entropy monkeys

So, I have a newish dog who has separation anxiety. That means that I can't leave him alone in the house because... well... experience tells me so. It's a long story, but it ended with him eating my kitchen door. Anyway, now every time I leave the house I have to leave the dogs in the garage. Then, when I come home I have a new pile of debris that I have to clean up, figure out where it came from, and determine whether or not I have to replace it... like the shredded pile of dryer sheets...

The last time I came home, I found a little pile of tiny "barrel full o' monkeys" monkeys. I have NO idea where they came from, but for a half a second I could only imagine that Wyle E chewed up some red plastic and vomited up the monkeys whole, violating every law of entropy of the universe.

It was very weird... but now I have a little pile of tiny monkeys... cool.

guilty pleasures

Oh god help me. It's 5am, I have not slept (thanks to nine solid hours of ambien improved sleep last night and a cup of coffee at 4pm yesterday) and as some weird companionship to my insomnia, I have the tv on in the other room. I'm not really listening to it, but in the last 12 minutes the running infomercial has penetrated my subconscious and has set of a string of synaptic activity going that almost has me running to my wallet to pull out my credit card.

What is it for? What could possible cause me to consider, in my current financially depressed state, 4 easy monthly payments of only 29.99?

A collection of 70's music.

Yes. I am going all pavlov over Mac Davis and Cher.

That's the night that the lights went out in Georgia.
Billy, don't be a hero.
Whoa ho ho it's magic.
Love will keep us together.
Gypsies, tramps and thieves.
We had joy we had fun we had seasons in the sun.
They called him Wildfire.
They called him Wii eye eye eye eye eye wi-iiild fire....

This collection is not sold in stores.

Hurry.

frequent flyer

My son just called. He's getting on his plane to come visit for Thanksgiving, and wanted to remind me that I shouldn't call him in the meanwhile because his phone's off. I really hadn't intended to. I'm pretty sure I can save whatever burning questions I have for him for 2 more hours. Anyway, his call reminded me that I have to go to the airport early to trade in an old, unused ticket for a new one for his trip over Christmas. The kids of divorce travel a lot. There have been summers when he's boarded 12 different planes...

Thinking about *that* reminded me of a story from about 5 years ago. Zack would have been 10 and was still living with me. We were headed home from my mom's house, and when we sat down on the plane (carry-ons full of chicken soup and brisket, no doubt) the guy sitting next to Zack starts telling him that we're going to have a movie, and that the screen is the little box in the overhead that pops out and isn't that cool? Zack, who at this point was flying alone at least once a month to New Mexico to visit his father and who was therefore way too jaded for a 10 year old, elbows me and says, "He thinks I'm stupid." Then the guy says "hey they'll show you the cockpit if you ask after the flight, it's pretty cool..." and Zack rolls his eyes at me. I'm not sure what maternal instinct it was, but I tried to defend him by showing off for him. I said, somewhat sophisticatedly, "Actually, he probably has more frequent flyer miles than you do." The guy said, "I doubt it. I'm a pilot."

D'oh.

technology overkill

That's it. I quit. I refuse to participate in a society that produces a toothbrush with an onboard computer chip. It's DENTAL FREAKIN' HYGIENE FOLKS! It's not rocket science!!! The hardest part of dental hygiene is remembering how to spell "hygiene" for gods sake!

Brush. Up down up down up down. Don't forget the teeth in back. Floss. Use toothpaste with fluoride. (Especially now that we drink bottled water...) When your toothbrush bristles look more like a troll doll than a toothbrush, buy a new one. End of story.

What in that list could possibly require a computer?

Next thing you know they'll be putting batteries into four-bladed disposable razors...

it's over

Ok. The "storm" has passed. I'm back home. There's a big pecan branch in my walkway which fell precisely between my roof and my fence. There are lots of little branches that fell pretty much everywhere. There are a couple of big big big trees down around my neighborhood, particularly at a bend in the street where it looks like the wind must have gotten really pissed off at being blocked. That's it.

