Nothing. Nevermind.
Monday, November 04, 2024
Commando
Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Pestilence Descends
Saturday, August 17, 2024
NOTE TO SELF!!
Thursday, August 15, 2024
dear birds and snooks
Thursday, July 18, 2024
Olipoop
Thursday, June 27, 2024
Stevia Wonder
Sunday, October 29, 2023
Attachment Theory
My biggest pasttime right now seems to be doing some type of therapy. I'm getting a little tired of it, but only because my brain soaks that shit up like a sponge and then doesn't want to let go of it. The latest thing I've been working on is digging into attachment theory -- looking at why I have what seems to be a fairly fucked-up mix of desperately needing validation from an intimate relationship AND perfect comfort with the idea of never seeing another human being again. And yet it all seems to feel perfectly normal to me.
Currently sitting contentedly on the couch listening to mostly soft tunes, reading ol' Jacky Kerouacky, while Jeanners and the kids are out at a kid birthday party, nary an illuminated overhead light in sight, lamplight only please.
Ah, but who cares? As each day passes, I'm less convinced that this all means anything, and I wasn't particularly convinced before anyway.
I think I'm just feeling a little bleak today. There's been some death and illness around me lately, and it's got my outlook a little bit on the gloomy side.
Monday, October 16, 2023
Tuesday, September 26, 2023
Colon "Oscopy" Powell
Well, I had my first colonoscopy this morning, and I loved it. For real. I loved the prep and its corresponding hours of diarrhea, I loved the procedure, I loved the anesthesia, and I love having a day off work. The only two things I did not like were the taste of the prep medicine and the feeling of the IV in my hand. Maybe it was the lack of food in my system or maybe it was because I had very low expectations for the whole thing but I was in a slight state of euphoria for the entire time.
Also, I would like to give a big shout out to (sorry MJ) propofol. Damn, I was asleep. I wouldn't think that I would sleep through someone jamming a camera into my poop shoot, but I sure enough did. My first time on anesthesia and I give it two solid thumbs up.
I've had a bag of ravioli in the freezer downstairs for many months now and I've been waiting for the right time to enjoy it, and I have chosen right now as that time and it is G O O D.
I debated posting some colon pictures, but I'm not sure if there's any demand out there for them. So I've decided not to. But if anybody wants to see some pictures of (the inside of) my colon, please leave a comment and I'll get them right up in the next post. And yes, the "retroflexed view in the rectum" is included.
Tuesday, June 20, 2023
Kids, if you're reading this....
When I started writing this blog, it was for two reasons:
1. My memory is crap and I'm sure that one day in the hopefully distant future it will be entirely gone and maybe reading these witty and hilarious episodes from my life will help me hold on to some semblance of "self," and
2. So that if I died prematurely my future children (when I started I had no actual children yet) might get a sense of what I was like, and, more importantly, what my poop was like.
Well, yesterday one of those future children started reading some of these old blog posts over my shoulder and discovered that I have been not-so-secretly recording my thoughts, feelings, and poopings online for the last 20-ish years or so. He immediately wanted to read the harrowing account of his birth (and has subsequently concluded that his life is not worth the ordeal that Jeannie went through [which is untrue], he then wanted to see if I had written anything about his conception (I had not), and he laughed pretty hard at the MOO PANTS post.
And so it feels a little weird to know that my kids may actually read some of this stuff while I'm still around.
I have, for the last year or so, tried to censor myself less when I'm around them, and to be my complete, vulgar, confused, imperfect self when I'm with them, and to tell them what I really think and what I really feel about things, so I'm not necessarily worried about them reading that sort of stuff in here, but I worry a little bit about the sort of thing that has already happened: if they read about how difficult their birth was that they might conclude that they were not worth it. Or when they read about how much I just wanted to sleep when they were babies, they might think that I wasn't also 100% completely in love with being a new dad. That's the thing about parenting -- it is 90% shitty and 100% wonderful at the same time. And I worry that maybe I only wrote about the shittiness. Or wrote more about the shittiness than the wonderfulness.
