Pinterest is for Girls

The Russian Supermodel talked me into using Pinterest for all our required link sharing for furniture, food ideas, and future projects to be done around the house. At first glance and within the first week or two of using it my general conclusion and imagined marketing campaign for them was "a site where women post decadent food, followed by diets to help them lose the weight they gained by eating said food, and finally the arts and crafts projects they actually do rather than dieting." (Also, there is a larger than expected amount of the currently en vogue Boudoir Photos and just plain porn Link to Article on history and trends of said photos.) The site is self serving in that rather than finding your own links to up load and maintain, it is an Appalachian inbred banjo player of post and repost, repost, repost. There are few people who upload new links and ideas. I play my banjo as loud as the rest of the pinner's on the site and steal links and follow strangers who do the hard work for me.

After the honeymoon was over, I realize that first of all I am a stylish mother f*$&@#@ (read as what was previously described as being metro-sexual). Secondly, There is some value to it. The supermodel and I are planning a group of baseball style lockers at the back door for the offspring to deposit their daily detritus and Pinterest is a great way to put all the variations found on the internets in one place and view them side by side. This however is a small bit of what I do. Look at the picture above for a moment. Designer suit, designer furniture, and an art deco car. This is the place where dreams are fleshed out. We have designer taste on a thrift store budget. We make it work.

I use Pinterest to kill time, find common ground with my supermodel, and to find hearty recipes. They can keep their diets. The amount of high-cal food, cars, and naked women seems to increase as manly men are finding out Pinterest isn't just for girls.

The American Dream®

     In the two years previous to this, I have had a bit of a make over. Two years ago I was living the bachelor life with my big dog in my little house in Oxford, MS with no real future plans or direction. Today I live in a different house with a wife, two adolescent boys, an infant, and a hound dog. The transition from life of ease to the apparent American Dream® included but was not limited to:

1. Interview for and get a job2. Marry a wonderful woman3. Gifted the wonderful woman's two sons as my wards3b. Get new dog for wards as big dog is old and may leave me soon. 4. Decide to finish up my tenure as a graduate student and write my dissertation5. Look for a new house and begin the arduous process of buying a new home6. Sell the old home7. Find Job for wifey8. Celebrate9. Get word from ObGyn that we celebrated too much and have implanted a parasite into the belly of the wife. 10. Put big dog to sleep. 11. 9 months later be handed said parasite which turns out was a human baby. 

    Now we are in year three. Year one, sloven lifestyle of ease and enjoyment. Year two, transition. Year three, live the American Dream®. We have 3 kids, a house, a dog (pitiful though she may be), and sit around our table and giggle over blogged about home cooked meals. The kids are beautiful and photogenic. The wife is sexy (think russian supermodel) and has a Friday night strut that causes cabbies and construction workers to stop in their tracks. If this isn't the American Dream® then what is?

    Now, if you know me then you know this won't be the end of it. I could complain about winning the lottery. So, I take son #1 to soccer practice last night. I show up a bit early and am playing around with him and then out of the blue I realized I have been duped into becoming the head coach (pending background check). What the what?! I have been a dad for a year and now I am responsible for 12 of these things? If it hadn't been for the look on Son 1's face of sheer delight I would have demurred (damn his huge disney-esque eyes. Not kidding. His eyes are the perfect combination of Oliver's "please sir may I have some more" and Jasmine from Aladdin.). 

    Then I call my Father, here after known as 2pops, and let him know and he salivates at the chance of coaching his grandson's soccer team. I honestly don't know who is more excited that I have been tricked into coaching this group of disease vectors, 2pops or Son 1. I acquiesce and just go with it. Now, my mind is filled with dreams of gold plated whistles and wardrobe requirements. Do I get the super tight 1980's polyester short shorts and tall socks? After the phone call with 2pops, I walk in to find the Russian supermodel chomping at the bit to relay another of the story of Son 2. 

