Tag Archives: Humor

Humor Sentiments

The new year is a perfect time to start over, except for my job and my house and my friends and my habits.  I want new clothes, is what I’m saying.

 

For me, Christmas isn’t about materialism, unless that means you like getting gifts, because then it totally is.

 

There’s no knitting-related problem that knitting can’t solve.

 

I like to think that the “Hang in there” kitty hung in there, and is now living happily with the Family of a courageous fire fighter.  I also like to think about fire fighters.

 

A relaxing drive is a great way to clear your head, especially if your problem is the kind you can run over with your car.

 

My upcoming anniversary is my diamond anniversary. I don’t care what number it is. I put up with a lot.

 

If they don’t want me to get Botox, they’ll have to do better than “it’s poison that’s never killed anyone.”

 

I don’t want to get too sentimental on your birthday… But you’re kind of an ass sometimes. (I think that went well.)

 

People say “Little Miss Perfect” like it’s a bad thing.

 

I think there’s someone I need to get in touch with and forgive.  And that someone is that bitch Jenny Perkins from 10th grade and it’s not gonna happen.

Humor Sentiments

My mother always told me never to say “hate”, so let’s get together and talk about people we would enjoy murdering.

 

You really impress me, but to be honest, I’m still kind of blown away by the invention of the spatula.  I mean, come on, that thing is genius.

 

I’m pretty sure the key to happiness is to not think too much about anything ever.

 

Life has its ups and downs and its turns and bumps, but sometimes there’s a bar up there on the left, so life is good sometimes, also.

 

I’ve been trying to convince my boss to wear a bell.

 

I like to think of my dating life as more of a catch and release program for wild morons. Next time you’re at a bar, avoid guys with tagged ears.

 

I look back to when we were younger, and I really feel like I owe you.  But your birthday is not time to focus on revenge.  That will come sometime later.  When you least expect it.

 

You’re living proof of how high a person can rise from such humble, awkward, smelly, pimpled, webbed-footed, hunch-backed beginnings.

 

You’re the kind of sister that most people write stories about.  With titles that usually start with Return Of, Revenge Of, or Curse Of.

 

The truth is that you’re not nearly as ugly as all the wilderness animals I will continue to compare you to.  Happy Birthday, gorilla arms.

Notes On Fatherhood

Find Your Meatballs

A friend recently asked me about how she could bond with her new step-son, who is a preteen with a new step-mom, and so the answer is: it’s impossible so don’t even try. But having made her sit through so many of my coma inducing stories about my kid over the years, she had earned the right to ask how she, too, might make her own stories boring enough to fade the color of the wall paint as she told them.

And so after my internal reaction of “don’t bother,” my answer was “find your meatballs.” She of course thought I was being a wise-ass, which of course I was, but knowing that she was sincerely reaching out, I was being a wise-ass in delivery only and genuine in meaning.

My son and I sometimes make meatballs together. I’m second generation Italian American. Think “The Sopranos,” if they were middle-class and obeyed the law. Actually, think of every Italian American caricature from the Sopranos who wasn’t in the mob. That would be about right.

So, meals, cooking, food in general were a massive percentage of my childhood experience. Grandparents next door, aunts and uncles up the street, cousins everywhere. Mom and aunts in the kitchen all afternoon, their nonstop chatter over the white noise hiss of breaded groceries frying in olive oil. You get the idea.

I live far away now. No cousins down the street for my son, no grandparents next door. I try to give him some sense of this family experience by cooking together whenever we can, which is pretty often. He’s young enough to still want to hang out with his dad, and I do almost all the cooking in my house.

Many years ago, when my wife, then girlfriend, and I moved in together, she asked me if I wanted my pasta ‘al dente,’ or ‘cooked.’ I told her to get out of the kitchen and to never cook for me again as long as she lived. She immediately agreed, and we have been generally happy kitchen-wise ever since. Here I need to say that she’s got a few good meals down, because she does, and because I would like to avoid getting throat punched in my sleep.

Making meatballs with my son is a long process with many steps and it requires him to concentrate, to do as he is told (whilst handling raw meat and such), and to have a thing to do with his dad that he likes. And the pay-off is meatballs, the awesomeness of which should go without saying. And I will risk bragging by saying that our meatballs are better than most (yours). Let me know if you want the recipe. And they are one of the very few high calorie non-crap foods he will eat, which a lot of parents know is a victory of ‘Impossible Dream’ proportions.

We don our aprons, lay out our supplies and ingredients, and we become a professional level duo of meatballers, a Guinea Batman and (half-Guinea) Robin that I’d put up against any surgical staff or Olympic bob sled team for seamless work process.

And thus we make meatballs. Lots of meatballs. At least 50 at a time. They freeze great, and they are the go-to conversation starter at every dinner which features them (“This was a good batch. Not too heavy on the breadcrumbs. Nice browning,” etc.).

