The Dipso Chronicles

New Home

2011-10-16T15:36:00.000-07:00

Alright, folks, it's as up as it's gonna be. It's a bit simpler and cleaner, and after a few days of looking at it and wondering, I've decided I like it enough. Update your links and your, well, whatever brings you here (there).

http://dipsochronicles.wordpress.com/

It's the Words

2010-10-16T09:35:00.000-07:00

It occurs to me that any shared experience might be a bit less shared than it seems, because we're doing different things with the input.

I am a words guy. With passing and light things like music and other fictions, I don't mind being a bit less infatuated with the underlying meaning in order to have a little tryst with the words themselves. It's why I have a hard time reading non-fiction, I think. In non-fiction the writing is there as a little servant to the subject, and that's all backwards as far as I am concerned. The word must be lord and master.

Music is a different challenge. You have the words, the meaning, the story, and the actual music. I don't mind admitting that some of my favorites would be scoffed at by the music "purists" club, or whatever they call themselves. And you just know they have something that they call themselves. It's not a very good club, otherwise. I realize that the word "club," as such, is a mighty aptly named thing - who wants (to be in) a club that you can't beat someone with?

So people rummage through youtube by searching first for Rolling Stones, and then chasing links in order to stumble upon some obscure wonder that they have never heard of, but they can post and pretend to have been enjoying for years. Or at least since before you ever heard of them, that's the important part.

Some time ago, a friend and I were settled somewhat uncomfortably in a lounge in Vegas, wondering at all the kitsch and recreational flim-flam, and having a discussion with our lovely others about music. They've known us a long time. "You're a couple of pleasant enough fellows," they said. "You live well and have families, and don't go all dark on us like some emo cry babies. So why do you seem to like so much depressing music?"

Easy. It's not depressing. It's the words. The music is plenty good, too, and I don't have a need to be sad, feel sad, or crave sadness in order to enjoy a well-played song with expertly written lyrics. A song about suicide can be a perfectly uplifting thing, when it has lines like this one:

Angels lay their odds on you,
Know not quite what they should do,
Only that they can't quite tear themselves from the view.

Likker Jimmy Does it Again, or, "Hey, Cut That Out!"

2010-10-15T09:03:00.000-07:00

Likker Jimmy. That's what I have taken to calling Lileks sometime in the past 9 seconds or so. I'm a nickname guy, and always have been. The Army helped me out with it a bit, but it was there before. I tend to lean towards mafia-style nicknames. Here's a few people I know: Jimmy Viggs. Terry Pockets. Johnny Cookies. Johnny Hi-beams. Hubble.

Now, Likker Jimmy is welcome to tell me to suck sod and never call him that again, but I don't expect he'll ever know what's going on, so I will do what I always do: Continue on in insultingly smug fashion until I am confronted and forced into an apologetic pantomime. How the hell does a mime say "I'm sorry?" I don't know, but I'll send one to Lileks as soon as he starts yelling at me.

The reason I bring it up at all is because we seem to be tumbling along in some sort of cosmic slipstream together. It's probably more like a clothes dryer, with me as the lint screen. While we have never communicated with each other in any way, and I am certainly not charmed enough to be able to boast of collaborating with him, I do believe I have highlighted three occasions in the past in which our ideas passed eerily close to each other. This morning I hop over to The Bleat to see that he has decided to do the Truffle Shuffle all over my plan to write about hair cuts. I should just write first, then go to the webbernets. It would save me a lot of anguish. Alas, I take a slightly different tack, so this whole vainglorious introduction is just my insecure way of saying "Like, listen, man. I'm totally not tryin' to mellow Likker Jimmy's vibe by hornin' in on his goods. I was totally gonna write about this, anyway."

------------------------------------------------------------

I'm sorry. Somebody get me a mime, because I am just soooo sorry. I haven't risen up against the soul-blanching incursion of chain barbershops by finding the last vestige of old-school tonsorial arts in my condo-laden urban death nest. Indeed, I eschew them for the very reason men seem so keen on desiring them: The camaraderie. I am not a talker. Not a small talker, anyway. I have no knack for chatting it up or chewing the fat. When questioned, I give short answers that leave little room for elaboration or follow up.

"How've you been?"

"Pretty good."

"What've you been doing since your last time in?"

"Not much."

"What's going on with this weather? Can't seem to figure out what it wants to do."

"Yep."

"Should I just shut up and cut your hair?"

I do remember the smells and the feel of the old school, man version of the barbershop. But those memories are mostly from childhood, when I sat up on a worn, wooden plank that Mick laid across the arms of the chair. Cliches: Blue barbicide, lab coats, man-banter. Cliches, yes. But damned comfortable cliches.

Army barbershops, even the ones off-post, were mostly assembly line deals that didn't give you much in the way of nostalgia.

"High and tight, please."

"Mmm-hm."

I like it, I get it. I understand the appeal, the pared down simplicity of the all macho experience. It's like a tree fort with a No Girls Allowed sign. But I like girls. I like pretty girls. I especially like pretty girls doing things for me, and to me. So I found me a place that calls itself a Gentlemen's Barbershop.

Ohh, you'll hate me for this. Yes, my barber is a girl. I think she may have even gone to some "Stylist Academy." The shop is a small place designed for men. Men's magazines, sports on a flat-screen, classic literature on the shelves, straight razors and shaving kits on display and for sale. Fat leather chairs in the waiting area, and dark, polished wood all around. My haircut is too expensive, it includes a hot towel on the face, a straight razor on the neck, and a shampoo (you sissy!), and most of the other guys in there are executive types on a lunch break. Mad Men sorts of fellows, I gather, but this is Seattle, so Mad Men without the credible masculinity. But my barber is a pretty girl who takes my coat and offers me a coffee or a water when I walk in, takes interest in my family, chats just enough that I don't have to do much chatting of my own, and she gives me the best damned haircut I've ever had, every single time. Of course I go back, and of course I pay too much, and of course I tip too well on top of that - I walk out of there feeling like King of the World.

Semi-Social Experiment the First: Will You Love Me More?

2010-10-14T12:06:00.000-07:00

Will you love me more if I say "Kill that liberal?"
Will you keep me in your blogroll?
Will you love me more if I link some pundits?
Should I bait the hook for trolls?

I've tried to be a rueful boor.
I've quaffed the partisan dreck.
I got my toddler the three disc set
Of lectures by Glenn Beck.

Sure, she still needs help getting dressed,
And tinkles on the floor,
But you've said as much of our President,
And even called his mom a whore.

But if you'll love me more I'll say "Kill that liberal"
Because my child needs her Dad
To be the frothing, seething, hatred-spewing (But, totally, like eloquent, and well-informed - not like the liberals who just make up whatever they want and shout it from their community-college-educated soap boxes)
Role model I never had.

Everything Must Go!

2010-10-14T09:57:00.000-07:00

I have been given the privilege of guest posting at Jaded Haven. Most - if not all - of you are aware of Daphne's lovely site, and are probably there on a daily basis as it is. If not, get thee hence! It'll do you good, especially now that she has an anonymous guest blogger classing up the joint a bit. Something's amiss here...

Here's how it works, and you'll know why I am bothering with this in a sentence or two: She sent me a login so that I am an author on her blog. For the last couple of days I have been over there, getting accustomed to the format, and nervously pulling and reposting all kinds of trash. In the process I learned this: I like wordpress, and I am moving.

Some time last year I gave it a quick go, and didn't like what I saw. Whether something has changed since then I do not know, but I like the smell of the fire over there now, and am going to be moving this Gypsy wagon to the new camp. In a few days I will post a new url, which will look an awful lot like this one, and you can start reading me at the new site. It is just a matter of cleaning up and tweaking things over there now.

As far as I can tell, this site will still be here at blogspot, too. It just won't be getting updated.

There's a very, very good chance that this has more to do with my inability to sit still than anything else. Peace in the Middle East. I'm Audi 5000.

Reviews

2010-10-13T09:11:00.000-07:00

I have plowed through a couple of books, and as you can see by my "Current Kindling," have moved on to the Hitchhiker's Guide. I've read it before, and there's nothing better for a good time had in book form. A man can learn a thing or two about writing funny things by paying attention to that tome. Unfortunately, no matter how many times you read it, shouting "write funny things!" at your hand still doesn't work. You can probably furrow your brow all collegiately and insinuate several layers of deep meaning to The Hitchhiker's Guide, but frankly, I wouldn't recommend it. You'll miss the point.

Alas, in order to make my point, I owe you a couple of reviews, it would seem.

Delillo done. "White Noise" in the past. At least the book version. And I liked it. There was a desperation that he was building which was becoming very alluring, and I wish he would have given it a little more of a throttling. Desperation is always lurking there, waiting for you to slip up, and the easiest way to do that is to be distracted. Delillo's novel is a symphony of distraction, and his poor characters can't settle down because of it. There's a sense that they are all just trembling and sweating with the effort of trying to extract some meaning from an aspirin commercial. There were moments that had such momentum towards hopelessness, but didn't quite take the plunge, and that may have made it seem all the more hopeless. Good books do things to you, as you all know, and this one was making me uncomfortable. I was glad for it.

Also, I tend to read from a "Christ-I-wish-I-could-write-won't-someone-show-me-how" perspective, and this one hits the mark. Simple and direct, which keeps it all very honest and genuine feeling. But the master of direct and honest comes next:

Kurt Vonnegut. "Bluebeard." I've read a bunch of Vonnegut works, and I wish there were more. Reviewers seem to think that in "Bluebeard" he is taking pot shots at modern art, specifically the abstract expressionists, but I'm not sure that's the case. Who cares? It's the writing, stupid. To say it seems effortless or natural is one whopper of a cliche, but what's a guy to do? Read more, that's what.

On with my life - my grip on this job is tenuous enough as it is.

Potty Training

2010-10-11T10:04:00.000-07:00

The competition starts early, before you realize what you are doing. The innocent child sees a nice, level world, where the only inconsistencies are happiness turning into fear, and then back to happiness. Everything else is equal. Until you start in with the poison:

"Why don't you go sit on the potty chair?"
"No, fanksoo."
"Well, that's very polite of you, but you should really go sit on the potty chair."
"No fanksoo. I don't haffta."
"Does your friend ___ use the potty?"
"Uh-huh."
What about ___? Does he use the potty?"
"Uh-huh."
"You know what that means? That means they are big kids. You will never be a big kid if you don't use the potty."
"I'm just a little girl!"
"Yes, and you shouldn't be happy about it. Your friends are better than you."

Really? Is that the approach I want to take? I can't imagine being proud, when I watch my daughter become a heartless cutthroat social monster, to realize that I started it all by telling her that if she doesn't hop up there and drop a deuce in the toilet like her friends, she is no longer worthy of my love. Then again, I am willing to bet that a lot of parents, by the time their children are two or three years old, are already saying things to them like:

"You know, a liberal would have killed you before you were born, because liberals hate children, Jesus, and your mommy."

Or:

"You know, a conservative would have sold you by now just to make a buck, because conservatives hate children, the poor, and your mommy."

I'm sticking with:

"You know, we love you no matter what you do, but it is a little harder when you have your hand in your butt crack like that."

Middle of Somewhere

2010-10-09T09:18:00.000-07:00

Middle. Front or back, too. I'd be fine getting stuck there with her kind of somewhere.

A place too big to turn around in. A pace too slow to outstrip. A sun all alone in a sky so big that it's almost not bright enough to light up what's behind you, if you could ever turn around. I guess in a place so big, you're always looking forward. A place like Baie-Comeau, Quebec.

They have a town, sure, but it's broken in two. As though there was so much space that the town was afraid of being too small in it, so they made an upper, built a dam, then made a lower. All the same to me. The language didn't hurt too much. The gentility of that Quebecois warbling was a playful juxtaposition against the severed moose heads on the muddy pick-ups. The bleu-collar French. Open. Warm. Big. No matter where, the middle of nowhere has a way of making everybody big in the places of us that the most sought after somewheres tend to shrivel up.

The Age of the Angle

2010-10-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

I like people more than I let on, sometimes. But I am petty, and tend to envy the successful, while befriending the plain. The plain are no threat to me, you know. But from whence the envy?

I am not a particularly hard working guy. I get by, but there is perhaps a bit more leisure in my life than my father would appreciate. Sign of the times. He worked more, I work less. It'll keep going this way until my great great grandchildren will be hobbled if they are caught with a shovel or a manual transmission or a lever. No more worky-worky for you. Because it is increasingly the Age of the Angle, and the Angle is all about the simplest, most effortless way to accomplish something. Or to exempt yourself from the same. And I envy, or am angered by, the successful, because most of them got there by way of the Angle.

In the military, "orders" stopped being good enough. They had to become "lawful" orders, because someone found the Angle, and used it to get off the hook for being a crook. Easy out.

You can't buy a sponge without three paragraphs of disclaimers, because someone found the Angle, and used it to sue the pants off of whoever makes sponges. Easy money.

And in the media, from books to blogs to blockbuster movies, you can't enjoy yourself because everyone has found the Angle, and have been using it to harvest dollars and droning audiences by the millions. Easy audience.

What's today's angle? Hate. Spite. Vitriol. Effortless and reflexive, and as disinterested in talent as rap music. Couched in silly little phrases like "fiscal responsibility." "Sustainability." "Economic stewardship." Just a bunch of garbage terms invented as a platform to tell people why someone else should be tirelessly derided, and your money should go elsewhere. Pundits, movie producers, politicians, authors. The most successful ones are just sitting there hating the other guy all day long. It is the definition of politics - "the other guy is a jerk" - and politics is only made up of the ones who are good at it. Good at spending their days demonstrating that somebody you know needs to find his way to the bottom of the sea. Morning noon and night, three squares a day of "I hate that guy, and you should, too." We aren't being brought down as a society by a lack of education, poor architecture, irresponsible lending, or greed for oil. We're being brought down by our dogged and constantly accelerating pursuit of demonstrating, announcing, and assembling our hatred for the people around us. Let's gather the top 10 political or "issues based (whatever)" news people of the left and right, put them in my honesty machine, and ask them if they really think they are doing something good for the country and the world. Guaranteed answer is 'No." And they will probably add: "But we're banking on the fact that we can convince you we are, because this stuff is easy, and it is making us rich."

The only thing easier than doing it, is bemoaning that it is being done. And here I sit. Yes, I suppose there is some hypocrisy, or irony, or self-fulfilling/self-destructing absurdity to coming on here and complaining about it, but what's a fella to do? Watch old movies? Dig a hole? Go for a drive? Seminary? I know, I know, you want me to be ashamed of buying a lamp from Pottery Barn, and you want me to grow my own food, and you want me to profess a love for guns, and you want me to say that cops are evil, and you want me to say that Police Officers are heroes, and you want me to admit that I am a racist, and you want me to be heartened by the poll results - but not that poll over there, and you want me to build my own house, and you want me to think Ayn Rand is more important than my parents, and you want me to put a Che Guevara onesie on my baby, and you want me to give cyclists three feet, and you want me to compost, and you want me to drive an electric car, and you want me to drive a V-12, and you want me to attend "non-political" rallies held by a partisan lightning rod on the steps of memorials to our founding politicians in our nation's political capital.

That's a lot to get right.

And what's my angle? Mine all seem to have been drawn up and delivered by MC Escher - a little on the uncertain side. Sitting here wailing against my ineptitude as an honest man in a dishonest world? Presupposing failure and excusing it, all in one swing. That's economy of motion for you, kids.

A Walk

2010-10-02T10:05:00.000-07:00

I am going to take a walk today with my family,

And be in love with as many things as I can.

See what loves me back, what doesn't.

I daresay I may be met with some indifference.

I Don't Mind Doing It

2010-10-01T15:10:00.000-07:00

It bails me out a bit, so I meme it up. I did see it at (The Other) Andy's place first, but ultimately did my copy/paste from Buck. I feel myself getting a bit too serious lately, and also as though there is some kind of momentous tipping point coming. Who knows? It is, as yet, a young life, and I slink back into an innocent little interweb palaver to stay greasy and neat. Here's what you've been waiting for:

A - Age: I always thought the Iron one was pretty cool.
B - Bed size: Too. Effing. Small.
C - Chore you hate: The next one that needs doing.
D - Don’t eat: Do too!
E - Essential start your day item: My family.
F - Favorite board game: Skateboard
G - Gold or Silver: Silver
H - Height: 6' 1"
I - Instruments you play: Pen
J - Job title: Not the one I want.
K - Kid(s): 1 and a bun
L - Love or lust: Love
M - Mom’s name: Mom
N - Nicknames: None
O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: None
P - Pants or pantyhose: Pants
Q - Famous Movie Quote: "I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed." Also: "The first time someone calls you a horse you punch him on the nose. The second time someone calls you a horse you call him a jerk. But the third time someone calls you a horse, well then perhaps it's time to go shopping for a saddle."
R - Right or left handed: Right
S - Sibling(s): Are both, in their own way, phenomenal men and fine examples for me to follow.
T - Time you wake up: Well before I need to. The Fear don't stop just because I am sleeping.
U - Underwear: You're God damn right.
V - Vegetable favorite: Stephen Hawking
W - Ways you run late: I don’t
X - X-rays you’ve had: As I am straight, I would likely never date a Ray to begin with.
Y - Yummy food you make: Let's go to the judges! On second thought...
Z - Zoo favorite: They're all sleeping behind a big damn rock. Disappointment every time.

(They Say That) Waking Up is Hard To Do

2010-09-29T08:01:00.000-07:00

I am all for short bursts of large effect lately, with long pauses in between. Not a good way to keep you all coming around. Alas...actually, that's it. There is no alas, unless the blankness qualifies.

This time last week, headlights were a judgment call. Now they are mandatory, and the darkness is having its effect. I think I mentioned recently that the change of seasons always has at least a little something good for me, even if it means going to this kryptonite three-quarter-year of a cold, wet blanket we call October through June. Changing things are exciting. Cooler weather and longer nights are a sleeper's boon, but it is getting entirely too difficult to wake up these days. It is so comfortable in there. The air is to cool to join with, the light is to harsh to turn on, but the blanket and the warm body beside, well, we're Goldilocks having found her "just right." And then there's the things you just can't help.

Last night was a small chaos. I sleep light every night, and there were too many strange noises. What is a "strange" noise compared to anything else? It's not the fridge compressor or the ice maker, it's not the little lock on the utility meter cover that swings and rattles in the wind, it's not the frenetic clicks of the dying baby monitor, and it is not the dog trying to chew her way through her crate. It's something strange. Also, the neighbor's motion sensor lights kept coming on and off at about 4:00 AM. In this neck of the woods, crime is somewhat commonplace, though a good bit short of rampant, so I take note of these things. My first stop is always to bring the dog out of her crate. We patrol the house, which is small, so it doesn't take long. I grab a kitchen knife along the way, turn on all the exterior lights, and eventually let her outside to scan the back yard with her sniffer and neurosis both on their highest settings. But she's wary: "You woke me up and you're carrying a huge knife. And now you're sending me out there all alone? Fine, I'll do it, but I am going to make you work at getting me back in here." The front yard and the street beyond are wide open and well lit, so I settle for a scrutinous glance out that way. All clear.

Wife and child safe and sound? Check. House secure? Check. Dog satisfied? Check. Back to sleep? ~~Check.~~ Not so fast, mister. There's a winding down period to be had here. You don't get to spend 10 minutes at 4AM scanning your house for nefarious ne'er do wells and just go straight into the sawing logs portion of the program. You have to mentally summarize the last ten years of your life, and organize the next twenty, before you can start to relax. But of course after that you'll still have the mystery of what happened to the comfortable pillow you had earlier, before you went out on patrol. This can't be the one that was so lush and welcoming just a few minutes ago, can it? Did the woman take it on the sneak, and leave me with this starched rain slicker in a pillow case that I have now? How in the hell did I ever sleep on this damned thing?

