Re-Tweeted

You may or may not have noticed that I've included my Twitter feed to this blog for the past few months. It's a chance for you to have mini snippets of me during those times I lag a bit more than we'd all like between posts here. And if you're inclined, you should totally follow me. Blah blah blah.
So today I tweeted (egads, I really do cringe at Twitter-speak, though I still use it for its growing universality amongst those who use it) the following: " evan_up Ironic from me, I know: Lately I find myself wishing more of the people closest to me would see the happy things in their lives. "

After the events of my post two previous to this one (that is, after I withdrew from certain other associations), Denise and I spent a good month or more (more) arguing, in our way (which means a lot of arguing from me and a lot of ignoring me slash escaping from reality into a book for Denise) as we worked through a personal problem that'd needed sorting for a couple years now, overshadowed previously by other matters. I feel that, while nothing is ever perfect and never will be, we've come through this together finally and into a much better place for it. I see in Denise though a reticence, a "is this just the calm before the next fight" quality to her demeanor. I regret that I'm probably deservedly to blame for her worrying this way but I hope I can get her to see that I'm happier now we've been working together and I look forward to the future we have more than I ever had in a long long time. I hope she can see the same bright star ahead soon; I'll have to work harder to help show her.

And then there's Aeia. The other day she made up this very charming Christmas card for me and Denise. Anyone who has ever received a homemade card from Aeia knows exactly how special and quirky wonderful these cards can be. This one, amidst all of its quirky Aeia-card perfection was also this bit of a gut puncher: I hope you and mom have a really nice Christmas, at least someone should have one.
Me: *dumbfounded* Sweetie, what's this? Don't you think you're going to have a good Christmas?
Aeia: No.
Me: You think you're going to have a bad Christmas?
Aeia: No. I think it's just going to feel like a regular day for me.
I don't quite know how to tackle that one. I hope we can find a way to make Christmas more special for her. Actually, I think as I typed the preceding sentence I figured out just how. I'll come back to this in a week and let you know how it worked.

To all of my home-fries out there (and if you think this applies to you, it probably does): finals are over, your friends and family love you, stop fretting over the minor stuff (especially, if it applies to you, Burgeropolis), stop worrying about what might happen with situations you haven't even started yet and start them instead--then worry about what to do about them; have more fun, laugh a little more--if you need help with this, call me, but me a drink or come over and kill some zombies or something.

words and music by Eric Idle

Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse.
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best...

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

If life seems jolly rotten
There's something you've forgotten
And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing.
When you're feeling in the dumps
Don't be silly chumps
Just purse your lips and whistle - that's the thing.

And...always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the light side of life...

For life is quite absurd
And death's the final word
You must always face the curtain with a bow.
Forget about your sin - give the audience a grin
Enjoy it - it's your last chance anyhow.

So always look on the bright side of death
Just before you draw your terminal breath

Life's a piece of shit
When you look at it
Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true.
You'll see it's all a show
Keep 'em laughing as you go
Just remember that the last laugh is on you.

And always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the right side of life...
(Come on guys, cheer up!)
Always look on the bright side of life...
Always look on the bright side of life...
(Worse things happen at sea, you know.)
Always look on the bright side of life...
(I mean - what have you got to lose?)
(You know, you come from nothing - you're going back to nothing.
What have you lost? Nothing!)
Always look on the right side of life...

Kidding

This post will be less of a whiny "State of the Evan Union" post than the last one was. But I do want to give a quick thank you to Alex and Kayla for deciding to drop by Wally World in order to cheer me up after reading my last post.

I haven't talked much about the kids in a while, so for those family and friends with an interest in such things, some updating:

I'm going to start off with Aeia and completely buck the idea of any conventional ordering. The last month saw Aeia making a concerted push at getting me to re-implement the concept of allowances. Ironically enough, my decision to capitulate to this request has resulted in her deciding to be the one who least does their chores and therefore earns the least allowance. Over the Autumn Break (aka Thanksgiving Week) she had a family tree homework assignment. The parameters for this only required focus on her family tree through her grandparents, my and Denise's parents but Aeia was so interested in exploring as much of her geneology as she could that she pursued filling the tree out back through the generations out to my Great-grandmother. It was fun helping with this and it was fun listening to some of her reactions and revelations. She is very concerned with the large number of unwed pregnancies and multiple marriages in both my mother's and grandmother's generations. Aeia's also taken an interest in choir and I look forward to eventually, hopefully, getting to see her perform.

Lash is struggling with the same things he's been struggling with for some time now: friends and grades (he isn't making/keeping any ((and I think the situation in my previous post is negatively impacting his one close friendship)) and his grades are poorer than ever before. Le sigh.) while at home he's really begun to rise up to improving how helpful he can be with the other kids and with his chores. Far from perfect, but improving. I'd like to get him involved with some sport again.

Tasmia and Rael are both very frequently pretending to be dinosaurs, running around and growling at everyone else. Rael has begun playing the Lego Rock Band game with me on occasion--he only has the attention span for 2 and a half songs--and he does surprisingly well for his age, even if only on "super easy" mode for guitar. He's definitely interested in performance as he really adds some rocking out to his rocking out.

