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and how would we know?

Tomorrow we have to register Keaton for kindergarten.

Yes, I’m amazed too.  Kindergarten?  Already?  I mean, people, it’s only January.  School doesn’t start until August.  What’s worse, registration for elementary school, even something as basic is kindergarten, is completely blown out of proportion in our upper-middle-class whitebread part of suburbia.  Parents get stupid, lining up an hour before the school office opens in order to secure their kids’ spots.  Spots?  In a public school?

Yes, these are uptight yuppies.  Their kid won’t be bussed to another, slightly more dusky on average, district.  No manches; es impossible.  Their kid’s gonna get the early half of the day, or the late half of the day.  Gonna get the new young teacher with a rep for awesome standardized test scores and a kindred hatred of less-than-whole grains and gluten.  Yeah, it’s uptight around these parts… parents seem just a bit worked-up.

Us, we’re clueless.  We had no idea registration was even tomorrow until a coworker of mine mentioned it in passing last week.  We don’t know what time the school opens tomorrow to begin this ritual, we don’t have a copy of Keaton’s birth certificate, we don’t rightly know if we even need one.  At first, all of this made Sharaun mad.  “What are they going to do?!,” she asked incredulously, “Not let my kid in a public school the law says I have to enroll her in?”  It’s a good question… but the uptight parents answered, “No, but they’ll ship her off to a crappy school if she doesn’t get into the one she’s zoned for.”  This incites fear in my wife, and now she feels all guilty and unprepared.  I hear it in her long sighs as she thinks about how unprepared she is to go down there tomorrow morning (we’re guessing 7:30am, but we heard about one guy who lined up at midnight).  What is this, tickets to Zeppelin?

And how would we know?  First time for us.  I remember, back in high school, my friend Mike used to tell me about everything.  “You know that scholarship application period ends next week, right Dave?”  “You gonna sign-up to take the SAT this month?  You’re running out of time.”  I guess I’ve always been the guy who’s not quite paying attention… keeping tabs on just enough traffic to not get run over, but still sometimes crossing when the signal is a red hand.  Sharaun’s the same.  Maybe we’re doomed.  Slated to always miss soccer registration, always forget piano lessons, be the ones who don’t sign the permission slip.

I won’t tell Sharaun I’m concerned/worried about this whole kindergarten registration thing, I don’t want to make her feel worse than she already does.  But I am; worried that is.  I guess tomorrow we’ll see how it all goes.  Maybe it’ll be no big deal and she can swoop downtown and pick up a copy of the birth certificate without risking Keaton’s “spot” in the stinking public school down the road.  Who knows.

Goodnight.

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a green thief

Two of my friends at work had gasoline siphoned out of their cars while they were in the parking lot; during work.

I wonder what puts one in this circumstance?  Is this person on foot?  With a length of rubber hose coiled and hidden under his sweatshirt and a couple milk jugs tied through his beltloops, maybe?  Or are they driving?  Burning gas to steal gas, likely not even breaking even due to standard fuel economies and the volumetric constraints of such thievery?  It seems such a strange position to find yourself in.  You really need gas that bad?  Wouldn’t it be easier, and less risky, to panhandle on the train for a couple hours?  Hell, if you’re on the train, you don’t need gas anyway – you just got free money!  You’re a green thief.

Do you guys know how to steal gas?  It’s not hard.  Open the fuel door, remove the cap, drop in about three feet of rubber hose, make a loop that touches the ground, and suck hard on the loose end until the gas get to the bottom of your loop.  Holding your loop, drop the free end low to the ground to “pour” out your pilfered gas!  Congratulations, you are now a petty thief.  And, if I may add, I think you’ve chosen a poor field of thieving to focus on.  What’d you get there, maybe five gallons?  I mean, if you got much more you’d have a hard time carting it around, all sloshy and heavy.  So you saved $15 and now you have to carry a five gallon container back to your lair.

