2009 October » CoupleDumb

WTF of the Week: Daylight Savings Time

Oct 312009

Fuck Arizona, except for our Arizona readers whom we love.

          We would like to start out this week’s WTF by saying Happy Birthday to Georgie, Lee’s little brother. Yes he was born on Halloween. Yes, he is a grown man with kids of his own and we call him Georgie. What? Do you have a problem with that? Happy Birthday, Georgie!

          So back to the WTF! This week we are also sort of celebrating the end of Daylight Savings Time. So tonight when you hit the sheets, be sure to turn back your clocks 1 hour. Of course, if you are us, then you need to take an additional hour and explain to your kids why you do this. So why do we do it? Why do some states abstain? Why do some places only fall back a half hour? Who the fuck thought this up and can we string him up?

          So, if you’re sitting there all smug thinking you know why they have daylight savings we are about to blow your mind. Who thought this up? Over a hundred years ago, some bug dude in New Zealand who worked at a 7/11, wanted to get home with enough light left to play with worms. Yeah, ewww. Then we thought, why the hell not? We need more sun in our days. We were taught that it was for farmers but the truth is that it helps retailers, sports and voter turnout. Not so smug now, huh?

          Favorite thing about Daylight Savings is that Arizona and Hawaii don’t do it. Yeah, they refuse to, except for the Navajo Nation, which is in Arizona, that does do it. The Hopi Nation which resides within the Navajo Reservation, does not. The reasoning some give for Arizona and Hawaii opting out of playing nice with everyone is because it’s so fucking hot there. Really? Because it’s hot?

          Well let us tell you something, Arizona and Hawaii and the Hopi Nation, it’s fucking hot in Miami too. So here at CoupleDumb, we are creating the Flipped Day Schedule. That’s right! During the winter we are on normal time then in the Spring and Summer we will do Flipped Day Schedule. During FDS, the day time will be called night and vice versa. We may be able to get away with never leaving the house during the day! We expect everyone to respect that just like we respect little Rebellious, Oppositional Defiant Arizona and Hawaii. That’s right! We’re calling you out Arizona (not Hawaii because it’s so far away and probably has major abandonment issues with the rest of the states).

          Arizona just wants to be fucking different and staying off DST is just another way. Isn’t it enough that your citizens can burst into flames on any given day? Doesn’t having a geological wonder in your backyard thus producing so much travel tax dollars that you guys swim in tourists, enough? Look at the Dust Bowl states! Those fuckers got totally jipped! They got nothing! But you know what? They play well with others unlike you guys. So man up, Arizona, and get with the fucking program. Look to the Navajo for an example of how to be socially appropriate. We know you’re hot but that’s no excuse for being difficult.

          Oh yeah, be sure to turn back your clocks tonight unless you’re Arizona (who can go fuck themselves).

Moving Through Time

Reader's Questions

Oct 302009

My superpower is farting

          Are you ready? Can you feel it? Even on a Friday it’s happening. Actually, on Friday it feels like you’re going back in time. What are we talking about? It’s the taboo subject that no one wants to mention. We’d rather talk about how to stop it or fix it. But why? What’s so incredibly scary about this? Is it how it looks or is it the ultimate outcome to this process that makes us fight against the dying of the light? Yes this week we have been talking about aging, in honor of Paul’s birthday yesterday. We hope we were gentle.

          Aging is a natural process and how we deal with it is imperative to a healthy life.

          Paul says: One of the myths about Merlin from the King Arthur legends is that he moved backwards in time, going from old to young and knowing the future but being surprised by the past. Sometimes that is the way I feel. In high school I was scrawny, oily and fearful. In college I was scrawny, tequila soaked and fearful. As a young man, I was generally no fun since it is hard to be the life of the party when you are hiding under a rock.

          Like Merlin, I look at these men of the past and I am surprised. Now, according to Lee, I am fuckable, which is good since she handles that part of my life. I have been described on occasion as being cute, smart and funny which, by the way, makes me turn a deep crimson, giggle like a small girl, and wander away to find a drink. No, I still do not handle praise well.

          What is the difference between the man that I was and the man that I am? Well, I lucked out as scrawny found a pleasant equilibrium with my middle age spread but I do not think that it is my fat content that has made the definitive difference in my life.

