Category: self

Introspective thought on my own behavior or actions.

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home it is

Hi.  This space is where I write on the internet.  Below is a sampling of some of that writing.  You can read it if you want, and it may even change on some days.

I know people tend to skip the paragraph when I talk about music, and that’s fine really… I don’t have a gun.  But, for my sake, I’d ask you sometimes try to muddle through – I often bury very real commentary in there.  Sometimes some of my favorite bits of writing I do are some of the talk-ups I’ve done for this record or that song.  Again, you don’t have to like what I like, or even like what don’t like, or even anything at all – I still don’t have a gun.  That said, here’s a paragraph on music.

I really never thought I’d like this Bon Iver album everyone’s been conferring sainthood upon over the last half of the year.  Turns out, while it’s not gonna top my list, it’s actually really good.  Maybe it’s that the lonely unaccompanied guitar and soft double-tracked vocals are speaking to the general melancholy I’ve been mired in the past month (self-imposed or not).  Instrumentally it’s built of twigs, but tunefully it’s strong as steel – something that’s sometimes hard to do without getting stuck sounding like some Mazzy Star wrist-slitting dirge.  What’s more, it lends itself well to the cold weather (which may be exacerbating that melancholy, come to think of it) – so it fits well with the clouds and morning fog.  I like it; I really do.  At least it’ll hold me until Merriweather Post Pavilion leaks…

Evenings lately I’ve been spending my post-work time helping out as a backstage guy for our church’s Christmas production (I attach little microphones to peoples’ ears, tape them down to their faces, and tuck the transmitter packs somewhere conspicuous in their costumes).  I’ve actually enjoyed the post-work “work” quite a bit, I never was much of a “drama” guy in school – and watching the people work (it is a full production, quite serious business to a novice like me) while safely in the wings has been interesting and fun.  I haven’t got to see Keaton but for in the early morning before work the past few days, but tonight was the last night of rehearsal so I’m released until the actual show nights at this point.  I know, you’re thinking, “Dave, spending your evenings at church doesn’t sound much like you.”  Yeah, well, maybe it doesn’t… but, then again, maybe it will.

I know I’ve written about it before… but I love the random urge to just “keep driving.”  You know, the moment when, as you’re driving along the highway homeward, you start thinking, “What if I just sped right past my exit and didn’t look back?”  I thought that the other day, imagining Sharaun and Keaton in the car with me.  Just drive on… right into the horizon.  Sleep where you get tired, eat where you get hungry, and stop where you please.  Maybe visit long-lost relatives, or national parks, or just the open road.  Just drive on… put something good and long on the stereo and settle in.  I guess I’d have to stop somewhere tho… and home really is the best place I know, so… home it is.

Goodnight.

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getting my #2 time back

Friday, and despite thinking this whole evening that I wasn’t going to write, here I am sitting down at 10:30pm giving it the old college try.

My favorite thing about Friday?  It’s always followed by Saturday and that’s the day a bunch of people come over to our house to watch college football all day.  Thursday, even Thursday’s good because it’s almost Friday.  But, whatever…

You know when everything is going right with your complicated animated Halloween props and you’re all like, “Man, my complicated animated Halloween props are dialed-in this year!”  You’re all proud and happy and triumphant and stuff?  Isn’t that always the time that the blacklight you have mounted to the underside of the porch decides to fall off and hang in the path of your crank ghost’s motor arm?  You know, totally tangling the thing into a twisted mess and nearly overworking the motor to the point of death?  Yeah man, me too.  That crap always happens to me.  Ugh… just more work guys… just more work…

Keaton likes to do this new thing where, while I’m seated in the bathroom, she opens the door and asks me, among other random and non-urgent questions, how I’m doing.  At first I found this a little disturbing – as even in my own house around the woman I’ve been with for fifteen years, I’m a door-closed kinda #2 guy.  But, as she continued to do it (displaying an almost ESP-esque knack for knowing when I’m pinching a loaf), I guess I sort of got used to it.  Lately though, I’ve taken to latching the door while I’m in there.

Why?  I’ll tell you why.