    People know Son 2. He recent told the parents at a spend the night party that he was meant to be famous. Before leaving to meet my destiny of becoming a coach, I saw that Son 2 was cleaning up from around his dinner plate by wiping all of the orzo off the table and onto the floor. This is no good. So, his mother and I agree on the punishment that he must clean his and his brother's bathroom. The story relates to this. 

    Apparently, the supermodel rounds the corner to check on him after putting the flesh of my flesh down for her 12 hours of sleep (what all babies don't do that at 4 months?). She was greeted with the sights and sounds of Son 2 in his Indiana Jones hat, referring to himself as Dr. Toilet, cleaning the pink toilet in their restroom. This alone would seem normal for this child. Alas, this was not all. He was singing the classic hit by Kelly Clarkson, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." As noted in previous entry, he has been introduced to Otis Redding, Al Green, Queen, The Rolling Stones, etc. and we don't listen to the radio much or own much pop music. I blame his brothers Kids Bop CD's (the devil's disco). So picture yourself in polyester coach's shorts with your whistle on a lanyard around your neck gazing in on an an 8 year old in a fedora, scrubbing a toilet, singing Kelly Clarkson. Welcome to the American Dream® as I know it

*8 Ante Meridiem

     Eight in the morning is not the time to require anyone to be as excited about the sheer sexiness of structure of DNA as you are. I wake before the sun. 

     Rarely since the birth of my progeny am I greeted with "Wakey. Wakey. Eggs and Bakey!" Don't think that the perfect creature that is the chunky flesh of my flesh (Here after referred to as FomF) has ruined my mornings. Before her birth I was responsible crowing that phrase through the house to rouse Son number 1 and my wife. Son 2 lies in bed in wait.... waiting for the moment when I release him from the confines of his bed as though her were a thoroughbred in the starting gate at Churchill Downs. I digress, I do my best Paul Revere lighting the way warning of the coming of the day. I would then cook the "boy breakfast." 
     This is loosely defined in my house as eggs in a style of your choosing, some hog of my choosing, OJ, and toast. Caveats include but are not limited to: 
 1. Given the choice Son 2 will always choose boiled eggs which take entirely too long
 2. Two minute eggs are his number two option. This is Eggs scrambled with half and half and cooked quickly.
 3. As Ice Cube lamented a breakfast without hog is no breakfast at all.  ("Momma cooked a breakfast with no hog... damn" from It was a Good Day. Yeah I'm hood)

     In short, I orchestrated mornings as a maestro conducts his masterwork. There were dance parties with Otis Redding, breakfasts better suited to a coven of lumberjacks, birds chirping, and the subjects were happy. Since the birth of the FomF our routine has fallen off. Breakfasts of cereal and pop-tarts. Coffee in the car on the school run. This will aggression will not stand. Routines must be formed and kept. I am not German and know that Otis may have to be replaced with the Reverend Al Green from time to time. Boiled can become scrambled. I am not a tyrant. 

     By the time I show up to teach my course on human anatomy to my students at eight in the morning, I have compromised my routine and had coffee in the car and a supplemental cup in my office. I then look up at them, take a deep breath and vomit knowledge all over their doughy little minds. Heaven forbid we have to talk about things that I think are neat or interesting. Bad day for them because they know nothing of morning. They have rolled out of bed, put on shoes, and wandered to the appropriate classroom on campus. That process resembles a slow moving blonde zombie apocalypse every morning on campus. By noon, hair is coiffed, clothes starched, peep-toe wedges are on but not at 7:55 when they roll up in my class. 

     I launch into a barrage of knowledge bombs, giddy with the excitement of a nerd who got a new Casio brand calculator watch. I work my self into a frenzy of misguided examples and asides to try and arouse any small spark of learning in my blond zombie hoard. I have caffeine coursing through my veins and science in my heart. They have drool running from the corners of their mouth and circles under their eyes. I have been awake for 2 hours and they are 2 minutes late. DNA will never be sexy to them at 8 in the morning. 

     This was the first half of the first week of my fall semester. The kids are good, wife is happy, students are scared, and I am hiding in my office waiting for lunch. At least that part is back to normal.