The devil will find work for idle hands to do...

The difference between yesterday (where I had the house to myself all day) and today (where there are 300% more people congregating about) is remarkable.
It started sometime in the middle of the night, where I was woken from my slumber by a plethora of little girls all climbing into my bed and observing that they did not have enough room or covers. The result of this was me schoochin' over to the edge of the bed and losing all cover privileges. Somewhere in there my lovely wife disappeared, and then there were 3.
Now, you might think that removing one person from the bed would result in a bit more room. But you would be wrong. I was still on the verge, so to speak, and cold. Like one of those mountain climber dudes that hang off the side of the mountain and sleep in a hammock. At least they get to pee off the side of the side of the mountain and down 1000 ft..
Somehow I found peace in all of this and slept. Just for a little while though. Somewhere in there, I believe it was just after 5am, there was some screaming going on about the sleeping arrangements. Apparently the Noner had slid down about halfway down the bed and was completely under the covers and sideways or something. Not really sure, my cognitive abilities were not available to me. I was in an ancient state, pure animal instincts at that point.
I sat up and was all like, "WTF IS GOING ON?"
I got a quick explanation from the little viking, and I sprung into action. I think I exclaimed "get your ass up here to the top of the bed goddamn it."
The response I got was that it was perfectly acceptable for her to be sideways and under the covers and not sleeping in an acceptable manner... but it was explained in a way bothered me, so I explained that if they slept in their own f'in beds there wouldn't be these problems and I would be able to sleep peaceably. There was some crying and then she disappeared. I plopped down and was about to fall fast asleep when I realized that there were only 2 of us in the bed at this point and I should have a hell of a lot of room available to me. I noticed that there was about an acre of space on the other side of the little viking, so I shoved her over to the other side and stretched out. I was sweet.
I slept until after 9... pretty sweet, huh???
Not really, I woke with a splitting headache and an overall unpleasant feeling...
Bitch and moan, bitch and moan, I know... I don't like it any better than you do. Holy shit... now its noon... I gotta get rolling... I better get to my point...
I think my point is... Goddamn it is noisy in the house today... I am confused and think I will take a shower and cry so no one will see my tears... that's all...

I know what hands are for, and I'd like to help myself

1 week later. I haven't shaved since my last day at work, and look what I have accomplished. Coming in nicely, don't you think?
Today, the house is quiet. Took the girls to school, all of them. The little viking, for her it is just another day. The Noner and the lovely wife, they are going to the Nutcracker for a field trip. So the house is mine.
And I got nothing... Oh, I will do my exercises, you know, but beyond that... eh... I will study up on website building, maybe hit the liquor store and make some liquer with Vodka and dried berries... but beyond that I got no plans. Sigh... Big Sigh...

