Desperate?

As you know if you've been reading my blog, I’ve been a full time stay-at-home dad for the past year and a half. I’m often surprised to see how people react when they hear that I stay home with my son while my wife works. Men wonder if I’ve given up my masculinity, if simply doing the right thing for my family has made me less manly.

As shocked as I am by that reaction, I’m even more shocked to realize that they’re right. It's not just the white wine, or the Dido songs in the background, or even getting turned on by laundry equipment. It’s the change in TV-watching habits that’s done it.

I had convinced myself that I was just watching my wife’s favourite girly shows to allow myself a chance to sit down at the end of a long day. I wasn’t really watching the decorating shows, or oestrogen-heavy dramas. I was just sitting there, turning off my brain for a few minutes. Surely I wasn’t absorbing anything. Was I?

Apparently, I was!

I realized the chick shows were having more of an impact than I formerly believed when a favourite U2 song came on the radio and it wasn’t until it was over that I realized I had been singing the wrong lyrics. My version went “It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright. She moves in Wisteria Lane.”

I’ve been brainwashed!

Dogs Away

Even though we are having a nice warm spell here in Toronto, there is no denying that winter is just around the corner. Before long, people will be bundling up, staying inside, turning on the furnace, and putting away the dogs for the season.



We got our dog, Ivan the Siberian, at the Toronto Humane Society, and we didn't even think to ask if they had any seasonal models. He is one of the old-school dogs that needs to be walked all year long. It seems that many of my neighbours have the new-fangled seasonal dogs. I'm very curious about these dogs, and I would be interested in getting one the next time we are dog shopping.

Maybe you haven't heard about them, and I can relate. I haven't actually heard anyone talking about the seasonal dogs. I haven't seen them advertised, or read about them, or even seen them for sale at the local PetSmart. But I know they exist, because there are loads of them here in Toronto.

It's the only explanation I can come up with to explain where all the dogs go. All summer long, the park is full of people walking their dogs. Then, as soon as the temerature drops and the snow falls, it's just me and Ivan. Obviously, if all of the mutts in the park were standard dogs, they would still need to be walked in the cooler weather. But not these dogs. Obviously, the owners are able to store the dogs in the closet, or in the garage for the winter, in some form of stasis. Surely they aren't refusing to walk the dogs just because the weather isn't so balmy? Because that would be cruel.

So, if you know where I can get a summer-only dog, let me know.

Dear Skeletor

Dear Skeletor,

I am writing to you to let you know that I am very impressed with the way in which you have re-created yourself. I am sure it was difficult to avoid being typecast as the bad guy after the He-Man days.



On top of the pain you must have felt, knowing that your acting career was pretty much dead, unless a He-Man reunion special might happen at some point, you also had to deal with the torture of hiding your secret from the world. Nobody would understand that you were a woman trapped in a man's body (with a skeleton head).

That is why I am so proud of you for having gone ahead with the surgery. It was so very brave of you, and you must be so pleased with the results. The new you is very convincing!

But, usually after a sex-change operation, you hear of a person changing their name to a similar name. Like Claire becoming Clarence. Or John becoming Janice. I would have expected the natural change from Skeletor to be Skeletette. So, my question to you is, why did you decide to change your name to Janice?



By the way, congratulations on your new modeling agency.

Llove,

Lloyd

Faith Hill Can Feel Me Breathe...

...from all the way in Nashville or wherever she lives.

Because I have asthma, and when I have a heavy-breathing moment, it's noticeable for miles and miles. At least it seems to me like it must be.

I never used to have asthma, but I do now. I had bronchitis earlier this year, for like seven weeks. I was coughing up bits of stuff that I probably needed. This was right around the time that I was to emcee the reception thingy after my sister-in-law's wedding, so I was worried I wouldn't get through it. But I consumed a week's worth of cough syrup that afternoon, so I was fine (or at least I was until I got lost in Charlottetown at three in the morning). That was also the same strategy I used to get through a twenty minute set at Yuk Yuk's in Moncton earlier that week.

So, after seven weeks of suffering, complaining and wondering "what was that that just flew across the room when I coughed?", you'd think I'd get over it and everything would go back to normal, eh? Of course not. I still couldn't breathe right, so my doctor had a bunch of tests done where I breathed into things, and sucked on things (!!!) and he tells me that I have asthma.

So now I have two puffer thingies. One that I suck on twice a day every day, and one that I use for relief when I need it.

The day that I went to pick up the second one, the pharmacist warned me that it might give me a bit of a buzz. Apparently it does in some people, but not in everybody. Just a little light-headedness and the like. No big deal, but it sounded good to me.

So I get home, take a pull off of it, and... no light head. Not even a bit of dizzyness. No buzz of any kind.

I can't even do asthma right.

My Summer Vacation, Part II

Like I said in my last bloggy whatsit, when I saw the picture of me on the beach at my sister-in-law's wedding, I realised that my thinning hair was getting out of control. I looked like a goof. So, in mid-July, I shaved it off.

Now, rather than looking like a balding 30-something guy, I look like a beluga whale.



So, I spent the rest of the summer, in Toronto, Sussex and Cavendish, getting my melon burned. It's better now.

Well, I guess that was my summer. Fun, huh?