Zappos

Unpaid commercial alert:

A couple of days ago I came to my senses and purchased some shoes at Zappos.Com. I have never done anything like this before. First time for everything, and of all the online experiences I have had, this was by far the best.

Just got the shoes. Comfortable.

So, go there and buy shoes.

Speaking on horrific online experiences."Single is not such a bad thing. It's freeing."

The wife asks

"Hi, I have been reading the last few weeks of posts and if you are going to answer peoples questions, then please think about mine. I have been married over 12 years, we have two kids - 7/10 and neither of us is cheating. I am just bored. Everything about my wife bores me, from the way she does or does not look to the way she cooks, chooses restaurants to the books she reads. She is boring to me. Looking back, she was always boring. Over the past couple of years she has started to ask me if what she is doing is bothering her. No, I want to scream, what you are doing is boring the shit out of me. I can't leave her, sadly not because we have kids, but because we could not afford to live apart on the money we make. You have a take on this?"

I am only posted your edited letter because the amazing juicy letters I have been receiving are too complex for me to answer is such a short amount of time, mine, not yours.

Oh, first, to answer another email, yes I do edit the letters. One, because a lot of them are wordy. Two because a lot of them go into so much detail that I feel like I want to protect the writer and finally, I edit because I can. So there.

To answer the question, well, leaving relationships for any reason is never easy, especially after many years. When I ended my longest relationship, after 11 years, I was at once heartbroken and relieved. In retrospect it was the smarted and healthiest thing I could do.

You on the other sound spoiled and pampered. You ever step back and say thank you for the meals you don't particularly like? Or cook one yourself? You don't like the way your wife looks or dresses? Have you mentioned this to her? Have you maybe purchased her something that you would find enticing?

See, when people talk about relationships being work, it is this part that you are "suffering" through that is the work. You sound lazy to me. Oh my, she does not look like she did 15 years ago. Let me guess, you weigh exactly the same as you did when you met your wife, right? Same amount of hair? Same amount of sexual attraction? Right.

I am a firm believer that getting married means something. It really does mean a life long commitment, a life spent together, sometimes with great passion and love, and sometimes screaming and hating the other person. That is what commitment means. Good and bad. Happy and sad. Healthy and fat. The bad times fade, as to the sad and if one or both of you is lazy and fat (and you sure sound lazy to me) that can be changed.

At some point we all look at our partner and think - I could do so much better. In some cases it is true, maybe in most cases, but guess what? Your partner is looking at you and thinking the exact same thing and as true as it is when you look at them, it is just as true when they look at you.

You have two kids. You have a wife who still is trying, making you meals and asking if she looks good is a passive aggressive way of communicating, but communicating all the same. I really believe from the tone of your letter you want change. How about changing your relationship. Talk to your wife, my lord you have spent over a decade together, sit her down and talk to her and tell her how you feel and see how she views things. Commit to making your lives together better. Commit to finding time for one another, to talk about what attracts you to one another, even talk about meals that might be changed to be more dynamic.

If you are thinking of divorcing her and damaging those kids because you think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, you are a fool. I have seen the other side of the fence, it is greener, because no one is walking on it, no dogs are pissing on it, no one is trampling all over it, but once you jump the fence, the grass is just not going to be pristine.

Oh, and go seek a professionals advice. I started this blog to write about the economy. I know next to nothing about relationships, pet care, clothing options, or pretty much anything else.

Thank you obese man

As I was walking through the parking lot today I saw a man fumbling as he was nearing me. He was kind of cupping everything to his enormous stomach. In his hands, he had a full cup of coffee (I could tell it was full because is was spilling onto his sweat shirt) he also had some sort of wrapped pastry next to the coffee, and the best part was the smart phone, onto which he was texting super important messages. Then as we passed one another, cockeyed on his head was a blue baseball cap with the letters DEA on it. Did I mention he looked stoned out of his mind?

I want to thank you obese man. You brought a smile to my day.

Speaking of perfect everything, I found a gym to work out in over the winter, so I can officially make this announcement.

I am training for a marathon.

Here's the thing, many years ago when I was going through a somewhat bitter divorce, I found peace of mind on a cycle. I was fat and lazy there at the end of that relationship, pictures of me from that time show early onset of obesity and a general look of severe unhappiness. It was not really to get into better shape that motivated me though, it was that sense of accomplishment, of riding hard on a daily basis and being healthier about everything.

What I detested then was how everything had fallen apart and I felt like I had certainly been dishonest on a variety of levels and I felt like I never got the full truth from a number of people. Riding was a solitary thing I could do that made me healthy and happy. Hard to argue with that.

One of the goals I set while I was our riding was that someday I would ride a century ride. These rides happen all over the place. Basically they are sponsored rides for people to cycle fairly safely for 100 miles. When I first got on a cycle I was not sure I could ride 10 or 20 miles and pretty positive I could never do 100 in a day. Within a year I had done a few organized rides and almost every weekend I found a way to put at least that many miles on my cycle.

A few years ago I was involved in a pretty ugly bike accident and I have had trouble riding fast on streets since that time. So, I have been searching. Again I got kind of lazy and probably gained 20 extra fatty pounds. This was not a new years resolution, except that at some point I probably needed to get fat out of my life. Again, it seemed like a time to reevaluate where I was going, healthy wise and relationship wise.

In fact this afternoon I had a realization. All my relationships have ended with betrayal and discovering that I had been lied to, or having a partner discover I was lying to them. A few years ago I set out to only have healthy relationships with seemingly healthy people, only to find out that seeming healthy clean and sober people often times lie too. My big realization? The only thing all the bad relationships have in common is me. What would be the odds that the only people I could ever attract would be skeezy liars? No, my realization was that the only people I attract are skeezy liars because that is who I like to be around. It is not their fault they are skeezy liars, they just are. It is my fault that I would have dated them in the first place.

So, instead of searching for a relationship, I decided to get back into shape. Having a gym in my work building only firmed up how easy it will be for me to run after or before work. I contacted a good friend who is also a long distance (serious) runner. Hopefully he will guide me through these first few months. When I was cycling a lot I knew I was always a week or two away from being in the type of shape to ride 100 miles. As I slid down the workout hole, I became less and less likely to be in shape for any serious riding. I am probably 6 months away from either serious riding or true long distance running, but one thing I know, if you do it daily and watch what you eat, in 6 months you can be ready for anything.

Following up

I have been trying to answer questions, which have turned out to be mostly relationship questions, and now, for some reason, people are following up.

For whatever reason I am swamped with emails. To the commenter who said they had emailed and I had yet to respond, I will get to it. In fact, I will post it here. I am not responding directly to emails anymore because you end up with these frantic, sad and sometimes traumatic dialogs with people you do not know.

Example? Well, just recently someone wrote to me about finding cancerous emails on a computer left open to a hookup site. I actually emailed that person back, did not hear and wrote about the email in this blog. I have now received a couple of emails, none of which I will get into here, but basically, he found all sorts of emails sent from his "partner" to other people, claiming he was happily single. All the while, in their committed relationship.

I said, yikes. We have exchanged emails back and forth, and then it hit me, I don't know this person from jack. For all I know, I am being yanked. For all I know, the creepy lover was sending me the emails as a hoax. For all I know it could just be some random person who wanted to create a dramatic situation that I would run with.

So, while I will continue to pour over emails and answer them here, in this blog, from time to time, I will do so believing that actual people are writing about actual things and hoping a completely disinterested third party might have a unique take on it. If the original letter is a hoax or prank, so be it. I can only, barely, control what I can control.

Memory issues

Every now and then I go through my email account and I delete junk. Lately I have been getting a lot of weird pharmaceutical junk emails, which are easy to delete. Over the past few years I had to keep a group of emails for legal reasons. I lived under the cloud that I could be sued for something and I just thought it would be wise to keep documentation on when and how things went south.

Those I kept. I keep the emails from my ex-wife. I used to make a point of keeping them because I thought at some point I would be sued for custody, and I thought they would come in handy.