And so, kiddos, if you ever are feeling like you're alone in this world, or that your existence has caused more difficulties than joy, or that you contain only shittiness and no wonderfulness, please allow me to tell you, once and for all, permanently (because things on the internet live forever): the amount of pride, love, and joy I feel whenever I think of you is immeasurable, and your company has brought me more excitement and joy than anything else I've experienced in my time on Earth.
Alright, now that that's out of the way, let me tell you about my poop lately: it's been pretty damned good. There was a stretch there where the consistency was good but it was requiring A LOT of wiping (which is never fun and makes me want to swear off pooping entirely), but then the family and I went to the HIBACHI GRILL AND BUFFET for Father's Day (my choice) and I had a supremely greasy assortment of foods, and things are sliding out pretty cleanly.
Friday, February 24, 2023
$$$$$$$
Friday, January 06, 2023
Russell pt ii
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
Gillizen's Island
Today I saw a stupid internet article about Gilligan's Island, and how they never got off the island, and it made me realize that Gilligan's Island could be useful in explaining zen/taoism -- they spent the whole time trying to get off the island, how much better would their lives have been if they just enjoyed the island and didn't try to get off (it)?
Sunday, April 10, 2022
Beyond Happiness
Lots of weirdness happening!
Jeannie is in NY for a conference this weekend.
Samuel spent the morning puking.
Anna is singing to herself in the bathtub.
I've been happy for months now. Happier than I've been in a long time.
My parents' 60th wedding anniversary is coming up in a few weeks. The fam and I will be traveling in to St. Louis for a quick trip to celebrate.
Went to a kid's birthday party yesterday.
Anna wants me to write about Jeannie's upcoming jury duty. She is sitting here next to me now in her PJ's. We look like this:
Anna is telling me to label this picture "Anna and Dad."
Tuesday, February 22, 2022
Monday, February 21, 2022
Bristol 7
Tonight, a new expression was created, one that I will pass down to my children and that they, in turn, will pass on to their children. And that expression is "Bristol 7." And it means diarrhea.
You see, like many families, we keep a copy of the Bristol Stool Chart on our refrigerator.
Saturday, October 23, 2021
The Daily Wiper-Diper Show
Saturday, October 09, 2021
Last Train to Kirksville
Monday, October 04, 2021
Japhy/Psychology/Booze/Fish
Saturday, September 11, 2021
My PR Strategy
This is what I wrote to some music company that commented on an Instagram post:
"Hello, responding to a comment about my PR strategy. My PR strategy is this: I write a song and then record it. Then, I throw it up in the air, where the wind catches it and tumbles it over and around. It eventually lands amidst a small pile of rocks, or underneath one of those guardrails next to the highway, where it is found by a curious possum who picks it up and carries it back to its house in the base of a dead sycamore. After an hour, the possum eats it, and it makes the possum very, very sick. The possum starts throwing up and having diarrhea for the following 3 days. Then the possum is fine and goes back to its normal life, but the weird thing is that everywhere the possum puke and the possum shit touched - in three springs beautiful young saplings sprout and begin to grow and they end up having leaves that are the same color as my first car: a beautiful, burgandy 1992 Dodge Spirit. And everybody that walks by those trees and sees them is overwhelmed by (to be cont'd)
(cont'd from previous message) an urge to visit my Spotify page and become one of my followers. And let me tell you something: this fucking WORKS. Every time. Also, I have no money. But I have two beautiful children. And the other day, my six year old called me "Pop," right out of the blue, so I consider myself pretty lucky."
I wonder if they'll write back?
Wednesday, July 21, 2021
Correspondence
From an email to Eric:
"Life here is going along nicely. I'm balls deep in HVAC repair and replacement at the theater. We joined a neighborhood pool which has been lovely (although I might have broken their diving board). We are planning a trip to the Lou (and Denver) in mid-August. We have some baby chickens in a cage in our yard. We have blackberry and raspberry bushes in the yard, and when I cut the grass I always stop for a few minutes and try to find some ripe berries to eat right off the fuckin' vine. The kids are wonderful and terrible. It's been hot and humid and some of my shirts have a stink that laundering doesn't seem to take away, and because most of my shirts are some shade of blue I can never tell which ones are gonna have the pre-loaded stink that activates as soon as I start sweating (I'm wearing one of them now, which is what makes me think of it). I just lost a $5 bet with a co-worker who seems to be taking advantage of my terrible memory. I'm rewatching Arrested Development. I just finished a 3rd or 4th reread of One Hundred Years of Solitude. I've been not running because it's been too hot but I need to get back into it."
