Well, I should probably post something before my blog turns Eight in a few days. I'm trying to remember why it's been like a month since my last post. Mostly just busy-ness. We took a pile of high schoolers to New Mexico for a nine-day trip to the PCA's summer fandango (that, strangely enough, took place at a Southern Baptist camp). I've been editing photos from that... experience, and plopping them sporadically onto facebook. We had some Brandon Wason time (and one night of Wendy). Book club (we did Franny & Zooey this time. I've been reading a lot. And playing the WoW boardgame more.
So yeah. Pretty busy. I'll probably put up some reviews this week. And maybe something else. But for now, I'll leave you with a glorious scan of the title page of a book that Brandon brought me as a get-well/birthday present:
Some time ago, I heard a question that shocked me and then riddled me with a morbid sort of glee. From a sixth-grader:
Who's King Arthur?
Now the important thing is the tone and tenor she invested in the question's delivery. But first, let's examine the context of the exclamation
We had been playing Apples to Apples, one of those party games that inevitably sunders the relationships between families, friends, and once-possible future love interests because its entire mechanism for scoring relies wholly upon that most fickle of justices, a single player's subjective taste. To be fair, Apples to Apples is probably my second favourite party game (being one of the two in which I will willingly and almost happily participate); still, that doesn't alter the reality that it is a statistical fact that the irrevocable turning point of 74% of all marriages toward divorce is the playing of such games.*
Anyway, the idea is that the judge of the round (i.e., the victim of forthcoming animosity and/or divorce) holds a card upon which is written a word. Perhaps an adjective. Perhaps dismissive or villainous or even, if you can imagine it, boring. All other competitor holds a hand of five-to-seven cards upon each of which is written a term. Perhaps these are nominatives. Perhaps Earl Grey tea or Three-Mile Island or even, again if your imagination bears such rigour, my love life. Or even, perhaps the most astonishing inclusion of all: King Arthur. Now the goal is to choose the card from your hand that best matches the card in the judge's Clenched Fist of Arbitrary Justice (+3 Sta, +2 Agi, -2 Wis, and 20% Frost Resist) is not important to the tale with which I presently regale.
No, what is important here is merely the expression that sprung from this dear lass the moment she considered the cards that lay before her. I reiterate for the fleet-minded:
Who's King Arthur?
The force and vigour with which these words were proclaimed were only remarkable when one fails to recall the arrogant distaste with which youth so often approaches the ever-broadening perspective of life, as if anything outside of current knowledge is not only clearly and obviously irrelevant to all life but that too such information is a horrible affront to acceptable social dignity. In youth, as ever, ignorance is brash and distrusts gravely that which is unencountered.
"Who's King Arthur?" As if King Arthur deserves to be known. "Who's King Arthur?" As if anyone knows who he is! "Who's King Arthur?" What kind of horrible game would expect me to bother knowing something so clearly obscure as that? "Who's King Arthur?" What kind of pariah would actually know who King Arthur is?**
So even though I probably oughtn't to have been surprised, I was. Perhaps not so much with the distaste with which she approached her ignorance, but more with the fact that we live in a world in which a sixth-grader in America has no idea who King Arthur is!
Gawain? Percival? I could see that. Bedivere? Sure. Even Galahad and Morgan le Fey. I could see a certain lack of cultural affixation there. I might even give a pass to an absent knowledge of Lancelot or Guinevere. But Arthur? Wow, that's like not knowing who Merlin is. Or that strumpet in the lake. Or Robin Hood. There's even a Disney movie Arthur - though to be fair, they make him an anthropomorphic animal or have him scat like Phil Harris.
At this point, I would continue but grow bored. And so I cease...
THE END
*note: of the remaining divorces, 16% hinge on an instance of infidelity (real or imagined), 4% on irreconcilable musical tastes, 3% on an indefinable sense of ennui, 2% on general misanthropy, and the final 1% on lace as a decorating motif.***
**note: I realize that an American who does not know who King Arthur is likely doesn't know what a pariah is either...
***note: yeah, I thought that lace would place higher too; we should be grateful for the evidently strong levels of patience in our country.
Destination:
Kearney, Nebraska via Denver, Colorado.
Itinerary:
Flight from John Wayne canceled. Rebooked from LAX at same time. Scramble to find new ride last minute. Rush to airport. Snowbound in Denver wearing L.A. clothes (jackets and everything in checked luggage). Wait in snow for shuttle to hotel that is 45 minutes from airport. Rush to airport next morning to discover flight delayed by several hours. Arrive in Kearney 27 hours late. Would kill for clean socks. Luggage (containing Christmas presents and everything else) arrives 4 hours after us. By van.
Vacation:
Time in Kearney reduced from a poor-valued* 3½ days to a pitiable2½ days.
Destination:
John Wayne, Orange County via Denver, Colorado and Las Vegas, Las Vegas. To be picked up at 10:30pm on New Year's Eve by friends.
Itinerary:
Flight from Kearney delayed by an hour (eating our layover cushion in Denver). Run from plane down concourse from Gate 63 to Gate 37. The door to boarding has closed, but they let us on anyway. We say goodbye to our luggage here. Flight arrives in Las Vegas on time. Airport is a ghost town. There are no maps. Wander and get far too much exercise, finally discovering that we must go to ticketing and re-enter through security. We do so, booked on a 9:oo flight for Orange County. Approach our Gate A15 (on the other side of the airport - which has slot machines everywhere) to see that our flight is canceled. Reroute to LAX. Friends are called and relieved of their duty as the airline has promised us a free shuttle home. LAX flight is delayed. We arrive in L.A. after 11:oo pm and fill out missing baggage forms and receive voucher for shuttle. Wait 40 minutes for shuttle. Driver says that the voucher is to take us to John Wayne, not Mission Viejo (it costs us an extra $50 to be driven home). Drive from LAX to Mission Viejo takes slightly over 3 hours (being furthest south, other passengers get dropped off earlier).