I've moved all my furniture back to under the windows, creating once again a harbor for lost dog toys and wads of doghair. I've stacked my cans of Progresso soup under my cabinet since they don't really fit, and have rescued the garbage cans from my garage.

It all almost feels normal.

Tho' I suppose it was too much to hope for to have my New York Times delivered. A Sunday puzzle would make me very happy....

boring

hurry up and be done with it already.

Jeez. I realize this is probably not the right attitude to have, and surely I'll pay for it in another lifetime, (or even this one, just later), but I'm bored with waiting for the storm, and just wish it would hurry up and get here. I mean, since I actually got stressed enough to start popping anxiety meds again *before* the damn storm started, I should have at least a little anxiety now that it's supposed to be here.

My mom called earlier and asked me if my friend's house was a well-built house. I told her that no, they didn't opt for the brick house option, and took the entry-level stick house. yeesh.

Nuts. I just looked at the weather map. The storm has totally veered to the west. We're probably not going to get anything at all. The only thing that could happen bad is that it could still stall out and we could get just tons of rain. That would suck for my house.

Meanwhile, with little to do, and not a lot of anxiety, I'm trying to rally some enthusiasm for going looting. I passed the store The Great Indoors on my way here, and I could use a lamp.

hurricane central

Well, not really. I'm just holed up with some friends and another of their friends. Basically it's 4 geeks and a wireless network. I have learned how to play a new solitaire game (Russian solitaire) and have introduced my dogs to a whole new house. It's much bigger here, so they can build up a lot more speed as they race around the dining room table.

Most of the food I brought is for them. I also brought... and this is vaguely embarrassing... several meals worth of Jenny Craig food. Even though I feel totally empowered to eat whatever the fuck I want as a temporary refugee, I just didn't have anything bad for me lying around the house. Sorry state of affairs.

I took the dogs for a walk (I realize this is boring and journally, but I'm tired of solitaire...) and the wind had actually picked up enough oomph to blow my hat off. I think it was mostly bad aerodynamics because it still feels pretty calm out here, but the pictures show us under the edge of the storm, so it's *something*...

So, any aerodynamicists out there want to answer a question for me while I'm thinking about it? My house is in a very old neighborhood among very old pecan and cottonwood trees. In fact, I have a historically registered cottonwood tree right in front of my garage. (I'm sure the house was built after the tree, so I have no idea what rocket scientist put the garage door right behind it...) A lot of my fears about staying at my place was of big pieces of dead cottonwood tree turning into projectiles. My imagination sometimes gets the best of me, and the images so reminiscent of EMT training manuals of me with a big piece of tree branch sticking through my ribs were keeping me from sleeping, so I left.

Now I'm out here in the 'burbs. The biggest trees they have here were planted with the subdivision within the last decade. As I drove out I was thinking, "Whoa, that's cool. Nothing big to fall down on us." But then I also thought, "hm, also nothing to cut the energy of the wind, either..." I've taken enough physics classes, and have learned enough about hydrodynamics in both my diffie Q and stellar interiors classes to know about different kinds of flows, but most of my thinking on this subject feels instinctive, not equation-based. Does anyone know if having a little grove of trees around your house would serve to diffuse the wind energy by turning laminar flow into chaotic? I mean, yeah, trees fall down go boom, but might they prevent the wind from building up enough steam to take the roof off my house?

that's it for now. I'm going back to solitaire...

update

A couple of things.

1) I have now, in violation of my diet, snarfed down a healthy portion of ice cream under the guise of cleaning out the freezer before the electricity goes. To be honest, though, it's fat free and made with Splenda, so it wasn't a huge splurge, and I got brain freeze before I could finish it, so my guilt level is almost non-existent.

