Category: general

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

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yesterday i saw you kissing tiny flowers


Thursday night and I mowed the hadn’t-been-mowed-in-two-weeks lawn after work. Sometimes I swear the shuffle function on the iPod is actually powered by some mood-psychic gremlin living within those pearly white walls. Work today was quite the wringer, and I was a bundle of emotions and thoughts upon coming home (more about that later in the week, I think). The iPod, however, knew just how to talk to my troubled mind. First, it hit me up with some obscure Simon & Garfunkel, “A Most Peculiar Man” – just the right kind of snide “fishbowl” social commentary to get a busy mind thinking. Later on it ranged from Led Zeppelin’s “Rain Song,” a paragon of songmanship in my mind, some excellent Siamese Dream era Pumpkins, Bowie, and Son House singing about the blood of Jesus. It was an outstanding mix, and fit my tumultuous mood to a tee. Way to be, iPod. Way. To. Be. Oh, but mowing the grass blew… it was long and thick and the heat made me sweaty.

We had a momentous night Wednesday night: Keaton slept her first night in her nursery. That’s right, in her own crib in that two-tone pink room – not in the Pack-‘n’-Play parked next to the bed in ours. I must say, it was all my doing… Sharaun was reluctant but I had maintained for some weeks that the post-Florida timeframe should be the cutoff. Part of me is sad she’s not right there with us, where we can satisfy our paranoia by peeking in on her or placing a hand on her chest as it rises and falls. I’d been thinking for some time now how nice it would be to have our bedroom back, uncluttered by her sleeping and changing stuff, and once again safe for nighttime humping. But, when I packed out the last of her baby gear, I paraded first by Sharaun in the living room. We both looked at that neatly bundled Pack-‘n’-Play with a little sadness, like a chapter of our daughter’s life was being stuffed in the back of the nursery closet and a new phase was beginning. It may sound stupid, but I don’t think it’s an entirely foreign thing for new parents to experience. I’m not sure when “most” parents make that move, or even that “most” parents opt to have the baby in their room to begin with – but I’d wager that four and a half months is pretty late as “mosts” go. Good for us then, taking the plunge.

I’ve been trying to follow the piss-poor coverage of the Israel-Hezbollah/Lebanon conflict on CNN.com, but the reporting is disjointed, hard to follow, and lacking enough background to educate me on the situation. Frustrated because I felt ignorant reading and not following, I struck off on my own to my favorite reference site – Wikipedia. Turns out they’ve already got a great educational page about the current conflict, and it’s chock-full of links to other relevant entries offering tons of historical insight and information. I think I’ll just follow the conflict on Wikipedia rather than one of the major news outlets, as it’s easier for me to follow. Check it out here if you’re similarly stumped by the motivation and history behind the escalating violence.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah…

Well, I’d better run. I’ve need to put up our unpacked suitcases and finish off tonight’s dinner dishes – which I’ve been cleaning in spurts for hours now. Love you fuckers, goodnight.

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lion’s paws are made of rubber


An action-packed weekend, that’s what it was. Yup… action-packed. Saturday we woke up early to get some professional-type photos taken of our burgeoning family. I claimed Keaton post-photos so mom could join friends on a rafting trip down the river. Meanwhile, while her mom lazed her way downstream, Keaton and I headed over to a friend’s place to watch Mexico and Argentina foot it out on the pitch. Later, the family reunited briefly at the follow-up to rafting – a backyard BBQ. Then it was mom’s turn to fly solo with Lil’ Chino, as dad joined some of his friends and headed up the mountain to do some skywatching. Anthony bought a fancy telescope and four of us headed up into the darkness of the mountains, escaping the light-polluted city, to gaze aloft. And, although the watching part was, for the most part, obscured by clouds, it was nice; especially since I’d had the presence of mind to fill my hip flask to the brim with a stout port before leaving. Seven ounces of that stuff will do a body right over the course of a night, y’know. Sunday we spent the day with friends, chowed on grilled salmon and mashed ‘taters… we have a hard, hard life.

