Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Parentnormal

Intro:
I didn’t have the funny done this week, sorry. So I decided to just write. I don’t think this particular story will go into the memoirs that someone will eventually pay me to write, but it is an interesting story none the less. Lucy, Ruby and I have big plans for the next post. Anyway, the following story takes place over the course of about 2 months. The most recent these incidents occurred about a week ago. I think it’s interesting. I think it’s weird, and I don’t have an answer. As always feel free to leave comments or emails, I’m interested to see if any of you have had something unexplainable happen. Without further adieu, I give you the first of a non sequential, positively true and currently unexplainable mystery in the trilogy Parentnormal.

Little Blue Men

6 a.m. never feels right, it’s always disappointing. I can’t think of one single moment in my life where waking up that early was a positive or for that matter productive. In fact, unless you told me that was the optimal time to go for a swim in the magical-milk chocolate-money-river, there is absolutely nothing at all good about 6 a.m. Lately, this… this God awful morning hour has became the new 8, which used to be the old 6, and well let’s just say my days are beginning earlier and earlier. Then without warning, something happened, and our household took another hit to our erratic sleep patterns.

I open my eyes, its dark. I remember it being hot that night. I rub my hands across my chest, I was covered in sweat. I wait a few seconds for the silence to sustain the room, and then once again I let my eyelids meet halfway. I doze back to sleep… “Daddy? Daddy? I need you.” Suddenly I opened my eyes again, but this time I sat up. Was that Lu? I look over at Cath, she’s still asleep. The laser green numbers on the digital alarm clock are blinking 2:00… 2:00… 2:00. Why am I up? “Daddy? Daddy? I need you.” She sounded so far away. Her voice was so little, it was almost a whisper, but she was definitely calling for me.

To this day, Lucy does not get out of her bed unless we get her. She’ll scream she has to go potty and when we open the door, there she is, waiting in her bed. Even at nap time, she doesn’t leave; not to play, dance or do those general mischievous things kids like to do when no one is watching them. She just sits in her little sleep station, waiting for us to open the door. I say this because when I opened the door sometime after 2 a.m. that night, Lucy was not in her bed.

I opened the door, her red nightlight which usually brightens the room, was a bit duller. I noticed it was off of the charger. Battery must be going dead. I look over to the bed, it was empty. Her blanket was half on the floor. I’m confused. Where is she? Didn’t she call me? Am I asleep? Then I look towards the closet, there she is. She was standing next to herself. At least that’s what it looked like. The door has a mirror on it, her reflection; she’s standing next to her reflection.

“Lu?” I don’t know why I was whispering. Maybe I didn’t want to startle her. She was looking at me. She was definitely awake, but she didn’t answer. Then she looked at me, “Daddy? I’m scared.” I kneel down on the rug and motion her closer to me. “Hey sweetie, what’s going on? How come you’re not in your bed?” It was quite. I heard Cathy roll over from across the hall. Lucy was dripping with sweat. Her hair was matted to her shiny forehead; I pushed it away and tucked it behind her ear.
“Lu, did you have a bad dream?”
“Daddy I want to sleep in bed with you and mommy.”
“I think you just had a bad dream. Why don’t you get back in your bed? I’ll get you some cold water.” Lucy sat at the end of her bed and waited for me to return with her drink. I hand her the glass, within seconds it is empty. I set her nightlight back onto the charger and the red, reddens. I lean down and kiss her on the head. She asks me to cover her up, I do. Then I tell her that she just needs to close her eyes and go back to sleep. I tell her that her bad dream was over. I tell her to stay in her bed.

“Daddy, I don’t want the little blue guys to come back through the window.” I tilt my ear to her, and then lower my face close to hers.
“What little blue men?”
“The little blue men that come through my window.” She says this like, I know what she’s talking about. Like I’ve seen them before.
“There are no little blue men coming through your window. You were having a dream; it just was a very real dream. No one has ever come through your window.” I can tell she’s not buying it. She doesn’t look the least bit convinced of my theory.
“But they come through my window every time I go night-night. They come and they hide.” I tilt my head again. Now, I’m not so convinced of my theory. I scramble to think of something soothing to say. The back of my knees are dripping with sweat. Cathy asked me a few weeks ago to put the window units in. I didn’t, but I should have. I’ll do it tomorrow, I tell myself. But I won’t. I won’t put them in at all.
“What do you mean they come in every time?”
“They always come back when I sleep.” It’s too late for this conversation, it’s too hot. She’s imagining them. There are no little blue men, because they don’t exist. She’s overly tired, I can tell. I stand up and her eyes close down. Little blue men, huh? I begin to walk back out of her room. Then I turn toward the window and stare. The curtain looks weird, it’s disheveled. I look down at Lu; I have to check the window… for her sake. I examine the window closely. It’s shut, it’s locked and there are no signs of little blue men.