Today I was just focusing on cleaning out my email and I came across some very sweet emails that I could not decide what to do with. It's kind of interesting, because I found a series of emails praising me on my creative abilities and I kept thinking, why do I need to keep these? It's not as if I need ego polishing, so they went. I also found some emails from an ex who started out as such a sweetheart and then over time because something a little more difficult to define. They disappeared.

Then there were the emails from friends and people who used to be friends. Many of these were in the form of touching base, checking up on things or offering a recipe of something. They all disappeared today.

Here is a feature I think I really like. I did a search for people who I don't particularly like, all their email would immediately show up and I could mass delete them. No pouring over them for hints of past glory, no checking to see if promises made were promises kept. All gone.

Anyone who knows me realizes that my memory is not nearly the gift it once was. In fact, even important moments tend to disappear in a mist of confusion and bad connections. I do not bring this up as a way of garnering sympathy, more as a way of looking at things. See, with those emails gone, for me, they are really gone. A friend recently got in touch with me and asked how everything in my life was, and at the time I was ecstatic about how things were going. He asked how the kids were, I told him they were swell. The job? Fine. Am I still getting married? I paused, no, I said, I don't think so. He asked what happened, and I was honest, I don't remember.

For that answer alone, the bike accident, the drugs, the testing and treatments, the biopsy, the MRI's and the days of having drugs injected into me - all of it worth it.

Now, stop reading and get your email account open and clean it up.

Type A

I was told recently that I was such a type a. In stereo. That's what I was told.

Now, I admit to many things, but not that one, mostly because it seems confusing. People speak is tongues sometimes. They say things that make no sense, but then we all pretend that it made sense.

If I could go back in time, I would make it that people speak the same language, or at least one that I understand.

That said, I find many things kind of amazing lately.

A slew of questions

Thank you all for emailing me your most personal and private questions and opinions. Yes, I am a jerk and no, I am not willing to travel for a "good time."

Somehow the flood gates have opened on the questions, but here was the best of the day.

"I came home unexpected this week, mid-day, which is a big change for me. My lover had been working from home, but he was not there when I got to the house. His computer was on, but the screen was sleeping, and when I sat at the desk I touched the keyboard and when the screen came back to life, there was a gay cruising site opened and he was logged in with a screen name that he used for email and such. Until that moment, I thought we had a monogamous relationship, but I did read some of his emails and it looks like he has been meeting people while "working from home". I am still digesting this, and a friend sent me a link to your blog and I figured, what the hell. Suggestions?"

You do not say how long you have been together. You do say you "thought" you were monogamous, but you don't say if it was part of a living together agreement. I am going to take it for granted that it was part of the agreement.
First, it's pretty skeevy to read someone's email. Then again, he did leave it open and it was on a gay cruising site and you did happen upon it innocently enough. That said, and I emailed you some questions, but I figured, with this sort of intense thing, you need a level headed, disinterested person to tell you the truth.
First, does he know you know? If he does, again this was in the email to you, I would get some plain truth going, like how long, how many, how unsafe, etc.
Again, not sure if you own or rent, not sure who pays what, or what you can afford. My advice though is, drop him like a hot rock.

I only say that because he violated a basic trust in your relationship. At least, I think he did. I recently wrote about men who use the scam that "you never asked me" when you find out they are kind of scummy. So, maybe your "partner" will say, "we never had an agreement to be monogamous." He may be right, you may have thought that living together and being partners meant monogamy, because maybe that is your definition. Maybe it was not his. Again, you have not answered my email.

I am a realist. Many men cheat. Few are honest about it. I am also not a cynic, so I believe in brutal honesty. If he does not know that you found this page with incriminating emails, I would sit him down and ask if you two are monogamous, and if he says yes, I'd ask for his definition. At some point, even idiots realize you have a line of questioning because you know something he thought you would not know.

All that said, again, dump him. First, he is scummy. Second he is putting your health in danger and finally, he is not only scummy enough to cheat, he was stupid enough to leave incriminating evidence open on a computer.

Finally, I am a firm believer that scummy people, liars and cheats, do not have the same rights as nice people. Feel free to, if you are the owner of the house, toss his lying ass out. While not all men at pigs, the ones that are need to be treated like pigs.

All of that said, I am sorry for your pain. Anyone in any relationship has stumbled upon something that was not pretty, not many get the gift you got, but we have all felt that unease in our stomachs when reviewing a credit card statement, or finding a letter, or underwear or something.

Life is way too short to spend time with liars and contemptible scum bags. You could do what I did once, in something of the same situation, donate his super important books to Goodwill.

A personal question

A woman wrote me last week and I never got around to answering it in this blog, and I emailed he back and she asked me not to use any of her letter. I said, how about if I don't include you name? No. How about if I just quote parts of your letter? No. How about if I just take the general theme of your letter? No.

Right about then I realized, she wrote me, asking me some sexy time question, and I am negotiating with her? Silly.

So, I got this letter from this closet lesbian, at least that's what she is thinking about becoming. She, she is married, has a couple of kids and every day she walks them to the bus stop, where she often meets other friendly, mostly women, who stand and chat as the bus pulls away. The letter writer is finding one particular woman at the bus stop somewhat interesting in a sexy time kind of way and wrote to ask me, what's up with that?

My immediate answer to her was, honey, you married. If you want some on the side, boy or girl, you should explain to your husband that you want some on the side, etc. She wrote back and said that is not an option. I wrote back and said, sometimes it is, but we just have to talk about it to see if it really is an option. She said talking about it was not an option.

So a bunch of things at play here. First, do not get into relationships, long term, committed relationships and monogamous relationships, if at some point it changes and you still can not talk to your partner about it. Plus, if you can not talk to your partner about frustration in your relationship, then it is almost over anyway.

Now, I know, men have these fragile little egos that everyone has been taught to protect. I once met a woman who told me her husband had a tiny little penis. Not sure how that particular conversation started, but once the bird was out of that cage, we had a lot of funny exchanges. See, most men think they have radically larger penises than they actually have, which is fine, if they keep it to themselves, but neurotic men tend to know they have been gifted with less than impressive sexual things, and thus, they talk about it, as if mentioning may increase growth. This particular friend said it was not frustrating being with her husband, it was frustrating how neurotic he was about it. According to her, not a day went by that he did not mention something to do with his enormous penis. Sometimes it was a joke, sometimes it was not, always it was embarrassing. I told her to tell him, that somewhere inside of his head he knew we was of adequate size, but not porn size, but she refused, saying his ego could not handle the truth.

That brings us back to my lesbian writer. Your husband deserves some truth here. You want to dyke it up with a woman at your childrens bus stop (which by the way is completely normal, I have seen this year in and year out at bus stops all over the country). In relationships, partners deserve honesty, even if that honesty ends the relationship.

Many years ago I broke up with a woman I had been dating for about a year. When we broke up she said something pithy like, "I hope your year of monogamy did not bore you." To which I replied, who said anything about monogamy?

Which is hardly ever the right thing to say, but it was the truth. We had met, almost immediately jumped into bed, started basically living together soon after and had a sweet little romance going. Never did the conversation ever get to the monogamy issue and at the time, I was living under the don't ask, don't tell world view. It was a terrible way to live, and keep in mind, this was a long long time ago. See, my attitude then, which is still a way many men that I know live, was this: if you don't ask me, I don't have to tell you.

See, the brilliance of that deception is, you can be kind of scummy, and if no one asks, you have no reason to bring it up. I know at least one man in a long term relationship today, who has been boinking his co-worker for over a year. When I asked him about this arrangement and what his wife thought of it, he said, "what she don't know, won't hurt her." Yikes.

See, I tend to disagree. Now, if he had a deal with his wife, you know, I may sleep around on the road, or something, and as long as I do not bring you an STD as a gift, we just won't talk about it. I have always supported those sorts of understandings, but if you are just out finding willing partners and you have a monogamous leaning partner at home, you are really scummy.

The bottom line to the "she never asked" issue is simple, do you really want to have a list of questions you have to ask before you can date someone? Just to clear the air? How retarded is that? "Yes, I kind of like you, but I have this small book of questions you must answer, because at one point I dated this freak who did all these bad things under the guise of, I did not ask, so he did not tell."

