped him off.
He apologized for his poor behavior all on his own like I have been teaching him for the past 8 years.
I’m walking…well I am walking just about anywhere and I get to watch the expressions on the faces of the adults as I walk towards them. Expressions that range from a mild form of syntax error to full blown mental shut down. I can see the question on some of their lips, but for whatever reason-rules of social interaction to outright fear-they do not ask. Only scrunch up their faces, purse their lips, cock their heads, or any of the hundreds of other expressions I have seen. I enjoy the confusion I cause just by getting dressed.
“Would you like to use your instructor discount?” the lady behind the counter asks. She saw the hat, the long black coat, the black pants, but she failed to notice the woodland camouflage boots with neon laces, or the SpongeBob lanyard dangling from my pocket. She made an assumption, one that I have written about before, based only on what I was wearing.
“No thank you I’m like you,” I replied.
“Oh, you are an employee of the school.”
“No, no,” chuckling, “I’m like one of them,” waving absent mindedly at some college students walking by.
The lady cocks her head to the side. One plus one do not add up to two. I get a discount and she gets reassured that she is not the only person who has thought one thing and found another by looking at my clothing.
As I enter my boy’s school parents standing around smile then frown at me. The smile starts at my head and the frown ends when their vision reaches my legs. The hat, the face, and the long black coat all say adult possibly a responsible adult with a job. Then they look down and see my forest green camouflage pants sticking out underneath the coat along with the SpongeBob lanyard flapping about. He can’t be serious. He can’t be an adult. Something must be wrong with him, but what…is he dangerous? Is he crazy? Is he an eccentric? Is he…I love watching each person’s face which only makes them more uncomfortable.
Watching couples and friends huddle together to discuss me is always fun. I do not disappoint if my girl is with me our conversation is loud enough that anyone can hear what we are saying and because of her conversational style always all across the board, but I treat it like a serious thing. More confusion.
So far nobody has asked me why I dress the way I do, but when someone does the first thing they are getting from me is: “The duality of man. You know the Jungian thing?” Of course if they haven’t seen Full Metal Jacket that may well go over their heads, but at least I got to say it. Or I might just say, “I’m Captain Jack Sparrow.”
For those of you who have been patiently waiting for the sex conversation to start up again, your wait is nearing an end. A post about a closet and then the questions, answers, and conversation should begin again. Hope you are ready.
To everyone who visits, reads, comments, and looks at my blog THANK YOU. I cannot adequately express how much I appreciate every one of you.
Welcome to Ferris State where for Spring Break you only went somewhere if forced too. How lame is that? Instead of weeks and months of people bragging about what they were going to do over Spring Break up here there was silence broken by one or two people maximum with actual plans to leave the college. How lame is that?
This is our parking lot. Last year over Spring Break the photo would have been of one to five cars for the whole parking lot. This year nothing is different from normal, packed to the gills. Well that isn’t totally true, a couple of people have left or started the process of moving out, but since Spring Break started to today most people have gone nowhere. Don’t go thinking that these people are like us and have kids in school. Nope the majority of people who live in FAMILY housing have no kids, babies, or work for the school. You read that right in FAMILY HOUSING there are less families than there are employees living over here. How lame is that?
I thought with the end of the month coming up and a several day conversation on the definitions of sex, having sex, fucking, making love, communication, online cheating, where did you learn about sex, and deity knows what else I have stirred up floating around that I would take a break before diving into what I hope is a HUGE ass conversation on the nature of polyamory. If you are interested in contributing to the previous conversations speak up, plenty of people beyond me are interested.
So what is The Mound?
We got some snow last night. By the time I went to bed the amount of snow was nothing compared to more recent snow falls. I woke up to find that snow had indeed fallen, our car was a white bump. At some point today the grounds crew decided to clean up the snow and when I went to look out my window this is what I saw.
You should be able to get a good idea of the size of The Mound by the cars and that lady, I have no idea who she is. The grounds crew in their usual efficient way plowed The Mound from the parking lot, roughly 6 six over the sidewalk to within 2 feet of out window. Why they stopped I have no idea. I guess I should be thankful.
