"First Day of Fall – Design by Eric Carle" it says.  Being that The Googs cleverly provides a link via the image directly to a search related to their wacky logo stylings, I click through to the search result.

"Something isn’t quite right here" thought I when I first saw the word "Fall" instead of "Autumn".  I soldiered on to each of the results pages and was astounded.

Every single Top 10 result is US-centric, or at least focused on the Northern Hemisphere.  Every.  Single.  One.

Which is fine, don’t get me wrong… if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere.

Now is when I get a bit pissy at The Googs and want to start thumping some heads.

For starters, here in Australia, they simply don’t call it "Fall", it’s "Autumn" and nothing else. Also, it’s the first day of March, not the 21st.

IT IS NOT SIMPLY AMERICA UPSIDE-DOWN YOU RIDICULOUS FUCKING TWATS.  Changing the wording for an image that’s obviously meant to symbolise Spring on the wrong fucking day tells roughly 25 million people that you don’t give a fuck about their actual culture.

I wouldn’t have said a thing if this were simply on their normal US-centric homepage, but to put it on the country-specific websites is inviting someone like me to call you "ridiculous fucking twats".

Wanna hear the kicker?  They at least got the naming right for the kiwis but still got the date wrong.

On the part of my passion for my adopted home, it may certainly be a case of "small man syndrome" of which I am well familiar having outgrown my 5′6" father by the age of 13, it is also definitely a case of "a pat on the head turned really insulting" by highly visible representatives of my atrociously arrogant former home.  Fuckheads.

Too bad my entire business depends on ‘em.  Flah.

Having a rare moment of solace from work responsibilities whilst on the laptop, I ran through the exhaustive list of blogs that I used to read religiously and now only stop in on once a month. Interesting what’s out there and what some of my favourite people are writing. Many are heartily in favour of the recent US election results and some are not. Despite all of the things I could say about how I feel and how much I support an outcome, I still feel the same way about politics as I always have. That being that the election of a president is essentially a job interview, and I cast my vote for whoever I think will do the best job. I also think it’s the lesser of two evils, and I always will. The job in question isn’t to be my ethical leader and a tower of morality, it’s actually quite a dirty job and I don’t expect the guy that does it to be clean.

The first time I could vote, in ’92 a few months after turning 18, I was excited at the novelty of it, but also because of that feeling you get, the one where you really feel like a part of what changes the world. I knew he was an adulterer and a bit slippery, but I felt he was right for the job. So I voted for him instead of a couple of guys that I really didn’t find that distasteful.

The next time I could vote, I once again found one gent not all that distasteful, but the fella that couldn’t keep his pants on (and did lie about it) was still the right guy for the job. He got my vote again and won again.

After that, an apparent successor was running for the White House and I found that I genuinely liked the new guy. For a politician he was alright, and his wife and daughters were all hot. Didn’t hurt a bit. I figured he’d win over a man who I honestly considered of a lower intellect and therefore not fit for the job as the most powerful person in the Western World. I “threw away” my vote in a fit of rebellion, and possibly residual drunkenness as I’d been out quite late the night before, and wrote in an NHL goalie who’d appeared in a mock presidential ad to boost ticket sales and a friend of mine who was neither 35, a politician, or even born in the US. I thought it was funny, at the time, and giggled when I told the story for days afterward. Unfortunately, in the days following, the votes that were counted really counted, and a man that I thought a bit of an idiot won.

Next time around, I did what I’d always feared I’d have to do as a voter. I voted “against” someone rather than “for” someone. In the national job interview that is the election, I didn’t really want one guy in so much as I simply wanted the idiot out, and I didn’t get my wish. I’m still scratching my head as to how that happened, though deep in my heart I know that, deep in their hearts, most voting Americans are not a small bit selfish and also a bit greedy. When you’re a money worshipper, it influences at least 95% of all your decisions.

Now I live in a different country where I am not able to vote (yet), and enough of my ties to the US have been severed such that I am not eligible to vote there any more. I wish I was. Not because I wanted a different outcome than what happened, but simply so that I could feel more legitimate in my voice. An election ad that we even got to see here in Australia said something along the lines of, “My dad told me that you have to either vote, or shut the hell up.” That’s how I feel about it, and I would’ve liked the opportunity to say something regardless of whether or not things are going my way.