Makes people cynical.

So, to answer the flourishing lesbionic question, explain to your husband that you are having sexual feelings for a woman. See what his response is. If I were your husband, I'd say, see where it goes. Then again, I have always believed that it is more important to be honest with a husband/wife/partner than it is to be monogamous.

Not quite selling out

Last night I had a quick, but informative, meeting with a local real estate professional. My main reason for meeting was to determine if there was a market for real estate sales in my neighborhood.

A little background, my neighbor, Big Momma, is a very loud, very angry young woman. She appears to have dropped out of middle school, she has a baby that she screams at constantly and it does not matter what time of the day or night, she is angry and screaming. How do I know this? Sometimes I leave at 5 in the morning for a job and I swear every time I have been loading my car with cameras and equipment, I can hear her screaming at something.

So last night I was talking to the real estate person and I mentioned my neighborhood and he said, "are you anywhere near the angry woman?" Seriously, that was one of the questions. I was not sure he was talking about my angry neighbor, but once I told him the address, we were on the same page. First, he was familiar with my house, asked me all sorts of question on what has been done and what will be done before we put it on the market, and then he said that if angry Big Momma is screaming when we are showing it, we will never be able to sell it.

Interesting, right? Here we have someone completely removed from a possible sales situation and yet she has complete control.

Negotiation

Many years ago I lived in a quiet suburban hamlet. In fact, we did not even live in the hamlet part of the hamlet, we were outliers, a 5 mile distance from the hamlet itself. Suburban rural is a decent way to describe it, although we had neighbors around us, we also had trees and quiet, so it seemed a lot more rural than it was.

I did not have much interaction with our neighbors, one couple was elderly and friendly, but really, we were a lot younger and had nothing in common. When we did see one another, we waved and it was always a very nice interaction, but we never invited them to dinner. The other closet neighbor seemed nice enough, although very distant and reclusive.

One Sunday afternoon I was planting a couple of small trees in the front yard and since it was sunny and I was working outside, I was playing some music from the front porch to keep me entertained. I was digging a hole when the distant, reclusive neighbor showed up in my driveway. "Turn that fucking shit off" he said. I do not think we had ever spoken before. I remember, it was Willie Nelson singing love songs. While I did have a shovel in my hands, his words and distaste kind of scared me, so trying to be a good neighbor, I told him I would. He walked away in a huff. I went to the house and turned the music off.

I went back to digging and it dawned on me. He had no right to intimidate me and speak with such vulgarity, shit I thought, we don't even know one another.

So I walked down to his reclusive little shack, shovel in my hand. He was outside, tending to his organic garden and he did not hear me approach. I was standing over him as he was hunched down, looking at some sort of growth. I cleared my throat and in the kindest terms imaginable I told him, I did not appreciate the way he spoke to me. For gods sake I intoned, we are neighbors. If he does not like my music, approach me like an adult and speak to me as if I am a neighbor. I told him bullying will not work on me, and if he yells at me again, I would not take it well.

He apologized.

I remember this interaction because he actually said he was sorry. He knew he was out of line and that if you want to get things done, it is best to treat one another with some sort of respect.

There may have been times later in my history in that house where I played music while I worked outside, but I never heard from him again.

Funny weird

I love strange phone calls, I am not sure why, but I do.

Today, while at work, my phone starts buzzing with a number I do not recognize.

First, let me do some explaining. A couple of years ago I was in San Antonio Texas for an artist interview. At the time I was traveling a lot to interview artists as they worked, or in their studio, or in this case, as one was being honored for designing a sexy new library.

At a reception the night before I ran into this young woman, who for the sake of this convoluted story, we will call Ms. Evil. I had talked to her numerous times on the phone arranging my travel and she was even able to get me into this unique bed and breakfast not far from the gallery. So, I am at this reception, I got there a bit early because I like to scope things out and set up a camera. She was there, she greeted me, told me I was as handsome as she had heard, which means my internet postings about myself had begun to pay off handsomely.

For the next hour or so I shot b-roll footage of the people at the reception, which was all I figured I was going to do that night. At some point I was done and I was packing up, and Ms. Evil shows up, next to me, and as I am stooped over my camera bag, all I can see are some high heels and a pair of beautiful legs. I looked up and she said, "leaving so soon?" I explained I had been in planes and rental cars, I was bushed and heading back to the bed and breakfast. She said she would stop by later and take me to dinner.

On my way back to the bed and breakfast I remember thinking how sweet people in Texas are, offering to take me out to dinner in a strange town, who does those kinds of things?

A couple hours later there was a knock on my door and Ms. Evil was standing there, having changed her fairly conservative gallery clothes for a much shorter skirt and revealing blouse. Off we went to "the best Tex-Mex place in San Antonio."

The food was OK, the conversation mediocre. Working at a non-profit did not afford Ms. Evil the sort of chance to speak to many people, or at least pay attention. We talked about the growing art scene, the graffiti that was showing up all over the south end and how her last boyfriend was kind of mean. If I ventured to ask her anything at all our of her realm of interest, she drew a blank.

Anyone who knows me will testify that red flags are to me what they are too a bull, meaning if I notice them, it just serves to get me more interested. On and on we went, talking, drinking and ordering mediocre food. Late into the night I reminded her that we both had to be at the meeting for the famed architect in the morning. She drunkenly said that she was fine to drive, which was fine by me. As we headed out, I realized we were not heading to the boutique bed and breakfast and I pointed this out, apparently Ms. Evil had other plans, we were going to stop by her house for a night cap.

I have seen plenty of films in my life to know what a night cap really is, an alcohol infused dance with foreplay. I begged off, telling her I still had tape to review and stuff like that. We ended up with her in the driveway of the bed and breakfast, asking if she could come in with me. Again, I kind of knew what that meant. This time, I told her, while dinner was fine, I was really not looking for any sort of "relationship". She was startled for a second, then said, "me neither, but some decent sex would be nice."

Hard to argue with that logic.

For the life of me I don't recall how I snaked my way out of that entanglement, or even if I had.

I did see her at the press conference the next morning and most of the day as the world famous architect toured the University of Texas school of architecture. She was nice and sweet and I kind of enjoy the more sober version of Ms. Evil. A couple of days later I was on my way home and I got an email. The head of the gallery wrote, asking what I had done to Ms. Evil.

She had been upset, crying at her desk, talking about what an a-hole I had been.

I am not sure how I responded, nor do I think I emailed Ms. Evil. I finished the film, delivered it on deadline, got paid and basically forgot all about it.

Then my phone buzzed while I was at work today. First, let me say, I about about 3 years over due for changing my number. The people I love would get an update, the people I don't would not.

I took the call as I was walking out of the meeting I was in. "Hi, it's me, Ms. Evil (she said her real name, but it may as well be Ms. Evil). I see Pittsburgh is in the super bowl, and it's being played in Dallas. I wanted to see if you wanted to go."

At that point, my brain recalling San Antonio, the weirdness of the bed and breakfast, the drinking at the Tex-Mex place, the awkwardness in her car. This out of the blue call, reminding me I need to get a new phone number.

"You have tickets?" I asked.

Super bowl

So I live in Pittsburgh and once the Steelers made it to the super bowl by beating the Jets this past Sunday, I have been getting calls from all sorts of friends and people I know.

To answer the obvious question, no I am not going and no I am not interested in going. I have lived in Pittsburgh less than 2 years, I am not a fan, never been to a game, could care less.

Then all was weird

Almost every day my phone rings and someone asks for April. Most of the time I figure it is some sort of bill collector, so I just tell them that April does not and has not lived here for a few years. I hang up a lot.

Today, I got home late. I walked in. My lesbian dog assaulted me, so all was normal. The phone started to ring and because the auto-answering service picks up after two, I dove for the nearest phone. I picked up and almost immediately there was a knock at the door. I answered the phone, hello. Someone in a nice lilting voice asked if April were there. At about that same time I opened the door and there stood a large, imposing black woman. I was trying to listen to the phone and figure out what this woman was doing at my front door. I said, can I help you, actually I said that to the woman at the door, but the lilting foreign voice on the phone said, yes, I would impressed if April was speaking.

