Pukesgiving: obligatory picture blog of what I'm thankful for

To those that were annoyed by the whininess of my last post, I apologize.  ZEES post, however, is the yang to the last post's yin.  The catharsis that was badly needed.  The hymns of Thanksgiving in Psalms of the Hebrew bible to the Lamentations of the past (I'm not religious, but the Old Testament is badass).

Here is a list of some people and things that I really need or want to give thanks to, without whom and which I definitely would either not be here this day, or otherwise would be an entirely different or entirely douchier person.

1.  My mom.

Idn't she precious?  Ignore that weird fucker to the left.

My mom is the epitome of the term "tough old bird,"(just like her mom and my grandma Peggy, who deserves special mention here too because she's fucking awesome and crazy) and will continue to be such as life continually hands her bullshit and she throws it back in its face as much as possible.  She's gone through a lot of awful things in her life, including the events of this last year, but through it all she's kept her humor and an insane amount of compassion.

She's absolutely wonderful and the most supportive, accepting and loving person I've ever met even despite being jaded by the shit she's had to deal with.

I know I don't say it enough, mom, (if you're reading this, which I'm sure you will at some point) but I love you.  And I know I'm definitely not the best son in the world a lot of the time, and you deserve a lot more respect than you get, and so I'm sorry, too.

Thanks, mom.  You are the best.

Bitterness, melancholy and family trips.

...ohhh gawd.

Family trips are always a moderately frustrating thing for my family, mostly because we have to deal with living with each other in a vacuum for an extended period of time with no escape, especially when we're cramped in my crazy grandma Peggy's tiny trailer in depressing-ass Marion, Indiana.  Also, we're all (specifically my mom and my brother) incredibly stubborn.  Of course, though, this is nothing new.  From the dawn of time man has gotten stircrazy when in close confines with the rest of his/her family (pic above very related).

Normally, all of this is manageable.  But not this year.  As a result of a number of pretty awful circumstances this year there's one less person celebrating with us, and we're all the worse for what happened.

The amount of bitterness between all of us --especially during the holidays after the baggage of the rest of the depressing events of the last year/years--was palpable as we piled into the car after several unbearable screaming matches and almost leaving without my brother.

The bearded muse, day 5: A chronicle of No Shave November and NaNaWriMo

So I'm doing No Shave November, and I'm also attempting to do National Novel Writing Month at the same time.  Basically, this means I'm gonna be fucking nuts by the end of this month. 

Not actually, because my writing worth ethic is terrible and I'm gonna have nowhere near the huge amount of work that NaNaWriMo requires, but I decided to at least have some sort of writing piece ready every five days of this month along with a picture of the progress of my lack of shaving

Suffice it to say, the writing below is just a short story, but go ahead and take a look!  I pretty much did it all last night from like 4-6am, but whatever.

So without any further ado or bullshittin', here's a picture of the minor facial growth so far and the first thing I've written all month.  

Yarp.  Pic by my awesome friend Evan Chwalek, whose asskickin' photos can be found here and  here.