Haiku Sunday and Why Go Back To School

People ask me, "Why go back to school, Homemaker Man?  You seem to have it all."
"Is that sarcasm?" I reply defensively.
"Whoa, settle down."  They say
"Whatever," I retort.

Then I continue with a rambling and serpentine explanation even though my initial reaction has long ago brought the conversation to an abrupt end.

I am obscenely lucky.  I have a beautiful, brilliant family and the world's best career.

My house is 120 years old.  There is a lot of shit wrong with it that I just can't fix.  While I have improved a little with that sort of stuff over the years, well . . . If you were to start talking to me while I was fixing something, you would find your tone of voice quickly deteriorating in to a condescending "Wow, there must be something wrong with this guy," tone:

"Oh, what are you fixing?  You're using a hammer?  Well, that's not what I asked, but that's true.  What are you a hammering there?  A wire.  I see.  What?  Yes, you are doing a good job hammering.  Yes, a very good job.  You are very strong.  Yes you are.  I just, are you sure tha . . . Hey!  We don't eat the nails, big guy.  No we don't."

All that would be ok though, if the city we live in weren't so, mmm, let me try to sum it up in a haiku:


Describing my town
How to do it succinctly
Scally caps abound


It is a blue collar, working-class city founded by hard-working Irish and Italian immigrants looking for a better life whose offspring now despise the fact that the town demographic is being so violently and irrevocably changed by the influx of hard-working Brazilian and Hispanic immigrants looking for a better life.

The people here don't like change and they are difficult to reason with because they generally don't trust things like fact or science or reason.

As a quick aside:  It seems that I have become the Town Jew.  Which is pretty cool.  Being the town Jew is a time-honored tradition.   You know, every so often I stay out really late and get way to Jewish and I cause a disturbance and then end up having to sleep it off in the town Jew Tank at the local jail.  Every town has one.

Anyway, being the town Jew really doesn't bother me.  Besides, there is apparently a Jewish veteran's group in town.  I'm looking forward to meeting that guy.

It's the xenophobic, racist nature of the city's long-time residents coupled with their desperate clinging to dead ideas that are slowly suffocating the city that makes us want to move.  If you want a really good analogy, check out my wife's blog .  She actually knows how to think and write and stuff like that.

So, the possibility of selling and moving is one reason why I'm going back to school.  Also, I need to have a viable skill in case for some reason my wife could no longer work.  It's nice at lunch time, but remembering to cut the crusts off the sandwiches just will not pay the bills.

Finally (this has turned out to be a long-assed post), my wife grew up going to Sebago Lake in Maine every summer of her life, and it is a a huge part of who she is.  I'd like to be able to afford a little place for us up there someday  Someplace warm and sunny, on a lake close by Sebago.  Doesn't have to be right on Sebago itself.  Maybe with a fireplace so we can go up on school vacations.  A place that as the kids get a little older, they never ever find out about.  You know, someplace quiet.


2 more hockey rink haikus because I worked there (very early) this morning and I have them and three is an odd number:

Kids arrive early
Tousled hair, eager faces
Parents, not so much

Rain spits fitfully
on empty, oil-slicked streets
And one lone asshole



Verbosely yours,

Homemaker Man

Name Resent and hockey haiku sunday

We tried really hard to name our kids.  And not tried hard in a we never quite mastered the power of speech and can only communicate in grunts and guttural moans sort of way either.

I mean there were lists and disagreements and research sessions.

We wanted something uncommon but not dopey (See: Apple Coldplay).  We checked the baby name lists and avoided anything in the top 100.

When we-my wife really-came up with our daughter's name, everyone loved it.  It is lovely, and when we picked it, it was 143rd most popular name in the U.S.

Now it's top 15.

Fine.  That's the way you want it, America?  Check out what we name our son.  With him, we really went for it.  His nickname was like 500th on the list and his full first name barely made the top 1000.

Our families hated it.  My brother-in-law called him "the baby" for a month and a half.  I coincidentally called him "Uncle Douche" for the same period of time.  In my head.  He is really a lovely man.

When I told my father our daughter's name he gushed over how beautiful it was.

When I told him our son's name, he did this:

Him:  What's his name?

Me: ________

Him: (Pause

         Pause

         Pause)

I'll tell your grandfather.

My wife and I were pleased.

Now, we know of at least 5 people whose kids have the same nickname and 2 with the exact same name and both names have climbed several hundred spots in the rankings the past year.

Goddammit America.

Stop stealing our names.

It happens to us with pet names too and it is frustrating.

I am considering having a third kid and naming it Shitfuck.  Cute little baby Shitfuck.   Just to see how popular the name would get.  3 months later there would be reports about Surri Cruise's new brother Shitfuck Cruise and you would hear parents saying "Hey, Shitfuck got an A.  Way to go, Shitfuck!"  You would have classes in school where there would be 2 of them and the teacher would have to be like, "Ok, you're Shitfuck one and you're Shitfuck two.  Hey Shitfuck 2 I had your older sister in my class.  She sure was a good student student.  What was her name again?  Ah yes, how is ol'Nancy doing?  (Gotcha.)

We would call him S.F. for short, probably.

Following is a list of names I believe we could popularize if we gave them to our children.  Please feel free to add your own:

Sub-prime Mortgage

The number 69

Bernie Madoff

Stimpy

Nazi (for a girl)

Zaphod Beeblebrox

Roman Polanski

Princess Laid'er

Joe Socialism

Pol Pot

Borat

---------------

And finally, Hockey Haiku:


Persimmon hued leaves
outside plexi-glass doors
Inside, winter blooms.

Strutting and preening
strident voices, plumage displayed
Hockey dads are vain

I slump at the desk
the clock says ten thirty-one
Now?  Ten thirty-two.

Have a good week, bloggy friends.

And as always, I remain faithfully,


Shitfuck.

Homemaker on Ice.

I work now. No shit. Outside of the house. With people. Blecch. Every sunday. I drive the Zamboni at the local skating rink. Don't ask how I got the job, I'm not sure myself. Not exactly a drive and maintain large machinery competently kind of guy really. Mostly I'm a, "Sure i'll drive it . . . what is it?" kind of guy. The tough part is hockey parents. Nothing like two 40 year-olds who want to bash each other's brains in over a 2 minute offsides (I don't know what that means) penalty committed by one of their kids. The men are bad too.

It's no place for a Jew on Rosh Hashanah. Or any other day.

The nice part is that there is some down time. This week, I used my down time to whip out a few haiku. Originally inspired by (ripped off from) a post from this consistently funny blog. That and a phone call from home. I don't mean to be unoriginal, it's just when I see haiku, I want to do them too. Wrote many back when I was stuck in a cubicle not working. They're fun. Ok, with out further ado, common 5-7-5 format:

Homemaker Man not home
Daughter on phone whines "help me."
Whoa. Poor Poor mommy

Hockey moms and dads
kids run freely, skates gleaming
Hey, whose toe is that?

Hockey time is here
Cold wind blows through empty seats
wake up, white people.

I want to use the word
Zamboni in a haiku
I think this is cheating.


P.S. I'd like to say, mainly to my wife but also to any one else who is either a truly skilled (like my wife) poet or who really knows poetry, I know that these count as haiku only by the very slimmest of margins. A real haiku is like origami. Small and delicate and simple and beautiful, and when you unfold it there are many many layers. My haiku are more like fucked-up paper airplanes. They work for a short distance but then they either crash or poke someone in the eye.


HM out!