There's been wasted hours and there's wasted days, I'm gonna waste a few more if I get my way

I hope you all had a good holiday season. I did. I went to Arizona and spent a little over a week with my kids. It's been a year since I was able to get that much time with them. It's not enough, but it'll have to do.

I decided when I left that I'd take a little detour and check out Monument Valley. I've been wanting to check it out ever since my cousin posted some pictures on Facebook, and my friend from Switzerland included it in her trip to the U.S. last summer. Plus I wanted to make my brother jealous that I was going to take some amazing pictures and he wasn't.

I definitely got some good shots, and he was definitely jealous:

You can get closer to the "full experience" if you listen to Blitzen Trapper's album American Goldwing while looking at those, btw. It was the perfect soundtrack.

I was pretty bummed about that last one. I wanted a good photo of the highway leading to the valley, but I approached from the south instead of the north, so I didn't get this until I'd been through the valley already, and the sun was too low. (And by the way, how bad does it suck that 3:30 p.m. is too late in the day to avoid a "sunset" shot?). Whatever. It's still kind of a cool picture, but maybe that will give me the incentive to make it back down there. I didn't see Forrest Gump anywhere. Or Wile E. Coyote. I figured I'd run into at least one of them.

After I left Monument Valley, I was apparently supposed to make a left turn somewhere in or around a town called Mexican Hat, but somehow I missed that and didn't realize it for about 30 miles. Rather than turn around, I just went ahead to Moab. It was the alternate route on my maps app, it only tacked on an extra hour or so, and it's not like I have anything terribly exciting to come home to anyway. I got some good BBQ in Moab, and my waitress was really hot, so it was definitely worth it. (I even left her a note - no, I won't hear from her.)

All in all, it was not a bad way to start off 2012.

Also, I bought a postcard to send my kids, and on the back wrote "Hey Assholes, see what you missed?" I'm a great father.

Do you remember cooking roasts on the Sabbath with your dad?

I'm visiting my kids for the weekend. My ex-wife and her boyfriend are working today. I was in their kitchen making some lunch, when Tortellini came in.

Mr M said, "Get out of the kitchen [Tortellini]!"

I said, "No, don't you know that's a woman's place? Get back in the kitchen [Tortellini]!"

Mr M asked, "Does that mean you're a woman, Dad? You're in the kitchen."

I answered, "Yeah, I am. Can't you see my gigantic boobs?"

There's an ember in the rafters and it's going to burn the whole thing down

Has it really been a year and a half since our last bonfire at the dry lake bed? Well, not anymore. We fixed that this weekend.

My friend and I were hanging out at a bar beforehand, and one of the servers asked us if we wanted to stick around after her shift so she could hang out with us. We told her we couldn't, because we were going to have a bonfire in the desert. She asked, "A bonfire? How old are you guys again?"

It doesn't matter how old you are. There's always a good time to be had when there's a bonfire involved.

A few highlights of the evening:

Someone tied glow sticks onto their shoes and took off running across the lake bed. I'll admit, it was kind of cool to see green lights bobbing up and down out in the darkness. It was even better when someone else ran out there and tackled the first person, what with the lights flying up in the air and all.

Okay, so maybe that was a little juvenile. Whatevs.

At one point someone started talking about a documentary they had seen about people who have sex with horses. Why anyone would watch such a documentary is beyond me, but even if I did watch, I'd keep it to myself.

One couple brought a some bags of beef jerky, and a bag of pup-peroni for their dog. I got the bags confused at least three different times. Luckily, the texture was different, so I didn't end up eating any doggie snacks.

Probably the funniest part of the night came when a girl told me, at knifepoint, to "get on the fucking car" so she could have her way with me. She didn't though. I don't know whether I should feel relieved, or extremely disappointed by that.

Eventually, the wind started blowing sand all over the place. Not to exaggerate at all, but it was basically just like the sand storm from The Mummy. My friend and I left at that point. It was probably for the best since i didn't crawl into bed and fall asleep until about 4 a.m. I was hoping to sleep in, but then I got a missed call from Tortellini around 7:45. My phone kept buzzing until I acknowledged that, so I called back to see what she wanted. She wanted to know if Grandma had a recipe for ginger spice cookies. Being the great father that I am I said, "I don't know. Don't you think you should call and ask Grandma instead?"

No word as to whether or not she got the recipe.