I miss my smelly little sanctuary.  No one used to bother me in that room; I could read the Newsweek (or stray People if Sharaun had left one), surf the internet on my iPhone (is that gross?  I kinda think it might be gross), or simply rest my chin on my hands and enjoy the silence.  And, as much as I love my daughter – even to the point of allowing her to interrupt my bomb-dropping – I just need my time, y’all.  So, she’ll come to the door, fiddle with the handle, ask me, in a muffled voice, “Dad?  What are you doing, Dad?,” and eventually give up when I don’t let her in.

And that’s how I got my #2 time back.  Goodnight.

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couple nights alone

Friday and I’m passionate for the weekend.

I have to work from home today (which is tomorrow as I write, being that I do all my keybanging the night prior to an entry) for two reasons:

1) We’re doing the introduction meet-and-greet for the gradeschool e-mail pen-pals thing I volunteer for at work.  So I get to meet my kid tomorrow.  If they really do pair us up based on the questionnaires they made me fill out I expect to get a kid who plays no sports, loves math and science, and whose hobby is “writing.”  Holy crap I’m gonna get the hugest nerd y’all…

Anyway, 2) Sharaun is leaving for her New Kids on the Block concert around midday.  It’s her big several-hundred dollar VIP package, complete with her own meet-and-greet.  For her, I seriously think this is a childhood dream come full circle.  And no, I did not give her permission to sleep with any of them were she to be invited “back to the bus.”

Actually, I’m home alone right now because Sharaun is at (guess… c’mon… guess) a New Kids on the Block concert.  Yeah, tonight is the first of three.  Two back-to-back and one later this month that she’s flying to Florida for.  Sigh… at least I got to have the TV off all night, the iPod on, and play with Keaton…

And, since we’re on the topic of dreams (well, we kinda were… somewhere back there…) I had an insane and frightening one last night, and it was so vivid upon waking I figured it might mean something. Now, bear with me because dreams aren’t always quite linear… but here goes:

Sharaun and I somehow got free tickets to see a hip-hop/rap act play in some highschool auditorium in San Francisco. In my dream I knew who they were, some very popular radio-staple act like Lil’ Wayne or something. Anyway, it was some kind of “secret” show I think…. We arrived and stepped into some glass-walled booth above the stadium-seating style auditorium, where we’d watch the show.

The place was filled with highschool kids sitting very reserved in their seats waiting for the show to begin. As the house went dark I could see shadows taking their places on the stage, and when the lights came back up and the beats kicked in the place went wild. Kids tore the backs off their seats and started a frantic teenage riot, trashing things for the sake of trashing things.

Immediately, authority figures in the form of what I assumed were teachers and administrators swept in from the aisles and quieted or restrained the unruly kids. The show was stopped and everyone was ushered out of the room. The entourage on stage walked off in disgust and ended up joining us in the glass booth. Being less than interested in hanging out with Lil’ Wayne and his crew, I opted to walk around instead – leaving Sharaun there (this has got to be a dream, as no married man would ever in real life leave their wife alone with Lil’ Wayne and his boys… that’s just not a good idea).

Upon wandering, I met a doctor (I know, it moves fast here) who said he wanted to talk to me about my medical history… and had some forms for me to fill out. We decided to step outside and have a seat at some tables there to go over the results. As we sat talking, I was facing the street and he had his back to it.

Suddenly, and this is the moment in this dream that made me write about it, behind him in the air I saw something huge falling through the sky.  Doing a double take, I could see what appeared to be a huge rocket drifting down with a large parachute trailing behind it. Despite the parachute, the massive thing was sailing down at a pretty good clip. I remember think that no who hadn’t yet seen it as I had would even know it was coming, as it was completely silent as the parachute lowered it through the air.

I watched in confusion and growing horror as it moved from top to bottom across my vision, crossing the imaginary line formed by the tops of the buildings flanking the very street we were sitting along, drifting towards the busy road. It was then I realized just how close the thing actually was to us, it couldn’t have been more than a quarter mile away – just down the street. And, by the time I realized it was nearly on top of us and was going to impact it was too late.