WTF? Seriously? The alarm is going to go off in 13 minutes? Nothing happens in 13 minutes. Or is 13 what they mean when they say 12 to 15 minutes? What the hell have I been doing? And here it looks like I just got my old, heavenly pillow back. It's so cool and soft, and the bed loves me again. What happened? Oh well, at least I can get an early start, drive to work on empty streets and get some work done in silence and solitude before coworkers show up.

Crap! Forgot to move the laundry to the dryer last night. So this is how it's going to be...

Wanting, Providing, Wanting, and on, and on...

2010-09-27T12:43:00.000-07:00

The Sippican is in the same world we are all in - the one whose forced plentitude just leaves us wanting. And I don't blame him. The more the world seems to think it knows what to heap upon us, the less we seem to have. We should all be well aware of what we want, and also as aware as can be of what we can give. He wanted to see babies. I can give him one.

Modern technology meets the Eternal Miracle. Like any mindless juggernaut, technology does not know it cannot stack up, so it keeps screaming along. Sometimes, we benefit from its blind energy by getting something to see. I saw this today:

Butch

On the Lovely Mountain

2010-09-27T12:26:00.000-07:00

I remember the nearly perfect mornings on the china sea, still dark, and a layer of fog over the water like an apron of fat keeping warm all the sinewy delicacy beneath. On the stoop just outside a huge steel door, or on the roof betwixt a dozen dishes and antennae, I drank the brutal and common coffee of the chow hall, delivered by Blackhawk on weekly food runs. The cigarette I had out there each day was everything that made them so hard to quit - dry, hot, and deadly. The great, gradual catharsis of the coffin at the end of the big musing. I am not afraid of this self-inflicted, cancerous senescence. I am older by degrees with each new drag, and younger for the slaking of that thirst. I am held steady.

We kept a few goats up there, with coarse black hair and even blacker eyes. Goats have the bulbous and frightening eyes of birth-defected tragedy. They are almost completely dead in those hellish globes, so much so that you know you cannot trust them or predict their next move. But they entertained us on those rare nights when we broke the rules enough to bring booze up from the bustling little Korean hamlet far below.

Those mornings I would toss the last cold drops of my coffee towards the goats and tuck my extinguished butt into my pocket. Then pass through the steel door and walk a little reverently by the two hulking, blue Cummins diesel generators that rumbled comfortingly through our weekly tests. Enter the main building, stride past the dark kitchen on the left and the second fridge and icebox on the right, packed as heavy with meat as a man could ask - the cook would be there in a few hours to make breakfast. If all was still going well, none of my three troops would have gotten ambitious enough to rise yet, and a glance down the hall, past "the room," would reveal three closed doors beyond my open one.

The room would wait behind its electronic lock and expectant alarm. I have always felt like alarms are constantly armed and watching me. Scrutinizing, a hair's breadth away from screaming at me for doing the slightest thing wrong. I selected and programmed the code for this door, this room, and yet it frightened me whenever I had to to key it. So it would wait. My soldiers had daily checks to perform in there anyway, and the only thing behind that door that made me comfortable was the area used for weapons storage. I liked it back there. In a close room full of towering lights and toggles and beeps and wires, the directness of the M-4's and the timeless design of the ammo cans made for a pleasant repose. Unlike all those computers and receivers and encryptors; the guns, grenades, and bullets never confused me. Never confounded me. They wanted my help in doing their work. The machines, by absolute directive, wanted as little from me as possible.

I would sit in what passed for our living room up there, closer as the crow flies to North Korea than to anything American, planning the day in crisp BDU's and shined boots. The troops wondered aloud why we had to go through the motions with the pressed uniforms, why we had to bother shining our boots every day. Why we even had to wear a military uniform this far from anything that might care. This far from consequence.

"Because the consequence you are thinking of is administrative. The North Koreans have a different kind in mind. Though you might like to remember that I can get just as administrative as anyone else. That's what they expect of me, you know. That's why they put me here."

Leadership gets as complacent as anyone else. Nobody was afraid of North Korea, so the natural degradation occurred: preparing soldiers for combat took a back seat to writing better evaluation reports. It seems to be what happens to civilization in general. Nobody is afraid of each other, so preparing children for success takes a back seat to speaking loudly about parenting. In an environment of overwhelming safety, preparation always gives way to posturing. Eventually the posturing becomes convincing, and when a threat emerges, big words and haughty delivery are mistaken for defensive measures. We stop believing that we will have to fight, to the point that we refuse to believe it even as we are being kicked in the teeth. You can always deny that you lost if you never recognized the validity of the challenge.

Indeed, the North Koreans were not much of anything. Not Red Menace nor Yellow Terror, just a poor, bedraggled and destitute lot, living literally in darkness across the River Han. They were over there, making an obscure art of turning preparation and posturing into synonyms. Still, ships seemed perpetually to be sunk out in the East China, and myths of bands of North Korean trainees being sent across the river to attack in the night in past years were kept alive. Something was always happening to prevent the soldier in us from turning completely to desk clerk.

To be continued (hopefully)...

Writing Letters

2010-09-22T11:54:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if anyone writes letters anymore. I just did. Sort of. I typed up a letter and printed it out, then put it in an envelope and mailed it. I went one step farther, too, by printing pictures onto actual photo paper and putting them in the envelope. Electrons writ large. That's all just a little archaic these days, and is the domain of bill collectors and solicitors. I actually used to get mad at my dad when he would send me typed letters while I was in the Army. Too impersonal. Something was off-putting about it, and reading some typed missive with his hand-wrung signature in blue ink at the bottom made it feel like a form letter from the home office. Like it came from someone who only met me once, during the interview process, but as a matter of business has been kept apprised of my doings:

"Yes, Madeleine?"

"You're due for a letter to the Ft. Bragg hire, sir."

"Very well, brief me on his status and bring up my last. We'll append it with the necessary updates, and get it a fresh signature"

I came to realize that it was simply the way of things, then I got on board. I suppose the nobler spirits among us will fight it to the end, and die under a pile of one-cent stamps, in the midst of a web search for the current postal rate. Now everyone has computers and other mo-bile devices, so the emails and text messages and .jpg attachments fly, and putting paper in envelopes is a thing of the past. Except for some people, who don't have the luxury. I know two such people in particular, in those dire technological straits for two extremely different reasons. They don't even know each other. I write to one about the other, because I don't know how to write to either of them about himself:

Hi,

Boy, where to start. I have a friend who has been in prison in Boise for some five years now, and I haven’t written him a letter in over three. I am somehow particularly bad at massaging this kind of tragic significance. I see things too cynically, I guess:

“Hey, lovely day! How’s the crushing incarceration coming along? Any day you don’t get shivved is a good one! Am I right? Huh? Hang on, gotta go check the tenderloin, and I think my cursed iPod has gone into sleep mode again. I swear I set it for 30 minutes! What about you? Been allowed to see the sky this week?”

So yes, it seems odd to me to come out of nowhere and just be politely conversational after years of staying detached from your struggles. But hey, we need this. Both of us.

Remember being in school, and having summer vacation? Every time you came back for the next school year in the fall, all the people you didn’t see over the summer looked completely different. You didn’t think your friends changed, because you were right there while it was happening, and the changes were so gradual and small. Because I live away from home, and only see my folks a few times a year, I get that feeling a little bit with them. They seem a little older to me every time I get back there. It is kind of a little sadness I get right up front of the visit when I spy a slightly gaunter cheek or a clumsier exit from the car. Then it passes after a few seconds and we get on about our business. If I lived down the street and saw them all the time, I probably wouldn’t notice. But if that were the case, then it would blindside me all of a sudden one day. One of them will be down with some kind of old person’s ailment, and all I would be able to say is “I didn’t see this coming.” They are still very young, very healthy, have a couple of good decades left ahead of them, and this is all kind of over-morose to be saying. But in a way I do see it coming, and I don’t know if that’s better or worse, because I won’t have the luxury of being able to say, “I didn’t see this coming.” Instead it will be a much more impotent “I don’t know what to say.”

Because I never do know what to say.

All things have their cycles, and when you start shooting out children you realize that names are no different. Most generations seem to reach back to a previous one, and declare their creativity by naming their children Esther or Rupert. One day “Andy” will be novel and interesting again. But nowadays everyone wants to claim the ethnicity that has not actually existed in their families for at least a couple of generations, and so they name their kids Bronwyn and Jacques. I don’t get it. Some names require an accent and a destiny that includes riding Vespas with the suffocatingly bouncy soundtrack from 10 years of iPod commercials forever in their heads. Parents are giving those names to their bland American children now, and hoping for the best, but getting what they are asking for. I suppose we got kind of weird with our kid's name, and sometimes I wish we would have just gone with Catherine, but I have gotten quite used to the name that she has grown into.

I hope I have not depressed him.

The Prow That Plows

2010-09-19T06:36:00.000-07:00

Mama asks the skillet come out. Some eggs or cakes for the bairn. She's learned us a bad tending of sleep these eighteen months, and we hold fast to it like dumb old animals will, though she has long since slept her nights whole. Mayhap she always knew her job was to see us roused too early, for a sunrise ain't easy to catch this far north. Them little ones, looked at long enough, can get us to feeling we've worked real hard, real long, at fouling up our spyglass. It's less than two years now, and she's found for us so many things that we had spent a whole life losing. Are, then, these furrows we plow, for the growing of protection alone? Or am I on right to gather we must keep some rows with a few seedlings also of fear? It is preparation, after all, as there is so much we have like with this land.

The land and the sea, as it be, for it's also a near couple decades of the untended life, hand off the tiller all the way. Violence in greater measure than charity. We're afloat, of course, as they've all said once or another. Not so many ways as one might think in a full pan of ocean. Not so much space to get lost. It's choice we're on about here. You can't but go one of two ways - the right one or the wrong one - no matter how much horizon to scan. A boat won't never steer itself good on the guile of a cynic, but goes full sail and true on providence and care.

Easy rain. Bashful sky. Mama's pious gaze to the stirring child. Softness come in heavy measure this winsome dawn. A man must know he's tending the tender, and still not be too careful at work. A hardened crow gone downy on the politest of mornings, thanks be to the accidental counsel of honest goodness - of mother and child.

Laughing, Crying, Window Treatments, and Puzzles

2010-09-18T08:20:00.000-07:00

I'll just kind of run my mouth at you for a minute. About a year ago I spilled a little beer on the lower left corner of this hideous-but-recognizable-from-a-great-distance-as-hip white keyboard. On that: What do I hate today? Two things: 1. Straight people who move into a gay neighborhood and can't stop casually mentioning it because it means they are aw-suuuum! 2. People who walk around with blinding white headphones, one in the ear and one hanging down oh-so-casually, unused. "Oh, I can pay attention to you, sure, but I'll only sacrifice half my hipness to do it." Back to the keyboard - no, to hell with the keyboard. The beer be-sodden keys get very sticky whenever the humidity climbs. Makes typing anything a stentorian task, until they get loosened a bit by my hammering.

I am just trying to have fun. Don't know if you have picked up on that or not. Sometimes it is hard to tell. Life, for some reason, seems to be a long run of moments in the neutral to somber range, with intermittent splashes of "hey, that was a blast!" I don't mean that strictly in relation to me, but that it's kind of a human communion - we coexist most frequently as emotional window treatments. Functional, and mostly noticeable for being mostly unnoticeable. I suppose that's as it needs to be - if everything were either amazing or miserable, we would be exhausted right away, and dead from it by the age of nine. It must be why my daughter does puzzles. She seems to have only three states of being: Laughing, crying, and puzzles.

I finished reading The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Is that right? What's the rule for books? Italicize? Underline? Quotation marks? I used to know these things. I should go back to school. The book: Written by David Mitchell, I believe right here in 2010, and centered on Dutch trading on a Japanese island at the turn of the 19th century. I need more books like this. No cheap tricks, no shiny trinkets. Just smooth writing, solid characters, and easily discernible storylines. If I were to give it a one line description for to be plastered atop a cardboard display in a bookstore (Do they have those any more? Bookstores?) it would be this: "Enjoy this very singular accomplishment: a novel written in the 21st century with not one mention of the Knights Templar."

I am using a lot of colons today.

My new Kindling is something called "White Noise" by Don DeLillo. Went for the trifecta there, you may have noticed. I nabbed it from a book list at Art of Manliness. The Essential Man's Library. I have read many of them. Essential is hardly the word I would have chosen. Only one description really approaches what the compiler of that list was really compiling, and that is for Ulysses, the Joyce version:

"We suspect that even those who have written their doctoral thesis on the book only pretend to have read every word, but a good friend of mine said not to question an academic on things of this nature, so if you encounter someone who has built a career around Joyce, don’t ask if they actually read it."

One for the "looks good on the bookshelf" collection. But I take that as a challenge, and I know that I will be reading it eventually.

Back to White Noise. Perpetually, I suppose. But, the book. Written in 1985, no Knights Templar so far. People saturated by modernity, with their own mismatched and cynical children. One of them says, in passing and on the phone: "Neutrinos go right through the Earth." That could be the crux of the whole story, really, that we are as indefensible to all this supercilious contemporary window dressing as the Earth is to the incessant barrage of those insidious neutrinos. Should we get whipped up into a frenzy about it and try to stop something that we can't, or will that just lead from stacked up cookie cutter housing to stacked up cookie cutter bomb shelters? No wonder our cars keep getting bigger - we're vulnerable out there, man! Enough.

It is extra gray here today. The rain last night was spectacular, the best kind of window treatment. So I threw them open, and even put on fresh sheets so that the bed would be a heavenly little nest while the rain played its opus out there: Now the fat splatting on the concrete, now the muffled thrumming on the grass. You, shed roof section, now with more vigor! And then when I finally got my neurotic little ship adrift towards slumber, the whole thing just faded to a particular white noise of its own.

Good morning.

In Honor of the First Sunday of the NFL Season, I Bring You a Man of Real Talent

2010-09-12T08:56:00.000-07:00

Yeah, Fran Tarkenton was on this show, too, but I'm sure you know by now that I'm not really going there.

My Head

2010-09-09T08:27:00.000-07:00

Jesus, my head. It's all cars with us, especially on a bike. I caused an accident yesterday on mine. And then I got the hell out of there! Just kidding, tee-hee. Sometimes, on a bike, you sit at an intersection watching cars zip by on the cross street, but you probably aren't tripping the road sensors to get the light to change in your favor. While I truly do not like going from road to sidewalk to road to sidewalk, because it causes some uncertainty in the traffic flow, I occasionally have to hop up to the corner and push the walk button. This I did yesterday morning. When the first car saw it, he recognized it as an indication that he should stop. The second car saw things differently, more as an opportunity to see what those anti-lock brakes are really all about. There's a reason they don't call them anti-bad-judgment, or anti-not-watching-what-in-the-hell-I-am-doing. Some things our engineers simply cannot design out of the human condition.

I pedaled over to check on them, and braced myself against the barrage of accusations that I was sure would come. A full minute later and neither of them had gotten out of their cars or rolled down a window. What's more, nobody else had stopped to get out and offer help. "Off to work, can't be bothered. It's the economy, you know? Don't want to lose my job over this. Besides, that guy in the goofy helmet looks like he has this covered. Now, if only they would move those wrecked cars OUT OF MY WAY!"

Alas, they were moving around, digging for insurance cards, most likely, and appeared to be fine. Still, you don't just get on with your day with an assumption of fineness. You have to be sure, don't you? I knocked on the first window, put on my best inquisitive-under-a-bike-helmet face, and made the "OK" sign. "Sure, sure," said the North-South head nod and thumbs-up. I move to the second car and go through the same knock and play charades routine. "Sure, sure," said the head nod. But the waving hand said something more like "get the hell out of here, asshole. This is your fault. It's 6:30 AM and it's raining. You should be in a car." Like that would have kept her from driving too fast downhill on a wet road. Have a pleasant morning, lady. I toddled off to work with the most important thing in my or any other world: My Own Clear Conscience.

Which brings me back to my head. It's a mess. I'm smack in the middle of a good run of wondering what in the hell to do with my life, drinking too much, and having too much to do. Then I watch a car accident yesterday, and my wife goes out this morning to find her car was broken into last night. In as much as "broken into" is synonymous with "I think I left it unlocked." Ahh, life in the city. It was a one-off sort of getting home last night for her, with some groceries coming in and one of those "I think there's another bag out there still, can you go and get it please?" And that's all the break in the routine it takes to forget to lock it up. Nothing important missing, because she leaves nothing important in there. Also, no damage done, which is always a relief. When I was a young punk, I had more of an interest in breaking things than stealing things. I'm not sure what parental influences inform those sorts of tendencies, but the ones I received said "break that" instead of "take that." So in a way it surprises me that the thugs who rifled through her car didn't at least take a chance to tear off the glove box door or run a knife through a seat. All they really got was a parking pass that they'll never know where to use, and the satisfaction of making a little mess.

She checked my car ((You know, the really, really cool one, (The Other) Andy))- nothing disturbed, nothing broken. "Well of course not, sweetie. It was locked." Wrong thing to say #1 for today. Tread lightly, and use your head.

Perfectly Useful

2010-09-08T11:35:00.000-07:00

These sorts of times. Everything feels heavy and serious, even though I have a 2 1/2 year old daughter who still stops and laughs out loud every time she farts. "I tooooted!" Believe me, kid, I know.

Cans of blue paint sit on the floor in what will be the boy's room. Butch's cove. Where to put the liquor shelf? But the cans sit there, and about half of the trim is taped off, and nobody wants to paint. Who the heck wants to paint a room? There's a rapidly decaying excitement to even the people who fool themselves into looking forward to it: "Ooh we'll do it really cool with a couple of different colors and I can't wait to see it when we're finished it'll look great!" Then: "You know the worst part about painting honey is the prep help me move this big box of junk that we've been tripping over for the last half hour." Finally: "We didn't get any stirring devices and do you think we really need the drop cloth and how many beers is that for you anyway and I swear I'll get half this room done tomorrow if I can just go watch the episode of Psych that I recorded last night."

Don't have much for you, but I can't let things sit idle here for too long. This blog is ... important to me, and it hurts a little when I leave it empty for too long. So, Dipso, you know what you love and what drives you and therefore what you should be doing. Get after it. The heart jostles me, and the mind tries to misdirect.

Heart: Write, write, write!
Mind: It won't be easy, and you always give up on the challenges.
Heart: I said WRITE!
Mind: You have an easy job. Do the time, get the check. Isn't that satisfying enough?
Heart: The mind is ill-equipped to suggest satisfaction. You must write.

Of course, of course. I would be easy pickings for a Junior College therapist, with my obvious misgiving and hesitations. I am all unpainted rooms, with brushes and cans of paint lying around. Perfectly useful. Unused. So it's all the prep again. The work it takes to do the work. A chosen discomfort, and let us not stop to measure our resolve, lest we learn too much about the yardstick, and not enough about the job.

Oh yeah: I added a little widget over there, called "Current Kindling." Just a link to whatever book I am plodding through on my Kindle. I am not a voracious reader, so I don't get through books very quickly. It's more slow and steady with me, with most reading being done in at night, after the dinner has been cleaned up and the kid is in bed. Lord, how we love our quiet moments.