2) the thing I most wanted to post last time was my ultimate point regarding the traffic jams. Katrina exposed how our country's emergency planning didn't consider the plight of the poor and immobile. Rita, I'm afraid, will expose how our country's emergency planning doesn't consider the weakness of a highly mobile citizenry. Basically, after 4 years of supposedly improving our country's defense and reaction to catastrophe, I think you can best sum it up as being catastrophic. All we're talking about is efficient and effective evacuation. Evacuation, for whatever the reason, is part of the most basic infrastructure of catastrophe planning.

3) I'm actually pretty impressed with Bill White, our mayor, who seems to be handling himself extremely well.

I will say that the final word has not come down as to the fate of the travelers on the highways. It may be that the promised gas tanks sent up and down the highway will actually get the stranded vehicles back on the road in time to escape the storm. The traffic may also clear out in time for those vehicles to get to safe ground before Nature uses them to play dice. If they're in the clear, then the evacuation was effective, just inconvenient. And quite frankly, in a catastrophe, I think we should be willing to put up with good enough.

Those are just my thoughts at the moment.

ah, nap...

ok, I've had a nap and I feel way more human. I've spent all day flipping between the news and the weather channel (and sleep) and I have noticed a spectacular phenomenon.

First, all the highways are packed with angry, overheating people occupying puttering, overheating cars. Many of these people have started their journeys 10-12-14 hours ago. They're running out of gas. They're suffering from heat stroke. There are people who have taken other people's lives in their hands by transporting medically needy people themselves and getting stuck in traffic.

The news is reporting all this with a ferocity. After all, this is the era of 24hr news, and if you've only got 2 hours of actual news it leaves the devil's workshop with an awful lot of "idle hand" raw material. Anyway, the horrors of traffic is all the news folk can talk about. Except for one thing. And that seems to be - "LEAVE NOW!"

The news people are whipping Houstonians into a panicked frenzy about the "must do" action of leaving town. Yes, I understand the risks of staying, but I'm just afraid that by encouraging people who are not in surge areas or areas prone to flooding to leave, you're packing the freeways with people who might get stuck on them in cars that Nature will use like a 5 year old child discovering the joys of collision for the first time.

"The road conditions are terrible, people are only moving 10 miles in 10 hours. EVERYONE LEAVE!"

Mind boggling.

'rita

mmm... tequila and lime juice. That's pretty much the only way I want to have a rita right now. Unfortunately it looks like I'm going to have a bigger, less alcoholic, one shoved down my throat.

Hurricane Rita, like everything in Texas, is looking like it's putting Katrina to shame. With any luck, the damage to the city will not be as Texas sized, but Galveston will surely get its ass kicked.

What am I doing? I'm pretty much stuck sticking it out. I've been wavering for a day about leaving. So far I've made the right decision. The three major hurricane evacuation routes, I-10, 45, and 290, are multi-laned parking lots. The medians are the resting places for those cars who have overheated (from the strain of moving at less than 3 miles an hour - this is not one of those made up numbers, 9 hours, 24 miles) or have run out of gas.

I am packed. I have the dog stuff packed. I do not have the car packed because I don't even have the vaguest idea of how to do that. However, I'm not ready to go yet. Until I see cars moving on I45 at a pace that would get me to Dallas in less than 8 hours, I'm not going. I cannot afford to be on the highway in a 2 seater convertible with 2 dogs on drugs in the heat, keeping my a/c off to conserve gas... If in 5 hours the traffic drops because they've opened the southbound lanes of these highways to northbound traffic, then I will leave.

I feel like shit. I need sleep. I need my mother to stop calling me preventing me from getting any and telling me to do things that are more dangerous than staying still. I'm just very tired.

katrina

I keep forgetting that when I get all pissed off and tense and it starts affecting my sleep, that I can unload some of the internal stress into a rant, tuck it into a nice little html envelope and send it into blogland and be done with it.

Since I'm not updating any of these blogs with any regularity, something I would have initially reserved for the be appalled blog I'm going to just stick here.