That is the problem with me, I think... I never know what to do with myself, given ultimate freedom and resources. And I recognize this, and it sends me into a tailspin, you know, thinking that I can do anything I want, so I should do something, but I don't know what to do, so maybe I should do this, or maybe I should do that and pretty soon I don't do anything, which then turns into paranoia and franticness... I think I will start with some coffee. Brb!!!
OK, the coffee is brewing... Ahh, it is done...
I think I will go take a shower and force myself into action... maybe I can find a bank being robbed and step in to save the day. Or some orphans, doing some sort of pitiful orphan thing, and this time I won't turn my back on them, but logically explain to them how I am a man of limited resources, and although I feel for them (I really do) I just don't know what kind of difference I can make in their lives. Or a lonely supermodel, who thinks they are getting too old, being 23 and all, and are thinking of packing it in, maybe I can find one of those and sit down and have a heart to heart, explain what a difference they make it everyone's lives, how people need beauty and representation for the products they don't know they need yet. Convince her that maybe if she just lost a couple more pounds rubbed coco butter all over her body 3 times a day, that she could probably go on for another couple years. I know I can help her, having been there myself... and I know how hard it is to get the coco butter ALL over your body, so I will offer to help her, all she needs to do it sit back and relax and let me take care of everything... She may not be comfortable with this so I will explain to her, I will say, look, my wife, she is a pianist, and she has fantastic hands and a light touch, how about this, how about if I keep the coco butter warm and you let my wife rub it all over your body, but I will say it real convincing like and I will even offer to videotape it, you know, so in case she forgets how or my wife isn't available, she can watch the video to make sure whoever ends up doing it, you know, does it right... but we will need to tape it at least 6 or 7 times to establish a baseline, you dig, a commonality, so to speak, and I will compile all the hours of footage into a nice manageable piece and, of course, hold on to it for her so she doesn't lose it...
Whoa... ok, so lets pretend, for just a moment, that what is actually happening there is that Neko Case is the one that needs the coco butter rubbed all over her, and Christina Ricci just happens to owe me a favor, right, so what would need to happen is first my wife would need to rub Christina down, so she understands the drill, then Christina would need to rub Neko down, and my wife would assist her the first few times, to make sure she is doing it right, and I would do a behind the scenes kinda "making of" type video, and hijinks would ensue and the girls would turn on me and they would all end up rubbing me down and tickling me and wrestling with me and we would laugh and laugh...
Ok, so I think I will do that last thing... Banks are boring and Orphans, well, not much I can do about them...
I think, as a man, a caring man, you have to do the right thing. Focus on the positive. Think about what is best for the common good of everyone. Saving a bank from being robbed, eh, maybe a couple people would say nice things about that. Talking to orphans, yeah, maybe a grandma or two would throw me a cookie... But videotaping 3 beautiful woman rubbing oil all over each other, hell, I think the world would give me a collective cheer and pat on the back for that. THAT, my friends, is what I live for... Atta Boy, Catfish... Atta Boy!!!

Sheep go to heaven, goats go to hell, and cows go in my belly

Me, I'm unemployed. But enough about me, let me tell you...

My wife, she is beautiful. She is a pianist, classically trained, and I think she plays fantastically. I get to listen to her practice a lot. Most of the time it is just part of a piece, played over and over, but sometimes it is a whole piece and she plays it through, sometimes she sings, but I don't understand the words, sometimes. She is going to school (on the sly this quarter) to learn to sing and accompany and shit. She sang at Carnegie Hall last april, got to wander around NY for a while. Everytime we see NY on T.V. she says she has been there... it is so friggin' cute I want to explode sometimes. I am a lucky boy.

We have 2 girls.

The Noner (No-ner), she was born in a hottub in a birthcenter in Redmond. She is smart as a whip. She is in the gifted program at her school and is learning things I don't think I even heard about until I was in Jr. High. She was born with my families mental disposition, though. She is a thinker and a deep feeler. She cares about EVERYTHING. She has the thickest wavy hair, damn...

Her little sister, the little viking, she was born in the O building her at the apartment complex we currently live in. That was on purpose. We had a portable hottub brought in and set up in the living room and that is where she was born. We had a midwife, a midwife in training, a doula and a mother-in-law there. It seemed like it all happened really fast, and I dreamed of white elephants the night before she was born. I think that means something.
SHE is super smart, way to friggin' smart for her own good. Rainman smart, sometimes. She is so f'in gorgeous. She has the most beautiful blond hair, dude, it glows... she is supposedly in Kindergarten (officially) but she ended up getting moved to a mixed K, 1st and 2nd class because she has already accomplished everything a kindergartener is supposed to know to get out of kindergarten. She is already writing complex words and doing math and using circular logic on me. She is stubborn and strong willed and is more like her mother. Oh, she is shy, at first, then watch out.

She is still small enough that I can pick her up and hug her and carry her around. Ahhh and Sigh.

My Dad is a carpenter now, he builds things out of Trex, which is not goddamn plastic wood. He is like 100 years old and can carry small cars on his back and if he somehow slices an artery he just spits on some dirt and packs mud in the wound until it heals.

My mom is a bookkeeper in a grocery store. And a checker. All most all of the customers are rude to her and her feet hurt. She is 100 years old and works 6 days a week.