Fridays Have Sun Sometimes

2010-09-03T09:24:00.000-07:00

Wherefore

Beginning no less perfect than any man,

With heart as pure and as steady of hand,

With eyes that work like any can.

Seen on the corner of 4th and Grand,

He looks right faithful to the plan.

But today he emerges from the wrong kind of church,

And you can't fathom why he'd campaign for that lurch.

The hat on his pate seems wrong on its perch,

While his circle of friends just seem to besmirch

Every step on the path you've chosen to search.

Yet when he started he was just like you,

Then, with a mark in a box and a pass at the pew

And a stop in a hall you wouldn't go to

The pocks on his soul had come into view.

Suddenly nothing you'd trust him to do.

Wherefore the change from a human comrade

To this thing you see fit for nothing but bad?

Wherefore the change from a gent and a dad

To the man you've condemned for the choice of his fads?

Wherefore has God departed this cad?

Wherefore? You query as you're dozing away.

But what threatens by morning of every day

To be loosed by the sun in its obdurate way

Is the side of yourself that you're keeping at bay.

Wherefore? You know, if only you'd say.

You Plan for Some Things

2010-09-01T06:29:00.000-07:00

It rained, sure. You knew that because I told you. I am no different than anyone else. When I say I rode my bike to work in the rain, I really mean "Hey, applaud my badassery! Tell me how cool I am!" I paid for that vanity today.

On the ride home I had a flat. No problem, tools and spare tube in the backpack. Whip out the dead tube, in the rain, run fingers along the inside of the tire to check for sharp things that need to be removed - in the rain - insert spare tube: in the rain, begin the grueling process of pumping that shitty little hand pump until the new tube can support my weight -- IN THE RAIN. Get back on and start pedaling for home again. You know, all in the rain and stuff. Get another fla - wait, what?!?! Seriously? I planned for a flat. As in just that one. No more tubes, no more patience. Rode home the rest of the way, which was just a couple more miles, on the rim.

In the rain.

The Dull Usuals

2010-08-31T11:47:00.000-07:00

That would make for a good band name, eh? One of those ironic, intellectual risk-taking things that mopey kids are always trying: "Primus Sucks!" "Take a break from your boring life, and come see 'The Dull Usuals.' You'll wish you didn't!" And that's supposed to reel 'em in. Works for about a week, I think. Then the lead singer decides he needs to take his act solo, because the three guys from his homeroom class who like to cut themselves and the two cheerleaders itching to do something bad, didn't come to their second "show" on mom and dad's porch. He's gonna be too big for that scene, man.

The rain came today. Huge difference there is between what it feels like standing on the porch in the morning: "it's not so bad out here," and what it feels like at full speed on a bicycle after a few miles: "this kind of blows." But it is invigorating, and keeps me from dwelling on the Dull Usuals, which at this point consists of the fact that summer is coming to a close, and I don't think I got enough good summer music in while it was here. I'm a little tired of everything I have, and am frantically searching for something which, next year, will be what I remember about the great way that this summer wound down. The soundtrack to the end of it all, or something.

Or the beginning. As much as I will be railing against it in February, I always look forward to the winter, just like I always look forward to the change of one season to the next both times it happens here in Washington. Winter changes to Summer, and three months later, Summer changes to Winter. You only have to brace yourself once a year.

Double bracing and heavy buttressing for us, though. Time to shore up the emotional levees, for the new child looms. I know we have done well with this girl of ours, and she is a dream and a charmer, but I still worry some about the crapshoot aspect of children. How do I know that the same approach will bring the same results for the boy? I don't. Or, I know that it won't. Of course there will be adjustments to make for interacting with him as opposed to our girl. Modern parents everywhere are aghast, to be sure: "There's no difference between them! Do nothing different! Stop enforcing those gender roles!" Well, sustainable mommy and daddy, I've been around a lot of children in these last two years, and I have news of the Dull Usual sort: There is a difference. A wonderful, natural, enlightening difference. Any effort to neutralize it or ignore it is not parenting. It is showmanship.

No more parental cynicism. For now.

Like I said, the rain is back. In the Summer it rains and it feels like it is raining in the Summer. Today, it feels a bit more dour. Less transient. This is the rain that is going to call its friends and tell them it found a cool place to hang out for a few months. They'll be coming along any time now.

Last note, this one of the Sharp and Unusual kind: I have not sat and watched an old movie in a few years, I think. I mean really watched it, instead of just having it on in the background while I am doing laundry or puzzling the child. Sunday I watched Shenandoah. Jimmy friggin' Stewart, people. 'Nuff said.

Uh-oh

2010-08-30T16:29:00.000-07:00

You can blog from the new Kindle. I know because I just did.

It is Soft-Lit (Don't Mind a Sunday re-run, I hope)

2010-08-29T08:42:00.000-07:00

The things we love the most are fragile. But something loves us back, which means that we are fragile, too. Our best efforts at defiance are noble, but our bulwarks, our buttresses can crumble, and in our honest parts we are aware of this.

In the wrong mood you watch them sleep and tremble just a bit behind the juggernaut duty. They are yours - get it right and don't miss anything. They are yours.

In the right mood you watch them sleep and rejoice just a bit before the juggernaut duty. They are yours because you got it right and are forgiven when you miss something. They are yours.

The days were when it didn't matter. Night and day were not boundaries, just ways to talk about a time or a girl or a fight or a drive. Night and day changed places, and you noticed. You could spend an hour talking about the sun going down, right there while it happened, and make the decision on the spot about how much you cared about tomorrow. Do I take this drunk to the mad hours tonight, all the way to that lovely sheen, or do I save something of my level place for the day to come? The insignificance may have made it hard if you knew how to ask it, but you were confused by all that youth and the likelihood of some soft-lit sea of belly buttons, so the answer was easy. You went mad.

And she was never out there. Never would be. You knew this.

Tonight you've turned off the TV that she fell asleep watching while you were off worshipping the new child toward her reluctant slumber. It is soft-lit here, too, but without the noise and the sweat. Without the cacophony of rapid-fire indecencies and guarded inadequacies. They are both prone there, and vulnerable, and because the night is so quiet you fail at your one task of not wandering outside the redoubt your mind has built for your heart's defense. You get a little scared because they love you.

It is soft-lit here, too. And honest.

Something to Never, Ever, Forget

2010-08-28T19:57:00.000-07:00

When she says "look, papa," you had better drop everything and look. Every time.

Good Day?

2010-08-28T10:17:00.000-07:00

Depends on how good your definition of good is.

Okee, Papa

2010-08-27T10:28:00.000-07:00

"What color is that?"

"Ummmmm...Same color as da appo and same color as da stabarry and same color as da...and what color is da appo, da appo is red. So it's red!"

"That's right, sweetie. Are you ready for night-night?

"Nope! We haffa read Whyyyy-owed Fings first. You know dat, papa."

"That's right, Sweetie. And when we're done with Wild Things, you'll close your eyes and papa will go outside."

"Okee, papa. But papa haffa come back."

"That's right, sweetie. Papa comes back in the morning."

"Okee, papa."

______________________________________________________

I can say "I used to be you," but as I think that every last one of you is older than I am, you get the privilege of taking it from me in sagacious silence. The children win, of course, because they are immediately the us that we should have never stopped being. How long can I keep her stuck there, and how quickly will her insistence on enjoying herself outstrip that of her friends? And how quickly after that will she be diagnosed with some kind of disorder? I can just hear some uber-progressive Yoda at pre-school:

"Too much fun has that one. A disturbance I sense. Journey she must to the Oprah system, for the sustainable finger-painting of organic produce test. Fully charged must be her iPad, for she must read something, anything, written by a white American woman about Africa. She's almost three years old, for Christ's sake!"

OK, it ended a bit un-Yoda-ish.

Her moments of independence are almost as endearing as her moments of desperate need, which fall just short of her quirky routines. I cannot mount the staircase until she has ascended the entire thing, then turned around at the top to make sure I haven't cheated. There is no verbal command to rise - "Lord Papa, riiiise (pouring on the Star Wars today) - just the implicit permission given when she assesses the situation as acceptable, then turns her back to me and goes about her business.

But nevermind the top of the stairs, she must be at the top of her game soon, which means laughing and smiling and taking nothing seriously, as she is a scant five months away from assuming the mantle of Big Sister. There is a boy looming, asking that we clear a space for him on or about January 26th.

It's funny how uninteresting this one is for us. Pregnancy number one was "all hands on deck!" and all hands on belly. It was sweet and touching to monitor the growing mass, and to cradle it warmly when we were quiet. It was all-important to have crackers and water at the ready when mama complained of nausea.

"I don't feel so good."

"Okay, you go lay down, I'll get you whatever you need."

This time?

"I don't feel so good."

"Jesus. Still? Shouldn't that have passed by now?

We are excited and awed, but also clinical and cynical, so there is so much less giddiness this time. I'm sure a second marriage is much the same way. The wedding part, anyway. All you remember from last time is which parts hurt the most and took the longest and how can we save a few bucks this time. How about for this particular birth we mix the old-fashioned with the new-fangled: I'll be outside in the waiting room waiting for the doctor to tell me it's all done and all good, except by "outside in the waiting room" I mean somewhere else, generally; and by "waiting for the doctor to tell me" I mean shoot me a text message when it's over and I'll be there in five-ten minutes.

I've seen the birth of a child. All new-age philosophy (ha! There's meaningless term!) and grossly urbane sentimentalism aside, that's a messy and unpleasant business. Women are happy to tell their men "You need to be there for me and the baby," but they have the benefit of not being able to see what's going on down there. Any of them who demand to have some kind of a mirror in place to watch their own little puppet show are just trying to find another item on the list of things they can talk about to sound deep and laudably sophisticated, without actually having their hearts in it. It's gross. You cannot possibly want to see it. There is only dignity in admitting that. Dads: Resist. Be in the room, but stay up near your wife's head where you can't see anything. We had a nurse at the daughter's coming out party who tried to trick me into looking. I remember a Brady Bunch episode where someone was trying to sue the Bradys for giving him whiplash in a car accident. One of the Bradys dropped a briefcase behind him in the courtroom, and he swung his head around at the noise. Ha! Caught you! That's what the nurse did to me.

"Wow, you can see the head!"

She said it with so much excitement that a reflex kicked in, and one more thing that I swore I would never see was scratched from the list. She snickered at me. I hate that woman.

No name finalized yet, but I know I will call him Butch. It is my dad's nickname, and I am not letting it get lost.

He said A Kite line is a Highway to Heaven

2010-08-26T09:14:00.000-07:00

When you only get about 15 readers a day, it's easy to get a little obsessed with checking the Sitemeter to see who has come by. Had a visit this morning from the aptly named town of Farmland, Indiana. They have a traffic counter on their website, too, which shows that they beat me by about 10 visits yesterday. Here's hoping they stay exactly as popular as they want to be.

There's a fella what used to live there named Ansel Toney, and they called him The Kite Man:

"Most anytime you could find Ansel out in his shop grinding away on his lathe, making spools or cutting out patterns for his unique kite string winders. He made the same type of string winders his father showed him how to make, now over 100 years ago."

Work yourself to a bloody stump 18 hours a day for your whole life; I would say that flying kites for the last stretch is a fine way to go out.

Thanks for coming by, Farmland reader.

Photo and story here.

Smells Like Rockin' Robin

2010-08-23T08:41:00.000-07:00

Finally, Nirvana makes a real contribution to music:

H/T to Nicole at Autumn People.

Just Watching the Light Change

2010-08-22T07:57:00.000-07:00

It's changing here and it's changing her
And it's mostly in my head.
It's changed so much and took so long,
My gold's all turned to lead.

She's changed enough she looks like me,
It flattens me to say.
Because the more things change, the line now goes,
The more I feel ashamed.

"Life is a limbo dance, but it's a question of where you get down, not how low you can get."

On Responsibility and Ambivalence

2010-08-20T10:11:00.000-07:00

This began as a comment on my Soft Thinking post, but it quickly became large enough to be a post of its own. Small-tee tim thought perhaps that (The Other) Andy hadn't quite gotten the point when 9/11 happened, because (The Other) Andy stated that he personally didn't care whether the mosque is built or not. It was not a position on whether we had a social, cultural, or global responsibility to allow or deny it, but an expression of how he thought about it when he rolled out of bed in the morning. Probably sounded like this: "Is there coffee, sweetheart?"

We tend to think that everybody does what we do. We expect everybody to have roughly similar operating parameters when it comes to opinions. Mosque at Ground Zero? You are either for it or against it, no ambivalence allowed. If you are ambivalent, you must have missed the point, or perhaps are just plain being intellectually lazy. We'll assume you are ignorant of the issues, and some part of us will probably have you tending a still in the Arkansas backwoods. This is because in modern times we are trained by our saturation in the internet to get a sense that everybody everywhere is debating the same things that we are. A guy in Chicago writes a piece about a mosque, and 100 commenters from 80 different cities in 10 different countries log in to contribute. And this happens on thousands of websites every day, so it must be that everybody on Earth - or at least in the civilized world - is involved. And if you come across someone who says "A what at where? Who cares?" Then he must be an anomaly. Slack-jawed, to boot.

However, there is an enormous number of people who do not subject themselves to the roiling and contentious political blogosphere like we do every day - because they don't like it. I am on the fence, as you can tell if you read much of my blog. I fully admit that I find myself drawn to it, but I like myself less as a person, Husband, and Father when I get involved. And there are people who don't get involved. Who never turn on the cable news channels. People who don't go to rallies or protests. They tend to have a bit more fun with it even when they do. The world is a very, very different place for them, and much, much more pleasant. You think that they are in danger because they are not paying attention, and they think you are in danger because you have forgotten how to be happy without someone else's failing being the source of it. Like it or not, we are angry people. Just look at the things we read and the mean little comments we leave everywhere we go. It's a little scary. Check your list of daily reads and see how many go a day without commanding the widespread derision of someone, denigrating someone, dismantling someone's beliefs or opinions about something, or taking pleasure in someone "getting his comeuppance." Right now, I am leaving a comment on a piece that I wrote about why an entire religion should be condemned. No matter what Islam has done, that is just plain nasty of me, and unmistakably wrong. Morally wrong. Ethically wrong. It cannot be painted any other way. And yet this sort of thing is the most abundant example of our cultural impetus in the 21st century.

For many people, there is a genuine ambivalence to this sort of thing, because for folks who do not dedicate themselves to endless debates, who are not alternately enraged by disagreement and enraptured by like-mindedness, this is a very simple issue. It boils down to a simple question: "What is wrong with you people?" Muslims, non-Muslims, mosque supporters and mosque detractors. This should not matter.

Of course, Islam makes it matter, because it has proven that it has no respect for us. That it wants us dead. The tired "Not all Muslims are terorrists" line is bland, empty, and immature, because every human on planet Earth is aware of that. However, there are huge numbers of Muslims who wish that all Muslims were terrorists, and truly believe that they should be. That it is their duty to kill infidels. That's why it is a problem. You just don't get that with any other faith.

Does this mean that I or anyone else has any kind of imperative or responsibility to have a voice about it? You are taking a mighty almighty position if you are willing to decree that I do. Does it mean that it is wrong of a happy family man in Louisiana to personally not care if it gets built or not? You are making some haughty assumptions about mankind's affinity for your personal machinations if you think it is. I am sure every man has some beliefs that he would use to to weigh in on this and other issues, but there is nothing saying he has to, or that he is wrong for abstaining. Truly, it is a monumental failing for a man to abandon his beliefs, but is an equal failing for him to ride them unbridled through every unlocked door.

Sports and Politics

2010-08-20T09:27:00.000-07:00

Sports is where people are happy because their side won. Politics is where people are happy because the other side lost.

Soft Thinking

2010-08-19T12:15:00.000-07:00

If there turns out to be a God, upon meeting Him I will gladly tell Him that I made the following statement completely and honestly believing in its verity:

'The first person to bring up the idea of the Cordoba House at Ground Zero was not surprised by the first person who said "Hell no!" In fact, his idea was motivated by the expectation of it.'

I have to take a moment to digress from my usual, holier-than-thou, not gonna dirty myself up with politics, abstinence from controversy, to address the fear that is evident in soft thinking. The kind of soft thinking that refuses to take a hard look at the actual ramifications - or, to actually be quite generous, pros and cons - of building the Ground Zero mosque, in favor of taking a hard look at something that is the opposite of relevant to this issue: Their fellow Americans. It is soft thinking. The thinking that does not take a stand. They'll say they are taking a stand against the horrible people who oppose the building of the Muslim center, but that's like a 100lb woman yelling obscenities at a 250lb cop - she knows he is not going to hit her because in the end he is on her side. And because she knows that is more important to him than it is to her, she invents an opposition to him, and is comfortable and safe doing all the grandstanding she wants. Oh, she's tough and taking a stand alright, just ask her.

In this case it is the kind of soft thinking that I think is practiced by people who, in their quiet, personal, buried-deep-truly-honest parts, won't admit even to themselves that their reason for supporting the building of the thing has nothing to do with freedoms or rights. Instead it has to do with the cowardly fact that they are afraid as Americans that if New York - and by extension America - refuses this mosque, Islam will retaliate. It is a reasonable thing to be afraid of, if you are the sort of soft thinker for whom being afraid of your enemy is reason enough to let him win. And mostly they fear this because they know, down in those silent, honest places, how hard they have worked to make America a weakened and vulnerable place, and now they are in danger of paying for it. So of course they must let the Mosque be built. The safety they have toiled to compromise depends on it. These are the kind of people who would have said, years ago, "Let the British stay, why don't we? I'm sure they'll see to it that we aren't too uncomfortable."

We have no machine or lasso that can bring out this honesty in each other, but we do know what is in there when we look at ourselves, and we snuff the uncomfortable truths quickly with pantomimes and shouts and other misdirections. I think the people in support of the Ground Zero mosque are doing a lot of this.

It's Not Easy

2010-08-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

I know, and you know. It's not easy. So it is good of you to keep coming by. I'm making an effort, see? But sometimes a thing just doesn't happen, and then it keeps on not happening, and though good things are going on and nobody is hurting and golf is played and drinks are had in the sun, the day still ends on nothing.

There are guh-billions of blogs and websites, and I could be a-linking them to fill the empty places, but that's like some diet pill, false satiation, and I know in the end that my end won't conform to the sham. Busy? Sure, but you're busy, too, and you keep it up. Tired? C'mon. Who isn't? That's no excuse. Fact is, sometimes it just don't come.

One digs the holes and fills the wagon, the other seems forever on the oven. The third? All shoes and hair clips and thinking that wagons and ovens are things for having fun. No wonder she still loves us - she thinks that everything that we toil over is as amusing to us as it is to her. Which means that everything is amusing. Always. She is so much good and right.

I'll get something going again. Honest.

Comprehensive Movie and Book Review

2010-08-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

Here's your roundup of every blockbuster movie and best seller that will be happening for the foreseeable future:

Look at me, I've written something about people being raped six ways from Sunday! And the people not being raped are all closet Nazis. And the only other people in the story are evil corporate types who like guns. Give me millions of dollars, please.

That Dragon Tattoo thing comes immediately to mind, of course, but it feels a lot like just one of many.

And the universally interchangeable title in the Non-fiction section:

"That Guy's an Asshole, or 10 Things You Should Try Really Hard to Hate Before Breakfast"

Never Admit It

2010-08-10T09:51:00.000-07:00

If I was gnawing on the front sights of a .45, noose around my neck, enjoying the smooth rumble of the engine in a closed garage, I would simply laptop my way to The Bleat, and come out whistling, with an urge to buy and deliver groceries for old ladies. I admit it: I believe I have a strictly platonic, cyber, man-crush on James Lileks. And - gasp! - like, he doesn't even know I exist!