Something did happen though, that didn’t go the way I preferred. A large and very important state voted on the issue of Gay Rights and the people decided that they wanted to take away something that had recently been given. To refer to my feelings on this as disappointment, would be an understatement so monumental that it may actually knock the nearest planets and orbiting heavenly bodies off their natural axis.

I have very little to actually say about this. Intelligent, rational, logical and functional human beings simply don’t operate this way, or at least they shouldn’t. There you go though, my own judgements on how people should act shouldn’t distract from the actual point. To those rational beings, some things just don’t make sense. To call them “wrong” is to state a perspective and judge all other perspectives accordingly. This would never really be my intent.

My intent is to simply call into question things like why anyone should care about who you love and who you marry. Do we need to dissect a culture’s behaviour down to the level of considering whether or not we support a legal union because somebody puts their nether parts on like parts?

I won’t even begin to expand upon the question of why you would need an archaic and eminently questionable book, written by people you don’t know and nobody you know ever knew, to tell you what is “right” and what is “wrong.” Honestly, aren’t these things that we should have a pretty good idea about on our own? Personally, I don’t need an invisible person, whom I’ve never met and nobody I’ve met has ever met, to tell me I should love my neighbour and not kill him because it’s wrong. When faced with decisions and dilemmas, I look into my heart and seek answers there. Hell, even if I did kill him, I’d still know it was wrong.

Again though, I am being judgemental of those that seek answers that aren’t clear in their heart that this book can help clarify. Maybe they need that book to tell them how wrong it would be to kill that neighbour and they need to weigh the options, I am in no position to judge. To each their own.

To each their own… something that others don’t necessarily subscribe to. I’ll leave it at that, lest I judge again.

On that note though, I will proudly and happily announce the marriage, the legal and abiding union of my aunt (my own mother’s twin) to her same-sex partner of almost 40 years last week. These two Californians are going to live the exact same way that they’ve lived for these past decades, except now they are protected against certain idiocies of our society. Again, I’m very proud, and not in the flag-waving, wear purple and/or dress-in-drag kind of way. Just a loving nephew who has known nothing but these two women as such an immutable couple that he openly wondered (at the tender age of 5) why, if both had husbands before that filled the same role, weren’t they then considered “married” when they got together. Awwwwwww, cute little guy.

I have nothing more to say on this here.

As I started this missive whilst watching “Rove” and the programs have now shifted, I am subjected to numerous ads for other programs that will happen on this channel later in the week. Two of which are on the same night, one right after another, and both deal with a quirky and/or eccentric male character behaving quirky and eccentrically around what appears to be mildly fucked up (read: normal) people in a normal profession (TV professions, that is). One is House and the other Life, both one-word descriptions of these characters on their respective shows.

Hugh Laurie was apparently a part of a comedy team on British television, back in the day. Something I didn’t know until my brother-in-law fucked up his knee and I made him a flame-coated cane in homage to the popular television version of his dry and sarcastic doctor self. He told me about Laurie’s history upon being presented with the cane and then looked at me like I was an idiot, as he often does, when I expressed surprise that Laurie was British.

Having dealt with the idea that many of the popular characters from Hollywood’s film and television output are, in fact, not originally from America (Aussies’re takin’ over Hollywood), I wasn’t surprised in a negative way. “Good on ‘em” I’ve learned to say, especially when discovering a rock-faced character from The Matrix and Lord of the Rings actually hugely boosted his film career as a flaming drag queen right here in the desert outback. If I remember correctly I was staring at the back of the DVD cover in the middle of Video E-Z and expressing loudly across the aisle, “Hugo WEAVING is Aussie? He’s Agent Smith! He’s Elrond! What’s he doing imitating an flamingo on the top of a bus in full makeup!?!? I knew Wolverine said ‘Crikeyg’day matedingocrocs’ but Hugo WEAVING!?!?”

A long build-up for a continuing surprise that hit me today while watching the ABC (not the same as in the States. Equivalent in the US would be… NPR?) and seeing an ad for some Brit movie. There he was, big as life, Damian Lewis, speaking in a perfect English accent. “Holy crap” I remember thinking, “another pom is leading one of my favourite shows. How did I not hear about this?”

