No News Is Good News

First, let me say thanks to everyone who read my story "The Exterminator" (and in case you didn't, just read the damn thing: http://tinyurl.com/4x7l4wd).  It came out on the Thunderdome website on Friday, but I really want to get in their print edition, so I asked everyone to read and comment on it, ad nauseum, which is a little annoying, I know.  But I appreciate it.

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And in a nice segue... I spent all weekend dealing with a flea problem.  That might be overstating it, since no one but me seems to be getting bit but me.  I called my brother, Jason, who lives in New Hamsphire, to bitch about it, and he said that he, too, is allergic to their bites, so it probably runs in the family.  Which sucks.  Our "backyard" is basically a rocky brush mountain, and with three animals I can look forward to scratching my ankles raw every summer (I prefer pain to the itch).

In the end I suppose it was a good thing because it kept me from the computer and endless Casey Anthony headlines, Jaycee Dugard's interview, and various To Catch a Predator scandals.  It's why I isolate myself from the news more and more the older I get, or rather why I turn to sites like Yahoo, where I can click on a (dumbed-down) story or not.  And more and more, I chose not.

In re: to Anthony, I don't want to turn this into a rant about the criminal justice system or life.  I don't know all the "facts."  I just know what everyone else does, the bits and pieces of which, when mixed with a little common sense, certainly scream out the very definition of "miscarriage of justice."  And even writing this now makes me mad, so I'll stop.

So what can you do?  Live in a Unibomber shack in Montana and eat tree bark?  I always tell the story of the 2004 ACLS in which the Red Sox stormed back from an 0-3 hole against my Yankees to become the first team to ever do so and capture their first title in 86 years.  I hate the Red Sox so fucking much that I shut myself off from all news' sources.  No TV.  No newspapers.  No Internet.  For fear I might encounter a mention, however fleeting, to that series, which I sought to erase permanently from my consciousness.  So successful was this attempt that when, four months later, my friend Reed referenced the tsunami that devastated Thailand, I was, like, "What tsunami?"  And he was, all, "Y'know, the tsunami that leveled Thailand in December, that's been all over the news for months?"  And I said, "Nope.  Haven't heard about it."  And I hadn't.  And that's what I feel like doing now.

Is it because I'm a father?  Sure.  There are people who are going to say that it's even more important that I'm aware of the "dangers out there."  Oh, I'm aware all right.  You can't erase a lifetime of memory by not clicking on a hyperlink.  You become a parent, and this shit kicks into overdrive.  There's this primal need to protect your child (well, for most of us).  Everyone does it differently, and I don't know how anyone else prioritizes.  But for me it's Holden, and then everything else (and I know Justine is the same way).  I feel as though I have to attend to certain...things...that are particular to my well being (mental, physical, spiritual) before I can be the best for someone else, and these "things" require a lot of work. But our boat is sinking, and Holden's getting the only life vest; and I can't fathom how any parent could think otherwise (let alone actually do harm to his kid).  It seems so counterintuitive.  I mean, the kid is you, so you're like actually harming yourself.  I don't get it.

I don't even know what I'm trying to say.  I guess may God have mercy on the souls of the wicked.  And help anyone who tries to do harm to me or mine.  Yeah, something like that.

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Well, that's a depressing note to end on.  So let's roll some video of guys getting hit in the balls with stuff.

Guys hit in the nuts.  Man, that's funny.