Two recent favorites, that just make everything seem alright:

Friday, April 2
Gwape Jewwy

I know Lileks isn't exactly breaking news to you, and sometimes I do feel like the last person that turned on the internet. Every new thing that amazes me or appalls me, or amazes and appalls me, is old news to everyone else. It's like asking a 35 year old with a joint in his hand if he has ever heard of this totally rad thing called Lollapalooza. Um, like, yes, idiot. Or better yet, like being an alien come to Earth, wildly pointing out dogs at every turn, just to have Earthlings say "Yup, we know all about that. We walk around behind them and clean up after them when they shit. What's that? No, no, We own them. Really."

Try selling that to an alien observer: "The internet? No, no, we run it. Really."

Speaking of the internet, I just turned it on. Sort of. Years ago, things were going pretty badly in terms of internet connection around here. I heaved my inconsiderable rage at Comcast, and decided to leave them in the rearview. My wife had not yet built up ample skepticism over my troubleshooting skills or general powers of discernment, so she agreed with my decision. Naturally, the blame for the hell that followed is all hers.

DirecTV service is lousy, and not user friendly. No need to go on about that.

Clear Wire is almost as bad an internet provider as the stack of 2x4's behind my shed. If I plug my router into one of those and then cut it in half, at least it will give me the pleasant smell of fresh cut wood. Clear Wire never did that for me. I am happy - not just ambivalent or in a diminished state of upset, but down right happy - to pay the early termination fee to those inept peddlers of server timeouts. Yes, they should be paid, and handsomely, for displaying such an uncommon level of inability to provide an internet signal. And I am smack in the middle of their map of a "turbo-doublehot-awesomeness signal strength" area. Clear Wire. I'd like to Clear my Wire all over their impish little faces.

Oh yeah, the problem way-back-when with the poor service that made me switch from Comcast in the first place? Piss-poor wireless router. Replacing it with a good one IMPROVED my Clear Wire signal to what I described above. Back to Comcast now, and surfing the net feels like time travel. If this is what it has been like for the rest of you all along, well then I am a bit upset that you never told me.

Carry on.

You A Moonshiner?

2010-08-06T17:16:00.001-07:00

Pour a drink and try not to be old Bob Mitchum tonight...

Oh No He Di-in't!

2010-08-06T09:20:00.000-07:00

Dateline Atlanta.

President Obama delivered a speech in Atlanta, Georgia. While he was not actually photographed twirling the pocket watch that was dangling from his zoot suit, his well-timed finger snaps and presumably accidental "I saaay-uh yessss-uh, 'cuz I am The President-uh!" which he used to conclude the speech, has been somewhat surprisingly ignored by the non-racists in favor of focusing on the more obvious racist propaganda: The use of the word "bamboozled." Completely non-racist people everywhere innocently and non-racist-ally made the non-racist evaluation that a black man giving a speech to black people in a city with a large black population could only know what that word means by having burned incense and smoked the ganja during an all night Denzel Washington movie marathon in which Malcolm X was the headline film.

Approached for comment, a spokesman for the President said "Oh Jesus Heironymous Christ. Are you fucking kidding me with this shit? I mean, uh, no comment."

A non-racist blogger was also asked for a comment:

"He speaks in code to his black brothers and sisters, urging them to bring down the white man! I wish he wasn't so racist!"

"But aren't you one of the countless bloggers who also recently posted and praised a video of Morgan Freeman for its seemingly very sensible message that the best way to get rid of racism is to stop talking about it?"

"Totally."

"But you haven't."

"Haven't what?"

"You haven't stopped talking about race."

"That message was for black people."

"Oh."

The Castle That Only God Knows

2010-08-06T06:00:00.000-07:00

This was our castle, Tenuta di Spannochia:

If I were the mailman, I would be saddened on days when there was no mail for this mailbox:

The people at the castle told us there was another one, Castiglione che Solo Dio Conosce: The Castle that Only God Knows. It would only take a short drive and a shorter walk to get there. Once there, on a hot day like today, following the water upstream from the base of the castle will lead you to a swimming hole. Forty-five minutes of hiking to the payoff. You'll be glad you did.

Most tales like this go wrong at some point. Ours is no different. The six of us first got lost on the drive, which began forebodingly at this sign:

Ours was the somewhat elderly placard on the bottom, barely announcing the castle, and pointing us to the right. We went. You have been on these gravelly fire roads before. Winding, slow, and dusty as hell, and every few minutes a spot that you think might be too much for the car. Even more so in this case, because the Fiat Panda - unlike you - had not been down these fore roads before. It performed beautifully. The directions did not.

"Stay right at the first two forks" had led us to one dead end, and two discussions over whether we were looking at a "fork," or a "turn." Semantics. The castle is above us somewhere, so just go uphill more.

The Panda could handle no more, so we parked and began the walk. Another wrong fork led us to ruin:

Ruins, anyway.

Some intrepid bushwhacking in swimming trunks and sandals found us to the castle from there, which thanks to my lazy camera work, remains known only to God. And from the castle we found the stream, and from the stream the trail, where more ruins awaited. A mill, with mill stones some 4 feet in diameter, now being slowly milled asunder by the Tuscan forest:

The payoff came some 2 hours later, which extended time had us on the verge of turning back before glimpsing something either emerald or blue, depending on the angle of the crouch that afforded the view.

I don't have pictures of the swimming hole. I guess all real blessings are spun up with an impetus towards anonymity, the urgings of which my soul dutifully respected, and that must be why the camera somehow managed to stay tucked away in the backpack on the bank. In that still pool along the route of some minor Italian waterway was a serenity and sincerity that was contained in none of the marbled wonders we had seen to that point. Man does beautiful things very well, but nature doesn't have to do them at all. They just come naturally.

It's Either Why We Have Summer...

2010-08-05T17:26:00.000-07:00

...Or why we have kids. You pick.

It's Hard to Know What to Do

2010-08-05T09:43:00.000-07:00

Gay marriage gets upheld in court, my computer heaves once as if a giant mole just burrowed under it because all three sides of the blogosphere have reason to erupt with joy.

Side one, The Left: To hell with popular opinion and the results of statewide voting, (my idea of) justice is finally served (by some judge somewhere)! Let's celebrate by washing the Subaru!

Side two, The Right: Dude, I can write angry shit about this one for like a week at least! I'm going to get soooo many comments! Let's celebrate by washing the pickup!

Side three, The Dipso: Yawns, gullets another sausage patty, and realizes with something close to actual schoolboy giddiness that it is INTERNATIONAL BEER DAY!!! Let's celebrate by washing our armpits before we wait at the door of our favorite bar until it opens!

Due to a strange shuffling of work schedules, I have a very peculiar five day weekend that just began. We have been reduced to 4 day weeks because the company is struggling a bit, but worry not, there's an app for that! An application for the Shared Work Program, that is. It's unemployment insurance for furloughed (reduced hours) employees. Who knew? Let's ask it this way: Who didn't know? Our HR rep, that's who! Fun game. Fortunately, we have one of those grumbly conspiracy theory types at work, the sort of fella who can never, ever, just shrug and say "ok." He's English, what do you expect? He just knew that there had to be some sort of compensation for getting hosed like this, and he was absolutely correct. Win one for the hardwired victim mentality, it literally paid off this time (that's how to use the word literally correctly, by the way. It is also important to point out, parenthetically, every instance in which you use the word literally correctly, by the way. Of equal importance is incorrectly believing that dragging out parenthetical interjections with otherwise unrelated blatherings is witty and endearing. Class dismissed).

Back to it: Five day weekend just begun. International Beer Day still very young. Seafair officially underway. Weather beautiful. Meats for smoking are on the grocery list. But, er, what's that you say? No. You don't mean it! Household projects to do? Come on, man!

It's all true. Weeds to be demolished, the shed to be cleaned, mostly so that I can get to the air compressor in order to use it in conjunction with the nail gun for a very small bit of finish work in here. Nothing is worse than a small job that takes a big job to get done. I once stated on one of the greatest blogs around that people don't get enough done because they are discouraged by the sudden realization that it usually takes a pretty big job just to get prepared for doing a job. We only want one kind of work in our recalcitrant lethargy, and that's the kind that gets done. We most certainly have no interest in the kind of work that must be labored through for hours just so you can get started working on the kind that gets done. The hardest part about going to work should be the getting out of bed. It's almost like forced volunteering, or like having to run out and drill for the oil, then bring it back and pour it your engine. Or even a little bit like when dad said "you have to clean the crawl space if you really want to know what it's like to drive my car." Didn't make sense at the time, but I see now that it still makes no sense at all. Thanks, dad.

I've said it, now I must do it. A bit of work to earn the beer today. The sky is clear and the weather couldn't be better. The work ethic builds. Perhaps if I imagine the job is at the top of these stairs:

You're Good All Around

2010-08-03T22:26:00.000-07:00

Something new has to come. You don't get to leave a brazen homage to grand materialism on the front page for too long, otherwise people might say bad things about you. Like "He makes me think bad things about myself." So it's down the page with the car. I mean, what kind of message are we sending to the kids with that overt, unabashed idolatry? Oh good golly, there might be some mildly ironic significance to that statement if you read just...a...little...longer...

As I read around the more spittle-free spots on the blogroll, I find out that people out there really are having a good time. Life can be good, it would appear. I agree. It is good in many ways, in many places.

Take Rome, for instance, where they seem to be happy having a problem with rampant - if elegant - graffiti:

The graffiti continues unabated. The local talent is remarkable and charming, even when it is happening right behind them:

Something in me said "Like, that's an accordion, man. Stop liking it so much." I could not.

Out in Tuscany they do happiness a bit differently, as well, though I sensed that the "phenomenal door" theme around Siena was a grandly orchestrated joke, put on by the locals just to make my efforts seem so...wrong:

In Montepulciano they are fond of their wine:

Found a pretty nice place to drink some, too:

This a picture, too:

What I Have Been Doing...er, Driving

2010-07-30T20:55:00.000-07:00

Infiniti G37 S. 3.7L V6. 328 HorsePower (yes, I always capitalize the Horse and the Power), dual throttle bodies (yes, that means two cold air intakes, one on each side of the V6), rear wheel drive, 6 speed manual transmission. 4 piston calipers up front, 2 piston in the rear, to stop the 18 inch wheels when they are (possibly) going (would never happen) just a bit (not me, anyway) too fast.

My take is this: If people are still wandering about under the idea that the Japanese simply don't do sports sedans that are on par with the Europeans, those people should visit an Infiniti dealership. I am West Seattle's newest monster.

I know, after this hiatus and a trip to Italy there should be some mind blowing post to welcome you all back, but with my tendency to misalign my moments of significance, my epitaph will probably be:

"Hey St. Peter, this guy might not even be dead."

So Many Ways to Fly

2010-07-08T20:56:00.000-07:00

It is nearly impossible to be upset while sitting on the patio of an 80 degree darkening twilight, the dog on the concrete at my side, as loose a pack of flesh as she'll ever allow herself to be. Other things need you as severely as a dog needs you, some things more. A child, a wife, an ailing family member, a loose vehicle on a tight road - but nothing is so bad at acting like it doesn't need you as the hound is. Dogs just don't do nuance. I twitch my toe on the dry cement, and she is up. Good doggie, now lay down. What's that? Once behind the left ear? Sure thing, here you go.

I use this evening to bid a brief farewell to Seattle. In the distance I hear the music from one of the things to which I always look forward in this town, Summerfest. My neighborhood does an enjoyable little street fair one weekend each summer, and aside from the ubiquitous political petitioners and baby savers/killers, it is an all around good time. The kind of fun that makes even the most particular sort of man comfortable with music he doesn't like, because it is live and the stage is made of fresh air and fresh hearts. I expect it will be almost uniquely luscious this year, because it was only Tuesday that our city finally got the sun and heat that it has been waiting for, so this large party coincides with West Seattle's first chance to cover its bald spots in favor of baring its higher, thigher parts. Little dreams walk around out there in the form of female versions of svelte fenders, and everyone's mood is up a bit for its occurrence.

My farewell will start tomorrow and last about ten days, as I rocket purposefully towards Italy. The intent is to take a laptop and give you all something to enjoy while I am out there, but I try to not force feed myself technology when I can help it, so I promise nothing. Having said that, we will be staying most of the time at what should prove to be a hypnotic little farmhouse near Siena, so if wireless is available, I can see a few mornings on the patio being spent with a festive "ciao!" for my faithful amici.

I cannot make out who is playing down there on the California stage in The Junction right now, and the schedule on the website doesn't start until tomorrow, so I throw the headphones back on to find some Social Distortion pleasantly playing the sun down for me. Dog still mostly dead, I still completely alive.

Alla prossima, mei comapgni di viaggio!

The Dictionary of The Never Left Unsaid

2010-07-08T08:37:00.000-07:00

In an affront to what seems like efforts to the contrary, people get older. It is happening to me. I don't know if I am getting more or less cynical, but I do know that a softness is creeping in, and it isn't the bad kind.

Words mean things. A friend and I once had a theory that we could overuse the N-bomb to the point that it would be just another spent slur that has little effect. It worked - for the two of us - but we never had the nerve to break it out publicly in any but the safest company. Weak, but exceedingly sensible, even if only by accident. We were young...er.

New things are regularly joining The Dictionary of The Better Left Unsaid: Retard. Fag. Jokes about fatness and disease are losing their appeal. Racial slurs in general are boring and plainly tasteless. It's just nothing I need.

The blog title falls into that category in a way. Long before the inception of these miserly Chronicles, a person close to me was revealed as an alcoholic. Not the romanticized celebrity kind, but the hardcore kind that self-indulgent Indie film makers exploit for their personal aggrandizement. When you watch the up and down of the scripted addict on the screen you get to be a little empathetic and tender about it, especially knowing that when the credits roll it will likely not be after a peak in the chart, rather an abysmal valley. What you get to do there is be sad about the victim's addiction even when the movie is rolling along all brightly in one of his clean and sober periods, because you know how it is going to end. When it happens in real life, you don't get to be so steady. Hope forces you to rejoice in their highs, and get crushed anew by every damnable low.

I am no therapist, but my approach to this was always one of sternly focused indifference. I thought it was my job to not put his addiction in the spotlight by hiding liquor bottles and markedly avoiding anything that might call alcohol to mind in even the most tertiary way. I kept on keepin' on, and in a way grew even more flippant about my own drinking as a result. I have been arrogant about my ability to drink regularly and steadily without issue, and admit that much of that is likely due to the close-at-hand example I have of what a drinking problem looks like. I used that example to know for certain that a drinking problem does not look like me. I was safe.

I still am. "The Dipso Chronicles" was an idea I had for the title of a book that I fancied I might write one day, based on a history of light debauchery fueled by moderate boozing. Go that Hemingway route, so to speak. Ultimately, I just slapped that moniker up at the top of this place. It shouldn't be there. It just isn't fair, nor is it particularly intelligent, to mobilize our own sense of personal safety in the face of another's fallibility, just to feign a little edginess. After all, we have a certain obligation to each other, both the healthy and the afflicted, to generate a little sense of hope by the things we do. Mocking someone's heartache is hardly a step in the right direction. Nor is ignoring one's own.

When our ability to hope for a happy ending gets replaced by a simple desire for the best possible one, I think we call it resignation. When our capacity for hope proves so great that it will not let us resign, I think we call that Love.

Love - call it entry number one in The Dictionary of The Never Left Unsaid.

Heads Up

2010-07-07T09:27:00.000-07:00

I am going to be changing the name of this place pretty soon. I may also change the URL, but I will be sure to give plenty of warning if I do that.

Stay tuned!

Rural

2010-07-06T20:17:00.000-07:00

"I think I might like to be resented just a little for a haughty and safe rural lifestyle. City be damned."

"I think you're trying to pretend again. And you can't even do that right, because you put down one too many layers of it"

"I think I resent you for that, and that's why I am here. Supposed to be my own man. Supposed to not need anyone. There are some men who seem still forever, in a good way, like the farthest they ever move is from the well to the block. Or like they live in a stern little square of purpose - never worrying, always producing. So you know where they'll be. Some men are the kind who are always come to for something, and some are the kind who are always going. Everyone wants to be the come to. And here I am, come to you."

"You are thinking of bartenders. I am not a bartender."

"You ought to be. My soul looks better over varnished mahogany than it does in this musty den. I need some kind of a saving here, but I don't know what to give up in order to let you save me."

"I'll settle for your Lincoln."

The road never complains. The car complains against the road's grades and its holes, but the road never complains. Who's got somewhere to be, and who's already there? There is the kind of road that you take, and there is the kind of road that takes you. I stopped taking roads soon as I broke the city. This one now is hot, and it is taking me the way most things seem to have, which is to say that I am a stow away. The benchmarks of my life have been things already moving, and I have simply grabbed a bumper and tried to stay out of sight while they carried me along. The kind of uncomfortable success known best by the spineless is the kind they figured their way into more than worked their way into. I do a lot of figuring.

Here I figure that my should-be bartender friend would benefit from some kind of a foreign sounding name, best if it be South American. Ramirez or Pablo or Alberto are a solid way to sound sufficiently exotic while being stealthily desultory about your relationship. Like it's ok to come right out and be proud that you've the geniality to befriend some sweaty devil, but are wise enough to keep a lot of locked gates.

Instead, his name is Tom, and when he has his face in a glass or on his feet, I always feel like something is about to happen so I best not get started. The rest of the things in the world are all about to end. Not stuck in the middle or pulling up the rear, just sort of a dead thing. A specter. A trap happens when there's too many walls. Limbo happens when you can't find enough. It's like learning what exploding feels like, but without any momentum. I get in this limbo when Tom looks like he is on to something, and I don't want to make a mess of it, because there's only one kind of angel - the one you have.

I can't wait forever, though. "My Lincoln is no good for you. Too pretty. The car, I mean."

"Well, there's compliments and there's insults, and there's whatever in the hell you just said. I'll move on from there. Weren't you supposed to be moving out to the mountains, or something? To learn the value of work - is that what I heard?"

"The mountains. No. No mountains in Ohio. And I know the value of work, so there's nothing to learn. Nobody ever had a problem not knowing something. There's this theory going that people get afraid of things they don't know. It's how our professorial gentiles excuse the cretins for hating Negroes or women or cosmonauts. "Oh, he's just afraid of something he doesn't understand." Nonsense. Ever been afraid of something? I have, and I have never known anything so clearly as I knew that I needed to be gone from it, and it needed to never come near me. You show me a frightened man, and I'll show you a man who is so sure of what he knows that he wants it to stop. It is when you actually do know that you get afraid, and knowing the value of work is why I have been so afraid of doing it."

"What, because it's hard? That's a pretty cheap way to bow out."

"Simpler than that. Or cheaper. It's failure. I know failure, too, and it terrifies me. Real work only has two outcomes: Either you did, or you didn't. I almost always didn't, and I don't want to not do again. That's what failure is."

"If that's what failure is, then what is Ohio?"

Independent

2010-07-05T19:08:00.000-07:00

Noise canceling headphones: If you have not yet, do. It's like I was stuck on the couch for thirty years watching a Michael Moore documentary marathon, staring at the remote that was just out of reach, and finally getting up the motivation to get off my ass and change the channel. Sweet salvation, and what the hell took me so long?