The woman at the door said, "Hi, my name is April, I used to live here." I immediately smiled, handed her the phone and said, "this is for you."

Sometimes things happen for a reason

Last summer, right in the midst of a month of incredibly hot, humid and sweaty days, I got a random email. Because I have this blog and a small short film making business, every now and then I get emails from people I don't know.

So in July I open this email that basically asked if I made films for people about to get married. I replied that I had not, but I could. He wrote back asking if I could do an engagement video. Back and forth the emails went, and then I forgot about them.

I believe they ended when I said that I don't always have a firm price on making films, but as a general rule, you can expect the final film to have cost about one thousand dollars per minute. He had mentioned that he wanted to make a film of his hoped for fiance, add music and at the end, add his appeal for marriage.

The negotiations were actually kind of interesting. He was going to shoot the video, of her at the beach, I would edit, add music and his plea, and that would be it. He had fallen in love with a film I had done in Chicago and he knew she would love the film and say yes after viewing it. So he asked, since he is doing the actual filming, and the music would be from a popular band and all I was doing was editing, would the price change. My answer then, as it always is, would be no. But he wrote back, the song is 4 minutes and 35 seconds. I told him, the film would probably cost 5 thousand dollars, using my general rule of a thousand dollars per edited final minute.

At about that time the emails ended.

Then in late September, I got an email. He and his girlfriend had spent a week at the beech, he had shot a lot of video, they had rented a convertible. There was the promise of great footage, and he had filmed himself (while driving) asking her to marry him. Would I still be interested? How long would it take? Same price?

Price never changes, so everything else was on the table. We came to an agreement, he FedExed me the tapes. I reviewed them, downloaded the clips I would need for the film. I used only footage of her riding in the back seat of the convertible. At the beginning I pulled a clip of her saying something like, "you only go out with me cause I'm pretty," and on the tape you hear him say, "that is so not true, you're a decent cook too."

The film opens in silence, the screen in black and you hear the dialog from above. Then you hear the engine of the convertible. A lingering shot of the ocean, his favorite song quietly playing in the background. Then a long, slow motion shot of his beautiful girlfriend, in the back seat, looking amazing in a bikini top, her hair almost flowing in the breeze. The music is now loud enough to hear, she is slowly looking off to the side, then she gazes directly into the camera and flashes a warm and loving smile.

At the end, as the song wound down, I faded everything to black. Then her fiances voice in that black screen, "I hope this is in focus. I hope you can hear me. OK. There, start now. (he face fills the screen) I love you, you love me, I want to spend my life with you. This is my way of asking you, please consider marrying me. Say yes. (screen goes black.) After ten seconds, it is over.

So, the goods news, I am invited to a wedding in San Diego. The good news, she did say yes and "loved loved loved" the film. The goods news, if I can do it, they want me to make a non-traditional film of their wedding. The even better news, I could not bring myself to charge 5 thousand dollars for a film filled with so much love.

The non-traditional wedding video? That they get charged for.

Shame on you

So I got this letter, some of which I have posted below, some I removed because there was a lot there that kind of identified the writer.

"I have been married two years. About a year into it I was at a convention and I ended up sleeping with another woman. My wife found out, we have been "working it out" and I think we are back on track. My problem is that she no longer seems sexually excited to be with me. Prior to our marriage and before the "slip" we had a great intimate life together. Now, when we do connect sexually, she is going through the motions. I have asked her about this, and she says she is fine, but I can tell she is not really enjoying herself. What would you do?"

What would I do? Go back in time, maybe before you got married, and explain to your fiance that at times in your marriage you may stray, because you do not believe in monogamy and you like some strange. Tell her that if left to your own self on, say, a business trip, you will undoubtedly end up in bed with a stranger.

Oh, wait, we can not go back in time. Sorry. Forget what I said before.

Sometimes when I get email and people ask me relationship questions, I figure it is because I am a relationship expert and I know how to make a long term relationship work. Then again, that is not true.

My advice to you is put a dunce cap on and sit in a metaphorical corner for a long time. Of course your wife feels non-sexual with you. Hey stupid, you made a commitment and within a year of standing in front of your friends and family (I figure that's what you do at weddings) you jumped on the first piece available. You are damn lucky to still be married.

Look, relationships are fragile things. We love and trust until given a reason not to. You gave her the best reason to no longer trust you and a good sexual relationship is based on love and trust. How do you rebuild it? You can't, meaning YOU can't, she can. But until she decides to forgive and forget, you are wearing the dunce cap. If she is not enjoying being sexual with you, why are you having sex with her? You realize that what you are doing is taking advantage of her, using her as a sexual being without really caring about her deeper feelings, right?

Step back and let her be. Two years into a marriage and you are already boinking someone else? Yikes.

I think in many ways people are never honest about their sexual needs with partners. Sometimes people meet, like you and your floozy, at a party, tumble into bed and never see one another again. Then, sometimes the same thing happens and a relationship develops, and yet, the basis for that relationship was a one night stand attraction.

OK, my advice to you is do some work on your interior dialog. If you are not a monogamous person, and from the little I know about you, monogamy is not key to your long term happiness, then you may want to either "come out" to your wife and let her know that sexing up strangers is something she can expect from you. If this was seriously just a one night, one time slip, I would still do the interior debate on why this one time you slipped.

People in long term relationships deserve that sort of knowledge and honesty. If you are going to be the type who goes to conventions and meets people, sexes them and goes home to your beautiful wife, the least she deserves is to know that is who she is married to.

On the other hand, if you have always been honest about your lack of monogamous long term plans and she is OK with that, then tell her that she knew going in what sort of guy you are and she should quit pretending to be surprised. Although your letter did not say you had this understanding, I am pretty sure you do not. She thought marriage meant a life time commitment of love, honesty and sexual compatibility and you blew that out of the water.

Step back, look at yourself and realize you screwed up. It sounds like she is not into an open relationship, so you need to figure out if you are really into marriage, on her terms.


Just for the sake of clarity, I started this blog while finishing up a film on the economy. It has strayed. There is no problem with that and I do enjoy email and questions about relationships, because, as you can see from the above, I have no skills what so ever when it comes to advice. But feel free to email me your most intimate of relationship issues.

Snow

I realize that the posts are possibly a series of disjointed thoughts, but sometimes that is just the way it works.

It is snowing here today and a friend came by and said how he hates the snow. I was shocked, first because we both live in an area that gets snow and second, because I have lived in areas that do not and I think snow is OK.

Here is the thing, as we get older, we need to rest. Snow and winter kind of force that upon us. When I was a child, growing up in Southern California, we had month after month to play, swim, dance and so all sorts of outdoor things almost any time of the year. It was OK, but it was not great.

I like four seasons. Snow gives you a chance to spend time inside, read a book, watch a movie, hang out with friends. It allows you time. Think about that, because it seems to me, in this world, we hardly ever just take time. We are always doing something, if not actually doing something, then we are planning to do something. That said, I recently had some time off, where I was going to lay around the house and not accomplish anything. Instead, I ended up replacing a bathroom. Time is good, then again, so are bathrooms.

Why Seattle

I am on my way to Seattle again and it makes me wonder, why?

I moved their back in the 80's, stayed for a long time, some think I over stayed, but that has not been proven in a court of law.

I went back in September and had a great time, terrible time, great time. That might just be what I like about Seattle. It offers somethings that amaze and some that bewilder.

I'm a believer

I have always been a believer that on almost all levels, when you take a fall, you get back up.

Personally, I used to tell my children, that you will get knocked down on a variety of levels in life, that much is a given, the important lesson is always get back up.

So, when bad things have occurred, and they always seem to make an appearance, it is not just acknowledging them, but also bouncing back from them.

I have seen many people get smacked in life, whether it is job loss, relationship troubles or a dog getting hit by a car. In fact, I had a dog get hit by a car a few years ago, he was trapped under the cars muffler, and he was laying there and I could smell the fur burning from the heat of the muffler. So I reached under the car and grabbed his tail and pulled as hard as I could. He broke free, jumped up, his fur still smoldering, and ran to the house.

