A 'friend' read this and thought, 'I'm not alone'. It changed quickly to 'I wasn't alone' and then back to 'I am alone...even more so.' And he returned to the hole/circle he lives in and vowed again to keep his mouth shut and put his happy face back on. Sometimes, you choose to live with and in the ' darkness' because it's all you know...it's comfortable, familiar, and 'it' knows you so well. The Agonizing Last Words of Programmer Bill Zeller Bill Zeller was a tal...

This is MY Pity Party so leave your own shit at the door. Let's see, I spent Christmas and New Years passing three kidney stones and having a stint shoved in me to drain my kidney. I think Santa mixed my stocking up with my kidney when he left me the coal I must have had coming. Next year I will be waiting up for the fat bastard with some rope and a branding iron. No sooner do I get better than the wife gets a virus that turns into pnuemonia in a matter of days. I'm overdue for another ...

Five years ago, this spring, I relocated from Pennsylvania to South Carolina. I was not informed that I would need a passport to make this move and have been paying for it ever since.  There are very few conversations that I will get into with someone that don't take that turn. The one where they go completely off subject and flash me that slow grin. "You're not from around here, are you?"  My former pastors wife was a yankee. She tried to teach me how to fake the accent. She, and m...

  It was only my second week as a freshman in high school. My second week in freshman German. I don't know why I found myself asking a question that would only result in more peer abuse being rained down upon me. Yet, there I was. Looking at Mrs. Henry, our German teacher and asking her what 'Dumesel' meant.  She looked at me for a brief moment and asked where I had heard it.  "My grandmother." I replied.  "Was your grandmother German?"  "Oh, no!" I snappe...

It’s the home stretch, boys and girls. Less than a week ‘til we go into the hospital and they ‘take her’, as my wife says. The phrase ‘take her’ freaks me out almost as much as the day the told us ‘when’ they would ‘take her’. You set appointments for teeth pulling or having tonsils taken out. To get one for the ‘taking of the baby’ just seems so surreal. I have learned a lot over the past nine months. I’d like to share some of that knowledge with you, especially soon to be dads or dad’...

This is the third part of the series I began when we found out we were expecting. This was written July 24, 2006 when we went for the first OBGYN visit. I want to thank everyone who either saved these and sent them to me ( I was missing some I didn't even know about) and T-Man who sent me the complete list. This morning was our first official visit to the OBGYN. My wife has to drink some ‘glucose’ concoction before we even leave the house. I think it’s so we can start early on ge...

This is a repost from July 2 2006 that was the First in a series I started when I found I was going to be a father. Somehow, the posts vanished and I lost my file on this one. I posted Part @ the other day and mentioned I had lost this first article and I would like to thank ~sgoheen06 at Deviant Art, who saved it (God only knows why) and got it to me yesterday. If you liked this the first time or this is your first time reading it, you can thank her, since she saved it. http://sgoheen06...

This is a repost of a July 17th 2006 article I posted. It was the second in a series I began when I found out we were going to have a baby. It seems a few articles have somehow vanished, but I have most of them to repost. HOWEVER...I am missing the first one titled 'The Name Game'. If anyone has it, could you email it to me. It's probably my favorite and for the life of me, I don't know what I did with the file and would like to have it for my daughter. I have this friend. I have this f...

Reality is an odd thing, sometimes. Sometimes, it just lurks. It stays on the edge of your peripheral vision, waiting for just the right moment to slam you upside your head with Its Louisville Slugger. You can feel Its breath. You can hear it whispering, but can’t quite make out what it’s saying. It’s been ‘lurking’ a lot since the pregnancy began. I think it’s been lurking around my wife as well. It’s basically been refusing to really make Its presence known on any consistent level. Ins...

6 weeks into the pregnancy and my wife has finally discovered what a comedian I am. These are things that make her laugh. "Honey, you shouldn't eat that, it has (caffiene, sugar, carbs, a non-Splenda artificial sweetner)." "I can handle poopy diapers. I pick up the dog's shit, don't I?" "If it's a boy we could call him... Cotton? Cash? Cadence? Levi?' "If it's a girl we could call her Journey? Carmelita? Gabrielle?" "You know you shouldn't do that." "Of course ...

Two years ago, early spring, we had a yardsale. We had some stuff to get rid of. Cordell? While going through the closets, my wife came across a mountain of my step-sons baby and toddler clothes. There was also a crib and other 'accessories'. Now, I'm not one for pack-ratting, though I do save ;some' things. She saves everything. I mean every-thing. She has boxes and boxes filled with his school stuff from Kindergarten up to 4th grade. I'm not just talking about his special projects...