Fishing

There's a saying out there "give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime". Did you ever wonder why the originator of the saying chose fishing? I think it's because even the best fishermen have days where they don't catch anything. Like on that show on Discovery Channel where they show the Alaskan King Crab fishing season. Some times you win, sometimes not.
I'm a pretty good fisherman I think. I gots skills, man, mad skills. I also have two infants sleeping behind me. You go back 1,000 years and if I didn't have the resources to feed/cloth/house my children, they would simply die. You go back 100 years ago and you had a slim chance at some "charity" but not at getting any kind of real job to take care of yourself and your kids. Fifty years ago and you might be that woman on the block who is a single working mom busting her butt to take care of her latch key kids trusting them to stay out of trouble. Twenty years ago and you might be that person sitting on their ass on welfare. Today, Fucked. Or at least that's how it feels. I go through all the red tape at various government agencies, wait in the various waiting rooms with my two crying babies with about 25 to 50 other people in the same situation desparately trying like hell not to judge them just so I can find out that there is yet another form, another appointment and another office I have to go to in order to get the "help" that I desparately don't want to need. Apparently some mandate was sent down from heaven forbidding the government to offer a simple form to find out what you qualify for and what you don't or even what is availible to apply for in the first place. Nobody will tell me anything except stuff like "you might want to call the Health Department to see if you qualify for anything". You call the Health Department and ask and they want to know what it is you want to qualify for, then they give you a form and an appointment. Only to find out they don't have that program anymore. All because people used to sit on their butt collecting a check instead of learning how to fish. I want to be gainfully employed. I want to have money to pay for the big ticket items like gas, water, electricity, rent, food, insurance... omg, insurance.... don't get me started there. Crap. Anyway, where was I... oh ya... but what do I do with my kids while I go off and work at a job that only pays enough to barely cover the day care I don't want to drop them off at in the first place? Right now, I'm trying to get my AA and I'm trying to find some sort of job I can do at home until the kids are old enough to go to school. Talk about fishing. I feel like a salmon headed up the river of a thousand fisherman (that sounds like an acient chineses proverb). There are literally hundreds of thousands of web sites all asking for $39.99 for you to find out how to work at home using your computer. So far, most of them seem to be more or less a piramid scheme. You pay the $39.99 to find out how to get others to pay the $39.99 so that you can get a percentage of that $39.99 they paid. How is this not illeagle? How is a child seeing a naked person on the internet more damaging than a desparate person getting robed of their last $39.99 instead of paying their water bill or car insurance or health insurance or food or whatever... how the heck is that worse? I guess it's the same level of "worse" that the MPAA movie rating people use to say that sex of any kind is always worse than violence of any kind. Makes you wonder if they took all the bad words out of "Reservoir Dogs" would it be a PG movie? Some of those scenes still give me nighmares. This takes me to another, slightly related topic, what we get paid.

The average employer salery equation is something like, they will pay you 1/3 of what they can make from your work efforts. When I was a security guard, I regularly got paid $7 to $10 dollars per hour but the company I worked for got paid $20-$65 per hour by the people who wanted me to secure their property. I guess that is why movie stars and athletes get paid Millions of dollars and teachers and firefighters get paid squat. Since when was it the governments job to make money anyway? People get all worked up about where our tax dollars are spent but none of them ever read the country's budget... hell, I wonder if anyone reads the country's budget. BILLIONS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS. It makes Bill Gates look middle class. Why do we run at a budget defecit and still need help figuring out how to pay teachers, fire fighters, mental and physical health cost, etc? I think because NOBODY READS THE COUNTRY'S BUDGET!! The government makes availble grants for the public every year so that people like me can pay for stuff in the short term without having to pay it back. Why then, please tell me, do I have to pay $100 or even $39.99 to find out what grants are available to me and how to apply for said grants? Because Wal*Mart and Bill Gates and those types don't think twice about throwing down a dime to get free money but people like us have to decide whether or not to eat or try for "free money". Even if I could afford the fee, it doesn't mean I'll qualify for the grant.
I just want what every body wants I guess. To live happily in my mediocraty. To do the best I can at raising my kids. And not live on the streets or sit around begging.

You Tube Addiction

I wonder if there is a 12 step program for people who waste too much of their time sorting through crap on You Tube to watch? Actually, with the amount of copy righted material shown on You Tube, I give it, at most, two years before it goes the way of Napster.

For your viewing pleasure:

This first one is a prank pulled on Taco Bell where they take over the radio frequentcy of the drive through head set to say "funny" things to potential customers there by pissing off and/or frustraiting restarant management.



Next up is a segment of the "Daily Show" which pits Gov. Bush against Pres. Bush



If you already saw the bit on "The Flying Car" from my post Aug 16th, this is where a fan took the audio and cut anime cartoons to it. An example of copy righted material which has been copied and altered.