To draw it all together, I’ll leave it at this: While still stepping on their dicks as far as true equality is concerned, America did take a bold and New Millennium step forward and elected a black fella (half-black, I’m told, but like the Aborigines here, in for a penny, in for a pound. If you’ve got a drop, you’re in. Simple as that.). While monumentally important to America’s previous International image as a Powerful Land Run by an Idiot, I’d like to believe that it’s more than just where you’re from and what colour your skin is. My microcosmic community here supports this thought. It also shouldn’t be about who you love, but I guess we’ll keep working toward that one and take what we can get.

Hopefully, it wasn’t really about race. Know what most people talk about here instead of race? That Sarah Palin was potentially the new international whipping idiot and only a minor coronary away from being the Leader of the Free World. That Obama could be talking about Socialism or Nihilism or whateverthefuck else and it doesn’t matter because he does it articulately, sans mispronunciations. That’s really about it. Oh, the economy and the environment and all that shit too.

Know what else? Nobody here mentions that a couple of limey gits are playing Americans on two of our most popular television shows so effortlessly that many of us (me) have failed to noticed they’re foreign.

Over here, we’re all just taking it as it comes. It’s how it should be.

No worries. Live in The Now.

So, where are you right Now? Thinking about your new president? Thinking about your favourite TV shows? Thinking about how the World is bound to change in the coming years? Thinking about that bit of food stuck in your chest hair and wondering if it was from the chips at lunch or the cookie after dinner and deciding “Fuck it” and just picking it out and eating it regardless of it’s origin?

Wherever and whatever, don’t forget a few basic things. One of them is that no matter how revolting it may seem in a social sense, there are a myriad of things you can get away with in your own bedroom. Another is that the World is always changing, is always different, and is always so diversely interesting that you only need to look to see it.

And finally, wherever you happen to be right Now, it’s where you are in your life.

You’ve spent a moderate bit of time to even get to this point in my ramblings… go now, and spend a comparable amount of time taking a look at where your actual life is.

Look at it, learn from it.

And eat those crumbs.

While this can describe any number of things that one may possibly see on their respective local news in their respective cities and countries, I’m referring to the nationally-televised morning show that had a story about how a Kindergarten was going to ban bullying by children in Superhero clothing as they have a tendency to beat up their classmates.

I can’t even begin to find all of the things wrong with this, so I’ll simply focus on one point that I’d like to make, and then I’ll go back to my scrambled eggs and this-looks-important-to-you-so-I’ll-put-it-in-my-sloppy-mouth baby daughter.

Making someone else’s asshole kid stop punching my kid isn’t done by stopping them from pretending to be superheroes, giving them less sugar, or having them play less competitive games so they can all feel better about themselves.

I don’t know when it happened, but at some point parents started making concerted efforts to stop bullies from bullying. This may sound noble enough, but it begs the question: Didn’t we ALL get bullied to some extent or another? Did our parents stop it every time?

Stopping a bully from bullying is done in only a few ways…

Either standing up for yourself or running the fuck away.

And that’s what I’ll be teaching my kids. None of this special and unique snowflake bullshit. My son talks about some kids in school and says that they pick on him, so I ask him if he knows why. If he does, I ask him if it’s worth changing who he is to keep from getting picked on. If it isn’t, then I tell him that he’s going to get used to getting smacked in the mouth for a bit, and he’ll have to settle for the knowledge that he’s the bigger and better person in the long run.

If he doesn’t know why he’s getting picked on, then I tell him to tell those kids that they’re being assholes, and that they should cease and desist if they don’t want to be widely considered as afflicted with assholitis.

You bet your ass I tell him almost exactly that too, that way he knows I’m serious. That kind of castigation threat works too, because no matter what age they are, a bully is ALWAYS concerned with everyone else’s opinion of them. If they weren’t concerned, they wouldn’t pick on others. Unless they’re pure Evil, but that’s a different concern altogether, as once you start measuring a kid’s potential in kilonazis, he’s pretty much irretrievably fucked.

If my boy gets hit, he is instructed to weigh the situation and react accordingly. “Tell a teacher” is the stalwart, but isn’t always terribly realistic and I know this. “Hit back” or “run away” are really the only two immediate options, and while getting “hit” in the first place isn’t limited to being a physical action, neither are the two possible reactions. Biting commentary has gotten me out of far more drunken bar violence than my fists ever have. So has biting for that matter.

I’m raising the kind of people that don’t attract the level of aggression it would take for me to step in and fix the situation for them. If they can’t handle it on their own, then they’re doing something stupid and not what I’ve taught them. To the best of my limited abilities, I’m teaching them not to be stupid. Those that know me know this is NOT exactly by example either.