Strange things happen, but like he learned, get up, run for cover, find people who love you, heal and get outside to play again.

So very

It's kind of funny, the people who flow in and then out of our lives. A very long time ago at this point, I met the most beautiful young woman. She was smart and tall and amazingly sexy. We spent some cold winter days in an upstate farm house, going for long runs, lounging around and listening to Billy Bragg. I had never heard of him and at first his accent drove me crazy, and then I listened to the words.

I am examining a life of love and this song popped into my head. Enjoy.

Shallow philosophy

I don't trust people who spend too much time in therapy. I just don't. I have tried therapy myself, so I have a little bit of experience. I also have walked away from it, because it becomes a weekly chat session with a laundry list of problems that remain without resolution.

Which is why, years ago, I developed the shallow psychology approach to life. First, I realized that the people I knew who were heavily into therapy were not getting better. That is, week after week they spent talking talking talking and week in and week out, they remained depressed, distant or otherwise unhealthy in their own eyes.

In reality, we are all unhealthy, either in our own eyes, or those of the objective society. We are. We are fat, lazy, racist, stupid, intolerant and the list continues. We lie to ourselves, our friends, our lovers and some of us lie to our dogs. It is what many of us do, oh I am sure there are plenty of self realized people who are just peachy, but I am well over 27 years old and I have yet to meet one.

So, how does shallow psychology work? First, you have to know that you can not go back in history, your own, or the larger history of the world. If we could go back, Hitler would be dead by age 5 and that mean pedophile who lived across the street would not have been able to get cheap thrills by undressing young boys and playing with their butts.

But alas, we can not go back. Now, therapy loves to pretend like you can. Lay down, let's talk about that mean old man, the mom who did not listen, the record that keeps playing in your head. On and on. No, you can not go back and fix the damage done by any number of bad experiences. We can not go back and say "I do not" at the wedding, we can not go back and remind people of our intrinsic value, we can not go back for anything.

What shallow psychology is based on is that knowledge, since we can not go back and repair anything, the best we can do is move forward with the knowledge that we can not go back and repair anything. If you keep making the same mistakes, stop making them. If you keep trusting the wrong people, stop it. If you keep doing the same drugs that are damaging your life and your future, stop it. Oh, I know, we have been trained that things are just not that easy, we can not stop our various addictions just by saying we are stopping. We can not change terrible relationship patterns just by acknowledging that we have participated in these sorts of relationships. Why? Why is the answer always years of therapy? Why is the answer always more complicated than the problem?

That all said, the real basis of shallow psychology is the need to move on. The need to stop focusing on the negative, in fact the best way to over come obstacles is to view them as something we have dealt with, learned from and moved on from.

All THAT said, the key to shallow psychologies success is to find the positive in any situation and focus on that, instead of the pain and damage we tend to focus on. Bad things happen to everyone and everyone has a definition of what a bad thing is. Some people a bad thing is not having money in your account, or watching as your car is stolen, or your wife cheats with the mail man. I don't really think any of those things are bad, but you might. The key is to see them and focus on something good about them. Take the wife having an affair with the mail man. The good thing? You probably get your mail delivered on time. Oh sure, you could focus on betrayal and that sort of pain, and you could get a divorce, or cry or get drunk, but you could also see these sorts of life experiences as something positive, rather than negative.

That is the key, there is ALWAYS something positive to focus on. Always. You ust have to train yourself to find it.

A few years ago my ailing mother had a stroke and was in the hospital dying. I had been caring for her for a few years, I had watched her brain get lost to dementia and how she could not recover from breast cancer. First, those years could have been overwhelmingly sad, but for me, they were the opposite. Near the end of my mothers life, I got to spend hours upon hours in her company. I got to visit and find new ways to love and respect her. I did not focus on her loss of memory. I focused on how lucky I was to be in a position to visit, share meals, share stories and just be around her. When she had the stroke, I could have viewed it as a terrible moment. Instead, I knew that she was suffering, that her life was never going to be free again. While the stroke would end up killing her, I also knew that my mother was no longer the woman I knew, and I knew she was not happy in the way her body and brain were failing her. The stroke was a period at the end of a sentence. She died days after the stroke and it was not a bad day, it was a day I knew had been approaching. The positive view was I was given years of time to spend with her and the stroke was a divine way of bringing it all to an end.

Of course, I could have been sad and depressed every day, but what would that have brought?

The same is true in almost any situation in life. It's not just a door opens when another closes, because that is just not true, but when a door closes, it does allow you the chance to look for other doors.

Shallow psychology has works for years for me. I do not spend time with therapists, I do not watch Oprah in search of enlightenment. Just find a positive aspect in any situation and focus on that.

Dumb white people

I used to hate the elderly white men who would protest abortions outside of clinics, because mostly they were old, white and did not have a horse in the race. Then I started to hate hypocritical white men who get elected on a right wing agenda, vote against gay rights and get busted for sexting pictures to interns, engaging in oral in airport restrooms or picking up hot Latinos in Sacramento bars. I also dislike the crazy republican white guys who get elected and demand we all love the family values mantra, all the while frequenting prostitutes or hanging with aides.

Anyway, I have long believed what this country needs is a badly educated Barbie doll, with no ideas, no plan and no ability to speak clearly. Sure, GW Bush was close, but he did not have boobs. Finally, and I say FINALLY, we have her in our sights. Lord, please, let Sarah run.

Again

Answers to email

"When we started dating, my GF and I had great everything, communication, interests and sex. We still communicate well, share many of the same interests, but after 6 months, the initial spark is gone. Suggestions?
(PS-when we started dating I mentioned that I like to "get at it" 3-4 times a week and she thought that sounded hot. Now it's more like once a week, not so hot for me, she seems to care less and never initiates)."

I wish I could say that there is some answer that will make everyone, you and the GF happy, but here is my suggestion, break up.

"I have noticed that when I travel the TSA spends more time checking out girls and less time on dudes. Why?"

A lawyer who I was traveling with recently, a kind of hot lawyer, who happens to be a female lawyer, got held up for some frisky TSA checking out while I traipsed right on thru. When we got to the plane I asked what that was about and she said, "TSA means Touch Some Ass. I think she might be right.

"I have gained some weight over the holidays, any tips on losing it?"

First, if your significant other is telling you that you should lose the weight, break up. Second, lose it on your own, because spring is in the air and once you lose the weight and break up, you will want to meet new people.

"I married a guy who was married before. He told me he left his wife because everything fun had left the marriage. This past weekend, a mutual friend gave me a completely different story, the ex-wife left him when she found out he was fooling around. What am I to do?"

Break up with him. If a man can not be trusted to accurately describe why he left his wife, he can not be trusted. Be done with him.

"My cat pees on the guest room bed when I am at work. I have tried everything short of killing the cat, suggestion?"

Break up, no, wait, sorry. You can not break up with the cat, what was I thinking. Kill it.

"I love football and my team did not qualify for the playoffs. I also like another team, but I feel like a traitor if I support this other team, which happens to be in the playoffs. What's a fan to do?"

Get a life? No, sorry, too harsh. Break up with your team and feel free to date the new team.

"My Iphone sucks, well, the service sucks. I heard that Verizon is going to offer an Iphone in a month or so. Friends tell me Verizon service kicks ATT ass. I want to drop ATT and sign up with Verizon. Two questions, will my current Iphone work with Verizon or will I have to buy a new phone, and is it worth it to pay the eaarly termination fee to switch?"

ATT does suck. Do whatever it takes to break up with ATT. Date Verizon for a couple of years and see how it works out. Also, your ATT phone will not work with Verizon. Part of the cost of breaking up.

Questions? mergatroidfilms@gmail.com

Before I answer your impassioned email

As any one who has ever read this blog, you would know that over the last few weeks I have been installing a bathroom, with leaking and mistakes all over the place. Last week it all came together, no more leaks, a great shower and a beautiful black and white tile floor.

