Mundanities

[The Rob]

Once upon a time I was a cold weather guy. I liked nothing better than to walk to work or the coffee shop, steam puffing from my nose and mouth, brisk icy wind invading my collar, the sound of crisp leaves skittering about in the street and on the sidewalk. The kind of cold that made my unprotected nose and ears burn and then go numb, that was fine weather for me. Fine dry weather.

Then I got married and ended up in the Willamette Valley.

I've mostly made my peace with the rain. Mostly. This is the time of year, however, when those cruise ship ads on television become inordinately alluring. This is somewhat silly, actually, as my only prior experience with watercraft was a ferry in South Carolina (or was it North Carolina?) when we had returned to the States from Puerto Rico. It was over 90 degrees F and I recall the water in the harbor being somewhat choppy. These conditions are not ideal for a chubby ten-year-old with a dodgy middle ear. I didn't whistle carrots, thank Zod, but I had one monster of a sick headache by the time we debarked. ANYWAY. I watch the cruise ship ads and see the white beaches and the sunshine and begin to envy the tan caucasians cavorting on islands where the indigenous population smile widely and greet them joyfully (as silently they pine wistfully for revolution and a finely-honed machete), and my goodness doesn't that look nice. Ridiculous. I priced a cruise online once because I was curious. I had to go lie down with a cold cloth over my eyes.

The tropical paradise thing is attractive to me because when I was a kid I lived it for two and a half years. Of course I'm remembering it via the warm and vague memories of childhood. I'm discussing Puerto Rico here, where my family moved in 1967 (my dad was in the Air Force). Okay, it wasn't quite paradise; paradise doesn't feature B-52 bombers (unless you're Al Haig) and hurricanes, and bugs that catch and eat frogs, but for a ten-year-old kid it was dang close. I didn't care that we lived on an air base (Ramey AFB) in a flat-roofed house that had louvers like armor plating in the windows. I was jazzed about the coconut tree that grew in our front yard and the rat the size of a chihuahua that lived at the top of it (well, he used it for an on-ramp at least; the rats seemed to favor power lines as a form of freeway system, and the cables to our house happened to skim the top of the tree in our yard). A crab lived under our lawn mower. Lizards liked to hide under pictures on the wall for my mother to discover when cleaning house. Beaches were an hour's drive or less in our Chevy II. I would fall asleep at night listening to the thrum of power generators connected to C-130 transports sitting on the tarmac beyond a chain-link fence, across the field at the end of our street.

Sometimes I would be awakened in the night by the gentle thumps of beetles and beetle-parts striking my blanket after they'd passed through the open louvers and into the oscillating fan standing in front of the window. (I wonder to myself now: No screens. Why?)

I rode my bike everywhere. I didn't appreciate a bicycle as I do now; a bike to me then was fun but disposable, something for my dad to mutter under his breath about as he picked it up from the middle of the carport so he could park the car. When I was on the bike I was usually looking for a way to destroy it and inviting grievous harm to myself. Diving into curbs. Trying to jump ditches. Riding into rose bushes. Odd that, although my brother Bill was more athletic and physically adept than me, he'd always be the one to get something stuck in him. My parents must have despaired of either of us living long enough to graduate, get jobs, and get the Hell out.

We had kites. Man, that was the best. We could actually fly kites in our front yard, could launch them and play out the line until they were mere dots in the blue. Mine was black and shaped like a bat. Bill's was blue and looked a little like a manta ray. We had to use fishing line, the kind you fight freakin' marlins with, because the winds up high would snap anything lesser. During a particularly busy kite-flying summer, the brass on the base banned flying kites above a certain altitude because they had begun to interfere with radar and low-flying air traffic. I'm serious.

My school was called IMS (InterMediate School -- ah, the military and it's poetic soul) and was comprised of three buildings that were barracks once upon a time. They were each three stories and the "hallways" were open balconies running the lengths of the structures. One year my 5th grade class trooped out to the balcony and lined up to watch as our teacher (Mr. Genereau -- hope I'm not mis-spelling his name) pointed out all the funnel clouds circling the island. It was hurricane season, what else would we do?

When the subject of retirement comes up (briefly, and with snorts from both of us as if sharing a joke, which of course we are), the missus and I consider places like Belize and Panama and other warm-weather environs. Puerto Rico never seems to enter into the discussion, perhaps because I've mentioned to her before how the natives started strafing buses with gunfire shortly before the United States Air Force decided to close the base in 1971. That's an argument for staying stateside: as corrupt as the Old White Guys Club is, it's still one of the most stable ones to be found. Often we're tempted to let "retirement" go hang and just go now; I for one would rather begin to enjoy the tropical lifestyle before I get to the bermuda-shorts-with-knee-socks phase. After this long it would be interesting to see the sun in a different place in the sky.

What this means is that we need to take a trip soon, before we come to rash decisions. A road trip in early spring is like a reset switch. I want to visit eastern Oregon again, maybe even venture into Idaho. I need to spend a night or two in motel rooms and eat fried food in roadside cafes and take some lungfuls of new air.

