It just gets worse every moment.

I just re-read the cracked-out hatemongers post again. It just gets worse and worse ever time I read it. I don't think I've read many posts that were more disturbing.

This UnChristian Chritian is:

1) Anti-American. He claims that immigrants are causing our children to "throw away centuries of faith" Hey, Jackass: When did YOUR family come to America? With the exception of native americans, it's a country of IMMIGRANTS.
2) Blatantly racist. Reread the part about how he loves Asians... especially where he could "see the unease in the Asian’s eyes." And check out his references to the Third World as "Ghettos of the World."
3) In utter contradiction of the Word. This man clearly doesn't know his religion's texts or history. Although my guess is that his favorite gospel is John.
I won't even get into his misogynistic rant about why women shouldn't be President. It was a different post, and I decided to stop finding out more about this shameful AmeriNazi's fucked-up opinions. Yeah: AmeriNazi.

So why does this bother me? Because he is doing all this in the name of Jesus Christ. This man is one of the most Anti-Christian people I've ever had the misfortune to come across.

Okay, enough from me on this. I've spent too much time on this sicko.

Love to all. Once again, even to the cracked-out hatemonger. Note: I am not actually saying he's on crack... in this case though, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt. Crack would at least explain his delusions. A little.

The UnChristian Christian.

This post is tremendous example of a "Christian" writing in direct contradiction to my understanding Spirit of Christ. It just blows me away.

How can someone read the Gospels, and then act like that?

Some of his writing is manipulative, contradictory and hypocritical: he says Christianity is "superior in both intellectual and spiritual manners" and THEN says, in the next sentence, "I will not call other religions inferior." Clearly, he thinks his readers are idiots.

Worse, though, is his utter bastardization of the Christian message, as well as Christian history. The dude needs to read up on Christian history, with some special emphasis on the evolution of the Christian canon.

Love to all. Even THAT guy.

Weird.

The dude diagonally across from me on the train just whipped out a ruler and... although I guess he was scratching his back (sans any perceptible vertical motion, though)... it looked like he was measuring.

A few minutes later, he became intensely interested in something else on the train, got up, and walked away.

If being gay was a choice...

If being gay was a choice, don't you think that society would have developed in such a way as to allow men of a certain age... say, the 18-32, hormonally overloaded range... to randomly get it on with other dudes whenever they wanted, thus ridding the world of 95% of it's crazy-ass excess sexual energy?

I mean, considering how orgasm-focused men are, if being attracted to men was a choice, 95% of the dudes would be, at the very least, using other men for stress relief while trying to find an appropriate ladyfriend.

Shit, I would have.

But I just don't find dudes attractive, for the most part. I mean, if you're attracted to guys the way I'm attracted to women, god bless you. But for the life of me, I can't think that way.

Love to all. Even you, the guy with the guy with the girl with the guy with the girl with the girl.

Where am *I* supposed to sleep?

I mean, there are five animals in there already. Sheesh.

Hey. Thanks.

Hey, world.

Thank you for the ever more complex and engaging Maggie, my sexy-ass "partner" (as she made me call her in the 90's) and freshly re-vowed wife of 10 years.

Thanks for allowing my life to take a serious u-turn.

Thanks for allowing my life to do this before I did any serious damage to my family.

Thanks for having my Borderline father (along with my mom) move 3000 miles away, even though it hurt me terribly. I love that fucker.

Thanks for my soccer teams.

Thanks for my daughter, who has taught me all new levels of Love.

Thanks for my older son, who is a true gentleman and complete maniac.

Thanks for my younger son, who is a wonderful challenge and utterly hilarious.

Thanks for making me an impulsive entrepreneur.

Thanks for Mac OS X, Flat Coated Retrievers, the Holy Spirit, Metro North, Tivo, iPods, hot water heaters, sex, rock and roll, and Alcoholics Anonymous. No necessarily in that order.

Thanks for this blog.

Love to all. And I mean it.

Incoming!

Patience, Richard. Patience.

My in-laws are inbound. For me, that's a little like knowing that someone's going to wing a hand grenade into the room... eventually. It puts me on my guard.

They're not bad people... and I love them dearly. But rarely does a visit go by where my father-in-law doesn't casually insult our house, town, parenting, dogs, food, schools, and/or any other important-to-us thing. My wife's parent's are divorced... and we're having her mother, father, and stepmother over. That mix can either be neutral or tense. Also, one of Maggie's brothers is coming over, along with our next-door neighbors.

Her brother. Oh my god.

I think he's got Asperger Syndrome. I really do. It's the only thing that explains his affect, lack of physical awareness, or the crazy-ass gaps in logic that occur when you talk to him.

I'm not being very Jesus-like, I know. I've got to be more pre-emptively loving, rather than worrying about the fact that my brother-in-law, who is 42, single, and lives with his aunt... couldn't be bothered to volunteer to cook anything, and will have to be strongly prompted to help clean up his own dishes, let alone anyone else's. I'm working on it.