Tasmia is freaking scary intelligent. None of the others were as loquacious at two, none as communicative of their canniness (though all have proven to be pretty darn canny and loquacious). I think Tasmia's going to end up ruling the world--sometime after she learns to be less messy when she eats.

You've Got Mail

My next door neighbour just delivered mail of mine that was delivered to her on accident. Except the mail is 3-4 weeks old (as what she brought me was a cable bill that's now 3 weeks past due) and it's been opened. This particular neighbour has never given any sort of problem before, but I think this is going to have to end up being a call the cops sort of infarction.

The kids are on vacation for a week again, starting today, and have way too much pent-up energy. Personally, I wish this vacation were a week earlier or later. I'm taking four of my five vacation days this week and was looking forward to some peace and quiet interspersed between being available to help some friends out if they need us.

Microsoft decided it would be cheaper for them to send me a new Xbox 360 rather than repair my broken one, and included a one month extension of my Live Gold account. I'm ok with this. The only downside, I had to re-download the 14 or so gigabytes of downloadable content I had in order to assign the license for them to the new console. Everything else is upside.

The past week saw Chris & Chrissy's 15th wedding anniversary and Aeia's 9th birthday. Happy Anniversary to the Taylors and Happy Birthday to my daughter!

Short Circuit

Number five is alive, baby.

Seriously though, I don't have any reason for not blogging lately. My output's been absolutely pitiful the last few months--sorry folks. What can I say? I will endeavor to rededicate my efforts here in order to be a little more entertaining for you. I have, however, been a busy beaver.

I've been working on a writing project that I'm still in the superstitious "too much talk will jinx me" stage, so without giving more information than that, bear with me, and wish me well. When I get out of the jinxy superstitious stage I'll surely be much more talkative about it.

My work at Burgeropolis moves along as it always does. Though I'm happily no longer twice-weekly exiled to the satellite store at Burgerburb. There's a high chance of me going to further burger classes next month too, which will line me up for better pay, benefits, etc. while I continue trying to improve my life beyond Burgeropolis.

Personally, I'm almost entirely a happy guy. There is one, one point in my life where this is quite not the case, and hasn't been for a while, but Denise and I continue to work at that and that is all I can really ask or hope for. Read-between-the-liners can note this is me making it clear that above all things I'm putting life and marriage first here and things are getting better.

The kids are great. Tasmia is a lot more mobile, which is of course nerve-wracking as you have to become hyper-aware of your entire surroundings now, especially when you also have a toddler who actively throws small choke hazards on the floor.

Rael is a lot more communicative, which we know was once a worry of mine. For whatever reason he just decided to take a really long time developing his linguistic abilities. Now he won't shut up. But he's adorable.

Aeia sang at a school talent show last week. Work kept me from attending, but I'm told she did well singing some Kelly Clarkson song. When I let them have Xbox360 time she is also still the clear superior of the two when she and Lash play Guitar Hero II and III. Though Lash is still more entertaining to watch play and acts like he gets more out of it.

Lash is still little-leaguing. His team wins most of their games and he's having a wonderful time. He still isn't fantastically skilled, but I like to think there's some improvement going on. He even stole a base last week. Season ends soon, unless their record decrees they go on to play-offs. I think their record will be making that decree too. We'll see.

Denise has a written exam coming for a new job she's applied for. Not a career-forward move, but better pay, etc. so we'll be finger crossing on that when we're done finger crossing for me. :)

Nerdgaming is nerdgaming and keeps on keeping on. We added a new member to our nerdgaming entourage. Now our chi is a little more in balance.

To Denise and all the other mothers out there, and as years go on I know more and more of you and will now avoid listing names for fear of leaving any out, I hope you have a fabulous Mother's Day. Sure, it's yet another holiday invention for the sake of selling greeting cards, but of them all, I think celebrating motherhood is one of the more honorable and righteous Hallmarkidays.

What else? Movies:
Iron Man: Loved it. Continue to feel RDJ was the perfect casting choice (yeah, yeah Jason, whatever), and am very pleased to announce that The Wooden Girl outright doubled her facial emotive range in this film from one to two. Part of me is afraid, though that maybe Iron Man wasn't really all that fabulous, just that the last 5 or so superhero movies in recent memory have been so displeasing that this one was only good but seemed great. In other words, I fear watching it a second time and feeling as if the origin story drags too long, Paltrow isn't refreshingly new, Howard is more squeekily annoying as Rhodey, etc.

Teeth: I wasn't going to watch this; I was quite clear on this. But I watched it anyway. Somewhat nightmarish. A bit more gruesome (did it also have to spit the bitten parts back out? Really. Ugh). Dug the ending.

I've been watching season 2 of Penn & Teller Bullshit and am now wholly behind the idea of ceasing recycling, other than for aluminum cans, and for after-use restaurant grease as alternative fuel sources. It's (the recycling episode) actually the first episode I went into ready to disagree with and went out of a transformed man. Heh.