          I figured it out the first time I saw a fashion come back from the dead, when I saw a young woman 20 years my junior wearing bell bottoms and beads. Unfortunately, jeans were low rise and had a hip capacity 25 pounds smaller than the girl wearing them. Though I applaud the good self esteem, I must admit to scanning the room for the fashion police. No, she didn’t need to be arrested but a warning was definitely in order.

          But my realization wasn’t about a little muffin top but about the brevity of our existence. As a young person, we unconsciously choose either to race toward death or run from it. We look for ways to cheat the reaper or we try our damnedest to stay under his radar. And then I saw my chunky little hippy and knew that it didn’t matter. Life has its own rhythm. Whether we embrace death or scurry from it, it always finds us at its right time, not ours. This works for other things too. Love, understanding, enlightenment, and peace all have their own pace. So I create the space for them such that, when they do find me, there is fertile ground for the best of my life, love, spirit, and serenity to grow.

          Now Lee needs to write something funny. Either that or we need to supply you with a cartoon.

          Lee says: Before the funny, please note that Paul just had a birthday. Even though he celebrates the shit out of the yearly event, he does tend to get maudlin.

          Now the funny: I love getting older. Not the slowing down part but the sheer lack of filters that comes with wrinkles and grey hair. I have felt like someone has un-tethered me and I can say what I want (respectfully). I am no longer expected to put up with bad service or rude people. I can say what I feel and I am ready for any consequence. I’m kind of like a super-hero. Just call me Geriatrica!

What Did You Get Me?

Relationship Rejects

Oct 292009

Birthday around Halloween means costumes and partial nudity.

          It is Paul’s birthday today. Oh yes, it is also Thursday and this is CoupleDumb and all of that other stuff. But the important thing about today is that it is Paul’s birthday. Everyone on the same page? Good.

          Paul says: I celebrate my birthday. I’m the type of person that will walk around with a button that announces that I am the birthday boy. I’ve been known to wear a party hat for the entire day, walking around while pointing to the hat and telling people that it is my birthday. This is particularly bizarre behavior for a person who cringes at any form of acknowledgement, who goes fetal if called smart, and who becomes faint if you refer to his aesthetics as anything greater than Quasimodo-like. Then I married into a family that has been doing the big birthday/Halloween celebration for years. (Happy birthday, Georgie. I love you.) For me, the birthday celebration is a big thing.

          I am not entirely certain why I feel this way. For those of you who have read our writing and know some of my inner sludge, then you know that I have a tendency towards being Emo. Dark drama plays through my head like old vampire movies before they invented talkies. So, on one hand, my birthday celebration in a commemoration of one more year that I have not given in to my shadow side, that I have kept myself happy despite, as my shadow would say, all of the evidence that I shouldn’t be.

          But there is the flip side, the side of me that is not starting at the dysfunctional inner child. You know that Lee and I believe in the power of intention. This year, my intending powers have really come into the spotlight. It seems like whatever I declare with a clear mind and conscious, comes to fruition. I would love to say that it is not magical because magic does not fit well into my paradigm but it is. I have intended people out of parties. I’ve intended money when I needed it. I’ve intended whole career changes. Trust me when I say that I am more incredulous and freaked out about it then you are.

          That being said, if you are willing to accept this premise then there is something that you need to know. (This is the scary small writing on the magic potion that the person does not read until after he drinks it.) Intentions are like having an old school genie. If you do it wrong, it will fuck you up. Do you remember the episode of the Twilight Zone where the old Jewish man asks the genie to make him the most powerful man in the world and the genie turns him into Hitler?

          This week we have written about some of my personal itchy scabs. To say that I want my daughter to stay my little girl forever would more likely inflict her with dwarfism then stop the flow of time. God forbid that I ask for the child that was miscarried lest we play out a horror novel in Steven King fashion. But these, and so much more, are the things that have created the new 45 year old Paul, the Paul that knows not to say he is middle aged because he can do the math and is NOT creating a death date intention. It is the good and the ugly that have become the celebration of my life; past, present and future.

          So my carefully worded intention for my life to date is to have happy children that are proud of their father without feeling beholden to him, to continue to grow in love as a man and husband, and to make a living writing – Fuck it, to make a GOOD living writing – and change some lives, not because I am some type of guru but because I’ve sparked some thought with what I have to say.

          And that’s it. In case you missed anything, let me summarize the important parts: today is my birthday.

          Lee says: Happy Birthday to my wonderful, sexy, loving, brilliant, powerful, funny, youthful man who has the body of an Olympic Swimmer! (As you can see, this is his gift).