hunkercise

If I show you

He was a boy who lived next door to me. We had identical houses except that his smelled like band-aids and he had too much brown furniture.

He was one year younger than me and his parents were from Spain. He told me his father beat him with a wiffle ball bat when he was bad.

We were squatting in his driveway one week day in July, looking at a dead fuzzy caterpillar that was being eaten by fire ants. There was steam coming off the blacktop and sweat was running down from my forehead to my lips. I was self-conscious about the hair on my legs. I was probably about ten.

And then he slipped his hand under my shirt. And stroked my naked back.

It felt really good. Like, electric current up the spine good, but also comforting.
Like he was telling me without words that he would be gentle to me.

I still don't know why he did that. We never spoke about it but he did things like that sometimes for no reason. We would be playing a game in the street and he'd whale me with a ball one minute and the next be holding my hand.

One day in the pool he pulled down his swim trunks and exposed his little rubbery penis to me. So I pulled down my bikini bottom and let him see me. My heart raced when we did this but nothing ever came of it. We grew up and moved away and I think he is a doctor or something. Or so my mother keeps reminding me.

I'm not even really sure why I'm thinking of it now. It's really weird being a kid.

Hell and Hurt

People have been telling me for years that I'm going to hell.

I don't believe in the conventional view of hell, but I agree.

I also hurt the people I love. One of my kids is in the other room crying his little retarded eyes out right now because we broke the news that we were separating.

Yep. There's a placed reserved for me.

Hamgasm

Bacon strips, bacon sausage, ham sausage, ham slices, smoked pork sausage and roasted pork belly surrounded by ground sausage shaped into a pig, wrapped in bacon and roasted. Garnished with chili ears and tail.

You can see how they make this at Porktopia.com.

It's really a wonder.

the gooch

Gee...

...did I forget something?

George Lopez

I don't know why. He starts with "G".

And this was an off week, apparently.

God Damn

I grew up in a religious household. Well, for part of my life. I think when I was nine or so, my dad's dad died of heart issues. As he puts it, it was like a wake-up call, inviting them back. So we got religious. I'm fine with that. I have strong beliefs, despite my doing nothing constructive about them. What bothered me was that religion became an excuse to enforce my parents' personal beliefs. They made interpretations of things to justify their views of parenting. It was an excuse for abuse and neglect and horrible, horrible things. This bothers me, still. I don't hold God responsible (or at least I don't think I do), though I wish my parents would admit... anything. Sometimes I have no animosity towards them, but sometimes I'm still filled with venomous rage. I hope God can forgive them, but I want him to choose not to forgive me.

Gelflings

Thank you, Jim Henson, for making the most excellent source possible of my childhood (and sometimes adult) nightmares.

I hate "The Dark Crystal". 4Eva.

Fuck and Friends

Fuck was my first curse word and it and its variations are still my favorites.

I very clearly remember playing handball against one of the classroom buildings after school (this is in 2nd grade) and cussing shit out with Joe, my best friend. I wasn't his best friend. In fact, I've never once had a reciprocal best-friendship. And that concludes the F=Friends portion of our post.

Where were we? Ah, yes. Fuck. Fuck and handball.

We're playing against the ugly free art mural on this wall cussing shit out. Fuck that guy, fuck that bitch, fuck that motherfucker in his motherfucking ass.

Well, then my mom bounds jolly around a corner in her fat dress and knee high stockings that won't roll up past her drumette calves. I wanna point out how fucking gross that shit is to Joe, but she might hear me. And beat me.

That's all I remember about that.

Later I remember giving up swearing for many years. It made me pretty angry. Fuck's such a great word for letting off steam. Aptly named, huh?

My kids know the word fuck. They learned it from YouTube. Hearing my boy say it in a whispered, angelic tone--not with shame, but with slight embarrassment--was a beautiful moment for me. CPS didn't understand that, but it's better they learn these things on the information superhighway (remember when we called it that? Let's bring it back) than from me when they're ready.

faking the funk on a nasty dunk

fuq shaq

Feces

I'm particularly preoccupied with these things right now. Especially of the cat variety.

See, my cat's hiney produces quite the bounty of clumpity masses which demand my attention with the kitty poop scoop at least once a day. No kidding. And despite my putting him on the blandest diet imaginable, that fucker still could clear a room in a matter of seconds.

And. This is the kicker. Some time soon, maybe even in a few days, I am inheriting a 17 year old cat with a thyroid condition, and I'm just bracing myself for litter box h-e-double hockeysticks.

F-stops.

Two major factors in photography are F-stops and shutter speed. The F-stop refers to the opening that admits light into the camera body, called the aperture. The higher the F-stop, the smaller the opening. You can use the aperture setting to determine how much of your photo is in focus, called depth of field. If you're taking a picture of a large scene, and you want things in the foreground to be in focus as well as things in the background, you would use a high F-stop (a smaller aperture setting) to ensure a large depth of field. If you're taking a portrait you would use a low F-stop (a wider aperture setting) to reduce the depth of field and this would result in just the person's face being in focus with the background blurred.

The F-stop and the shutter speed work inversely with each other. With a wide aperture you need a slow shutter speed and vice versa. If these are not set correctly you will end up with a photo that is either overexposed or underexposed.

Some cameras have settings called Aperture Priority or Shutter Priority. This enables you to set the F-stop or the shutter speed to the setting you want and the camera will choose the correct shutter speed or F-stop for you. This gives you really great shots without really having to know what you're doing. It's fantastic!

Now, for homework I want you all to go out and take one picture with a large depth of field, and one with a very short depth of field. Turn them in to me by the letter H and yes, this will be on the quiz.

Embarrassed.

My mom took me to the store to get some feminine products one time when I was like 12, and I opted to stay in the car instead of going in because, come on. So she comes out of the store, we're parked right in front of the door of course, and she holds up the package (not even in a bag or anything) and says loudly "I got them!" and laughs and laughs...

Ms. Ellen

In the 4th grade, after years of begging on my part, my parents let me join the school music program. I don't know how good of a program it was, because you had to take private lessons to be in it. I chose to play the flute, because everyone else was choosing the violin, and fuck everybody. I copy no one but the very cool. And flautists, apparently.

My private teacher, Ms. Ellen, had a little office with ugly soundproof wall tiles but a really neat-o metronome on her piano. We'd practice notes, which I was not good at remembering the finger positions for. We'd practice reading sheet music, which I was not good at remembering the notes on. We'd practice my mouth shape and tone, which I was not good at.

At the end of the school year or whatever, Ms. Ellen, the private music teacher made a recommendation. She recommended that I get a new private music teacher.

epilepsy

Eeyore

Apparently, people like to pose with him.








I wouldn't be caught dead with that Debbie Downer.