#school is so fricking tiring I want to cuss

[songbird786]

miss me?

disclaimer: I’m not an official doctor (not yet at least) 🥲

would you trust me to do your surgery? (kidding!)

school is so damn tiring I had to draw myself 😭

commissions are open

[wickedwitchwc]

milo picks up mark bridal-style and gives him a lil squish on the butt (hi! it's zestyeli haha)

(Hi! I know you! I’m Angie, I’m sick and tired, and for some reason I took this message as a challenge. You’re welcome/I’m so sorry? I don’t know which...)

***********

“What th-” was about all that Mark could get out when he was suddenly swept off of his feet, not an uncommon occurrence in their household, frankly. He was still slightly caught off guard, especially when he turned in his husband’s arms and saw the mischievous look on the man’s face.

“Um.” Mark floundered for a moment, watching the other man carefully. “What’s the big deal?” He asked, even as he slid his arms around the other man’s neck, just for the added support.

“Well, my dear, my love, my life, we need to have a conversation.” Milo said, as he began to move, carrying Mark from his office and, conspicuously, towards their daughter’s room. “And I figure like this, you can’t so easily run away from me…”

Mark blinked, and blinked again at the man. What had he done now? And why was it so bad that Milo thought he’d run from him? “I already don’t like where this is going…” Mark noted, holding on tightly as Milo nudged the already partially open door with his elbow, carrying him inside. He was highly suspicious of what they’d run into in their toddler’s room, but when he examined it… it didn’t seem to be in shambles. Yeah, her toys were everywhere, but that was kind of a given for the way their kid played. He’d been more worried that she’d broken something, or colored on the walls, or something equally destructive, given Milo’s behavior. But seeing her angelic face glance up at them from her seated position on the floor wasn’t what he expected. 

He cast an expectant look back at Milo, who seemed to sense right away that Mark was waiting for an explanation. “Jenn?” Milo said patiently to the little girl. She perked up immediately at what Mark referred to as his husband’s ‘parenting’ tone. “Why don’t you repeat for daddy what your doll just said to the teddy?” He gently encouraged her.

Jenn blinked at him, seeming to try to remember. Then, her face abruptly brightened with recognition. She bent over, grabbing the mermaid stuffie in question, and shook it at the offending teddy bear. “She told him she doesn’t fucking want to play!” She said, and she said it so shrilly that Mark winced a little at the sound of it. But that wasn’t nearly as bad as seeing Milo’s knowing look shooting immediately in his direction.

Yeah now he knew why Milo had decided to just pick him up. If Mark had been standing for this display he totally would have made a run for it. “I can explain.” 

“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this.”  Milo said, as he hefted Mark in his arms again. He glanced back down to their daughter, first. “Jenny? Are you supposed to be out of bed after we’ve tucked you in?” He asked her. After a couple of minutes where Mark watched uncomfortably as Milo talked their kid back into bed, (honestly, Milo got superdad points just for being able to do that with his hands full,) they left the toddler’s room, with Milo closing the door behind them.

With the two of them alone once again, Milo looked back to Mark, apparently awaiting his explanation. 

“Okay, to be fair, she was supposed to be napping…” Mark tried. “And Wade kept doing this stupid thing…” 

“In the game you were playing?” Milo said, nodding along with his explanation.

“And I might have let one or two curse words slip, and she walks in…” Mark continued.

“And instead of telling her that was a word we don’t say…” Milo replied ambiguously.

“I mean, I didn’t want it to come around on us one day, and have her use it as black mail against either of us, so…”

“Mark…” 

“I might have gone ahead and just taught her a whole bunch of cuss words and the context for when you would be saying them.” Mark finally just admitted.

Milo gave him a blank look, as he tried to wrap his head around that bit of information. It was like his brain had short-circuited and was taking a couple of seconds to reboot. His husband was smart to pick him up before hand. Mark would have seen that as a clear opportunity to make a break for it. 

Finally, Milo seemed more or less recovered, and he looked to Mark. “Why…?” 