At the risk of sounding ridiculously back-in-my-dayish, I don’t remember a whole lot of protection for the victim when I was a kid. Sadly enough, I don’t even really remember when all this horseshit about stopping bullies got started either.

I’m thinking that I was probably part of the last generation to ever get beaned in the face during dodgeball, get a Nuclear Wedgie, a Swirly, and stuffed in a locker. It’s almost as if all of people in my generation that grew up and became teachers and legislators and lawyers, as well as Parents, decided that they hated that shit and it ruined their life (or at least that’s what their $250 an hour shrink told ‘em) and they were going to put a stop to it.

Did I want it stopped? At the time, you bet your ass. But I couldn’t stop it, and my parents wouldn’t, so I put up with it. I got busted in the mouth and I took it, and I grew and I learned and I toughened the fuck up.

It can be packaged to look like I was simply biding my time until I was able to mete out similar punishment in a misguided attempt to garner some payback, but I was different. I still wanted the opportunity, absolutely, but I wanted to be the one that chose not to actually go through with the “crippling” part of the Nipple Crippler. I wanted to show how much better I was than those meaty-craniumed smarmy-faced hormonkeys. I wanted my chance to show my benevolence, and in doing so prove myself better than the fuckwits before me. I wanted my chance to make the World a better place.

And I didn’t get one. I missed my chance to be as rotten or merciful as I wanted. The choice for me to be either was taken away by Soccerbitches who think that hiding little MackenzieDakotaMontana under a mound of Xbox games, Coke and Oreos is the answer to keep the other kids from calling her “fatty fatty two by four who can’t fit through the kitchen door”.

The rules changed and someone decided to fight back a little too late, via the wrong adolescent.

Nerdly McGeekington comes to Principal PretendsToCare absolutely livid because little Twigtastic WheresMyPuffer got his glasses broken when Tuffy O’ShitForParents drilled him in the kisser during the Weed Out the Pussies Round of the Dodgeball Tournament, and the possible solutions to this are:

A) Ban yet another activity that *gasp* separates the physically strong and able from the rest, thereby reducing the risk that kids can hurt each others feelers.

B) Encourage Twiggy to put his only real weapon to work and hatch a fiendishly intelligent plot of humiliating and public revenge while taping his glasses back together.

C) Make ‘em all wear little pink tutus, only go all Harrison Bergeron on ‘em and make some of the tutus pinker and more gay the tougher the kid is.

I think it’s pretty evident which selection I endorse, and I truly believe it’s made the World a better place.

Without the ritualistic beating of a nerd, we wouldn’t have Microsoft (whose societal value is still in question but I enjoy nonetheless), Teh Intraweb (and all that pr0n), PC Loadletter (best battle cry for smashing electronic equipment EVER), Doom, Madden ’96, Toy Story and Shrek, Transformers, microscopic girl’s dorm cams, and phones that are so fucking futurtastic that they not only play the latest music, highlights from the footy, take frameable pictures and screenable videos, but can tell us when we need to drop a deuce.

We really should thank the nerds more. Go on, go hug a nerd right now.

And by “hug” I mean, “grasp and pull the elastic waistband of their undergarments with such force as to cause discomfort and pain to their genitalia and/or rectum”.

What’s that? What about the bullies? Well the World needs them too. Bullies are the foundation of the White Trash segment of our society as well as some of our best law enforcers, lawmakers, and legislators.

Without good and proper assholes doling out youthful undergarment punishment, we wouldn’t be able to sue for millions of dollars after burning our genitalia with boiling refreshments, we’d pay thousands more per gallon of fuel, we wouldn’t have a venue in which to drink pisswaterbeer and scream ourselves hoarse at gladiatoresque sweatdemons, and what would we call our favourite all-rounder in upper body clothing? White singlets? Thin white tanktops? Sleeveless undershirts?

No. It’s a wifebeater, and everybody knows that.

If that first bully, wearing one of those multipurpose masterpieces, didn’t loudly and proudly proclaim his household dominance with his drunken fists, we’d have no clever name for them. And then, dare I say it, they might not even be as equally popular with Rock Stars, skateboarding punks and lesbians.

So, raise your kids up right. If you were a pussy, then coddle and swaddle and grow yourself some quality dominance-establishing fodder. Who else is to teach us how to passive-aggressively change the World while making billions?

