Oh, God.

So.

Sometimes I'm like: all this God stuff is so bogus and infantile. Clearly, humans are just like other animals, and nearly all of our behaviors are just stupidly-advanced versions of what dogs, monkeys, bugs, and birds do. It's just so stupid to think that humans are somehow separate and apart from everything else on the planet. That we're so special.

And then I'm like: well, maybe that's true. And maybe we're not so special, that souls are imbued into many, many animals, at many levels... and the more complex the animal, the more complex the soul. Maybe souls are just pieces of the Holy Spirit, captured in our electrical/nervous systems. Maybe that's why souls don't inhabit our bodies until we're nearly born. Maybe.

And then I'm like: time, time, time. If there's no God, who the fuck started everything? How did this all begin? And if there IS a God, who the hell CREATED GOD? And if matter decays, then doesn't that prove the existence of God? Or the existence of SOMETHING?

And then I need to pee, so I post my blog entry.

Love to all. Even you, whoever twisted up my slinky.

Relearn.

Hi there, you. How've you been? You're looking better than ever. Yummy.

I have decided to reeducate myself on the topic of abortion. I'll be back with a full report sometime in the next week or so. In the meantime, you'll have to put up with my normal silliness.

Love to all. Even you, the spaced-out huge guy in the aisle at BJ's Wholesale.

159th Place! (and sex talk.)

...out of 1182 dudes. Not bad, not bad. And I beat all but 28 of the ladies.

This was the Pfizer Oncology Colon Cancer 4-miler. (A great cause, a lousy t-shirt. Not sure I want to walk around with the words "colon cancer" on my back.) I'm glad I ran well, but I feel woefully unprepared for the Brooklyn Half-Marathon next Saturday.

I had a tremendous conversation with Maggie today about sex. In fact, she said "If only we could about money the way we're able to talk about sex, life would be perfect." Well, one thing at a time, man. One thing at a time.

Love to all. Even you, the dude who smokes cigarettes while watching the runners.

Richard: Reloaded.

Saturday mornings are busy: my oldest has orchestra, my daughter has ballet, and there's usually one or more birthday parties for a child to attend... which means there's presents to buy. Today is no different. I've got 10 minutes until I leave to pick up my oldest, and I've already been to the toy store. My youngest has a birthday party this afternoon.

In the toy store, it occured to me to ask: "Do you have any Slinkies? Metal, not plastic." And they said "Sure! It's the 60th Anniversary of the Slinky!" So I got two. One for me, one for my main employee. I also got a Magic 8-ball.

"It is decidely so," indeed.

In 1987, I wrote a paper on Metal vs. Plastic Slinkies. There was a heavy pro-metal slant. And I'm metal-biased to this very moment. Try this: take a metal slinky, put the first two rings between your teeth, and (without letting go of the rings) gently drop the rest of the slinky to the floor. I guarantee you'll do it again.

Time for me to go.

Love to all. Even you, the guy who loud-talked to his kid because he was embarrassed to be in a toy store.

ACLU and NAMBLA.

I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU. The thing I most often hear from people who are trying to put the ACLU down is: "Those people defended NAMBLA. How can you support them?" I've heard this often enough that I'm going to explain it here.

NAMBLA, which the ACLU refers to as a "vile" organization, was being sued because some disgusting men molested, tortured and killed a boy. The murderers had NAMBLA materials in their possession. The suit alleged that NAMBLA should be blamed, partially, for the murder of the boys, since NAMBLA promotes statuatory rape. NAMBLA does not (according to what I've read, but I can't bring myself to ever go to their website) promote murder and torture.

The ACLU position was, metaphorically, this: If group A promotes stealing cards, and person B steals a car and murders everyone IN the car, group A is not, therefore, advocating murder. The ACLU's goal was to prevent this kind of precedent from being established.

In other words: NAMBLA, this disgusting, horrible, evil organization, wasn't promoting the kind of evil committed by those men, and therefore could not be blamed for that evil.

I have three children. If there is a hell, the NAMBLA fuckwads will be there. Count on it. In fact, this whole topic makes me so incensed and repulsed that I can't even close this post the way I normally do.

Solving the email deluge.

I get many, many hundreds of emails a week. Not always spam, but not always stuff I'm interested in.

So I think I'm splitting my work email into two parts:

richgivesashit@mycompany.com
and
richdoesn'tgiveashit@mycompany.com

Love to all. Even you, the lady with her AIM alert volume on 11.

Whose kid IS this?

How does my nine-year-old instinctively know that it's better to apologize to someone face-to-face than over the phone? The kid has the most amazing internal moral structure... it continuously blows me away.

Love to all.

Fighting stress, and Too Much Information.

I don't know why I'm so stressed out. I'm trying to fight it by doing more work at my company, buying Maggie flowers, and getting exercise. The more I think about it, though, the more I think it might just be because my back hurts.

