Laura and I will stop Kyle in his tracks and begin the process of (a) cleaning up whatever vomit has already been delivered and (b) attempting to catch any subsequent outbursts somewhere between his lips and the nearest horizontal surface (or his shirt). This latter act is typically achieved through the application of tissues, as they are usually the closest thing to a towel or washcloth within reach. Unfortunately, attempting to catch vomit—even from a four-year-old whose stomach is the size of (as near I can guess) a softball—with a tissue is a bit like trying to catch spaghetti with a broadsword, only slimier.

Yesterday, after Kyle’s lunch made an encore appearance on the living room carpet, Laura decided it was time to introduce “the pail”.  She retrieved an empty four-quart ice cream container from the garage, I filled the bottom with about a half-inch of water, and we instructed Kyle that—should he feel the need to vomit again—he should aim for the bucket. Kyle immediately decided that it an old ice cream pail with a bit of water in the bottom was pretty cool, which led to an “accidental” spill about 30 minutes later. “It was a accident,” he declared1 as Laura was cleaning up the spilled water.

Thankfully, there were no further spills, but later in the day there was more vomit, not all of which made it into the pail. Laura stood there, pail in hand, coaching Kyle on the proper angle of approach necessary to ensure optimum target efficiency, while I grabbed a pile of washclothes from the kitchen and made some attempt to clean up the mess, starting with Kyle’s face.2

None of this seems to phase Kyle in the slightest. “I puked,” he says, then stands by with what little patience a four year old can muster and waits for us to clean up the mess.3 If we weren’t there to hold him back, he’d just play around the puddle on the carpet for a bit, pausing only to make a new, smaller puddle when the aftershock hit. This isn’t how adults do it: we slump with our heads over the toilet (or the pail), often huddling there long after the last heave has been hove, just in case. Never does the thought of getting up and running around wander anywhere in thinking distance; we just want to be still. When we barf, we might as well clear our calendar for the rest of the day. Wimps.

1. He pronounces the word “ASS-i-dent” and uses it like a “Get Out of Jail Free” card or his own little form of diplomatic immunity. I imagine that I’m Murtaugh on the deck of the Alba Varden, Kyle has just shot Riggs, and he looks up at me and sneers, “It was a assident.” What’s a father to do?
2. If there’s anything worse than a puking child, it’s a puking child with a runny nose. And diarrhea, but that didn’t play a factor in this particular incident.
3. Or rather, that’s how it worked yesterday. I’m told that sometime this morning he announced his intention to be sick, trotted over to the pail, and proceeded to cantar oaxaca directly into it. They grow up so quickly.

Later this week, we’ll have a review of the Star Trek Online beta from one of our intrepid field reporters and possibly a review of the zombie/Star Wars hybrid novel Star Wars: Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber (provided I actually finish the book on time). I have no idea what Miller has cooked up for tomorrow morning, but I’m sure it will be curmudgeonly.

Meanwhile, my wife has launched her own blog, The Unreal Me, which is an exercise in creative writing. She’s already posted one poem, a couple of character sketches and a short story.2 A running theme thus far seems to be women who are seeking a break from demanding children, dirty laundry, and husbands who leave the empty milk jug in the sink instead of rinsing it out and putting it in the blasted recycling bin where it belongs. Naturally, I have no idea where she gets her inspiration, but as far as writing goes, Laura is definitely winning this year.3

Even Kyle has done more writing than I have this year. I’m making coffee and he comes into the kitchen and rearranges the magnetic letters on the fridge. “Daddy, what does this spell?” he asks. “Skuh-fred-jah-wicks,” I say; how else would you pronounce “SKUFRDJAWYX”? Maybe he’ll get another set of letters for his birthday so his refrigerator words aren’t limited to what he can assemble from a single run through the alphabet.

The only critters residing at the International House of Johnson who aren’t generating more words than me so far this year are Rosie and Gil, but I think both of them made a New Year’s resolution to be at least as lazy—if not lazier—than me. They’re making a fair go at it, but I’m definitely giving them a run for their money.

