Big Weekend!

I did everything this weekend.

Friday night Sonya and John and I went to the skating rink in Collierville so Sonya could skate with some of her derby homegirls. James and his son, Kieran, met us out there. John and Kieran played on the indoor playground. James and I laughed like hateful adults at the teenagers who kept tripping over the landing pad at the bottom of the slide. You'd think after a while they wouldn't skate there, but they never learned.

Saturday I mowed the hell out of the lawn. John and I had a long, lazy lunch composed mainly of cheese dip. Then we took a shower and went to the Rock and Romp, where we met the Bowien family again and rocked out to the River City Tanlines (note the picture of John, with Alicja Trout rocking in the background).

Back to the house to get Sonya. Then we took John to my sister's to stay for a while. On to Huey's for dinner, the liquor store, and then the Memphis Roller Derby party in Cooper Young.

Y'all, them girls is wild. Wild! Which made for an excellent party. I was driving Sonya, who got well hammered on some green punch, but I could tell that would have been an excellent party to be drunk at. It was a big time. It's looking more and more likely that I'm going to be a derby husband. Neat!

And yesterday my nephew Joe called and said he had tickets to the Redbirds game. Good tickets. Real good. Front row behind home plate kind of good. And I ate the Big Dog. The Big Dog = foot long chili cheese dog with three onion rings on top. Best game day food ever. And John got to run the bases after the game.

Forty-eight hours of awesome.

Winklermania!

I love Mary Winkler! And I thought she was so cute right after the murder, too. She looked like a regular spitfire. Like she'd be fun to drink beer with, but hell on a rocket if you pissed her off.

She's not so cute these days, though. I think her defense team may have dowdied her up for the trial.

Or maybe she finally got to put on that twenty pounds her husband was bitching at her about. In her testimony today, she said that he was constantly criticizing and blaming her for things, including being too fat.

But that's not all! The best stuff today was Mary Winkler talking about how her husband made her, well...what was the exact quote?

Here we go! From CNN:

...made her watch pornography and wear "slutty" costumes for sex.

She also said he forced her to submit to sex acts that made her uncomfortable.

"There we go, honey! I'm done with my sermon for this Sunday. Time for you to dress up like a Summer Avenue whore and take it in the pooper!"

A wig and a tall, white platform shoe were placed on the witness stand during her testimony. Blushing crimson and staring at the floor, she said her husband bought them for her to wear to get him in the mood for sex.

"This is not about religion, but I suggest to you that a Church of Christ preacher's wife does not wear those shoes," Farese argued.

Well, she doesn't wear those shoes to church, counselor!

And CNN had a great picture of the accused on the stand, dabbing her eyes, with the alleged Trixie Shoe sitting right on the stand in front of her.

Just awesome, awesome small town gossip. It would have been better all around if they'd split up and then we'd found out the small town preacher liked his wife to dress up like a tranny hooker; dude wouldn't be dead then. Still, this is the juiciest Memphis-area Trial of the Century in a long time. John Ford will have to hustle to out-sexy this. More baby mommas! More Rolexes!

A Product of His Environment

John and I came in from work and school this afternoon. In the kitchen, he proceeds to strip off his shirt. Then he heads for the back door.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"I took off my shirt," he said, "I'm going in the backyard, gonna ride my four-wheeler."

I did not teach him that.

Roller Derby

The Family went to the Memphis Roller Derby Saturday night. I am here to tell you that it is an entirely good thing.

They have:

• Cute chicks
  
• In skimpy themed outfits
  
• Whomping the shit out of each other for my entertainment
  

What about that am I not supposed to love?

And there was an indoor playground. Even John was happy!

Arrangements

My uncle died Thursday, and his funeral was yesterday. We weren't close. Hell, me and my dad aren't close. Still, by all accounts he was a good guy and I felt I needed to go and show the colors of the lost branch of the Williams Family. So I went to the funeral and to the cemetery afterwards.

He was a churchgoing man, and the preacher knew him well. That always makes for a better funeral. Since that isn't likely to happen with me, here's how I want things done:

1. Play Anchored In Love by the Carter Family.
   
2. Let people talk about me. If they don't feel up to talking, have them write it down and let someone else read it. They don't have to say nice things, either. They just have to keep the focus where it belongs: on dearly departed me.
   
3. When you run out of people willing to talk about me, stop. This is not the opportunity for some hired preacher to make his pitch. Again, it's about me.
   