I sat and watched helplessly as it crashed nose-first into the street with a tearing shearing sound of twisting metal. I can remember expecting an explosion just before one came, and I swear I could feel the heat from the fireball in my dream – it was that vivid. The explosion didn’t destroy the rocket, however, and the thing, still stuck nose-first into the ground like a fallen arrow, began spewing forth a white mist – which came shooting out of it at high pressure.

At this point the doctor I was sitting with jumped up, pulled the neck of his shirt over his mouth and darted back inside the building. I followed suit, but the mist was so thick and quickly enveloping neither of us made it inside before being swamped in it.

Once we did get inside, the air was already getting fuzzy with the stuff. I can remember running around trying to find Sharaun, terrified that I wasn’t with her when this happened. In my search for her I somehow must have ended up back outside, where the air was now clear and by now there fireman cops and ambulances arriving en-masse.  I can remember helicopters circling overhead, and tons of people were milling around confused.

Suddenly, one cop got on a megaphone and announced loudly that they would be “offering heat treatments” to anyone who wanted them, and explained a “heat treatment” as a precautionary immunization/sterilization for those exposed to whatever may have spewed from the rocket. As he explained this, he was holding above his head what looked like a stun-gun – nodding towards it so we could see how they’d deliver the “heat treatment.”

After he spoke, several cops, each with their own “heat gun,” who’d now dispersed amongst the crowds began asking, “Who’s first?” I watched as the first person stepped up: The officer pointed the device at him and fired, and like a stun-gun two prongs attached to his body, trailing wires back to the “gun.” The man convulsed and screamed, and I heard the same happening all around me.

I decided I did not want a “heat treatment” and began to try and slip away from the action. But before I could get away, an officer approached me with his gun at the ready. I remember saying I did not want a treatment, and he told me it was not optional right before I felt the prongs latch onto my forearm. I can remember dream-feeling an intense heat bloom over my entire body, and screaming as the heat became unbearable.

Then, I woke up.

Anyone got some interpretations for me?  (In before “vote McCain.”)

OK moving on.  Yesterday (which is today as I write, because… you get the drill) at work stunk again, and at some point I began singing the lyrics to a great song that seemed so fitting.  It’s called “Moving Units,” and the part I was reminded of  by my day at the sawmill goes something like this:

If it isn’t making dollars, then it isn’t making sense.
If you aren’t moving units, you’re not worth the expense.
So if you really want to make it, you had best remember this,
If it isn’t penetration, it isn’t worth a kiss.

Ahhh… songwriting…

Goodnight friends.

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this whole thing was supposed to be about hands

I think I may have written before about how, despite the fact that time has marched through my life just the same as it has the world around me, I don’t really feel much older.

I mean sure, there are the outward signs: I’m married, balding, have a lovely daughter nearing three years of age, pay a mortgage (take that, Paulson!), own two vehicles, mow my own lawn, get tired in the middle of the day, appreciate the regularity of my bowel movements, get hangovers, have a 401k, enjoy coffee after dinner, get together with friends to “play cards,” quit smoking dope, have to trim the hair in my nose, am sometimes too tired for sex, own supplemental life insurance, can do rudimentary garbage disposal repair, am not afraid of the dark, like vegetables… you know, all the typical signs and portents age.

But, even in the face of these undeniable hallmarks of advancing years, I still feel pretty much the same inside as I did back in, oh, high school.  Well, this too may be a bit of an exaggeration if you try to pin me down on the “feel” part, as I certainly have more digestion issues, hard beds hurt my hips, and I get inexplicably sore and stiff at times…

…but my spirit seems to be relatively unchanged.

So, when I look in the mirror in the morning, I still have a hard time seeing myself as anything much more than nineteen or twenty. Don’t get me wrong, I look incredibly different, but my brain intercepts the signal from my eyes and supplants it with an image my heart suggests instead.

Even through this silly beard I love so much I can see that slimmer face I used to splash CK One onto before heading off to class in the morning, can see my gelled-back highlighted hair and the two hoops and one stud all punched through my ears (it’s a wonder there was enough real estate for all that accessorizing).