This is the sort of blog entry you write when you wake up cold.

[The Rob]

Man, I'm really behind on my blog reading. I gotta get busy or I won't know what people are talking about anymore. Same thing with the forums; these folk are gonna forget who the Hell I am. Just because most of my social interaction happens on the InterWeb doesn't mean I ain't busy!*

Last week was somewhat eventful. Firstly, a certain furniture store** declared bankruptcy and threatened to take our money with them. We ordered chairs weeks ago, the chairs were delayed in shipment, we waited more weeks, and then the chairs were sold out from under us to satisfy prior orders. My wife received a telephone call informing her that if she didn't come to the store to select something else by the end of that business day (the call came at 7:30 p.m. and the store closed at nine!), goombye cash and thanks for shopping your friendly court-protected den o' thieves. So now in our living room we have a chair we didn't want (although it is a nice one and looks good in the space), and it's mate is in a warehouse somewhere waiting to be picked up. The missus was livid of course, but couldn't bring herself to scream at the store staff, some of whom she said were skittering around as if any second they would have to fling themselves to the floor to evade small arms fire. These people were as blind-sided as the customers and may not even be employed as I type this.

Meanwhile at the dust mines, a memo from on high informed us that we will all have to troop on down to the clinic in a few weeks to be tested for recreational pharmaceuticals. I'm of two minds about this. On the one side I'm somewhat annoyed that I'd even be included in this, as I think my lengthy employment record indicates a degree of focus and function that precludes any dalliance with unlawful substances. On the other side I understand that the Powers That Beat can't play favorites, plus I get to spend the odd idle moments at work looking for those darting paranoid glances in the eyes of my fellow laborers (Excuse me, I didn't invent schadenfreude; it's a terrible yet natural reaction in the human psyche. The evidence is in our entertainment industry). I hope they're tolerant of my urination performance anxiety.

Also this last week, a coworker and fellow bicycle commuter had a chance encounter with one of what I like to call the biking dead, those EEG flat-liners who nonetheless are somehow able to drape their synapse-starved limbs over a bicycle and pedal it. This freaking town is full of them. This particular BD, a female of the order, exited a sidewalk via a driveway and entered my friend's path of travel perpendicularly, whereupon she was T-boned by 230-odd pounds of strapping cyclist and single-speed. Mowed her like grass. He in turn flipped arse over tea-kettle and painfully came to rest on the asphalt as his bike did a pirouette above him and sailed into the middle of the street. These two people actually rose to their respective feet, brushed themselves off, and retrieved their wounded steeds from the roadway. That in itself I find remarkable. Another remarkable thing is that my coworker didn't pick up the stupid woman's bicycle and beat her with it. Did I mention that he was due for hernia surgery the next day? I didn't? Did I say he bought his bike (a Specialized Langster, New York Edition) only two weeks earlier and now has to put in the shop? No? Sometimes confluence is just the suckness.

Then there are the neighbor issues. Oh Boy. I'm not talking about any one neighbor here, by the way, as there are one or two that sometimes read this thing. I just now deleted two paragraphs because my editor (the missus) advised me that I was being a bit too pointed in my criticisms. Fair enough. It's not my wish to hurt feelings, nor do I want anything left burning outside my front door. Still, I'm sufficiently rankled by recent events to offer this one point to all who may take it unto their bosoms:

Please Be A Parent! Please Do Not Put Me In The Position Of Disciplining Your Children Or Otherwise Guiding Their Conduct (AND Yours) If You Wish To Avoid Embarrassment!

Again, please note that I deleted two whole lengthy paragraphs because I do truly wish to avoid bruised egos and open conflict. If you were hoping for a "not on my porch, so not my business" approach, however, you'll be disappointed. I mind other people's business only when they won't do it themselves. Then you'll mind that I mind.

I must close this now, and go do something that I hope doesn't get me sent home from work tomorrow. I think I'm safe, as my immediate superior has tomorrow off and the department will consist of me and one other guy. Whatcha gonna do? Huh? Huh? Bring it!

-END

* I agree, it's rather sad.

** Lawsuits are also the suckness.

[The Rob]

So. My hair is now blue.

Emboldened by the fact that I was not sent home from Sliver Central for not acting my age some weeks ago, I have replaced the (now more lilac) purple with the sort of blue you only see in those household duster thingies one uses to sweep cobwebs from ceiling corners. It's cool and spiky. It's also turning the backs of my ears blue, something about which I am not thrilled. I also had to sleep with a towel across my pillow last night. My hairstylist assured me that the intensity, and the propensity of the dye to tint everything and everyone with whom I come in contact, will fade quickly and thus render it more manageable and less strident. She also said that my first shower will look like a scene from CSI: Smurf Town.

Why do I do this sort of thing? Because middle-aged men in my tax bracket can't purchase Ferraris, and secret affairs with strippers don't usually come with EZ payment plans. Not that I would do those things anyway, but I mean to say that these options are closed to guys like me unless I learn to cook meth or knock over banks. So. Blue hair. I like the look, but probably won't keep it for more than a couple months. At the end of June we're visiting Dallas (Texas), and in the Original Red State it's best to adopt protective coloration.