If you were an asshole, then by all rights raise yet another asshole. It’s not like anyone could ever envision a world without them, and besides, whatever would become of the Wars over Oil and Pro Wrestling?

While my kids aren’t going to sit in a field and toke their way to self-enlightenment while centering their shakras or shakraing their centers, they certainly aren’t going to step on anybody’s fucking face to further their own worthless asses either.

They’re going to get where they’re at in Life, to that wonderful place I’m in with all of the wonderful things in it, the same way that I did…

Blind Luck.

Go get ‘em Tiger!

It’s not hard to believe then that when I worked so hard to get my sites and domains redesigned and moved over to Pedro’s Hosting, I assumed that juddhole.com expiring would mean that Pete could snatch it off them and I could pay his meager fees instead of their exorbitant ones.

I was told by a very nice George in Nova Scotia that Register.com owns mah shit and wasn’t gonna give it up for a month and that I’d have to renew with them if I wanted it to work anytime soon. I told him that the least they could do was lubricate a bit before jamming it in my ass and that I wasn’t even getting a polite reach-around. Nuh-uh, no way, no how.

He thought about it, checked that the support records indicated that the history of my requests of them is significantly less of a pain in the ass then what he was about to inflict upon my precious pucker, and then caved and gave me a smokin’ deal.

So I’m back.

I used to get up in the morning, coffeeshitshowershave, help get the kids sorted for the day, take one or both to school, read to them, kiss them, and then bolt out of there so that I could pull my gumboots up to my hips in preparation for wading through the knee-deep SHIT that was my day.

I used to do my day in the best way that I could, which is to say that I rocked for the most part, then I would double-check my gumboots and head home, where I would kiss people and hear about naughtiness/niceness as I would strip off some of the more finer tailored shackles one can have.

I used to think that I had to do this even though I didn’t want to.

Now, I don’t.

Life is too short to put up with that shit for the IDEA of what it may mean to you.

Go now. Go and do something that makes you feel free and happy and good.

I’m going to help my little girl with some doll’s clothes, watch my baby blow raspberries at me and giggle, kiss my hot wife and make an egg-salad sandwich while I dance around the kitchen squeaking that Mika song.

I could be hurtful, I could be purple…

4 beers and 5 hours later he is hanging up the phone after another depressingly melancholic phone conversation with his wife. They were both sobbing openly by the end and agreed that it would be best if they’d ended it there. They both knew that the sobbing wouldn’t stop by hanging up the phone though.

He mildly drunkenly gets into the shower, in the dark, and unleashes a torrent of invective at the Universe for putting him so far away from where he belongs. His roommate is gone for the night so he’s left the bathroom door open and is soon yelling quite forcefully at no one and nothing in particular, though his dog retreats to the corner of the living room.

\”I can’t do this\” is such a simple statement. It lends itself to the defeatist whims of those with weaker constitutions but, when shouted at the top of his lungs that night, it is the answer to an unspoken challenge. Drunk, wet, and naked, he stumbles around in the dark, working on a plan. If he can’t do this, then he must do something else. Another simple statement.

After arriving at work the next morning, hanging up from yet another brutally painful, missing-you-oh-god-missing-you-so-badly-it-hurts phone call, he thinks carefully about her words. She’d admitted that she’d had enough of his hemming and hawing, and she’s stretched just as thin as he is at being unable to be together. He tries to tell her that the decision has already been made, that it can’t be changed, and that it’s just madness that his keys taunt him so badly that he hides them sometimes.

His options are simple as well, his mother explains to him very objectively at lunch: Wait yet another month and suffer, drinking away his nights, unproductively wiling away his days, continuing to lose weight and possessions, painfully putting up with random bouts of tears that simply refuse to stop and a hole in his middle, and being completely worthless emotionally to those that are closest to him…

Or say \”Fuck it. I’m going.\”

He wasn’t sure it was possible, given the bureaucratic obstacles as well as the financial stumbling blocks that he was so painstakingly removing, so he didn’t tell his wife straight away. He wanted to know for sure before he got anybody too excited. Despite his best intentions, he told her anyway, and their combined excitement was palpable. The tears were stopped, for now, and in their place was this beautiful possibility.

Then, it all started coming together. Then, it all was together. He and his wife continually quieted their inner-voices of \”it’s only two weeks earlier, what’s the difference?\” because those voices simply don’t understand that the difference is control.