Mark shrugged. “She was either going to learn it from us or from the kids at school, and I mean. I’m not about to get blackmailed by a fricking three year-old.” Mark said. “So I just taught her everything. And she cusses better than me now. And I would have given you a head’s up, but, I mean, judging by your reaction now…” Mark trailed off.

“Mark.” Milo said again, and now his voice was taking on a slightly more dangerous caliber. “We are about to unleash that precious, precocious little girl upon the unprepared masses at La Cadena Elementary, and while the other kids are learning their vocabulary words from such harmless entities as Sesame Street, or See Spot Run…” 

“Okay, well Jenn’s just getting a head start from the mean streets of Cincinnati.” Mark shrugged. “It’s not really that bad, a lot of kids pick up this stuff from their parents, she would have learned it anyways. I don’t think it’s as big of a taboo these days. Is it?” Mark asked, Milo got his answer in a sigh. 

“Well when her teachers send her home with a note detailing how she got in trouble at school for calling one of her classmates an asshole…” Milo said.

“Oh.” Mark said, after a moment. “Yeah I guess that would be a problem.”

“Yeah, and guess who I’m going to blame?” Milo continued.

“Oh, oh! And what are you gonna do, punish me?” Mark asked, and from the look he got he immediately regretted saying anything. 

Milo looked him over slowly, sizing him up, and it dawned on Mark that Milo absolutely did know how to punish him. Well, okay. Maybe ‘punishment’ was the best word for the somewhat sadistic streak that Milo could have in the bedroom, especially when Mark was learning to enjoy those games they would play. 

Carefully, Milo lowered Mark to the ground, letting him steady himself on his own two feet before releasing him. “Don’t tempt me.” Milo told him, using that dark tone that sent shivers down Mark’s spine. Then the man abruptly slapped his behind. 

“Ai!” Mark yipped, taking a few steps back for his own safety.

Milo shot him a knowing smirk. “As you were.” he said, brushing past Mark, leaving him alone in the hallway once again.

[melodiousmare]

I'm just done...(long rant)

I'm so fricking tired of my mom's passive aggressive behavior and bullshit I'm just so frustrated by this unhealthy situation that I feel like I should just run away and I dont think I'll ever be enough to satisfy her. I'm soooo done with her attitude and superiority complex she has over me, my dad, and my brother. She NEVER takes responsibility for her decisions and behavior and it's just the WORST. I'm so glad that I'm almost 21 and then I can move out and be free of her TYRANNY and negative comments. SHE IS NOT A GOOD MOTHER PERIOD. I had about enough now that I realise how badly she treats her own damn HUSBAND! My father is so patient and so understanding, he doesn't deserve to be treated like this. He and I get along fine, but we agree that she has issues. She's always on my case even though I never cuss at her, I always do my job, both at work and at home. I'm sick of her not seeing my true self, and that I'm under stress at work constantly. She's never going to support me as an artist, and I'm tired of trying to be something I'm not. I'm not going to stand by and let her get away with the guilting and blaming any longer. She always makes me feel bad because I have so many material things, and I'm in a nice neighborhood. But that's not an excuse for making your daughter feel like she's not good enough or that she has an attitude issue that I learned from her in the FIRST place. She always complains that I don't do enough but at least I'm actually working most of the week. My brother has never gotten along with her either and I'm not blaming him. He's had issues too, he was SEVERELY BULLIED and I feel that she didn't know how to handle that. Now he just stays in his room all day, every day. It's just sad. I wish I had a better mother sometimes. I really think my aunts would have made better mothers. I'm glad she doesn't know what Tumblr is so she can't find this. She is so blind to her own family...she is so aggressive and petty and its biting her in the ass! Her sister doesn't get along with her either, and neither does my dad's sister. I want to vent because I can't stay silent ANY LONGER. Just today we were I'm the car and she made such a big stink out of parking. Freaking hell, she can make anything awful and uncomfortable. It's no wonder I never like spending time with her. I hate her so much it's not funny. I have a therapist, but I think it's my mom that needs the therapist. She's gonna wake up one day and realize how she's alienated her own children. I'm not even sure WHY my dad married my mom, cause she's toxic as all hell. I'm honestly shocked that they haven't divorced! It's a common thing in my family to divorce, and to have mother daughter conflict. On BOTH sides. I'm scared to marry cause I know it might not work out. I have trust issues cause of my mom, and I'm scared to talk to her about some things. My dad is the ONLY ONE WHO GETS ME AT HOME. I'm trying hard to keep it together, but sometimes I'm just too close to a complete meltdown. I want to hit her sometimes cause she doesn't get that she's causing unnecessary problems in the family. She always interrupts me, and assumes that because I'm the youngest, that I'm the most stupid and naive one. I'm glad I got to have at least one taste of freedom when i lived briefly in Chicago. I realized how much better I was on my own and making new friends and growing as a person, instead of being treated like a 6 year old child. I'm considering going back to art school at some point, cause that's my passion, and I'd sooner become a starving artist than to suffer with my brother. I'm not sure how long she's been such a passive aggressive person, but it's too long. No one ever stood up to her and said she was doing anything wrong. She can belittle me all she wants and shower me with gifts, but she'll never earn my respect. And that's the tea.