My one brother, he knocked up this girl he had just broken up with (magically, even though he was using a rubber and she was on 2 types of birth control). She had a daughter. So my brother has a daughter and he loves her to death. Really cute girl, definately has my families genes, and a bit of her mothers. So my brother gets to see her all the time and she rules the roost. My brother has a new girlfriend now, and she is really cool (so thinks I).

My other brother, he does stuff, I guess. I don't think he has had what most people call a "real job" in 10 years. He works with my dad sometimes, does some shit on his own, sometimes, and if he actually does the work you are paying him for he does a fantastic job, it's just getting him to do it. Mostly he sits in bars and plays poker, and sharks people at pool, and I guess he must do other things, I don't really know. I know he hangs out a lot, but where and what, that, my friends, is the mystery. He still lives at home.

Uh, randomly speaking, my one Aunt is in the Honorable representative of the beautiful 36th (36?) district to the House of Representative. She is working the system from the inside now. My Brother-in-Law is an elevator Mechanic and apparently escalators are the deadliest mechanical device known to man. My nephew makes websites, my other nephew supports car dealers, my other nephew is a gym teacher at an elementary school and hunts for ducks. My other nephew is still in school, but also shoots ducks and shit in his spare time. My other nephew is not going to school, or working, or doing much of anything but sleeping.
There are other people, I am just talking, you know...

You wanna nother story?

There was this cow, it started out as a calf. It had an interesting life. It was trying to be born into this world, but it was backwards in its momma's belly. A veterenarian came over and said it was breach, he could tell. He could tell because he stuck his arm (up to the shoulder) up into the momma cows puddin'. While he was all up in there, he yanked and pulled and got the calfs back legs out. They attached some chains to the back legs and hooked the chain to a winch and pulled that calf on out of its momma with a big gooshy plop.

The new cow was tan and it's front legs were all fucked up, broken maybe, but definately bent in ways that they are not supposed to be. So after the momma licked the calf clean and they bonded a bit, the little cow had boards tied to its front legs to straighten them out. They were really just boards and duct tape, but they worked. The cow got stronger and strong and was able to hobble around on its fucked up front legs and finally they took the boards off. Now it was just a regular calf/cow.

The little cow followed the bigger cows arounds and drank milk from its momma's teats... its momma had 4 teats, if it had 5 teats it would have been ABNORMAL.
So it grew, big and strong. It ate grass that was growing on the other side of the fence because that grass was better than the grass on its side of the fence. It ate hay that was dropped in bales randomly around the field. It drank water from a stream, licked a giant brick of salt, then drank more water.

Check it out, as most cows do, it had multiple stomaches, and it would eat stuff and the stuff would go into its first stomach for a little while, but being fibrous, it didn't digest or break down, so the cow would bring it back up after a while and chew it some more, then eventually it would go on down and work its way through the other stomachs.

After this happened, and as the case may be, the cow would be standing around or maybe eating or something, and it would just shit. No preamble, no going to the right place, it would just, you know, shit. Bam or plop. The shit would dry in circular discs and kids would find them and fling them like frisbees (from what I hear).

Also, right, so the cow would be standing there and all of a sudden it would get spooked. It would just be standing there and then all of a sudden it would be like "what the fuck was that" and start running. The other cows, maybe they didn't notice whatever the fuck that was, but they would see the one cow start running and they would start running too.

Sometimes it would be standing there and kids would through rocks at it or shoot it with a bb gun and if it got hit it would look up and be all like "hey" and then go back to doing whatever it was doing.

The cow got bigger and bigger, eating and shitting and licking salt and randomly running for no apparent reason and not running for apparent reasons, and sometime a BIG FUCKING BULL would come around and be all mean and shit because someone had tied a rubberband around its nutsack and its nuts would get all swollen and hang to the ground and apparently just fall off after a while. They HATE it when you do this to them. But then they can't fuck the other cows. Because, you know, who wants a BIG FUCKING BULL going around fucking your cows. NO, if you want your cows to have babies you have some dude come over and stick a tube up the cows puddin and blow some bull semen way up in there... sigh...