It’s not that I idolize those years beyond anything else, or that I’m “stuck” in them, reliving them because I’ve miserably decided it was then that I peaked and I’ll never do any better.  No, quite the contrary.  In fact, I’m happier now than I’ve ever been in the history of me… it’s just that I think of those years as the time when I… found myself, or something.  But Lord, they are best as memories…

Over the course of a few years I decided who I was going to be and how I was going to handle life.  A strategy developed, I think, as it does for most, as a reaction to the ever increasing reality of life.  And I guess, at some kernel level, I’m still executing to the basic tenets of that original plan. A highly modified-by-experience version, albeit, but still grounded in that primordial stumble-upon.

So, it’s that, I think, that seems unchanged when I look into the mirror in the morning: The “me” that makes me me; the ageless person inside of me who was built, brick-by-brick, along the way.  Not the crumbling person on the outside of me who’s thinking he maybe needs a shave.  Maybe that’s it.

Whoa, rambling here.  This whole thing was supposed to be about hands…

Salvage time.

Whatever the reason, I’m actually really happy I feel this way inside – delusional or not. But, you know what? There’s one thing that I’ve found that, for whatever reason, can bring the weight of the years crashing home to me: It may sound strange, and it’s surely some personal idiosyncrasy – but when I look at my hands, the palms of my hands in particular, I can see the age; I really can.

I don’t know what it is about my hand that makes this so.

Sometimes I think it’s the size, or the proliferation of lines and creases. Occasionally, I’ll all of the sudden “notice” them and just stare at them like I’m suspicious they’re even a part of me, as if they shouldn’t even be corporal.

I mean, these things look like a grown man’s hands.   Big enough to hold a pipe-wrench or even palm a basketball (were I ever to touch a basketball). And while not quite as soft and supple as a woman’s might be, they definitely betray me as someone who’s not spent time roping cattle or pitching hay. Even still, to look down into them is, for me, to see just how much I’ve grown in the short time I’ve been around.

So there you go.  A study of my realization of age through the palms of my hands.

And that’s all I got tonight.  Goodnight, and have a great weekend, geezers.

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feelin’ breezy


Hi there internet people, I love ya.

A good Wednesday to you, hope your week is going well. Today, I wrote a little bit about nothing, but managed to llink to entries ranging back some five years. So, even though today’s content may not be all that stunning, hopefully you can poke around the links and find something to kill those five minutes you count on sounds familiar for. Enjoy it.

This morning when I got out of the shower, pulled some boxers over my dusted junk, and headed into the closet to decide what I’d wear to work, I was happy to see that the clothing fairy had paid my two rungs of clothes a visit. The pair of jeans that fit me best (not from an external point of view, where they are saggy and bunchy in the wrong places, but from the vantage of my own personal comfort wearing them) had magically materialized – I’d been unable to find them for a couple weeks now – and I discovered an orangey-kinda-salmon collared shirt that seemed new to me.

Intrigued, I pulled the coral-colored thing off the hanger and held it up to my undershirt-clad chest for a quick check in the mirror. “Hmmm… not bad, feels ‘Florida’ to me,” I thought. I unbuttoned a couple buttons around the neck and pulled it on over my t-shirt, smiling at myself in the mirror, a pink-orange Don Johnson air about me. “Yeah, this shirt makes me look so ‘breezy,’” I thought to myself, knowing it was the perfect adjective.

Anyway, since I don’t really build a ton of variety into my weekly rotation of clothes, I was happy to have assembled something I felt “breezy” in. I felt like I belonged beachside somewhere, sipping an umbrella’d drink and eating fish or something. As I strode confidently into the living room to get some coffee, pack up the laptop, and head out to work – Sharaun noticed my shirt. “You know there’s a grease-stain right in the middle of that shirt, right?”

Tragedy! Sadness! Crushing disappointment!

First let me say that I hate grease stains. It’s the stain that’s not a stain. Just a tiny little piece of fabric that somehow now just a little darker than the rest, a bit of permanent wetness that seemingly nothing can salvage. I get these stains on my shirts all the time, maybe because I eat a lot of greasy things, maybe because I’m a sloppy eater, maybe I’m just sloppy and greasy… the particulars aren’t really that important here. Thing is, I hate these stains. They inevitably draw the eye, and they’re more frustrating than an overt stain of say red ketchup or brown coffee – they just sit there, almost-hidden… making you look bad and sloppy and simultaneously decrying your love for, and poor handling of, greasy food.