You can guarantee that my absolute love for Speed Racer, coupled with my viewing of its various trailers, will most definitely be keeping me out of the movie theatre on that one. Go Speed Go. It looks like it's really just a longish plot-less eyegasm.

Total number of new words Evan's added to the universe's English-language lexicon today: two--Hallmarkiday and eyegasm.

I've come to realize I have a growing resentment for people who offer "help" but never offer babysitting.

lunch is ready and I am hungry, so this is all folks.

Dead Again

Been a wee bit, first a reading update:

New family & friend photos.

50 Book Challenge #7: The Harlequin, by Laurell K. Hamilton. First off, holy shit am I reading slow this year. I need to seriously rededicate myself to my reading and unwind a little less with Guitar Hero II & III.

This was something like book #80 in the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series. I've lost count and the ambition to look up which book it actually is. Denise had to bribe me to start and finish this one, as I still have a few other books bucking to be read. She still has to finish bribing me.

That sad, this was a refreshing near-return to the more non-pornographic books at the front of the series. Even when Anita was getting her ho on, it very kindly did not take 200 of 300 pages to get it done. Words can't express how very pleased I was to have sex scenes not spread themselves redundantly across multiple chapters (seriously, one book had a chapter devoted to negotiating the specifics of a threesome, then another to talking out the discomforting ideas about it, then another to foreplay, then another to rediscussing comfort and boundaries, then another to fucking and yet another to dealing with discomforted reactions and then sanctimonious bullshit and then storming out and then another to examining relations and then getting right back to screwing. Seriously).

One of my favourite characters, Edward, returns this book. His presence almost always guarantees a healthy amount of attention will be spent on the more interesting "vampire hunter" aspects of the series. Sadly, his presence felt extremely unnecessary by book's end, as if he was merely written in so that Hamilton could acknowledge Edward fans who'd been clamoring for him since his last appearance 40 books previous. He wasn't actually necessary, or all that useful, to any parts of the plot. Meh.

Moving on.

This week was devoted to spending a lot of work days in classes learning to be a better Burgerworld manager, so that I can then go to more classes to become an even better SpiffyWorldBurger manager and get some serious promotions going--at some vaguely defined and wholly undisclosed time in the future. The amount of avoidance of any real discussion of what they have planned promotion-wise for me and one of the others really irks me, as does other bs about promoting a couple minions and then deciding to hold off on promoting them for no real reason. Blech. My McMorale is down. At any rate, regarding classes--the last day was devoted to learning better customer service. Now I am one super customer servicing motherfucker already. So this day was really redundant, even remedial at times, for me. Necessary steps forward; I just have to keep telling myself that--and keeping one ear to the wind, seeking opportunities for change. Sadly, the wind hasn't been blowing much.

Kids' report cards came. Aeia is, as per usual, the perfect little student. So much her mother in training. Lash got not-so-great marks on social skills and excellent marks in academics, was made to feel bad enough about the former that by the time I was able to see his report card, he had no pride or happiness to express about the latter. That bummed me and I spent a while working to make him feel better about his accomplishments.

This week's Netflix highlight is Gone Baby Gone. After watching this, I've come to some conclusions, some cementing of previous beliefs:
1. Casey Affleck can express better emotional depth and range of character than Ben.
2. Ben should just direct from now on.
The movie was great, far better than I ever would have expected it to be. If that's an indicator of the directorial ability Affleck has in him, I'd be happy to never see him do another Reindeer Games or Kevin Smith movie.

Groundhog Day

Groundhog day has come and gone and I neglected to find out if the little prognosticator decreed we would have a longer winter. I do know it's been truly effing cold and dreary and I am ready for some sunshine already. My favourite lesbian at work was talking about how she hated the movie Groundhog Day and I chimed in that it was to that movie that Denise and I began our relationship (a topic I don't actually think of much, as our getting together was also attached to a bad memory of losing a friend. . .and I haven't seen the movie since). She then made me do a spit-take by asking if we "were what, chasing the same guy?"

Work has been stressful, what with employees constantly calling in sick, various inspections past and pending, and, of course, the customers. Always the customers. I think some of our customers are the craziest lot of mouth breathers in the world, but some of them are fairly nice too, so I'll be ceasing the bitching, for the moment anyway.

If you're waiting with baited breath for news on my cancer check-up: everything was still clear, so I have another yearlong furlough until I have to go in for testing again. Denise was even nice enough to remember to tell me the good news a whole two days after they called and told her for me.

Aeia turned eight on Monday. Eight. Wow. It's hard sometimes to remember she was the baby that the doctors told us to expect to lose. And now she's eight. Fo' shizzle.

I watched Juno last night. I'm still digesting it. I think it bothered me that Jason Bateman and Michael Cera were in a movie together so soon and not playing father and son. I liked the movie, though, just not sure yet how much. I'm still thinking about it (to steal lines from Cammie stealing lines from Lash).

Ugh, there is dried grease particles in my hair. Fucking gross.

Word to your mothers.