I like it for fashion because the rock loves dysfunction

Last week I took my kids shopping for school clothes before they moved. Togers spent the day helping his mom load the moving van, so I started shopping with Tortellini and Mr M with the plan that she'd drop Togers off at a certain store. We finished there before she got there, so we went to a few nearby stores while we waited, including the one where Mr M picked out his new SpongeBob Boxers.

Later, when we were completely done shopping and were driving to meet their mom I realized that I'd forgotten to get new underwear for Togers.

Me: Oh no! I meant to get you some underwear, but I thought I should wait because I didn't know what kind you prefer.

Togers: Boxer briefs.

Tortellini: Actually, Dad, he goes commando.

Me: [Tortellini]! That is your brother's junk you're talking about.

Tortellini: EEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!

Me: What? You're the one that brought it up.

Tortellini: Well you're the one that had to go and make me visualize it.

Maybe they're not going to miss me that much after all.

We could go and float around in our favorite swimming ground

My ex-wife called me on Saturday night to make plans for Father's Day. She told me that the kids wanted to come to my house and go swimming, and asked if that would be okay if they all came over for that. She volunteered to cook dinner at my house if she could come too. I said that'd be fine.

Tortellini called me yesterday afternoon to see if I could come get them, so I drove over to their house. My ex-wife still had a few things to put together for the meal she was going to fix at my place, so she said just to take the kids and go and she'd come over later. I did, and when we got to my house we went straight to the pool.

My ex-wife showed up a little while later. She sat down poolside and grabbed my phone to check the time. I asked her to check my phone for any text messages while she had it. It turned out I had missed one. From her.

Ex: There's just a message here from someone named [Ex's Name] that says 'I'll be there in a few, what's the gate code?'

Tortellini (sarcastically): Oooooohhhhh. You got a text from [Ex's Name]? Who's that? Huh, Dad?

Me: Oh, her? That's just some crazy bitch that won't stop calling me.

I truly am the world's greatest father.

I am an American aquarium drinker, I assassin down the avenue

Me: I can't believe you're going to be a teenager within a week.

Togers: I know.

Me: You realize I have to kill you within the next few days, right? I can't be having teenagers.

Togers: Um, you've already got one: Tortellini.

Me: I know. I'm working on that too.

Togers: ???

Me: I've hired a hitman.

Togers: Well he must not be a very good one considering that she just turned fifteen.

Me: I know. He's not. I'm thinking of asking for my deposit back.

The way the lazy do

Togers had his end of year band performance yesterday. He called me about an hour beforehand to tell me about it, so I didn't get to take any pictures, but least I made it.

The kids did a good job. It seems his school has a great music teacher*. It was incredible to see how much the kids have improved since their Christmas concert a few months ago. At the end of the performance, I thought about getting up from my seat to start a standing ovation, but then I thought about the effort that would require, and didn't.

I'm such a good dad!






*And he's not even gay or anything. Weird.

Add another belt notch to the hundreds for the heartache assassin

Togers got his heart broken for the first time. My ex called me last night to see if I'd talk to him about it. I did, but as I was talking to him it occurred to me that me giving him girl advice would be similar to Larry the Cable Guy being science adviser to the White House.

This morning I asked if he was feeling any better. He said he was. When he got out of the car I told him the one thing about girls that I do know for sure: "Chicks are crazy, man. Don't ever forget that."

It's a small world after all

The reasons why I am simultaneously the world's best and the world's worst dad:

Tortellini is in Disneyland for the weekend.

Togers and Mr M are not.

Nacho nacho man, I wanna be a nacho man

Mr M: I love you Dad.

Me: I love you too, Kiddo.

Mr M: Do you love nachos too?

Me: I do love nachos.

Mr M: Which do you love more, me, or nachos?

Me: Uh, I'm going to have to go with nachos.

Mr M: I love you infinity more than nachos.

Me: That's sweet, but for me it's the reverse. I love nachos infinitely more than I love you.

The truth will not set you free, it's ok to believe that you're not good enough

Me: Hello?

Ex-Wife: [Mr M] has something to tell you.

Me: Ok, put him on the phone.

Mr M: Dad, did you know that if you have a whole bunch of kids, and you don't want all of 'em then you can kill one?

Me: Nope. I didn't know that.

Mr M: You can. And you get to choose which one you want to kill.

Me: Wow. So which one of you guys do I want to choose?

Ex-Wife: He just rolled his eyes and handed me the phone.