Pompadoured

I colored-coded all of the leftover wires from electronics and put them into a box.

I woke up early this morning and looked at design blogs. I feel like I just stare at the websites and do nothing. I feel less than passive about all of my information.

There is a tennis ball on my desk that I sometimes want to clench, but clenching never feels as good as throwing the tennis ball.

We have a problem with WIFI reception in the bedroom.

I repeat things a lot. I feel comfortable becoming the same phrase, and maybe reconfiguring it, and then repeating it. In my head I do this, I think of different ways to say things, unexceptional things. When a song comes on the radio, my first instinct is to change the lyrics and make it dirtier.

Overall, robes are comfortable. I have an oversized robe made for a really fat person.

Not ever sure if I drink enough water. Confused about my ability to have dreams anymore. Sometimes I have dreams, and I’m not sure about their consitancy.

I have a picture of dinosaurs at a birthday party next to my desk.

No caffiene after 2pm, anymore.

The trash cans were left turned over in a pool of streetwater. I need to bring the powerwasher out of retirement to clean the the big trashcan. Overall, the big trashcan is disgusting.

When it gets cold and my skin is dry, my hands start to itch at the tips. I wore shorts on our nighttime walk.

When I walk out of our house, towards the area with shops and restaurants, I walk past a very nice restaurant with very big windows. Yesterday, I was wearing shorts and high-top neon basketball shoes. I feel great walking by the very nice restaurant wearing ridiculous clothes.

It feels like I could swim in a pool not too long ago, and that the window of pool swimming was very short this year. The cheffelera is shedding at an incredible rate.

Don’t think I have enough sand in my life.

Didn’t drink soda this weekend. Eat a lot of seafood, because I’m not at a point in my life where I can feel sympathy for fish.

Had an hour nap yesterday. Washed the babies by myself. Had ice cream for dinner.

I don’t read much anymore, because it has become too painful. I read and I critique and that is all. I would rather spend time with my children or outside riding my bike or gardening than reading. I have enough emotional material and living to generate a range of responses in my writing. I do not see what I do as the culmination of what other people are doing.

I often feel my body deteriorating. I picture terrible things happening.

At the Mexican food restaurant yesterday, Royal kept pointing to a Christmas light that was off, saying “off… off… off.”

I’ve been playing a car game, and I don’t achieve anything.

Egg poured out over the bottom of my backpack.

I had a realization that where I am, in time, is the most special and important facet of my life. If I’m not in a place that is comforting or reassuring, my family is likely not in a place that is comforting and reassuring.

Woke up late last night and checked the score of a football game. Spent the next two hours trying to fall asleep. Wish I worked with paper more. Paper feels alien to me.

Cut my hair with a hair trimmer on the wooden steps in our backyard, next to our room.

Water was trapped in a tiny pocket between my wedding ring and my finger, causing a patch of my finger to swell-up and turn red.

No longer eat farmed beef or chicken or pork. Eel gave me terrible gas.

Went through the past few weeks of mail. Downloaded some things onto my phone.

Have had a sore throat, and have not taken medicine. The weather has been colder.

Spend less time looking out of the window upstairs. Wish I played more records. I’m sorry.

I don’t know that there is much I care about outside of my home anymore. I made a hole larger in the wall behind the television, so I could attach a wall plate to the coaxial cable protruding from the wall, and fit that cable back into the wall. I used a hammer and a flat-head screwdriver to chisel at the perameter of the hole, and slowly it got larger. I felt like I had to radically alter the size of the hole for the end of the coaxial cable to fit back into the wall. There is still a slight bulge.

We went to Missouri City in our car. We almost ate at TGI Fridays.

We rode bikes to the liquor store, and I bought expensive tequila.

The roads are a lot larger in Missouri City, and there are a lot more people on the road. I pissed a minivan off and felt okay about it. There are lots of brick walls circling subdivisions. Many man-made lakes with houses and restaurants on them.

Rarely go more than a day without a mosquito bite on my ankle.

Might go to the home improvement store today. I’m looking forward to installing more storage.

Remembered the trash this morning.

Traded a war game for a car game.

I felt really awkward peeing in a Starbucks without buying anything.

A phone technician walked into the house on Friday and commented on the painting in the living room. I thought it was a compliment for a few seconds, but it was not a compliment.