4. You can, however, let the hired preacher pray for my soul. It couldn't hurt.
   
5. Play Kermit Ruffins' version of Just a Closer Walk With Thee.
   
6. Go back to the house. Eat. Drink like your Irish. It what I would have wanted.
   
7. No trip to the cemetery. It's always too hot or too cold or too rainy or a waste of a good day.
   
8. Cremate me. Toss my ashes in the Mississippi River from Mud Island, so I can take a last leisurely trip to New Orleans and then on to the Gulf.
   

Hey, it's that girl!

Remember that girl? The one with the t-shirt with the vile word on it who made in on national TV during the Saints-Eagles playoff game? Yeah, her. She stripped down to her skivvies for Maxim!

Powerful Streams

The new NIN album is available for streaming at yearzero.nin.com/. It is good. Really, really good. Possibly the best since Pretty Hate Machine? Discuss.

Also, the streams from the DNA Lounge have been nothing but stellar lately. Especially Meat, New Wave City, and Bootie. Each one is a solid work-day's worth of tunes.

Easter on the Beach.

Sonya heard that is was the coldest weekend on the Alabama Gulf Coast in twenty years. I believe her.

Highlights of the trip:

• Cane's for dinner in Hattiesburg on Thursday night!
  
• John and I went to McDonald's Friday morning, then to the tackle shop for bait and the dock behind the city playground for some fishing. The wind blew John's hat off twice, and we ran down the dock chasing it. The fish were biting, but they were tiny fish who would eventually chew my shrimp to bits without getting on the hook. We got cold and left.
  
• Friday afternoon we went to the beach. It was cool and breezy, but nice. John played with some other kids and eventually led me into the water up to my knees. The water was really cold, but not as cold as the wind. Tough choice.
  
• The whole purpose of the trip was a wedding, and that was Friday evening, at sunset, on the beach. The wind blew the rose petals away, but other than that is was lovely. Then everyone went inside for the reception. The kids ran wild, the adults got drunk. It was great.
  
• I forgot to take a hat, so I had to go buy one. What does it say? "Spring Break 2007." 'Cause I was there to party, dude.
  
• We went here on Saturday, and it was great. A roadside attraction in a mall.
  
• Saturday afternoon there was an egg hunt on the beach, complete with an appearance by the Easter bunny. Later (and out of costume), the bunny was in charge of cooking the meat for the big dinner.
  
• Most everyone was pleasingly horrified by how rare the steaks I cooked for me and Sonya were. Sonya cut hers open and shrugged. "It could be rarer," she said.
  
• We got a big bag of royal red shrimp on the way out of town. Good eats.
  
• John made the trip there and back without one toilet-related accident. Did we have to make lots of stops? Yes! But John likes peeing outside anyway, so I'd just open his door, stand him beside the car and tell him to water the grass.
  

What you missed.

Yes, it's been a while, but when they say don't try to smuggle heroin out of Turkey? They mean it.

"People ask me if you're ever going to blog again," Sonya said the other day.

I shrugged. "I live in my own head a lot more these days."

Which, in retrospect, sounds all crazy and I-must-kill-the-queen.

So, since Novemberish, these things have happened:

• Thanksgiving, Christmas, and my grandmother's birthday at my sister's house.
  
• A thrilling Saints season, including their second playoff win ever and a heartbreaking loss in Chicago in the NFC championship game.
  
• Parties at our house for Christmas, New Year's, and those same Saints playoff games.
  
• I still like beer, but the day after a beer drunk seems to always leave me staring into the void. The deep, black void. I've switched to wine, and the results are positive.
  
• I've lost about 15 pounds since the end of February. This is mainly due to not eating like a fucking teenager.
  
• I've been to two formal events, and I looked especially fine both times.
  
• New contacts! New glasses! To my surprise, the world is not actually fuzzy and squint-inducing.
  
• There was a big night out for Sonya's birthday. Big.
  
• The family is headed to Orange Beach for a wedding this weekend. John and I are going to go fishing off the dock behind the library.
  
• I also got a guayabera to wear to the wedding. Combine that with the glasses and the short hair and I look like the company's man in Havana, circa 1950.
  
• The potty training is almost done. Nighttime is an issue, but John wears underwear to school with total confidence. This was done almost entirely on his own with nothing but gentle encouragement and positive reinforcement from his parents, because I was afraid if we made a big deal about toilet training he'd become a serial killer or wear women's underwear or something. So that's a big deal.
  
• I've spread lots of mulch and weed-n-feed in the past week. The yard is looking terribly weedy, and I'm hoping this helps.
  
• If you really want to keep up with me and my people, you should go over to myspace and befriend Sonya. She does a better job of staying up to date than I do.