Coolness and puke do not mix

Everyone knows that becoming a parent changes you, often in ways you never expect. First of all, whether you know it or not, whether you accept it or not, once you have a kid, you are no longer cool. It just doesn’t happen. You can try and hang onto it, try and tell yourself and others, “Hey, I’m still the same guy I was before,” but no, it’s gone. All of it. The only thing to do is to reinvent yourself as a different kind of cool. You know the kind of cool where you know lyrics to Laurie Berkner and High School Musical songs. Nick Jr. cool.

Still the thing that changes most once you become a parent, is your level of tolerance for gross things. You obviously have to get past what a normal person’s gag reflex would be since you’ll be changing about nine thousand diapers per week. But it doesn’t stop there. What ends up happening is that grossness actually becomes a matter of convenience. That’s why you see mothers upending their infants, putting a nose to their diaper and sniffing. It’s just faster and easier to smell for poop than to undo a onesie, pull back the elastic on a Huggies and check to see if there’s something inside. When you see a dad pick a booger out of his toddler’s nose, the ick factor is simply more convenient than searching the house for one of those little bulb suction thingies—which said toddler probably hid inside the VCR anyway. This elevated yuck threshold obviously goes hand-in-hand with the loss of coolness I mentioned, because you simply cannot be cool while sniffing a person’s butt on a daily basis. It just doesn’t happen.

But this grossness thing reached new levels of abominableness when my entire family was recently sick with the flu. On one of those fun-filled nights my one-year-old, Jesse threw up on Lauren. But he didn’t just throw up on her. He threw up on her while he was nursing. You get that? He threw up… on her breast. This wasn’t just some relatively harmless baby spittle. This was full on, chunky, stomach flu ralphage. And do you know what Lauren’s response was? After her initial, knee-jerk, “aw gross” reaction, she quickly composed herself and said, “Okay, well at least it didn’t get on the couch.”

The couch? She has vomit on her boobs and yet she’s happy because it didn’t get on the couch? That’s how far we’ve come as parents—getting thrown up on has somehow become the preferable alternative to something else. When the hell does that happen anywhere else in life? Short of getting killed by an axe-wielding psychopath, how is getting thrown up on not the worst possible outcome of any social situation? I mean imagine you’re walking through the ethnic foods section of the supermarket and some guy just walks up and blows chunks all over you—lifting up your shirt and exposing your chest before doing so of course. Could you ever find a silver lining in that? Yet somehow, as a parent, having somebody puke all over your bare naked BOOBS is actually seen as a somewhat positive thing!

Man, I really hope my kids grow up to be rockstars because it would be a shame for them to siphon so much coolness out of me and Lauren and not put it to good use.

No, not the one with Queen Latifah

I picked up the book BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE yesterday at the library... and I finished it on the plane. For those of you who haven’t seen the previews for the movie 21, which is based upon the book, this is the TRUE story of a bunch of MIT students who worked out this card-counting scheme and won millions of dollars from various casinos over the course of a couple years. If you’re a fan of Clooney’s Ocean’s 11, you’ll dig this book. It’s a really easy, really fast (did I mention I finished the whole thing in less than 24 hours), and actually quite satisfying read (see, it is possible to have all three, Dan Brown). In addition to giving a really gripping account of how these ballsy little geeks managed to get past the Vegas system (Think the Rain Main blackjack sequence times about 10), the author also gives some really cool backstory into the history of "old" Vegas and "new" Vegas (the security, the mob, the corporations, the back rooms, the strippers, the private investigation firms) in order to show you what these guys were truly up against.

So a highly recommended read that isn’t too taxing on the mind. And it’s TRUE for crying out loud. It all actually happened, which of course makes it even cooler. I’m sure some parts were pizzazed up for dramatic effect and all, but still. And the thing is, you can tell that the movie at least has the potential to be just as good. A curious thing I noticed though, the lead role is being played by a white guy when all the participants in the original scheme were Asian, and, in fact, BEING Asian, Greek or Persian was apparently key to pulling off the scheme because the pit bosses were more suspicious of white kids making big bets. But whatever, I’m rather excited to check it out once it becomes available on DVD and Blu-Ray HiDef... or you know, if I happen to catch it on TNT one night.

It's the little things

Walking through the Philadelphia International Airport at 5 o’clock this morning and seeing the disproportionate amount of bleary-eyed college students walking around has led me to two conclusions:

1) Early ass Saturday morning flights must be the dirt-cheapest way to travel considering many of said students couldn’t even afford the food they were eating (sharing Poland Springs and egg sandwiches and whatnot as they were).

and

2) Hollister must have their spring break this week.

Oh and I simply love Philadelphia graffiti.

In a stall today as I sat taking care of business I read the following: EAGLES SUCK. Nothing too mind blowing all things considered but some amusing pooper after my own heart crossed out EAGLES and replaced it with a much more general SPORTS. SPORTS SUCK. Yes... yes they do.

Also saw this charming attack on religion:

DONKEY’S TALK
PEOPLE CAN FLY
AND JESUS
LIVES IN THE SKY

What made it great were the lines some other defecator added in at a later date:

DONKEY’S TALK - YEAH, JUST LIKE THIS JACKASS
PEOPLE CAN FLY - YEAH, IN AIRPLANES
AND JESUS - THE SON OF GOD
LIVES IN THE SKY - IS ALL AROUND US YOU MORON.

God help me, but I love crass Christians... and proudly consider myself one of them.