We've been two straight weekends of vacation. The beach in Oceanside, Oregon for this time. It is just outside of Tillamook, to give you folks something to be interested about. The unholy stench it takes to raise a little cheese and butter seems too much, but then I do what we all do with our luxuries: run far from the source and ignore nature's input, lest it interfere with my regal, leather-cushioned, aromatherapeutic enjoyment of the distantly related end product. We have it good. And I don't mean that cynically or sarcastically. We really, really do have it good, and God help me if I ever forget that to the point that I can no longer joke about it.

I may have said it like this before: Everything the child does is still new. Even if she has done it before, the difference in perception that comes with just a few months separation is chasmic (probably not a word) when a person is barely more than 2 years old. She also has the benefit of diminished expectations, which is why I am sure she was much less disappointed with 55 degrees and raining on the beach in July than I was.

Going to the beach falls into a category of "I don't want to go home without having..." In this case, that thing I don't want to go home without having done is swimming, like, in the ocean. No matter the weather, it needed to happen for even just a couple of minutes. And I really wanted to get the kid out there, too. She likes water, and we have taken her to swimming lessons at the local pool, but for a two year old the difference between the pool and the ocean is like the difference between driving a minivan to Albertson's, and being put on a rodeo bull blindfolded and backwards.

The purity of a child's reactions is epiphanous. She's a hell of a sport, and I get a little choked up with pride just to remember her two-year old soldier-like voracity for the surf. Which is to say that you could see it scared her, but the prospect of having one more wave break against her drove her deeper. Provided, of course, that Papa hold her hand: "Papa hafta bring me deeper?!" Of course Papa do, sweetie. And Papa did. I picked her up and took her out until the waves were breaking against my chest. Goddamn, it was cold. Each new wave sent her so quickly from terror to laughter that my slowed reactions only had the time to laugh along. I rejoiced like you wouldn't believe in watching that young thing being so honestly wracked with glee, and a Northern Pacific that has been shrouded in gloom for nearly a year felt warm as a fresh apple pie - it was, after all, the Fourth of July.

Camp

2010-06-25T07:10:00.001-07:00

It's off to the woods with us later today. Some skinny inlet out in the distant reaches of this here Puget Sound is waiting for us and our 4 cylinder turbo all wheel drive sub-pseudo-suv. Not in the least dischordant, I tell you. The crickets will not even bat an eye. The only thing that will feel out of place is the stuff that's already there. I've only been a city boy for a few years now, but already I am forgetting that some trees were not planted by well-meaning committees of do-gooders in matching silk screened t-shirts, posing for the local blog's photo op. It is high time that the child learns this, too. She waters our plants with us ("nee more watuh in Dora wahting can!"), mows the lawn along side me with her little pink bubble mower (the bubble function disabled due to the fact that it was an extremely poorly designed bubble function)("papa mow duh lawn duhmorrow?"), and gets dirty as she should. But aside from a couple of early hiking trips when she was very, very little, she has not yet been given the chance to discern the difference between working at your nature and enjoying it. I will ease the transition for her, using bacon dogs.

Aghast as you may be to hear it, I will not be out there with a laptop or an iPod or an iPhone or an iPad making sure to update the Chronicles for the next couple of days. I will more likely be getting told by the myWife to get out of the herTent because I can't conrtrol the myFarts. It's all meat and beer, kids, and I am not ashamed.

One of my most anticipated events: watching the dog go absolutely bonkers when we get out there. She hasn't had a chance to run free for a long time.

Thar She Blows

2010-06-22T21:45:00.000-07:00

Thar she blows. The door fills in as a test run for the new layout. And I expect to be frustrated again, as every time I post pics from this damned Mac, they can't be "clicked to embiggen."

In case you need some proof that I actually worked on this thing. Of course, that might not be me. And lookee dat, it embiggens. A close look shows many large rocks hiding in the shadows back there. It's where I keep them so I don't hear them when they make this sound: "Andy, you gonna do something with all those rocks you took half a day off from work to pick up from some dude in an alley?" It's a terribly annoying sound.

Poly still fresh, still very shiny. Not like me.

A detail. Hardware needs some cleaning up. Exactly like me.

And there she is. Now, who we gonna get to finish that trim? What's that honey, you say his name is - hey, that ain't cool.

The Good Things That We Are Not

2010-06-21T07:53:00.000-07:00

We need help. We all need help. When we're lucky, it is sitting at the breakfast table with us, hardly knowing how much help it is. Happy Father's Day to me.

A bit self-absorbed, that bit, but my father is still alive and rockin' in his mid-sixties, so no sense giving one of those poignant memorials. He would be aghast. If he read this. He doesn't know I do it, though my Sitemeter occasionally registers hits from Aurora, Colorado, and that could be him. Personal subjects have always been a guarded thing with us, so I wouldn't be surprised if he was patiently reading along over here and keeping mum about it in order to save me from the discomfort he knows I feel whenever my family learns something personal about me. We get along wonderfully, our family, but it's three boys, a dad and a mom, so we are pretty much a bunch of emotionally shut-off man-children with our catalogs of secret personal tragedies that we all actually know about each other, but have enough love for each other that we don't dare turn any of them into conversations. We're funny like that. Funnier still is that I also tend to keep my personal successes from them. Too ashamed of my failures, and too embarrassed by my successes.My dad will be wheezing out his last one day, look at me, and say: "I always liked your blog. Good job." At least he would if life were like the movies.

Sometimes life is like the movies. Like one of those miserably self-absorbed film festival type movies that never does a God Damned thing except give vapid intellectuals something to be all "in the know" about.

I was musing about all manner of depressing thoughts over the weekend - hence the opening sentence up there - like this one: One of the most important things we have to own up to in our lives is the list of good things that we are not. We are all supposed to try to be, at a basic level, able to understand who and what we are so that we can act on that knowledge. Strengths and shortcomings, the bleakness and the brightness. But I look at my daughter and I think of my dad, and I understand that fatherhood is an exercise in relentless protection, which means that our charges cannot be subjected to our faded and peeling parts, even as they push to the fore. It must all be the restoration to them - digitally remastered and technicolor papa, and Da Vinci dressed up to look like it was painted this morning before the pancakes were flipped. The list of good things that we are not must be cataloged, I suppose, but then what? Hand-trucked down to the catacombs to sit under a drop cloth with the embarrassments and the failures and the "just-not-enough-backbone-to-put-this-in-the-gallery" efforts that we accumulate in our lives? There must be something more for it. But again, life is not like the movies. Instead, some lessons don't get learned. They just get added to your daily wardrobe like a leaden undershirt. Wake up, shave, don your depression, cover it with a tasteful sport coat, and get on out there. It dawned on me some time ago that as a child I never saw my dad cry, but it isn't because he never did. That's a tough horse to saddle.

Our June has had occasional sunbreaks - the editor underlines that word in red: "occasional what-whats?" Sunbreaks. Move to Seattle, it's in the "Forecaster's Dictionary of Depressing Deliveries," which is supplemental reading material in Pacific Northwest Meteorology School. Otherwise we have been mid-fifties and rainy. This is not the June of my fonder memories. Smells like November, if you ask me, and I am beginning to be a little suspicious that everyone is in on a big joke against me. Soon I am going to open a closet in search of another blanket to wrap around myself, and see the pile of real calendars that they have hidden from me, replaced by all of these versions with twelve pages that say June. You can get things over on people by assuming certain behaviors like "he won't flip the calendar ahead a month." If I did I would see June. Again. And then June again. I would probably roil in a sense of disaster for a moment, and then resolve to continue to play the dupe because I know that eventually, one of these Junes will look like the right thing, and I'll be able to enjoy it with fascination instead of expectation. The rest of you will know it is coming, and so curse it when it falls short. I can have it whenever I want. Paranoid? Sure, but I'll take the loony bin over this so-called "summer."

My little June roulette is nothing but false confidence, but confident is another of those good things that I am not. Off to the catacombs with it. Behind the padlock to sit next to the box of possible futures that I abandoned the moment they showed promise.

They flutter behind you, your possible pasts.
Some bright eyed and crazy,
Some frightened and lost.
A warning to anyone still in command
Of their possible future,
To take care.

Pink Floyd, "Your Possible Pasts," from The Final Cut.

Resubmitted: Fifth Installment of "Let's Get Rid Of," With a Bonus

2010-06-19T15:34:00.000-07:00

They're back for the Solstice Parade, Gerard reminds me. Fremont's annual festival of the intransigent and morally transient nude abominations. Slipping more easily out of their clothes than onto their seats, a gaggle of people with an unfortunate lack of appreciation for physical vanity take to the streets with just a little paint to hide their over-peddled and under-pedaled wares. The small justice is that the weather today is lousy.

Resubmitted from September of last year, one of my favorite episodes of "Let's Get Rid Of:"

The world in which I want to live is one of honesty. When people do something ridiculous, they own up to their real motivations, and do not throw up the fetid curtain of misdirection by claiming some nobility where none exists. When a person strips naked, paints his body,and then rides a bicycle through streets and neighborhoods where other people of deeply ingrained and differing ideas of decency live, he does not claim it to be in protest of our dependency on foreign oil, or even the sheer joy of riding bicycles (as I have heard said). Instead, when asked why he joins a group of people who insist their nudity on large numbers of people who most decidedly do not approve, he is honest and answers "because I really want to piss these people off."

Let's get rid of naked protesting.

Because this world of mine is an honest one, I am obliged to state that I do not disapprove only of the meanness behind the method, but I also disapprove of public nudity itself. I claim no religious doctrine, nor even any specific morality, for my position. I claim a sentiment, of sorts. The kind of sentiment that many who are the type to join naked protests base their voting records and kayak purchases on: Everybody else is doing it, it must be right. Except in my case, "everybody else" is an awful lot closer to actually being everybody else than the nudists election day everybody else - which is a lot more like half of everybody else. Indeed, with the exception of a handful of isolated and probably cannibalistic forest dwellers, I really am talking about everybody else. It's the everybody else who decided millenia ago, and continue to agree to this day, that wearing clothes is a very good idea. There isn't much else that meets with as much global agreement than the idea that we really need to put some clothes on before we go out into public every day. How, then, does the nude protester justify his claim that going out there and riding naked is a perfectly natural, morally innocuos, socially normal thing to do? By lying to himself, and to us.

I know it seems like a bit of an overstatement, but there really is no societal equivalent in terms of bald antagonism than the naked protest. While it can certainly bring more attention to the protesters themselves, there is no way that nudity can enhance awareness of any cause other than nudity. Any naked gathering which is ostensibly organized around some other unifying theme is unfailingly followed by plenty of debate - but never about that theme, only about the rights and wrongs of nudity. It has very likely been this way at every naked demonstration that has ever been organized, which leaves one of two options for the people involved: They are either too dimwittedly enamored of the self-assured exceptionalness of their own misguided exhibitionism to be able to absorb the lessons of the past, or they are fully aware of those lessons and are intentionally using this tactic to anger people. I'll give the latter to the organizers, and the former to many of the signers-on.

And of course, you're all ugly.

As Promised, A Bonus:

This series has now included Pit Bulls, mangoes, movies showcasing exceptional minorities vs. bumbling racist white people, organic peanut butter, and naked protesters. I have a proposition:

We slather a bunch of naked protesters in organic peanut butter and mango chutney, lock them in a movie theater showing an endless loop of "Remember the Titans," and unleash a pack of Pit Bulls from the local rescue on them. We'll give the protesters their bicycles, too. It'll keep them from mucking up traffic.

To Drink It In

2010-06-18T09:49:00.000-07:00

We go places in a mouse-click's time that are otherwise unimaginable. Sometimes I am as fascinated as I am disgusted by this place, and there is nothing for it but some of the hard contemplation. Other times, I am just fascinated.

The button said "Next Blog." My mouse did click upon it, and it took me to a Corner of Heaven:

MOMENTOS from Nuno Rocha on Vimeo.

Sadness and hope, people. By turns, the world's go-to cocktail.

Play Misty for Me

2010-06-16T09:40:00.000-07:00

I don't really know what to do to today, so I have settled on this:

Seattle Mist Tryouts.

The Onion Steals From Me (and pretty much anyone else with any sense, so I guess it really isn't stealing)

2010-06-15T08:25:00.001-07:00

Soccer Officially Announces It Is Gay

Exuberant H/T to The Other Andy

The Good Old Days are as Dead as They Come

2010-06-12T09:31:00.000-07:00

You know that channel that you haven't watched in 15 years, but you just know that every 13 year old girl who has been caught "sexting" watches it religiously? Yeah, they used to have music videos on it. Now they're just havering.

World Cup Anthem (Or Was it Anathema?)

2010-06-11T12:23:00.000-07:00

With long days and longer breaths, I could probably put together a somewhat exahaustive definition of manhood. It would be easier to define its opposite:

Soccer.

The start of the World Cup fills the once comfortable bars with Vespa riders and scarves. Every table of eyes glued to the screen is a table of explicit androgyny. Barkeepers reluctantly cater to the throngs of people who aren't used to drinking this much, and so bear more potential for disaster than the usual crowds of practiced dipsos, especially when coupled with one of soccer's two greatest traditions: inexplicable eruptions of fan violence. The worst American sports fans are saints compared to the legion of jack-toothed hipsters who think manliness is embodied by a bottle to the back of a head.

Emerge from your mothers' basements, software engineers, and pretend to be sports fans for a few weeks! Crawl out from your coffee houses, skinny-jeaned acoustic guitar heroes, and yearn for the street cred you've never had! Don those scarves, blare those God-awful horns, and abandon integrity, strength, and honesty in pursuit of the world's gayest prize! For ye are the trumpeters of an American movement some 60 years in the almost-making: The emergence of soccer as a popular sport in the United States! Nevermind that people stronger than you have failed at lesser tasks. This is soccer, and if your pseudo-fathers could almost come close to nearly legitimizing it in American sports, than by God, so can you!

In the meantime, do something to rein in those bitch-tits, fella.

That was Saturday. Sunday Came by Accident.

2010-06-09T08:18:00.000-07:00

Boon or boondoggle, whatever. Saturday happened. On Tuesday morning, daylight doing a timid little maneuver to wake me at about 4:40AM, I remember Sunday.

The team of three drove North towards City Center for the gathering before the breast cancer race. Does "breast" or "cancer" get capitalized? Surely I feel right proper about the noun that is Breast, but I feel that cancer needs to be delivered small insults at every turn, given its malevolent history. From now on: Breast cancer. Up yours, disease.

Much rain on the road, my favorite-to-malign Alaskan Way Viaduct, AKA: The 99. The exit was to Western Ave, which exit you sort of rise up to, and then instantly drop down from, with an ill-advised crosswalk at the bottom. We barely stopped in time to avoid hitting the car in front of us. The car behind us was unable to do as well.

"Oh shit!" My wife, driving.

"What? We're stopped." Me, just in time to hear the skidding tires. I didn't know from whence, but for some reason, no part of my brain considered that it might be bearing down from our six. I just scanned left, right, and front to no avail, and then felt the jolt. It wasn't much of an impact, at least we and the child didn't seem to think so, and the rear end of the pretty little Acura lady-car that my wife drives wasn't much moved by it, either (Briefly: I have driven in 3 different models of Acura, enough times to pass judgment on all of them in conditions up to and including deep, heavy snow and ice. If I sprung a battery of new thumbs, they would all be "up" for Acura. If I liked the styling a bit more, they would be well near the top of my new car list). The steel beam that is the hidden part of the bumper came loose and was hanging, as was the left side of the dual exhaust and its muffler. I yanked the bumper out, re-hung the exhaust in its grommet, popped a body panel back into place, and we drove home. You would have to be told there was an accident in order to spot the evidence on her car. By this point in our industrial evolution, that is exactly as it should be.

His Mid-90's Toyota didn't fare so well, but front-ends are built to crumble anymore. As a result, he fared just fine. The car was towed away.

It was an exercise in decency through and through, but for a silly little lady who came late to the party. She nearly stopped in time, but ultimately gave a little bumber-tap to the car that had hit ours. After looking about and talking to us for a few minutes she decided she was comfortable with the way things were, and she informed us that she was leaving. My wife and I noted her license plate number, which the police were eager to record so they could properly cite her for a hit and run. I noted her demographic as being particularly Seattle, and so was unsurprised by her eagerness to ignore her civic duty here. Civic duty is a thing best saved for gatherings and celebrations of civic duty, not for actual community interaction, and she, too was on her way to the breast cancer race. Can't let a little thing like a car accident in which you make yourself responsible to two other drivers get in the way of your need to be seen and to be able to tell people about the supernice thing you did today. Morgan's list has its standard-bearers here in Seattle, that's for certain.

But decency it was. The fellow who hit us did no carping, we did no finger pointing, the police were simply as professional as can be, and the very first thing everyone did was to make sure that everyone else was ok. Everyone except the 5'3", 200lb diesel female pit bull with the high-and-tight haircut who was, unremarkably, only concerned about herself. I swear people, the Seattle thing is not a stereotype, it's evidence. Of what? I'll leave you to work that out.

This is Getting Old

2010-06-08T08:52:00.000-07:00

Three times now, and I officially consider myself the Coincidental Genius.

I write up a few piffling words about growing up, then I head over to The Bleat to find that Mr. Lileks has, too. Granted he does it much, much better.

The other two?

Me: It's getting to be last straw, rifle in the bell tower time around here.
Him: You know where this is leading, don’t you? That’s right: the clocktower, with a rifle.

And Here.

I had to dig through Gerard's Sidelines archives to locate his citing of the first convergence. Something big must be brewing.

The Burden and the Boon

2010-06-07T07:05:00.000-07:00

One post down I wondered how much I would have to offer you based on the past weekend. Nothing or much? Much, it turns out.

Saturday was burden saved by boon. I hate feeling like I have cut corners, but I tried first to do my looming door work as right as I wanted to, and was stymied. This is what prevents me so often from getting things done. I am not an expert. Not a contractor, not a professional tradesman/carpenter/construction guy. I just want some wood. In this case, trim and some decorative mouldings for above the door, and my gut says "Going to the Home Depot for this is settling for less." I hit the lumber yard, this one with a nice, big showroom for doors and windows and other finished products, not just your run of the mill huge lot with bins of wood. Seemed like the right move. And as I mentioned before, I was looking forward to it.

But it was "protector of the tab" time in there. If you aren't wearing something - anything - that says Carhartt, and don't have a contractor's card, you get the dirtbag treatment. They have theirs, whatever it is, and are going to make sure that getting yours is a miserable exercise. Possibly one of the most common "human failing" type scenes in all of books and movies is the one of the lowly clerk using his position to exercise power and superiority over someone who is in a perceptibly uncomfortable situation. The small man enjoying his gambit of shaming you because you need something, and he has it. That was my half hour at the lumber yard.

I split and went to (ohgoddontsayit) Home Depot (ohgodhesaidit). Miracle of miracles, they had the same selection made of the same wood, except here at the big HD, it was in stock. Lumber yard? Special order. You fellas get the weekend DIYer's big Fuck You.

That was the burden. The boon was the weather. It is important that I not lose sight of the anger I should feel at having to be surprised when a warm, sunny day shows up in June, but I shelved my indignation for to put some stain on the wood. It is a slow process, sometimes, getting things right. The wood must be sanded between coats, which means there is no cheating on letting the stain dry completely. Out in the sun, this is not much of a problem. But the polyurethane takes time. In the couple of hours worth of waiting for coat number one to dry, the air started to dampen noticeably, so I was afraid the wood might have to come inside. Alas, I was able to get it sanded again, and put down one more coat before saving it from the inevitability of the Pacific Northwest.