And frankly, I should thank God for the family I have. My crazy fuck of a father, God bless him, is in California with my mom, and I haven't seen or spoken to either of them in about 2.5 years. But I think I'll cover thankfulness in my next post.

Love to all. Even you, whoever stunk up the 6 train this afternoon.

NYC Marathon - 2006.

By running my 9th race of the year, I qualified for the 2006 New York City Marathon. No lottery for me! Whoo hoo!

(Oh, shit. That means I have to run another marathon next year. Yikes!)

The state of the dogs.

The Corgi is Georgette. Psychologically, she's kind of a bridge between Carter and Mimi. She's a good girl, and Mimi has made her quite a bit more puppy-like. Before Mimi, she was kind of Old Lady of a dog... I think this partially because Carter was getting really slow, and partially because she's an Old Lady by nature. The great thing about her is the way she growls when she plays. I swear, she sounds like she's just going to kill you. Like she's out her her mind with fury.

Mimi, the new girl, is really coming into her own. She's insane... and you should know that up front. She jumps off the bed four paws at a time, and she likes to collect things. She's the happiest dog I have ever met.

These pictures were taken today... so they're damn accurate.

Love to all. Even you, that freak in the Sonata who almost hit me on the Saw Mill Parkway.

Maybe YOU should call a plumber.

I'm sure he didn't mean it that way, but the way the guy at the hardware store suggested I get professional help implied, to me, that he had assessed me as a totally inexperienced wannabe with little home repair experience.

And dammit, he was dead on.

Give me a broken PC or a faulty Mac, and I'm gold. But when it comes to plumbing, I'm utterly clueless. But hell: this is my house, and I'm gonna ruin it if I want. So in spite of his suggestion, I went ahead and bought some new drain pipe, a pipe wrench, plumber's putty, and a drain... and I set about replacing the pipe assembly that had worn through and snapped off underneath the kitchen sink (causing a minor waterfall at 6am this morning).

I even read the directions on how to do it. In computer-speak, that's called RTFM.

So here we are, an hour later, and I think everything's cool. I even pulled a huge clump of unidentifiable crap from the trap... along with two full-size plastic cutlery pieces: how did they GET there?

Anyway: the kids are requesting sandwiches. Must go and make.

Maggie and I have a date night tonight: think I'll get lucky?

Love to all. Even you, Mr. Vila.

What's next, a new Jesus Lizard single?

I associate certain music with specific parts of my life. So do you.

Sometimes, it's a good thing that certain bands die. I mean, Mr. Mister was, um, okay... and they certainly defined an era, but I'm glad they're not putting out albums anymore. Some bands, like the Talking Heads, broke up after a long and amazing run. Just after the turn of the millenium, three of my favorite bands split up: Soundgarden, Rage Against the Machine, and The Jesus Lizard. I was sad... but they, like me, had gotten older, and moved in new directions.

So my point here is that Kate Bush just released her first album in like, 12 years. And it's messing with my musical head. I mean: for me, she was done. She had given me weird, interesting albums like "The Dreaming," an absolute classic in "Hounds of Love," and CDs scattered with occasional gems with "The Kick Inside" and "The Sensual World."

By way of preliminary review: Ms. Bush ruined a bunch of songs by interspersing maniacal laughter (once) and layering overbearing bird noises (a whole CD of the 2 CD set). In general, though, I'm finding it surprisingly disconcerting to process new music from her...

Just a minor ramble from a stressed-out papa.

Love to all. Even you, Mr. David Yow.

No right at all.

Everybody's got moods... don't get me wrong.

But once I had kids, my right to be a miserable, unhappy person went out the window. I no longer have the right to be a depressive. Or someone driven by anger. Or a pessimist.

Crappy parents can often lead to crappy kids. Or, equally likely, kids with crap-esque qualities or challenges. It's my core fucking job to do everything I can to be a genuinely happy guy, in order to pass that on to my kids.

Love to all. Even you, you angry fuck.

Almost.

Breakfast: 1lb raw fruit, rice cakes.
Lunch: Rice cakes, 3/4lb raw vegetables.
Dinner: Rice cakes, and a Coke!

Oh, well. Nobody's perfect.

Love to all. Even you, Ms. Suzy Q.

Di niente.

It's 4:30am, and I feel that's it critically important that you are aware of this: my puppy Mimi has the stinkiest poops of all time. My goodness.

Love to all.

Frequency-hopping.

Supposedly, one of my talents is that I'm able to lock onto to a person's vibe and kind of parse where they’re at any given moment. It's empathy, I guess. It's helpful to many of the roles I play: employer, soccer coach, dad and husband.

Some folks are frequency-hoppers. They’re impossible to get a lock on because their energy shifts all the time. These kind of people bug me... not in a "they annoy me" way, but in a "I just don't *get* them" kind of way.

Love to all. Even you, the 7:30am yoga lady I ran into who frequency hops like a madwoman.

Suppression vs. Anvil-style Affirmation.

The thing about growing up with an Us vs. Them, borderline father is that there's no gray area.