[officialshoebox]

A Father’s Day Tribute to My Comedy Hero

by Tina Neidlein, Hallmark Humor Writer

Some dads teach you how to throw a baseball or change a tire. Or is it throw a tire and change a baseball? Not important.

If you’re lucky, you get a dad who teaches you how to be funny.

If you’re the luckiest, you get my dad. Ken Fowler of Loudonville, Ohio. Currently 80 years old, and the biggest comedic influence of my life.

I can’t remember exactly when I first figured out that I got a funny dad. It may have been when he told me how he and his college roommate used to light their farts. Whaaaaat. Was my dad…hilarious? It blew my mind.

Maybe it was the first time he asked me how you could tell a dogwood tree. (By its bark.) Maybe it was the thousandth time. (Still, the bark.)

From a very early age, I was my dad’s companion and right-hand girl. My sister and brother were older and not so interested in hanging out with me; my mom was busy juggling work and getting a college degree. So, lucky for me, I got to spend a lot of time with him. He’d take me to the hardware store in town, or to the school where he taught wood shop. He’d catch up on his work while I played “teacher” with a real gradebook. Excuse my language, but it was fricking awesome. Together, we’d hunt mushrooms in the woods behind our house, him regaling me with nature-related facts and riddles. Do you know why he doesn’t like snails? He prefers fast food. That kind of thing.

Quickly I learned from him how much better life could be if you just learned to laugh a little more. Even the serious lessons he tried to impart were funny. If I was upset, he’d trot out this head-scratching piece of advice: “Tina, sometimes, you get the bear…sometimes, the bear gets you.” Really, Dad? The possibility of a bear attack is supposed to calm me down? Nevertheless, his lessons almost always included a healthy dose of humor.

During summer breaks, Dad had his own painting business. Too young to be home alone, I’d go with him. Every morning I’d pack a bag full of the things I’d need to keep me busy while he and his crew worked. Mostly I’d pack joke books. Wanting to build my own arsenal of material, I had begun to collect them.

Once we arrived to whichever house or barn they happened to be painting, I’d lay a blanket out on the grass and start my act, reading riddle after riddle to Dad’s captive crew. My aardvark-themed joke book was especially a hit, or so I thought. Over and over, I’d recite my material, delighting in my captive audience. Until the day he started to pay one of his student workers extra to drive me to the pool.

By the way, what do you call an aardvark who loves hamburgers? Ronald (wait for it) McAardvark!!!!!!! Holy crap, maybe they were bad.

Dad and I watched hours upon hours of funny movies together. “Airplane” and “Airplane 2” played on repeat, as we marveled at the comic genius on display. To this day, it’s not uncommon for one of us to look at the other and mutter, “I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue.” He began letting me watch Saturday Night Live with him when I was around 10 or so. Together, we laughed our way through Stuart Smalley, the Church Lady, Hans and Franz, Wayne’s World, and his favorite, the Pathological Liar.

