BITCHING ABOUT THE SIZE OF THINGS

Alright scourge, so I've been away for a while...the better part of a year in fact. I haven't had the urge to rant and rave about all that much simply because life has just become so bearable and liveable. One would never think it reading through all the drivel I've dravel'd around. The more things change the more they stay the same right? Not in my case, I think that things somehow seem to shrink and grow, yet never implode or explode; as if life has finally hit that joyous equilibrium that we all strive for...be it marriage, companionship, children, a pet snake or a great CD collection, it's all the same, and it's all about walking the line with which you're comfortable. Whether you like it or not the change no matter what it is, can be weathered; and with just about the same amount of water you can cause it shrink or grow.

On J: Well sometime ago she decided to make a man of me, so I proposed, and we got married July 24, 2004. Great day that was...brill' I'd say, and likely the greater cause of my edge being somewhat tempered. Clearly my love has grown, not just for her, but for all of humanity, because for some twisted reason having taken this first step, and now well into the second stride there's almost a hope and a yearing for everything to be well and good with everyone and everything each and every time I open my eyes...so clearly my compassion has grown. Grown so much have I in the areas of compassion, love, and wanting to take on the new life symbolism that comes with marriage, J and I now have a cute bundle of joy to be referred to as The Moo, hereafter.

On The Moo: She requires a lot of food and water; and even more sleep. She grows each day discovering that there is something beyond the end of her nose, and her innocence I watch slip away each time she sees another milimetre past the end of that tip. Her awareness grows, and I am so suddenly hit with the edges of our environment. Each car that passes, each sound that occurs during the day, each movment that goes by us...these small things would invariably have gone unnoticed, and uncared for in my past life...and now they are the largest, biggest events to be scrutinized with the largest of magnifying glasses for the smallest of errors. There can no longer be flaws in my judgement. An innocent life is in my hands to guide. While I know and understand deep down in my soul that gradually The Moo's innocence will be eroded away by the daily grind of life; I do want the erosion to occur in small controlled and manageable amounts.

The defeats in my life are that much greater these days simply because they sting much more, and as a result my tolerence for foolishness and the games of an uncared for and untended garden have diminished. No general empathy for the state of people in the things/situations they've created. An unparalleled shrinkage in the desire to see what's around the next corner... I am in a better place, living in a better time, with better people by my side than I ever have had before in my life. My exposure to greater love and greater generosity is sometimes overwhelming. Each day I try to not let it get to my head, by accepting that this is just another day. That way everything is just that much more manageable; and everything and it's affects can be kept just that much smaller (because it's influence on my daily life is quite large).

Without my noticing, my life seems to have turned into the just add water kind-a-thing and its magically grown like sea monkeys I suppose, only sea monkeys are nothing but pure unadulterated shite that gets sold to you in the back of comic books, and really deranged fetish mags...

Oh come on now--don't feign ignorance--you know the ads I'm talking about, they're the ones with really small type blotched together because some dingus can't get himself a computer and uses only a typewritier...no? They're the ones next to the penis enlarger...now you get it.

Right, so things are really quite different now and as size goes everything's changed: My space in the bedroom closet's gotten smaller because my wife has taken it over with her overwhelming wave of clothes. Now this isn't new this has been an ongoing thing since we first moved in together, and it's not like she's been spending like crazy on clothes. She's just got so many of them outright.

So my clothes end up in the office, which is looking more like a stockroom these days. The number of functional computer systems in the office has shrunk to 1, and the number of computers in the house has grown by a factor of 10...something's wrong with this picture. I have a digital camera now and I take more pictures grasping at tiny moments to preserve those small fragments of time for a later year when my memory has diminished.

I use up more space on the hard drive and as a result I need more space for computer games, applications, and software that I just never owned before. Memory prices are down, so I must get more. My trousers are smaller, but my waistline is bigger. I get more clothes to replace the ones that don't fit, and my closet space gets smaller.

My general understanding is that the old addage "The more things change, the more they stay the same", is really no longer pertinent. My travels however, have led me to this one truth:

The more things shrink, the more they grow; and vice versa.