Conclusion:
I will never travel again. And I am still missing my clothes, tooth brush, deodorant, and who knows what else. I found, this morning, a message on my phone from 1:43 am last night from a driver at my complex' gate, trying to get me to open up. 1:43. Joy.
Conversation overheard Saturday night between a high school student and a Borders Books & Music store clerk (one of the guys who runs around helping customers find the book they're looking for:
CLERK:
Okay. So what book are you looking for?
STUDENT:
It's for school. It's called The Divine Comedy
CLERK:
Okay. Who wrote it?
It went on, but I didn't have the heart to continue. Borders Books & Music is the new McDonalds apparently.
It was a hectic week. Though we never did have to evacuate our home, we were on watch for a while. Fortunately, the Santa Anas were not sustained and an offshore breeze turned the direction of the fire toward uninhabited hillsides. Still, the effects of the fire were felt, and the past seven days haven't been easy. On top of all things, I got a lung infection from too much inhaled smoke. I totally seriously recommend it. Fun stuff for sure.
One of a couple amusing sights was the lady to the nines in jogging gear, running full bore despite the constant warnings that people not really even venture outside due to the quality of air. Schools that weren't closed outright at the least forbid any athletic activity and here is one lone soldier, snubbing her nose at the prognosticators of her ruin. She's probably dead by now. Or a robot.
The other thing that made me smile all kinds of smiles was the guy at the do-it-yourself car wash, scrubbing away, getting his car spic-n-span clean. On the third day of the fire. While ash was even at that moment raining down on his car. I imagine that when he finally finished, he had paid eighteen dollars to give his car a fine muddy coat.
In other news, I carved my first pumpkin of the holiday season - a commission for a Reformation Day celebration. Et voila, le brigand himself:
Here are some update pictures from this afternoon. I took these two panoramic shots within ten minutes of each other to show how quickly the fire conditions can change.
In the first shot, we see that the edge of the fire closest to my house is billowing strong and ominous and the eastern edge seems to be smouldering.
In the next shot, ten minutes later, the eastern edge seems to have entirely sucked the life out of the western side. And I don't think this is through the efforts of firefighters either. I think it's just the natural insanity of fire's meandering sense of conquest.
Fire is so very ADD.
Here are some more shots from the afternoon. Oh yeah, and in the first one, you can see a heat tornado has formed in the midst of the smoke column. Pretty cool if it wasn't so scary.
Currently, our house isn't in a lot of danger. But as I've mentioned, these things can change abruptly. Yesterday at this time, we weren't in any danger either, but wind shifts have been frequent and so anything's possible. In any case, firefighter estimates for full containment are between five and thirteen days - so whatever the night holds, I'm sure there will be tense moments for many pver the next few week or so.
And that's if there aren't any more stupid arson people playing with matches.
While yesterday, at 4:oo pm, it didn't look like my house was in any jeopardy at all from the ongoing Orange County fire (dubbed by the media, the Santiago Fire*), over the night it changed directions entirely and is now about a mile from my house. Click on the picture below to see a wider map of the area (complete with fire drawn in where I found it appropriate).
*note: the Santiago Fire is not remotely as cool a name as the concurrently named WItch Fire, Magic Fire, and Sly Fire.
So two days ago I shaved for the first time in three years. And I assure you, this is a short-lived phenomenon.
My typical routine involves using beard trimmers once or twice a week to groom my actual beard and to trim away anything that just isn't beard at all. Essentially, I always look like a guy with a goatee and an 8:3o o'clock shadow. And sometimes there are sideburns involved. We had a good arrangement, my facial hair and I.
But then, three days ago, while taking a shower, I glimpsed my razor hanging sullenly from the shower caddy, blade growing a fine coat of rust. And so I thought: Huh. Haven't done that in a while. And so I did. Not with the rusty blade. I went out and got some fresh-picked Gillette Sensor Excels razor heads. Or something like that. And the next morning?
Bam. Shaved it all away.
As it turns out, not only do I think I look better with a small beard, but the strap on my helmet rubs the crook of my neck, exacerbating a firey demonstration of razorburn. Absolutely and unequivocably not fun. And so, I am quickly returning to the realm of the bearded peoples to claim my rightful place as prince regent of their depraved company.
Oh yes, and I also have grit in my eye from something that shot up at me off the road while riding.
[[ WARNING: Hey there. Watch out. This post contains the kind of graphic (literally) violence, gore, and bloodshed that only a well-adjusted, action-loving, horror-movie-watching fifteen year old can produce. Consider yourself warned. ]]
Okay, so here's the thing. If my daily behaviour as a youth in America's high schools appears in any child these days, that child will likely be expelled. And the thing? That thing I mentioned when I said, "Here's the thing"? The thing is: I was a good kid.
What was the problem then? I liked to draw. What? Surely that is not enough to merit expulsion. True enough. There is a caveat. I liked to draw what kids my age and of a typical disposition might like to draw if they had the ability. Okay, well, no. I didn't draw boobs. Because, well, I figured that would a) get me in trouble, and b) give me the title and distinction of Class Perv (something that, astonishingly enough, was not a distinction I cared to cultivate). What I did draw (as alluded to in the last post) were gunfights and scenes of mayhem.
The plain fact of the matter is that everyday and in every class (save for P.E., alas), I, in my authority as the artist, killed by the fistful. I was lord over a domain of death. Not only did I engage my doodles in simple firefights, but I subjected my creations to beheadings, impalements, internal combustion, acids, and, well, squirshings. Among other fates. This was partly because I found that drawing things I would hopefully never see was adventurous and partly because my classmates egged me on, cheering the imaginative ways in which I brought to a close the lives of two dimensional persons.