My friend told me that her step-son doesn’t like to cook, but that doesn’t matter. My son and I have meatballs. She needed to find whatever they could do together that would hold his attention. It would be even better if on the surface the activity has nothing to do with her – her participation incidental, but her presence necessary.

Some time later, she told me she had actually started making meatballs more often. He enjoys them, which increases the likelihood of a pleasant family dinner experience, and she schedules those dinners on the nights when it’s his turn to clean the kitchen. She stays to help him move things along, which gives them as much as an entire hour in the same room together.

Maybe they talk, maybe they don’t. Maybe they solve a problem, maybe they load the washer and go their separate ways. But he’s doing something, and there she is. He feels her presence in his life. Not pressing to finish homework, or to get off the computer already. No explosive arguments where the kid discovers new ways to be insulting and disrespectful. She’s just there. And during those early teen years, that’s often what a kid needs, and maybe the best a parent can hope for.

I’m sure my kid won’t want to make meatballs with me in a few short years, and I’ll have to just be present and bite my tongue, which won’t happen and we’ll have those explosive fights I just advised my friend on how to avoid. But maybe I can at least threaten my son with meatball deprivation. I’m sure it won’t have the desired effect, but maybe it’ll give me something to write about in a few years. Even when kids are good for nothing, they’re always good for that.

Humor Sentiments

All the young girls out there who think that being young is better, obviously don’t know about the random sweating, which is really fun.

 

You know, no one would mess with you if they knew how unstable I am.

 

I may not have all the answers you need right now. But I can yell “What an a-hole!” a bunch of times really loud.  And that just might help a little.

 

Stress is a process that comes in stages: anger, disappointment, yelling, drinking alcohol, eating chocolate, drinking more alcohol, yelling more…  And I’ll be right there with you through every step of the way.

 

Congratulations, graduate.  Now please hurry up and fix the world right now.

 

Is there an emotion called ‘smoochy’?  Because I’m feeling something right now and I’m pretty sure it’s smoochy.

 

Someday in the future… I don’t know when… you and I will go shopping and waste money, and it will be beautiful.

 

The only reason why women are a mystery is because men are idiots.

 

People are going to tell you it’s not so bad.  Try very hard not to punch those people in the face.

 

Friendship is the greatest birthday gift you can expect from a cheap friend.

I Call Myself a Renaissance Man But Never Out Loud

Wood carving is my latest hobby,

my latest need for new tools to place just so on top of old tools.

 

Hook blades, triangle chisels, razor spoons dreamed by Dr. Seuss

and gifts via my wife’s rolling eyes

from my five year old son, the reason I need a hobby,

and one I can sample in ten-minute increments.

 

And so I carved a spoon so big it could feed the world,

my version of starting small.

 

I sharpen, hone, strop, learn about

woods that shape, work well when wet, green.

There’s just something about sharpening, being sharp,

that makes me inhale.

 

At first and as always my hobby was

research, preparation, accumulation, anticipation

of satisfying in this instance my need to squeeze, to flex my hands,

like kneading pasta dough or washing my son’s hair.

Squeeze till my forearms hum and my fingers open by themselves.

 

My wife wonders why I pay more at a thrift store

for items like a retired aluminum slaughterhouse ice shovel,

how it could be better at clearing snow.

But it is better at holding my son,

Who sits in the palm of it, and then I toss him onto the pile,

and he rolls down the other side, laughing.

I imagine the curator in a hundred years

prying open the crate, utilizing his grandfather’s crowbar

and forearms of his own,

seeing my signature and knowing he has stumbled upon

an original Conti, the fabled Giant Spoon.

My signature a smudge of blood

usually from my left thumb left on every piece I’ve touched.

Spoons of increasing smallness.

But what more proof could he need, could I leave,

than that.

Humor Sentiments

I know that, as my friend, you’d always be there for me.  Like if I ever needed a hug, or a loan, or a kidney, or a heart.  Not your liver. I’ve seen how you treat that thing.

 

All I need is you.  And coffee.  And my allergy medicine.  And my special pillow.  But mostly just you.

 

I miss you so much I’m totally unmotivated at work, I can’t get organized, and I hate my boss, which is a lot like when you were here.  But now I also miss you.

 

I’m pretty keyed up to help you, and I’ve watched a lot of karate movies, is all I’m saying.

 

You will never have to ask me if I have time to help you, or if I’d like another round, or if I’d like to see the dessert cart.  That’s just the kind of friend I am.

 

Mom, I have a very important question about raising my kids.  Can you please raise my kids? Seriously.  I’ll pay you a lot.

 

Don’t Shoot! I’m not a zombie!  I just haven’t had my coffee yet!