Feel like I would have made a good Native American. My children are 1/16 Native American.

I have over twelve sleeping positions, but maybe only three I can actually go to sleep in. I have two pillows, one regular-sized pillow and one king-sized pillow. I’ll try to go to sleep on either my left or right side with the king-sized or regular-sized pillow between my legs, and opposite pillow underneath my head. I’ll lay flat on my back with the regular-sized pillow under my head, and the king-sized pillow under my legs, or off of the bed and my legs flat. I can lay flat on my back with both pillows under my head, or on my left or right side. Sometimes I hug the king-sized pillow (on either side) and lay face-down on the regular-sized pillow, sleeping on my stomach with my leg slightly out to the right or left. I usually try no pillows, unsuccessfully. Every position gets tried over the course of the night, until I fall asleep in one of them. Usually, I fall asleep on my stomach.

Really like tennis balls.

Ate seafood last night. It’s easy to forget how good seafood is. I think we were one of two tables of white people in the restaurant. Drank special holiday beer.

Rode in a small car and didn’t feel awkward. Sat in a room, and looked at the room for a little while. It had green carpet.

There were lots of large sculptures and some people I know.

Rarely use the phone part of my phone.

Tried walking around in the backyard, but the mosquitos bit my ankles. I feel no remorse when I kill a mosquito.

Bounced my daughter in her seat while I did the dishes and watched a football game I had no interest in. Earlier, I put leg warmers on her. Children are quick to identify the face as a focal point.

Later, I might order food. Would like to make my bed.

Turned on the sprinkler, even though it might rain.

Have eaten meatloaf four times in the past week.

Wear flannel a lot, even though it’s not really cold.

Took all of our DVDs out of their cases and put them into a DVD portfolio. I alphabetized all of our DVDs, and took all of the paper waste out of the DVD cases to be recycled. I packed all of the blank DVD boxes into a cardboard box.

Listen to a lot of dance music. After I drink a lot of caffeine, I will sit in front of my computer and make the dance music play loud.

Got new shoes in the mail. Ate cereal this morning, which improved my quality of life.

Maybe I’ll put gas in the family car today.

I caught myself with my shin, I almost fell off of the roof and onto my wife.

Randomly, I decided it was time to trim the bushes on the side of the house.

I had pizza twice in one weekend. I cut my leg.

When I was on the roof, installing an outdoor antenna, I felt vulnerable, like I would fall off of the roof and disappoint my children.

Later we walked to a party, and I danced with my son. When it got late, we sat together in front of an outdoor fire pit.

It is hard for me to explain my family to other people with families. Every time I talk about them, I feel like a cliche that is expanding quickly, like a burrito in an unbroken plastic wrapper in a microwave. Or what I imagine a burrito in an unbroken plastic wrapper in a microwave is like. I always take it out of the wrapper. I eat Amy’s Organic Burritos, and watch a lot of television.

It was hard to reach the bushes closest to my house, and I think they’re a little uneven.

I rode my bike to Radio Shack and had a conversation with a taxi cab driver about antennas.

Later, I plan on returning the outdoor antenna, and buying an outlet cover to cover an outlet in the living room.

Our sago palms are low to the ground, so I have to get on my back to reach their lower leaves.

I put my back flat on the ground. Jenny was at the park with Royal, and I looked up and waved at them. I cut at the base of the palm leaf, removing it from the plant. Our dog wandered into the street. I worried about her being hit by a car. She barked at a dog in the park, and I removed a dead leaf.

My greatest fear is the death of living things I am close to. I backed into a car on Sunday.

The weather is great. I’m afraid, at all times. I have trouble sleeping because I worry about the consequences of my actions.

The sun is gigantic, and it consumes everything.

When I cut leaves off I feel pleasure. When I push the clippers through a green leaf, it’s satisfying and permanent, like cutting off a limb.

I laid on my back in the sun for a minute. I like the sun, because if it was a few miles closer, it would burn my face off, and my skin would burst into flames. I would let a single shriek out along with my family and we would all disintegrate together.

I have night terrors where I wake up and feel like it is the last moment of living.

The existential terror of my early twenties, especially after my cousin died, no longer exists after having children. The terror I feel now is a more external form, like my son watching me get decapitated accidentally at a football game, or the last minutes with my family before I pull my car into a pole and it rips me in half.