Would you suffer through a month of Winter when you had the power to have Spring two weeks earlier?

I’m going home on August 17th and 10 days is still way too goddam long of a wait.

I’m bringing her back with me in December, to introduce her to my entire life here, my friends, my family, my old home. For those that I won’t see until then, you know I’ll miss you, but keep in mind that I’m preserving what’s left of my sanity for not just my sake, but for yours as well. I think it’s safe to say that nobody likes it when I get violently drunk, sob uncontrollably, and shit myself.

For my readership I’d like to apologize for the poopiness of this diary for the last few months, but I’m not going to. I really just wanted an excuse to use the word \”poopiness.\”

And by \”readership\” I mean \”how can so many of you frickin clowns still read this shit every day when it wears its suckage like a pervert’s trenchcoat, only flashing it’s pecker to an assorted few?\”

Smooches.

Sure, I’d planned for the depression that wraps itself around my psyche, the aching in my middle that is a physical manifestation of being away from my other half, but I kept forgetting that Life itself changes along with us. Usually regardless of what we planned and almost always in direct proportion to the changes we had already prepared for.

Life has presented some real doozies lately and I find myself asking, as Wife is prone to do as well, \”Am I done yet? Am I done with the Shit and on with the Good yet?\”

Whining into the void does no good, and Wife and I whining to each other only solidifies that which we’ve known for a very long while, that we are always mirroring each other’s state of being. We’re both fond of reminding each other that this manner of sublime compatibility doesn’t help either of us sleep at night, alone, nor does it inspire us to eat or attempt to socialize with others.

I guess this is me admitting that I’m choosing to whine HERE. So there you go. Thanks for listening.

I’m living in Parker, Colorado now, in a spare room that The Montanan has graciously shared in his grand abode. He had the space, owed me some money for some stuff I gave him, and I needed a place to stay, contract-free and indefinitely, where Asshead could still be an Asshead and I could still drink and smoke too much and spend hours every night on the phone with my wife. It’s a pretty sweet deal.

My worldly possessions have been pared down to my clothing, my dog, and my truck, with assorted other items thrown in, like my coffee-making-fire-extinguishing-alien-mind-control-waves-blocking-combat helmet and my 5-foot-diameter Mexican Sombrero. I’m living pretty simply, as I always have, only with less shit to trip over when I’m drunkenly searching for my webcam at my wife’s requests.

The neighborhood is nice, for the absolute middle of Yuppieville, and no one has complained about my nocturnal urinations… yet.

I’ve also got the added bonus of driving a mere mile away to InternetStalkerly cruise El Puerco’s old house from his childhood. The current tenants were only mildly upset that I whipped out my pocketknife and appended a fresh item to the worn message on one of their many trees.

Sorry Dusty, but on that big pine out back, \”D.S. (hearts) J.H.\” is now followed by \”and Big Black Cock Too!\” I didn’t mean to let your secret out but, because of the impending court order and such, I didn’t figure I’d ever get that kind of opportunity again.

The short *cough-FUCKSTICKS-cough*, 38-mile, hour-long, commute to my office in Golden is what I’m choosing to blame on my truck, The Football Helmet, completely falling it’s ass apart. As an added bonus, The Montanan and I \”bonded\” roommatey-style while cleaning the leaked oil and transmission fluid from his pristine driveway too.

The Football Helmet’s loved me for a very long time and in deference to it’s emotions, I’m no longer mentioning its upcoming sale in it’s presence. Despite it’s knocking and rattling, it seems to enjoy the dirt-road-shortcut to the Interstate though as much as I enjoy the smell of horseshit and prairie grassland on our way to the fallacy known as \”work.\”

Work has firmly settled into the short-timer’s mindset, someone has stolen every last Nerf Dart that existed, and they fucking took my Nerf Basketball for good measure. My honesty and candidness about my departure has been rewarded with constant reminders that I’m needed in no more capacity than to teach somebody new everything I know about my PreciousBaby Software that, incidentally, is now responsible for just under half of our daily sales.

The most memorable bit that I can pull from recent weeks is a co-worker’s conversation in which I stopped staring at the ceiling long enough to interject, \”Yeah, but I bet James Dean never drank his own spit either.\” I don’t remember the exact context, if indeed that statement had any, which only serves to make it funnier in my mind.

Good Fucking Times.