I have a slight advantage over the cats in that I have an almost-four-year-old boy at my disposal who is ever eager to help his daddy with the most menial of chores. Last night, during a brief intermission from Wallace & Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit, I looked at my empty glass and asked Kyle if he would get me the milk jug from the bottom shelf of the fridge. He dutifully ran to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door—from my vantage point on the couch I could see the word “BLEMNTORD” spelled in primary colors on the front.

Does he know “bottom”? I wondered. Up and down and under, yes, but what about bottom?

“Give me a hint,” I heard him say.

“Bottom shelf,” I said. “The milk jug; it’s almost empty.”

There was a pause, then an excited “Oh!” and then he was dashing across the living room with the jug in his hand. He watched as I uncapped it, then poured almost a full glass.

“What are you gonna do with that?” he asked.

“I’m gonna drink it,” I said, handing him the empty jug. “Put that in the sink for me, okay?”

1. Also on the list: Health Nut, Dance Maniac, America’s Sweetheart.
2. To be fair, the short story was written back in July of 2009, when Chris Miller and I decided to write a new essay or piece of short fiction based on a particular theme every two weeks. Our first theme was “coffee”, and Laura decided to join in the fun. Chris’ essay, “The Significance of the Coffee” can be found on his blog, Laura’s short story, “Coffee Break” (intended for mature audiences) has just been posted, and mine…well, mine has a beginning and an end and absolutely nothing in the middle.
3. It’s not a race.

Before I go, I want to thank everyone who participated in How Not to Grow a Beard Month this year. More importantly, thank you for spreading the word far and wide about Beards4Boobs, and for bringing in donations to fund breast cancer research. Last week, I was wondering whether we’d hit $2,000; yesterday morning I thought we might not hit our goal of $2,500; I went to bed last night happy that we’d managed to exceed the goal by nearly $200; this morning, I woke up to a final total of $3,663.23! My flabber is officially gasted. So a huge “Thank You” to everyone who participated, putting their scruffy cheeks and chin on display all through the month of November, and another huge “Thank You” to everyone who sponsored a beard. You are all awesome, generous people who clearly have much love for boobs in your hearts.

That’s it from me until January. I hope your holidays are happy.

Queen is one of those guilty pleasures: a band whose music is great, but I’m embarrassed to admit that I like.

— Anonymous, during a recent conversation we had about music.

I don’t have any trouble admitting that I like Queen, personally, but I do hesitate sometimes before revealing that enjoy some other musicians and musical groups, like Ace of Base and (gasp!) Yanni. I also like enough of the music from The Backyardigans, a Nick Jr. show that my young apprentice occasionally watches, that I’ve purchased several songs from their repertoire (ostensibly for my son’s enjoyment, though I listen to them when he’s not around).

Some people consider ABBA a guilty pleasure, but so much of my childhood occurred while “Dancing Queen” and “Waterloo” were spinning on my dad’s record player that I can’t feel even the slightest bit of embarrassment about enjoying them.1

What makes a guilty pleasure? Why should I (or anyone else, for that matter) feel guilty for enjoying the music of a 70s Scandinavian pop group (or a 90s copycat of a 70s Scandinavian pop group) or a smug, over-coiffed, Greek synthesizer slinger?2

Context plays a big part; the music I’ll readily cop to enjoying depends a lot on who I’m talking to and what sort of music we’re discussing.3 Am I likely to mention that I own half a dozen Enya albums when the musical topic is metal groups? Not terribly.4 That’s not to say I’ll deny owning those Enya albums, mind you—there’s just less of a likelihood they’ll be mentioned in that context than if the genre of the moment is overdubbed, ethereal Irish New Age.5