Doesn’t seem worth it.  Like those dudes who break into traffic light control boxes to rip out 300 wires for the copper  I bet the copper is a better take.  It’s also a pretty jerk crime.  One of my employees who got siphoned ended up with $600 worth of damage, everyone else just leaves work to find their car on empty.  I guess all crimes are kinda jerk crimes, except maybe jaywalking… that seems pretty innocent.  Illegal u-turns when it’s safe, that sort of thing.  But anyway…

Stealing gas seems to be admitting your stretched pretty thin, nothing better to do, maybe bored or something.  Maybe it’s kids.

I don’t know where I’m going with this.  Goodnight.

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time to read, even

Hey guess what has to happen tonight?!  Nothing!

I have no phone calls, no pressing work for which I only need to “log on for an hour or so,” no overlooked housework, nothing.  I think it’s beginning to feel like I’m “home,” finally.  It takes time, you know, after being away, to get back into it.  We got back a week ago and I went immediately into two all-day conferences at work.  The weekend came and my sickness crowned and stole both those days and one more for good measure.  This left me having done next to nothing at work nor at home to “catch up” from the two weeks vacation we’d spent in Florida.  In all honesty, I spent yesterday and today getting back into it… like we’d just returned.  Put the suitcases away, started attacking the bulging inbox, took down the Christmas tree, shaved.  It feels good to be home.

I have time to read, even.  Been reading again.  Maybe I’ve written before about how I read in fits and starts, I can’t recall but if I did it’s because it’s true, I do.  I wish I could tell you I decided to tackle some of the more “heady” items on my “to read list,” you know like some Pynchon or Faulkner or Dickens or Shakespeare (all on there, all still on there), but I can’t (because I didn’t).  When I was in highschool I started reading Stephen King’s then new Dark Tower series (sidenote: other King books I read back in those days had noticeable influence on my writing of the time).  As with other long multi-part epics I’ve tackled, I gave up when I caught -up to the author’s output and had to wait for new volumes.  When we were at my folks’ place for Thanksgiving I decided I’d like to read them again, so I ordered the paperbacks for pennies used online.  I’m halfway through the sixth of eight books.

I also think I’ve written it before (I mean dang, I’ve written a lot, chances are I’ve written everything before), but as I read more I write more.  Seems impossible, since both take time, but it’s true.  I also write better.  Don’t judge me by this post though, this is not a good post.  I’ll go read a chapter and write tomorrow’s entry; tomorrow’s entry will be boss.

Goodnight.

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happily coasting

Looks like I’m mending.  Not quite 100% yet, demonstrated by just how tired work today made me.

I mean it’s nine o’clock at night and I’m already feeling an hour past bedtime.  I’m here listening to David Crosby’s stellar debut effort, If I Could Only Remember My Name. I think about hearing this album back in 1971 and thinking, “Dang, Crosby’s got it man.  Out of the ashes and here comes the phoenix.  This guy’s got the seventies locked; gonna wow us through another decade.”  How sad would it have been to then not see another album for something like two decades.

Two decades where the man buried himself in cocaine (don’t call it “crack” friends!, that’s for the poor folk;  freebase is puuuure!), made no records, and let himself waste away.  How disappointing to think what he could’ve made (no not the Stills collaborations, which are far from terrible… but the guy was freebasing his way through the studio time).  Anyway… Sharaun’s at volleyball and I’m listening to this amazing record and writing.  Here I go.

I read a story once  (or… did I? ) about a guy who placed a small text-only ad in his local newspaper that said simply:

LAST CHANCE!
 SEND YOUR $3 NOW!
 SUPPLIES LIMITED!  DON’T MISS OUT!

And then supplied a PO Box address.  According to this legend, the man had received upwards of $10,000 in only the couple week’s of the advertisement’s run.

Actually, maybe I invented this story, glimpsed it in my mind’s eye during the fever-dreams the past few nights.  I mean, it’s not on the internet… anyway that I can find (via a totally non-thorough Google search), so maybe it is a creation of my head.  Either way, I think this little piece of lore is a perfect way to start this entry about my “exit strategy” (or lack thereof, or pining for, or creation of).