Coming home tonight, the kids were out of their minds: fighting, argumentative, whirling balls of energy that sprayed noise and crazed vibes all over the place. It was both impressive and grating.

Okay. TMI time. The other day, a young woman I know (who's an actual model, and is kind of shockingly good looking), told me that I looked hot. In fact, she told me I look "hotter than normal." Liar though she is, I'm a sucker for compliments. Although it was on the day that I dressed all 80's-style, so maybe I was accidentally hip. She followed that up by saying "Your jeans, though. They're horrible."

I told Maggie about this (Note to men: do NOT tell your wife when a model calls you hot), and after giving me some highly-deserved shit, she went and bought me my first pair of totally fancy jeans. They arrived today.

I don't own anything like these. They fit differently: perfect in the waist, tighter in the calf... but... well... they're pretty tight in the quads, which is new... and, compared to everything else I have, they are really tight around the um, crotch. Like, really. Like, "hey, you're circumcised."

Maggie had me wear them for a while. She was like, "I'm so proud of you. I want everyone to see how much husband I have." Again, I'm a sucker for compliments. But I don't know. I'm not sure I can walk around NYC, let alone my office, with things so obvious.

I dunno. I guess I'm lucky to have this problem.

Love to all. Even you, the drugged-up dude who was nodding of on Union Square East.

Have you left your spouse?

How many people out there have had an argument/situation bad enough that they left their spouse? The duration can be from "overnight" to "forever."

Please feel free to answer anonymously, if that'll help you comment.

Love to all.

I'm feeling much better, except...

A friend of mine is an editor at a major New York City newspaper. I told her that I was feeling a little bugged out by the WTC "controlled demolition" thing. She said "Oh, Richard." And then proceeded to remind me of the massive amount of science and research that went into the investigation of how the buildings fell down. It hugely contradicts the movie and, she said, I would do well to read some of it.

And I will. But I'm over it, for now.

There are bigger things afoot, anyway, like fucking South Dakota.

Love to all. Even you, Mrs. Back Brace.

32:43 (updated)

At thirty-two minutes, 43 seconds into the second episode of season three of 24, Jack Bauer is really pissed off. He says to a criminal: “Shut up, stupid.” That line is delivered SO WELL, I replayed it like three times. It was perfectly delivered.

Love to all. Even you, the kid who's carrying the secret virus!

Coogan's Salsa, Blues, and Shamrock 5k

I ran my first race of the year today. I've only run a couple of times in the last three weeks, because of my back ickiness. Two weeks ago, I couldn't even walk. I'm happy (and surprised) to say that in spite of this, I beat last year's race by 6 seconds a mile, averaging 7:36 per mile instead of last year's 7:42. I came in approximately 400th place out of 1568 dudes. Let's hear it for 37-year-old hypomaniacs!

This is a good omen, because I'm stepping up the distance over the next little bit. My next few confirmed races are:

1. March 12th, 4-mile Pfizer Oncology Colon Cancer Challenge. (What a name.)
2. March 18th, 13.1 mile Brooklyn Half-Marathon.
3. April 29, 13.1 mile Queens Half-Marathon.

But I might do some others in between the Brooklyn and Queens runs.. depending on family patience and how my back holds out. Speaking of which, I'm seeing a chiropracter tomorrow for the first time. Should be exciting.

Maggie is tense, man. Tense.

Love to all. Even you, the runner with Kennel Cough.

Help me out, here.

I just finished watching the 9/11 conspiracy documentary "Loose Change." I did this on the recommendation of a commenter. (I also bought some music today based on a different comment... but that's a whole different thing. Do you see the impact you people have on me?)

Now, I think a good bit of the documentary is debunkable and overreaching. But the one thing they were extremely methodical about, using dozens of third-party sources including footage and statements from Fox News, ABC, CNN, audio straight from the FDNY, etc., was that WTC Towers I and II did not collapse from being hit by airplanes. Don't get me wrong: they got hit by airplanes. As I've said before, I am a first-hand eyewitness to the second plane hitting the Towers... and I spent a portion of the evening of September 11 on a roof in Greenwhich Village, chain-smoking (I had quit before, and haven't smoked since), drinking too much and watching the F-15's circle overhead.

But that's not necessarily what knocked each of them down in 10 seconds flat.

If anyone reading this has read any counter-conspiracy theories on "controlled demoliton" and the Twin Towers, could you leave me a link? I'm looking to educate myself further. I am not saying that the Towers and WTC 7 were destroyed via controlled demolition, but I would like to see a cogent refutation of the theory.

Love to all. Even you, Mr. Marvin Bush.

The kid loves the good stuff.

Listening to the radio while in a neighbor's car, my son heard "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath. It's all he wants to hear right now. I'm both very proud and a little nervous. His two other favorite songs are The Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin and Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple.