The price of living is fear. You channel it through some means– eating well is preventative, eating poorly is escapism.

I tugged at the base of a sago palm, and removed a smaller palm from its side.

Later we all played some video games, and I rode a motorcycle off of the side of a building, riding a parachute onto the back of an eighteen-wheeler.

Rarely leave the house to go anywhere but the grocery store or Walgreens. Sometimes I’ll go on a date with Jenny.

My grandmother got us a wind chime for Christmas last year. We cut the trees back in the backyard, and now the wind chime makes a substantially greater amount of chime. The wind chime is soothing and it also reminds me to call my grandmother.

Really feel like I should only eat animals that either I or the people I know kill.

Make the bed almost everyday. Thought of something clever to say about making my bed while I was working in the yard.

Scrubbed dried-up formula off of the kitchen counter. Watched a movie on obesity and then a movie about a Tokyo police force that fights monsters.

Ate a slice of pizza while I made a bottle for my daughter.

It rained a lot yesterday. I made dinosaur noises and ran around my house. It was dark.

I’ve been wearing break-away pants more often lately. I don’t break them away. Most of the time, I don’t wear real shorts underneath my break-away pants. If I was to break my pants away, I would be in my underwear.

Went to the liquor store with Royal. Wish wine came in aluminum bottles.

Cold pizza is good at awkward hours.

I moved the cookbooks to a central location, in the cupboard, near the living room. There are a few cookbooks I am ashamed of, and a few I have positive feelings towards.

I leave my phone off for most of the day. I have started to get paranoid about cancer and think about cellphone cancer at least twice a day. I’m not sure cellphone cancer is even real.

I pulled out all of the plants along the fence and in the front of our house. There was a slug I almost poured salt on.

Pulling roots out of the ground feels good. I’ve been eating all of the Halloween candy.

If I had to worship something, I think I would worship the Sun.

It’s hard for me to use the same keyboard for an extended period of time. I have two keyboards I use regularly, and both have advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes I will just stare at my alternate keyboard and think about what it feels like to type on it.

I watched a man yell angrily over his daughter at a quarterback that must have been a half mile away.

One of our clocks is broken, and it’s disappointing when I look at it.

When the Halloween candy is in the house, I need to be on the other side of the house.

I broke a spade on a palm stump.

I’m in bed with the heater on, and looking out of the corner window. Our neighbor has an antenna on top of his house. There is an empty kid pool that I have to dump out every time it rains.

Friday is pancake and bacon day.

My water bottle has a metallic taste, and I need to clean it out. I was afraid last night that my water bottle was poisoning me.

My bike chain fell off again. A man by the grocery store bike rack said that cable locks have been cut through recently at the grocery store bike rack, and that I need to use a d-lock. He carried his groceries in one hand and steered his bike with the other.

When I raked up the schefflera leaves yesterday, I was careful to avoid all of the wet dog poo in the yard.

Our car is massive. It has three rows of seats.

I ate stew twice yesterday. It rained all night, and Jenny and I barely slept.

The problem with changing diapers, is that sometimes you just randomly smell poop coming from an unknown source.

Our car has seats that are big enough to fit around my body. Jenny’s sound sculptures fit into our car without being put flat.

Not sure why anyone would want to strictly follow anything.

It’s raining outside right now. The leak in our ceiling leaked again last night, covering the wood floor in water. When the floor is wet, the scrapes on the wood become dark and visible.

After changing a lot of diapers, you start to think about adults wearing diapers.

Stew is great in shitty weather. I feel like a peasant when I eat stew. It gets better after being set aside for a while.

Feel comfortable rejecting superficial things. Feel like I want to reject Apple products but don’t have the money to. I’d like to reject casual clothing, but I also don’t have the money to.

When you’re up with your kid all night, there’s a point when you get angry at the situation you’re in, and then there’s the immediate realization that the kid is in a much worse place.

I swept the garage yesterday. There was so much dirt and glitter I had to sweep up.

The texture of an English muffin always seems fucked-up. I never feel good after eating an English muffin. I feel the same way with grocery store bagels.

I have a collection of books on my desk that I don’t read.

It’s overcast outside and a cool front is coming. It should be a nice weekend.

Talked with Jenny about sports last night. She said the only reason she likes sports is that it keeps cities from burning down other cities.