What is an “exit strategy?”  Well, in the context of today’s blog an exit strategy is that golden idea that’ll catapult me from a working man running the daily rat-race to a young, jet-setting, retiree.  Hey!  You!  Don’t confuse this exit strategy with a “lump sum,” with a windfall, with a lottery bag with three or four dollar signs on it.  That’s not what I’m trying to say.  Sure, money, recompense, clams, that’s a component of an exit strategy I suppose.  But being rich isn’t.  I’m not looking to “get rich,” (I wouldn’t kick rich out of bed, still) no… more like get done… get by… live.  The exit strategy will put me in some happily-coasting phase of life, where the family’s needs are met and we can enjoy each other and enjoy life and – I think most importantly – get me out of a cubicle.

How you gonna do it Dave?!  How ya gonna?  Huh?!

Gather ’round… here it comes: I. Don’t. Know.

Doesn’t matter though, because I finally know where I want to aim.  If you’re a parent today I’m talking Silly Bands or Squinkies.  If you’re my age but don’t have kids yet I’m talking slap bracelets and M.U.S.C.L.E men.  If you’re something like a fine wine I’m talking about the pet rock and those rigid dog collars that make it seem like you’re walking an invisible dog.  Since the dawn of the industrialized age men have been dreaming up stupid little ideas and then sending a set of fabrication specifications to China to get them manufactured out of rubber or plastic or metal so thin it’s stacked atom-by-atom.  Maybe they pay $1 for 500 of their widget, maybe that much for two or three time more (think about the raw cost of a Silly Band).  They then bring ’em over here to the land of the exploitable “everyone’s parents have money to burn” children.

I’m getting on this bandwagon.

Oh, and the end of the “LAST CHANCE” story?  Apparently the man was convicted of mail fraud over his little advertisement. Seems unfair to me, as getting rubes to send in $3 for a promise of nothing isn’t much different than someone paying to see a bearded lady or shrunken head at the midway, but I guess there might be a moral there somewhere.  And, anyway, Sharaun (and my conscience… that too) wouldn’t let me get far with an “exit strategy” that involved dubious ethics.  I’ve got to stick to the straight and narrow and just get it right.

Goodnight.

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displacing fever & weariness

Man, Sharaun made some yum dinner.

I can still taste the garlic and onions in my mouth.  No, I might not make the best conversation partner but they are certain pungent flavors which linger in the mouth that I absolutely dig, regardless of unappealing they may make my breath.  A good tobacco is one; pipe, cigar (certainly not the wet-ashes aftertaste that is American cigarettes; making the “why” of my sometimes-vice all the murkier).  Garlic is another, as is onion, and somewhat pungent meats, like lamb. A strong cup of coffee; a properly malty beer (be easy with those hops!, meister); chocolate.  I know there are more, but Sharaun looked at me all crazy when I asked her to name some.

But anyway, it was a fancy dinner to be sure – and I even downed a nice glass of red wine alongside it (yet another pleasant mouth-memory, this lingering malaise can be damned).

The salad had red bell pepper and little bits of red onion, the meatloaf was her “Greek turkey” thing… made with spinach, feta cheese and pine nuts and topped with a homemade tzatziki sauce.  As I enjoyed each bite I kept thinking, “Man, this is some fancy junk!  I mean… like restaurant-fancy and whatnot!  No really… who else has got a wife making him this kind of fare?!”  I think the gourmet spread actually helped me make dents in this cold or sickness or whatever.  Such a well-met meal was able to sneak into those chinks and and cracks and pockets, filling them with delicious and displacing fever and weariness.  And, with the help the pine nuts and the feta and the red onion I’m sure tonight will be my eve of conquer – the night I kick this sick.

It’s good, too.  I need to get back to work something awful, and need to shave my head and face (everything from the neck-up, I suppose you could say) even more.  And… if, by some extra God-given grace, I wake feeling 100% – I’d like to spend an hour at the gym before the sawmill.  One can want, right?

Goodnight internet.