There was nothing wrong with me. I was a quiet, well-adjusted kid who was both good-natured and friendly (if a bit shy). I mean, sure I occasionally wore a bathrobe to school and sometimes wore all flannel because I knew how atrocious a decision that would be. Still, I grasped full-well that the drawings I created bore no import in the world of flesh and of blood. They were not worlds in which I immersed myself in order to escape from the tortures of a world that was too cruel to me (i.e., the real world*). I did not harbour secret desires to slaughter the jocks, make the cheerleaders pray to me before I drown them in a hail of gunfire, hog-tie the rich kids in overtly homo-erotic poses in order to shame them forever. There wasn't really anyone at school I didn't like.
Well, maybe the fat kid. I was, after all, still a kid.
For some reason, though, nowadays teachers and principles and authorities have been taught that violent games or stories or drawings are a critical first sign that a kid is gonna go wrong. That he is gonna take the Harris/Klebold route to fame and a messy exit. I'm not sure I know what happens to us. When do we cross the line from kids to reactionary adults who just really don't at all remember what it was like. Does this happen when we become parents? Is that when we stop remembering that kids aren't completely stupid (even if they act like it), that they can handle the things in the dark as well or sometimes better than we can?
I don't know why that is, but here is my evidence to you. I am a variously hard-worker in a respectable profession. I treat people who are different from me with respect (except for when I'm poking fun at them). I love my family. I love my friends. I work for a non-profit organization. I volunteer to work with children. I read books. I even sometimes understand them. I sing songs in the shower. I want a dog (maybe a Welsh Corgi). I drive an environmentally friendly vehicle. I don't like poetry. I think I'd make a good father. I've only been in one fight (juniour high and it was a wrestling fight not a fist fight). I'm patient and easy-going. I'm not violent (though I play at it when frisky). I would never join the military by choice. And these are a small sampling of the stuff I would draw daily in Math, English, and History (and of course, you may click on the below images to see the whole thing):
IBM presents: You Make the Call! What's the verdict? Should I be locked up as a potential killer? Was I only a step away from massacring untold tens of students and a teacher or three? Personally, I am far beyond dubious that such would be the case.
*NOTE: though not the MTV version - which hadn't come out yet - I full-well support those who create imaginary worlds in order to escape "reality" television.
I was sick over the weekend and I suspect that Paulo didn't aid me in my recovery at all by introducing me to Gimme Friction Baby, an addictive little game of angles, friction, and momentum. In fact, I may go so far as to say that our Brownish Pau actually introduced a new kind of sickness into my system. So, needless to say, I saw the words GAME OVER quite often over the last couple days:
I was also the happy recipient of a big box full of fun. RightStuf recently had a big bulky sale, of which I was certain to avail myself. Essentially, I got twenty-three dvds and two cds for a hundred bucks. All cartoons :) I was able to fill out a couple series to which I had the first disc but wasn't willing to pay the sixty-to-ninety bucks it would take to get the two and three more dvds I'd need in order to get the whole series. I also got three complete series, one of which I had been wanting for some time and another of which I selected based on trust in the show's creator (he had directed two prior favourites, Seriel Experiments: Lain and Haibane Renmei).
Thing One
A fourth act of vandalism has occured against my environmentally friendly vehicle of choice. A couple mornings back, I descended the stairs and approached my carport in which Bartleby was corralled for the night. The seat looked wet but I payed it no mind as the early morning dew will often settle on places that escape direct sunlight. As I grew closer the seat looked wet and yellow.
Eggs.
Some miscreant had cracked an egg and smeared is all over the seat. It dripped over the side and down the paint. Joy. I climbed back up the flights of stairs and then down again with a sudsy bucket and sponge. I scrubbed him down pretty well but still could not get rid of the smell entirely. And yes, I was pretty late to work that day.
I'm thinking of enquiring about how much a garage space would cost each month.
Thing Two
It's a deep and abiding shame upon the internets that dotdot.com is not a site wholly devoted to the wondrous glory that is: The Ellipsis.
Thing Three
Does anyone else hateHATEhate the fact that when reading an article from the New York Times online, any time you double click, it automatically pops up a dictionary definition of the word you happened to have clicked. I mean, really. In what world is that an acceptable web practice?
In related news, it turns out that they is a pronoun used to refer to the ones previously mentioned or implied.
I couldn't remember exactly what either a dart or a hand looked like, but it was a long meeting so I doodled around until I got something that somewhat resembled my target image - a hand lazily holding a dart. Man, I miss playing cricket on Johnny's old electronic dartboard. That was the best.
So there I was. Seated. Slice of pizza drooping flimsily from the grasp of my right hand. Table and cloth gripped manically in my left. And the world itself tilting at odd angles as my breath and heartrate quickened. I was passing out. And fighting it the whole way.
How did I arrive at this state? Let's turn back the clock.
Feeling the need to be filled, the desire to hunger and thirst no more, we decided a fat Chicago-style pizza and the associated tasty beverages would do the trick nicely. So we headed off to Selma's, a local eatery of pizzaed goodness. It's not the best pizza in the world, but they've got tasty hot wings and equally tasty beverages (actually the wings were better in the old days when Johnny T and I would visit, back when they made 'em really hot—"hot enough to burn your culo," we were told). And all-in-all, their pizza still tastes a lifetime better than something lo-ball like Pizza Hut or Papa John's (or good taste forefend, Domino's or Little Caesar's). So then, we arrived, took our seats, and placed an order.
"Small pizza, please. Andouille sausage. Mushrooms. Annnnnd, how 'bout some chopped bacon? Thanks. Oh! And no tomoato, please!"
These Chicago-style joints, you've really got to keep an eye out. They adore their tomatoes. If you don't specify "No tomato!" they'll drown your pizz in the fruit.
