Insidious Adaptation

(flick) Light comes on, synonymous with a vent fan. My movements, quick. I time the morning just right to get all that I can done all by the minute. One variable, any instance of unaccounted for time, I will be late to work. (Flap) Opens shower curtain. "Jeeze, look at that!" A spider, a "Mr. Skinny Legs" as our favorite cartoon pig in this house refers to. I can't help but find the humor in the fact that in one episode of the infamous, Peppa Pig, Daddy Pig, makes a claim about how he likes spiders, until he meets a large one. Then he goes to get Mommy Pig. If those were the rules, then I should go upstairs now, wake my wife from her slumber, and let her deal with this thing. He is a large spider, probably one of those, "wolf" spiders, which are any other spiders I see here in Nebraska besides Daddy Long Legs. Names of spiders are not a specialty, however if they are poisonous or not is. I do know there are spiders that are poisonous with...

Pretty audacious title right? Well, what can I say, living a, "better" life is what everyone is looking for, so might as well cut right to the chase. It is the chase after all, or as I inked on my skin in my early twenty's, "For the pursuit of Happiness..." that we are all active participants in. Even if your race is a passive one-mundane job, spending most time avoiding stress, or distracting from self; we are all in this same race. The only difference is the varying time frames, so we never know who is closer to the finish line until we turn back around and they aren't running anymore. Recently a trip to South Dakota with the family (my wife and daughter of closer to three than two) taught me a most-valuable lesson: to be grateful, yet, I am not responsible for things as much as a part of me says I am.  Gratitude, meaning , " the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness." T herefore,  being  gr...

"Noooooo!" Screams an almost 3-year old 2-feet from her father's face. "Yes!" Father concedes to the game.  "No daddy!" She is in control now.  "Hey, we are getting this shirt on because I said so." Because, well, I said so, and I am an adult right, so I must know best, father knows best, right?  The game all parents are familiar with, a tug-of-war in words, where a child's ability to take on all possibilities of a situation, including downright refusal, exposes a parent's weakness.  "Look, a butterfly." As she picks her cup up, distracting either herself, or dad, neither of us really know.  "Sweetheart." Dad is calmer now. "We have to get dressed, we don't want to be naked do we?" Yes, rhetorical questioning because, duh, right?  Wrong.  "Daddy, I want milk." She asks, and my first thought is, where is that milk? Only to come right back to, hey, wait a minut...

I'm supposed to write something here. Something that is to help either me or others. This, not an expectation for myself, however, an obligation, for otherwise why exist? Why would a person exist, of only to experience life for himself, gain, for himself, hold all knowledge, for himself? What is that good for?  The thoughts consume me after I disappointed myself. After an evening where I was interacting with my daughter, trying to brush teeth at bed time, only to have her subtle defiance get to me for the last time. As she sat just at the right angle, refusing to lift her mouth up and open for me to brush, and my 3rd or 4th prompt was getting shorter, she became frustrated, she threw a book to the side, it hit me in the face, and I became angry. I slid the book with force across the floor, yelled close to her face, stood up, picked her up, and put her on her bed and told her, "You made me angry!" "No, you wanted to be defiant and now I am angry!" This as my...

At one time it was one of the most viewed YouTube videos; a boy and his baby brother playing around and then the baby brother, Charlie, really bites down on his older brother's hand. Watch it Here. Much like in my own experience, a baby's first teeth, and the unexpected force of the jaw are something that go from a pleasure, to a pain, too quick to plan for. Unlike the teeth of a puppy, the razor sharp daggers that break through the skin and an unexpected chomp on a arm, resulting in a smack to the face or butt as a reminder not to bite, we cannot do the same with kids. When a child bites us we have to be so aware of our bodies that we don't smack the kid as a response to stop pain. How many times are we hurting from a child to have a knee jerk reaction to hurt them to save us. Our intent would not be to hurt them, as much as we are trying to avoid pain ourselves. A mother's nipple as a child latches on, and as the pain of breastfeeding only worsened by the form...

The need of a body to displace what is already being digested, or what has been mostly digested, happens at a speed incomprehensible to man. We can never fully measure the time from when one feels a, “sickness” coming on, to the point of discharge from the body. We can assume that this is relatively quick, for if this happened over a lengthy period time, we would always be in a convenient place when the body chose to get rid of its material. A child’s system is small, small in stature, supposedly small in quantities, but quicker, more efficient than us adults. As we get older we tend to slow in our abilities. Not just reflexes or ability to obtain knowledge, but in how efficient the system runs overall. When a child’s speed is utilized to discharge matter from its fragile being, there is no preparation, for the wave will come and the aftermath is felt by all. As the warm material submersed in a stringy, snot-like goo was expelled onto the side of my face, dripping down my shirt o...

In conclusion, one has to be stronger than they were before to ensure they do not resume their previously identified, “problematic” behaviors.  The end is the beginning. The spoiler alert right up front, a clear message.  Just me.  I am nothing of significance. This makes me more of a danger than anyone of this weighty expectation, for I have freedom and irrelevance to do and say as I like. I can tell you, that I believe Donald Trump is doing his job, and I believe much of what is happening is a smoke screen for something else. I think that maybe he is doing what he felt like he should do to bring all the little turd pieces to the top of the cream to be scraped off, exposed, dealt with; for underlying issues are still issues.  Another thing I stand for is the Bible. I can tell you that what is presented is real and told in the way the Bible depicts it for an eternal purpose, not for an upfront message all the time. I believe the tendencies and storie...

What is it about the naked human body that we deem such a, "thing?" I believe there are people who try and pretend to make it less significant, determined to make all places nude, where a beach is no longer for serpents in the sea, where the grocery store’s banana and melon sections could be on the move, where the dinner’s napkins and bibs more crucial as the soufflé comes out as the sales of baked Alaskans decrease significantly. I believe that besides the novelty that these same people are pretending exists, they feel the most comfort clothed, and there is a shock factor involved, a sort of “look at me, I am free, unlike you clothed, ‘restrained’ people." However, the body is not necessarily the most comforted clothed. Why? The Bible is why. Genesis is why. Being naked from the dawn of the fallen man, an indicator of significance.  The latest fads could have been merely ways to shave the body’s hair, or a tattoo, for which if the latter went out of style, much li...

A slip of the phone, a smack on the ground, a prayer sent out, I hope it isn't broken. "Gosh Dangit!" Said without thought, a learned replacement and months of practice to prevent the ears of a 2-year-old from experiencing further, more harsh reactions. "Goshdangit" She repeats me, reinforcing my efforts. In these moments, I cannot help but be a little proud of myself for my child's response, or at the least, her recognition of mine. I slip into nostalgia of past days when a curse word flew off my tongue like specks of dust swirling about as an untouched piece of furniture is moved. The words, for they were fun to say, the F***, the S***s, others almost embarrassing to admit to, all dangling in a toolbox of "sentence enhancers," awaiting my use. That was then, before a child, before hearing myself through the ears of another for the excessive quantity was juvenile. I now WANT to use goofy words to curse a random dropping of a phone or hitti...