And, even in the midst of packing all that action, I was able to upload a small set of pictures to Keaton’s Gallery. Check them out here, and watch as Keaton finally truly “discovers” her feet, and takes her first swim with mom.

Lion: Lion’s paws are made of rubber; primary colors: red, blue, yellow, and green. Lion has beans in his belly and rocks in his head. His purple mane crinkles. Lion is covered in invisible DNA, dried spit. His limbs sag under the weight of his oversized hands and feet, but he can sit up on his own and he never fails to get a smile. Lion goes places; lion is a man on the move; lion’s on the move.

Goodnight.

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tomorrow’s yesterday


I finally motivated myself enough to get out in the front yard and pull the weeds from the planters after work today. Turns out it wasn’t that bad a job at all, I was finished in well under and hour. Some live Dead shuffled on while I worked, and it sounded so good. Sometimes there’s nothing better than a noodling Garcia guitar solo in the sunshine. I stopped short, however, of busting out the hedge trimmer and trimming me some hedge… not because I ran out of daylight, but because I ran out of caring. Tomorrow, maybe…

The more I analyze my trends in motivation, the more I’m convinced I have an excellent intuition. Historically, it seems I’m almost prophetically unmotivated – slacking most on things that end up being unimportant in the long run. I seem to “know” what to apply my resources to, and what to push down to the bottom of the pile. In the moment, my choices often seem damning – deprioritizing something that, it seems, would put me behind or cause my overall performance to suffer. But usually, later down the road that item I put on the back burner falls off the edge altogether from some directive on-high, and I look awesome for having diverted resources to other things when all the while I wasn’t paying attention to begin with. I’m convinced that this psychic ability to know when and what to work on, coupled with my ability to apply methamphetamine-like speed and productivity to important immediate tasks make me the ideal worker. I’m thinking of bulletizing this and putting it on my resume:

Personal Traits

  • Team player; works well with diverse groups.
  • Experienced in conflict resolution and teambuilding.
  • Possess a psychic “tasking” ability; can prioritize current tasks by future relevancy.
  • Fastidiously groomed; sparkling teeth, very little dandruff.
  • Well-filled shorts.

Yes… well then, let’s move on.

No sooner did I decide to make Wolfmother’s eponymous album my #1 pick of 2006.5 did I catch their single “Love Train” on the new iTunes ad during prime-time. Great, just great. How is one supposed to stay elite when iTunes and M&Ms and Chrysler keep employing good music to appeal to consumers? No longer will people stare blankly when I tell them I’m listening to Wolfmother, they’ll instead go, “Oh, you mean the iTunes band? I heard they fucked Lindsay Lohan with a trout… or something.” Nah, I’m only messing with you guys… the more people at the good-music party the better, welcome to what’s rad world, welcome.

Lately, I’ve been fascinated with the Swapatorium blog – which I ran across via this mysterious and super-interesting (to me) BoingBoing post. I have my own personal obsession with wading through inconsequential history, whether it be mine or someone else’s, and Swapatorium’s posts are right up that alley. While browsing the archives, I ran across the “Diary of a Girl” feature that ran from January through February this year: An entry from a young girl’s late-1960s diary, which covers everything from sewing dressed to the sordid affair between her older brother and her best friend. There’s no easy way to link the entire thread as a cohesive story, but if you’re interested in reading it (and why wouldn’t you be?), the best way is to start here at the January archives (scroll to the bottom of the page and read up), and continue on here to the February archives (again reading from bottom-to-top). What a great feature.

Goodnight.

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fingers crossed


Midnight on Thusrday night (early morning): Lasik-Eve.

I stayed up late to watch the season finale of Lost, and because I have no work to wake up for tomorrow – just a 10am appointment for Lasik surgery. I’m ready; ready to see. I had like four paragraphs written, but they were all boring so I’ve moved them into the bin, where they’ll get appended to shorter entries over the next week. For tonight, however, I have nothing much at all. I wanted mainly to write about how anxious I am to get this surgery done – not anxious/nervous… more anxious/excited. Maybe tomorrow sitting in a room awaiting the laser… maybe then I’ll be more nervous than excited, I dunno.

