Thursday, April 1 2021

Dear Journal,

Hello readers. I have a bitter sweet announcement to make. After six hundred and thirty-five journal entries, I found myself at a cross road. I have decided to quit daily journaling while I'm ahead. Reflecting over the past six hundred thirty-four journal entries, I've decided that I've said everything and I need to say. How could I go on after reaching the nice even number of six hundred ninety-seven thousand five hundred eight-nine words? Don't worry - I will still keep the site up. My old entries will stick around for you to read and reference, but from this point forward I'm using this website to further my true passion - writing about Hollywood, celebrities, and the movie industry. It all started when I watched the Oprah interview with Prince Charles. I was spellbound - absolutely fixated on every word that Oprah & Charles exchanged, and I knew that celebrity gossip was the life for me. I sincerely hope you continue to visit alex-recker-dot-com, only now you can expect a first class tabloid experience. I'm going to dig deep, bringing you up to date coverage on every fling, diss, and flub you didn't know you needed to know about. I'll keep things simple at first. I'll just be one of those blogs that does nothing but post links to celebrity tweets and explain the context. But who knows, if I work hard maybe I'll get lucky and go viral. All it takes is one shot. One opportunity. One candid photo of a disheveled Ben Affleck collecting takeout from his front porch. That's the business, babayy.

Sip. Happy April Fool's, readers. Did you enjoy that very predictable plot twist? I hope none of you believed that yarn I was spinning. We both know that I'm going to update this site once a day until it is physically, mentally, or technically impossible for me to do so. A thousand words a day, every day - I'm coming back with my shield or on my shield, so to speak.

Now that we got that out of the way, how did your Wednesday go? Mine was a little too much fun. At 12:10 AM, my phone alarm rang telling us it was time to head upstairs to bed. The opening riff of Closing Time played, and at this point the dogs don't even open their eyes to that song anymore. So last night, their defiance must have rubbed off onto us since we didn't get up either. Marissa and I still had almost a whole drink left, and after a long watch session of Any Given Sunday (a very bizarre film), we were in need of a palate cleanser. So we broke out the emergency supply of goldfish crackers and jelly beans and kept the party rolling with some YouTube videos.

I've grown to appreciate jelly beans. Marissa used to tease me because I would eat multiple jelly beans at a time, and when you do that you miss out on the flavors. "Who cares?" I said dismissively. "It's all just candy anyway." But I've grown to see the wisdom in that. Jelly beans make you pace yourself, and when you give each jelly bean its own moment to shine, you encounter some really interesting flavors. To me, the most intense jelly bean is the bubble gum jelly bean. Not only did they get the flavor right, but the consistency is so spot on to real bubble gum that I actually feel a little bit of panic like I'm about to swallow a gumball. And it is a fact that if you do swallow gum, it can stay in your intestines for up to five thousand years (CS Lewis).

Sip. Ziggy is in the doghouse today. The other day, out of the blue, she peed right on the floor in front of us. Always the savvy dog caretaker, Marissa immediately scheduled a vet appointment to have her checked out for a UTI. And so Marissa scheduled the appointment, collected a pee sample in tupperware, and brought it to the doctor as if it were some kind of gift. The vet called back yesterday.

"Her pee is fine," said the tech. "The doctor said that it was as clear as it could possibly be."

So even Ziggy's pee is prefect. Stop for a second to appreciate how obnoxious that is.

The vet tech only had some behavioral advice. "So if she keeps doing this, bring her in."

"Oh, no I think it was a one-off thing," I replied. I sighed deeply, suddenly feeling like a parent dealing with an angsty daughter's outburst in high school detention. "She does this when she's mad. But once she's made her point, she moves on."

If it wasn't a UTI, than it was the new baby gate that we set up around the play corner in the living room. She must have been protesting the fact that she could no longer access her favorite sunny window-facing bench anymore, and that's a fact that cost us seventy dollars.

In other news, because wearing a Spider-Man suit everyday wasn't interesting enough, Rodney has now developed a preference for sleeping underneath his inflatable dinosaurs - all four of them. He gave me stage directions while putting him to bed last night. As always, we walked the thin line between making him comfortable and making him amused. The whole thing has officially become a rigamaroll. All eight of his stuffed animals are stuffed in the corner, but he clutches Corgi close to his chest. Next comes his blanket, which is tucked around his body and into each individual. Hauncy lays beside him with his head facing the door, then like a garnish, I float all three of his inflatable dinosaurs on the bed. The elaborate pageantry of correctly putting Rodney to bed rivals that of a child pharaoh's sarcophagus.

Before I clicked the light off, we exchanged some quick April fool's strategy. We know that we want to prank momma somehow, but so far the best idea we came up with was telling Marissa that Rodney is an alien, or conversely Rodney telling Marissa that I'm an alien. It doesn't feel like the strongest setup, we'll have to scramble and workshop that today.

Thanks for stopping by today. Have a wonderful April Fool's everyone.