Off to Another Colorful Year

Thanks to chilling temperatures, my wife and I are going on day three without water. While I'm grateful to have electricity, I'm over the empty faucets. And they'll likely remain empty until Wednesday.

Apparently, 2013 wants to see me cry.

I can't wash my hair without my wife's help. Bathing feels old-timey as I crouch in the bathtub and scrub my essentials with a washcloth. I dip a cup into a pot of hot water, fresh off the stove, to rinse. My wife, with her own pot of water, takes my place when I'm finished. It's a sophisticated system.

The dishes, shoved in a cloth bag, came to work with me so they can be washed. Co-workers are kind not to ask what the cookie sheet is for.

I'm not drinking as much water. Food is eaten sparingly. Bathroom "situations" have become...interesting.

What is it about the New Year that likes to hand my ass to me? Remember 2011? Yes, pissing in the bathtub is fun, but the novelty soon wears off, as does the hilarity. I don't need, "We're out of pee water," to replace "I love you," or "What's for dinner," as the most popular saying in 2013 to add color to my life. Really. I don't.

So, 2013, if this is how you want to play it, I've got news for you. It's hard to beat someone who's shameless. I'll keep peeing in the tub. I'll stick to my side of the cookie sheet when my wife and I use it as a plate. I'll even continue driving the dishes around. But you, you're time will run out. Just do me a solid before you go: Don't tell 2014 what I've said.

The Art of Living

Nothing--not Anne Heche's 20/20 interview with Barbara Walters; not being stuck in an elevator with a fat man while I'm holding a sandwich; not even Michele Bachmann living in the White House--scares me more than dying.

You're probably thinking, 'No shit. That's an easy call.' And you'd be right. Dying is terrifying for most of us. But for me, it's not the idea of no longer existing or the idea of facing the unknown that scares me the most: It's what I'll miss.

What if To Kill A Mockingbird or The Night Circus or Geek Love had been written after 2173 and I never cracked their stiff spines only to soften them in a matter of days? What if Anne Hathaway had been born after I died and she didn't get to break my heart in such a gloriously unexpected way in Les Miserable? Don't even get me started on Jessica Chastain, Tina Fey, and Portlandia.

While there are plenty of people who think God has a fabulous library, a state-of-the-art home theater system where he gets the biggest blockbusters before Netflix, and holds a new gallery opening on the second Tuesday of every month in his floating sky-house, I don't prescribe to such comforts. When I'm gone, that's that. And with me, everything I've massively, lovingly appreciated will melt away with the burning of my lifeless body.

I'll not miss the bullshit of people, but goddamn, I'm going to miss the art of living.

Dick Licker of the Year

Competition was fierce this year, but edging out Newt Gingrich, Boy Scouts of America, Octomom, Carnival Cruise Line, and Justice Anthony Scalia for the Dick Licker of the Year award was the Iowa Supreme Court.

Congratulations, gentlemen. By unanimously agreeing with a man who fired his dental assistant because her attractiveness threatened his marriage, well, that's what I call real dickmanship. Seven dicks for seven brothers. Les dickerables.

What happened to holding people personally accountable for their thoughts and feelings? If we set a precedent to blame others--how can we possibly be expected to control ourselves?!--for decisions we're even thinking about making, what hope is there for the future generations of women?

Yeah, I thought it, too, probably the same time you did: designer burkas.

Don't think your name didn't come up during voting, Dr. James Knight. You felt, one day, you were bound to stick your penis in your dental assistant. Your wife thought so too and demanded she be fired.

That makes you a dick-licking motherfucker too.

I could dole out insults all day but I guess I should grow up and get to the heart of the matter.

Hey, dumb shits. You know who's a threat to your marriage? You and your wife!

Talk about a lack of trust, respect, and self-esteem. You didn't need to go to court, Dr. Knight. You needed to go to marriage counseling.

And you, Iowa Supreme Court, should never allow the internal insecurities of a marriage to dictate the outcome of a woman's employment. I hope the Dick Licker of the Year award looks as nice as I think it will sitting next to your Smug Fucker participation ribbon. 

c.u.n.n.i.l.i.n.g.u.s.

All right. I've heard enough. There are too many men in too many movies claiming the key to performing fellatio on women is spelling out letters with their tongues. Most recently, I watched a woman tell her boyfriend he's really good at it and he says it's because he wrote a short story. With his tongue.

What a fantastical way to admit he has no fucking idea what he's doing.

And she's lying.

I can imagine how it feels, having a tongue spell out letters in my cookie jar: erratic, unorganized, hit and miss. One second it feels great, right on the spot, and the very next the tongue is off on some unplanned adventure, nowhere near my pleasure cruise. 

I hate to be the barer of bad news, but women aren't typewriters. Our vulvas aren't looking for the next Hemingway to write the next great American story in our business. 

