Category: general

Where I put something when I’m too lazy to categorize it.

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springtime


It’s after dinner and I’m sitting here drawing my too-long index fingernail across my front bottom teeth, scraping the film of a good meal into little curls which I’ll then think about, and eventually just decide it’s easier to swallow. Sharaun went easy tonight and let me have chilidogs for dinner, although I did have to eat a salad to “balance” it. I just put Keaton down to bed. Speaking of Keaton and sleeping, we lost her morning nap about a week back – she just refused to go down. So, she’s a one-nap baby now, although it’s a nice long one around 1pm so it’s not so bad. I’ve hit a serious stall on my reading, last time I checked in with Sal Paradise he was on his way back to New York after an amazing-sounding shack-up with a Mexican farmgirl. I want to get back to it, but I’ve been otherwise occupied. Tonight’s the night though, I think.

Spring is coming. My lawn is starting to get green and the trees on the block are starting to sport buds on their winter-grey limbs. I’m excited for the day when the weatherman says that the rains are over and I can pull the the hammock and patio chair cushions out of the garage. I’m ready for the not-so-hot precursor to summer months, when we can start earting dinners outside again, music drifting through the screen door, Keaton crawling around in the grass. I’ve decided I’m going to put a screen door on our front door as well, so we can have the house “open” and get a nice breeze running through. This is typical in Florida, but I don’t see it much here in California, maybe I’ll start a trend. Anyway, the coming of spring and summer have my mind turning to camping again, and thinking about how much fun we’ll be able to have (and how much extra work it’ll be) now that Keaton’s a little more mobile and a little more cognizant of her surroundings. Yeah, springtime… bring it.

Goodnight.

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life gets in the way


Took a hiatus from writing last week, work was busy and I was occupied in the evenings. Life sometimes gets in the way of blogging, I guess. Actually, I have nothing to write tonight, and am just not in the mood – but I had some crap stuff that I forgot to delete last week I figured I’d use to fill the space. This weekend I spent a lot of time vacating multiple pieces of hardware from our “computer room” and consolidating them into a brand new single computer which now lives in the built-in niche in our kitchen. I didn’t like the built-in niche when we bought the house, figured it too small for a proper computer desk (it is, really), but now I like it. Sharaun likes it too, since she can be out here with Keaton. Anyway, now we can turn that room into a real guest room.

People, please, please stop calling me asking how to install the pirated software you downloaded from BitTorrent. If you have no idea how to unRAR or unZIP a file, if you can’t comprehend having to burn a .bin/.cue file to a CD before using or (or God forbid using a virtual drive to read the ISO), or if you have no idea how to navigate a folder tree in Windows or understand where the hell something you just downloaded or extracted went on your drive – pirating software isn’t for you. If you can’t understand the concept of a keygen, don’t know what a readme is, or have know idea how to run a patch in the root directory – give up and pay the damn $30 to do your taxes.

Just because the software is out there for free, and you can call me to walk you through the installation process (something that will take 10x the time it would were I there with you) doesn’t mean you are entitled to use it for free. In fact, if you have no idea what a RAR file is, you have no business trying to bootleg software… so give up. And please, stop calling me and making me ask things like, “Did you unRAR it? Where did you extract it to? What do you mean you don’t know? Go back and do it again, pay attention. No. That’s in your My Documents folder. Where? It’s under your username… what? OK, double-click on My Computer… No, you’re gonna need to patch that DLL. Just put the file called patch.exe in the directory. What? No, where extracted it. Oh, you don’t see extensions, and you have to show hidden/protected files. Go to Properties…” Ugh!

Keaton seems to be getting over her double ear infections quite nicely, with the help of some foul-smelling medicine we have to keep in the fridge. Her eyes have stopped gooping and her nose is less runny (she’s still got a nasty cough, though). Lately, I’ve been noticing her “getting older.” The way she plays with me, the little things she does when she’s wrapped up in her own world, she just acts older or something – more like a little kid than a little baby. She’s going too fast.

Goodnight.

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it’s shameful, it’s disgusting


Life sometimes gets in the way of blogging. Like tonight, I fully planned to shirk this thing, didn’t get home until 11pm and was tired. Then I remembered I had the binned paragraph about babies/cardboard/consumerism and I thought about going in and filling in around it – I again decided no. Then, laying down, I had the walking though, figured it was good for a paragraph, and went with it. So here I am then, listening to “Disco 2000” from Pulp’s absolute classic Different Class, literally one of my favorite albums of all time. Highschool all over when I hear it. Today was Keaton’s real first birthday, as measured by the sun and moon and tides, and wouldn’t you know it – she’s sick with a runny nose, puffy eyes, and a rattley cough. Poor birthday girl.