Anyway, our little cow ate and ate and got bigger and bigger and was so gently. It would give you big cow licks with its big cow tongue and you could pet it and throw rocks at it when it came over towards you to be pet (they were actually dirt clumps that would EXPLODE when you through them at (and hit) cows.

One day, after a while, the cow was sitting around eating and shitting and this dude came driving up in a small dump truck. He went over to the cow and checked her out, patted her on the side, made sure there weren't no festering open wounds and that the cow was generally healthy. They he took out his big ass revolver and shot the cow through the brains. And the cow was dead.

Postlude:
So the dude with the truck would come over to where the dead cow was laying, right, and he would tilt the dumper on his truck back, and tie a chain to the cows back legs and winch him up into the truck to take him off for butcherin'. Poor little cow started her life winched out of his momma by her hind legs, and left this mortal coil winched up by his hind legs.
I think I ate some of her.

It's more a question of feeling than it is a question of fun

The house is quiet now, except for the Smiths, which I find soothing music to blog to. Meat is Murder, as a matter of fact.
I am alone, is what I mean to say. But that's not really true either. I am the only human in the house. Wife is off practicing some beautiful duet of some sort with her friend, then off to school with her. The kids are in school and I haven't had a call from the nurse telling me that the little viking misses her ma and pa, at least not yet.
I am the only human (see above) but I have the pleasant company of two cats and two dogs. The dogs, Chewie and Yoda, they hang out here during the day, licking each other, sleeping and occasionally coming to check on me. The Cats, who are apparently called Archie and Frankie, are around here somewhere. I am trying to hate them since they are cats and all, but when noone is looking I will actually pet them. One of them will come along eventually to harass me, try to sit on my lap or next to me, staring and trying to be adorable and shit...
But, for the sake of argument, and irregardless of what I just said, lets say the house is quiet and I am alone.
OK, fuck it... I lost it now... I have switched to the Arctic Monkeys and am gonna just freestyle it, OK? Will that be ok with you?
Lets go into Random Mode:

I want one of those! No, not the chick, the thing she is holding, and to be outside, by a lake, with it... I want to be happy, outside with a tiny little PC. Someone go and get me one...
*********
Hey, Sunshine (sorry, don't have a nickname for you so I am gonna use your real name, hope that doesn't blow your cover). Hey, though, listen to the Arctic Monkeys. For real. I can hook you up if you want. They say things like this:
Now then Mardy Bum
I see your frown
And it's like looking down the barrel of a gun
And it goes off
And out come all these words
Oh there's a very pleasant side to you
A side I much prefer

It's one thats laughs and jokes around
Remember cuddles in the kitchen
Yeah, to get things off the ground
And it was, up up and away
Oh, but it's right hard to remember
That some day like today when you're all argumentative
And you've got the face on
*********
When me and my lovely wife were first married, and maybe even before that, we used to go to bed at night. It was a ritual, we would go to bed together every night. And I would lay there on my back, and she would cuddle up on me, put her head on my chest, I would have my arm around her, and it was very pleasant. She would pet me, just all gentle and loving like, you dig, and we would lay there. Oh, and we would talk, and I would tell her stories. I had a ton of them back then. I would lay there and maybe I would ask her if she wanted to hear a story or maybe she would ask me to tell her a story, I don't remember, but somewhere in there I would make up a story for her. She would be very quiet and just listen and we would lay there. I am trying to remember how it goes, but I think it was something like this...
Once there was this worm. He was a happy little worm, all wiggling around and digging through the dirt. To get through the dirt the little worm would open his little mouth and just start eating, and out the other end would come worm poop. This is pretty normal and all, and worms all over the world are doing it. So this little worm was happy and just eating and moving through the good earth. Every once in a while he would find himself at the top of the dirt and would kinda wiggle here and there until he found a good spot to point his head downwards and start eating again, which, as you see, would move him down through the dirt. He did this, you know, day in and day out, getting nutrients from the the dirt and the poop that he would inevitably end up chomping through. Yeah, man, dirt, poop, old apples that fell on the ground, old playboys that some kid stole from his uncles collection and ended up burying so he wouldn't get caught, yeah, he chomped through them all... One day he happened to be chomping through this old dudes yard, which was still cool, cause he did good things for the lawn, aerated it and shit, you know... anyhow, we was chomping along and it started to rain. It made the ground hard to move through and he was getting way too moist. Worms like to be moist, but not too moist, understand? So he made his way to the top of the lawn and kind wiggled and wiggled and finally found himself off of the grass and onto the sidewalk. He saw some of his buddies there, they also wiggled out of the grass and onto the sidewalk.
There weren't nothing to do but wait it out, and try to stay out of puddles, he knew this. He saw one of his buddies crawl into a puddle and thought to himself, oh no! But he couldn't really say anything. Worms can't shout out like you and I do, so his buddy went into the puddle and was finding it hard to move so he just twisted around. Our worm, he was smart and stayed out of the puddles, and just kinda layed there, waiting for it to stop raining. Then some kid came and stomped on him. And he was dead.

