Weeds: Masturbation Lesson

Warning!

If you are offended by the explicit references to masturbation, please do not press play.

You have been warned.

We have just rented the second season of Weeds and just saw this for the first time last night.

We. Loved. This.

Nobody ever talked about sex with me, and not that I welcomed the subject either. This guy approaches the subject of masterbation like one would the subject of say, detailing a car. No big deal kid.

Understand that this family is raised by a single mother (who happens to be a pot dealer) whose husband (I think) got killed before season one even began. She called a plumber to investigate clogged pipes, who found that somebody had been flushing tube socks. Turns out the boy was using them to clean up his emissions if you will, and disposing of the evidence. She tried to speak with her son, but the talk went nowhere, so she asks her husbands brother to try having the talk instead.

And so, without further ado, here is what he had to say.

Quickly

I can't believe how busy I am. Working at home was supposed to be a way to gain more time, but instead it has been the great vortex. Now I do my own laundry because I am at home to do it. And the kids are in the office all the time, wanting to play games, or just to see me. For instance, I wrote one sentence and Jackson came in to tell me that Emmett knocked over a pile of clothes. The little guy announces every time he has bathroom business. It's cute but distracting. I've got more tasks around the house to do, and lunches last an hour and a half, ten minutes of which is spent eating.

There is a pile of papers on my desk of people and places I need to call, bills to contest.

As for that business with my father, I did indeed go the route of asking for the bill to pay directly. Dad didn't even blink. And more than this, he understood the reason why and didn't give me an ounce of grief. It turns out that the insurance wasn't cancelled, but there are two possibilities of how to proceed. The first is that they let him pay back retroactive, and thus my money flies out the door, money I don't have. Or two, they simply reinstate him with a four month waiting period. The latter case involves his wife finding out that he let the policy lapse, and that is what I hope happens. It would serve him right to eat the shit stew that he cooked up.

What else.

I've been trying to learn Hey There Delilah on the guitar, and have actually done it. It just needs some polish. A little out of my singing range during the chorus, but I'm not getting paid for it. I'm also trying to learn Sublime's What I Got, Iz's Somewhere Over The Rainbow (I play guitar, not Ukelele, so it is only approximate), Death Cab For Cutie's I Will Follow You Into The Dark and Oasis' Wonderwall (because I heard Charlie playing it on Lost). In my spare time of course.

Still plotting, but that has taken a slow-down turn. I lost inspiration for a while, but watching a few movies, and reading the latest Harry Potter, kind of got me back into the groove. Something my mentor said has been haunting me too, that I have too many characters. Now I want to create even more, and it's got me a bit down. I have to believe though that my instinct is driving me in the right direction, that I should just do it and ignore that.

The new Harry Potter is gripping. Rowling is a great story teller. That could have something to do with why she is richer than the Queen of England, right? I'm only on page 187 right now. The ladies at the library started reading it the night before and finished it before I even had a copy in my hand. That's dedication. And that's how you judge success.

Hit Up

My dad just hit me up for twelve hundred to pay for the insurance policy that he let lapse. This happened a couple years ago, and I ponied up then like I'm doing now. What can I do. He's my father and as much as I know that he has done this to himself, I don't have a choice.

That's not true, but it's so true.

A year or so ago, my dad called me and asked me to finance his move to Alaska. He had a job lined up sitting behind a desk and designing plans for a friend's construction outfit. I called his friend and had a little talk. It had the flavor of a cold call, because I've never actually met the man, though his son was on my high school football team.

"When is the last time you heard from my father," I asked him.

"Oh, I'd say... it'd have to be going on twenty years now."

"So I take it then that he doesn't really have a job with you if he comes to Alaska?"

He laughed. "No."

I thought about this for a moment. "Would you give him a job if he asked?"

"I don't want you to take this the wrong way--"

"Don't worry about it."

"--but your Dad was a loose cannon when he was here the last time. I have no reason to think he would be any different now."

"No, you understand him perfectly, Tom. I appreciate that you told me."