Things that are stuck in my craw:

To "F the President": No, you fuckwit, it's not "Blame" it's accountability, and it's not a "game" it's your fucking job.

To Babs: Was four years in the White House not long enough to teach you how not to say really stupid things in public?

To the black community: Yes, this is a tragedy that affected black Americans WAY more than white. NO question about it. But, do you really think the response was bad because the victims were black, or could it be that the response was bad because the administration was off with their thumbs stuck up their asses in Iraq, that people who needed the most help were the poor, and that the REAL tragedy, and one that is pervasive and should not be ignored, is that the population of poor are growing, and that THE POOR ARE PRIMARILY BLACK? Isn't this the bottom line, not that the administration doesn't care about saving black people? I just think that framing the accusation as "the administration hates black people" is the wrong tack to take because it gives them something to argue about. They LOVE arguing because that, in turn, gives them something with which to distract the public from realizing that they keep giving tax breaks to the rich. Make them own up to the REAL disaster! Make the case that poverty is growing and that the poor are mostly black. They can't argue with this, and because poverty usually plays out in the public in terms of crime and drugs, Katrina is one of the few vehicles that allows the public to be made aware of the poverty and be sympathetic instead of afraid! This is an opportunity! Don't blow it by reacting like a victim, Mr. West! Take control and be an activist!

To the press: You guys have the opportunity of an 8 year presidency right now. The public has their eyes open. There's no way for the administration to spin this and look good. Don't let them stop showing the dead. While I understand protecting the privacy of grief and mourning, at some level it's important for the public to actually have visceral evidence of tragedy. If nothing else will spur them into action, let horror and disgust be the motivator. Hiding the dead serves ONLY to squash that visceral response. That's why Bush won't show the coffins of the dead as they arrive back from Iraq. It's not to protect the families, it's to protect his image and public support for the war. I'm afraid that the ban for Katrina is for a similar purpose. The public doesn't gain anything by having its news sanitized. The news needs to reflect the nasty, pustulating sores of society. Of course, it doesn't need to be sensationalized, just reported on. If seeing the dead turns people's stomachs, well, then, maybe they'll start voting for officials who treat war and the risks of nature a little less glibly. So... KEEP POINTING YOUR GODDAMN FINGERS AND DON'T FUCKING STOP UNTIL THEY'RE ALL GONE!!! Impeached. Resigned. Fired... I don't care. I just want them gone...

To Jon Stewart: Marry me?

jeopardy

My son is coming back from camp tomorrow. I haven't seen him in a month, and after he leaves next week, it'll probably be at least another month, he'll have turned 15, and will be allowed to drive in New Mexico. I started looking at his baby pictures (because I just watched a very excellent movie - My Life Without Me - and I got parentally weepy) and was thinking about some of his Zackisms.

One thing I remembered was from maybe 4 years ago when he was 10ish. It was 10pm. Zack, who was supposed to have been asleep 1/2 hour earlier, piped up from his bedroom...

Z: "441,600"
me: "excuse me?"
Z: "441,600... dollars. That's the most anyone can win on Jeopardy."
me: "Go to sleep."

I have no idea if this is right, and frankly, I'm too afraid to check. Now he's almost 15. Soon he will start drinking coffee. The world may not be ready for this.

this or that

I don't seem to do anything in moderation. I haven't written in here in MONTHS, haven't been able to write at all, in fact, but suddenly, after 2 cups of coffee and an inability to sleep, every draft post I've picked up I've finished. My only explanation goes back to the introversion thing, now several posts back. I guess I've just let myself get locked up in this lethargy of background processing. It's like the fortune cookie I got years ago (and sealed in a couple of layers of scotch tape and transported from office to office as if my life depended on it, but can now no longer find... sniff...):

"If nothing is pressing, putter around at this or that."