Then again, treating women's sexual needs with this kind of bullshit is the great America story, isn't it?  

I'm not saying this is true across the board. There are plenty of men out there who take pleasuring their women seriously. I like to think alphabet cunnilingus is nothing more than Hollywood urban legend, comparable to lesbians in movies sleeping with men. It's for a laugh. But something tells me, having heard stories from women who don't orgasm until their thirties, it's not a joke. 

Listen up, gods of pleasure. Tongue fatigue sets in quickly when you listen to men who live with their parents or drive BMWs. Cunnilingus doesn't have to be so complicated. Generally speaking, her clitoris prefers pressure on one side or the other, the top, going back and forth, or up and down. And if you feel the need to try this bullshit at the vaginal opening, stick with the letter O. Just stay present and her body will guide you, unlike Hollywood screenwriters.

Here We Go Again

Every time it hurts me. Every time I feel like throwing a monstrous fit. Every time I wish for change.

Checking the "single" box on my medical records is fucking ridiculous. When offered, checking "other" and writing "domestic partnership" on the line provided sounds like my wife and I made an agreement to grow tails, stay off the couch, and pee outside. But my integrity won't let me check the "married" box because, well, it's not true.

I recently conducted a medical review over the phone. Perfectly Pleasant Pam asked me my name. Date of birth. Single or married.

Oh, boy. Here we go. I sighed. "I guess I have to say single, unfortunately."

"Well that's all right," Pam said. I imagined her shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

"It's not legal for me to get married," I said. I wanted Pam to know that being denied the right to marry was not "all right" with me.

"Well I've been with my guy for nine, ten years," Pam said. She briefly elaborated, suggesting it was hilarious that being with her guy for so long provided her no pleasure in checking the married box.

Congratulations, Pam. Your relationship is a riot. You and your guy are a couple regular Everybody Loves Raymond types that American's adore. Aren't you fucking special.

Pam seemed relieved to move on to questions concerning my medical history.

I thought Pam and I were done; we'd had our moment and it had passed. We were compadres, working on the same team. Then she asked me for my emergency contact, which I provided with no hesitation. Her name is...Her phone number is...

"Is this your friend?" Pam said.

The phone's for you, Pam. It's 1995 and it wants its "roommate" back.

"She's my WIFE," I responded.

Pam didn't know what to do. Stuck between wanting to seem cool and having a hard time hiding her true self, she stammered and may have accidently shot a staple into her leg.

Fail, Pam. Epic fail.

I'm begging, imploring that people like Pam are soon put out of their misery. She can call me carpet licker, diesel dyke, homo, fag, or anything else her and her guy can come up with behind my back, just as long as there's a word for what I am on my medical records: Married.

Something to Write About

I'm not a fan of bumper stickers. I don't feel the need to let other drivers know things about me. I don't need to plead with strangers to "<Not> blame me because I voted for the American." What difference does it make if strangers know I'm an uninformed, ignorant racist? Unless I'm rolling through Detroit, none.

While it's great to want the Dalia Lama's safe return home and monks to stop being persecuted for their beliefs, announcing I want a "Free Tibet" says I'm political without being political. Who doesn't want a free Tibet? Some Chinese, maybe, but come on. Americans love to rally against bullies who don't allow freedom of reli--what's that now? Our President must say "God bless America" after he gives a speech? Well, you know what I mean. "Free Tibet" is doing nothing more than accentuating the orange-ish hues on my 1984 Volkswagen Jetta's rusty bumper.

Who gives a shit about seeing my family displayed in stick-figure formation? Nothing says I'm thinking about the environment I'm leaving for my six kids, two dogs, and one cat than driving through the Starbucks' drive-thru in my Range Rover. Who cares if our ecological footprint is so big my family, singlehandedly, can one day be blamed for dependence on foreign oil?

Fuck it. I'm important, and I can do what I want.

You got that right. Do what you want all day long. It gives me something to write about.

What Was That?

Something unexpected happened over the weekend. Something I assumed would be quite innocent turned out to be an evening-shattering event. At one point my wife and I looked at each other, each wiping streaming tears from our faces, and wondered aloud what was happening to us. One of us had to keep swallowing, her throat burning, to keep from balls-out bawling. 

It started when Walter chicken-pecked the first few notes—"It's. Time. To..."—on Kermit the Frog's dusty piano.

There was no coming back from it.

If you haven't seen The Muppets, let me tell you, that movie wasn't messing around. It lifted my wife and me over its head, cracked our backs over its knee, and left us to crawl to a payphone to call for help. The Muppets’ studio in ruins?! The Muppets no longer friends?! No longer relevant?! It took everything we valued and loved in our childhoods and set them on fire right in front of our faces. 