Big Plans in Small Tuna Texas

See that thing in the middle? That is the hurty spot. I seem to have a "sickness" that will probably last my entire winter. I have what you might call a productive cough, if you were in the medical profession, which I ain't, so I prefer to say I am "hocking up shit". I guess by doing that I am being productive, hmmnnn...
So since I got laid off the sky has been crying, and I suppose you can see that and other misc picture of my winter break at my flickr page, so I will only randomly throw pictures up here and all.
What... where was I? Oh, so, yeah, I have plans, dude. People, they say to me, so Catfish, what are you going to do, and I am telling you now, that I have plans... I will detail them for you now.

1. Situps!!! I am gonna do situps every day (except maybe Saturday or Sunday, whatever the Shabbat is... Catfish don't roll on the Shabbat either!
   Side note: I originally was going to say "sabbat" but apparently that would be all witchy and shit, and I ain't no witch. Talk amongst yourselves.


2. Pushups!!! I am gonna do some pushups every day. HAHAHAH. No, really. I started with the girly pushups with my knees bent today and did 7. 7 girly pushups, ha ha ha ha.


3. Read!!! Yeah, but, I am gonna read books on HTML, then CSS, then I have this java primer, then I should look into xml and xhtml... oh, and Steven Colberts book. Now why the f' would I do that??? Because...


4. Gonna build some websites!!! Yeah!!! I am gonna build a website or two or maybe even more. FOR FREE!!! probably, at least to start with, till I hone my ninja web builder skills, then maybe I will charge people $800 just to consult on maybe thinking about doing a website for them, and another $150 to actually build it. Consultation is where the real money lies (lays) and I have always wanted to own a think tank where I can charge people outrageous amounts of money to think up shit for them...


5. Chase the old lady around the apartment!!! YAY!!! And let me tell you, I don't really mean "chase" and she ain't old... if she ain't around to chase (or gets really old all of a sudden) I will then have to...


6. Do the dance of the 5 fingered snake!!! Use your imagination on that one.


7. COOKIES!!!! I wanna make some cookies. I will wash my hands first.


8. Blog every Day!!! and take pictures of my Day!!!


9. Grow a beard!!! and take pictures of my beard!!!
   Note: Beard being on my face, not a woman I use to pretend I am not gay, although it could be a woman on my face...

So, see, dude, I got plans... big plans... and if someones favorite god wants to kill a kitten because I made some plans, then so be it... or Josh Groban... maybe if I make more plans than he will smite Josh Groban for me... I was gonna say do something like taking away his singing ability or talent, but apparently that has already been taken care of. Because I HATE him, which, just in the hating of him by me dictates that he sucks and has no talent. It's a proven fact. Time and time again. Here, another example: Hitler was a bad man. BAM!!! So says me, so it must be true. Killing animals is wrong, but often results in tasty sausage. SHABAZZ!!! WOOOO!!!
So there you go, Josh Groban, Hitler, Sausage... all proven facts... by me...
GO ME!!!