So, about thirty minutes pass. Friday nights are busy. At last our pizza comes. And it is slathered in tomatoes. I can barely see the pizza beneath the Red Menace. I'm actually exagerrating here, but due to the extreme distaste I harbour toward the fruit, I might as well be telling the deep, honest kind of truth that proves the foundations of the world and sets babies free. The thing was disgusting to look at. So I mentioned this. That I asked for no tomoatoes and that this pizza was clearly in breach of my original instructions (instructions that had been confidently rehearsed to me by our waitress after our initial encounter at which point she took my order).
So she took it back and we waited again. Though not for long. She came back in about seven-to-ten minutes with a new pizza. Or so we thought.
Now as an interjector here, those who haven't ever worked in a pizzaria might not be aware of the fact that a pizza only takes about seven minutes to cook if given priority and the right kind of oven. So it was entirely possible that this new pizza was truly a new pizza and not just a pizza that had been taken into the back where the cooks would pick out the tomato pieces by hand and try to pawn it off as a fresh pizza.
Alas, luck was not with us that night. As the waitress dished out slices for us to enjoy, I watched a fat, cubed chunk of tomato tumble back into the pan.
"Huh. How'd that get there?" she wondered fatalistically.
Hoping against hope that the errant tomato bit I had just witnessed was merely a fluke, I began eating my slice. My slice that was overwhelmed by tomato bits that had been overlooked by put-upon cooks. The taste crept into every crevace of my conscious state. I was overcome. And so we find my in the state with which we had begun.
It should be evident by now that I am no fan of the tomato. What may or may not have been conveyed is the fact that so dire is my reaction to the fruit that I either immediately begin to gag and retch or I show a remarkable propensity for feinting. Honestly, I'd never quite had this reaction before, but, evidently, feinting from tomato overdose (i.e., biting a tomato) is my thing.
After my tomato-filled bite, I began to feel at odds with the world around me. The evening sky became oppressive in its cloying warmth. My heart began to race like greyhounds chasing a beleaguered, facsimile rabbit. And so, the tilting began.
My eyes spun like orbiting planets in my head. I held on to the last piece of stability in this tomato-shredded world, the table at which I was seated, with a ferocity at which even Norse gods would marvel—only to watch it melt from between my fingers. There was no longer any sense to the world. Reality had collapsed upon itself and I was going down with the ship.
Yet still I fought.
In the end, I did not faint. I fought unconsciousness for long minutes before I was certain that I would remain upright and, quote-unquote, alert. Though grateful that I did not pass out, sprawling headfirst into the remaining pizza, The Monk admitted a certain sorrow that the story of me fainting from fear of a tomato could not be told. Happily, I think the tale of my near-swoon is nearly as remarkable.
The lesson is this: I'm like a princess confronting a pea when it comes to slipping tomatoes into my food.
as a post script to this tale:
Amusingly enough, when our waitress returned, I expressed through a sickened haze: "You guys just took the pizza into the back and picked out the tomatoes. There's still a ton of tomato bits in here and it totally tastes like tomatoes." Her response? "Well, sorry sir. I'm not sure what else we could do." And then she left. The end.
note: i am on vacation until 2 June 2007, so while there will be posting this week, commenting will be sporadic.
After taking a couple months off after finishing my script, I thought it was about time to start getting more serious about beginning the art for the book. So I thought I'd doodle around a bit, maybe start sketching to get the drawing side of my brain back into gear. One problem though.
My thumb.
Remember how last September I tore the tendon in my right thumb? Remember how it looked all swollen and knobby even months later? Well, it still looks about the same. And while about 90% of its mobility and about 70% of its strength have returned (I still can't release a tightly set emergency brake), stamina is severely lacking. Friday night I doodled up a lady drinking coffee, whittling away an hour at the local Starbucks, and by the end of that hour I wanted to cry from pain. My hand was on fire. Monday night, I decided to write up a four to six page scene to add into the script at about the 2/3 point. I didn't have a laptop handy so I just began printing the scene by hand in my sketchbook. Within an hour, I wanted to die.
This is a real obstacle for me. If this doesn't heal up, I may have to abandon trying to do the art myself. Or just turn the book into a ten-year project. As it is, I'm expecting to work maybe eight hours per page. For a 300-page book, that's a lot of hours. If I can only work an hour at a time on the art, I'm sunk.
I'm going to see about getting some physical therapy. Losing my drawing hand would be a tragedy for me. I'm not sure what the lesson is here:
Don't do things for others as you'll only get hurt in the end?
...or maybe...
Don't slip and fall while playing ultimate frisbee with juniour high students as you'll probably just ruin your thumb?
You may recall from a couple months back, somebody removed my Vespa from its rightful parking space and set it on the sidewalk. At the time, there was speculation on Johnny's behalf that it was just kids and pranks. I was skeptical because I know how cutthroat the matter of parking is in my complex. Anyway, fast forward to the other day. I came out to go to work in the morning and found this wedged under my seat:
Evidently, the guess that the mover was a parking-space-theiving fiend was not too far off base (especially humourous to me was the addition of 11:20pm, adding a note of late-evening frustration to the note). And this morning, as I was delivering a kindly missage explaining why I was perfectly justified in my use of the space, I noticed that someone had indeed moved poor little Bartleby from his rightful place of rest - this time he was perched upon the double lines that lay between spaces.
*sigh*
You may be wondering if there is any merit to the underscored CARPORT suggestion. In fact, there is not. The Monk (roommate, if you'll recall) returns from work before I do and parks in the carport sometimes. Now if The Monk is in the carport, I cannot be. Obviously. However, perhaps The Monk might park not in the carport, right? Leaving the carport parking task to me? Well, okay, but then there is still a non-carport space being usurped by *gasp* a vehicle. So really Mister Note-Writing-Vehicle-Mover, all you're saying is that you don't care that the space is being taken up - you just care that it's being taken up by something small. Well, don't take your anger out on me man.
One of the memes that's been going around for the past whenever is that one where you set your iTunes/winAmp/Windows Media Player (?) to random and hit play. You write down the first seventeen songs to play, and in the order they came up in, you fill out the details of your life's soundtrack. I don't really put much stock into most memes and certainly not the ones that have you do random things like read the second sentence of the third paragraph on page forty-five of the book closest to you in a given moment.