I walk across the hall and ooze back into bed. I think about an air conditioner, it would feel nice. This makes me laugh. Cathy rolls back over, I must have awoken her.

“Where were you?” She asks.
“I was checking on Lu, I think she was having a nightmare.”
“What time is it?”
“Sometime after two a.m. The power went out. The clock isn’t working.”
“Was there a storm?” This caught me off guard. Was there a storm? That would make sense. A storm clipped the power. I didn’t smell the rain, and our window was open. Surely I would have smelled the rain. I get up and walk to the kitchen. I pull a box of orange juice from the fridge. I unscrew the top, then I look out into the back yard… It’s dry. I wipe a few drips of juice from my chin onto the back of my hand. I take another drink and put the box back into the fridge. For a second, I’m cool. The fridge is humming. It sounds angry. I close the door, and grab my phone, its 3:23. I head back to bed. On the way, I peek my head into Lucy’s room. To my surprise she was looking right at me. I open the door a little wider and motion her with my head to follow. I put her next to Cathy. I set the clock. She’s asleep instantly.

By the next morning, the house had cooled down considerably. Lucy, Ruby and Cathy were in the kitchen getting breakfast. I was staring at 6 a.m. Damn it’s early. I shake off the fog, and follow the scent of coffee. Two cream, 2 sugar. Cathy kisses me on the forehead and asked how Lucy got in the bed with us. She doesn’t remember?

“Remember? She had a bad dream.” She nods her head back and forth. I sip my coffee, it’s hot. Later, while Lu and I were on the couch and Ruby scrounged the floor for Cheerios, I waited for my coffee to give me life. I hate the cartoon were watching, I’m sure we’ve seen this a million times.
“Lu, are you watching this? Can I watch the news?”
“Sure you can. You’re the best dad who makes the best oatmeal.”
“Thanks.” Soon she’ll know the difference between instant and homemade, but for know I take the accolades.
“Daddy. Remember when you came into my room last night?” I turned towards her; she stretched her arm out and patted me on the head. She does this a lot.
“That was nice, when you let me sleep in your bed. I just don’t like it when the little blue men come into my room.” I understood. She felt safe with me, I like that. She knows I’ll protect her. I’m her dad, that’s the innate part of my job. So she had a bad dream, she’s a kid, who in panic, couldn’t separate fantasy from reality.
“Don’t worry about that stuff, it’ll be fine, daddy scared the little blue men away.” She smiled. I smiled, and after that everything was fine. We slept sound, for weeks. Lucy continued to stay in her bed and I never gave that particular incident another thought. Then last week, I woke up. The numbers on the clock read 2:30, although it felt later. I was thirsty so I made my way to the kitchen, and unscrewed the top of the orange juice. I wiped my chin with the back of my hand, then start to walk back to bed. As I neared Lucy’s door I heard a sound. I opened the door and peek my head in. Sure enough, she was sitting on the edge of her bed, almost as if she knew I was coming.
“Daddy.” She whispered. “The blue men are here.”

There have been a total of four separate “Blue Man” incidents since that night when the power went out. I’ve never seen or heard from any of these blue men. But, I’ve been told by Lu, that they float through the window, even when it’s closed. In ten years at this house I’ve never felt or seen anything that would allow me to believe that it is haunted in any way. This is more likely a scenario pulled from the head of an overly imaginative three year old, but then again, what if it isn’t? (cue awesome freaky music here)…….

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Lucy & The Fly

This has been rewritten and edited for your viewing pleasure. It can be found in the soon to be released book Life Between Naps. Link and info coming November 2015.

Monday, July 20, 2009

The No Panty Nanny

The following events took place during the summer months of 2008. The specific dates have either been forgotten or conveniently erased from my data bank. For better or worse, some of these images have been fried into my head. The story you are about to hear is factual and completely changed the way I parented. I will only start by saying that you never know when the things you tell a child, may come back to haunt you.