Personal hygiene has never been very high on my list, as I’ve only too proudly written about before, but I’ve completely lost any motivation to even make the smallest of social gestures such as deoderant, minimum grooming, or laundering my clothing. I’m a fucking mess.

I spend my weeknights/weekend days on a tiny, 8 x 10 foot deck, with my hands-free jammed in my ear, a cold beer, a pack of smokes, and Asshead at my feet, whiling away the hours with my beautiful, amazing, wife who is going through her day 10,000 miles away. This is fucking hard.

It’s only made more heart-wrenching by my 4-year old, after being asked if he wanted to talk to me on the phone, saying contemplatively, \”No.\” When asked why he didn’t, he replied, \”I don’t want to just talk to him on the phone, I want to talk to him here.\” Uffda.

The visa application is almost complete and the bureaucratic bullshit that says, \”If two people are in love, married, and want to spend the rest of their lives together they have to wait 3-6 months, spend thousands of dollars, and one of ‘em has to be able to say ‘Drizabone’ in a perfect accent\” is hopefully going to finish smoothly and quickly.

I find it hard to remain ever-optimistic but, now that I look at it, my Aussie accent is benchmarked by retarded sayings that I can bust out to many peals of laughter, both here and abroad. (Go on, say it, \”Drizabone\”)

My family, my friends, my co-workers, and my entire life here all seem to have gained an acceptance of my departure. The house sold, I’ve got a line on a home for Asshead through one of the \”Libyans\” (female hockey players that The Montanan and I both know, most of whom are oriented towards the same sex), and the visa looks good. Almost everything about where I’m at seems well and prepared for me to go, except for one thing…

I’m still here.

I’m still fucking here and I don’t know for how long.

I’m still here and a huge piece of my soul isn’t. The urge to shout and cry and kick something very hard is pretty much constant.

The Montanan hurling carelessly left dog turds at our neighbor doesn’t seem to help either.

Bless him though, he’s trying.

To be honest, I’m way too fucking drunk to even comprehend any difference between the two.

My last plane landed hours ago and I’ve spent that mean time talking to the (ex)Girl, with whom my relationship has blossomed back into that comfortable friendship that we’ve always had, and my Wife, who misses me like I miss her, which is to say that we both need the other like a plant needs sunlight… only like… 80 bazillion times more so.

I had to get on another fucking plane and leave my wife, again.

This Shit is Fucking Brutal.

I don’t know how to put it other than that.

I’m also very drunk. My best friend Shithead, who’s the older brother of the (ex)Girl, left me several ShitBeers in my fridge while the (ex)Girl graciously took care of the house (and it’s ensuing sale, YAY!), and I am eternally grateful, for copious amounts of alcohol are all that I can rely upon right now to dull the Pain.

I don’t have the words to describe the fact that Nothing is Right when I’m away from her, and that my reality is dulled by the realization that my Life consists of a series of events that I must dutifully put up with until I can be with her again…

Permanently.

This Shit Fucking Sucks.

I’ve leaked fluid from my eyes at random moments throughout my 27-hour long trip across the Globe.

She’s cried twice as much for my absence in our home and in her life.

In light of this, I give you happy images, moments that can’t even come close to capturing the love and happiness that is felt, but instead is a vain attempt at capturing the only peace and light that I can currently cling to.

I stare at them for hours on end, remembering, cherishing, grasping at the memories… before I quietly pass out in my empty bed, thousands of miles from where I truly belong.

Have you ever seen him look that happy?

I have to look at him every goddam day in the mirror, and I’ve never seen anything resembling this before.

Husband and Wife.

For Real… For Life.

BatGirl’s 30th birthday party, which she unknowingly invited me to over a year ago, is now surrounded in circumstances which I never would have comprehended, nor believed at the time.

YES, I am a fucking Goob, and the woman pictured loves me like Nothing else in this World.

Sweet Jeezus, I’m outta beer.

Could I feel any worse right now? I suppose I could be… *gasp* SOBER…

*SIGH* I miss you, my wife.

Our ensuing planning of a life together had some major obstacles involved though, things like a migration visa, the sale of my house, and a home for Asshead all made themselves known as very rough patches of some very BIG LifeWheels. Not to mention the incredible depression and absence felt by not being with The One person that truly makes you feel completely whole and real.

Well, Life absolutely couldn’t get any better than this. If it does, I’m fairly certain that it would involve maybe a little less rain or guided tours of the Sweet Nectar Ale of Universal Awesomeness Brewery… with unlimited free samples.