I am learning to be patient as I get older, and every time I glance at my daughter my "she's learning from you right now" reflex starts to act up. So I put self-imposed deadlines and concerns over completion on the back burner, replaced by care and refusal to half-ass it, as my dad always said. Watching her watch me and feeling giddy over the weight of my actions under her scrutiny I think: Maybe being alive means that if you ever do grow up, it is always just in time. Teaching my daughter the lessons of my father - I can get to feeling pretty good about this.

The Hockey Paradigm

2010-06-04T08:20:00.000-07:00

I may have nothing for you this weekend, I may have much. It is obligation central for the next two days. Saturday is the fun kind - get to head out early to the lumber yard in search of wood for door trim. I'll put the anticipation of that in second place on the "happy to get up early" scale, just behind a visit to The Swinery. It will be nice to have the new door finished. After that - mandatory fun night. It is an empty complaint, because I like the people we are going to hang out with. We will probably be at a restaurant that I would not have chosen - ever - if it were up to me, but eventually you forget where you are and just enjoy the company.

Sunday puts me firmly on Morgan's hatewatch. Prime violator of rule #20: Raising awareness of...whatever. I am getting up early to go to a run/walk for breast cancer. But, oh, the conflict! For he also mentions that exercising in the morning does somehow magically make you a better person. Perhaps as a "morning exercising" good person I will be penitent enough to punish myself after being a "participating in a breast cancer race" bad person. And now that I have raised your awareness of it, I am double-violator of a single rule. I jest, Morgan, and I totally respect (cripes! There goes #27!) your position on these things.

Morgan's point, if a bit foggily defined, is certainly not lost on me. Perhaps the most enduring lesson I learned from the Army is that no one benefits from being his own cheerleader. If you are doing something - a good, altruistic, generous, charitable, etc thing - its level of goodness is significantly diminished the moment you insist on making sure everyone knows you did it. There's a lesson about strength of character in there. Any jelly-spined asshole who can't keep his suck-pocket shut about all the awesome things he does, is also a jelly-spined asshole who is successfully keeping a lot of secrets about lousy things he is doing in the meantime. People who do their good deeds in silence, on the other hand, are the kind of people who tend to have fewer apologies to make in the end. I am calling it my Hockey Player Paradigm, because this is the sort of thing you see out of them in post-game press conferences:

Reporter: "Johnny Hockey, you just broke the record and have proven that you are the best hockey player to have ever lived! What do you say about that?"

Johnny Hockey: "Hm. That's good. Listen, the team played really well tonight in front of our goalie. Everyone was solid. If we keep playing together like this, I think we'll give our fans a lot to be happy about this season."

Again - never be your own cheerleader. It just sullies up an otherwise decent act. For instance, I don't think anyone really opposes the green movement on principle, but we sure do oppose the invasiveness of its pedagogy. I wager there are a lot of people living very green lifestyles who would prefer to never, ever again have to hear anyone prattle on about being green. They are trying to live a certain way, not ostentatiously prove a certain thing. Which certain thing is, as Morgan correctly points out, always about how wonderful a person they are.

Perhaps it is genetic, something biological. My mom tells me that even as a little fella, I never wanted clothes that had big labels or pictures on them. Plain, unadorned, understated stuff. Never wanted to be much of a self-promoter, I guess. Can't tell where it comes from, as my brothers were both more or less indifferent to it, so we were clearly picking up different messages from our experiences.

Friday has me looking out upon more June rain, and looking forward to Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Finals. If you aren't doing anything else at 8PM Eastern Time tonight, and you have The Versus Network or CBC, grab a few beers and tune in to the game. You just might be glad you did. But whatever you do, don't root for Philly - they are the underdog, and that's #32.

Have a great weekend.

Games

2010-06-03T09:27:00.001-07:00

I saw "rage." You?

via KA-CHING!

Door to Door

2010-06-01T11:01:00.000-07:00

There is precious little left of The House That was Here, and we've just bid farewell to another piece.

I hired a contractor friend to help install a new front door, after our suitably excited two year old girl crackled one of the twelve panes of old, untempered glass on the original door upon seeing that mama had come home from work.

Children should be allowed to see as little as possible, lest they shame us with too much of their genuine satisfaction with the world. And it is further proof that being drunk just makes us act like babies: drunk people also pound on things they (we) shouldn't when they (we) get excited. Just ask Tina Turner.

Child's punishment? Watch Papa work:

Men who spend more time at this never sit Indian style, I presume because it is surpassed in inefficiency only by handing the tools over to their wives. Real men work from their knees, which are accustomed to the punishment. Mine are not. Nancy boy.

I think the word "renovate" used simply to be "revate," until people realized that asking the question "Should I ever remove that and look at what you covered up?" always came with the answer "no." Re-no-vate.

Friend: "Sometimes when you get to the bones of these old houses, the wood looks like it was cut with a chisel."

Not surprisingly, it was difficult to get anything to sit level on that. Contractor frets his way unsuccessfully through two blades on the saws-all (that's a reciprocating saw, in case the DIY Network isn't close at hand) attempting to level a hump out of that hundred year old lumber. Numb homeowner disappears to his shed and returns with a small hand plane and uses elbow grease to shave it smooth in no time. "Sometimes," I say too smugly, "you just need to unplug the power tools." The friend is not amused. But my wife seems to like it. Papa done good.

It may not be true that there are no stupid questions. I remember overhearing this brief exchange somewhere at Camp Mackall:

"Sergeant?"
"What?"
"No such thing as a stupid question, right Sergeant?"
"You didn't hear that one here."
"Nevermind, Sergeant."
"That's what I thought."

There are also no particularly bright questions. Just questions, some of which get you somewhere, and some of which do not. Aside from that I'm not sure what qualifies a question as better than another, but of course motivation means a lot. All those incestuously orchestrated "interviews" on 60 minutes and the other news shows, where big time celebrities are asked questions by even bigger celebrities, illustrate how useless sincerity has become to people with something to sell.

I had a lot of questions for my friend, because I know only that there is a thousand varieties of screw, nail, lumber, caulk, etc, and every job has a material that is right for it, with 999 that are wrong. The questions I had about which to use when and where were not, he agreed, stupid at all. They led to my new knowledge of a screw with a largely indestructible square drive. They are in the door frame, never stripped, never snapped. Having used them now, I don't know why philips head screws exist, except to keep the short-lived-philips-head-drill-bit business alive.

The hardest part of installing a door is installing the door. Everything else is cake. Hours of shims and Doritos finally got us where we needed to be.

Should the air around here ever dry up for a few days, I will have it off its hinges for to be stained upon some saw horses, and to take a sliver off the bottom, as it is too tight to the floor for proper weather stripping right now. The exterior is trimmed (not painted), and the interior needs only to be trimmed out. Surely the updates will come when I have finished.

Memorial Day

2010-05-31T07:37:00.000-07:00

I went to Germany once. I saw some of it from this perspective:

Other parts I saw from this one:

I believe that cemetery was actually in The Netherlands, but it could hardly have mattered, because they are everywhere over there. In Europe it is strikingly easy to find respect and admiration for America's glorious history of bravery for the cause. It seemed all we did over there for two weeks was shuttle from museum to memorial to cemetery, all of which distributed praise evenly to the fallen heroes of every nation involved in whatever battle happened nearby. Dutfully solemn, but dedicated also to ensuring that we do not look back upon their deeds and demises with sadness alone, but allow ourselves to become just a little enraptured by their phenomenal examples.

Man is often a creature of irrepressible greatness.

Bacon Dogs

2010-05-30T13:13:00.000-07:00

We have a place in town called The Swinery. Go ahead and just enjoy the sound of that all by itself for a minute. I go a little overboard in there sometimes. It is a butcher's shop where things are pricey, but things are good. Right at opening time the selection is somewhat sparse, but the freshness is unparalleled. This morning I rolled in 15 minutes past the opening bell, with my child running ahead of me chanting "The Meat Place! The Meat Place!" You're God Damned right it is, young lady. Be dutifully reverent.

"I'm looking for a some bacon and a couple of pork chops."

"What's the bacon for?"

"Baked beans. And breakfast, of course."

"I'll give you the apple wood, then. No chops out right now - hang on."

She skipped through a back door and a few seconds later I heard a band saw fire up. She came back.

"He's got the pig on the table right now. He'll cut you some." She's got spunk, too: "Grilling today?"

"Going to a sort of 'bring your own meat' barbecue later."

"You should grab that huge ribeye there. Just wait 'til everyone else puts their meat on the grill, then slap that fucker - excuse me - that sucker down and watch everyone wish it was theirs. Of course, at twenty bucks a pound, that's probably a forty dollar steak. Could feed a few."

"Any discount with my Safeway Club card?"

I didn't give in to the steak. Once she wrapped up the chops and the bacon and the three bratwurst I needed, she totaled it up and paused.

"You know what? You need some bacon dogs. I'll throw in two of them."

And thank the baby Jesus she did that. These bacon dogs are what they sound like - hot dogs with bacon mixed into the filling, cased and cured. The weather is no good today, so I just put them on a grill pan in the kitchen. Folks, as these hot dogs cook, they ooze bacon grease. On a standard hot dog bun with just a tiny stripe of plain yellow mustard, they are smoky, salty heaven. It's amazing.

She also gave me a sample of something that made me think "OK, I know that 'bacon everything' is all the rage anymore, but come on." It was chocolate chip bacon cookie dough. Seriously. Really, really good, too. A bit salty, also a bit smoky of course. But none of the cherished chocolate chip cookie dough flavors were beaten down by the bacon. I just know there's a tub of that in my future. A tub which may never make it to the actual cookie phase.

Here's to weekends with The Swinery.

Strategy, Hockey Style

2010-05-29T18:31:00.000-07:00

It's strategy. I've been sick from the waist up for about a week now. Missed a little work, which never happens, and have simply given up on anything that smells like extra effort. Including booze. But this is game God Damned one of the Stanley motherfucking Cup Finals, and I'll not do this thing sober!

The sinus headache screams "NO BEER, ASSHOLE!" And the liver reminds me that popping some aspirin with sauce is the recipe for cirrhosis. I figure that tonight, I am a hockey player, so trauma is the best medicine.

I eased into it with about a half of a glass of my favorite whiskey - Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey, that is - and with that subtle debasement having mottled my brain, I can now do a pleasant junk food and PBR ingestion for the duration.

Go 'Hawks. This game is great so far.

Update: Chicago Blackhawks win a beauty. You don't see a lot of 6-5 games this deep in the playoffs, because it's goalies what get you there. So stick around for game 2, and what should be some ridiculously stifling goaltending. It's just getting good.

Here's That Cynicism You Were Looking For

2010-05-28T14:47:00.000-07:00

I got on a roll responding to Jewel's comment in reference to this landscape game, and out popped the old True Colors.

I don't remember dreams. I don't remember much of anything. I only remember whether or not I like a movie or a book, but can never remember any specific parts of them. I have an absolutely lousy memory. These little analysis games always seem to me as a sort of exercise in people trying to make really profound-sounding answers to banal questions. And yet I play along. You can expect a certain tone out of these little trips into self-exploration, and this is usually not it:

"What does the key look like?"

"Oh, it's one of those silver Schlage deals with a blue rubber ring around it that the guy at the Home Depot cut for me."

Nope, It's always some decorative, bejeweled wonder, tied with golden ribbon around the neck of a horse prancing in a field. There's shimmering this, trumpeting that, angels and great serenity. Everything gets answered out as the most hyperbolically picturesque and symbolic something or other.

"What did you dream?"

"Dreamed that I bought me a can of Kroger brand tomatoes at the QFC"

"That doesn't really work for this ancient Hindu awesomefest we're having here. Can you dress it up a bit?"

"Sure. Dreamed that I followed an elderly and wise Elk along cobbles to a great garden. In it were fruits that he bade me sample, and he called them Toe-maaaah-toes in a soothing voice. Not at all like he was rutting."

"Good. The rutting would kill it. Pastoral in its own way, but just not sing-song enough, you know?"

"Don't I ever."

"And there is a wall. What do you see beyond the wall?"

"One of those condo buildings that are going up everywhere. And a sign."

"A sign. That's good! What does the sign say?"

"Number one best teriyaki."

"You're really not right for this, you know?"

"Don't I ever! You hungry? Let's get some teriyaki. Hopefully we'll get a fortune cookie."

I need to Hire a Landscaper

2010-05-28T11:11:00.000-07:00

Gerard's Landscape game has played out. I always participate in these things, but whether I keep to myself about it or trumpet my findings to the world depends on what I think of the answers. I usually do not like what they say about me, so I quietly cry shenanigans and never admit I played. I guess that says enough about me right there.

If you want a chance to do this yourself, here is the Link to Gerard's original. don't skip ahead, because you simply cannot play this game if you know the meanings. If you don't give two squirts and are comfortable ruining it for yourself, here you go:

My answers just as I wrote them that day, and the meanings according to the game

1. You are sleeping and you dream. Describe your dream.

I dream that I am as successful as I want to be at writing. I am asked about my influences. (This one is slightly tainted, because just prior to reading this question, I made a comment to someone that I just pretty much used as my answer here. It seemed to fit.)
Meaning: Your dream represents, in some manner, the way you are in the deepest core of your being.

2. You wake up in a house. The house can be anywhere within the world. Describe the house and where it is located in the world.

It is a large, cabin-style home in the Colorado Rockies.
Meaning: The house represents your self. The location is how you see yourself in relation to the rest of the world.

3. When you wake up, what time is it?

Morning. 7AM
Meaning: The time you wake up is the time in your life you feel you are at right now.

4. You get up and go into the kitchen. What kind of kitchen is in this house?

The kind where food is made. Silly question.
Meaning: The kitchen represents your ideal view of the family -- size and type.

5. You are going out for a walk. As you go to the door, you notice the trees around the house. How many are there and how are they placed in relation to the house?

Hundreds all around. Cleared a bit in spots to allow the view.
Meaning: Trees represent what you like in the way of friends both in number and how many you like close, in the middle distance or far away.

6. You are following a winding path of stones and sand, past rocks and dry reeds that rattle and hum in the breeze. You crest a rise and start down. Looking around you see, beside the path, a bowl which you pick up and carry with you. Describe the bowl.

There are no dry reeds on my mountain path. Ceramic bowl. Gray. Half-sphere. Flat bottom.
Meaning: The bowl is indicative of your aesthetic sensibility, you feeling for art.

7. The path moves on past ruins, there are false turnings everywhere, but you move straight on. Beside the path you see a key which you pick up and carry with you. What is the key like?

Cliche, stereotypical ornate movie key. Brass, big circular handle. Like a palm-sized "Key to the City."
Meaning: The key signifies religion and spirituality.

8. The path moves out of a forest into the open. It grows hot. You find yourself at a body of water. What kind of body of water is it and what do you do when you come up to it?

Lake. Roll up pant legs and wade in.
Meaning: The body of water represents sexuality. What you do when you come up to it represents how you act on that sexuality.

9. You move on along the path and, after some time you come to a wall. What is the wall made of? What you do when you come to it?

Waist-high stone wall. Look down its length in both directions.
Meaning: The wall stands for death. How you act when you come up to it indicates how you view death.

10. What lies beyond the wall?

More of what I just came through. The world.
Meaning: What lies beyond death is your view of the afterlife.

Still, In Places, It Is

2010-05-27T22:47:00.000-07:00

How clobbered we get by the things we can't fight, then go on fighting them anyway. Does a life spent knowing better, then doing worse, finally come to a great, stolid exhale, or do we just never get sane?

Another little re-post, about a year old, in this time of sloth and drivel:

It Is Soft-lit

I'll Show You Where to Put Your Candles

2010-05-27T07:07:00.000-07:00

I stumble in here today and decide that it is time to check on something, and lo! It is my 2nd birthday in blogville. There is no joy, or something. First ever post, on May 27, 2008:

"To me, protesting is like being uncontrollably horny while being irreversibly unattractive. No matter how much effort you put in, the only satisfaction you get at the end of the day is from yourself."

Which means I began this thing by being an asshole. "Let's start a blog, and find people to denigrate!" Can't accuse me of trying too hard to be different, anyway.

Happy birthday, me.

Everyone's Looking for Work

2010-05-26T13:39:00.001-07:00

In Which the Author Says Too Much

2010-05-25T07:34:00.000-07:00

There is a sadness sometimes that comes from nowhere. Of course it's been hit upon as hard as a bimbo on roofies by Salinger and Fitzgerald and the other raving angsters out there, not to mention everyone else who has ever written anything for paper or film. But I don't know if it is really sadness if it comes from nowhere. Sadness needs an object, or at least it gets one whether it wants one or not. The sourceless downers are the more romanticized ones, like melancholy or malaise. They can be romanticized because they can't be defined away except by haughtily misplaced assertions by completely unassociated jackanapes, the unofficial diagnosticians of our social pathology. Everyone has an explanation, especially when there isn't one.

And I don't want one. When everyone you hear and read and see has an answer for something, then you start to get the hang of answering things, too. And one of the first things you notice is that you are just as good at it as they are. Which, if I carry this amateur profundity to its conclusion, means that none of us are any good at it at all.

I want to build a bench and sit on it. I want to write a book and read it. I want to make something and use it. I don't mind being told that it is terrible or wonderful or just ok, but I do want to be sitting there on my bench and reading my book sometimes, alone. A man gets jostled to the point that he doesn't know how to go without flinching anymore.

There's so much back-patting and success for so many, and you smell the simplicity of it and you smell the manipulation there of the lazy masses. You kill yourself with worry over the question of whether the reason you are left out is because you refuse to compromise your principles, or if it really is because you simply are no damned good.

This place has stolen the significance from the rain - too much of anything is too much. On the flip side, the purpose of a scorching summer day never has time to get learned fully enough, and so we live in dire anticipation of that the whole year 'round. What can I do with this, goes the query. As much as you can manage, comes the reply. The help is from the hyper-long days, but they get chased off sooner than later, so the whisky does, too. Where do we hang 'em up, goes the query. Same place as before, comes the reply. This is the part we know.

Does "Guitar Juxtaposition" Work?

2010-05-19T19:33:00.000-07:00

This guy does it in formalwear. Can't fault him for that, can we? Sometimes, "you only get one shot at this" actually means something. And sometimes, even the other musicians are really just spectators. I'm pretty sure he only uses 9 of those strings, so points off for shortcuts.

Don't get lulled to sleep by the subtlety, this thing goes bonkers after about eight and a half minutes, and you'll be glad you stayed.

Oh, now you're just showing off...

A (Pre-)June Coddling

2010-05-19T08:32:00.000-07:00

It is all writing, but no creativity lately. This is strange to me. The things going through my head in recent months. I have never had to work so hard at suppressing the urge to take inventory of how much goes into a day. I know myself, and fear that I might begin complaining against the list. But the complaints would be less about what goes into the day, than about what gets left out. It's tired, right? My old life is gone, woe is me. Ha, I had no old life. I sat around until I felt like getting up, then I sat around some more.

Now I am in love with two girls, and have so much right in my days that I want to make some more of it. They motivate and impassion me tremendously. Therein lies the problem - not getting enough good done. Half-completed projects and promises are all over the place, with commitments to myself on the back burner, seemingly forever. No matter, I remind myself, for we are young still, and a graceful life is not a hurried or harried one.

Need to get back to the Italian lessons. Need to get the surround sound hooked up. Need to landscape the yard (I typoed that one and it said "blandscape." Exactly what the problem is now, ha-ha). Need to potty-train the tyke. Need to read more. Need-to, need-to, need-to.