A week before that I had to tear out part of the downstairs ceiling to get access to the leaking drain pipe. A huge and ugly mess was made, but everything got repaired, all was well. I left the hole open for a week or so just to make sure it would all stay dry for the long run. It has. Now, just yesterday I was at my favorite Pittsburgh recycle place, where I happened to run across ceiling tile to replace ones I had to remove. I have them in place, and while the ceiling does not exactly match perfectly, they are in place and the gaping hole in the living room has disappeared.

Then tonight, the leaking began, this time in another section.

Random thoughts

If you live long enough in this country, the idea of someone walking into some place and opening fire with a legal weapon is no longer shocking. Which in itself is kind of sad. Really, if you step back from the most recent mass murder, the Arizona loony with too many bullets and a disjointed brain, you have to ask yourself, how often does this need to happen where we either become completely numb to it, or we actually do something about it?

Congressman Peter King came up with a brilliant idea, but like all brilliant ideas lately, it did not go far enough. More on King in a moment, but I can not be the only person to see congress as this almost royal body, where the perks they get are theirs alone, which us serfs are left with nothing and arguing about who got more of the nothing pie.

Case in point, health care. First, let's keep in mind how strange the health care debate became as politicians returned home only to find teabaggers angry over the concept that everyone would have healthcare. I never understood the anger. Where were these people when millions took to the streets to protest the war built on lies? I marched in those marches and I can tell you, the variety of shapes and colors were not the same people who screamed and yelled and disrupted all the healthcare debates.

Again, here is how congress is regal. They all have great healthcare plans. Paid for by the citizens. Anything goes wrong, it is covered. They never argued whether people deserved to have what congress has, they debated whether people deserved any healthcare at all, and if they did, how they could offer the least amount of alternatives for the most amount of money.

The craziness and insane crowds that ruined all serious debate on healthcare sure did seem like the same sort of crazy anger that was apparent in the Arizona shooting. My guess is, if you ask the nutcase why he shot all those people and you could get him to be honest, he would not have an answer.

But Peter King does. He is a republican congressman, and his idea is to make it illegal to have a gun any where near a congressman, at least 1000 feet near. This is a great idea, but again, congress is not going far enough. Here is my simple plan, make that law applicable to everyone.

Simple, right? I would feel a lot more comfortable knowing that no one within 1000 feet of me has a gun. Why should congress be the only ones protected? The reason I always volunteer to travel is not just because I like to travel, but I like airports. Why? Because in airports, you can not have a gun.

Except a few months ago. I was in an international airport with my video equipment and a security guard let me go right past security, because I was not flying, I was there to interview someone. I ended up having complete access to the airport, with a large box of equipment that was never searched. I could have had hundreds of guns with me and handed them out to passengers on any flight. Cameras sometimes allow people to do some very stupid things. This past week I was at the state supreme court, and I needed to bring my equipment into the jury chambers. Again, seeing all my bags of equipment and my honest face, a guard helped me through the metal detector, not bothering to check the bags even after the metal detector detected metal. I was in a protected zone with large bags of metal objects and no one checked.

Oh well. Now, if we had a law of the land that no one could be within 1000 feet of anyone else with a gun, then the security that is not really in place at airports and courthouses might not be necessary.

Finally, I have many issues with president Obama. This week, I was reminded why some of the issues I have against him are kind of petty. When he was speaking to the crowd in Tucson for the memorial of those slain last week, I was so happy he was my president. He speaks well and with passion. He is obviously intelligent and empathetic. These might be the most important parts of being a president. Bill Clinton used to quiver and almost cry and in some ways, President Obama had me thinking those same thoughts, how nice it is to have a mature smart guy in charge.

The kids are not alright

A reader of this blog, someone too young to be reading this blog, wrote me an email, part of which reads: "I am 22 and my girlfriend is 21. We have been dating for 2 years. What started off as hot and sexy has turned into some sort of nightmare. We only have sex when she wants too and even then, it is the same old thing."

This is just part of the letter. It went on. Same old thing got defined. Yikes.

OK, first things first, I am not an expert on relationships or sex. Every relationship I have ever had has been a failure. Sexually? I don't have a clue. So, while I kind of enjoy letters from people with "issues" I am probably not the one to help.

That said, break up.

Seriously, 22 years old and in a relationship for 2 years? You do not want to know what I was doing when I was 20-25 years old, but trust me, wild oats got burned, big time.

There are very few times in your life when you have a get out of jail card for anything. When you are a child and you steal a piece of gum, you get away with it. When you are a teen and you "borrow" a car, you get away with it. When you are in your 20's and you drop people for any reason what-so-ever, you get away with it.

At your age, you are not capable of a relationship and the one you are in is not a relationship, it is a mind game with the reward of bad and awkward sex. And trust me, you can have bad and awkward sex when you are married, forget about it at your early 20's.

Now, I am not saying be mean. Just explain to your GF that you are not ready for a life long commitment. Explain that you want to test the waters, so to speak. Explain that this relationship has grown stale. Then move on.

Well, that was no so bad.

OK, OK. I get it, the world needs help. If answering your confusing and sexually mystifying questions will bring about a better understanding, then bring them on. If not, go ahead and send them, along with pictures, because I am bored and lonely.

Artist lawsuit, dismissed

This from the Associated Press:

NEW YORK – A judge has dismissed copyright lawsuits between an artist who created the Barack Obama "HOPE" image and The Associated Press but has left a March trial date in place for related claims between the news service and companies that sold merchandise using the artist's image.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said in a one-page order publicly filed Tuesday that a "suggestion of settlement" led him to dismiss claims between artist Shepard Fairey and the AP. He said the claims could be reinstated within a month if either side requested it.

The judge said other claims between the AP and Fairey-related companies that manufactured or marketed products based on the image will be put before an eight-person civil jury on March 21. Lawyers on all sides did not immediately return messages seeking comment Tuesday.

The dispute stems from an AP picture taken in 2006 when Obama, then a U.S. senator from Illinois, was at the National Press Club in Washington.

Fairey used the photograph when he created his artwork during Obama's 2008 run for the presidency. In 2009, he sued the AP, seeking a court declaration that he did not violate AP's copyrights when he made the Obama image.

The news cooperative countersued, saying the uncredited, uncompensated use of its picture violated copyright laws and was a threat to journalism.

Last year, it was disclosed in court that Fairey was under criminal investigation after he said he erred about which AP photo he used as a basis for "HOPE." He also had acknowledged that he had submitted false images and deleted other images to conceal his actions.

The red, cream and light-blue images show a determined-looking Obama gazing upward, with the caption "HOPE."

It was unclear how a dismissal of claims between Fairey and the AP would affect legal fair use arguments over whether Fairey altered the original image of Obama enough that he did not infringe the AP's copyrights.

Court papers submitted by lawyers for the AP and makers and distributors of apparel and other merchandise using Fairey's image suggest that those arguments to some extent will remain part of the case.

Lawyers for clothing manufacturer One 3 Two said in court papers that the "total concept and feel" of the AP picture and the Obama image were different. They said that while the AP picture "depicts a portrait of President Obama suitable for news reporting, the Obama Image is an iconic piece of artwork that has an edgy, provocative feel that is characteristic of Fairey's street art."

The company said it has an indirect contractual relationship with the artist and has asked the judge to rule it did not violate copyrights. It said it is the exclusive licensee of Obey Giant Art LLC, which is affiliated with Fairey. The company said it had nothing to do with creating Fairey's images as it sold apparel and other merchandise using the art.

In papers filed last week, the AP said the case presents "the straightforward question of whether a T-shirt company may use a nearly verbatim copy of a copyrighted image to generate millions in dollars of revenues for itself without securing the permission of the copyright owner." The company called the legal issues "garden-variety copyright infringement matters."

The AP said the T-shirt company, Obey Clothing, between March 2008 and September 2009 sold approximately 233,800 pieces of merchandise bearing an image that copied the Obama photo.

The AP wrote that Fairey's image was a "nearly verbatim copy" of the Obama AP photo, incorporating the "protectable expressive elements in the photo almost entirely — down to the twinkles in then-Senator Obama's eyes."

Bathroom update

For those few of you who need to know such things, the rebuilt second floor bathroom has been functioning for a few days now and everything is kind of nice.

