Two Drawings, assorted randimosity of my weekend, and my Dad is cool.

I had an extremely hectic but totally satisfying weekend, the highlight of which was Dylan Coffman's little league baseball game. Dawn Coffman was out of town and Bill brought me in off the bench to help him watch the other three hooligans while he cheered Dylan on in his second ball game ever. I did some truly inspired child wrangling which included but was not limited to: pushing children in swings, playing tag, doling out snacks (popcorn, cheesesticks, and Capri Suns), racing, swinging kids around by the arms, picking up kids and "flying" them, mediating minor sibling disputes, and ALMOST catching little Will as he slipped off the wet bleachers and smashed his head with an unpleasant hollow banging sound.

Don't worry, he recovered quickly.

After the game we all went back to the Coffman's place for dinner, where the kids treated me like a long lost family member and I was presented with this picture drawn by Sarah Beth.

That's me with the crazy hair, obviously. That's what I like about kid drawings, they so often cut to the heart of things. It does hurt a little bit to know that my UHS is recognizable even to a five (six?) year old. I've been trying to hide it for so long...

Also this is yet another drawing by a Coffman child that features me in a canoe, which brings my heart great happiness. If only I had time to canoe as much as they THINK I do...

Dawn and Bill treated me to a delicious dinner of baked spaghetti, bread, salad, and other deliciousness. Thanks guys. It was an awesome evening. Your kids almost make me want some of my own, like, right now.

Almost.

Speaking of drawings and family, this one was inspired by a telephone conversation with my Dad.


If you've been looking for someone to occasionally blame for the content of this blog, you can pretty much point at my Dad as the origins of my twisted sense of humor. As proof, I offer these extremely strange article where he was interviewed.

http://www.whatsuppub.com/showArticle.asp?articleId=5266

Thanks Dad, for being the bizarre, twisted, amazing person that you are. I hope to one day half the father that you've been to me.

--A--

*NOTE* I've been feeling a little family oriented lately. Can you tell? Future posts will include cartoons inspired by or dealing with other members of my immediate family. So don't get jealous, Mom, Ben, and Megan. Your spotlight is coming!

The SPICY Baconator

Yes. They've improved the Baconator with Pepper Jack cheese, a spicy sauce, and jalapeños. Now the blasted thing is even more tasty and more destructive to one's sensitive internal organs. Curse you Dave Thomas! *NOTE* Click on the picture to view it larger in another window. This might help reading the text.

Some Random Doodles

I had a few minutes today and I scribbled some things down on a few sticky notes. I should probably upload these a day at a time so I have some stuff to post about, but whatever.

*Note. These are not done with Sharpie so they are not, in fact, sharpie doodles. But they are close.

Midnight Pasta

I can't get to sleep. Lot of things on my mind lately. So I'm making spaghetti. As an intellectual excercise, I'm giving myself the time that it takes my noodles to boil to write a relevant post and draw a picture for it.

Starting now. 11:58. Go!

There were a lot of strange things in the news today but I can't remember any of them, so I guess they aren't really worth talking about.

What with one thing and the other, romance has been on my mind a lot lately.

Gah! Blather! I just wasted a good six minutes whining about stuff nobody cares about. I deleted it. Drivel.

Oh wait! I have a shocking resemblance to novelist and satirist Kurt Vonnegut! Or rather in sixty years I WILL look just like he looked when he was 80. This was pointed out to me by a girl I see maybe once every two months in the parking lot of a Chik-Fil-A that I randomly decided to go to. Now how is that for strange. Had I sat at a stoplight earlier in the day for twenty seconds more, that conversation would never have happened and I wouldn't be writing this right now. Sometimes the world just astounds me.

Water is boiling and noodles have been broken and added! Time grows short!

Somehow there are NO forks at my house. Zero. I know when I moved in here with Tim we had some. Ten at least. Now there are zero. Okay, well I know where one is. It's down in my room, dirty from the LAST time I made spaghetti. (I'm a single guy, okay! Geez.) But other than that...zero forks.

I have to draw something fast. The noodles might already be ready because I have no way to check them...they keep sliding off the spoons!

*He rushes downstairs, grabs pad and marker out of backpack, and draws furiously*

Done!

Not my finest attempt at art, but it will have to do. Plus, I really think this might be what is going on.

I just realized no spoons either. I'm going to have to eat this spaghetti with two knives like dysfunctional chopsticks.

This has been a strange post. I apologize. Time's up.

12:14 Time to eat!

NOTE: Ten minutes elapsed while I scanned this picture in and spellchecked. Everything else is true.

I got this card from the Coffman kids for my birthday this year. It is, without a doubt, the greatest card I've ever gotten.


That's me there in the hat. Apparently I'm in a canoe with all the kids.

No reason to put this up, I just saw it in my room and wanted to share the awesomeness.

--A--

Syndromes

The first day of spring is here! Go, go on my friends, go outside! Fall in love, water flowers in your gardens, pick out shapes in the clouds, all that jazz.

Or, stay inside and read my blog! Huzzah!