Graceful, not harried. Remember? A man gets to thinking: It's not really that much stuff I need to get done, so what's the problem? It. Is. The. Job. Damn thing. Work kills us. Except, I suspect, for the people who like what they do. I am indifferent to what I do. Perfectly content coming here, and I work with good people. But if I am to believe in anything like a calling for a man, I must concede rather effortlessly that this is not mine.

I like to amuse myself by thinking that if I do what I know I must, I will write for a living. Somehow, in some form. I have a half-complete college application sitting in cyberspace somewhere, and a half-complete notion to apply for some freelance work that I found. The link burns away in my email.

As I sulk about it all, I seek to comfort myself, and the archives, as ever, do provide:

She came back late last night - gently, as if afraid to wake us. With a little noise at the window, and a careful bustle at the door (from the breeze that blew her here?), she welcomed herself home. We woke for a moment's recognition and drowsily did the same. Then she settled in.

Her arrival usurps recent custom, but does so softly, as if afraid to shock us. With a deeply velvet darkness, and a plush calm to the sky, she steels us for the day. Our little work is to wake and sluggishly try the same. But missing as we are the usual lively brightness, we cling to her quiet, comforting vesture as guidance through the early parts. She sees to it that we keep our heads about us as she takes us in.

The hardest bits are all darkened up and seem softened by her. Meandering cobbles go from austere gray to a deeper gun metal. She seems afraid they were near to breaking, and came to scold them ever so lightly before earning their echo of her tone. Without moving, the newly strengthened stones retreat in quiet confidence to carry us through the weathered scenes of a new kind of beauty, keeping our souls from the even coarser things.

I Muse, You Muse, We All Muse to Bemuse

2010-05-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

It happens like this on Tuesday or Wednesday when the weekend fog wears off. Some sort of '50's nostalgia gangster movie giddiness kicks in, like I think I can say something clever to a dame, slug a half a jug of whiskey, and shoot someone who deserves it all in an afternoon and barely need to straighten my tie when it's done.

Except when the metaphorical fog is replaced by the real-aphorical rain. I biked it in today, too, in a small effort to not let my sedentary tendencies get the best of me. My ass is soaked and my socks are off. What we do in bad weather must say something about us, right? I notice that in even a little rain, people start hunching their shoulders, sinking their heads into their chests, and squinting their eyes as though they are out against some incredible force. I have caught myself doing this, and straightened up and walked normal, and somehow managed to get no more wet than before. Reflexes still get the better of us.

As I hinted at below, men have a certain reflex about seeing things come down. Building demolition, ship sinkings, controlled burns (burning anything, really). We marvel almost as much at what it takes to destroy something well as we do at what it takes to build something beautiful. Which leads us, eventually, to the digging of holes, and the masculine impulse towards the slack-jawed consideration of them.

A year or two before the hyper-long loading dock tentacle was torn down - wait, wait. What was the story there, anyway? It was only loading docks. Long as a city block or more, and only as wide as a typical row of units in a Public Storage facility. I guess it was just there for things to be put in, tallied up, and then removed to the shipyards or somewhere else. Sort of a brick-and-mortar middle man. I wonder how many warehouses some things get moved to and sit around in until they get to their final resting places.

As I was saying, a year or two before the loading dock was torn down, another building just to its North was razed. This time they didn't stop at ground level. It was a large triangular lot when the building came down, and then they started digging. A fence was around the site from the beginning, of course. Chain link with the appropriate signage: "BuilderConstructorDemolisherMaker Company Puts Safety FIRST!" And on and on. Once the digging started, the chain link proved invaluable from a spectator's perspective. I could march along that 200 or so foot length of sidewalk with eyes left or "Eyes, Right! (Thank you, US Army)" depending on whether I was going to or coming from lunch, and peer down into the deepening abyss. There were always a few random men standing separately along the fence, just looking down and watching the action. Digging, hauling, organizing, drilling. It's hypnotic.

This whole area, I believe, was wet before they filled it in. The waters of the Sound are really just a few feet away. Before the hole reached its final depth, which I estimate to be about 4 stories, they hit a layer of timbers, which we speculate to have been part of a dock some time ago. Things started getting wet about that time, too. They had to dig and pump and shore up and pass buckets of sludge from one mud platform to the next and finally up to waiting trucks to be hauled away. I wonder where they put it.

But there was a problem. This was a hole! A big, ugly hole. Nobody should be subjected to the extreme discourtesy of having to see that a hole is somewhere that exists. Nobody! Nobody save us silly men, who know no better, and think there is something worth watching in there, where the yellow and orange things move about all deliberately, making nothing out of something and then something out of nothing again. So we poor hole-gawkers were saved from ourselves by schoolchildren, whose "art" is the poultice for to cure all unsightly urban blemishes, and appears more frequently and without warrant around the city than does the word "local" in any of the forums on Seattle's neighborhood blogs.

Try as they might, with the sign boards covering the length of the fence, to keep us from peering in, they could not. There were spaces between the "murals," which were just unpleasantly colored scrawlings of various sizes saying things like "I like haircuts," and "The trees green and the sky blue for my really long fingers are pointing," and "Donated by (yup, donated, as though we should be grateful) by Debbie Asserfart's 3rd graders!" And at those spaces men were often positioned, like undisciplined sentries looking in at the treasure instead of out at the threat.

We watched them build back up - that part will probably be an elevator shaft, etc - until the forms and trusses reached ground level and the walls started going up. Then they closed the sidewalk on us and interest waned. Nobody cared much to watch them swing in and bolt down the prefabricated brick exterior sections. Had they been laying brick the old fashioned way, I wager that small crowds of men would have gathered on the opposite walk to watch it happen. Ultimately, there is something less alluring about looking up at the walls than down at the footers, and I don't know what it is. Seems more gutsy and visceral down there, I guess. The fat, bone and gristle of the building doing the thankless part of the work to which I think many men are drawn, because we need to know that we still do amazing things. Making things pretty is easy, making things powerful is spectacular.

The building stands unoccupied over a year since its completion, but the Historic Triangle Pub, which was saved from demolition from the beginning, stands more glorious in its modesty and dereliction than the new monster behind it.

Guitar Whores

2010-05-13T20:30:00.000-07:00

Life is a cavalcade of assumptions of varying degrees of success. My assumption is that the guitar wars of Buck and Andy (spectacular name) are somewhat more, um, traditional, than this.

Are there rules to this? I must confess to not having listened to any of the examples my fine, strumming forbears have put out there - that's where the assumption comes in, and not the Rubens kind - so I may be stomping on convention. But then again, this guy is ugly, so convention be damned. J. Mascis has some serious chops, though:

I've always felt like the little acoustic movement that - at least to my generation -seemed to have been started by Mtv doing that God-awful Unplugged show, was an abomination. Nirvana was bad enough with electricity, but acoustically they were like death on barstools. I remember Clapton doing an Unplugged album, too. And it sucked. The life was gone from these things. The soul drained and shaken out like an old rug. Good songs lost their swagger. Still, if you need something live... Stick around until about 2:30, if'n you're getting impatient:

Via con Ductos (I hope that's not a real Spanish word for something untoward)

2010-05-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

Thursdays get me giddy for the weekend, and the one coming up is all mine. No guests, no obligations, just fine weather and outdoor work to be done.

Sun shining in the morning for a change. We've had us some of the good weather lately, but it usually takes a handful of hours to wash out the gray and the chill before brightening up. Today the sun was out at 5:30, I think, and the birds along with it. It is a long overdue change. You may think I'm foolish (no offense to Rick O'Casek on that one), but I mowed my lawn last night hoping that it would be beautiful this morning. Maybe it transports me back to early days as a kid in sports, when we would arrive at the fields all wet and shiny and hyper-green early in the morning (the fields, not us). The fresh-laid white lines making it all look like the kind of thing that you did not want to disturb. Well, I suppose I am projecting my aged appreciation for the setting onto that memory, because I don't think that as a 13 year-old I had any impulse towards preserving that moment. I just wanted to play soccer or baseball or whatever it was I was there to do.

Still, no amount of sunshine can make this hideous roadway outside my work window any more appealing. The good news is that it is coming down! This two-tiered viaduct that I mentioned once before as a complete affront to any school of aesthetics will be replaced by a nice surface street and a tunnel, all of which should be complete by about the year 3200. The process is closing down my primary means of getting home from work - at least when I am not on my bicycle - which means the same is happening to thousands of other commuters, which means a solid year of one detour or another mucking up my afternoon mood.

Lookit this!

View Larger Map

My building. That's my window, 4th from the left on the bottom. If you swing that baby around, you see a row of loading docks blocking the view of the viaduct. Last year they came in with pickers and crushers and bashers and grinders, and that entire city-block-long building was beaten and brutalized all day long for a couple of weeks until it was no more. Watching the destruction of that thing was mesmerizing. Big chunks sorted into piles, those piles transferred piece by piece into huge, epileptically quivering grinding devices that produced neat mounds of gravel-sized debris. We became experts, watching from our buiding and shouting admonitions into the closed windows: "Oh come on! You could have taken out a bigger chunk than that!" "Grab that piece of rebar - it'll come out like yarn from a scarf!" "Seriously?!? On break again?!?"

We boys like to see things come apart, especially with the right mix of recklessness and organization.

Here's a wide view of the viaduct, heading North into the city, courtesy WSDOT, with more at the link:

It actually provides a beautiful view of Seattle as you approach on the upper tier, especially in the evening and morning. But that stretch of road itself is hideous, and I don't like my chances on it in an earthquake.

Go with ducts, folks! Progress uncovers the ugliness, and nothing is backwards compatible with real beauty - it stands alone.

Briefly, Hockey

2010-05-13T10:07:00.000-07:00

I come back to my intermittent posting to bring you, first, a wee piece about hockey. I know you aren't interested, so skip this one if you would rather read about the weather and ugly roads, but in the Yahoo I find written a stellar representation of my position on hockey - specifically playoff hockey:

"But you know what? Too bad. True fans know the NBA playoffs never make jaws drop like the NHL has this spring. The NBA never has No. 8 seeds beating the regular-season champs and then the defending champs, back to back, led by a slow giant named Hal with 50 stitches in his leg. True fans are tired of trying to expand the brand. Sick of trying to follow the puck? Don’t know what the Halak is going on out there? Fine. Bye. Enjoy LeBron James."

What the Halak is going on out there?!?! If you don't understand that one, watching every Canadiens game from here on out would be a good idea.

Effrontery

2010-05-08T18:08:00.001-07:00

If there is a heaven for dogs, each worthy cur surely has its own slab of sun-warmed cement. Mine has hers for the first time this year, and I think she is losing weight just laying there.

We're exploding out here, the blossoms and the barstools both moving outside, apparently to stay this time (ignoring the forecast for next week, ha-ha, sob-sob).

You are going to hate this music, but my buzz is as fast as the sunset is late this time of year, and the Colorado Whisky I brought back with me from Denver dictates a measure of selfishness with my indulgent narcissism. Translated: It's all about me.

Sound system gonna bring me back up
One thing that I can depend on
Try to describe to the limit of my ability:
Its there for a second
Then it's given up what it used to be
Contained in my music somehow more than just sound
This inspiration coming and twisting things around
Because you always know that its gonna have to go
You always know that you'll be back in the cold.
Point of depatrure sublimated in a song
Its always coming to give me that hope for just a second
Then its gone but!
[Chorus]
Static pulse inside of music bringing us escape
Its always temporary changing nothing in its wake
Just a second where were leaving all this shit behind
Just a second but its leaving just this much in mind:
To resist despair that second makes you see
To resist despair because you cant change everything
To resist despair in this world is what it is to be free
[Chorus]
Wake up turn my box on
Bust the shade let the sun in
times getting tougher bout time to start runnin
Box in my hand music by my side
Skanking to the rhythm of the music by my side

Lyrics form plyrics.com

Something you might hate less. But hell, who am I kidding, you're all old and you want none of this. "Cripes, Gertrude, they have tattoos on their necks!"

Half asleep with the sun coming up out east.
We’re driving down Garfield Ave when you said a strange and significant thing:
I can remember the words “this was, a beautiful night,
it won’t ever happen this way again.”

No my dear, nothing much grows around here.
We carry our roots with us, a couple of weeds, pulled up.

Misguided girl you’ll be the heroine of my book.
The plot is the course we took,
the setting can’t be no where else in the world.
And the story opens up with you,
your broken dreams and cheap perfume.

You’re on a city bus, the rain it falls.
Your makeup bleeds, the wind it howls.
I stumble on from Uptown bars -
I guess that’s all I’ve got so far,
but at the end, I don’t know how,
you save me and you save yourself.

It ends so soon, the night and the fading moon.
I put my hand inside yours.

The city looks strange and significant.
Know these streets, the place where I’ll live and die.
Resigned to that fact but
I’m hoping it happens this way again.
Fall asleep to the radio.
Try to keep what I got from you.
Hard to do in these dreary days.

More Lyrics from that place.

I Think This is About Inevitability, or Unavoidability, or Something

2010-05-06T09:45:00.000-07:00

Forgive me for all of this daily journal type of stuff lately, but I think I need to keep writing. Just keep writing, or someday I may not be able to start again.

Do you do this? Whenever I am reading a book, I find the style seeps somewhat into my own writing, and in my head my thoughts all sound like they were formed by the author of that book. It is also the danger of reading blogs before writing my own. Back when I read A Farewell to Arms, my brain was mimicking Hemingway for months. Happens with every book I read. The one I am reading now, I am actually not reading anymore, as I left it at the Airport in Denver. I think I am better for it. It is the same with movies. If I watch one, especially one with a particularly engaging character, my thoughts all come in the voice and delivery of that character. I just watched Lawrence of Arabia last week, and I have been Peter O'Toole in my noggin ever since. It's a little unsettling, to be honest, and reminds me of a sort of comic commingling of Christopher Walken and Captain Kirk. Quirky smoothness injected with moments of frenzied intensity. Always seems to be working up the scale from languor to some kind of verbal explosion, then right back down for a nap. Exhausting.

Super-subject-change-a-roo:

You don't crook your finger at someone unless you hold undeniable sway over him, or you very mistakenly think you do. I loved the little "get over here" gesture when I was an NCO and could use it on my soldiers. That's power - the kind that comes from paperwork instead of any personal virtue. What it really said is "get over here, or there will be semi-inconvenient administrative justice for you, young man. I will have to type some shit up, and that will upset me, because we are shooters of guns and blowers of things up and marchers of rucks, not secretaries of children."

I gave that gesture to a friend the other day. It was at his restaurant, and he was busy, and I made eye contact and then beckoned him hither with my index finger. He came over with a laugh and said "Did you really just do that?" My soldiers didn't tend to react that way. I don't think it bothered him, but it sure is strange how much it has tickled my guilt. I have apologized in person and in writing, and still I can't stop feeling awful about it. Sometimes you don't really like someone, and if you investigate a bit you realize it is because of that one thing he did that one day that just made you think less of him. I do not want this to be that one thing.

That's the way this one ends.

A Little Nothingness Today

2010-05-03T07:27:00.000-07:00

It's ride your bike to work month, they tell me. I'll be starting tomorrow. Excuses are pretty easy to come by these days, and mine for not riding to work today is this: Got home from Denver last night at about 10:00 - and that's in the house, not at the airport - which is much too late to bring in the bag, carry the child to bed, shower, and put a spare tube and pump in my backpack for tomorrow. If I do that last bit, my prospects for a full night's sleep are out the window. So I drove in on a windy but otherwise lovely Monday morning. This may disappoint the spandex brigade here at work who told me last week that they'll be needing my miles for some kind of mileage pool. I don't know where these miles get submitted, or if there is some kind of prize for the most miles ridden. I only know that it is on an honor system, which means that like every golf tournament I have ever played in, the winner will have cheated. My biggest question: How does my company of about 40 employees, only 7 or 8 of which will be riding to work, compete against the likes of Amazon or Microsoft? I'm sure they have it all worked out, categorized by small business to corporate megalith, or something. I don't know. I just hope that the honor system honors my claim to a 392 mile commute.

I mentioned Denver. I love it there. Even bad weather is beautiful there. And so it was at the wedding we went to. Beautiful location, at the same golf course where my brother was married and I was the best man. He is divorced and in rehab now, so if I were a girl I would consider that a curse for this couple we watched be wed on Saturday. As it happens, my wife is a girl, and she does consider it a curse, but that did not stop her from chuckling a bit as she donned the same dress that she wore to my brother's wedding. No pictures to share, as these were old acquaintances, not old friends, and but for a few small exceptions the whole thing was pretty painful. Our daughter got to see all of her grandparents, though, which is always a good thing.

Great Minds, or Should I Sue?

2010-04-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

Oh, boy. This is awkward.

From Mr. Lileks (check under the "updates" header):

Black & White World An ongoing look at movies that decided color was just so obvious.

From Mr. Dipso, probably much, much later than the above, which means my already flimsy claims to ownership have all the substance of a Red Sox fan in a Red Wings jersey:

Black and white photography: Color is so obvious, it doesn't make you work for your understanding.

Emphasis original in both examples.

After days of consideration I have decided to take this little coincidence exactly as I should - it is clearly an indication of my brilliance. Mr Lileks has many tentacles of sagacity and charm undulating about out there, so to express myself in a like manner must surely be a feather in my cap.

Update: In the comments, Gerard says he started it all in 1982. Gerard thinks he started everything. I'll bet he can't start a lawnmower. And boy howdy, does that take some of the luster off of my achievement! I am mundane again.

Well Suited

2010-04-29T06:38:00.000-07:00

We're a "do it once, and do it right" kind of family. Furnishing our home is years in the making, because we don't buy it unless we believe it will always look good, and can last at least long enough for our kids to fight over it when we are old and going and not good enough with our ears to hear them being so disrespectful. We need a bed badly, but have not been able to find one that looks "forever" enough. Like I said, we do it once, and we do it right. So it was with me a few weeks ago when I headed out to be put in my first real suit.

In the Army I had my Class A's. God damned sharp, too, especially in the 82nd with the trousers tucked into those tall, mirror-polished jump boots. The meticulously shaped maroon beret, and the honor bearing double A on the shoulder. We were paratroopers, and would just as soon sleep in the mud in that finery as we would march in a parade. Those lousy, unbearable parades. But no matter how we grumbled about measuring an eighth of an inch between the ribbons and the wings, about being sure the branch insignia was a half-inch up from the notch and centered on the lapel - we knew we looked good, and always wanted to get it right.

Earlier this year, as the wedding invitations stacked up, it became clear that I would need to get my first civilian suit. I wanted to get it right this time, too. I did my research, and consulted my memories of my father, because he seemed to be in a suit for everything but sleep when I was a kid. I channeled my inner James Bond and Gregory Peck - you try looking that good while you're being buzzed by an airplane on a dirt road - burned incense to Humphrey Bogart and Teddy Roosevelt, and knew where I had to go.

After collecting enough box tops, mowing a million lawns, and saving my allowance for, like, evar, I set out for the man place for to go through the man rite of being fitted for a suit. Classic. Pinstriped. Half-canvassed. Three-roll-two lapel. A man-parlor that's been putting suits on Presidents and perfectionists for a couple hundred years. I was getting only one of these things, and it was going to be the right one. 43 long, I was told by a man named Carlton, a man with a suit-name. Would it feel right getting a suit from a Bob or a Mike? Maybe, but getting one from a Carlton is a can't miss situation. Carlton put me in the suit, and while assuring me that this was good for weddings, funerals, and everything in between, a short little Italian gentleman with a mustache as thick as his glasses which were as thick as his accent, proceeded to climb around me and chalk the wool up like an algebra teacher before they had dry-erase marker boards. "Wokaay, I haaba it. Whenna you need it by?"