Around the halls of the junior high where he taught, Dad was known to be quite the jokester. Every morning, the teachers would send an attendance slip to the office, which included any student who wasn’t present for homeroom. The office would then publish a list to be sent out school-wide later in the day. Dad spent hours brainstorming fictitious names to turn in. When you read the report and learned that “Jim Nasium,” “Mel Ted Snow,” or “Rose Bush” were absent, you knew that you had just been Ken Fowlered. (At a surprise party we held for his 70th birthday, we gave every guest a name tag with a fictitious name—brainstormed in part by my gracious Hallmark co-workers. I thought he was going to pass out from happiness.)

Now that I’m older, I realize just how much of an influence his love of all things funny has had on me. Learning how to laugh at life and appreciate the craft of humor has led me to a career that I love, but there are still so many more ways I hope to become more like my dad.

He’s sunshine in human form. He wakes up early with a smile on his face, never complains and is always up for anything. None of these things even remotely describe me. I am partly cloudy in human form.

He is unfailingly kind. He can’t say a bad word about anyone—and he doesn’t drink or cuss. Minus the time he dropped a carton of eggs on the floor and let the s-word slip. My brother laughed so hard he fell off his chair.

He is 80 years old, and has the energy level of a 30-year-old. He is a social butterfly who would befriend every last person on earth if he could.

I may not even be his, now that I’m really thinking about it.

The only bad thing about him? He once gave me a B in shop class, which messed up my straight As that semester. You’re why I didn’t go to Harvard, Dad. Well, you and the parade of Cs I got once I discovered boys.

Life hasn’t been easy for him recently, as he spent months taking care of my mom, who was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins’ lymphoma in 2015 and passed away last summer.

And yet, after all that he’s been through, he loves nothing more than sharing a laugh. Now that he knows how to text, I get new humor inspiration from him constantly…often accompanied by an emoji that doesn’t really make sense. Usually something like this: “Hello there daughter! What do you call a lazy baby kangaroo? 🦄”

“A pouch potato! 🏆”

So Dad, this Father’s Day, I want to thank you for making humor such an important part of my life. You are an absolute joy and I am honored to be your daughter. I love you.

And yes, I know how to tell a dogwood tree. Enough already.

(All photos courtesy of Tina Neidlein)

[junker-town]

Dino Babers is here to ‘strike fear into defensive coordinators’

If you’re writing a movie about the Syracuse head coach, you’re gonna want to make it a thriller.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — “A., I like movies, but B., it’s a time for me to go out in public, when the lights turn down and no one can see who I am,” Syracuse Orange coach Dino Babers told SB Nation.

“And I can actually be like everybody else and just laugh and make a noise in a theater and be normal. Because as soon as the lights go back on, I’ve been a head football coach in smaller towns, and everybody knows who I am, and I’m back on again.”

He’s far ahead of his fellow football coaches when it comes to keeping up with pop culture, but movies are about more than that. Movies were his escape as a young man and a constant for the son of a Navy man whose family moved often. Now, trips to the “movie house” are an offseason indulgence.

Dino isn’t a nickname, either; he’s named after the Italian movie star Dino Verde. Not many head coaches see Oscar winners until years later, but Dino’s seen Moonlight. A former wide receivers coach, Babers noticed the in-cut route run by Get Out character Walter, the one that spawned the viral Get Out challenge.

Back when he was a kid, sequels weren’t the backbone of the movie industry that they are now. Babers’ career has twice been propelled by second acts. A 7-5 Eastern Illinois became a 12-2 FCS quarterfinal squad. His 8-6 Bowling Green Falcons went 10-2 the next year, before he left for Syracuse.

The opening of his Syracuse tenure was a 4-8 2016. He admits his offensive system lends itself to leaps in aptitude the second go-around, but it will not be easy in Part II. Our protagonist faces his toughest antagonists yet, with LSU, Miami, Florida State, Louisville, and Clemson on the schedule.

If you’re writing the Babers biopic, your title character is complex.

To play him, perhaps you’d call Denzel Washington (his choice) or Will Smith (whom his wife and daughters think it should be).