Without the stimulus of excessive work, my brain has just been puttering around, being inefficient at everything, and costing me actual enthusiasm and creativity. I have needed to break the cycle. To just hit the send button and stop overthinking every word I put on paper and let leave my mouth.

So, having cranked out 4 posts in one 2.5 hour period (though I have edited the post times to make it look like it took a 1/2 day because I don't want people to think I'm manic) I have decided that my muse is best taken strong and with a little skim milk.

bleeeeeeeeeding

www.strindbergandhelium.com

I'm going to start bleeding today. I'd say "I'll start menstruating today", but aside from it sounding like I was 14 and was about to have a bad day in gym, "menstruating" is one of those impossible words to pronounce, and since I listen in my head when I write, and it's something I always trip over, I just avoid it. It's the combination of the "nstr" consonant block followed immediately by the "ua" dipthong. It's just an awkward word best saved for the awkward time of puberty.

Besides. I'm 40. It's time for me to just fucking bleed, you know?

Too much information. Too bad.

(I have never been all that shy about discussing matters of a personal nature. When I was pregnant with my son, I took a certain pleasure in seeing exactly how far I could push the details of my obstetrician appointments with my fellow grad students. Keep in mind that I was studying astronomy, a field populated by men perhaps not as well-versed in the drama of womanhood as others. I still enjoy saying "mucus plug", or "episiotomy" around certain friends, just for the thrill of the reaction. Hi Elizabeth!)

So, this time last month I was sitting down with some friends, famished, bemoaning a lack of nutritional sodium chloride, (ie, "Please??? doesn't anyone just want some chips?!?") when I added, "I can't wait 'til my period comes so I'm not so damn hungry." My male friends looked at me as if a monkey crawled out of my shirt and sat on my head. "What does that have to do with it?" Leisa, the only other woman at the table, stood by me. "I understood that perfectly. Right before my period I'm starving..." and I added, "...and as soon as it arrives, I could give a shit about food."

The guys just don't buy into even the simple effects of pms. "No way." They refuse to believe that there is a biological cycle that women are subject to, and it amounts to more than just bleeeeeeeding. (Really, you must see the Strindberg and Helium link above to get that.) I'm pretty sure it's because if they admit that something as mundane as hunger can be affected by hormones, then... uh oh... they'll have to acknowledge that the whole emotional bungee jump ride of PMS might just be real.

I admit that on the surface, there's something honorable and anti-narcissistic about stalwartly maintaining that everyone is "just like me". That although we're subject to the whims of our differentiating egos as children, we grow out of thinking we're each the center of the universe and realize that there are other people out there who think and feel just like we do. It's all very Copernican and enlightened to believe that there is nothing unique about our position in the universe. Very seemingly politically correct. But to extrapolate from "nothing unique about our position" to "you can't possibly be different than me" is just silly.

We're about as different as it gets. For example, women, in general, do not understand why men paint themselves bright colors and expose their beer guts in the hope of getting on national TV. Women do not understand why men do not cry at the end of City of Angels (and are not moved to tears even when they play the soundtrack in their car), yet we accept this as part of the odd reality we live in. So, even though you don't understand why once a month we cry, eat, and fuck our way through a week of premenstrual hormones, the least you can do is just accept it.

Failing that, well, just keep your hands away from my french fries.

sales

Speaking of sales people, I'm sure it has not been overlooked by anyone likely to be reading these pages, that on average, the people in the sales and marketing departments of your average, say, software company, are sexier (in the GQ/Cosmo way) and use more hair product than, for instance, those in the development or IT departments. On average! (...and yes, I realize that most people reading these pages are in said development and IT departments, but you guys are sexy in the "I can use 'profligate' in a sentence" way, so calm down...)

What do we think? Any ideas on which is cause and which is effect? Do the beautiful people develop that kind of outgoing personality because they've been fawned over all their lives, and have learned how to get people to do things for them, or do sales departments only hire people who clients will want to spend time in close proximity, then teach them how to sell?