I think I’d like to try an experiment, wear a pedometer for a week and see how far I walk, on average, each day. I would expect the results to be nothing less of pitiful. I think of all the walking the human race must have had to endure to get where we are now. Walking through deserts, across ice-bridges, over perilous mountains – all with nothing more than two feet and a hunger. It shames me that me, some long-downline descendant of the great walkers of human history, walks so little in any given day. I can probably count the instances in which I’m required to walk: around my house in the morning after waking up; from the car into work and up to my desk; maybe a restroom break before lunch; lunch; to the car on the way home; and finally around the house again before retiring at night. It’s gotta be staggeringly low, and that’s the sum total of my daily “activity.” It’s shameful, it’s disgusting. Looks like the alliterative “Synthia” was onto something…

Ever since having a baby, our status as “consumers” has risen alarmingly. I’m weekly toting empty cardboard boxes out to the recycle bin, and even with all the “break down boxes” training from my days in fast food I still get lazy and try to stuff them in just as they are. Sometimes, when the bin is full, 90% air and 10% fully-assembled cardboard boxes, I’ll just pile up the new boxes on the bricks outside. Often hoping for rain so it’ll turn into a mush that’s easier to squish into the bin. But, they still come, box after box after box of diapers, wipes, toys, whatever. Week after week we consume, more and more and more. Keaton flies through diapers. We put one on her, she pees in it or poops in it and we take it off. It goes in the trash, the trash goes to the curb, and Keaton’s pee and poops end up in the landfill that’s about 10mi from here, a stinky hump on the flat horizon, flocks of seagulls hanging around the line of trees planted as cover. Sometimes I think there’s got to be a better way.

Quick check: Looks like I didn’t win the lottery. Back to work tomorrow it is then. Today’s piece of flashback humor: mistaken identity II. Goodnight.

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we don’t care about the old folks


Going through this stack of dusty papers that is the mail, I found a check from our credit card folks, $5.47. That’s good money now! I figure that’ll buy me half a bottle of Mega Man; I’m out, and feeling slightly off-mega. Somewhere between aggro and super, maybe… but definitely not mega. Bought some lottery tickets today, the check more than makes up for what I spent, so that makes me feel vindicated or something. I decided to buy them because the jackpot is all jacked-up, somewhere upwards of two-hundred million dollars. Went in with a couple buddies from work. Good guys too, it’s a shame I’ll have to off them if we win. If I win, though, I’ve decided to take up writing in my spare time. Writing, and swimming in my Money Bin.

Monday night though, we had tomato soup and grilled cheese, what I like to think of as an old “hobo standby.” I like it though, Sharaun makes it sometimes when she’s pressed for time or doesn’t want to run to the store, and I don’t mind because it’s tasty and I can launch black flotillas of pepper on the surface of my soup. She was busy working on some stuff on her computer, so I played with Keaton until about eight before putting her down. Her cold is getting worse, I think. Her right eye is all goopy, collecting at the corner in nice gooey eye boogers I lovingly scoop out with my fingers. She still acts like a trooper though, with nary a sign of discomfort.

The rain continues to come in sunny California. I like it. Last night I listened to it pelt the windows and tick down the drainpipes while I waited for sleep, I had that tent fantasy again, willed it, actually. It was still coming down this morning, I used my umbrella to walk from the car into the building at work. Umbrellas, though, as I’ve mentioned before, are useless in my opinion, and every time I use one I think about how I’d rather have a nice long London-style “Mac” to stay dry instead. Like I said though, I like the rain. It makes my grass green, forces lazy days inside. I like the way it makes the streets and sidewalks shiny and dark and uniform in color, like they all got a coat of lacquer and are fresh and new. I like the sun better, though.

Gotta get to scrubbin’ folks, dishes are calling. Goodnight.

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sweating out the bennies


I’ve got a pretty spotty entry today, but link to some pictures so maybe that makes up. Just got done doing the dishes from dinner, spaghetti and a green salad, quite good. I’m now drinking some white wine while Sharaun and Melissa watch the Oscars. I’m adrift in sea of gown-critiquing, heartthrob throbbing, and the occasional look up from the laptop on the off chance Natalie Portman is on the screen.

Sitting here on a Sunday afternoon in the shirt I wore yesterday, well, at least partly yesterday. It’s still got some chocolate frosting smeared into the fabric on my right breast, I can smell sweet whiffs of it every once in a while. Keaton’s sleeping and Sharaun is at a baby shower luncheon thing so I have the place to myself. I’m using my time wisely, writing and watching old episodes of the original Star Trek. I tried to listen to some music, but found I’m in one of those moods where nothing sounds right, nothing quite fits. So, Star Trek it is.

Saturday was Keaton’s 1st birthday party, and I think it went off swimmingly. I’ve posted some picture to her gallery here, which you can peruse here at your leisure. Incidentally, this is the 1st batch of photos taken with our camera, and I’ve also upped the size at which I “shrink” them to for web usage (1024×768 instead of 800×600). Anyway, my folks flew in for the party, and I think they got some good Keaton-time over the days they were here. I like seeing them with her, love to watch the way she makes them happy, especially my mom. Tuesday is her real birthday, a day on which, on year ago, I sat hunched over this very laptop in a hospital room, writing out the event in real time. It really is hard to think that she’s a year old now…

Spent a good two hours reading On The Road last night before bed (I think book titles, at least from what I remember from 10th grade, are supposed to be underlined, but on the web that’s reserved for hyperlinks, so I put ’em in italics). At some point, as Sal Paradise finally spent his first night in San Francisco and he says, “Boys and girls in America, have such a sad time together.” I had no idea the Hold Steady’s album took it’s name from the book, and was pleasantly surprised to “discover” a bit of cultural cross-pollination for myself. After patting myself on my literate back, I read on. I’m still excited about the book, still looking for moments to steal when I can read a little more. Even the stink of my own shit is made more bearable by plowing through a couple chapters. I’m hoping that whatever book I pick next in my “educate myself” 2007 read-a-thon doesn’t bring me down.