The grounds crew made a second mound on the far side of the parking lot, notice that this one is not near a window.
So what is next for Speaking Out on Sex? Well tomorrow is the end of the month Answering the ?s You Search For. Then I was thinking of either another Kinky Fuckery installment of Naked in Life or a Kinky Fuckery that brought all of the previous conversations up to date in one place so that everyone could see the evolution and progress or start the Kinky Fuckery conversation on polyamory and other sexual activities.
What would you like to see at the beginning of next month?
This blurry photo, not because I was moving, but because all of the windows that face the gate either have mesh over them or are covered in condensation is of our gate. I have mentioned this place is made out of Swiss Cheese?
Our little home is the only home out of all the nearby courts that has an iron fence and gate that surrounds a “backyard.” Backyard being the really generous term for the slabs of cement that are behind our backdoor.
The fence is on top of a small hill, making our “backyard” look like a playground to all of the unattended children that “live” around here. During the summer the children run around in rival gangs that resemble Brazilian street gangs in the slums. Because our “backyard” resembles a playground, and because a large portion of the “parents” that live her have zero interest in raising their children, when we first moved here we would often look out our back window and see a bunch of children staring in at us. Then a rival gang would chase them off and a new set of faces staring into our housel
My normal policy is to chuck a brick at people staring at our window, but I held off. I would have spoken with the parents, but they were nowhere to be seen. So after a few shooings, I decided to go old fashioned, and wrapped a chain around the gate and sealed it with a nice lock. Then I lost the key. That is our gate.
In other non-window news: I have posted a new Reader Response. This only has one “long-answer,” everything else is multiple choice. I am such a dumb-ass I forgot the link. Ugh!
“He’s tall maybe he will help,” the older and obviously shorter than me woman said to her husband as I walked by.
Thus I found myself, by the benefit of being taller than them, getting an effusive amount of thank you’s from both of them after being able to reach the top shelf. I was glad to be tall.
From being tall we went to lunch at Ruby Tuesday. I would not normally write about lunch around here especially lunch at the Big Rapids Ruby Tuesday, but today was special. Our only visit previous to this one, was not a good experience. Bad server and overpriced, undersized food would sum up our feelings. However, for some reason I had a vibe to give the restaurant another try. I trust my vibes, good and bad.
If you are in Big Rapids I want you to go to Ruby Tuesday and ask for Mark to be your server. If you are willing to talk to him, and happen to be a fan of the following:
SpongeBob (I had some SpongeBob magnets with me)
Marvel (I was wearing a cast of Marvel comics T-shirt)
Have an answer to the debate Spiderman vs Batman (the conversation just started up)
Dark Knight (this was an offshoot of the above conversation)
Bane (another offshoot of the Spiderman vs Batman conversation)
Minecraft (because he was telling us about what he was learning from his younger siblings)
Then you will find Mark to be an extremely pleasant server. If you are not a fan of these things he will still be one of the best servers that you will ever have. Not since Sam at Sakura, our favorite sushi restaurant, which was over two-years ago, have we had this level of service. He made us feel good. Not delivered us our food and left, but made us feel like he was happy to serve us. He went over the top, we never had to ask for anything. He sent us home with a desert that he recommended, and take home drinks. How many times has a waiter brought to you take home drinks BEFORE handing you the check? I was very glad to have met him. Talked to him about comics, Batman, and everything else. My girl even gave him two thumbs up. We were glad to give him a 30% tip. He was worth the money. So if you are in Big Rapids and find yourself at Ruby Tuesday ask for Mark.
Oh, in case you want a suggestion for food, the BBQ Burger was orgasmic.
As a transition, I want to end with some “business.”
There are only 9 more days to answer the Reader Response questions, before I take them down and start formulating blogs from the answers that have already been given.
I sent out sex/sexuality interview questions to everyone who sent me their email address. If you did send me an email address and did not get the questions please contact me. If you would like to volunteer please contact me, there is no cut off date at the moment. The link is to a copy of the questions if you want to see them first.
A few people have already sent me their answers. Thank you. I am looking forward to hearing back from many of you.
Finally, thank you to every reader without you this would just be me writing to myself.