What can I say? The kid has taste.

Last four purchases by me: Imogen Heap, Boards of Canada, Cat Power, and Beth Orton.

What a great morning so far: I took my oldest to orchestra practice at 9am, during which my youngest and I went to the local diner for breakfast, got haircuts, and swung back around just in time for the end of rehearsal.

This is the shortest time between haircuts in my entire adult life. After having box-braids, blonde hair, purple hair, extremely long hair, an afro, a sumo knot, etc., etc., the evidence of thinning, however mild, precludes growing my hair to any length, til death or the advent of hair-cloning technology, whichever comes first.

Love to all. Even you, the dude in the diner who was clearly lying to his wife.

No hookers. Yes 80's-wear and fiction.

After's yesterday's utilization of the magic of Google to create a fictional post-bad-day scenario, here's what I decided to do for real: dress as if it was 1984.

So here's what I'm wearing: a Rush "Moving Pictures" 1981 tour shirt over long underwear, bleached Levi 505 jeans, and Dr. Marten's boots.

Dress for success, I say.

Love to all.

p.s. I thought that nobody was commenting out of dismay. It turns out there was a permission issue which prevented commenting at ALL. So I'll never know. All is well, now.

Hookers and cocaine.

That's the two-word solution to a day like today: hookers and cocaine. In fact, I'm going to walk downstairs from my Claridge House duplex on the Upper-East Side of Manhattan, have them bring up my Daytona Sunset Metallic Corvette Z06 (with Titanium Nuance Leather), take a fast-ass drive to the Tropicana in Atlantic City, lose about 10 large, then head up to my suite with a bottle of Dungourney and a big bag of coke, and get crazy with Ariel from Ambience Girls.

Love to all. Even you, whoever doubts the educational power of Google.

No job. Yes bite. Yes concussion.

My son was sledding at a neighbor's house and somehow hit a building with his head. His vision was messed up, and Maggie took him, in the snow, to the doctor. They said he was concussed, and needed a CT scan. It came back normal, but my son became totally lethargic. He fell asleep at the CT scan place. So now it looks like they are sending him to the ER.

Did I mention that the fucking corgi bit my daughter this morning? My younger son was pulling her hair, she was screaming, and the dog ran in and bit her on the arm. The consensus is that the corgi was going for my younger son, but missed. Either way, it's bad news. We're talking about what to do about this.

I didnt' get the job. It was a little strange: they said that they thought I was great for the job as described, but that the President of the company (it's a multinational shop) wanted someone who could run all the different divisions, which would mean a staff about 15 times larger than mine. Made sense. Maggie's going to be totally happy. She didn't want me to take it anyway. And my little company has gone from 300k to 600k to 1000k in sales year over year over year, so quitting now would probably be a waste of a LOT of effort.

But I feel so pressured, sometimes.

Anyway, I don't mean to whine. This has been a crazy-ass day. Hell, this is a crazy-ass day. No more news for me, please. Too much has happened already.

Love to all.

Waffle, waffle.

My old boss just wrote me to say that he wants to speak with me this afternoon. I'm talking to him at 2pm. I don't know if he's calling to say "We hired someone else." Or if they're calling to say: "We want to hire you at the salary you wanted." Now, I know I said that I don't want the job, but maybe I do. Because:

1. They'd have to buy my little company which would = kid's college money, or at least a big chunk thereof.
   
2. I'd learn a lot.
3. This insane pressure would be partially off.

I have mixed, mixed, mixed feelings about it, but I'm going to see what he says at 2. My angst may be for naught, because it might be a "thanks anyway" conversation.

Love to all. Even you, whoever used the name "Shop Rite" about 50 times in their conversation on the train back to Westchester.

Bush in my house? No way.

President George W. Bush lied again. And this one's big, big, big. He has claimed not to have known how bad the Hurricane Katrina levee breach could have been. He's claimed that nobody could have predicted it.

Turns out, he was told about it the day before. But ignored it. And lied afterwards.

I used to say that I disagreed with President Bush, but that I'd have him over to my home for dinner, if ever given the opportunity. He seemed nice enough. Consider that completely retracted. Repeatedly and provably, the man has lied. Outried lied. It's infuriating.

When will more Republicans realize that they do not have to blindly support this criminal?

Love to all. Even you, Mr. President.

Exquisite.

My daughter's most exquisite moods occur right when she wakes up. Especially if it's very early, like when I'm getting getting ready for work. She's so gorgeous and radiant and happy in those moments... before her brothers are up for her to fight with, before Maggie awakens and the jostling for psychological advantage beings... in those moments, she sometimes can't look at me directly without smiling, her love for me is so obvious and up front.

At those moments, if we could plug my heart into the power grid, our national dependency on foreign oil would be instantly solved.

Love to all.