Anyway, sure enough – there was a small dark splotch right over the center of my sternum. Sighing, I lamented, “Oh man I thought this shirt was brand new, I don’t even remember ever wearing it before.” “You did, once,” she replied, “Remember you got it for Christmas in Florida, and that same day you dripped hot-wing grease on it.” “Stupid and delicious hot-wings, being all greasy,” I cursed in my head. Having already convinced myself I was some Miami Beach ladies man in the thing, though, I decided to wear it anyway. I mean, I have to wear a badge to work in the end, and as suave as that makes me look – the stupid lanyard that hangs it from my neck also does a fair job covering the stain. And, let’s face it, Don Johnson never had to pick up ladies wearing this thing around his neck (Man, that hair! Thank goodness for September 25th, 2003).

‘Night online compatriots, I have deep emotions in my chest when I think of you. Until tomorrow.

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alternating fits of tears and rage


Hi Wednesday, it’s me here again… writing… again… about… stuff… again.

Tonight, Sharaun had a volleyball game and I stayed home with Keaton. I decided to make banana bread for some reason, maybe to finally get rid of those blackish bananas frozen solid and strewn about the freezer shelves. When I set it to bake, Keaton and I walked down to the mailbox (remote communal mailboxes are all the rage in new California developments, further promoting the laziness of USPS workers).

I was barefoot, and she had on one sock. She shouted at the neighbors finishing up their lawn work as I pulled her past in the wagon, “I’m riding in a wagon and going to get the mail!” “Sounds fun!,” they’d wave back. I occurred to me then, barefoot and pulling my daughter behind me in a wagon while my banana bread baked at home… I’m a straight-up woman. I’m just glad it wasn’t my time of the month, or the realization might have had me in alternating fits of tears and rage right there on the sidewalk. Sheesh.

But, coming back to reality… I’m sitting here on the couch (where I always sit), with my laptop on my lap (where it always is), typing, web-surfing, and listening to music (like I always do). Right now some Most Serene Republic has shuffled up on the iPod, and the scatterstep popcorn beat has me giddy. I seriously love this band, and their albums have really stood the test of time (can you call less than five years “time?”) for me.

On the new music tip, my primo-2008 playlist thus far consists of two measly albums. First, recently SNL-broken Vampire Weekend‘s debut, next, and finally, Cloud Cult‘s Feel Good Ghosts (Tea-Partying Through Tornadoes), which I think comes out in April sometime. Looking forward, I’m anxiously awaiting leaks from The Unicorns, The Hold Steady, Sufjan Stevens, Of Montreal, and the Postal Service. Sounds like it could be a rad 2008, huh?

Changing subjects now, and bear with me on this one… it’s kinda odd.

Oftentimes, when I eat, I have some sort of sinus-based reaction. Back in my younger days, I can remember my mother referring to a family “curse” which was supposedly to blame for members of her bloodline going into sneezing fits shortly after meals. But, while the mixture of my father’s lineage seems to have spared me from that curse, I do seem to suffer from some milder form. See, when I eat, my nose sometimes decides to run. I know this is common with particularly spicy food, but for me it also tends to happen with regular, run-of-the-mill, meals too. It’s not like it comes in torrents or anything, more like an annoyance. Nevertheless, it causes me to reach for the nearest napkin to stem the tide.

The reason I’m writing about this here, honestly, is to criticize myself. Because, usually, the napkin I end up grabbing to swab my schnoz is the same napkin I’m using to dab my mouth between bites. I find this personally disgusting, but the reality is that I usually don’t even notice I’m doing it until I’ve already done it. At which point I immediate grab another napkin and dedicate it to either nose or mouth usage, trying to place one on either side of my plate for easy differentiation. When I catch myself doing this, I often wonder if my tablemates have also noticed… and what they must think. To those who sup with me regularly, I’m sorry – I’m working on it.