Late June…..

“Its gonna be a hot one today!” I couldn’t tell if Cathy was giving me a weather report, or in a simple roundabout way trying to make me jealous. I absolutely hate the heat! 82 degrees tops, with a breeze and no humidity, that’s my limit. Cathy was about to leave the house and walk into a wonderfully air-conditioned and temperature controlled work place. Ohhhh man, I bet it was like…. 68 degrees in there.
“Umph,” was my reply. It only was 7am and the action of this simple response caused me to sweat, I think I’ll try just sitting in the bath tub today.
“Maybe you could go to the pool park today?” Cathy’s suggestion wasn’t all that bad. We have this nice little park a couple of blocks away. They have an Olympic sized pool and a little sprinkler park. Lucy loves the sprinkler park, and it’s usually not a big hassle.

About 2 weeks prior….

Recently Lucy started to “discover” certain new things about herself. Although, this is something that I’ve been told was completely normal, it is still a bit startling when your 2 year old stands up in the bath tub and says “Daddy, I have a Jay-Jay!” Apparently, Lucy and Cathy had this little conversation about her and her “Jay-Jay” the night before and then forgot to inform me. I however was always told that when you discuss the so called “private parts” of their body you are always supposed to use the correct anatomical term. I thought that at this point I should reverse this trend of funny names for serious parts immediately.
“Lucy. The correct term for your ‘Jay-Jay’ is a Vagina.” That was all I said, and quite frankly all too much for me to handle. I thought, I honestly thought we’d be done with this topic for a very long time….

Back to late June….

Jesus, it was hot. I mean really hot. Hot like, is the sun actually gonna fall on top of us hot. Lucy was slathered in SPF 80 and if it were even the least bit aesthetically pleasing I would have gladly adorned a Speedo to the sprinkler park. I bet Cathy was sitting in her office wearing a sweater, drinking tea and listening to A Very Special Christmas, oh the envy.

The one thing I’ve noticed since I’ve become a stay at home dad, is that there are not a lot of stay at home dads in the neighborhood and by not a lot, I mean none. This doesn’t make me feel weird; it just makes me obvious. I’m almost always completely surrounded by gaggle of mothers and nannies. This means my social conversation which is usually consists of sports, beer and farts had to be altered slightly. Now it’s all about diet, reality television and napping habits. That’s not to say you can’t slip a fart story in there, some mommies are crazy! Anyway my point is, we get to the sprinkler park and it’s packed with mommies and nannies.

I let Lucy go, then give a couple of nods and smiles to a few of the faces I recognize. For the most part, I just stay back and smote the sun. It had been about 15 minutes and the heat was just relentless. There is absolutely no shade on the park and I started to smell rotisserie chicken. Since there wasn’t a restaurant or picnic within eye sight I assumed that the “chicken” smell was my soul cooking from the inside. This is all the excuse I needed.

“Lu, let’s go, it’s too hot.” Now what I should have done next was scooped up her greasy little heat soaked body and plunked her into the stroller, but I didn’t. She asked for a few more minutes, and I gave in. Then without warning Lucy yells…“Daddy look at that lady’s vagina!” I took me a second to actually process what she had just said. After all there were a lot of screaming children around, and it was entirely possible some lady just walked into the park with an Iguana. Then she yelled it again, this time she definitely said the word “vagina.” I’m shocked, scared, confused and now my sweat has begun to scream as it runs down my face. The delicious chicken smell that was my soul is now making me hungry and my daughter is fixated on some stranger’s vagina. This has to be a misunderstanding, a simple case of mistaken identity, I’m 98% sure that she is using this word out of context, she has to be. I mean this is gonna turn out to be a really funny story about the time Lucy got confused and said the word vagina really loud at the sprinkler park, right? Then she points at a lady who is bent over playing with a child. Crap it’s official, this story is now about the 2% I wasn’t sure about.

The vagina in question belonged to one of the Eastern Bloc nannies that troll the neighborhood parks. If I had to guess she was either a former gymnast or a professional shoe tier, ‘cause she was bent over in such a way, that I wasn’t sure if she knew how to use her knees. She appeared to be snapped in half at the waist, she looked like a folding chair! Now the vagina itself was not blatant, I mean it wasn’t as though she was naked. She was wearing very “short” shorts, but they were also either too big or very loose, and what I can only say as a confirmation of the heat, she wasn’t wearing any underwear.