But through all this shrinkage and growth, there is thankuflly one thing that remains and hopefully will continue to remain, a rigid constant in matters of size; to be a shining beacon of light for all to follow; and a tasty delight for many to experience: my penis.

(ok, so not everyone will go down the penis path, but it's a nice ending to the piece).

[PLEASURE]

DROUIN PUNCH

Ingredients:

25 oz Rye
8 oz pineapple juice (unsweetened)
8 oz grapefruit juice
4 oz lemon juice
56 oz 7 up
8 slices of orange
2 slices of lemon
4 slices of pineapple
assorted cherries

x 3

Directions:

Soak all the fruit in the Rye, Pinapple juice, lemon juice, and Grapefruit juice. Use a big bowl because it really is a lot of liquid. This stuff should generally be soaked the day of your party, and for about 6 hours or so. The longer the better since the fruit picks up all of the alcohol, and it's fun to eat 'em near the end of your party. Chill.At the party, pour the contents of the mix into a punch bowl and add about 1 and 3/4 of a 2 litre bottle of sprite or seven up (it tends to work better with seven up), and voila! You're ready to get shit faced.Normally we spike the punch with an additional 5 oz of Rye.There are versions of this that can be made with Vodka or Rum too, however NEVER MIX the alcohols because it just tastes like crap. We've found that Rye is not only the tastiest, it's also the cheapest.And thus you end up with an inexpensive punch that will knock the socks off of your guests.

Enjoy!

And drink responsibly, right?

Yeah right!

[pleasure]

MY VACATION -- AUGUST 2003

Ok. Ok. So I'm just a *BIT* delinquent when it comes to keeping up with this thing...dunno maybe working harder and getting engaged have something to do with it, or maybe it's the fact that from time to time I become a lazy son-of-a-bitch, or from other time to other time I just plain don't care--there's too much other crap falling from the sky that I need to dodge...

Right, so this is the abridged version of my vaction that I'm posting. I'd love to say that it was horrible, but I really did enjoy it. We had a lot of fun amidst the puking. Lets face it, when you're chowing down on fresh lobster and crab on a daily basis, really what can go wrong, right?
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Due to overwhelming response I will post an unabridged version of this story with pictures sometime when I get a break between working on my upcoming wedding and work. Thanks for your e-mails (lovers) and flames (bastards)...

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My Trip (Abridged)

By Sandeep Panesar


Friday = drive to Quebec City, it’s FREEZING! sleep in damp hard bed.

Saturday = arrival in New Brunswick, rain, party at relative’s for 45th wedding anniversary, and sleep in wet bed with 1 broken spring.

Sunday = rain, fester about the chalet (chalet is new brunswickan for trailer home), visit relatives, and sleep in wet tent.

Monday = rain, lobsters (yum yum), sleep in wet bed with 2 broken springs.

Tuesday = rain, sunshine, clam digging in the—unbeknownst to me—sewage stricken lake, eat said clams, trip to magnetic hill, vomiting, trip to moncton, vomiting, trip to chapters, vomiting, vomiting, vomiting, vomiting, vomiting, ad nausea (literally), sleep in wet bed with 5 broken springs.

Wednesday = sunshine, Trip to PEI, miscarriage, babysat sister-out-law’s kid outside of hospital for 12 hours, drive home, sleep in wet bed with 10 broken springs with sad heavy heart.

Thursday = sunshine, Kelley beach, tanning, home, dinner with relatives (lobster yay!), slept in wet bed with 20 broken springs.

Friday = Early rise (4:30AM) lobster fishing in the atlantic with REAL fishermen (ala perfect storm), return to shore, dinner with friends, drinking at their place, square dancing for Acadian festival, return to their place for hot tub party, drinking more, return to hot tub, slip, hit head on the side of hot tub 3:30AM, emergency room trip 45 min away, no doctor on duty! Return home at 5AM wait sleep on couch with head raised so I don’t die until 7AM…

Saturday = 7AM go to the ER 45 min away, stitches, return to chalet around (see above) 11AM, sleep until 3PM in wet bed with ALL broken springs, get up, pack, drive like a motherfucker and turn a 12 hr drive into a 9.5 hr drive. Have breakfast at picasso’s on st.jacques (1st meal of the day). Go home. Sleep in MY DRY and comfortable bed.

