Well, the whole damn family is here, and I don’t mind saying that my nephews, who are seven and three, are not quiet people. Since the last time I saw them, they’ve apparently learned to screech in such a way as to replicate the sound of a tornado siren. This, of course, is difficult to sleep through. Last night I told my sister that I’ve been trying to change my sleeping schedule, working on getting up earlier. She said, “We can help with that.” Obviously, she was right. This morning as the boys were screaming bloody murder, she yelled above them, “YOUR UNCLE IS SLEEPING!” I immediately shot out of bed.

Wasn’t that nice of her?

When I came out of my room, my nephew Christopher, the older one, gave me a hug. I thought that was sweet, but then he smelled my morning breath and pinched his nose and marched to the other side of the room. This is the same child who once pointed to my face when I asked him what wrinkles were. Talk about an angel. A real diplomat, that one. Currently he’s playing a game, but he’s spent most the day drawing characters from the cartoon Captain Underpants. Captain Underpants–this is the generation we live in. Whatever happened to Mighty Mouse?

Here’s a picture of me with my other nephew, Ander, who, in addition to be able to break crystal with his high-pitched cries, likes to hide under blankets.

When I pulled the blanket off Ander, I found him playing a game on my sister’s phone. This is how the boys, Mom, and I have spent most the day–glued to our respective electronic devices. (It’s the holidays!) Well, that’s not completely true. Earlier my dad and brother-in-law started a hundred-piece Spiderman puzzle my mom bought at the dollar store. But–honestly–they screwed it up, so my sister and I had to fix it. Really, our family never does puzzles. We’re just not “those kind of people.” You know the kind–puzzles, playing cards, and board games people. Again, we like our electronic devices.

That being said, I guess times are a-changing, since after the Spiderman puzzle my sister thought it would be “fun” to do a bigger puzzle, like one the whole family could work on. You know, bonding time. Well, as luck would have it, Dad had a thousand-piece Americana puzzle in his closet that had never been opened. So now my sister, dad, and brother-in-law are working on the puzzle at one end of the table, and I’m typing at the other. Everyone has their own idea about what needs to happen, of course, which section to start on. It’s a big jumbled mess. Ever the competitor, my brother-in-law suggested keeping score, like who can put the most pieces together. “I think you’re missing the point,” I said.

I keep getting distracted by the puzzle, wanting to join in and help figure things out. I’m still fighting the crud and am about ready to give up on the idea of ever being well, and it’d be nice to tackle a solvable problem. Earlier I was looking at all the bottles of vitamins I’ve purchased over the last month and thought, This is ridiculous, Marcus. I think this a lot about my life. I think about all the physical possessions I’ve sold, the fact that I’m living with my parents, the fact I feel like a bag of ass and yet force myself to sit down every day, every damn day, to write this blog and get nothing tangible in return. Even to me, these things often don’t add up. But that’s how things go. So here I am, here we all are, trying to put our pieces together, doing the best we can to make something out of this big jumbled mess we call life.