The Sedaris effect.

Have any of you fellow bloggers experienced the Sedaris Effect yet?
I recently had a brush with it and it's actually kind of cool.
David Sedaris has written about how his family is hesitant to tell him things for fear that it will end up in one of his stories.
A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, recently went to....um...an "all male revue" ? in Las Vegas.
She sent me a text informing me that it would be all nude.
I recommended that she bring hand sanitizer.
Later that night she called me and told me about the experience...I was accused of jinxing the night with my hand sanitizer comment, by the way. The next day I asked her to tell me the story again and she said, " What, so you can blog about it? I don't know..."
And that is as much of that story I am at liberty to tell at this point.
You may never know the rest of the story because of the Sedaris Effect.
The problem is actually a combination of two things
1) the aforementioned Sedaris Effect
2) I have a policy that, if all possible, I will not spill your beans.

Before I get into the exact meaning of the Sedaris Effect, I would like to tell you about "spilling someones beans".
This is a concept, a phrase, a figure of speech that I invented. (If I have written about this before and you are a regular reader and you already know what this means, skip the next few sentences.)
When my sister was pregnant for the first time she told my mom. My mom turned straight the fuck around and told a very good friend of the family. My sister didn't get the chance to tell one of her best friends ...it's actually beyond that, she's like a sister to my sister.
When my sister found out that my mom told her shit straight away I was like "oh no! She spilled your beans!"

I realize that it's based off of an existing phrase. The difference is it's more proactive. It's dealing specifically with the fact that someone has told not just A secret, but , your secret, your story to tell not theirs.
I try on this blog to not spill other peoples beans. I realize I tell other peoples stories once in a while but I usually write it with pseudonyms first and email it to the person it is about. If I use a persons real name, usually it is with their permission.
Keen observers will note that I use my sons real name if it is a current story and his nicknames for older stuff. Part of that is because I now have his permission to use his real name whenever I see fit. He doesn't mind and he knows I will do my best to not embarrass him.
Part of it is because when he was 3 he was Hopper. He was only Calvin when he was in trouble. (and it helps delineate time frames) Part of it was that he wasn't old enough yet to really have an adult kind of discussion about the blog. I decided this summer that he is more than old enough to make that decision.
That boy is, as people have noted frequently, an old soul.

So.
The Sedaris Effect.
It comes from a fear of having told a story to a storyteller, (a blogger ?) and then having them spill your beans.
I realize now that I have actually suffered from it on more than one occasion, but didn't know it.
Whenever someone hesitates to tell you something or obfuscates or you learn about something well after the fact....
It may very well be The Sedaris Effect.

I have a quick question

Why is it that the people with the worst breath have the most to say?

eybrow escapades

You know how there are some women who draw on their eyebrows and they look like they are constantly surprised or maybe bemused? (Cindy says you can't trust those women because if they would lie about their eyebrows they will lie about anything.)
I had a customer today who had that look in spades. I have never seen a woman rock that look so hard.
Part of the problem was a physical attribute of hers: she had those buggedy eyes with the white showing all the way around the iris.
Then she applied her lipstick in such a way as to give herself a pouty look(she's one of those women of a certain age that color outside the lines when it comes to the lips)
...but when it was combined with the other aspects it actually looked like her lips were pursed in constant surprise.
The combined effect was that her expression at all times was one that said:
HOLY FUCKING SHIT! SWEET MOTHER OF BABY JESUS! I CANNOT BELIEVE WHAT I AM SEEING!
I must have jumped in fright a half dozen times because I glanced in her direction and thought for a fraction of a second that Bigfoot with his dick in his hand or maybe a great white shark holding an AK47 was looming up behind me. Every time I would tell her something of interest her eyebrows would heave even further up her face causing me to jump again.

I know each of us looks in the mirror in the morning and has a greater or lesser degree of acceptance or denial about how we look but how can you not be aware of the fact that your face looks like those guys in Raiders of the Lost Ark when the ark of the covenant is opened and their faces are all horrified and blasted.
Really?
Honestly?

Hey shit! look a postscript!

PS: just saw a Vonage commercial and they kinda sorta do a Mac Vs. Pc style commercial? the Vonage chick has one eyebrow perpetually thrown up in the air like she just don't care..awesome. A drawn on skeptical eyebrow.