And with that, I believe it’s time to bid you all adieu, for I have nothing more to say (hard to imagine, right?). Time to put the laptop away until I do it all over again tomorrow. Love you all, goodnight.

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this pear is, beep!, $100


Hi late-night Wednesday people, or early-morning Thursday people if you’re technical. Oh, and hello Thursday morning people, you count too. I’m sitting here alone listening to music and writing. It’s what I do. Look out, here comes the blog…

Tonight I had a funny series of thoughts that I thought might be interesting to document as a way of exposing just how anal I can be at times.

Setting the scene: Sharaun’s off at a hair appointment and I’m down on the floor playing with Keaton. Currently, we’re playing a new game I’ve just invented: Grocery Store. I’m taking the little plastic fruits and vegetables out of her toy shopping basket one-by-one and waving them over a pretend scanner in the coffee table, of course making a “beep” of recognition each time an item is successfully scanned. As I ring up her items, I hand them to her in turn and she puts them in a bag. Suddenly, I get a brilliant idea: This game would be so much more fun if she had some pretend money to spend on each item. My brain races, the process outlined below summing up the progression:

Oh, I should get her a little wallet to hold the fake money in.
…
No, wait, girls have purses. Not wallets.
…
Oh, she totally has toy purses, several of them, in fact. I’ll go find one.

I tell Keaton to “hang on” as I set out in search of one of her play purses. Unfortunately, my efforts turn up nothing (despite the fact that I seem to be constantly tripping over things like toy purses on my lights-out nighttime walks to the bathroom). I instead find some small paper bag with string handles. What this bag could actually be for, I have no idea – it seems to be void of any function save serving as an utterly useless miniature replica of a larger and, antithetically, quite useful bag. I decide it might be good for holding money, and grab it in a hurry to get back to the living room before my daughter has lost all interest in our game of Grocery Store. On the way back, my mind drifts again:

Now I need some play money.
…
I could do quick green marker drawings on some printer paper and cut it up.
…
No, that’ll take too long… she’ll get bored before I’m done and my efforts will be wasted.
…
Monopoly. We have Monopoly. Monopoly has fake money in it.
…
I remember my brother and I used to play with that fake money all the time.

I make a hard right as my left leg clears the baby-gate blocking access to the hallway, heading for the coat closet near the door (which, interestingly, contains nary a coat… and is instead stuffed full with a vacuum cleaner, steam cleaner, and a shelf piled with our board game collection – a coat closet usage model borrowed wholly from the model my parents followed when I was growing up). All the while I’m thinking:

Do I really want to borrow money from the Monopoly game? I know that it’s probably just going to be abused and eventually lost. Then the Monopoly game will be missing money when we want to play it next.
…
C’mon, when is the last time we actually played Monopoly? In fact, have we ever played it?
…
But, the game will be missing money!

Against all my OCD urges, I grab the Monopoly box and open it up and… Horror of horrors! This is a brand new Monopoly set! My mind processes swiftly:

For crap’s sake, this money is still all wrapped up in cellophane! Each denomination containing the proper “virgin” amount of bills, each bill crisp and new and untouched!
…
I mean, if the thing was already well played-with and the corners of the twenties were bent and curled already… maybe I wouldn’t care so much, but I’m about to knowingly deprive future Monopoly games of hard cash. What will that future banker do?
…
What if that future banker is me? How will I live with the guilt? What if someone needs twenties? Will I have to do that novice crap-banker move where I buy them off other players for hundreds?!
…
But, Keaton… awww who the heck cares?

In the end, the above proceedings took all of a minute and I ended up having one of the most interactive playtimes I’ve had with Keaton in a long time. I sold fruit, she bough fruit; I sold vegetables, she bought vegetables. I beep-scanned them all, gave her change and even offered her friendly “good evenings” and “have a nice days,” as any cashier worth their salt would. Even though she did grossly overpay for an orange once, $500 is pretty dear for a fruit you know. I was honest though, and threw in a one-third scale plastic banana and a pressure-molded broccoli floret on the house.

Evaluating the impact to the integrity of a board game over the immediate joy of playing with my daughter… Those are the thought processes I’m up against, y’all… Lord in Heaven help me out once in a while.

Goodnight.