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Ya know what?

Escapism, given certain constraints, has it’s merits. Like, loads of merits and let’s just tuck the constraints somewhere we don’t have to look at them. ummK? You with me?

Miss Carol and me escaped the Little House of Horrors last week for a couple of days in Florida. Actually it was our anniversary and it was one of those biggies that scream you better do SOMETHING SPECIAL.

So we did.

Decades and centuries ago, back when airplanes still had propellors, Miss Carol and me moved to Boca Raton to get married and live out our lives in beachy breeziness.

We felt we had to move away mostly because Miss Carol’s family didn’t much like me at the time and because we figured Florida was the best place to escape to.

The move didn’t last but our marriage did.

So last week we blew back down to the scene of the crime and we spent the first night in the hotel in Boca that we honeymooned in.

And it was, umm, interesting?

Way back when, in the murky then, before cars had engines, we’d been told by countless well wishers that Florida was chock-a-block full of old people and, at the time, I was all, like, so? C’mon Miss Carol, we’re MOVING, WOOHOO!! And getting MARRIED!! OOH BABY, BABY!!

Silly me but we found out just how true it was. Old people suck. Especially really rich old people.

But I’d forgotten just how much they suck and how crotchety and shitty and just plain crappy mean old people can get when they’ve got lots and lots of retirement time on their hands to stew in their crappy old meanness.

And Boca Raton is FULL of ’em.

So we hung out and used the hotel room like rock stars and tried not to breathe in too much of the old people smells.

And then we bolted for South Beach.

Dudes.

I am on such a tremendous tear right now. Three books into the new year and they’ve all been great. I feel like I’m on THE DRUG THAT IS CHARLIE SHEEN. First there was ROOM, then THE BAD GIRL, and now this.

THE SWEET HEREAFTER by Russell Banks is the story of a little town in upstate New York that suffers a huge tragedy when it’s sole school bus ferrying the town’s kids to school plunges into a quarry and a bunch of the children drown.

Before you get mad and hate me I’m not giving away the ending- this is the beginning- to a really good book about small town America and how folks handle shit when it’s thrown at ’em in big bunch’s like that.

Russell Banks tells his story from several different viewpoints including the slick-as-shit New York City lawyer trying to build a negligence lawsuit for some of the families whose kids died in the accident.

It sounds terribly depressing (even to me as I write this) but it’s an awesome book that, overall, leaves you feeling really good and really hopeful about people.

I loves me some Russell Banks.

Ya know?

There’s a reason some people win the Nobel and some don’t. There are books you read that’re really good and books you read that’re really great.

This one’s really great. Honest.

It’s kinda a chick story about a life-long one sided love affair. The bad girl keeps popping into the good boys’ life for brief visits over the span of their life constantly re-igniting his never ending lust and love for her over and over again.

It’s kinda like the Time Travelers Wife with the chick driving the bus.

And it’d be timelessly boring except the writing is sooooo fucking good. Translated from the spanish by Edith Grossman it’s lyrical and endearing and constantly cool.

If you’re a guy you want to hate the bad girl but you can’t. It’s that damn good.

And hey, on another note, like anyone cares- a LOT went on last week and I just haven’t had time to digest it all yet and that’s why I’m posting lame shit about books.

But that’s assuming anyone cares.

Ya know- when you’ve been married for decades and centuries shit shifts.

Blaring, glaringly, mega-watt spotlight on this weekend for example. What looked like, on the cover, a fun filled couple of days partying rapidly deteriorated into something not so much.

Saturday was my brother’s long awaited divorce party. We were girded and ready. What’s four or five hours of driving to drink in the sweet, sweet, nectar of freedom, right?

Even if that freedom roams freely about until three or four in the morning and Miss Carol and me have to get up at five sos’ I can drive MR.GREENE. back home again. Hey, whatever.

Then.

We have brunchy brunch with our friends who’re housesitting and dogsitting the boys and the Bloody Mary’s spill over into the beers kinda flowing with the eggs and sausages and before you know it, it’s starting all over again.

Then.

We saddle up AGAIN and drive to P-town where I’m thinkin’ we’ll be honeymooning in a hotel room overlooking the Elizabeth River swapping spit and body fluids all afternoon.