Ok, so I will be documenting my adventures in unemployment. See that picture? That's me, on day 1 of not being actively employed (although it's Saturday and I wouldn't usually work on Saturday).

So to start, let me tell you about my last day...

So I went in like usual, full of fantasies of what might happen... Imaginations of parties and tributes, a last minute reprieve, maybe some extra cash thrown my way to get me through. I don't know, I think I was really hoping that the day would just bust on through and I could get the hell out of there with some extra cash in my pocket

When I got in I told them about 2 of my fantasies:

• That it would be like the end of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and all of a sudden they would all gather around me and say "Congratulations!!! You did it!!! You are the boy we have been looking for, this is all yours, you won Catfish, you won!!!"


• That there would be a present on my desk, or presented to me at lunch, of an X-box 360 Elite so I could spend the next month fucking around playing games and would finally earn the respect of my boss.

Thos are the one I could tell them at work. There were a couple others, mostly involving getting a going away BJ in the level 3 parking garage or other random tributes of a horny nature... I didn't mention those at work.

So there were a lot of goodbyes, some hugs, some handshakes... had to sit through my last overly long boring meeting, got to freak out the dude that sits next to me by telling him I was sick and had breathed all over his stuff while he was away, shit like that.

They took my to lunch, went to the Owl and Thistle, had a Ruben and a Guinness with a Wild Turkey on the side (ahhhhh). We got to shoot the shit for a while, it was cool. Went back to the office and people starting parading by my desk to say goodbye. The prototype for my imaginary secret Canadian Girlfriend came by. She had been out to lunch with someone else and heard I was getting laid off so came in to say howdy/goodbye. She gave me a nice hug.

So as a prototype, here is what she offered to the imaginary part of the Secret Canadian Girlfriend theme.

1. She is Canadian


2. She is pixieish


3. She wears those high boots that I find so hot for some reason


4. Is aware of the Tragically HIp and other Canadian music
   

Thats about it... in my imagination she is still a little pixy fairy, but about 6 inches taller and worships me and I am in a poly-amorous relationship but only in the way that I get to have horny times with other people and my wife doesn't, except with my imaginary secret Canadian girlfriend or Johhny Depp.

ANYHOW...

I sent out the touchy feely goodbye email, did the goodbye walk around the office, people expressed regret, I expressed regret, I didn't get an X-Box or any other tribute, and I left.

I left about an hour early. I left about an hour early and it was cold out and any bus that would get me home wouldn't be showing up for about an hour... Cold? I meant it was goddamn friggin' cold out... damn... I sat there, shivering and unemployed. There ain't much more to it...

BUT THERE IS MORE!!!

Let me tell you, in all the jobs I have gotten laid off from or otherwise left, never before had there been such an outpouring of niceness and affection. Everyone expressed regret, from the top on down. Everyone had something nice to say and was truly caring and shit... I mean, people have said goodbye and goodluck before, but never on such a large scale... I was touched.

And as I was walking out the door, I waved goodbye to HR... and they stopped me. The head of HR, you know what she said? She said "Enjoy your winter break" and I said "BREAK!?! Is this just a "break"?" and she was like, "Yup" and I said "Sweet, see ya in January" and she said "yes you will"... and I am not making that up... So apparently I will be back there so I just need to chill out for a month... YAY for me!!!

What a boring post, but hell, it's just day 1 and I'm a little rusty... I got more to say, on a daily basis... I think tomorrow I will tell you about how I plan to fill my month...

Let me leave you with this:
I was telling my old lady last night that I had plans, and she said not to put too much into my plans, 'cause you know what they say about God and plans, and I said, every time you make a plan God kills a kitten? and she says, No, every time you make a plan God laughs and I said Oh, that's right, it's Every time you listen to Josh Groban God kills a kitten and she said I was right... heh...