This might be the one I like the best out of all the videos I'm posting today. It's a music video where the "dance" routine is done on treadmills. Very Cool.



Gorillaz music video "Feel Good, Inc."



Very funny is all I've got to say.



The second comming oh Christ



I don't know what is worse, the people who had too much time on their hands to make these videos and post them or me for finding and watching them.

If you remember the 80's, then you remember the Beastie Boys. Someone has covered the song, "Girls" with Squirrels.

The Flying Car

First of all, if you haven't seen the "bit" with the "Flying Car" staring Brian and Jeff from Clerks (aka Dante and Randall) then you might want to watch it before continuing on.





As you may know, I've been kinda trapped with two babies in a house for a little over a month now, and as much as I love them, I'm starting to get a little bit kookie. Not that I'm going to go in the direction of Nicole Kidman in the movie "The Others", but there is a lot of pop culture rattling around in my brain headed in strange places due to sleep deprivation and diaper fumes.

One of the things that has come up is the release of Kevin Smith's new movie "Clerks II, The Passion Of The Clerks". Short story long, I missed opening weekend and I probably won't be able to see it until it comes out on video. Ironically enough, it's the first opening weekend of a Kevin Smith (KS) film I've missed since I missed the opening of his first flick, Clerks. Most people missed the opening of the first Clerks though because it only ran on, like, 50 screens nation wide. To make up for the missing of such a moment I've been checking out the Clerks II website and YouTube to catch the behind the scenes footage/movie trailers, checking out the Viewaskew.com chat board and began checking out Kevin's blog again for the first time in forever. If you've been reading all along, then you know that reading KS's blog is what led me to blog in the first place. Last night I listened to KS on xm Opie & Andrew show via my computer. It may have been a taping or something, I dunno if it was live or anything. One of the things that repeatedly gets brought up by fan after fan is how they too are directors or making films or whatever, and KS is like, their God (like Moobie?) or their hero (wind beneath my wings?) or whatever. Personally, I've been more of a fan of his writing and dialog. The monologue he writes, I think, are the kind that are so terrific you don't realize you're watching an hour and a half of two shots. Way fucking better than that tripe delivered in Breakfast Club. Much like the embarrassing moment in "Riding In Cars With Boys" (a movie that has nothing to do with KS that I know of)I've spent a lot of my life writing and trying to express myself through writing. I think Drew Barrymore would've had a much better shot at the football player, Sky Barrister, if she'd dropped one of KS's monologues on him instead of one of Beverly Donofrio's poems on him, that's for damn sure!

So it's 5:30am. I've gotten maybe 4 hours of sleep in the last 24 hours (perhaps a new record!). Both babies are crying now as opposed to just Andrew who had been crying for the last two hours before that and I'm starting to catch my fifth wind (perhaps from finishing off that 3rd two litter of Diet Coke after I ran out of that CostCo case of Starbucks Frappuccinos). For no particular reason, I hadn't really spoken out loud for at least a couple of hours. Andrew is due for a diaper change. I'm hauling him off to the changing table humming the "Peanuts" song I put up on myspace. Sydney isn't impressed, she's crying. Andrew's not impressed, he's still crying. As I begin changing his diaper, I realize I need to restock the clean diapers, so I turn around for a second turning back just in time to see Drew peeing all over himself, still crying. I grab a wipe, a new onesie and a clean diaper. Out of nowhere I say aloud, "Sorry, but after this, you still won't get the flying car." Silence. The look on Andrew's face, OMG, I started laughing so hard tears were rolling down my face. Andrew just stared at me. Even Sydney in the other room was suddenly quiet. I think they were both a little worried that I'd lost it completely.

It's just after 10:30 am. Neither one of them have stopped crying for longer than 10 or 15 minutes since Sydney woke up at 4:30am. I'm beginning to wonder what else I can try. Part of the problem is they stop crying when I hold them but I can only hold one of them at a time so it seems like someone is always unhappy. They should be tired enough for me to get some sleep soon after the 11:30 feeding is over. If one more person tells me to "just let them cry themselves to sleep" I'm going to punch them in the face. The "Cry to Sleep" method doesn't work for me if the twins keep taking turns!!!

Still, hope springs eternal and I wouldn't give this up for all the money in the world, or even the flying car!

Crack Heads & Breast Feeding

Not to be confused with crack whores who breast feed.
I just had two subjects and didn't want to write two blog entries for them.

Subject 2 Breast Feeding
Is it just me or is it wrong for a male friend/relative to try to offer suggestions or advice on how to breast feed your child? So far I've had 3 men offer such words including my dad. My DAD, for the love of Pete, is telling me how to breast feed!!! I feel that is somehow very wrong.