(For what it's worth, with respect to the previous entry's claim that I think so hard about reactions to what I write that I often lock up before I publish it/send it, well, that all goes in the shitter when I've had so much caffeine or alcohol that the impulse side of me takes over. And, yes, I'm totally wired right now. We are unedited and potentially offensive...)

the pathology of introversion

If I knew the code to open the Task Manager for my brain, it would show up on my desktop perpetually lit at 100%, like it had spyware all over it. Most of these processes would be background stuff, but sometimes one might be something useful. Like, say I'm trying to figure out what kind of career doesn't require another degree but might make use of my desire to spend all day researching things and then writing about them. If I suddenly decide to take some time out to play a game of Zuma, my brain will still happily cycle in the background, occasionally interrupting my consciousness, looking for a bit of data to fill in some gap, like making me google "private investigator licensing requirements". Eventually it will spit out the answer (investigative reporter? you think?), regardless of what consciousness it might be interrupting. Even if I've moved on from Zuma and have decided to sweep. Or organize my fonts.

It does this constantly. My brain is a speed junkie, and if it can't find the good shit, it'll rummage through the cupboards and find the brain equivalent of outdated, ephedrine-laden diet pills or some dusty vivarin to keep it going. If I don't have it working on anything important, (like when my freelance business is slow), then there's no telling what it's going to chew on.

While I was busy thinking about this, my brain, being bored and not having enough to do, started mulling over another theory. I don't know how other people work, but as I am very conscious of my actions, and hyper-responsible for any possible repercussions I may set off, I don't, in general, do anything without working through a variety of possible reactions and choosing the best possible course. If I'd like to say something to someone, I will go through it in my head, and play both roles of the interaction in as many permutations as time allows. When I write email that requires diplomacy, I sometimes will edit for hours just to make sure I neither offend or instigate with my words.

Now, you might already have put these two volatile brain activities together and made the same discovery that I did. When my brain is both undertaxed and preparing for a human interaction, it sometimes just locks up for hours. With nothing else to do but calculate an endless variety of possible outcomes to an endless variety of possible inputs, it will crank away like that computer in Wargames without a Ctrl-Alt-Del in sight. Phone calls I might make go no further than my sitting in a trance with my finger hovering over "call". Emails I might send sit on my desktop in a state of perpetual editation [sic]. The dark side of being thoughtful is apparently being paralyzed.

And, as you might imagine, this becomes even more troubling when I am suddenly thrust out of my comfy 24x7 one-person life and pressed into a real-time conversation with someone. It might, in fact, explain my introversion, and why it gets worse when my work is slow. (It also might go a long way towards explaining why some of the most extroverted people I know - sales guys - don't seem to be troubled by an excess of thinking... hm...)

Anyway, the fact that my brain has spent so much time hypothesizing tells you how bad things are. I need more to occupy my time, and evidently, I really need to get out of my house. Looks like it's time once again for the palliative job search.

sigh.

pooooooooooooooooope!!!!

Well, the pope died. No surprises there, but the whole process has nonetheless been kind of sad, even for a non-practicing Jew/born-again atheist like me. Partly because ol' JP wasn't a bad guy, and it's hard to watch a nice old man get older and more frail, particularly when he wields wicked-awesome global power. Partly because I remember being 13 and watching his white smoke fart up a Vatican chimney, and because it happened when I was 13 and the center of the universe, he's sort of been "my" pope. But, it's mostly sad because "Is the pope Polish?" had such a fine lyrical quality to it. It just seems so hard to believe it's no longer a functional tautology. Next thing you know, bears will be asking for the restroom keys at the Klondike Kwik-E Mart. Then what?