But then.

Miss Carol decides it’s nappy nap time. ALL afternoon. Into the night. To the point where I give up on the honeymooning and spit sharing, and take a lonely shower and wake the somnambulant Miss Carol so’s we can catch the water taxi to Norfolk and the Mr. Anthony Bourdain Show.

So then.

Miss Carol wakes up cranky. Honestly? It’s the reason I DON’T take naps- I always wake up cranky and hating everything and everybody. I’ll sleep when I’m dead thankyouverymuch.

And the much more then?

I’m no where NEAR Mr. Perfect. In fact, I’m Mr. Asshole lots of times. ‘Nuff said, right? So we endured the evening gritting it out like only peeps married for a VERY long time can and do. And then we endured the rest of the night. And then we endured sharing a hotel room. And then we endured an early morning ride back home.

And now we’re enduring tonight.

Is marriage and its’ decades and centuries spent together fun, or WHAT?

Ever had one of those things that hurts so bad you just grit and endure, knowing it’s not going away and knowing it sucks so bad it’s gonna fuck with your life for days?

I’ve got one of them goin’ on.

I fucked up my knee working or maybe it’s gout and for the next several days I’m working on ladders. Go figure. The pain stretches.

And the thing that’s really sand in my bikini is that I can’t do all of the stuff that I’m supposed to- like walk Cutter and Tug. I feel like shit that Miss Carols’ gonna have to do it.

So I’m in a red haze and the pain’s the big dark baby eclipsing coherent thought and making this post suck.

Sorry.

Dear Trixie,

You are my new BFF. Seriously.

I didn’t even know I wanted you or needed you until Miss Carol brought you home for me.

When I unwrapped you at Christmastime I was a little nervous because I wasn’t sure what I’d do with you. I mean, I already had a laptop and an ipod, who knew I needed an ipad?

You gotta realize, Mr. Laptop and Mr. ipod have been with me for sooooo long and I was sooooo comfortable with them that I just wasn’t sure what sort of changes you might be bringing into my life.

So I charged you up and left you on my desk, a little wary of what you represented. When I finally got the nerve up to take you out for a little test drive I discovered that you were pouty and, like all my other BFF’s, resistant to my advances. I tried and I tried to get you to synch up with me and my life and my e-mail but you would not.

You wanted more. You needed the attention you so richly deserved.

So I bought the necessary Mac OSX software upgrade for you and Mr. Laptop and I worked long and hard with Apple tech services and the dreaded COX network people to placate you and make you happy with me and to make you MINE.

And at long last, after days and weeks of anguish and softly whispered entreaties of love and loyalty, you’ve finally acquiesced, giving of yourself freely.

I know its probably just the lust of newness but, Trixie?, I have to tell you, I can’t seem to keep my hands off of your slender, racy, glassy little body. I find myself inventing reasons to touch you- googling, e-mailing, facebooking- any excuse at all to turn you on and be with you.

Tomorrow I’m gonna take you to work with me in MR.GREENE. Won’t that be fun?

You bring a happiness to my heart that I hadn’t thought possible.

I love you Trixie.

Sincerely,

oceandoggy.

Wooooohooooooo. Steeeeeeveennnnnn Tylerrrrrrrrr.

OK, so I sound like some dewey eyed little tripster panting heavily, screeching banshee like, but hear me out.

I don’t like American Idol. But I loves Steven Tyler.

I was over it years ago. American Idol, not Mr. Steven.

Acapella  singing does nothing for me. I don’t get it and never will. It just sounds like trilling up and down annoyingly.

But this year is JLo and, and, AND,  Steven Tyler.

I may be gay.

Steven Tyler has been my fucking hero for more decades and centuries than I like to count or think about. Aerosmith is one of the very few bands that Miss Carol and me always go see, not matter where or what.

I know I’m gushing like a little girl but I can’t help it.

And ya know what? JLo and Steven Tyler are amazing. FOX did it. They’ve sucked me in for the duration of  the American Idol season. The chemistry is THAT good.

Hit the Play button, life.

c’mon. hit it.

Miss Carol’s gone again tonight, attending another Ladies Night Out. The limo guy in the yellow corvette with the mirrored aviator shades that Miss Carol says picks up all the ladies for Ladies Night Out came by about an hour ago.