Now if you were to write a story based off of that sentence, that might be worthwhile to pursue.
But really, the random stuff seems kind of boring. But with this particular one, I tried it and was struck with the serendipity of several of the choices. It may be one of those fortune cookie things where songs are generally vague enough to be suitable for a number of lives and circumstances. Be that as it may, I've done one better than just list the songs in the vain hope that they might mean something to people. No, I've decided to let you dip your ear into my life's soundtrack. The only caveat is that I have no idea how long it'll take for a song to load for you. It works fine from my desktop, but from what I've heard, loading times differ somewhat between straight from desktop and over the interthing. Whatever, if you're patient, it will come.
Oh yeah, and if you want to do it yourself, here are the rules that I ripped from the guy Calvin Pitt got it from. (Calvin Pitt is the fellow who reminded me of this meme by participating in it himself.)
1. Open your music library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc).
2. Put it on shuffle.
3. Press play.
4. For every question, type the song that's playing.
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button.
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool.
And with that, my life's soundtrack:
I'm pretty impressed that my iTunes knew how rad I think Amelie Poulain's life soundtrack is and allowed me to homage hers in my opening credits. I suppose I should put strawberries on my fingertips and take pictures of my nude self while I go through the gestative stages of pregnancy. You know, for solidarity's sake. The straight up fact of the matter is that I love this song and think it an entirely fitting intro to my life.
The fact of the matter is: there will never be another me. For I am a unique and beatiful snowflake, Durden be damned. This also strikes me as a great choice. Scene: Morning. The bathroom. Our hero stares groggily into the mirror at himself. And begins to sing. Cue song.
At this point there was supposed to be a song for 1st Day of School, but for some reason it was gumming up and I couldn't play it for you. In any case, that song was "Angry Situation" by Save Ferris.
I think it's entirely appropriate that Starflyer 59 should be the song choice here - as I've always maintained that SF59 is that perfect kind of heavy, make-out music. Hm, maybe it would make a better track for the Sex Scene. But... this meme did not offer that choice, so Falling in Love it is.
While I'm sure Ella Fitzgerald is probably the right choice for 1st Love Song, I wasn't really sure that "mellow" was any sort of realistic adjective to describe my first love. Still, if one reads a certain desperation into the lyrics, I think it really does work. "Everything's okay." *nervous shivers* "With this mellow song I can't go wrong." *crosses fingers*
I've got to say that I'm pretty impressed with how well randomocity chooses soundtracks. This is better than some movies I've seen. Fiona Apple is exactly the right choice for break-up music. She's bitter, thoughtful, cynical, and uncertain. Wow, I say. Wow.
Okay, so on the surface, They Might Be Giants is probably the last band you'd want to associate with a romantic evening of promming, driving the coast under cover of a full moon, and whatever sundry things kids do these days after prom *ahem*. But. For those of you who remember (and those of us who can't forget), some of us do not have the typical prom experience (see Part I,
Part II, and
Part III). And so something surreal and curious like "Whislting in the Dark" actually comes off as the a pretty solid choice to offer musical commentary on the gross mischeviousness of an evening of fear, trembling, and gnashing of teeth and other parts. Plus, to say that "I'm having a wonderful time - but I'd rather be whistling in the dark" is probably, in retrospect, the most applicable thing to be said for the whole thing.
I knew my ill-fated expiriment in buying an industrial (?) disc would finally bear fruit after more than fifteen years. It's true. Argyle Park almost gave me a mental breakdown when I realize both a) I had purchased this cd at some point and b) it's in my iTunes.
And here, under the category of Driving, is another song that couldn't make the cut, Joy Flying's "In the Midnight."
Hearing this song brings me flashbacks, so I suppose it's pretty fitting. Throwing Copper, you were a good friend for that summer. Thanks for the times. At least this wasn't the one about placentas.
Huh. Bummer. I wish this was "Woah! She rocks in my bed!" But it's not. Lumpy and bumpy.
I really don't know what to think of this one. The lyrics supposedly translate out to:
when the things of the heart
just can't understand
what the mind doesn't question
and doesn't have the strength to follow
how many dreams i already destroyed
and let slip out of my hands
and if the future this permits
i won't live in "vao"?
my love we aren't alone
there is a world waiting for us
from the infinite blue sky
there can be life on mars
so come here
give me your tongue
so come
i want to hold you
your power comes from the sun
my measure
so come
let's live life
so come
or else i'm going to lose who i am
i'm going to want to change
for a life on mars
I do know that any song combining "give me your tongue" and "your power comes from the sun" are pretty rad for a wedding song. I just don't know if they're rad for my wedding song.
Not only is this great because it actually mentions a little girl (unless I give birth to a son), but it basically foreshadows how trying a time she'll have living under the Curse. My feeling is: best to get that out of the way up front. No pussyfooting around, y'know? Mope when you're too young to really know how to mope. get it out of your system.
Hm, it seems that my final battle will be a romantic conquest. I'm not saying I mind, really. But it's kind of sad that that battle ultimately leads me to my inevitible death in the next scene...
I can honestly tell you that had any other song come up here, I probably wouldn't have been tempted to display my glorious life's soundtrack for you. I can't get over how perfectly incredible it is that this is the song that plays over my death scene. Yes! And yes.
At first I was kinda bummed that a slightly dorky song from my youth (besides "Agony") wormed its way into the soundtrack, but as ham-fisted as the lyrics are, the sentiment is both accurate and a little eerie (since it's describing how life can be wonderful while untold thousands mourn at my funeral). All in all, a nice juxtaposition - as it's generally at funerals that people become particularly introspective and concerned with their mortality.
I guess there really is no better time to say that you were wrong than after one has shuffled off this mortal coil(ed up snake ready to pounce! pounce? do snakes pounce? awesome!).