I was having problems sleeping tonight, so I sought out the Ambien of online news - I started browsing the bios of the top ranked Cardinals in line for the throne. I have to admit, having had zero interest in the papacy during my pre-adolescence, and having only limited political interest ever since, I seem to have let JP define the role for me in its entirety. I am at the point where I can simply not imagine there being a pope from Colombia. Particularly from that well known little Archdiocese of Medellin. (Tho' "Does the pope smoke dope?" has a ring to it...) I will admit that I'm quite fond of the idea of a third-world pope from, say, Africa, or Honduras. Distributing political power this way seems a little more equitable to whatever socialist leanings I may have, but it still feels somehow wrong.

I'm also not sure about this age thing. As far as my brain is concerned, the pope is old and crooked and little and white-haired. "Date-worthy" should not be a papal attribute. Yet, while browsing the bios, I stopped at not one, but two separate pictures and said to myself, "hm... not bad..." Someone please smack me. This is the New York Times, not People! I don't typically go through the Business section shopping for hotties, so what am I doing on the pope beat thinking "Well, the Honduran guy's pretty dishy. The Austrian looks a little accountant-y, but I'd have a drink with him..." With the very notable exception of Gabriel Byrne playing a priest in Stigmata, holy men are typically Not My Type. What's the deal? The only thing I could defend myself with is that compared to JP, these guys are (relatively) young and virile. And, they both have the chance to become one of the most powerful men in the world. Power is always sexy. Even in a celibate body. Right?

As sort of an aside, I feel compelled to note that the French guy looks a little like Kerry. While I like the idea of having a "Freedom Pope" I don't see him standing a really good chance. I say this because he was born to Jewish parents, and I bet he gets picked apart for flip-flopping.

Anyway, I'm going to go to sleep now. I should have gone to bed earlier, but I couldn't ignore my first motivation to write in months. I think, maybe, I've just missed having an electoral process to bitch about...

storytelling 101

My son called me the other night. This was approximately my conversation with him.

Z: Hi mom. I broke my hand.
Me: What? How?
Z: I slammed into a parked car.

Zack tells stories backwards, and only if you pull them out of him.

Me: Ok, what exactly were you doing when you slammed into the parked car?
Z: Thinking about a girl in my physics class. I wasn't really paying attention.
Me: No. WHAT WERE YOU DOING?!?!?
Z: Riding my bike. But, it was parked illegally.
Me: AAAA!! So, you don't have to watch out for cars that are parked illegally?
Z: I think she likes me.

Oh, lord. Hormones are worse than alcohol. Teenaged boys should not be allowed to operate vehicles of any sort. I still don't get how you break your hand hitting a parked truck.

Z: Yeah. So, the tailgate bent the front fork of my by 60 degr----
Me: Wait a minute. You hit the BACK of a truck? Full on?!?? And somehow a parked truck RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU escaped your attention?!??!
Z: Well, I told you it was parked illegally. At least I don't have to pay anything. She said I was different than the other boys in the class.
Me: Well, that's good. That's quite a complement from a 16 year old girl.

She's a junior. he's just a freshman. this *does* impress me. But, c'mon, the truck was PARKED.

Z: Yeah, and I landed in the bed.
Me: WAIT WAIT WAIT... You hit it so hard you FLIPPED YOUR BIKE OVER A TAILGATE AND INTO THE BED OF A TRUCK!?!??!?
Z: Yeah. The tailgate's pushed in like 6 inches.
Me: [pause. reviewing my mental image...] Was anyone taking video of this?

I'm sure I would be feeling more maternal and less amused if I had to spend the day in the emergency room with him, but this image is priceless.

Me: ...'cos I'm thinkin' that America's Funniest home videos would pay for it... So, I should be amazed that you only broke your hand, right?
Z: You should be amazed that I flipped over a tailgate.
Me: Yes, well, should I be amazed that you didn't break lots of things?
Z: Uh, yep.

I love my son more than anything. But, there are times when I'm glad his hormone riddled body now lives with his dad.

And, for god's sake, someone teach the boy how to tell a story...