Which means it’s just me and Cutter and Tug tonight.

And that’s cool. I’m a big boy, I can take care of myself and the boys, right? Right. But then there’s stuff that sometimes slips in under the radar, under the shit I’m ready and willing to deal with. Stuff that always seems to surprise me.

umm. Like dinner?

I suck at cooking. Miss Carol is an amazing chef, and she does it for fun. She plates food for dinner that’s just incredible. I have customers that want to know what I had for my leftover lunch ’cause they’re getting a foodie woodie just listening to me.

So you’d think it’d rub off. At least a little. But it doesn’t.

And to make my whining worse-

Ever have one of those days? Doesn’t matter if it’s about food, or your truck breaking down, or your dogs pooping on the carpet while they wait anxiously for you to get home, or having family you don’t like coming to live with you.

One of those days that NOTHIN’S ever gonna go right.

I’m busily having one today. I walked Cutter and Tug and we shared an apple and Cutter barked and yelped the whole time and then I went to work. When I came home for lunch I was like, cool, leftover steak.

I don’t know if I’d originally overcooked it or if the microwave did it for me, but it was fucking awful. I threw it away and  heated up some broccoli. Worst shit I’ve ever eaten-dry, grainy, and smelly. So I gave up and went back to work thinking maybe my Huevos Rorios for dinner would save the day.

Pinto beans and fried eggs. Can’t fuck that up, right?

Oh yeah baby, you can, and it’s easier than you’d ever think.

I can’t wait for Miss Carol to get home and save me from myself.

Ghosting by David Poyer is kinda fucking me up.

It’s not a really well written book and it goes in too many directions all at once. If he had just told the story of the perfectly rich fambly sailing their new yacht from Connecticut to Bermuda and getting caught in a huge storm it could’a would’a been maybe cool.

Or, if he’d decided the story would be about the rich newbie sailing fambly getting hitchhiked on the open sea by smugglers that are all a whole lot more like Al Pacino as Scarface than Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow, it could’a been amazing.

But instead, he decided to roll the dice with a story that included every horrendously terrible thing that can possibly happen on a sailboat at sea.

Trust me, you will NEVER go offshore if you read this book.

It’s a story of endless grimness and rape and murder. The reviews I’d read leading me gently to reading Ghosting talked about the love the family felt for one another- the love that held them together in their tough times.

Hmmmm, er, I didn’t see it- but, ya know, I’m not too smart.

So.

Read it. It’s not terrible, but I’m thinkin’ I’m gonna pick my next book waaay carefully so’s I can rinse my mental palate.

Just sayin’

Cutter and Tug turn six today.

That means they’re 42 years old in human years and somehow went from little fluffy puppies to hardened adults in less time then it takes me to have to renew my drivers license.

The other day I hooked them up and walked outside without looking and some people we know were coming around the corner on their walk with their little perfectly trained one-year old black Lab.

As soon as I opened the door Cutter and Tug saw her and they surged, yanking me outside and they were all like- LOOK ROR ITS A DOG, A DOG, LOOK, LOOKIE, LOOK LET’S GO MEET C’MON going ballistically hopping and tail walking and the folks with the little black lab stopped, sighing mightily, and the little black lab, all obedient-like cowered and laid down on the road watching warily our approaching retards.

So I got dragged over to meet everybody ’cause gosh IT’S A DOG, DUDE, C’MON C’MON!!! and I could see the folks with the really good obedient dog weren’t real happy with the Cutter and Tug rape.

I apologized, and pulled my dickheads away, and got Cutter and Tug headed in the right direction, with them marching me up the road trying to dislocate things on me or maybe pull me down and road rash me, and me just trying to hold on between the sudden surges to get to a new smell and and the abrupt stops- DAMN DUDE I DON’T REMEMBER PEEING ON THAT.

But as they herky-jerked me around I was grinning.

‘Cause honestly? Yeah they can be a pain in the ass but I wouldn’t trade an ounce of their personality and attitude for a pound of the slovenly obedience of that other dog. In fact I kinda felt sorry for it. It’s gotta be hard to be that good ALL the time.

But then again, I do love them the best when they’re asleep.

Happy Birthday buds.