Special notes: 1) I did not cheat (as Argyle Park should attest. 2) I shuffled randomly between nearly 4000 songs loaded onto my iTunes at the office.
Sorry, I wanted to post something celebratory and exciting in honour of National High Five Day (my favourite annual holiday - perhaps even more favourite than Halloween), but I've been a tad melancholy all afternoon. A friend of mine died on Saturday in Iraq when the Humvee whose turret he was manning rolled in a simple, stupid traffic accident. He was a lance corporal (whatever that means) in the marines and was in the military police, hoping to essay that role into a civilian career. He was young and I was one of his youth group leaders. He was a good kid and I miss him, knowing that I won't see him again in this lifetime.
But just because I'm sad doesn't mean you have to be. *high fives all around*
It's been more than ten years since I've had a tooth drilled. I've actually needed a tooth drilled for a good ten years too. But I just couldn't do it. I couldn't go back to the dentist.
Here's why.
In 1996, while having a cavity on my lower left drilled and filled, my mouth became home to the most excruciating pain I have ever in my life experienced. As the dentist drilled, I felt a slight tingling sensation. A small pain. More an annoyance than anything. On the subjective one-to-ten pain scale that they proffer in emergency rooms, this was only a two. It was the kind of thing you might take a Motrin to stop. Or you might just tough it out. Your prerogative.
But then. It was as if he had broken through. Screw floodgates, he had just obliterated whatever dam had existed to keep me from drowning in the most intense and sudden pain imaginable. My eye burst wide. My fingers actually punched through the vinyl on the chair's armrests, leaving three distinct and fingertip-shaped puncture wounds on each. A muffled howl of fury and agony gargled out of my throat. And my jaw clenched shut in protest. On the drill that was still in my mouth and I can only imagine, still running. On that ER scale-of-ten, I maintain the level of pain I felt was an eight (leaving room for the horrible possibility that something could be more painful), but at that point assigning a numerical value to the pain becomes merely academic because pain beyond that threshold would likely feel just about the same - as I really ceased to feel anything on this plane of existence and was catapulted into some spiritual realm, a dimension in which the concerns of the body are left behind and viewed with the kind of detachment one reserves for pain inflicted upon either Larry, Moe, or Curly (but not Shemp; we care about Shemp).
As it turns out, I'm resistant to anesthetic in the same way I'm resistant to caffeine. Even a lot only affects me a little. Good to know...
And so, despite my dental needs, I have happily foregone any dental care beyond regular brushing and that blue-moon sacrament we call flossing. For more than a decade. The mere thought of having a tooth drilled was enough to truly and honestly give me cold sweats and cause my mouth to water inordinately in some vain hope of purging the evil via deluge of saliva (and there would be no ark on which denizens of my mouth might find salvation - this would be winner take all). Paranoia? Perhaps. But it was so real, this fear, that every single promise I had made to see a dentist "soon" has been either outright lie or self-delusional myth-making.
Finally though, at the earnest request of friends and family, I have relented. I saw a dentist a couple months ago and she leveled the news: after a decade of only brushing, I had four cavities - all of which, of course, needed attention. So today... I had the first of it done.
All in all, it wasn't that bad. She gave me three times the normal anesthesia, which enabled her to do her work without me ruining her chair. Unfortunately, she could only do one tooth because, as I said, I'm resistant to such medications. By the time she had finished with the tooth, I was already gaining feeling back. Parts of my face and mouth that had been pretty numb had already returned to normal, and I could carry on conversation with her without any of that droopy-mouthed, slack-jawed mumbo jumbo that had defined our conversation fifteen minutes prior.
So it seems I have a super power. Resistance to anesthetic and caffeine. Not a very useful power if you ask me. Not only can I not used caffeine to perk me up, but my super power ends up allowing me to be overwhelmed by pain. Joy.
As I've been spending a lot of time at one of the local purveyors of over-priced and caffeinated beverages - enough time, perhaps, to even be considered a regular - I have the opportunity to spy out an enormous quantity of people from the many varieties of Southern Orange County life.
Today's episode: What's Up Coach?
Slowly, they gather. A teeming hoard, pouring forth as a stream without end, infiltrating every corner of the shop. Their squeals of derision and mirth rule the evening. They are young. They are girls. And they have come for one reason. They have come with their parents. They have come for him.
The Coach.
This is actually really humourous and sad to watch. These girls are probably in fifth grade or so. And each of them, in their turn gets her own personalized ten-to-fifteen minute lecture. First, he offers them a cursory praise of their strengths, building them up so that they will have farther to fall when he gets to the meat of the reason why they have invaded this beanery. So after shining a ray of hope into their sad existence, he crushes them under the weight of the knowledge of what they ought to be living up to (kinda like naming your kid "Jesus"). He does this so that he can better mold them to his own maniacal soccer designs.
Or something.
Almost more intriguing is to watch the parents while this is going on - for indeed, they sit adjacent to their forlorn daughters through the entire ordeal. Some of them are so into it you can feel their ears bleeding from straining so hard to hear every nuance of Coach's admonitions. Their daughters will be the best, they have no doubt. I think their dream is that if their daughters have even one skill that sets them apart from the rest, that it is that skill that will save their daughters from enduring the tortured, upper-middle-class suburban nightmare that is their every waking moment. You can tell that the download soccer drills off the internet and have their daughters practice on Sunday mornings while the family's at church.
Then there are the earnest parents who are really trying to seem interested, but in the back of their minds they know this man is crazy. They begin the conversation with a cool sort of detachment, trusting that this man's just going to give their child a small dose of encouragement - the kind that their coaches gave to them when they were in little league. Within minutes all their hopes are dashed and they are struck far harder than their children are by the words of this man of singular focus in whose trust they have delivered their daughters on a weekly basis. Their daughters are usually only half-way paying attention to anything being said at the table (as their parents have encouraged them to have merely a sane interest in fifth-grade soccer victories) and so the brunt of the conversation generally shifts more and more toward the parents - who grow ever wider of eye. Things they can do to increase their daughters' aggression. Methods by which they can maintain their daughters' focus on what's important.