Subject 1 Crack Heads
I'm sure this is only the first installment of what shall prove to be a long list of things nobody ever thought to tell me.
A person's scull is made up of several bones which fuse together sometime in the first year. This I knew. What I did not know was that the different bones in the scull are a little like the planet's plate tectonics theory. I was surprised to see that both of my premie kids were born with ridges in their scull, like Klingon babies from Star Trek, where the bones still overlapped. I was freaked out when I was trying to change a onsie and found, instead of a "soft spot" it was more of a soft crack. My children have crack heads! It's not a tiny crack either. It's like, the size of my entire pinky finger running from just after the forehead to the center. I pointed this out to their pediatrician and he said it's a premie thing, not to worry. I'm still wondering which part I'm not supposed to worry about, accidentally pushing my finger through the crack into their brain or the fact that they have a big crack in their scull to begin with?
What next?
"Hey doc, their heads spin around and they spit fire."
"Don't worry, it's a premie thing, it's normal."

Twins Age Ticker

NICU, Etc

Now that the twins are nearing the One Month Old mark and we're starting to get an idea on when people want to eat, sleep, etc. around here, I feel I can catch up on some writing.
First of all, I realize that in my last blog entry, I was a little scattered and wrote with the assumption that everyone knew what had been going on so here's some general notes on what happened:

Thursday, July 6 Sydney's sac ruptures and starts leaking amnionic fluid. It's decided that I should either go ahead with induced labor or have a c-section. I chose labor.

Friday, July 7 After aprox 20 hours of labor (about 24 hours after the sac ruptured) it was decided to go ahead with a c-section (I cried when the doctor told me we needed to do a C, the nurses felt really bad for me). Sydney was born 5lbs 3oz at 3:17pm EST. Andrew was born 5lbs 5oz at 3:19pm EST. Both scored a 9 on their 5 min Apgar test. Later that night is the first time I'd ever held an infant and once again Sydney gets to claim another first.

Saturday, July 8 My mom and brother arrive from California. It's the first time either of them has held a new born and this time Andrew claims the honor of being the first.

Sunday, July 9 Andrew goes into NICU because his temperature dropped dramatically. He's put into one of those baby bubbles (isolette) to keep warm. Later that night it's discovered Drew's not eating enough so they give him a feeding tube down his nose.

Monday, July 10 Sydney and I are discharged from the hospital and I'm a wreck for having to leave Drew there alone in his bubble eating formula through a tube in his nose.

Friday, July 14 We get things ready to have Drew come home the next day only to find out he's been put on "Brady Watch" and has a minimum of five more days in NICU. Then I freak out when I discover a "Brady Episode" in NICU has nothing to do with the family sitcom, it means my son had stopped breathing (twice) which apparently is common with premature babies. So now I'm checking Sydney every 5 minutes whenever I'm not holding her just to make sure she hasn't gone all "Marsha" on me. Also, the feeding tube isn't working as well as they'd hoped so in addition to the feeding tube, they hook my little man up to an IV

Thursday, July 20 Andrew comes home with an apnea monitor

Wednesday, August 2 Grandma (my mom) goes home. The kids and I have our first day alone

The NICU is an amazing and awful place. A place where you truly get to view both Heaven and Hell. Every day I went but I hated going. All those tiny lives struggling to do simple things like breath. Beeping alarms. Babies, some of them only a pound, born at, like, 26 weeks (out of a full term of 40 weeks), crying inside their little isolette bubbles as their little velcro/felt "sun glasses" protect their eyes from the billi lights. I'd look at my 5lbs 5oz son, huge in comparison to his neighbors, and think "oh my poor little man Drew, what are you doing in this place? You don't belong here." Thus giving my son his first nickname: Mandrew.

I like singing so I sang to Andrew through the little vent crack in his isolette. One of the songs was Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls.

And I'd give up forever to touch you

Cause I know that you feel me somehow

You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be

And I don't want to go home right now

And all I can taste is this moment

And all I can breathe is your life

'Cause sooner or later it's over

I just don't want to miss you tonight

Chorus:

And I don't want the world to see me

'Cause I don't think that they'd understand

When everything's made to be broken

I just want you to know who I am

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming

Or the moment of truth in your lies

When everything seems like the movies

Yeah you bleed just to know your alive

repeat Chorus

I just want you to know who I am

I just want you to know who I am

I just want you to know who I am

I just want you to know who I am

I just want you to know who I am

Right now I have "Stay With You" by the Goo Goo Dolls on my MySpace page (www.myspace.com/nrgxtc). I was looking to put Iris on my page but when I heard this song it reminded me of the "you and me 'till the wheels fall off" kind of feeling I have right now. I barely avoided becoming homeless last month. Now, my family and a few friends have banded together to give me a couple months ('till about Sept 1st) to come up with a plan to pay for stuff like rent, diapers, formula, etc., without their help other wise my children and my future together may be in jeopardy. I'd be totally screwed if we were on Jeopardy.... sorry, I get a little goofball when I'm sleepy. A sure sign I've rambled on enough for now.