holy

making vows

        and

milking cows 

look and sound

        the 

       same

ugh

the thought of anything is fraught
anything is fraught
and perhaps, importantly, fraught has ugh
and you,
you put the ugh in fraught

depression maintained

1. Stay in a basement.
2. Cultivate unrealistic expectations, then say, 'fuck it, fuck it all', 1200 times a day.
3. Doritos only diet. Be strict.
4. Fall asleep to Pink Floyd's The Final Cut album.
5. Wake up to Pink Floyd's The Final Cut album.
6. Watch Fox News channel. Only.
7. Nurture resentment, despair, and diffuse guilt.
8. 'Like' all your ex's Facebook photos.
9. 383,501 people voted for Rob Ford?
10. Dye your bathing suit parts black. You are damaged goods.

I am back priorities were family, health, and business... sorry about that... Anyone else afraid of Mike Duffy's head? Geeeeeez ...like something from Harry Potter 2. and the 2nd and 3rd scrotum under his chin? geeeeeezz frightening he appears to be wearing a balaclava of flesh. someone lost a squirting syringe of botox in his face. i SHOULD be nicer, more accepting, i guess. i mean, he does have a sort of medical condition... a condition called: i ate your tax money

pneumonia

my lungs are the curtain remnants of a desperately drunk fraternity toga party, in a $25 motel

my throat is the carpet

across measures

emotional humidity
sticks
a steady tympani
of blood
between
hot cupped therapy

contrast water is carafe ,d
circular and flat

under a meniscus
the reflecting, rounds
understanding

and same as we could talk anyway

no hypotenuse
readily ,in a circle

and no pythagorean feelings for each other

in the mesh

Parents, remember your child's hockey experience is really about you. Yes, it is a blunt truth but elegant in its systemic motion. Your needs; your social, emotional, ambition, and fulfillment needs can be met. Your children do not have fully myelinated frontal lobes. They cannot know what they fully need. They rely upon you.

Moreover, they really are 'mini yous'. They carry your name on their back. And you wear their team jerseys, coats, and scarves. It is a brilliant system conflating unspoken adult needs with a nobler child mission.

Your child's hockey experience is a socially acceptable method to stay 'too busy' to address deficits or troubling issues in your life. These issues are positively wide ranging, take your pick: deteriorating spousal relationship? self-image issues? emotional over-eating? job dissatisfaction? unresolved athletic ambitions?

You can even brag how much time you spend on your child's hockey. Can you brag about drinking alcohol daily to meet your needs? Can you brag about extramarital affairs or a gambling addiction as a method to disassociate from life's difficult issues?
Obviously the answer is no.

But.

You can brag about driving kids to pre-dawn hockey, "hanging around arenas" calling the non hockey siblings "rink rats", stand by the glass with take-out coffee at a "board meeting". These and other clever bon mots perpetuate the culture of 'for the kids myth' all the while avoiding anything real or troubling in your life. Even at home, you can busy yourself posting and twittering social media pages with messages and pictures of hockey events.

You can look like a martyr while secretly meeting your own needs!

In short, children's hockey is a wonderful way to cope with absolutely any difficulty in your own life. And, it is not only socially acceptable, but encouraged!!

And those statistics showing rising rates of Canadian children manifesting anxiety disorders, stress-related somatic illnesses, disordered eating, and suicidal ideation are easily avoided by a mere Cartesian cycle of denial and avoidance that is perfectly exemplified by parental enmeshment in children's hockey.

However, instead of the complicated mumbo jumbo inherent in the nuisance of current research I suggest the following simple but pithy motto: "Hockey Is Good For Kids Because It Is Good For Kids And All The Parents In Hockey Agree"