Regardless, there it was right at the end of Lucy’s finger, less than 8ft away. We were in a staring competition of the most uncomfortable variety.
“Doesn’t she have a big vagina Daddy?” You know, there are at least 25 other adults in the park, 24 of which are female, how is it possible that this problem, this view has found me! Surely somebody else has seen this and will politely walk over and tell her that her vagina is hanging out of her shorts. This lady is completely oblivious to the situation. She just keeps going about her business. I mean I can’t say anything right? I’m the last person who should confront her about her omission of underwear. The next few seconds seem like a lifetime as Lucy continues to yell the word vagina every 0.005 seconds. It’s almost as thought she knows this is making me uncomfortable. “Daddy, she’s got a big girl vagina. Remember daddy, I have a vagina? Girls have vagina’s and boys have a wee-wee, right?”
“Right, wee-wees. Whatever let’s go!” Now she’s just mocking me! She’s smirking; she knows what she’s doing. She’s saying this whole problem would be much eaiser to handle if I were screaming the word “Jay-Jay” instead?

I try to grab her, but it’s a lot like trying to pick up a 30lb grease covered water balloon. Instead I slide her along the rubber playground surface and ploop her into her scalding hot stroller, she begins to sizzle. I walk at break-neck speed in order to get home. I explain that we should never use that word at the park. I tell her it’s not nice to point at someone’s vagina. I had no idea what I was talking about; I was trying to defuse the whole situation by teaching a 2 year old how to appropriately use the word vagina in public. This is not a talk a daddy is supposed to be having. I was completely mortified.

Later that night….

Cathy walks through the door and Lucy quickly runs into her arms. She is dry and clean which makes it easy for her mommy to swoop her up. Cathy gives her big squeezes then begins her questioning, “So how was your day today? Did you go to the Pool park? Did you have fun?”
“Yeah! We had fun. We got wet in the water at the pool park. We played and played…. It was so much fun, AND we saw a big girl’s Jay-Jay, right daddy? Not a vagina, a Jay-Jay, right?”
Cathy looks at me, she seems visibly concearned,“What in the world is she talking about?”
I knew she would ask me this, and I knew no matter how hard I tried to explain it, it was gonna sound weird. So I took a great big breath and a giant swig of beer. I shrugged my shoulders and the best I could come up with was, “Yeah-yeah, we went to the park, played in the sprinklers and we saw a Nanny with no panties.”
“A Nanny with no panties?” Cathy repeated.
“Yup. A Nanny with NO panties.”

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Ruby Vs. The Slide

Monday, 79 degrees

“So what did you guys do today?” This was always one of the first things Cathy asks when ending her workday and entering through the threshold of chaos. I’m sure she is genuinely interested in how the day has unfolded for her family. I on the other hand, see this as a conversation driven straight up monotony lane; therefore I defer this question to Lucy… always. On most days I have a real hard time reliving those precious little minutes I spent: cleaning, feeding, playing, wiping butts and answering to the question, “But why?” Yup, this is Lucy’s question and I only interject when I get the feeling I’m about to be ratted out (once we had ice cream and with waffles for breakfast and it was the first thing Lucy told Cathy when she got home. It has been a point of contention in our household for months, because when Cathy makes breakfast on the weekends Lucy makes it very clear to her that “Daddy always gives me ice cream with my breakfast.” This has now progressed to lunches).