As you may recall, or you could scroll down and read the posts, what started out as a simple update to an existing bathroom became a complete makeover. Moving a toilet, removing a claw foot tub, inserting a new shower, a new sink and a super high efficiency toilet was supposed to be a one week job.

Instead, the drain on the new shower had to be replaced a few times, and in cutting the drain pipes free at one point, my illegal alien plumber, Paco, cut into the drain line for the recently reinstalled toilet. Water pipes leaked, water from the toilet would drain to the living room floor. Finally we had to pull tiles from the living room floor and repair damage from below.

Once that was done, I naturally thought that nothing else could go wrong. Of course, once we turned all the water on in the new bathroom, a new leak surfaced, but this one was because someone, possibly Paco, possibly an Israeli spy, had failed to tighten the shower fitting. Now, once that was repaired, everything has worked right. The super toilet is perfect. The shower is even better, because when we replaced the existing stuff, we also ran larger feed pipes, which means water pressure is quite high, making the shower both comfortable and intimidating.

Today, along with all my other duties as both a full time blogging hero, a chef at a four start fast food restaurant and an elected member of a secret society, I will try and repair the torn up ceiling in the living room.

Has there been a lesson learned? As my dear friend Sarah Palin might say, "You Betcha". We are hoping to buy another house in our little ghetto, this one to completely gut and use as a studio. By my estimates, it should take no more than a week to do everything. Then again, I believe my initial estimate for a simple bathroom was a week.

Letters

A few weeks ago I promised to answer a question from someone who pretends to read this blog. Is was an important question and an equally interesting email. So I deleted it, along with many others, because I am an ignorant bozo.

So, dear reader, and I am sure you know who you are because you took the time to write an important email, if you might dig through your sent folder and re-send me your email, I promise to deal with it in a completely unprofessional and immature manner.

I love drag queens

Here is video of a deranged drag queen explaining the recent mass deaths of birds in Alabama, or Utah, or wherever birds are killing themselves. What amazes me is how quickly deranged drag queens always blame the gays.

Flooding? Gays.

Car crash? Gays.

Dead birds? Gays.

Bad TV shows? Gays.

Deranged drag queens? Certainly the gays.

Lenore

6 Years ago this week all sorts of bad things happened, but by far the worst for me personally was losing my mother. She was as imperfect as anyone could possibly be, but she was always my mother.

In many ways I was blessed to be able to spend the last 5 years of her life with her. She was losing her mind to Alzheimers, she remained a bitter and mean woman. She said things that only an elderly person with Alzheimers could get away with and she was uncomfortable to be around. That said, I rode my bike often to see her, to sit outside while she smoked, to watch her have lunch, to take her to doctors appointments, to make decisions on treating her cancer, to hold her hand and to love her.

To be honest, in some ways it was the worst of times. Then again, I was with her to the end, I was able to forgive her the imperfections that I hope my own children can forgive me for. At the end, she was in a hospital bed, dying from a stroke, and the children and I got the chance to say a final goodbye. Not everyone gets that chance. Not everyone gets a few years to work out issues, to show compassion and respect, to allow years of pent of frustration to shed away and to just love someone who is desperately in need of love.

When we talk about her now, we almost always laugh. She was a silly woman. She was a funny woman. She was a strange old bird. She was my mother.

Long days

Well, it has been snowing. I have been in Philadelphia and now I just walked in, tested the leaking bathroom, no leaks, and I have been dancing. That's right. Do you dance for the sake of it? Daughter made me the best latka in the world. Dog remains lesbionic and this song is kind of sweet.

Product

That's right, about time, just what you have been waiting for.

I get thousands of emails a day, or something like that. The vast majority of them always end with "if you had some sort of hat I could purchase, sign me up."

Well folks, your prayers have been answered. Although, technically, not for sale. That's right, it's time for a new contest.

The best "Guest" blog post wins the hat.

Rules: Post must be original, detailed, spelled correctly and be funny. No pictures, no advertisements, nothing. Just a post for this site. All posts will be used, but none so much so as the winner. By sending it in, you give up all rights, etc.

OK?

And the winner gets the cap at the top. Nice, right?

Socialist, Marxist, ya ya ya ya

Singer Billy Bragg has described a hate mail campaign against him as "the powerless ranting of a bitter individual".

Anonymous letters attacking Bragg, well-known for his left-wing views, were sent to his neighbors in the Dorset village of Burton Bradstock.

Bragg said he believed the letter, which branded him a hypocrite for moving to the area from London, was written by a "disgruntled supporter of the British National Party".

The singer has been a vocal critic of the far-right party and campaigned against it in the recent general election in his home town of Barking.

He said: "Fortunately, the BNP are a busted flush, their divisive politics rejected by the electorate at the last election, their organisation now collapsing into in-fighting. This letter is nothing more than the powerless ranting of a bitter individual who is angry that, even in a sleepy village like ours, people reject the politics of racism.

"I'm sorry if anyone who received this letter was disturbed by its contents. My advice to any recipients is to throw it in the bin where it belongs. I will continue to campaign against racism wherever I find it, comfortable in the knowledge that, after 11 happy years living in Burton Bradstock, people here have already made up their minds about me, one way or another."

Bragg rose to fame in the 1980s and played a prominent part in Red Wedge - a group of musicians set up to support the Labour Party.

I believe in hole goop

Last night I put a decent amount of goop into the leaking hole, and now I checked this morning, and the hole looks much better.

Did all that make sense?

Go here you perverted sick freak.

Art and money

I watched The Art of the Steal this past weekend and I can say, it is both amazing and kind of disturbing. First, I like art and I like commerce, and I have no problem walking the line between creative artist and mass marketer. What Art of the Steal shows is a whole other game and if you watch it, be prepared to be a little upset.

All that said, I love street art and the people who create it. This clip is from a new movie and I really like what Alex Monopoly is doing. Enjoy.

Home repair update

OK, I got an email question the economics of a complete bathroom rebuild, with a budget of 1500 dollars and an actual cost of 900, even with mistakes and troubles.

I could break it down, but first, we saved a lot of money by actually reusing a tub that was in a run down bathroom on the third floor. The claw foot tub from the 2nd floor was moved upstairs, the tub that was there, that looked beaten down and unused for years, was brought down, cleaned up and used as a tub/bath. In our initial budget we planned to buy a new shower unit, when we were able to reuse the tub, we saved a lot of money.

I am also a big shopper at Construction Junction, which is a store that has all sorts of amazing finds. Basically if people are redoing any sort of construction, they often donate the old stuff to Construction Junction. The warehouse is filled with all sorts of materials, from entire kitchens to school lockers. The prices are incredibly low. My daughter and I bought the cabinets and counter top for our kitchen for 75 dollars.

OK?

Plus, we did not hire a plumber or any other trade professional for anything.

Finally, as of this morning, the leaking pipe, that caused me to rip out a portion of the living room ceiling, continues to drip, but less frequently. We are waiting until it is completely dry to attempt the repair. If that works, replacing the tiles and sealing the leak will have cost us less than 100 dollars. If it does not work, it will costs maybe 20 dollar more, and a lot of time, to replace part of the pipe. Doing the work myself saves the most money.

Enough with the questions. I have a fascinating sex/relationship email to get to, but now I must edit.

Cereal monogomist

Trader Joe's in my friend. It seems like a lot of good meals come off of their shelves. It was surprising to me that I woman I know told me recently that she has never been. This is a woman with fairly young children, and a husband. I was a little surprised.

Anyway, I have had all these dietary issues over the past year and recently found some sort of granola derivative cereal at Traders that has been wonderful. Strange histories of breakfast infidelities make me less that positive this cereal will be the one. The strange things about cereals is that they can entice you at first, show you how good they are and how good for you they can be, but experience has shown that down the road, that initial high can wear off. I am left with an empty bowl and the question of "is that all there is to you?"

It's a complex thing really, the shared moments, the time spent getting to know one another, the thinking that this is a trustworthy cereal, a cereal you can rely on and then one moment, say a sour dried fruit, or some external trouble like not so great milk, and all of a sudden you see cereals in a completely different light.