Dad's made many requests for my money, and each time it is so difficult to say no. Now he's getting old. His back and hips have had surgery, and there is more damage in need of repair. Thus the emergency we have today.

But how in the hell did he let something so critical just go away? I'm tempted to pull the net. Five years ago he wanted me to cosign for a cabin costing eighty grand, with his wife on the other line telling me to refuse, refuse, refuse him because she would rather die than move to that cabin.

I had a plan that I could take a second mortgage on the house and borrow enough to buy a fixer upper and have my dad do the work. It was almost set when his wife called me and reinforced the nagging doubts in my head. "Don't give him a dime, Scott. He means well, but he will spend it all. All of it. And you will lose everything."

I see my kids faces, and I wonder if I will some day be like this. Please God don't let that happen.

If I listed out all the scams, cons and outright crimes my father has committed, you would be stunned. There's something wrong with him. Up in the head. He's a force, a wrecking ball, and someday he will be mine to take care of.

I'll Keep on Plugging

It's highly unusual of me to post on the weekend, but I felt like I should reply to all the responses to my last post. First, it is nice to be appreciated. More than nice, actually. When the blog started, it was, as Natalie (magnetbabe) pointed out, a place to lay out some of my memoirs. More than this, it was a place to confess all my sins. To my knowledge, I have never lied about my part in things. I was going to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that anyone who ever said a bad thing about me was absolutely correct. I told you about the time I laid the blame on a friend in fifth grade, how he accepted it, and how the teacher exposed my black little soul. I can still feel the sting.

I worked through my childhood, through all the step mothers, life with my philandering father. And then the well went dry. What else was there to say?

I found a post where I promised to write a new short story every week or some such. And that might have happened if I didn't lose my job in California. Life changed and my priorities with it.

And now I'm writing a novel. At least I hope I'm writing a novel. I'll only be certain when I finish. The blog has become a hodgepodge of posts about what I have determined to be of no interest to anyone. When I wrote my memoirs, there was an energy there, and a punch that I knew would be sure to knock you in the jaw. I want to feel that again.

But it feels good to hear that, despite it all, you don't mind having me around. I'll keep on plugging. And you never know, I might just find my wings again.

Nada Mucho

I'm going to attempt the blogger rounds today, throughout the day. There is a little break in my action, which sounds like I'm out-of-my-mind busy, but the truth is, that's only a part of it. I'm not sure if I'm going to be a full-time blogger anymore. In the library just the other night, I was describing to a lady friend the experience of watching the opening scene of Star Wars for the first time. Afterwards, she told me I should write about it. My first thought was to build an entire story around a fictional character set in that time, and not to share it here on my blog.

This is not to say I quit. But I have gone stale. What motivated me in the beginning is totally gone. Perhaps because I've written a few scenes with characters that are so charged with life that my own seems mundane. Or maybe I just want to save it; instead of telling the truth, as I like to do, I could really lay it out and have some fun with it.

I have a deep admiration for writers that can take their ordinary day and turn it into something special to read about. Someday I might be that kind of writer too, but there is something lacking in my appraisal of the world around me. There is something there, inside, simmering, steaming to come out. For some reason, the blog is not providing its release. Maybe it will in the future, when I figure out what it is that is bugging me.

Sometimes Too

I'm in the mood to write something, to stretch a bit. Outlining is good but it can be a stumper to creativity. Working at home has presented some unique challenges that I shan't go into. But less time is what it all boils down to. And the time I do have I am extremely not motivated.

But, Emmett said two cute things this weekend, and I thought I would share. We spent the waning daylight trolling in a river on a friend’s boat, and the captain let my son Jackson take the helm. That evening, after our guests had treated the boys to ice cream, Emmett sat on a high barstool next to the kitchen island chatting happily with our friend Terri.

He told her, "I always like your house."

He's three years old mind you, and just as cute as can be imagined. He asked Terri if she had ever seen a cartoon the name of which she couldn't make out. She said she hadn't.

"He picks his bugars and eats them."

"He does?" She said does more like du-uhhhhh-zzzzz…

"I eat my bugars some times too."