You’d have to find someone to channel both old-school and new-school sensibilities. There’s a record player in his office with vinyls under it and music from his home state of Hawaii playing softly. He says he’s selfish with his music, but his players get to choose everything that plays during practices.

Of course, there are two exceptions.

“The first song is ‘Smooth,’ Santana,” Babers said. “The last song: ‘I Feel Good,’ James Brown. Every black guy, white guy, pink guy, green guy will learn the words of those songs. Now, in between those two songs, they get to play whatever they want, as long as there’s not cuss words or N-bombs.”

Babers does not run his team like a former military brat and says he doesn’t care how long your hair is.

“I want [my team] to be loose,” he said. “I want them to be freewheeling, and I want there to be interaction between them and their coaches. Now that being said, there’s a discipline to this game, and that’s where all that stuff kicks in.

“But the discipline — go to a baking analogy — discipline is in the cake. It doesn’t have to be in the icing. All that baking you do — the cake, ‘Oh, what kinda icing you gonna put on there?’ — it doesn’t matter what you put on it if the cake’s no doggone good. You bake the cake.”

(Babers can bake, although he doesn’t eat chocolate.)

As you develop the screenplay, you’d have to channel the most theatrical moment of his career so far, the speech after last year’s 31-17 victory over Virginia Tech. Appropriately, it looks ripped from a sports movie.

That moment was close to the vision he’d promised. In his introductory press conference, Babers asked those in attendance — even the media — to close their eyes and envision a team that could win in all three phases and bring a din to the Carrier Dome.

“I think that defensively, that was probably the closest that it came,” Babers said in his office about the win. “I would say offensively, I’d probably go more to the Pittsburgh game [a 76-61 loss]. I think [the VT game] was a fabulous defensive game by us. We did some things on offense and we made some plays, but I really believe that game was a defensive win.”

You probably don’t associate Babers with defense.

Babers has been a product of many systems during a career that goes back to 1984, when he was a graduate assistant at his alma mater, Hawaii. But this system is an air raid variation that can be categorized as the veer and shoot.

“It absolutely strikes fear, in my opinion, into the defensive coordinators the night before the game,” he says.

The system was honed at Baylor, where Babers coached wide receivers from 2008 to 2011. It was borne out of necessity when former BU head coach Art Briles was a high school coach during the 1990s in Stephenville, Texas. Briles pushed for Babers to go to Eastern Illinois and told him to bet on himself.

“We’re not big phone guys,” Babers said of his contact with Briles. “But we text every blue moon. Recently. I’ll say that.“

The events and reporting most frequently associated with the sexual assault scandal that rocked Baylor and resulted in Briles’ 2015 firing occurred mostly after Babers left for Eastern Illinois in December 2011.

Babers was on staff while Tevin Elliot was a member of the Bears. Four months after Babers left, the defensive end was arrested on two counts of sexual assault and removed from the team. He was sentenced in 2014 to 20 years in prison. Baylor was later sued by five women who say Elliot raped them from 2009 to 2012, four of them testifying against him.

When asked about the scandal, Babers said:

“I can talk about from 2008 to 2011, and Tevin Elliot was there. Heard he did bad, heard he got kicked off the team. And I became a head coach. And that’s not, how do I say this? That’s not to cover me. It’s just what happened.

“I’m military. Boom, boom, next. There are certain things that you don’t get second chances for. I got four daughters. I’m down with that.”

If you made the Babers biopic, you’d have a ready-made heart-stopping moment.

The car crash nine years ago, on a recruiting trip for Baylor, should have killed him. A tire blew out, and a panicked Babers hit the brakes at 80 miles per hour. His car spun, and he ended up facing oncoming traffic on an interstate near Houston. Babers recalled in detail the face of the semi driver who swerved to miss him.

“I don’t use the word s-c-a-r-e-d anymore either, because I nearly died nine years ago. Since then, I don’t use that word,” Babers said.

He was content to stay at Eastern Illinois for 25 years like his predecessor, Bob Spoo, who gave Babers his first full-time job as a running backs coach in 1987. Both started their head coaching careers at Eastern at age 50.