Sunday = sleep off the vacation. Good to be home.

Very very good indeed.

[PAIN]

TURN OVER HONEY, YOUR WOUND IS SMELLING

Over the past few years I've had what--until recently--I thought was a cyst burrowing its way toward my brain just above my right eye. It was mostly in the right eye lid , as opposed to in my eye. This little bastard--we nicknamed the manatee--really got me good. Painfully so, it would taunt me on a daily basis getting bigger and bigger and bigger...why was it there? I've got no clue, how did it get there? I found out the other day.

I honestly feel that my body set itself to work as some deranged oyster would, to produce this THING, only later to have it removed from my system. And really was it worth all that much? Was it a pearl of wisdom, or something of value? No, it was some frayed and ratty piece of crap that was growing out of the roots of my eyebrow hair. Ewww is right.

What the hell is that?

I certainly don't know.

The human body tends to do odd things when pushed, or more often than not, when it feels like it. We're all relatively fragile creatures with a mystical nature to our complex make up. Why things actually happen in our body, we only vaguely understand...sure modern medicine may seem up to snuff, but do we really know what the cells are doing and saying to each other? What form or arcane esperanto do they speak? Is it the blood music that I hear? Or is it just my heart beating in my ear, assuring me that I'm still alive inspite of my hopes, and aspirations?

I don't know. I'm confused, annoyed, pissed off, and now I'm marred by the surgeon's scalpel. His tool of excision. The sharp blade and skilled hand that removed this thing from my head is clearly also that which is used to enlarge women's breasts. Thank god I don't have a nipple sticking out of my eyelid. That wouldn't do me any good at all.

As people found out about the surgery I became increasingly more light with my tale. Oh yes, I'm having my eye replaced with a bionic one so that I might see through women's clothing. Wouldn't that be ripe if it were true. Something I'm sure the hoards lonely php geeks who're still crying over the fact that COMDEX has been shut down, would want to get in on. Alas, poor yorick. Woe is you, for the truth be not had in this idea. Not yet anyway.

The surgery was fun and entertaining. I had been frozen, or so I'd thought. The surgeon numbed half my face and part of my neck by injecting me nearly half a dozen times directly into my orbit. One would assume the shear volume of novocaine running through me would be enough to cool even the most heated debate, but then you would be wrong, and I'd probably call you an asshole like I called him every time I felt him cutting through the fatty tissue beneath my eyebrow.

*Oh yes*, I intend to be graphic. This is not for the feint of heart, feeble of mind, nor dull of wit.

If you ever have the misfortune of not being able to perform the surgery yourself, then you'd expect the surgeon be he plastic, rubber, or otherwise, to use pre and operative words such as: routine, standard, no problem, likely, and positive. The last thing you want the surgeon to do in the middle of the operation is to say things like: Hmmm(n)..., what?, Pass me a...no the whatchamacallit, what's that?, and that can't be good. It's a great confidence builder.

Needless to say my "routine" 20 minute surgical procedure was extended to a 1 hour butchery session. Butch butch butch. With a tiny sharp knife, no less. Each slice, and each dice, I felt. When I raised my leg he asked "Do you feel that?" I responded with "Asshole," and he shot me up full of novocaine again. It felt very good, and once again he was free to hack his way through my face. Leaving me in lala land for a while.

Finally it was out. He plopped it into a dish and told me that he'd never seen anything quite like that in his life. That made me feel good--always an encouraging remark. Always indeed.

But thankfully I'm now home in the comfort of my office / bed / life, away from the hospital. Quite pleased that I didn't have to die there--and trust me you don't want to die in th hospital, but that's clearly a tale for another time--and quite happy I got to go home.

We'll see what the mutant piece of me was...what deranged possibility it could have been, and why it felt the need to befriend my eye. We'll see...

[PAIN]