And then, there are the group meetings wherein Coach regales the team with tales of glory, victory, and the sweet-sweet taste of one's own blood as it fills one's mouth after a particularly hard hit. And then he'll speak in hushed tones of the undeniable soccer-prowess and sheer power of the teams they'll soon face upon the soccer field of battle. Teams that have been together for years. Teams that work together, sleep together, and worship the almighty Shah-Kohr, garnering her handing of blessing on their feet, making them fleet and deadly.
For myself, I'm glad that when I played soccer, we'd play the game and go home - never having to endure either lecture or praise. But this? This is a brave new world and it is being inaugurated under the watchful eye of coffee slingers everywhere.
So I'm driving to church on Sunday. I'm pulling up to a light. I'm in the right lane. There's a orange pickup in the left lane and another car in the left turn lane. So all three lanes are now filled as we wait for the green.
Now as I'm pulling up, it sounds like this guy in the orange truck must be listening to his music very loudly. I can hear that sort of thump-shake you get from a deep bass. As I ease up further, I'm starting to be able to see into his cab.
This guy is yelling full-bore. He's doing that thing where you chop into the palm of one hand with the other to emphasize your point. I pull up further and can see that he's beet-red. This guy is pissed to high heaven and he's yelling the kind of yells that you know are launching little bits of spittle and the morning's bacon into his immediate atmosphere and he's karate chopping into his left hand with his right. And...
And no one else is in the car with him. He is alone.* And he is scary. And I am ready to move on lest he look at me and somehow divine where I live and show up there one dark and stormy night to... well, to karate-chop his hand in my direction and cast spittle and bacon chews upon my person.
So, the light turns green and I accelerate my way to freedom from Mr. Scarypants. And...
And four seconds later, I check my mirrors and he's gone. I'm a second and a half through the intersection and he is one-hundred percent vanished. Gone. No trace.
Now, freaked out as I am, I do a quick inventory of the possible things that could have occurred here: 1) he was an angel and was just messing with me; 2) he made a quick left-turn even though he wasn't in the left turn lane and other people were; 3) he suddenly became so small that I couldn't see him in my mirrors (holding true to the fact that objects in mirror are larger than they appear); or 4) he turned invisible (in which case, he may have followed me and be in this room right now - which would scare me except for the fact that I'm pretty sure I would hear the karate-chopping and so be alerted to his presence).
So yes, I have decided that the most logical explanation is that I have been entertained by angels.
*note: I admit the possibility that he was using one of those blue-toothed, cyborg ear-thingies, but two things: 1) he didn't look the type; and 2) have you ever noticed how few people use them in their left ears? These things make the possibility slim. Plus, it's a radder story if he's just acting all crazy - though I suppose someone screaming into their blue-tooth cyborg ear-thingy and karate-chopping their hand to a phone is all stocked up on crazy.
p.s. in looking for something to incorporate into the mast for this post, I found this, which made me realize that the world is better off without people.
As I've been spending a lot of time at one of the local purveyors of over-priced and caffeinated beverages - enough time, perhaps, to even be considered a regular - I have the opportunity to spy out an enormous quantity of people from the many varieties of Southern Orange County life.
Today's episode: Neckbeard the Pirate.
Ahoy, ye lubbers of land! Heaken thine scalliwaggerly ear unto this yap and hear ye the tale of Neckbeard the Pirate!
Okay. I'm not gonna write the entire post in anything so obnoxious as that. I'll just stick to my normal level of obnoxiousness. I looked and looked and looked on Google for an image that truly spelled out the facial-pube horror that IS Neckbeard the Pirate, but though I found a good number of scarinesses, nothing truly captured Neckbeard's awe-striking style.
Neckbeard comes in once or twice a week and seems, for all intents and purposes, to be a rather shy young lad. He sports loose-fitting jeans, a zippered hoody, and the most shocking display of misplaced facial plumage I have ever had the pleasure/horror of witnessing firsthand. Instead of your garden variety, Abe-Lincoln-inspired neck growth, he has collected what would normally be considered a longish, gangly, hipster goatee. Yet this scraggly hirsute proturbance issues not from his chin as would be proper and modest. It is not even beneath his chin - a style that has a modicum of acceptance in less respectable climes. No, this wonderment pours forth from that point, that obtuse angle, at which under-chin and neck meet (on those who have the good fortune to not yet have that obtuse angle have slumped into a plane).
Really, I don't know what more there is to say. Except maybe that I don't really sleep all that well on nights when Neckbeard the Pirate crosses my path. Woe unto us all for he makes his curse to be our curse.
In any case, here are some amusing and troublesome - though less troublesome than neckbeard himself - examples of neck beards:
As I've been spending a lot of time at one of the local purveyors of over-priced and caffeinated beverages - enough time, perhaps, to even be considered a regular - I have the opportunity to spy out an enormous quantity of people from the many varieties of Southern Orange County life.
Today's episode: The Budding Insurgent.
As they sat down - a mother, a a father, and a boy of about ten years old - they continued a conversation that had evidently garnered no small history preceeding my own inclusion in it (via dropped eaves). An arcane and solemn energy crackled from their dance of words - the parents stern and understanding, the child wild with righteousness.
"But dad, if everyone needs food to live, then shouldn't the government provide it?"
The concern and quiet shame etched into the lines on his face, the father patiently paced through his ritual explanation of which responsibilities were the governments and which were not. I can only imagine the fear that such a singular question could bring to the hearts of such stolid and upstanding capitalists as themselves. These were members of the Dove Canyon elite, after all. Or maybe it was Coto de Caza. Who can tell, these days?