This morning, I was listening to two people talk about how, in their family, their feelings were dismissed as inappropriate or stupid. In response to some hurt, the parent would say "You shouldn't feel that way." Or, "Suck in that lower lip, that's just stupid." And the child's response was to learn that their feelings were incorrect.

My family was the opposite. My father, being unable to process the idea of a gray area, would respond to mild or moderate situations with by dropping an anvil on it. Let's say "Linda" hurt my feelings. The response was: "Well, Linda is an evil bitch."

Now, Linda (who is fictitious) is not an evil bitch. She just hurt my feelings.

Life is the gray areas, man.

Love to all. Even you, "Linda."

Tipping point (or, smell the love)

We got Mimi soon after Carter died. Too soon, really. I still miss him intensely, and I still tear up every time I look at his pictures. He was a smart, funny, tolerant dog... and a truly handsome gent, at that. He loved me in spite of all my faults, and he was a faithful guardian of my children. And, of course, he kept Maggie company for twelve years.

Mimi is a really sweet puppy. She's a purebred flat-coated retriever... and flat-coats are my kind of dog: silly, joyous and smart. I liked her from the start, but I didn't fall in love until a couple of days ago, when I realized I had memorized the smell of the top of her head.

Now, call me strange (as if you need another reason), but I've been known to walk up to Maggie... or any of the kids, and just take a big whiff of their hair. Animalistic, sure, but it makes me just surge with affection.

All of a sudden, Mimi's gone Core. She's part of my life, now, and I'm happy about that. Carter would have loved her.

Love to all. Even you, the lady on Lexington with the two teensy pseudo-dogs.

Yay, Vatican!

I've been saying all along that the Bible and Evolution aren't mutually exclusive. And today, the Vatican came out and agreed.

Love to all. Even you, the priest who didn't show up for confession today.

The girls get the drift.

Last week, my U7 Girls soccer team got creamed. The reason was simple: the other team spread out, and one person stayed back on defense. My girls, on the other hand, rushed around like a school of fish... getting in each other's way and impeding each other's progress.

So, today, we ran one drill several different ways... for the whole practice. Spreading out, avoiding the defender, and passing to the open girl. ("Girl," by the way, is their choice. I asked if they wanted to be addressed as "women, ladies, or girls." They unanimously chose "girls.") The thing about running drills with 1st graders is that you can't always tell if they are listening. It's slow going, and the kids tend to space out.

But when game time came... holy shit! They spread out, kept the ball moving... the defender cleared the ball to the sidelines... and we had scoring opportunity after scoring opportunity. If the goal was six-inches wider, the score would have been 8-0. As it was, it was 2-0. I felt bad for the other team... they nearly scored twice, but didn't.

The lesson I learned is that lessons are learned. I'm really, really proud of my team. They showed a LOT of heart... and even though I thought they were barely listening, it turns out I had their attention.

(My daughter, by the way, had an assist.)

Oh, daughter.

If you haven't noticed, I've been a little depressed recently. I realized that I fucking HATE going to people's houses to fix their computers (something I've been doing while trying to staff up the consulting business). I also feel like I've been ignoring my core company (the one that's much more established and actually profitable) in order to launch the smaller company. It's mismanaged effort and it's bringing me down.

So, when I get in these moods, I start feeling depressed about everything. I suck because I don't write music or stories the way I used to. I suck because my soccer team loses. I suck because my core company bills 1/2 of what my last company billed.

Blah, blah, blah.

Anyway... so I come home last night at 8pm, and my daughter's in bed. For some reason, she starts asking me all about work. "Are you in charge? How do you get to be in charge? What do you do all day?"

So I talked to her about it for a while... and in the midst of it my daughter said to me "Daddy, I would love you if you didn't have any job." And I started CRYING. Just for a second, before my Man-Defenses kicked in and I stopped. I was SO touched by her.

So, message to Rich: Get over yourself. Life kicks ass.

Defeated.

So, about a year ago I was offered a job. It was with a competitor. Long established. And I really considered taking it. The main plus was that it was run by a high-energy salesperson who really loved her industry. I felt her strengths dovetailed perfectly with mine. I could both learn *and* contribute a ton.

I finally said no, due to a mix of about 80% numbers and 20% fear. I figured if I could do *okay* with my company, I could do better than doing very well with hers.

So, I ran into her today. It turns out that she's now approximately 12 times the size of my little firm... she has been getting all kinds of business from my many folks I try to work for (she named all these people, and I was like: FUCK), and has even been asked to audition for the same TV show I did. And she's the one person in my industry I'd pick over me for a show like that. Sure, I've been working full-time at my company for a year and half, and she's been open for twenty years... but ARGH. It makes me CRAZY.

So, yeah: I'm fucking depressed and whining about it. Sorry.

Love to all: even you, Ms. Almost my Boss.

A friend of mine said to me...

"Balance is dynamic."

What she meant was this: instead of looking for that perfect place where all is right and well, without further effort... realize that the perfect place is one of continual corrections. Balance is fluid and ongoing. There is no magic spot.

Coolness.