Monday, July 05, 2021
The End of the Strange Times?
Well, it was seeming like this whole pandemic thing was receding in the rear-view mirror -- we opened a show last Friday, we've basically stopped wearing masks except when we're indoors someplace that's not home (which is rare), we joined a pool and we've been mingling outdoors with maskless greasy people -- but then I just read something about the Delta Variant that will apparently overrun the world now. Hmmm.
I have mixed emotions about things going back to normal, but I definitely don't feel like doing the whole lockdown thing again. I want my kids to be out of this damned house. I want to not be wearing a mask all the time.
I discovered the other day while cussing at people in traffic that I can do a not-too-shabby Al Pacino impression. So far, my favorite thing to say in his voice is, "Step on the gas, you fucking cocksucker." Which is offensive, I know, but ever since I watched DEADWOOD, "cocksucker" has been a cussword of choice for me. I apologize for my use of the word.
Monday, April 26, 2021
Deep thoughts
Samuel turns 9 today.
My phone fell in a river so I'm pooping with a laptop on my lap.
I was carrying it (my phone) in my shirt pocket. Nothing good ever happens to my phone when I carry it in my shirt pocket. Shirt pockets are just for cigarettes, silly.
Friday, April 09, 2021
Jabbed and rubbed
Vaccine shot #1 complete as of an hour ago. Hair has started growing from my palms. I'm sure that's normal.
Also, I've discovered (or rediscovered, maybe) that the key to my happiness lies in running at the beginning of the day and having my head rubbed at the end of the day. Everything that happens in between then does not seem to matter very much.
Monday, March 08, 2021
life rolls on
Friday, December 18, 2020
TV Star
I didn't sleep well last night. Woke up around 2am after having a weird dream in which I was driving cross-country, solo, and stopping at every river I crossed to float down the river a little bit in a little inflatable boat that I had with me. Anyway, woke up in the middle of the night and it seemed like every thought I could possibly ever think decided to flow my brain during the next 3 hours or so. I am trying to figure out why my brain decides to do this. :Last night I decided it was because I ate rice for dinner. Remind me to remember to test that hypothesis the next time I eat rice.
There are leaks at work that are making me absolutely bonkers.
I've been working on music, somewhat steadily, for the last few months. Things could possibly turn into something short-album-length. I've got about 6 or so songs right now. There's one song that I did as a collaboration with a woman that I met on the interwebs who liked some of my instrumentals, and she apparently has binders of lyrics sitting around and asked if she could send me some of the lyrics. So I said what the hell and she sent me the lyrics and I worked up a song for some of them and the song turned out pretty good. Probably some of the best recording I've done, anyway. Good vocals, clean guitars, bass-y bass, simple melody, backing vox, decent ambient-y sounds. All the hallmarks of a quality Dan O'Brien jam.
I've been doing live streams of random moments in my life on Instagram. It's fun. It feels like an extension of my solo-performance piece in college, but in reality it's probably more closely related to stuff I've written in here in the past. Basically, I'm trying to recapture the notion that I have something worthwhile to say, or at least that the fact that I don't have anything worthwhile to say should not serve as a command to not speak. Basically, I feel myself feeling less and less inclined to speak, and I worry that one day soon I will literally blow away and disappear forever. So I am attempting to not let myself blow away by making videos of boiling hotdogs and telling people my thoughts.
Friday, November 06, 2020
Balance in the Force
I hate to jinx shit, but I will go ahead and sayd that life feels pretty danged good right now (with the exception, of course, of everything that's going on in the world around me, which feels as though things are on the brink of complete collapse). But in terms of work/life balance, the developmental stages of our children, the relationship of Danners/Jeanners, my relationship to stress, my relationship with eating/drinking/exercising/my body, progress in our house and yard --- it all feels weirdly.....fine. Great, even.
We are in the midst of PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2020 and it seems to be following the course of all other events of 2020 - in other words, it's a bit of a shitshow.
Speaking of shitshow, I really need to go to the bathroom.