“Oh today we played. Ducky and I went on an adventure, we had soup, and I made daddy mustard drink…”
“Did you take a good nap?” Cathy asks. I have already drank a half bottle of wine which was started the moment Cathy walked through the doorway. That was 6 minutes ago.
“No, I wasn’t tired, so I told daddy I’ll just go to bed early, but he said I just had to stay in my room for a couple hours, or until Ruby woke up from her nap (damn, she threw that in there quick! Cathy stares at me disapprovingly, her eyebrows furled. What Lu didn’t tell her was we compromised, and both agreed it would be best if we watched Kung Fu Panda).
“What did you have for lunch?”
“Ummm, I don’t remember. Ummm… ohhh??? I had milk, turkey and cheese. Right daddy?”
“Did you have any fruits or vegetables?” Cathy’s now looking at me with that my husband is gonna malnourish our kids, face. “Uh… our daughter needs to have a fruit AND a vegetable for lunch.” She acts like I don’t know this, she asks everyday! Just then Lucy speaks.
“Oh yeah, and I had a yummy onion.” I give my wine a hard swallow then clear my throat. I forgot about that, she’s not lying. She said she wanted it and I cut a red onion in half and put it on her plate. She ate the whole thing! Cosequently I made her sit on the other side of the room for the rest of the day. My bottle of wine is now gone. Cathy dismisses the onion; I believe she does this because she thinks Lucy is making it up. She’s in for a surprise when she goes in for that kiss goodnight. This thought makes me happy.
“Did you go to the park?”
“Yup. We went to the small park. I ran with some new friends. We played tag, played in some mud, I was swinging on the big kid swings…. bugs… fell down… monkey bars… went down slides. Ruby went down the slides too. She went down the big slide all by herself.”
“She did? All by herself?” Cathy seemed a bit sad that she missed Ruby’s first slide experience, so I didn’t want them to keep talking about it, but she insisted.
“Did she like it?” She asked me. Whoa! A bottle of red in 23 minutes can mess you up quick! I thought I was off duty, why is she asking me?
“…. Yeah she loved it. She couldn’t stop smiling. It was so cute; she was sitting straight up every time. She was like a pro out there.” Okay, I’m drunk! How did that happen so quickly? Why am I holding this beer? Did I start drinking a beer after that wine?? What day is it???
“Did you take any pictures?”
“Ah no. We’ll just go back this weekend and you can watch her, by then she’ll be a pro… I’m going to bed.”
“It’s 7!” She said. Then she looks at me funny and inquires as to why it smells like onions in the house?

The rest of the week was pretty easy, no bumps, bruises or diaper blow-outs. The girls were great. The only negatives to the week were the gradual rising of an unforgiving heat and of course the ridiculously potent onion smell that continued to exude from Lucy’s pores.

Sunday, 88 degrees

Argh It’s hot! (That’s right, anytime it gets over 85 I have the tendency to speak like a pirate.) I just wanna strip down to my underwear, sit in the tub with a red Slurpee and listen to my I-Pod. From the other room Cathy asks if I want to take the girls to the park.
“Umm …. Couldn’t you go and I…”
“No! You sat in the tub yesterday.”
“………………………. Fine.”

Lucy loves the park, and today is no exception; she runs the whole way there. Then she quickly surveys the grounds for any familiar faces, sadly, there are none. I try to tell Cathy that the reason why no one is here is because everyone is at home sitting in their tubs. She then informs me, that I’m the only one who likes to do this; I find that hard to believe. After a few melting minutes on this plastic hell Cathy decides she wants to see Ruby go down the slide. I only half-heartedly pay attention, I have bigger problems. My flip-flops have begun to melt into the playground surface! Cathy laughs, “That’s what you get for buying them at the grocery store.” Touché, Cathy, touché. I guess the lesson here is: Don’t buy flip-flops that are sold in the same aisle as pasta sauce, even if they are on sale. Anyway back to the slide.

The girls were so excited to see Ruby slide, hell even Ruby was excited, she couldn’t stop smiling and kicking her feet. She knew what the slide represented, we all knew. It was freedom, it was speed, it was that euphoric free fall sensation one can only get from your first sliding experiences. At this age the slide must have looked huge, oh the precious little moments that we store in our heads. The whole scene was playing out like a Norman Rockwell painting, right down to the creepy old Santa Clause looking guy sitting under a newspaper hat who has mysteriously appeared on the park bench. Life was great.

What happens next now becomes a cautionary tale for all of my parent friends. No one was “hurt,” hurt, but there is a lesson to be learned. The whole week leading up to this particular “slide,” was quite pleasant. It wasn’t too hot, or too cold. We were also spending all of our time at playground during the mid-morning hours. In all cases Ruby was dressed appropriately: shirt, pants, hat and socks. That is not to say that she wasn’t dressed appropriately today, it was blazing hot! We were all dressed down; Ruby was simply in a nice white cotton onezie. No socks, no pants and no hat, this was going to be our mistake!