But with experience playing DB in college and so much time as a WR coach, Babers brings a WR’s sensibility to teaching the system he took from Baylor. Despite his background, he’ll tell you the QB is still the most important part.

“When a quarterback throws a receiver a ball, a receiver should be able to throw that same ball back to that quarterback,” Babers said. “And that is what’s been missing. What that means is that you and I have played catch so much that you’re the pitcher and I’m the catcher. You throw me a ball, I throw you a ball, you throw me a ball, I throw you a ball. We take our mitts off, and you’d have to say, ‘Which one’s the catcher, and which one’s the pitcher?’ because we’ve exercised that skill so many times.”

He calls plays without a sheet, takes calculated risks on fourth downs, and recalls the little things, like the fact that his quarterback got hurt on play No. 14 of the Clemson game. I checked, and he’s right, if you don’t count punts as offensive plays, which many coaches don’t.

“Our quarterback has to be a thrower, not a runner,” Babers said. “It’s not a wishbone offense. It’s not Navy’s offense. We do want to run the football, but our quarterbacks need to be NFL quarterbacks. They need to be guys that, after they have a fantastic college career, they go to the pros and they have a pro career.”

Under Babers, EIU’s Jimmy Garoppolo threw for over 5,000 yards and 53 touchdowns as a senior against only nine interceptions. He would finish in the top three of FCS’ most meaningful statistical categories and lead the Panthers to FCS’ most prolific offense. Garoppolo now backs up Tom Brady and appears in major NFL trade rumors, with the assumption he could be a franchise QB.

“Now, all that being said, if they do have legs that can get them out of trouble, that’s an advantage. But that’s the No. 1 thing. The No. 1 thing: has to be able to touch the entire football field; 53 and a third wide, 120 yards long. They’ve got to be able touch it all.”

Since Babers’ relocation to New York, he’s been able to see Broadway shows for the first time.

He wanted to see Hamilton last offseason, but there was a problem: his whole family wanted to go too.

“They were so fricking expensive,” Babers said. “This was like in the last two weeks of the original cast before they were about to close down. I’m like, the heck? One I mighta saw, me, but they were all like, ‘We wanna go.’ We’re talkin’ about six big ones. I’m like, ‘oh heck no.’ Because I know it’s supposed to be good, but to me the best Broadway show is West Side Story, which is my favorite movie. So I’m like, I’m not gonna go see this Hamilton thing.”

Tickets for that performance were going anywhere from $5-$20,000 each on the resale market, but he did enjoy the cast’s parody of Garoppolo.

Babers did see The Lion King and Jersey Boys with his family. In the latter, he saw the future of his program.

“The thing that cracked me up was the opening line of Jersey Boys. Now I’m sitting here, first and second Broadway show, never been to one live,” Babers said, “and in the Jersey Boys, the opening line says — they’re singing — but the first time the guy talks, he goes, ‘Hi, my name’s Tommy DeVito, and I put New Jersey on the map.’”

Babers was recruiting a young quarterback by the same name from the same state.

“And I’m sitting there going, ‘Are you sending me a message?’”

One "Jersey Boys" name sounded familiar,but I can't put my finger on it... #TheyPutJerseyOnTheMap #Broadway #AWEsome http://pic.twitter.com/rhqarrTQG3

— Dino Babers (@CoachBabersCuse) July 6, 2016

DeVito ended up signing with the Orange, an Elite 11 participant and the No. 15 pro-style QB in his class, per the 247Sports Composite. He’ll arrive in the summer.

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QB recruit Tommy DeVito believes Syracuse can return to greatness

Our partners with SB Nation College Football spoke to QB recruit Tommy DeVito, who is all-in with the Syracuse Orange. He explains why and what his future plans are in this video.

Posted by Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician on Thursday, July 7, 2016

For now, Eric Dungey leads the team through spring. Dungey ran Syracuse’s option system in 2015, then shifted to Babers’ system and improved his completion percentage while more than doubling his pass attempts.

Babers told his future QB to go see Jersey Boys. He’s not sure if that’s happened yet, but they can see it together later this offseason.