There’s also the context of the artist or group itself. ABBA is a product of the early 1970s, and everything about ABBA—from their glam-pop sound to their stage costumes and album covers—is a testament to the time period. There are aspects of every decade in the past half-century that are mocked, from the exaggerated Nuclear Family of the 1950s to Free Love in the 1960s and Big Hair in the 1980s,6 but I don’t think any decade is shunned with such socio-fashionistic fervor as the 1970s.7

Then there are individual songs from artists or groups who might not otherwise be considered guilty pleasures. Neil Diamond’s “America” with its bombastic, unabashed patriotism; the saccharine sweetness of “Lovely, Love My Family” by The Roots (produced for another Nick Jr. show, Yo Gabba Gabba!); the sappy sentimentality of Marc Cohn’s “Silver Thunderbird”—all songs that tug at my emotions to such a degree that I often struggle to keep the tears down when I listen to them.8

What else about a genre, group, artist or song might make it a guilty pleasure? What are your personal musical guilty pleasures and why are they guilty?

1. In my memory, my father owned exactly three distinct categories of LPs: ABBA, Bill Cosby and Country & Western.
2. I don’t know that Yanni is actually smug, but he certainly comes across that way. If you’ve ever seen his Live at the Acropolis performance, you may know what I mean.
3. Peer pressure: no expiration date.
4. I may not be likely to mention that I own three Metallica albums, either, as Metallica fans seem to be divided into pre-Load fans and…me.
5. Which, admittedly, is a fairly specific genre.
6. What are the 1990s mocked for, you ask? Mostly Ace of Base and Yanni, I think.
7. Is there any musical genre more scorned than disco? I think not. Nonetheless, I do enjoy a Bee Gees tune every now and then.
8. Yes, I’m destined to turn into the sort of father who is moved to tears by long-distance telephone service advertisements on television. I’m told it’s hereditary.

From his car seat behind me, Kyle asked, “Why did you say ‘Gobble gobble gobble’?”

“Because that’s the sound a turkey makes,” I said. “Well, a live turkey, anyway.”

“But not dead ones?” Kyle asked.

“No,” I admitted. “Not dead ones. The one we’re getting is a frozen turkey.”

“Frozen?” Kyle asked. “In carbonite?”

I was not in the least bit surprised when, thirty days later, my face looked as though it might once have had a proper beard but had since gotten the mange. I was, however, surprised when—a year later—my friend Bob Voegerl announced that not only would he join in my mad beard-not-growing farce, but that he was building a website dedicated to the effort. And thus sprang into being the official HoNoToGroABeMo website.

Eight people—men, we shall call them—from two continents participated in How Not To Grow A Beard Month last year, and there was some talk about possibly trying to raise some money for charity. I didn’t think we would manage to drum up enough interest to make a charitable pursuit worthwhile, so the notion fell into the deepest recesses of my mind.

Then, in May of 2009, Bob’s mother passed away after a short but intense battle with undetected breast cancer that had spread to her brain. In late October, Bob announced that he had added a new feature to the How Not To Grow A Beard Month website: Beards4Boobs, a charity fundraiser for the Ann Voegerl Memorial Breast Cancer Research Fund. The idea is simple: donors can choose to sponsor their favorite beard, and the beard that raises the most money for the fund will receive a fabulous prize.

I’ve been overwhelmed at the response so far. We’re just a few days into November and we’ve received nearly $700 in donations. One of our participants, Dr. John Cmar, has $250 worth of sponsorship for his beard.1 Last night, our first female participant threw her bare chin into the ring; Mur Lafferty arrived to show us boys that we don’t know jack about not growing beards.

It’s amazing to watch something that was born out of pure silliness turn into something that’s actually worthwhile doing. Please, if you can, go to the site and sponsor one of these folks and their chins (be they growing hair upon them or not).

1. Wesley Clifford
2. John Cmar
3. Gus “The Bearded Goose” Gosselin
4. Jeff Greiner
5. Michael Harrison
6. Adam Johnson
7. Kris Johnson
8. Mur Lafferty
9. Chris Miller
10. David Moore
11. Jim Van Verth
12. Bob Voegerl

To everyone who has already sponsored a beard: thank you for your generosity. I’ll be posting updates throughout the month.