Cathy placed the all too overjoyed Ruby at the top of the curly slide. Ruby knew the next step, she scooted to the edge and………………………………………….. It all happened so quickly, yet it was all in slow motion. Now, Ruby is a big girl. I’m talking 25lbs and 30in, all that is stuffed into a nine month onezie that looks like the snaps are about to explode. I quickly realize that the reason why she was so good at sliding all week was all the extra clothing. The sock, pants and hat all helped to glide her way down the slide, I should have saw this coming! The moment she starts her decent it all goes terribly wrong.

Her fleshy wet skin mixes with the unforgiving plastic and sends her head over heels immediately. Her pudgy white sockless feet are now at the top of the slide and she is sliding down head first. We can’t stop her! For some reason the song “Momma I’m Coming Home” is playing as if this were Ruby‘s slow motion swan song. Her lack of pants now turns her sideways, and around the first turn. As I reach to grab her and stop the flub-dub sound she is making when her feet meet her forehead, she slips through my hands, and screeches to the second turn. Cathy is screaming “Noooooooo!” Out of the corner of my eye is see Lucy doing jumping jacks. Crazy Santa has started a fire and is eating a can of beans???

She is now going upside-down and backwards toward the end of her journey, when her hatless head hits a crease in the slide and flips her right back onto her butt, then to her face and finally into a barrel roll onto the ground. The slide spit her out, like a cat clearing her throat of a hairball. I pick her off the ground, and everything goes back to real time. Cathy is in a panic, Lucy mentions how my feet and flip-flops are now one, crazy Santa has now pooped under the teeter-tooter and Ruby is silently staring at me. She is shocked! If she could talk she would have easily said, “What the hell, was that all about?” But she barely made a peep. Instead she continued to stare at us; she had no idea what to do. We gathered our things and started to walk home. Ruby fell asleep immediately.
“I thought you said that you had been practicing on the slide all week?” Cathy says this to me as if this whole thing is my fault.
“We did, wasn’t that cool?”

Monday, July 13, 2009

A Disturbing & Terrifying Event

This has been rewritten and edited for your viewing pleasure. It can be found in the soon to be released book Life Between Naps. Link and info coming November 2015.

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

What Happens Between Naps?

After months of sitting around on the floor eating pretend dinners fixed by my 3 year old daughter Lucy and her 9 month old apprentice Ruby, I decided I needed a place to vent. I am an unemployed 33 year old father, sitting on a $40,000 English teaching degree and as of 3:49 today no current job offers. But I'm not worried, why should I be? After all I was told getting a job teaching English in one of the biggest public school systems in the country would be a cinch. Oh yeah, and then there's that part about where they continue to tell me that the system is hiring... last time I checked, my phone still worked (just to be fair, I refuse to believe that my inexperience, stubbornness, arrogance, facial hair and fear of authority have anything to do with this). If I didn't think I could do it, and for that matter do it well, I wouldn't have spent all my wife's money!

So it has come to this... my wife makes the money and I watch the girls. To be honest I've grown quite fond of my position in this family. The advantages are easy to list: Play-doh, parks, cartoons, cookies and naps. The disadvantages are: Accidentally mistaking Play-doh for candy and cookies, being attacked by day dwelling rats at the playground, being forced to watch the same cartoon (and by "same" I mean the exact same. Not just Smurfs, but I mean Smurfs episode 1 season 1 everyday for the past 9 months. The show in question that has brain-washed my child is Hi-Five, I hate it, and I want it to die), and the fury that ensues when naps are not taken. But perhaps the biggest disadvantage is the lack of adult contact and conversation.

I spend a shade less that 12 hours a day watching over the girls. We play, cook, clean, launder, loiter (twice), shop, sleep and just about everything you can think of that will occupy a motivated 3 year old and her increasingly irritable little sister. Sadly, the one thing we never do is discuss current events, politics, music sung by non-animated creatures, sports and the government's ability to stare the American public right in the eye and deny the existence of extraterrestrial life on this planet. Damn it, open the doors to Area 51 and prove to us that there are no aliens or at the least a super mutant Sasquatch army (I've heard things). All of these thoughts, events and mishaps have brought me to this point, this "big" idea. With this blog, I can share these things with adults. I can and will have my say! The problem is on most days I only get an hour and a half of free time, but that's all I'll need. I'm not chronicling every single second of my life. Nope, I don't have time for that. This is strictly limited to the things, thoughts, events, the "life" if you will, that happens between naps.