Okay, so today’s topic is syndromes. Namely this: I have a new favorite one! Up until today, my favorite medical syndrome of all time was *Restless Leg Syndrome. But thanks to a little browsing on **GoogleTrends yesterday, I now have a new favorite. Yup. You guessed it. Uncombable Hair Syndrome.

This is a real thing, people, a medically proven ailment suffered by a small percentage of human beings. Basically, it’s a slight deformation of the hair shape and follicles that makes the hair slightly rougher and super sticky uppidy. In other words, uncombable. Don’t believe me? That’s cool. I have done my research and if you are too lazy to do yours, it’s no problem of mine.

So my research into UHS got me thinking: what other personal problems can be written off to strange genetics?

How about UTTTGCS (Youtigeeks): Unable To Talk To Girls Comfortably Syndrome—affects millions of young men across the country. This regrettable condition relegates these sad, greasy young men to having conversations with the opposite sex entirely on the Internet. Treatment: as of yet undiscovered.

And then of course there is CSOHS (Seesohs): Compulsive Sniffing Of Highlighters Syndrome. This terrible ailment is much more widespread, with it’s only serious side affect being some people with brightly colored nostrils.

Got any more strange ailments? I’d love to hear them.

Enjoy the first day of spring, my lovelies. Until next time, as the dolphins of Dinotopia say, Breath Deep. Seek Peace.

--A--

FOOTNOTES:

*Restless Leg Syndrome is a real thing. I guess. If you have RLS and I have offended you, I’m sorry. But not sorry enough to not think the commercials are funny. As a person who can barely even speak without jumping and jiving all over the place and who can’t get to sleep unless I’m totally, physically exhausted, I have little pity for you.

**Google Trends is a fascinating thing. You can look at all the data for the top 100 Google searches for that HOUR, as well as compare those results with related searches and so on. It can be quite instructive to see what the country is googling at the moment, and it brings up some interesting questions. For instance…Why is “Mr. Rodgers” the 65^th most Googled thing from twelve o’clock this afternoon? And what is “Sweater Day”? And how are the two related? I’m not going to tell you…but you can find out at www.google.com/trends

THINGS THAT HAPPENED THIS WEEKEND AND A HOW TO TELL IF YOU AREN’T GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP.

(If you don’t care about my life, and I don't blame you if you don't, skip the first two paragraphs and go to "How to tell If you Aren't Getting Enough Sleep)

Well my weekend turned out to contain everything I thought it would times ten. In accordance with Sharpie Doodles tradition, I won’t bore you with details that you don’t care about but instead give you the broad strokes: I got some things straightened out and reestablished an important friendship, I watched Smokey the Bear watch a forest fire, I drove through hail in a soft top jeep, I shared a chocolate brownie cake thingy with two lovely ladies on Pi Day, I sent an e-mail to a woman in Brazil whom I’ve never met before, and six separate people told me I needed a new pair of cowboy boots.

So let me just address this issue right now: I’m not getting a new pair of cowboy boots. I like the pair that I have. They fit me. They are scuffed. They are scratched. They are wearing a bit thin. Some might say a little too thin…a sentiment I’ll grudgingly agree with. But these boots are special. They are my year in review. They have been worn down as I’ve been built up. They are reminders of my family in Texas, my time in Savannah, my move to Atlanta, the rebuilding of Andrew Marshall. These boots have the dust and muck and soil of three amazing cities ingrained into their worn leather and paper thin soles, even the money I bought them with has special significance, and they ain’t going anywhere until they fall off of my feet. If that means I have to use gaffers tape to keep them together…so be it. (It’s kind of a specialty of mine…I’ve become fairly adept at keeping things from falling apart using cable ties, twisties, and gaffers tape. Mostly it’s a skill built up from years of owning terrible cars and being very poor.)

So. Anyway. On to the actual post.

WAYS TO TELL THAT YOU AREN’T GETTING ENOUGH SLEEP

Numbah Ones: Your toothbrush is still wet from the night before.

Numbah Twos: In a similar vein…you can still taste your toothpaste from the night before.

Numbah Threes: Eye goo and crusties do not have time to accumulate.

Numbah Fours: You starting making lists entitled “Ways to Tell That You Aren’t Getting Enough Sleep”.

Numbah Fives: Co-workers begin to assume that A: there has been a death in your family, B: You’ve started taking drugs C: Aliens have taken over your brain or D: All of the above.

Numbah Sixes: You find the intentional misspelling of the word “number” to be the height of Swiftian witticism.

Numbah Sevens: All of your fantasies begin to involve a tribe of beautiful young Amazons capturing you while on a safari in Africa, taking you back to their village, throwing you down on a huge, soft, king sized bed, tucking you in gently, kissing you on the forehead, and singing lullabies to you as you drift slowly into slumber.

Numbah Eights: You begin repeating yourself.

Numbah Eights: You begin repeating yourself.

Numbah Eights: You begin repeating yourself.

Numbah Nines: You wake up one morning and realize that you were getting more nighttime snooze when you unloaded trucks at Target OVERNIGHT.

Numbah Tens: You know there MUST be ten ways to tell that you aren’t getting enough sleep, but you just can’t think of number ten, so you resort to cheap tricks to fill the slot.

--A--