In any case, their lecture went on a good fifteen minutes or more, punctuated by plaintive cries from the mother, her last desperate hopes to sway her son from a life of reverencing Che Guevara and Karl Marx, from a Chomsky-infused activism in his college years some time down the road. "But hunny," she said. "Most people are democrats because they don't know any better. I mean, even I used to be a democrat!"
And so it went. I don't think this kid bought into it though. I think his parents are probably crying themselves to sleep, praying for his soul.
Also, I think they must have been headed to his aunt's house or something because as they got up to go, the youngster sighed deeply, stating that he would "rather spend a hundred years here than an hour there." Either that or they had finally gotten to him and he was just talking about France.
So a couple mornings back, I left Ye Olde Domicile in preparation for my five-day-a-week trip to the office. Down, down the stairs I trudged. Up, up the sidewalk I padded. Past, past the mailboxes I sauntered. Over, over to the space into which I had parked Bartleby the evening past.
And yet the little fellow was not to be found in the spot into which I had so lovingly deposited him.
Gasp, shock, and horror. Until I saw him a good fifteen feet away, parked up upon the sidewalk. At that point, Gasp, Shock, and Horror took off their masks and revealed themselves to be none other than Perturbation, Peevishness, and Ire. Who would perpetrate such a foul deed? Who would usurp dear Bartleby's rightful asphault throne?
My theory rules as thus: The complex in which my abode resides is, how do you say, strapped for parking. As I work close to home, I rarely experience this crush firsthand - arriving home, as I do, between 15 to 30 minutes after 5:oopm. What likely occurred is that as the lot filled up, some dastardly fiend, infuriated by the fact that such a small and fuel efficient vehicle should have taken up a whole parking space when really its mass only fills about 15% of said space. He and a cohort must have left their car, hefted poor Bartleby into the air, and carried him over to the sidewalk. When I arrived in the morning full of righteous anger and the wrath of a thousand suns, I thought of writing a dissembling note and placing it through the windshiled of the car in my space, but then I thought better of it.
I mean what if the villains had moved the Vespa, parked, done whatever black magic they had come to do, and left? The car currently parked there would not have known that its lucky find of a parking space was, in actuality, a Space Claimed. And so, it would hardly have been fair of me to deposit my wrath in such a way, against a potential innocent. And this. This is why I am a better man than George W. Bush. The end.
As has been made abundantly clear, I've been spending a lot of evenings of later tic-takking away on a laptop, scripting what will ostensibly be my first published work. Well, apart from all the other things I've published. In any case, this tic-takking takes place largely in the outer court of one of the several local corporate-owned coffee-serving establishments. What happens in the holy of holies in that den of thieves is up to anyone's speculation - but mine involves week-old pastries, various animal sacrifices, and a record-breaking streak of four-player Mario Kart.
So last night was amazing. I can only imagine that some heavenly syzygy is to blame, but it was a wonderful sight to behold: the perfect, flawless example of the stereotypical coffee-house couple.
She. Dressed in short-sleeved peasant blouse. Dark hair under a black beret. Dark, horn-rimmed glasses. Lion tattoo* peeking from beneath left sleeve. Reading a book while waiting for...
He. Thin to the point of anorexia suspicions. Matted black hair. Black t-shirt with some band that Scott probably knows. Deathmole or something. Beige dress coat, no doubt found at great personal sacrifice at a nearby Salvation Army. Skinny-skinny jeans that only hung at a non-constricting snugness due to the fact that even his bones were skinny.
They were the ideal couple for the place and I could only imagine they read Camus together in the dark and discussed Nausea while smoking thin black cigarettes and rejecting the triune God. It was glorious to see as I felt that for the first time in years I was actually experiencing corporate coffee as it was always meant to be experienced.
And then again.
I suppose that I am hardly one to be crowing. Three days ago, I sat in a rice bowl joint, chopsticks in hand, wearing a sweater. My Vespa's helmet lay on the chair next to me and my leather jacket on the back of my chair. And in my other hand, the one that remained free of chopstick utility, I held before me Understanding Power: The Indispensible Chomsky.
I know, I know, huh. Like I have any right to be mocking the pretentiousness of a young couple in a Starbucks. But for my own defense, at least I can claim that this book was required reading by a friend of mine. I know, it hardly ameliorates the image, does it? *sigh*
Twenty-six pages into Chomsky, here is my evaluation. It's very frustrating. He's a smart guy and he says a lot of interesting things - makes a lot of fascinating connections - that sometimes really do make a lot of sense. Unfortunately, he mires his ideas in a volatile sort of language that makes you think it's all a put on. He uses the kind of language that polemicists will use in order to distract you from their case. They're cheap shots and you want to think he's got a good case in there, but the language points to a man unsure of himself - someone who hopes desperately that his patter will distract his opponents and that they won't be able to see the weakness in his arguments because they're too busy being flabbergasted by the smack he talks.
I want to think he's got something in there, but my intuition tells me there's a reason he can't talk straight. England prevails.
*note: in truth, it may have been Gimli or Colin Powell. I couldn't get a very good look at it. It was definitely green ink though.
So I had a blow-out today while riding Bartleby, my 2006 Vespa LX 150. The back tire popped just before I leaned into a left turn at a light. I wasn't sure it had actually blown at first, but halfway through my turn, I lost rear traction a bit and was using my left foot to keep myself upright through the turn. Things were pretty wobbly after that. Fortunately, it's got one of those tires that loses air rather slowly, so I was able to safely make it to my destination without damaging the rim.
Last time I had taken it in, I had asked for a harder tire, because the Pirelli's it comes with are nice and soft and so get a lot of traction, but I wear through them like crazy. I've only had the Vespa for nineteen months and this'll be my second rear tire (and I obviously should have replaced this one over the holidays like I had planned to - I knew it was getting down to it, but I didn't know I was showing thread in two places like I am).