 

Oxygen will begin to flow for those passengers who pay a nominal fee.

 

Things to be proud of #25: I’ve never been swabbed for a DNA sample.

 

I’m a pacifist, so whoever’s bothering you is going to be shocked when I bring the pain.

Waiting For Inspiration

Spigot wide open.

Clockwise all the way.

A lefty loosy ink hydrant to extinguish this burn at any moment now.

 

Five thousand pound press.

My palm the definition of flat,

primed to stamp out metaphors one and then one and then one.

 

Whorish woman

blows on the dice.

I want to win at crap so bad, and God I hope she’s really a whore.

 

Straight-jacketed lunatic

who hasn’t seen the moon in years

hears “you can go now” and awaits the grand unbuckling.

 

Veteran brick layer,

trowel scraped to a satin finish,

ready to work off the morning chill and make another good neighbor.

 

I’ve stopped by woods,

and my pine rash is flaring.

I contort to reach my midspine to scratch till I bleed, eyes rolling.

 

Preacher with the diamond watch

and diamond church and diamond eyes

that promise ten thousand shivering hopefuls their diamond blanket.

 

My eyes have seen the glory

of all the various distances,

seeking the angle that triggers memory, or even lie would do.

 

I’ve walked through the Valley

of the Shadow of Doubt

and was scared shitless, cried for my mommy, for Thou art a mystery to me.

 

But I’m in a full-body cast

and can’t reach the remote.

I’ve got nothing to do but this.  And I’ve got all day.

Wrestling With Jesus

He drops his hooded warm-up robe

and reveals yellow tights and a flat-top.

He is blond, I think, lean and sinuous.

He moves in slow motion, seems to float,

dances like a boxer with open hands,

evening light behind him, making his hair glow,

in front of a chorus of angels wagging pompoms.

 

I expected him bearded and barefoot.

I expected someone who might even let me win,

but Jesus is not who I thought he was.

 

Already sweating at the whistle,

I push and back away,

my tights somehow baggy and riding up.

He does not blink, he sees all I have not learned,

knows before I do where I am weak.

I grab for his ankle or wrist,

grope for a hold  around his ribs and miss,

wondering if I should even keep trying.

 

But I do try, today more than usual,

to score a point, to touch him, even once,

grab onto something, but too soon

I am mouth breathing and spent,

and still he floats out of reach.

 

It’s over quickly, and without mercy.

The move is called a crucifix

because he spreads my limbs

as he forces my shoulder to the mat.

My coach screams, “crucifix!”

red faced and spitting, reminding me

to throw the long practiced counter-move,

which has often conquered my shadow.

It fails me now.

 

I lay, crucified, and lose by a fall,

looking through my legs

at the angels who do not hide their disgust.

 

Jesus smells of talcum.

 

I leave the mat to the blaring recessional buzzer,

and the coach says without looking at me,

“nice try.  He’s a tough one.”

I go to my place on the bench and sit, thinking

there have been times when I doubted my faith,

but it’s hard not to believe in someone

while he’s kicking your ass.

The locker room shower is crowded and mandatory.

Jesus is next to me.  We are naked.

I face the wall and don’t look around.

There’s a lesson in here somewhere,

but I’ll be damned if I know what it is.

 

Later, I contemplate in darkness,

staring at the back of a school bus seat.

The coach wobbles by and remarks “good job,”

without stopping, too tired to sound sincere.

“That kid is really something” he says, more to himself,

and I realize then that he would gladly let me burn

to have a guy like that on his team.

Humor Sentiments

Below are several examples of humor sentiments written primarily for greeting card, cartoons and jokes for various websites.

(All below pieces of writing are the property of Hallmark Cards, Inc.)

 

The right thing to say: Hey, I forgot to tell you your grandma called.  The wrong place to say it: Grandma’s Funeral.

 

What’s so great about a handmade gift?  If you want to impress me, make something with your feet.

 

Here’s Something I Learned The Hard Way:

If an interviewer requires a urine sample, he doesn’t mean right there in his office.

 

Question To Never Ask At A Job Interview:

“Where would you prefer I wipe this booger?”

You’re welcome.

 

I’m going off to find myself.  I’m pretty sure I’m in a bar somewhere.

 

When life gives you lemons, find me.  Life gives me vodka all the time.

 

I tried a cucumber mask, but the ranch dip really stung my eyes.

 

When I’m elected Mayor, there will be a parade on your birthday!  And the bars will flow with free beer!  And the economy will collapse!  And the infrastructure will crumble!  And the City Council will impeach me!  All on your birthday!  It’ll be awesome!

 

I know I don’t exercise as much as I should, but for a very good reason.  It sucks and I hate it. Hey! That’s two very good reasons!

 

I just read that the key to health for a man your age is to start a diet and exercise routine ten years ago.