This one is going out to DANIEL PASTOREK, who in February of 1961 impregnated his fiance on her 18th birthday, and who then, over the course of the next nine months, permanently abandoned her and her unborn child.

Way to go, Dad. You're a class act. I especially liked the thing where you told Mom you'd have a whole bunch of your friends show up in court and swear under oath that they'd slept with her too, so the kid could just as easily be theirs as yours, if she tried to sue. That was exceptionally mature of you, I think.

Damn, you child abandoning pricks must really miss those hazy crazy days before DNA testing, huh?

My last blog post was up for four days and it got no comments, and frankly, that's just annoying. I know I have a very small audience here, but... well, we've been through this before. When I swing by here and see 'no comments' staring back at me multiple times over four days, it's a slap in the face that I just don't need. So I'm doing this entry, because I'd been planning to do the above Father's Day thing for a while, but after this I will probably either stop blogging or go back to private blogging, where I don't mind not getting comments because I expect none. You have been so advised.

There's stupid mundane domestic life shit going on here, but not a whole lot.

Friday the 13th passed without negative incident.

Paul's dog Chewie has figured out some way to slip, Houdini-like, out of his harness whenever Paul puts him out on his chain, so now Paul isn't putting him out on his chain any more, and Chewie is driving us both nuts, constantly wanting to be taken for walks.

I ran my RPG Friday night; my three players seemed impressed with the level of detail my campaign has, but seemed completely at sea as to what to do or how to proceed in one of the most simple scenarios I've ever put together, so I really don't know what's going to happen there. These guys seem to need to be led around by the hand and told what to do and how to do it, and, well, that's not how I DM.

I've been mostly watching the 4th Season of BUFFY and little else. Paul's buds stop by generally at least once a day. Most of them are cool. One of them seems to be kind of an ass... he likes to come by and brag about all the women who are paying attention to him, and show off little private sex notes they've passed to him at work, which I personally think is simply shitty behavior on many levels... he's invading the privacy of the women involved, and he's strutting his success with women in front of a couple of guys who haven't been laid in years, one of whom is supposed to be his friend. But, the guy is Paul's friend, so I'm diplomatic around him.

Pat showed up... brother Pat, not friend Pat... to see if Paul wanted to go with him to visit Paul's father Bill out at the home where Bill is today. Of course, Pat hadn't called first at any point, so Paul was still in bed when he showed up (well, I was, too). So now Paul is feeling somewhat guilty because he forgot about Father's Day, and also because of the little chuckle in Pat's voice when he said "And he's still in bed". Pat's the most successful member of our entire generation of our family, and I'm proud of him, but he's really judgemental a lot of the time, and since the standards he judges people by are the fairly typical social standards of an affluent church going conservative, it's even more annoying than it would be anyway. Paul's sleeping late isn't anyone's business but Paul's, and if Pat had bothered to call us before he just dropped by at 11:30 on a Sunday morning, Paul would have been up and ready to go see his dad with him. Beyond that, when Paul starts his new job, I'm sure there will be many occasions when he's still asleep at 11:30 a.m., because he worked all night. Christ, I'm glad Pat would never think to offer his guest room to me when I find myself homeless. He'd be driving me crazy if I were living out there with him.

Beyond that, nothing much to report. Paul showed me where there was a Kash n' Karry a couple of miles from his place... it's a nice store, but just far enough away that I'll probably continue to do my shopping at the U-Save that is a few blocks closer, and which isn't so nice. Zephyrhills is too fucking hot in the summer for me to walk an extra half mile just to get a better selection of groceries.

Have not heard from Jonathan as yet on the Jeff Webb book.

I have started getting email from someone named Louis who is reading a lot of my fiction and commenting on it, and that's pleasant.

My allergies seem under control, since friend Pat brought over a stack of... hold on... Zyrtec-D 12 hour sample pills, which are comprised of 5mg of cetirizine HCI and 120mg of pseudophedrine HCI.

Several of the charges I've put on my debit card over the past week hit all at once and really nuked my bank account... the $704 high water mark I had right after my last Unemployment check has dwindled to around $250. But that's fine, since the stuff that I spent the money on is all pretty much necessary... two months rental at the storage facility currently keeping the weather off all my books, and paying Paul's electric bill online.

Oh, I walked over to the Kash n' Karry yesterday to pick up raw materials for chocolate chip cookies... Paul seemed inordinately impressed that I was going to mix up a batch from scratch. They didn't turn out great, but they're edible, and home made chocolate chip cookies are better than a slap in the belly with a wet fish any time.

We're still seeing the occasional roach out front, especially when we have food cooking, but I haven't seen one back here in a week or so, and I like it that way.

Go ahead. Don't put any comments on this entry. You'll be looking at it for a long time, though.

THE INEVITABLE DISCLAIMER

By generally accepted social standards, I'm not a likable guy. I'm not saying that to get cheap reassurances. It's simply the truth. I regard many social conventions in radically different ways than most people do, I have many many controversial opinions, and I tend to state them pretty forthrightly. This is not a formula for popularity in any social continuum I've ever experienced.

In my prior blogs, I took the fairly standard attitude: if you don't like my opinions or my blog, don't read the fucking thing.

Having given that some more thought, though, I'm not going to say that this time around, because I've realized that what this is basically saying is, 'if you don't like what I have to say, tough, I don't want to hear it, don't even bother to tell me, just go away'.

And that's actually a pretty worthless attitude. It's basically saying, 'I don't want to hear anything except unconditional agreement and approval'. And that's nonsense. This is still a free country... for a little while longer, anyway... and if you really feel you just gotta send me a flame, or post one on my comment threads (assuming they actually work, which I cannot in any way guarantee) then by all means, knock yourself out.

Unless your flame is exceptionally cogent, witty, or stylish, though, I will most likely ignore it. You do have a right to say anything you want (although I'm not sure that's a right when you're doing it in my comment threads, but hey, you can certainly send all the emails you want). However, I have an equal right not to read anything I don't feel like reading... and I'm really quick with the delete key... as various angry folks have found in the past, when they decided they just had to do their absolute level best to make me as miserable as possible.

So, if you don't like my opinions, feel free to say so. However, if I find absolutely nothing worthwhile in your commentary, I will almost certainly not respond to it in any way.

Stupidity, ignorance, intolerance... these things are only worth my time and attention if they're entertaining. So unless you can be stupid, ignorant, and/or intolerant with enough wit, style, and/or panache to amuse me... try to be smart, informed, and broad minded when you write me.

Like it? Hate it? Hit me with your best shot.