The surgery is at 10am, should last about one minute for the whole thing (cornea-cutting and eye-burning), but there’s probably a half-hour to hour of waiting and other “prep.” They dose me with some kind of sedative prior to going in, so they’ll need at least time for that to set in once I’ve arrived. The, I’m off home (Sharaun as my driver) to sleep it off. They recommend as much sleep as possible immediately following the operation, as there can be some discomfort as the anesthesia wears off – but apparently not enough to wake you if you’re sleeping. So, I plan on sacking it out for as long as possible post-op – although I’ve heard that with some folks you can even see an improvement as soon as walking out of the doctor’s office, albeit a haze-shrouded improvement.

They told me I’d be able to go to work as normal Friday, even drive myself in.

Wish me luck.

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fo rth e skae of th bolg


Beeeeerrrrppp Pfestttivaaal!!! Tlonighjt my went ot the beer ffestiveal in Germany!!! Oh people, I had such a grea time in the beer festivea;. IUt really was aewesome to tbe bone. Yoiu gon’e take to me about nthe beer festiveal, becauese it was something so good.. that ytou woudl have to be their to be able to talk to me abiut it. Right’ now i’ts in the AM time in Gernamay and I just got balc from the festivitues. Pat and i dtanlk a lot of enbeers and had a realy,. tood time. Now i”ve somc home to the hotel and I am ready to go to ebd… but I wanted to post a Dridat enry before I did. So, here is what I wil post – some was weritten before the beer festival, some was bwtiiten after the berr fersive. Enogu.

Since I like to be honest with those of you who donate precious minutes of your time reading this page, I’ll tell you straight-off that this is only Friday’s entry because of WordPress’s ability to schedule entries. I actually just pressed “publish” on Thursday’s entry – which won’t go live until 2pm PST on US Thursday, and immediately began drafting this entry for a midnight Friday auto-post. Not a bad way to blog an entire week in a condensed way. I’m sitting now in Pat’s hotel room (I don’t like to link Pat’s name to his site, ’cause it has my last name on it and I strive to keep that off the web – hey Pat, fix that), which is infinitely bigger than mine, listening to some Built to Spill on the iPod and contemplating taking a dump here instead of going to my own accommodations – his room has a bidet. It’s still Thursday morning in Germany as I write, and my belly is still pretty full from breakfast. We plan to head down the cobblestone street for a lunch outdoors, accompanied, of course, by some beer – y’know, to prep us for the 3pm customer meeting… get our minds nice and limber and whatnot.

Tomorrow we leave, but not until something like 4pm, which puts us in San Francisco around 6pm – a mere two hours later. Since we have most of the day free, we’re planning to stop over for a tour of Dachau, which I’m sure will be a sobering experience.

If you couldnt/ tell, those tw apragraphs were rtinne berfore the beer frestival – and this paragraph and the opener were wtrittn after the beer festival. The beer feasstialv was sooo awesome. Pat and I had soe much berr, that we ceased to know how mhch eer we actualle had – and ckept treindking beer depstitea out ob vious frunkeness. I want you to know that this entry was a bithc to sprrell-chjeck cbaezues I prupsoely left the drunbken fat-finerge erros intact for comedic reason.s I trulyu hope ytou enjoyed my writings from ermane. It’s like 1ma here nand Pat just called me from his hotel room (rone foloor benath me) to tel me he was “fdrunk.” CNo craop Pat, we’re both frunk…. we were, after all, at the same beer fieagvl. Until the USA poeople, I love you … please forive me.

Thhis is no koek… I really am stpyting this wayu b ecuae os the b eer. The beer has done nast y thing to my coordingaton… my finger are not doing waht my brain is telling themt o di… althog I will akdmote that I’;m playing it uup (jsut a little) fo rth e skae of th bolg.

O(MFG this new Sufjan dong is carrygin me through Germanbu… one sogn can make an entire trip… this song is sooo good.

I love tou all and I miss you alll… going to bed now.. Dave is… ooooooooooooooooty.