Goodnight.

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keystone chops


Tonight, Sharaun and I went out for our Valentines Day dinner. (I wanted to write that sentence as, “Tonight was Sharaun and I’s Valentines Day dinner,” or “Tonight was Sharaun and my Valentines Day dinner,” but I have never known how to say “someone and I/my” as a possessive so I chickened out). Anyway, we had traded babysitting with some friends of ours, watching their toddler while they did their Valentines and they’d in turn take Keaton while we did ours.

The dinner itself was so fraught with buffoonery that it was remarkable. First, our order was laughably wrong; next, our bill was incredibly incorrect; next-next, they charged my dinner to someone else’s card, his dinner to mine, and returned the wrong credit cards to each of us (of course, the other guy didn’t notice, signed his receipt, and left with my card); next-next-next, they refused to apologize or do anything other than attempt to “charge me later if the other guy calls when he notices he has the wrong card.” It was one insane example of incompetence after another, thirty minutes of it, while we were left to simply rot at our empty table. Finally, I got up and told them I was leaving, and canceling my credit card. I left them my name and phone number in case they wanted to talk about it, but stated that I planned to dispute any charge from them that evening that made it through prior to my card being canceled.

As old ladies on Andy Griffith say, “Well, I never!”

Got a bug today over lunch and went out with the weed spray to do some killin’. I also pushed the fertilizer spreader thing around to try and green-up my sullen yard. You’d think that the same lack of winter rain which has left my grass brown and crunchy would also mean no weeds. But, no, the weeds are in full bloom. It’s as if their roots drill deep into the Earth and have tapped some hidden spring, they’re always healthy and verdant, thriving even in this drought. The lawn, on the other hand, suffers miserably. I’m back to running the sprinklers in the morning to try and put some life back into it, which is something I’ve not done this late in winter (early in spring?) since I’ve had the place.

Compared to my neighbors, I’m somewhat disgusted with my lawn. Some of theirs look painted on, brilliant deep green and as thick and lush as new shag. Mine is weed-speckled and thin, whispy and here-and-there, looking on the edge of death. In the summer it usually picks up, but it’s still no prizewinner. I’m convinced that my lack of a green thumb is not to blame, but rather my unfortunate choice of lot. The corner lot, erected on a seeming bed of compacted rock with little to no soil at all in between to retain water. The lot itself a product of clearing the land above and below for other lots, a pile of crap beaten flat yet still pitched at a fierce slant, with a large burm and hollow right in the front yard. I’m convinced the grass can find precious little soil in which to root, and that what soil there is drains either too fast or not at all depending on the lay of the land. I’m also convinced the irrigation system was poorly designed. It’s an all-over mess. It’s not because I suck at things green, I promise.

May or may not post Friday, as I’m taking a vacation day and may not be inclined. Goodnight.

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running away


Monday, a free day off and the culmination of the three-day weekend. Monday, and I’m stuck inside with a terrible case of the shits. Started yesterday, got to feeling sick and spent most of the day in bed sleeping, a real drag. Whenever I do that, I get to feeling guilty because I leave Sharaun with everything, when normally the weekends are times when she can expect to rely on me for break from 24/7 baby-care. So I lounged around all day, not eating because I hadn’t the appetite, and not reading because my head felt soggy and focusing on the tiny words made everything swirl. I did, however, continue to contemplate this idea of writing in my spare time. I know, I already do, but not here. I mean trying to piece together a real manuscript. I think that, if I do decide to write something, it’ll be largely based on my own experiences growing up – it just seems like I have the most potential words there. I’d likely fabricate some, appropriate others, and exaggerate here and there – but, then again, that is my life so… no change there. I don’t know… whatever.

Lately I’ve been revisiting a certain daydream: Sharaun and Keaton and I have gone hiking/camping, and the morning after our we first pitched camp and spent our first night in the backcountry, we wake up to torrential rain. The rain traps us in our little tent, but it’s fine because we have plenty of food and water and supplies. We have books we can read ourselves and to the baby, we have snacks, clean diapers, everything. And so we while away the day in our little self-sufficient cocoon (the problem of using the bathroom blissfully solved for the purpose of the daydream), playing games and talking and listening to the rain as we stay warm and dry. I always picture that milky light of a gray rainy sky filtered through tent fabric, imagine cuddling up with the family, resigned to our fate, trapped for a day of forced-timeout. Another womb fantasy, I’m full of them.

I’ve sat here now for ~20min trying to think up another paragraph. That means I’m done. Goodnight.