[UPDATE] If you’ve donated and you don’t see the total update immediately, worry not. Bob currently has to update the donation amounts by hand, so there may be a delay before your generosity is reflected on the official page.

1. Truth be told, he needs to grow that beard back. His naked face haunts my nightmares.

—Lewis Carroll, “The Walrus and The Carpenter” (from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There)

There may not be a whole lot of activity here in my little corner of this here series of tubes, but life does not stop when a person fails to update his blog regularly. To wit:

The Secret Lair

The podcast is still going strong, with a new episode appearing every few weeks or so, and a new installment of our webcomic appearing only slightly less frequently. In the most recent illustrated adventure, which I shall henceforth refer to as the Irradiated Arachnid Incident, the side effects of a spider-bite are not what you might expect. Meanwhile, Chris and I managed to convince our wives (yes, there was alcohol involved) to join us in a discussion of Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, that book they made into that movie with that one guy. We also sat down with Mick Bradley, with whom we have had dealings in the past, to discuss that most mysterious and misunderstood style of roleplaying, the story game.

Recent episodes of the podcast have featured staff reports from some creative (and incredibly generous) folks we are fortunate to call friends, those being Dr. John Cmar, Jay “Kingfish” Lynn, Natalie Metzger and Ken Newquist. These reports speak of schemes of ever-escalating complexity and crackpottedness, with a smattering of bizarre truth thrown in to blur the line between the real and the surreal.

Game Night

Approximately every two weeks, the gamers descend upon the International House of Johnson for one form of interactive entertainment or another. We’re currently in the middle of a Savage Worlds campaign run by Chris Miller, but last night we took a break from polyhedral dice and roleplaying to rock.

Armed with fake guitars, fake drums and a very real microphone, we took to the virtual stage in Rock Band 2 on the Xbox 360. Four adults and the aforementioned fake instruments do not fit particularly will into the area around our “entertainment center”, but that didn’t dissuade us in the slightest. Some of the songs we rocked out to:

•  ”Re: Your Brains” and “Skullcrusher Mountain” by Jonathan Coulton
• “I Won’t Back Down” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
• “Here it Goes Again” by OK Go
• “Take it on the Run” by REO Speedwagon
• “The Best Day Ever” by Spongebob Squarepants (featuring guest vocalist Kyle Abraham Johnson)
• “Aqualung” by Jethro Tull (featuring Chris Miller on vocals and no one on the fake flute)

After the out-rocking concluded, we gathered at the dining room table for Monty Python Fluxx, followed by Fist of Dragonstones, the latter of which I thought was woefully underappreciated.

Olde Fartz

After a bit of a late-summer hiatus, the Olde Fartz Distance Learning Center is back in session. Our favorite game of late has been Half-Life 2 Deathmatch, though we did return to our roots for an evening of WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos a few weeks ago. There’s also talk of playing some Team Fortress 2 and Dungeon Siege, and P.G. Holyfiend keeps yammering about Sins of a Solar Empire, too. Yammering, I tell you. Enrollment in the Olde Fartz has increased to the point where we have abandoned Skype voice conferencing in favor of a TeamSpeak server. If you’re interested in joining the fun, drop me a line and I’ll take your application to the admissions committee.

Con on the Cob

Last year I managed to attend all four days of Con on the Cob, a local gaming, art and general geek convention. This year, Laura and I only attended on Saturday, but we still had a lot of fun. We both bought new dice (practically a con requirement) and I bought Dominion, an excellent card game from Rio Grande Games.1 We watched a bit of the Iron Artist competition, then briefly fled to a nearby restaurant with Chris Miller and Rachel Ross for dinner, then it was back to the con for a couple of games of Dominion. Next year, I think we’re going to shoot for attending on both Friday and Saturday so we can do a little more gaming and maybe record an episode of The Secret Lair on-site.