And then Kermit and Miss Piggy had to go and sing Rainbow Connection as a duet. You might as well have beaten a basket of puppies before our eyes the way we carried on.

When my wife asked me, “What’s wrong with us?” I tried to say something about our reactions maybe being linked to our youth being over, how we’d never feel that joyfully light again, that we’d never feel so over-the-top connected to anything like the Muppets again, but couldn't without breaking down. 

So I took a minute. 

With tears still rolling down my face, I settled on, "I'm so glad we didn't see that in the theater.”

And that's how we left it: laughing about being the two adult women in the audience who couldn't manage to detach themselves from the fuzzy friends who meant more to them than just entertaining puppets.

Slapping Bitches

It has been awhile since I've had an overwhelming urge to open-hand slap someone across the face. Plenty have been considered--Kim Kardashian after she took the "sanctity of marriage" and poured expensive champagne all over it; Newt Gingrich because, well, he's Newt Gingrich; Donald Trump as he struggles to remain relevant--but it wasn't until last week, when Mitt Romney insulted me by saying I'm looking for gifts from Obama, that I started taking practice swings at pillows.

So you're the candidate who wouldn't make it rain and that's what sunk you.

Sounds like something a little bitch would say.

Let me lay it out for you, Mitt. The only gift I'll receive for not voting for you is not having you referred to as President of the United States for the next four years. Even if you'd offered the gift of extending the Bush tax cuts and I was a millionaire, it still wouldn't be a bigger gift than that. To suggest otherwise is egotistically irresponsible.

It takes a true little bitch to not admit playing a part in his own loss. But a true little bitch tries everything he can to keep his starting quarterback position on a team that wants to make the rules.

Little bitches, man. You just can't get close enough to give them a gift of your own.

Love in One Act

ACT I
SUNDAY MORNING, FALL 2012

The McHeberly kitchen. Standing in the thimble-sized kitchen is Whack-A-Muse, the oldest member of the household. She is finishing up the dishes, when her wife walks down the hallway and stops at the end of the kitchen counter. She has a white and pink electric razor in her hand.

Wife   You want me to shave your mustache?

Whack-A-Muse  (looking at the razor) You didn't just use that on your--

Wife   No!

WAM   Were you embarrassed to be seen with me at the play last night?

Wife   Not at all.

WAM   It's okay if you were. Maybe the way I was standing under the light caught--

Wife   (laughs) No. I just had these out and figured, you know.

WAM  (without hesitation) Sure! But should we get out of the kitchen?

Wife   Yes. Let's go in the living room, in the light.

WAM follows Wife into the living room. Wife turns, takes WAM by the shoulders and positions her just so in a block of sunshine. Wife turns on the electric lady razor and raises it to WAM's upper lip. WAM stretches her mouth to make it easier on Wife, and to ensure the tiny black hairs are erased.

Wife   (satisfied, Wife turns off the razor) There.

WAM   How's my eyebrows look? The ones that grow into my hair?

Wife turns the razor back on and starts shaving the side of WAM's forehead.

Once Wife is finished, WAM uses her pointer finger and rubs between her eyebrows. Without a word, Wife turns the razor back on.

WAM  I don't know if I trust you shaving between my eyebrows.

Wife   I know, but trust me. It'll be okay.

WAM   You can't shave straight down. You gotta angle it. I don't want you to shave off half my eyebrows like you--

Wife   (firmly) I know. It'll be fine.

Wife, again, raises the razor and delicately shaves between WAM's eyebrows.

WAM   Better?

Wife   Yes.

They kiss.

Big Fucking Deal

On the eve of the election, I'm feeling all kinds of, well, feelings. My belief system aligns more with President Obama’s, but truthfully, nothing in my daily life changes, regardless of who is steering the ship. But, this year, things feel different. For the first time in our nation's history, the sitting President, Barack Obama, thinks I have the right to get married. And that feels like a Big Fucking Deal.

When I excitedly asked a family member if she'd heard the President’s announcement, all she had to say was, "Well yeah! He wants those votes!"

Right. Votes. Forget that it took 223 years for the President of the United States to “want” a gay's vote. Forget that no president before Obama has ever supported gay marriage. Forget that the family member’s daughter is one of those.

My own mother reducing Obama's support of gay marriage as an attempt to garner more votes blatantly shows how easily the love I have for my wife can be dismissed.

And I'm fucking over it.

Legalizing gay marriage makes our love recognizable, something people can understand and wrap their heads around. Yes, it is just like The Bachelorette but the Bachelorette chooses a woman instead of a man. That’s a Big Fucking Deal.

So thank you, Mr. President, for telling our nation that, yes, love is love. Thank you for being the voice of profound change in my life. And thank you for being the only man I want (in the White House).

Because, like it or not, my life is a Big Fucking Deal.