The suit was ready today for me to pick it up and bring it home and put it on. I did all of those things. I have put on nice clothes before and felt like I was trespassing. Wearing this suit feels like someone who loves me is cooking me meatloaf. With bacon. I might sleep in it tonight, and I want six more of them. This Saturday morning in Denver, I will shave as I always do, with double-edged safety razor over shaving soap applied by badger-hair brush (it has long since proven less expensive and more comfortable than the modern way), and get into my new clothes. Four-in-hand knot for the tie, because the Army wouldn't have it any other way, and cap toe oxfords on the ground. I'll grab my drink and shepherd my Grace Kelly through the weekend and because we have done it right we will be brilliant - at least to ourselves and each other, which is really the whole world, anyway.

Good Morning

2010-04-28T06:08:00.001-07:00

They get you up early, but they don't think about breakfast. I don't want to get too existential about it, but what am I to think of my neighborhood when day old doughnuts at the grocery store are my only choice for vittles at 5:00 in the morning? Alas, not quite enough time between the now and the things to do to allow for a trip down closer to the shipyards, where I am sure I could find something to eat.

Me: Outside.

Dog: Fuck you.

Me: Outside.

Dog: Fuck you.

Me: Alright, I know it's cold and the ground is wet, but you haven't pissed since yesterday afternoon, and I have to get out of here soon. You head out and do your business, and when you come back there will be food and water in your bowl.

Dog: Seriously, fuck you.

Me: Fine, I'll come with you.

Dog: Now we're talking.

Have a good day, folks.

Fits of Road

2010-04-27T07:03:00.001-07:00

There are days that sort of wait patiently for you to get to them, and then stay amicably at your hip like a good dog. Some days only start that way, but before long a squirrel darts on by in the form of a bad driver or some inconsiderate lout at the bagel counter, and your tail-wagging hound of a day goes dashing off after it. Maybe tomorrow, you think.

But some days are a better dog, and won't go chasing that squirrel unless you tell it to.

Something happened (No, Joseph Heller, I didn't steal it from you), and today has me all wistful about vacations and road trips and other fair weather fun. Rest stop for a stretch of the legs and foray into a bathroom that could hold any surprise. God bless the clean ones. More cliches like road food, motels, KOA campgrounds. I'm just off in a different place today.

Two road holes I always remember when the travel bug gets to crawling:

1. Pedro's South of the Border. Don't let the pretty colors fool you, weary traveler - this place is Hell. I think nothing in the United States is more brutally advertised than this. You think the media glorifies scrawny girls with boob jobs a bit too much? Well, anyone who commutes along I-95 within a day or so of the North and South Carolina border will tell you that the billboard bombardment from Pedro's is an ad campaign unrivaled by any on Madison Avenue. I've never gone to the top of the sombrero, you are welcome to give it a shot and report back to me on the wonderment it brings. Stop to use the bathroom if you must, touch nothing, and move on.

2. Wendover, Nevada. On I-80, smack in the middle of a couple of time zones worth of emptiness, lies God's gift to gearheads and speed freaks: The Bonneville salt flats. Speed Week at Bonneville is as much a thing you can call a "uniquely American experience" as anything else I've done. The uninitiated will come with little other than binoculars and a cooler full of beer, and a sense of impending doom will sink in when they see the veteran spectators laying out mats of astroturf to protect from the sun that reflects off of the salt floor. I was charred and blistered after a half day in that hot rod mecca.

My wanderlust has infected my blogging - this was supposed to be about a place that is...

...just outside of Bonneville, across the Utah/Nevada border. It is Baphomet's middle finger to the Mormons: Wendover, NV. You can gamble and get as loaded as you like on liquor and good, strong beer in the Little Las Vegas of Eastern Nevada. It obnoxiously hugs that trepid Utah border like a bully when his victim's parents are watching, and if not for the expanse of torrid desert and poisoned soil between it and Joseph Smith's Holy Land, it would probably grow as large as the real deal to the West.

So it is all these highway daydreams for me this morning, work ain't coming easy. As a topper, I expect my new car to be here in a month. I may have mentioned that I did the factory order thing, making me wait a while, but saving me a good bunch of doubloons in the process. She's a big, comfy rig that will be begging me to put her on the road. In rigs as it is in marriage, I give my girl what she needs, and she gives back.

It's Called The Masterton Award

2010-04-26T12:21:00.000-07:00

Non-hockey people, don't turn the channel yet. Strange tack we're taking here at the Chronicles lately, with mixed signals of sadness and hope. Like grapes and parking tickets, these things come in bunches.

Nobody wants it:

The Masterton Award is described by the National Hockey League as an award "given to the National Hockey League player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey." Representatives of the Professional Hockey Writers Association (PHWA) from each team's market nominate one player per team for the award based upon what I like to describe as good-example-to-follow-ness-ism. Or holy inspirational-ization...ism: ness. Not to be too glib, though, because it really is serious business, and it really is inspirational. I am humbled. These guys are something else, and as is so often the case, their achievements don't really make the stats sheets, so they won't get the love that goal scorers and point getters will. Another thing they won't get: an argument from anyone over whether they deserve it.

The link takes you to the details, and gives you a few more links to follow if you want. I would put it all right here, but then the ladies would miss out on the picture of Jose Theodore.

Our Rented Elysium

2010-04-24T07:48:00.000-07:00

Not me, not here. You'll equate this with my hiatus - you'll be wrong.

I'm not sure what I know about friends. Some people seem to be always "doing something" with other people. That certainly isn't what I know about friends. Some people seem to know who to call when they need to lift something heavy. I don't schedule heavy things to be moved - if it takes more than one, it'll never get done.

But I do know that we have sadness in spades in this little world of ours. This tiny little place where a person you'll never get within a thousand miles of is just a Gigabyte away. And what I know about friends is what they do when things go wrong, the way they've been going wrong from the beginning. The insurmountable, unstoppable way that hits the exasperation button in everyone from the dimmest to the winningest.

In prison, Oscar Wilde wrote that "Suffering is one long moment. We cannot divide it by seasons. We can only record its moods, and chronicle their return." Easy to say for a man in a cell. But it is that way, from a broad and pessimistic view, because as swimmingly as things may be going for me, it is a lukewarm river of misery for someone else. Often a friend. And it was to a friend that I once said "Pain is the only thing in this world with any real staying power." I recall feeling pretty good at the time. We were sharing drinks and laughter and the company of smiling American girls, and our privileged catharsis that day was something monumental. Some events occurred a few years ago, and he and I are no longer friends. How do these things happen?

I remember also a quote from Oscar Wilde to the tune of (and this is a paraphrase): "Anyone can be sympathetic to someone's failures, but it takes a true friend to be sympathetic of another's success." We are allied so easily by defeat, but trust too quickly in the ability of happiness to sustain itself. We have it all backwards, and while it is OK to be rushing to support every entrenched sadness, we should be frantic to shore up the ramparts of a burgeoning pleasure. The best defense is a good offense.

It is Springtime here, though a bit too cold and cloudy. With Springtime comes that special something that has us looking forward so sweetly, with the touch of amnesia that optimism requires. And it can't be too selective when it is available, because for some out there right now, it is a luxury for another time. This blossoming Elysium gets rented out by the lucky much too early on, and I curse myself when I see that in its light I've been able to miss so much. Not cursing because of an impulse to be mired in a misery that is not mine, but because of an impulse to know what a friend should do. And what a friend should do is be sure to recognize the return of the season in another, so that a space can be saved in our little borrowed heaven.

Dear Blogoverse

2010-03-10T18:58:00.000-08:00

Dear Blogoverse,

You are a dirty girl. A strumpet. You have a shiny side that drew me in, but at the core you are rotten and shriveled. Like a Hollywood starlet, you are busty and pleasant in the afternoon, but next thing you know it's 4AM in a basement somewhere, and another round of meth is coming my way.

Your "power" friends, who everyone seems to be dying to meet, just seem like unhappy people in a perpetual state of confrontation. I know, I know, it's called "healthy discussion." Sure. And I just have a little drink every now and then.

I can't seem to go anywhere with you that I don't just get into trouble. I look for the bad in things now, just so I'll have something to talk about with the other tooters in the limo.

Can't be me, right?

You've introduced me to some nicer folks, too, but very few, and you clearly have no time for them.

We need a break from each other, maybe to start seeing other people, at least until I can figure out how to turn your head without just jumping into fight after fight.

Besides, my internet connection is garbage.

Yours forever (because in the end I am spineless and will slither back),
Andy.

PS I intended to work in the splendid neologism "Liquid Crystal Dismay," but that seemed too darned downtrodden. Dismay is such a...dismaying word.

Uff Da!

2010-03-06T10:35:00.001-08:00

Ballard is a borough of sorts in Seattle, with a Norwegian/Swedish/whatever underpinning. Oh, and an enormous sense of entitlement in every facet of life, just like the rest of our fair city. All of which has contributed to a peculiar and disturbing style of driving that really, can only be taught by professionals:

Some of This NSFSR - Not Safe For Self Respect

2010-03-06T09:00:00.000-08:00

Who's old school? Pesky definitions. But if your home video of getting together for "Rock Jump Practice" is ten years old or more, you might be old school.

Common Sense

2010-03-04T07:41:00.000-08:00

Alison would like to be head of the new Common Sense Party, and she's given it some thought.

"4) Common Sense would dictate that there is no such thing as equality and that humans don’t HAVE to approve of all human behaviours and shouldn’t be legislated into it or talked into it."

Now, "no such thing as equality" may be a bit over generalized, but I certainly understand what she means. For me it sounds more like "it is foolish to deny the differences between two very different things, and even more foolish to try to legislate those differences into non-existence." Especially because you never see anyone trying legislate bad things into accommodating good things. You just see people trying to legislate good things into tolerating bad things. Aside from war - which is never acceptable, of course - where is the effort to make Islam tolerate the western world? Make terrorists more comfortable, don't waterboard them, give them public, civilian trials. Show everyone how good we can be by never asking an asshole to stop being an asshole, and on top of that, let's promote that asshole's right to be an asshole. Why is it that we don't have a right to hold onto our idea of marriage, and we don't have a right to believe a fetus is alive, and we don't have a right to be responsible with our legally acquired firearms, but a batshit nutters Islamic terrorist has a right to have me stand aside while he spits on everything we stand for?

11) Common Sense would determine that queuing for a bus was a cool thing to do. I know we all hate being British now and so need to dispense with all those pompous British twee formalities that people laugh at us for but tell me – how is standing at the bus stop in the pissing rain and then being pushed aside in the ensuing bun fight for a seat a better thing. How? Manners and a degree of fair play were things society took upon itself to make life pleasant. We weren’t told to do it, we just did. Liberals legislate manners now in their own pc fashion, both through labels, stigma and worse – legislation. Why? Because they’ve made society a bitter angry selfish and childish place.

What's so right about that last sentence? A lot of things. And I'll be damned if it isn't the best, stripped-down description of the results of liberal tendencies I have ever read. But let's just start with a little thing like Queuing, or "standing in line" for those of us on this side of the Atlantic.

Standing in line is the very epitome of common sense. A lot of people want to get to the same place, through a small opening, and only a jackass would want to get that process underway without some amount of order to it. At the very least, queuing up does something that liberals will never, ever approve of, and that is eliminating contention where none need exist. Indeed, liberals often seem to seek out areas of general pleasantness and find something to screw around with inside of it.

Let's take the guns at Starbucks issue. There is a 2nd amendment in place, there are state and local laws in place, and there are procedures to follow for a person who does want to carry a gun legally. In the end, the gun owner has already jumped through hoops and demonstrated his willingness to put in some effort in order to be a helpful, greased wheel in the American machine. Through the process of background checks and permit registration, he has proven that he knows how, and is happy to follow, the rules shared by his people.

Starbucks has demonstrated the very same thing, and is a business that is functioning completely within the prescribed guidelines of the society where it exists. Starbucks is a law abiding citizen. The gun owner is a law abiding citizen. These are two law abiding American citizens coexisting, and liberals have proven that an arrangement like that is something which needs to be stopped. How else, then, do you describe the liberal value system as anything other than a need to make "society a bitter angry selfish and childish place?"

The Half-Hidden Halcyon is Getting Bold

2010-03-03T13:25:00.000-08:00

We're almost happy here, but every third day still clouds over and hides the halcyon just a bit. We'll not be shaken thanks to the way the sun, even in brief glimpses, pries open the boozefingers from their frightful clutch on something warm so that a digit can dangle listlessly among the cubes of some cold bourbon.

Everything changes based on how the light shows itself. All at once through the windshield after a left to the east in the morning, or a little at a time behind the fog over the bridge. At times the rig seems only to know the lowbeams and intermittent wipers, but from your seat in the cockpit you can see the gathered pools of light on the windows of office buildings across the water. Can't see the water, though, and waiting to get over there first thing in the morning is like watching the clock at the end of the work day. The wheels just don't spin fast enough, and the hands don't tick. Someone out there is shielding himself from the sun, while you're racing to cast off your raiment.

Now the water beckons like the weekend. Dirt isn't mud anymore, but manna. A boon to all things possible, and nothing sounds as universally cohesive as ice against the walls of a short glass. Spring is for looking ahead - if only a few days at a time - instead of simply bearing the moment the way the winter forces.

A Shot of Caffiene

2010-03-03T07:21:00.000-08:00

How many puns can you fire off? Taking aim at Starbucks. Verbal shots fired in brew-haha over gun control. Too much fun.

Give Starbucks some love for letting the law be, well, the law:

"Three groups - the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Washington CeaseFire and the Washington State Million Mom March Chapters - are rallying in Seattle today to urge Starbucks to change its policy on customers with guns. Currently, wherever the local law allows it, Starbucks' policy also allows customers to carry guns in its stores."

The story at King5 News.

Slogan for Our Times

2010-02-28T10:30:00.000-08:00

We've had "Make Love, Not War." We've had "Shit Happens." I propose that our culture's current slogan should be what I am living today:

"Don't ruin it for me, it's on my DVR."

Golfing at 11:45, game of the century at 12:15. I will NOT be stopping in at the clubhouse after the round, as there is no way I'll be able to avoid hearing the outcome if I do.

Shedwork, Part II (Or, In Case You Thought I Gave Up)

2010-02-26T16:24:00.000-08:00

You may remember that I had some work to do. I remembered, too.

The dog is pathetic, the workbench is not. I had to create a base, because the cement underfoot is about as level as my disposition. That base, as well as the patchwork job I did of paneling the back wall, took up all of my useable scrap wood. I bought real stock for the rest. I still have a bit of work to do on getting that wall finished more pleasantly, putting up a shelf or two, and other general finish work, but overall I am quite pleased.

A close look will show a couple of braces on the bottom of the wall to the lower right, which are there to soothe my (probably irrational) fear that the shed is leaning too far and will fall down if I don't stop it. I didn't even make that token effort to stop myself from falling down as a teenager and student, but a few extra years have taught me that small measures make for great potential. So the shed gets some support.

The beer and stogie pic is for Buck, and for Canadian women everywhere. Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

A Little Personal Back-patting

2010-02-20T14:31:00.000-08:00

Off the top I'll warn you: This post is useless. It's a little banality in order to see how it publishes with the method used per the advice of my helpful commenters. Suffer through it.

Did something of an odd thing today - polished my headlights. What? I mean it. They were yellow, and I could hardly tell they were on anymore. Got me a polishing kit to attach to the drill, replete with rubbing compound, and sanded 'em down in stages. I'm not shitting you when I say they look like brand new headlights, which would have cost a couple hundred bucks each, by the way. Pat on the back for that one.

Pat on the back number two goes to me for my performance at the Ford dealership today. I was naming prices and demanding shit left and right, and making that dealer work for me. And good on me. I am still sans car, and that is for the best for now, as a car today would have meant compromising. I am not a negotiator. I did a terrible job of it even in Korea, where you never pay sticker price for anything. But the key today was realizing that waiting for a car is perfectly acceptable, so that anything they tried to ply me with that didn't meet my specs was easy to dismiss. I'll probably be ordering one special and waiting a couple of months for its arrival, unless they pretend it will cost me more to do that, in which case I go somewhere else.

So that's that.

I'm Working on this Stuff

2010-02-16T08:43:00.000-08:00

I got a Mac recently, and blogging from it is doing odd things to the formatting - specifically the font when I paste in some text or do some linkage. I'll try to get it figured out for you, I promise.

I hope I don't need to enlist the help of Henry Studley, or even a tenth part of his tool chest:

Image courtesy of Finewoodworking.com

Either Would I

2010-02-15T09:20:00.000-08:00

There's no such thing as a test pilot in the "Poetics of life." Every sortie is weapons hot. Gerard says "I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

Recycled Power

2010-02-15T08:05:00.000-08:00

I am considering going out to test drive some cars today. The old Dodge has been pulling me around behind it's V-8 for a decade now, a fact I am not afraid to be proud of in a world of the three-year, never-pop-the-hood-yourself, swap her for a new one lease. I'll not say anything silly like "a man who doesn't maintain his own rig is less suited to maintain his own family," because it's just not that big of a deal. I will, however, insist that crawling around in the engine bay of a Saturday (and usually into Sunday with the all too predictable unforeseen difficulties) is a great way for a man to slink back into the simpler parts of himself, and maybe come out walking a little taller. Bearing grease and elbow grease, Super Black gasket sealant. It just feels good. And most of us are fortunate enough to have found something that does that for us. The married guy at the bar who is hitting on the spry young barkeep, and is louder than anyone wants him to be, has not found his something.

I look with some trepidation towards the acquisition of one of the nice, new machines. Their power centers all sheathed in plastic coverings and hidden from the pioneering spirit of the tool box. What will a wrench do with a thing like that?

But I feel I have earned the luxury, and having to settle for strapping my daughter into a car seat in the front of a ten year old pickup seems something I should improve upon if I can. And I can. She (and any future mini-me's) should be shrouded in the safest thing I can find and afford. For all the battles I know she must lose in order to understand the rigors of life, a battle with a moving vehicle is one I must shelter her from without compromise.

But of course I will be at the dealership with a new sort of aggravation that my father never knew: The Hybrid. I suppose calling something "green" based solely on one aspect of its existence (fuel economy) is enough to puff the chests of an engineer or two somewhere, but even if you pack the thing full of recycled materials, you are just polishing the turd for your ego. I'll let a better writer tell you why:

"Recycling generally picks up raw materials in finished but discarded forms and turns it back into new finished materials. It's a colossal waste of time and energy in almost all its forms. I've done more recycling than forty-five Ed Begleys, so I'll clue you in on a little secret: after you sort through your trash like a raccoon and put it on the curb to try to resurrect Bambi's mom through clean living, it all gets thrown in a landfill when you're not looking. It's a kabuki theater, not a real process"

None of which, of course, is to say that there is something horribly wrong with what is going on in the auto industry right now, just that they are as guilty as anyone of the wool-pulling. You can't call a thing green just because you emblazoned a shiny little leaf on the deck lid of a thousand pounds of manufactured steel, glass, leather and rubber.

I will not be getting a hybrid. I have read a lot of reviews, and a refreshing note is that almost all reviewers do still tend to give away a fondness for power, even if it comes at the perceived expense of a little efficiency. I like that. I want my daughter to admire my power, too, and to see it as something I was willing to sacrifice some efficiency to achieve. Let's hope I can pull that wool just right.