Alas, I have no convention photos to share this year, as the battery charger for our Fujifilm Finepix J10 went AWOL right before my sister’s wedding.2 A new charger has been purchased and will hopefully be delivered in time for Hallowe’en costume photos.

NaNoWriMo vs. NaBloPoMo vs. HoNoToGroABeMo

I have no intention of attempting to write a 50,000-word novel in thirty days come November, nor will I make any real effort to post at least one blog entry a day in the same time period. On the other hand, I fully intend to shave off my beard on October 31st and then spend a month failing to grow anything resembling a manly face-mane. That’s right, for the third year running, How Not to Grow A Beard Month will return. Mega-kudos once again to The Cynical Optimist for creating and maintaining the website.

The Great Superhero Movie Project

Despite a general dearth of new reviews, I have been watching and rating various superhero movies over the past few months. There are currently 112 movies on the list (with more to be added soon); I’ve seen about 90 of them, rated about 60 and reviewed a paltry 11. Yeah, I have a bit of catching up to do in the review department.

1. Laura and I have played several times since the convention, but the four-player limit means it’s tough to include at Game Night (when we typically have six or seven people). There’s one expansion to the game (Intrigue) with a second (Seaside) on the way, both adding cards and allowing for additional players, so it might just grace the Game Night table someday soon.
2. Did I mention that my sister got married? And we drove to Chicago for the wedding? And that Kyle wore suspenders? And that the bride and groom were joined “by the power of the Internet”? No? I should have. Sorry.

“This,” I said, turning the deep-fried wonton stuffed with cream cheese and crab meat over between my fingers, “is a rangoon.”

Kyle turned to his cousin and exclaimed, “He’s eating a raccoon!“

So how have the last thirteen years treated us? Well, we’ve had our ups and downs, but I think Laura would agree when I say there have definitely been more of the former than the latter.

In 1996, Laura was driving a 1994 Pontiac Sunbird. The little blue car left our driveway for the last time just this spring. Laura now drives a 2000 Pontiac Montana and I drive the MiniVan…of DOOM! (A 2002 Pontiac Montana, as it happens.) We also had an Oldsmobile Alero for three years, a car I believe Laura misses to this day.

In 1996, we lived in Fairport Harbor, Ohio (my second apartment in that little town). Shortly after we got married, we moved to Mayfield Heights, Ohio, where we lived until 2001; then we established the International House of Johnson in Willoughby (yes, Ohio).

In 1996, Laura was an assistant managing editor and I a computer sales associate. Our roles have changed to stay-at-home mom and systems engineer, respectively.

In 1996, it was just the two of us in what amounted to a studio apartment. The first addition to our family was Sushi, an angry betta, shortly followed by Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two cats whose IQs have been steadily declining since 2003. Sushi lasted about two years before a combination of impotent rage and oppressive ennui caused his little piscean heart to burst.

In 2006, we were joined by Kyle, who I often refer to as “my young apprentice”. We weren’t exactly expecting Kyle; in fact, we didn’t find out he was on the way until he had been simmering for about four and a half months. He arrived on Friday, January 13th and I daresay nothing has been the same since.

Since 1996, Laura and I have attended a couple of high school reunions, umpteen weddings, and an unfortunate number of funerals. We’ve celebrated births, birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. We’ve taken two Caribbean cruises. We’ve traveled to Texas, Nevada, North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, New York and Illinois together. We’ve driven (or flown) back and forth to Upper Michigan at least once and sometimes two or three times a year.

The police have been dispatched to our house three times; the fire department once. The only casualty related to any of those visits was our mailbox.

There are certainly things I would change about the last thirteen years—times when the phrase “wedded bliss” didn’t always apply—but I wouldn’t change the October day that started it all, when we had no idea what the future would hold and knew only that we wanted to spend it together. I’ve seen part of that future; I’m looking forward to the rest.