I don’t know that I was ever really ready, but I’ve always wanted kids and not just for the fact that I get to play with their toys either. Seriously though, I’m fairly certain that D, the 4-year old boy, is in dire need of as many BitchinBadAssenest Radio-Controlled vehicles as possible. G, the 2-year old girl, could also use about 57 different kinds of Play-Doh sets and other assorted MessyAssCraftyPretty Art stuff. That aspect of my personality was absolutely bouncing with the prospect of \”fatherhood.\”

What I wasn’t necessarily prepared for was the actual Paternal feelings swelling up so damn strongly. Especially when, after a mere 3 seconds of eye contact, G smiles warmly and says to me, \”You’re my daddy.\” I should mention that NOBODY has told her to say or even to think this, let alone cajoled her or prodded her in any way. She came up with the concept completely on her own, and we bonded instantly. D, with his wary little eyes and somewhat suspicious nature, told me a few hours later that he loved me and that, when monsters came in his dreams, he was going to dream of me so that I could chase them away. We both love Spiderman and Batman and we bonded quite fully over his X-Men coloring book.

We played with toys, we ran around, and I got to act like both a child and a parent. WOW. As with just about every single other aspect of my relationship with WifeToBe, Reality far, far exceeded any possible wonderful expectation I could have had. And I don’t exactly aim low when I’m shooting for Happiness either folks, that says a lot. A fucking ShitLoad.

I’ve quite simply, never been this Happy in my entire Life, and I have someone with me on this path in the exact same spot.

I read (ex)Girl’s email, I squealed, I ran into WifeToBe’s shower and kissed her beautiful wet soapiness, and then did an abbreviated version of the Happy Dance.

Two more Cogs to go.

Visa

Asshead.

I’ve needed it, I’ve received it, I appreciate it, so I’m asking for it again…

Wish me Luck.

She and I are a Year Old together, yay.

So… Jeezus, where to begin? I figure that, after a year, I can hit that point of just random, meaningless, brain-vomiting and pass it off as an entry. I mean Really… why am I so concerned about writing something worth a shit when I’ve continually proven that I don’t do this near as often as I think I need to?

If I could pinpoint one year of my entire fucking life that had more momentous changes, emotional and physical highs and lows, new adventures, nipple-tweaking, and spiritual growth, than this one, then I… what?

Oh, right. I was just seeing if you were listening. The \”nipple tweaking\” year was back in Junior High, and it scarred me for life. Let’s never talk about that ever again.

A year ago, the other day… I read an email about something that was ass-achingly funny, and I clicked on the link. Needless to say, I fell in love.

*cough* YEAH, with the idea of blogging and being funny and having panties ‘n shit thrown at me… *cough* NOT with D-bag.

OUR love would have to wait.

I started telling stupid stories, got linked by said D-bag, Fuck Knows Why, and the panty-throwing began.

Awesome.

I learned to write for the catharsis, and expelled some pretty fucked-up shit from my brain into the online world. It felt good, I got great feedback, and it set some things in motion.

I documented some more fucked-up shit, and left a lot out too.

I \”met,\” made friends with, and fell in love with the woman I’m going to marry.

Life is Good.

Honestly, and it’s rare that I’m this honest in here, but I’m fucking depressed. I have almost zero motivation in my life to do anything other than breathe in and out during the day, and spend all my time with WifeToBe at night. Getting a visa, selling this house, and staying alive are hardly noble motivations in the context of Living Life, I’ll admit, but they all lead me to Her.

To say that she is the most important thing in my life would be selling her terribly short.

She is the One Thing I’ve been needing for my entire life, and I am hers. To have found that, and then part from it… well Yeah, it gets depressing. We’re closer now than I’ve ever witnessed from two people being, yet we’re 10,000 miles apart.

\”This is good,\” I hear myself saying, \”that you can do this across such a distance.\”

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t Suck. It does.

So… this is Me, dealing with Suckage, and missing my wife.

I’ll do my best to write in here when inspired, but inspiration isn’t here right now, and obviously hasn’t been for a while.

Fuck, to see that written out makes me want to apologize for being such a Fucking PoopyPants… but it’s there, and I won’t pretend it’s not.

I told Pimp to look out for me updating less frequently, and he reminded me that the last time I said that, I came back with a vengeance.

Well, here’s hoping, eh?

Wish me luck.