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the breakbone

I spent all weekend cooking in my own skin.

Last night I woke so cold (that deceptive, you know it’s not real, cold of a fever) that I stumbled into the living room in the dark to grab another blanket to cover with.  As I shivered my way back to sleep I stuck the digital thermometer in my ear for a few seconds.  It beeped and I hit a button on my cellphone to get enough light to read by (why, digital thermometer people, would you not backlight the temperature readout?): 102.1°, it said.

Reluctantly, I arose again to pop another couple Tylenol.  At the same time I swallowed a Sudafed, already knowing it wouldn’t, like the others I’d popped before it hadn’t, do a dang thing to diminish the tight ball of pressure in my head – the stuffy pain that I could will to one side of my face or the other by putting that side into the pillow.  I don’t know why that muck is so hard to get out, when it seems to be beating against my cheekbones and eyes all day to do just that.

I thought maybe be tonight I’d be on the mend.  But no, I’m still fevered.  Not running as high as the previous days, but I’m still dosing with a steady regimen to keep the numbers in check.  It goes in cycles, and every few hours I’ll break out in a warm sweat and feel so much better for about sixty minutes.  Much past that, though, and the heat returns to my skin and I get a bone-tiredness that takes me back to the couch or the bed to wait out another cycle.

I know how I got sick; it was that weirdo lady on the plane.  So strange with her two kids, one of them named Sophia who was two-and-something years old yet wouldn’t stop fondling for her mom’s breast and crying.  “As you can see, I’ve not quite weaned her yet,” she said.  Hey, nothing a whit strange by world standards… I suppose – but that wasn’t what made you so odd.  Anyway, you told me as we were parting ways in the terminal: “I’d shake your hand but I’ve got a nasty cold.”  And then there you and your family were, in 29A, 29B, and 29C.  And us, occupying 28D, 28E, and 28F, we must have been well within the zone of communicability.  Oh I know it was you, weird red-headed lady… but I don’t blame you… you got it from someone too.

Luckily, most of the others in the house seem to have recovered.  It’s just me sticking it out.  I’ve all but decided to call in sick tomorrow, but am stubbornly “playing it by ear” until the alarm bell rings.

Until then, goodnight.

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the abhorrent spinning of everything

12:30am and I have precious little time to write before all cognisance is stolen from me by those consecutive shots of tequila.

It’s a brutal set of paces I’m putting my fingers through, they plead and moan and beg and the spellcheck is in spades and things are difficult to type.  Stupid tendons fight every push and pull of keyboard.  Furious fibers pretend they are going to obey, yet betray none the less.  It’s like the Gods are trying to tell me something: Don’t write tonight; don’t.

To say that my intake was over-met tonight is an understatement.  Mark me, internet, I don’t revel in these excesses; I truly don’t.  I promise.  I have some amount of regret, it’s true.  But what’s hard is that, with each incremental keystroke, with each purposed muscle movement, I’m falling off the cliff.  If you, dear friends, could comprehend the effort taken to jot down these few phrases, you’d lavish praise upon me.  For I, tendons and acuity and muscle-memory protesting with ever fiber, have triumphed and written.  I, like so many other pathfinders before me, have overcome the stupor from within which I elucidate… and flipped my handicap to virtue.

What?  You have no idea of which I write?  I am not surprised.  Were ye with me this eve?  Were ye Pat?  Were ye Brian?  Were ye Lang?  Were ye Aquiles?  Nay; ye were not.  Then don’t come to me, step to me, and profess your allegiance and foreknowledge.  This cabal is tight; is locked; loaded.

Can you even understand that I ventured to write?  I somehow think this odd; why would I?  Sharaun, when I informed her so, mocked me slightly.  “Why would you try to write?   You’re obviously in no shape to string together words.”  Not in those words, no… but close enough.

Home.  Both kids and the wife have fevers.  I must attend.  This will not be good.  Water; it is required for said tasks.

But, y’all, because I care.  Now… I must go address the abhorrent spinning of everything.  Goodnight.