I may have, at some time in my life, believed in ghosts. I’m pretty sure that they do not exist. Do religious people believe in ghosts? Are ghosts, other than ghost Jesus, in the Bible?

The drugs that are legal, thank our government for them. Coffee is so special.

The trees are starting to blow hard. I’m going to need to rake the schefflera leaves out of the yard.

The clouds are thin and moving quickly. I like the darkness of the sky. I like feeling like I’m on some sort of alien planet. I like feeling that my time is limited.

It looks like there is a giant pee spot on the attic futon.

We decorated the front door with a skeleton and some sticky gelatin-based window clings. It’s very becoming. The people at the park will be impressed and assume that real people live in our house. People who have personalities and celebrate holidays.

I never know when to wear a sweater this time of year.

The pee spot is not pee, I think Jenny let something dry on the futon and it left a ring. If you sleep on the futon, your skin will not absorb pee.

Ride my bike everywhere now. Never needed the second car. Or cable.

It’s hotter today than it was yesterday, and I feel confused. I just want to sit on the chair in my room with the door open and read, but it’s too humid to do that.

The chain came off of my bike yesterday on my way back from buying alcohol and Fritos. A man on a bike stopped and asked me if I was okay, and I mumbled something and he rode away. I feel bad now, like I was rude to a concerned person.

I haven’t taken a shower in a few days, or changed out of my gym shorts. I should probably go brush my teeth right now.

The dogs barking next door sound like some kind of fucked-up dinosaur.

Going out-to-eat is nice, and I usually feel like a privileged asshole when I do it.

The worst is when you have a zit in your inner ear and can’t pop it. You feel like you’re breaking your ear.

I had an opportunity to dance last night.

Windex is a nice product. We had some streak-free Windex, but we ran out. Used regular Windex to clean our windows.

Houston has a lot of great restaurants, and I feel lucky to have eaten at so many of them. Eating at home feels better to me now for some reason. I never thought I would like eating at home more, but it’s nice to control your portions and eat food with less butter.

The weather is changing and outside is tolerable. Jenny and I rode our bicycles most of the weekend and sat down on the park grass.

Sometimes my chest hurts a little, and I worry.

We drank a lemonade outside of the Menil bookstore and talked about our children as families walked by.

My bike broke twice, and I had to take it in for repairs both times. The first time, my seat bent. The bike store fixed it for free. The second time, my pedal broke. I paid them a little money, and upgraded to metal pedals. I asked for the black ones, because I’m slowly trying to “murder out” my bike.

Usually, I mold it into a worm and then make it into a spiral. I have an egg of Silly Putty that sits in a cubby of my desk. It’s the Silly Putty from two eggs made into a single Silly Putty.

When I was a kid, I had a giant mound of Silly Putty made from like ten eggs.

When I read over sentences I roll the Silly Putty into a penis shape, which is also a worm shape.

The giant mound of Silly Putty would get mashed into carpet and hair, and those things would become a part of the Silly Putty. All of the Silly Putties were different colors when I would buy them, and as they became a part of the larger Silly Putty they would revert to the neutral Silly Putty color. The color of white people skin.

Sometimes the Silly Putty is used to hold my water bottle in place, because my water bottle is a little uneven on my desk and it rocks when I type. The Silly Putty is a kind of temporary gum that bonds my water bottle to the desk.

I roll the Silly Putty into a spiral, and then I smash it flat with an object on my desk.

I like that after a while, after sitting out on my desk, the Silly Putty glosses over. The Silly Putty loses my fingerprints, and whatever shape I left it in melts closer to the desk.

I have a problem with distraction. I had to buy a device to replace my smartphone. I would just stare at it for hours, updating my Twitter feed and not paying any attention to the things around me.

We used to have a rug in front of the kitchen sink area, but it would always get really wet. It’s a nice handmade native american rug that I bought when I was a bachelor and had a well paying job. Now, it just sits in the garage and is too small to be put anywhere. Seems like someone worked really hard making the rug, and now I’m disrespecting it.

Jorge is mowing our lawn. We can’t really afford him anymore, but he is a nice man and I don’t want to fire him. It makes me happy to shake his hand and make some awkward comment about the weather standing awkwardly in the center of the lawn.

Caffeine is making me feel really good.

It’s supposed to get up to 92 degrees outside today.