thoughts on becoming a man

Part of being a man is knowing yourself and your limits. Knowing what you are capable of and when to say 'when' is an important part of being a man.
This summer Calvin made an important first step on that long journey.
My friend Cindy was trying to buy a new car and I volunteered to go with her and help negotiate.
But, before I talk about Calvins' realization....
An aside.
Cindy's daughter Devany? This kid is a force of nature.
Charming, funny, smart...and cute? Holy cow. I haven't seen a kid this cute since Calvin.
(For the reals, in case you weren't lucky enough to see it yourself, Calvin was one of the cutest kids in the history of cute kids. Big blue eyes, chubby cheeks, perpetual smile...everybody loved that kid)
Oh and?
She has the devil in her.
I can say this because it's the same brand of devil I had in me as a child.
We were at dinner and the manager came over to see how things were and she said to him "You're a bad man!"
apropos of? ...
Nothing. First time she lays eyes on the guy "you're a bad man"
What I wanted to say is "sorry... but...she has the ability to see into mens souls"
What I actually said was someting along the lines of " hey, you not a bad man, I'm sure you're fine...she's a toddler?...I like my fajitas!"
But the best line of the day from this little firecracker?
She has a dog. A stuffed animal named Blackie that looks like a Black Lab. He is her best friend, her babie, her nemisis. ( she alternated between coddling, chastising and dragging him around all day)
So...a salesman walks up to us and starts trying to build some rapport...
He gets my name, shakes my hand, does the same with Cindy, says 'what's up little man?!' to Cal and then gets to Devany...
"Hey there, what's your dogs name?"
She looks him up and down like he walked up in 'da club and asked her to dance or some shit...
and then says "Blackie"
Oh...did I mention the salesman is african american?
Yeah.
So he does a little stutter step and I say something like "She named the dog!" and we all pretend it never happened.
So, on to Calvin's quest for manhood.
It was a long day with not many quality opportunities for nurishment.
He had some hot Cheetos before we left the house.
Then we fucked around at the dealerships. He ate some regular Cheetos at Carmax.
Then we went to ...On The Border? I don't know at this point.
Cal chose a taco that in all honesty was made for the boy.
Buffalo Chicken Taco.
Sure it has all kinds of jalapeno ranch sauce and lettuce and tomatos and shit to take away some of the sting but Calvin ain't havin' that. He wants just the buffalo chicken, cheese and jalapenos.
So he eats his stuff, Devany tells the manager he's a bad man, we go home and Devany and I watch ancient episodes of Pink Panther cartoons on Hulu and Calvin eats the rest of the hot Cheetos........
and then vomits.
I rub his back and tell him he's a super kid...
and he technicolor vomits.
And then he vomits some more and talks about "the burn"

He is now a man who knows his culinary limits.
Step one.
Hot Cheetos, Cheetos, Jalapeno, buffalo wing taco.
Fine.
Add more hot Cheetos?
Not so much...
So now he knows...

So...today I was at the video store and 2 different interesting things happened.
First, I was walking the eisles and I overheard a guy ask the clerk:

Guy: Have you seen the "Dark Knight" yet?
Clerk: yeah ...6 times.
G: So...did you like it?

Wait! WTF dude?
No, he saw it once and it sucked and then he was all like, "boy that was a stinker, but maybe I missed something...I'm gonna see it again"
Then he just kept seeing it and seeing it hoping it would get better...
So, I stopped and I said to the guy, "seriously, dude, why would he see it more than once if it sucked?"
And the clerk and the guys girlfriend cracked up and the girlfriend kind of smacked the guy and said "duh, of course he liked it"

Then something else happened in the store...
I don't know how to even warn you about this. It just reared up and smacked me in the face so I may as well tell you it the way it happened...

I was squated down looking at some videos and I happened to glance over and see a woman standing near me bent over a counter.
I noticed 2 things about her right off the bat:
1) she was wearing low rider jeans that exposed the top of her asscrack.
2) she was storing a set of keys in the aforementioned asscrack.

At what horrible fork in the road does the crack of your ass become a viable option to store your keys? Do you say to yourself "I know I look good in these tight assed jeans...but where can I put my keys? I know! There's nothing in my ass right now...usually there are all manner of things in my ass, but right now my ass is open for buisness!"
I dread the day she goes to put her keys there and finds a lost cell phone...

I'm not going to that video store anymore.

I probabaly should have just put this blog on hiatus. I have a bunch of half written blogs that I can't find the time to finish while Cal is here
So until ...well around the 20th...this blog is on hold...
which brings me back to the whole " I should have put this on hiatus" thing...I know it's coming a bit late.
But I will resume writing by the middle of next week.
Oh and The Foodie will get some love too.

As far as I can tell Calvin spends all day doing absolutely fuck-all in the way of actual physical activity...and then the minute I sit down to write he picks up a tennis ball and bounces it against the refrigerator...which happens to be very near the table I am sitting at.
I don't say anything about it because ...well I guess it's Karma.
I used to spend hours bouncing a ball against a dormer on our house and I knew that it drove my parents nuts...but I didn't care.
So I feel as if I can't say, "quit bouncing that fucking ball!" without being a bit of a hypocrite.
So that's why this post sucks...and I have a half dozen 3/4 written posts that I have yet to finish and for the first time in months, the other day I had not a single visitor to this sight...not even me.
Sigh.