When did i grow a beard???

i've been staring at the computer or "nothing box" (Mark Gungor, look him up, it's worth it.) as i will henceforth call it, for so long that when i looked up, everything around me was so bright and clear that i thought it was fake. That's what happens when you join facebook. You sign up one night in a moment of weakness, just curious to see what it's all about and two years later you wake up in a cesspool of your own filth sloshing around the sweats you now live in and clinging to your two hundred extra pounds you've put on by eating every snack food, condiment and end table in your house while you answered comments, looked at photos, posted photos, tagged photos, commented on photos, scrolled through lists looking for people you didn't really know but remember the names of to friend-request, confirm friend requests, do research on folks you don't remember but are friend-requesting you, answer chat balloons that pop up while you're checking your inbox, your wall, your profile, your homepage, your friend's homepage, wall, profile, all the while wondering what a HUG is, what Farmville is, why your friends are milking cows on it, why it needs to be able to see your friendlist, your profile, your bank account, your friends bank accounts and your closet all while trying to figure out how to poke, post and publish the minutia of your life and worrying over how much detail is too much and how much is too little.

Whatever happened to the good ol' days when there was nothing to do on the interwebs but surf for smut?

A muse moment.

A dark, hairy, gnarled, gnomish runt of a curmudgeon showed up last night. He nearly walked through the screen, he was so drunk. "Oh, you've come back," i remarked. He made a rude noise followed by a downright inappropriate gesture and then laid out his case in language that would offend a a particularly affable rock.

"Look, you (expletive deleted)! I give you idea after (colorful metaphor) golden idea and what do you do? You (completely impossible sex act with a mollusk) it up! You are so (hyperbolic reference to mental deficiency based upon location of cranium) that you (unhygienic practice yourself) no matter what I do for you, you (very, very, very stupid person)! So you know what I'm gonna do? I'm going to give it to you. The (fantasy night with famous celebrity) idea of all (nearly impossible sex acts with famous celebrities) of ideas. This is it! You (anatomical region specific to males nurse sharks) this up and I'm through! You understand, you (unwanted relative of a member of the bovine order)? This is it! Last (sex act between a non-consenting primate and toaster) chance you (rare spinal disorder contracted from inbreeding). You (...um, not sure..?) this up and I quit being your (i'd rather not say) muse! Got it? Hey, where are you goin', you (superfluous member of a large factory device)? I offer you fame, a chance to get out of your (fairly accurate description of my) rut and you walk away???"

"i'm gonna go see what my kids are doing." Feeling smug in my sense of values, i descended the stairs to find my family...

...watching teevee. Little (unclaimed orphan) couldn't have got far on such stubby legs, maybe i can still get that idea.

Oh, cause you're the mayor.

The breeze blows gentle in the trees. The charcoal is alight and better than any incense save the prayers of the saints. The wicker could use a cushion and the teenager could use a place-putting-punt-to-the-posterior and a cold shower. i am sitting in aforementioned wicker and waxing nostalgic about a scene out of the weekend last.

There too the breeze and i enjoyed the long rays of the sun. Though it were more the time of anticipation than reflection. There too, i sat. There too, there were teenagers in need of place-putting-punts. And that brings us to our story...

Lacrosse, like most sports, Carlin be wherever he's at, it is a sport and as such, is played by the young. And though the modern world seems to think them passé, the young often have fathers, for good or ill. Fathers who often, God bless 'em, think that their progeny, most of whom are walking upright, potty trained and old enough to shave, could not successfully make themselves a glass of chocolate milk without their fathers bellowing at them from the sidelines if it were to be accomplished on a playing field. You've heard these men. Everyone within a five mile radius hears these men. Berating their beloved sons in a spray of spittle laced fury like the slave drivers in Roman galleys during a losing battle.

There i and the breeze and everyone within a five mile radius sat, unwilling audience to a master slave driver practicing his craft. For fully thirty minutes of a thirty-five minute game he paced the sidelines as if he were the reincarnation of Vince Lombardi himself, telling every boy on the field where they should be, how they should play and asking in his best pleading martyr voice, why, o why were they not listening to him and trying to win the game??? So fanatical was he, i began to watch in the morbid fascination that he would soon have a massive coronary right there on the field and never having seen such a thing and being ambivalent to the outcome, i thought it might prove more entertaining than the game. Maybe now would be an opportune time to say that my son was not playing in this game so i had no personal stake. Insert joke about my own massive coronary here. i don't mind. i am not one of these fathers.

i save my wrath for the refs but that is another story and we're not talking about me.

We're talking about this guy... and the guy twenty foot down the line. The guy who looked like a retired teamster. Who talked like a retired teamster who did strong arm work for the Union back in the day. Who had apparently had his fill of the slave driver's vitriol.

"Hey (we'll call him Creo Sonitus, Soni for short) Hey Soni! Why don't you shuttup!" says, retired teamster knee breaker.

"I'm oveh heeya, (helpfully points to where he's standing) i'm not botherin' you!"

"You're bodderin' all of us! You're making us all nauseous!"

"And you're de mayor."

"You're out of control, you're makin' us all sick!"

"Oh and you're so loved!"

There followed after this exchange, five minutes of blessed, if somewhat strained silence as the game wound to it's inevitable conclusion and kneebreaker's and Soni's sons' defeat. And that would have been the end of it. There would have been no story except for the origin of why i will now refer to anyone who tells me what to do as, "the mayor."

Except that's when the real story began. For at that point, kneebreaker came over. He shook Soni's hand and gave him a one armed man hug. They made up and apologized and were both gracious in defeat. Now, for all i know, they do this every game. It could be ritual for them. But that one act of restoration and forgiveness, that picture of redemption, that holy moment almost made up for the fact that i had to drive to blinkin' Jersey three days in a row to watch my son's coach snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory five times in a friggin' row.

Almost.