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on the island, all bets are off


Keaton’s in her swing, wrapped loosely in a pink blanket that defines soft, watching the mobile spin above her head while hiccuping. Sharaun ran out to do some errands and I happily traded the babble of the TV for silence and some time to write. I’m kicked back on the couch in shorts and my house slippers, thinking about how I’ll do the dishes from dinner just a little later. Tuesday night, home from a busy day at work around 6pm – had to stay late to finish “just a couple” things before heading home. Every day at work I have just enough “just a couple” things to do before I leave to keep me around until morning the next day, you just have to draw the line somewhere and cash out. I’m pretty good at drawing that line in the sand and sticking to it, and more often than not it’s right around 5pm. What am I talking about?

It’s Springtime, and my backyard is a verdant bloom of weeds again, the unending rain helping them take root in otherwise non-ideal places. They blanket the unplanted hillsides that flank my house left and rear, growing in the damp mulch. They crowd the Japanese maple, blocking out the little plot of dirt I’ve been intending to plant pretty flowers in. They have taken over, and I hate them. My only solace is in the knowledge that the summer swelter will scorch their little leaves and stems; dry up the milky sap that is their lifeblood, and leave them as brittle, crumbling shells of their former thriving selves. I hate weeds.

I have this daydream thing I sometimes do, where I sometimes dream about getting stranded on a desert island (yes, I know I’ve done the island thing over and over and over, but this one’s different). It takes me as I am now, and puts me washed up on some desolate beach far away – only I’m not alone. I’m with a woman, one that’s not my wife. The fantasy really doesn’t do much else, it’s more of a setup for the line of questions that follow. I always wonder, if I were to find myself in this situation, how would my new island life with this person unfold? I’m assuming, of course, that I am a skilled enough survivalist to provide us with food and shelter and keep us alive, and we’d have each other’s company as a ward against insanity. With all the basics of life taken care of, you’re now left with an island existence, both of you living out your days together. It’s there that my mind begins to work, to twist and turn…

At some point, this woman and you would do it, right? I mean, you’re on an island, there’s nothing but the trees and waves and coconuts to eat… It may be slow in coming: you first erect a small lean-to for shelter, later you further the bond between you by perhaps bringing her a fresh-caught fish or starting a fire with a stick. She begins to trust you, depend on you even. In my daydreams, this woman is nearly always someone I know, a friend of mine or Sharaun’s. It’s all the better if, in real life, you could never imagine yourself having a relationship with the person. But, on the island, with just the crabs and gulls and wind in the palms, all bets are off. It may start as a simple compliment – how becoming her new grass skirt is; how the berries make her hair smell good. Yes, that’s where it may start, friends, but it’s not where it ends – only the island knows where it ends.

Soon, as the reality of life on the island sets in, urges turn less survivalist and more animal. Glances are cast, body language broadcast: it’s about to be on. Then, one day (yes, it’s the bright of day – that’s the awesome thing about stranded-on-a-desert-island sex, there’s no one there to be bridled for… in fact, you can be as unbridled as you want on the island), the impossible happens: humping. Oh yes, there’s no question that the time on the island would lead to doin’ it; all desert-island roads lead to fornication – I’m convinced. The bond that the island can form is a unique one, and the island can get even the loneliest of men laid… provided they can build a fire and clean a fish. You’re Screech Powers and find yourself washed waywardly ashore alongside the fetching Kelly Kapowski? No worries my friend, the thick impenetrable layers of highschool social strata do not exist here on the island. Here, you are as boneable as AC Slater. All God’s children got game on the island.

Uh-huh, I’m aware that this is nothing more than a complex construct to daydream about humping unattainable women whom I know – and I’m OK with that because it’s not as direct as simply dreaming about an affair. At least my sex-fantasies are set in impossible situations and only happen after hard-won demonstrations of manhood and survivor/provider instinct. Only if all men had to jump through such a set of pre-daydream-sex hoops – maybe there’d be less indiscriminate humping. Sharaun’s pretty much guaranteed a faithful husband unless a friend of hers and I happen to land ourselves in the remote South Pacific… and even then I have to keep us both alive long enough for the island to make her want me. Those are pretty good odds, if you ask me.

Where that all came from, I have no idea. Goodnight.