For the longest time I was all about pancakes. They could be manipulated into shocked disguises, sometimes plain and simple, sometimes bursting with blueberries that would make them more passionate and colorful. They allow you to do that in the hopes that showing more of themselves and their flexibility would make them a staple of your morning routine, but then, one day you wake up and realize there is more out there.

Options are important. I stuck with pancakes much longer than I think they really deserved. This new cereal, we have known each other for a year or more at this point and to be honest, while I believe this cereal is good and healthy and has done the job, I am already looking at other boxes and options. It might be my nature, with little to do with the cereal I am passionate about. I doubt that this is a bad thing, you bring a new cereal into your house, you share it with friends, you love it, but you also know it is not perfect.

I recently heard this amazing statement about relationships, that there never is a one, the perfect partner, there is a close to one that you accept. Sometimes you can not accept it and that one moves on, and sometimes you accept the imperfections of the one you are with, making them the one because you do end up spending your life with them, even though they are not the perfect one.

Saving money the hard way

At some point I believe I have touched on our little ghetto house, which is neither little, well the rest is true. We bought this house at a time of personal desperation a couple of years and it was basically the price of a car. Of course cars have all their pipes, working electric and windows that work along with doors that close.

Either way, we have spent two years cleaning, fixing and growing to love our house. A couple of weeks ago I thought it would be a great present for my girls to have a new bathroom, one that would be steps from their own rooms, with a nice new shower and water saving toilet and a sweet vanity. I have had to plumb much of this house and while sometimes it can be sketchy, for the most part I was confident knowing that I could make almost anything work. It did not hurt my confidence that we had already worked on this particular bathroom, it being the first one we got working when we were preparing to move in. At that time we had to hook up pipes from the basement, install a new toilet and hood up the fitting for the claw foot tub. For over a year, when I wanted to take a romantic soak, this was the go-to bath.

What I wanted to do was remove the claw foot tub, which was installed one floor up in my tiny but wonderful bathroom. I wanted to run larger supply water lines so the shower would have some good water for girls showers. We tore out the bathroom, all the fixtures, all the flooring, everything. Then we took out the existing plumbing and ran all new water lines from the basement to the bathroom. We repaired drain lines and began plumbing the new bathroom. We installed the new bathtub enclosure, hooked up the complex drain system and poured water into the tub to make sure it worked right. It did not.

So we had to cut out the new drain system, replace it with a newer drain system, put it in place and test it again. Once again, it leaked, which meant some pipe cutting and repairs. Once done, no leak. So we installed the flooring and we were well on our way to getting everything hooked up. Then we started to notice water leaking in the living room, below the new bath.

We again pulled up the tub, this time it was even more work because of the new flooring. We tested it again and could not find a leak source. What was strange is that at that point, no water was running in the bathroom, it had all been turned off after the most recent test.

After a series of tests, I found that while cutting the drain off the tub at some point, I nicked the underside of the toilets drain. Because we had added the floor, there was very little room to actually try and repair the sewer line, which was tough, because the line ran right under the tub, which was now in place. It could not be moved at all.

I tried a toxic glue that I could barely fit into place, but it seemed to hold. We completely sealed up the floor, installed the tile and plumbed the new vanity. It all came together and looked kind of sweet.

Then this morning, a leak in the living room. While the water was now connected in the bathroom, nothing was on, and there were no obvious leaks. Because the floor was now sealed, with tile no less, there were very few options. The one I chose, tear out the ceiling in the living room.

Now, to you non-do it yourselfers, this might sound like a complex issue, but trust me, what you do is find where the water appears to be leaking and stick a sharp screwdriver into it, once you get a stream from the hole, that is where you need to remove ceiling tiles. Now, that all makes sense, unless the water is pooling somewhere else and just kind of flowing to the low power, which is where you put your screwdriver.

Much of the ceiling is now is trash bags. The leak has been found and a large bucket continues to tap tap tap of water dripping from the hole in the pipe above it. When it is done leaking and dried out, we can patch it. Then we replace the ceiling and we are done.

You are thinking to yourself, "hah, you thought you would save money doing this job yourself and now you must be so far over budget and bitter about your idiocy, etc etc etc."

See, I wanted to save money when we came up with this plan. We initially budgeted 1500 dollars for the job, the new tub, the plumbing, everything. Instead we are below budget by doing this job wrong, but by ourselves. The expense that remains unknown right now is the ceiling tiles, but because I was able to save the majority of tiled, I need to replace only 6 of the originals. Those six, plus the glue to install them and then the paint to cover the entire ceiling will probably be less than 100 dollars. So, with a budget of 1500 for the bathroom we are still at about 800. Do it yourself indeed.

The end of being awkward

On New Years eve I generally stay away from people, because I am no longer drinking, and when around people who are drinking, it can be awkward.

What happened then, to sober me and possibly drinking her, was a great way to end the year, but also a terrible way to begin a new one.

Let's understand the history. Last summer, or really, this past fall, my lawnmower would not start, no matter how many times I threw it against the basement wall. Now, there is this swell sort of alternative woman, a single mother, who seems smart and dedicated to both the neighborhood and her family. I enjoy coffee and chatting, but I would certainly not consider us anything more than people who live near one another.

When the lawnmower died it was at a time when I was traveling a lot, so I did not seem to be able to find a way to get to a store or find a repair shop. So, one warm Saturday, with the lawn getting out of control and me with the knowledge that our city will fine you for not mowing your lawn, so I asked my friend if I could borrow her lawnmower and without hesitation she said yes and had her young daughter push it over to my house.

Well, of course I got everything mowed and then it started to rain. I called the lawnmowers owner and explained that I would hold onto the mower until the rain gave up. That night I went on a date, ended up spending the weekend in Boston and when I got back, it seemed like fall was a lot closer to winter and I just forgot about mowing lawns and focused on more important things.

That was late September.

On the 31st of December there was a community party, or gathering, I am not sure, but many people met at a local house. I showed up around 10 because I have been focused on another major project and I just forgot about the party. I had a snack, chatted up neighbors and was preparing to leave when Ms. Lawnmower saw me, bee lined to me, and demanded to know what sort of scummy thief steals a lawnmower. First, I was a little taken aback, because I did not know what she was talking about and she was obviously a little intoxicated and speaking loudly.

It took me a couple of seconds to remember that my basement was housing the purloined lawn mowing device and once that clicked, I tried to explain, but she would have nothing of it. "I thought you were a nice guy, you have kids, you have cleaned up your house, and you are a part of the neighborhood, but you stole my mower and now I think you are a scumbag. AND I want my mower back."

Yikes, the problem with not drinking is that when people who are a little drunk start berating you, instead of meeting their energy, you understand the situation and probably want to leave, which is what I wanted to do, but she obviously wanted to engage. I told her I would have the lawnmower back at her house the next morning, but that was not good enough. She wanted to know why I kept it, why I thought that was OK and what sort of person uses another person like that.

I had one of those a-ha moments right about there, that this was not lawnmower related at all, this was former husband related. I was her blurry version of her husband, who had apparently lied, used, abused and left. Once I clued into that, I had a couple of choices, continue inching my way to the door with the promise of the return of said lawnmower, or point out the obvious. I leaned in and told her, "I borrowed your lawnmower and forgot I had it. That does not make me a criminal, it makes me forgetful. You on the other hand seem to be thinking I am someone else, and your issues with this other person should be dealt with when you are drunkenly standing in front of them."

I should have waited for the a-ha moment to subside, because instead of throwing water on her anger, I apparently threw gasoline. The eruption was fast and fierce, her eyes turned red, she threw her hair back and she lit into me, "when someone does you a favor, you don't abuse it, you should learn some manners. You are a liar and a user."

It went on, but I was close enough to the door to grab the handle, push and escape. This morning, I woke early, had a cup of coffee and pushed the lawnmower to her house. As I was quietly trying to get it to her garage, the back door opened, she in a robe, also with a cup of coffee in her hand, said, "good morning, oh, I was wondering what became of that lawnmower..."