Yeah, we're going to Dallas June 29th. The absurdity of dying my hair an unnatural hue pales in comparison to the blatant insanity of venturing to Dallas Texas in the summer months. The humidity! Last time I visited, the temperature only rose to 85 or so and still it was like wading hairline-deep in broth. Then I would step inside and be instantly frozen in place by the arctic caresses of the air-conditioning. I've gotten used to the inside temperature being fairly close to the outdoor temperature (the Northwest doesn't overdo the AC), but in Dallas the difference is, like, fifty freakin' degrees. Walking out of any public building is like strolling into a furnace from an igloo. The doors of malls and grocery stores vibrate with the stresses of internal vs. external atmospheric pressure, I kid you not.

This trip we'll be accompanied by Isabella and her mum, Lisa. Isabella is all agog over the water parks. I loath water parks. I'm not a water person anyway. I don't really swim (I can thrash my way across the width of a pool if you have half an hour to watch), and I had rather a terrible experience in the surf at a beach on Puerto Rico when I was eight years old*, so water is nice to look at from a safe distance but not something I necessarily want ON me unless bathing is an imperative. So the ladies may go enjoy their natatorial pleasures. Brother Bill and I will content ourselves with other forms of liquid in front of his television watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVDs, or perhaps trying to whack each other at Call of Duty.

Or we'll drink and Bill will grill various animal parts. Bill has a grill the size of our car. I missed the grilling gene, but Bill's all over that stuff. He watches Alton Brown and those guys on the Food Network, he buys fancy cutlery and crockery, he loves to try new recipes. Me, I eat. That's my contribution. He grills, I eat it. YOU grill, I'll eat YOUR stuff. I'm happy to help. Ask me to actually cook anything and you just don't realize what you're asking for. I suck at cooking. I just don't have the patience, so I'll either hover over it and fuss and flop the stuff around in the pan and get bored, or I'll get distracted and light myself on fire or slice an artery. If you're standing too close It's possible I'll find a way to maim you too. Ask my wife. Best leave that sort of thing to the enthusiasts.

The tough part of the trip is the air travel. I don't mind flying per se (well, once we get up to cruising altitude anyway, where the distance to the ground becomes abstracted; not so fond of seeing stuff race by at 500 mph from only fifty feet off the tarmac, to be honest), but the queueing up and the luggage handling and the dispensation of all my personal weaponry is tedious. (Here's a tip: put all of your metal bits and valuables in a ziplock bag so you don't have to waste time fishing junk out of your pockets. Works a treat.) I learned one thing from my last trip: never again will I carry on luggage. Last time I could only stow my bag a full third of the cabin away from my seat, and when the plane landed I had to practically crowd surf to retrieve the damned thing. Actually, I should have done that. Crowd surfed. That'll teach 'em. Anyway, this time the only item coming with me on the plane is a book. Okay, maybe two. Non-stop flights both ways, so fortunately only a bit under four hours each way. Our son's significant other has offered the use of his vehicle for the week so that we may travel where and when we like, which is just terribly cool of him.

The missus and I will each take a camera on the trip, so upon return I hope to have photos of Big D to post. Christ, I wish we could just go NOW, but that would defeat the secondary purpose of the trip: reminding the missus of one of the reasons we moved up here by subjecting her to the heat of a Dallas summer.

It was her idea.


* I was knocked down by a wave and thought I was drowning. The lifeguard ignored my choked pleas for help, the bastard.

[The Rob]

We’ve revisited winter this last week, and I contracted a cold at the very same time. So, yeah, go me.

I’ve managed to work through it, but it hasn’t been pleasant what with having to constantly traipse into the warm and cozy environs of the Eloi to deliver bits of paper and then rejoin my fellow Morlocks in the heat-starved caverns. I’ve so far managed to deal with it by imagining myself an agent of germ warfare; they’ll start dropping in their tracks this next week.

Yesterday we had every sort of weather imaginable: snow, sleet, hail, rain, wind, sun. I never look at any day as "miserable", but I’ll admit I’m looking forward to warm, clear, sunny days. Not that I could fully enjoy a day like that at the moment seeing as how I can’t manage to inflate my lungs all the way, but it would at least be nice to look at from inside. I could at least go out to the parking lot to wash my bike. It would be nice to do SOMETHING with it, because I haven’t ridden it in a week.

Boy, this is one sad sack of a blog entry. Maybe I should do one of those horrid "100 Things About Me" lists. I doubt I’d get very far unless I included shoe size and the like, but it might be elucidating. At least it would fill the blank space so I could stop doing this and go do something one Hell of a lot more engaging.



The First Twenty-Five Of A List Of One Hundred Things About Me That You’ll Probably Wish I hadn’t Bothered To Write

1. I am of Dutch, Cherokee, and Irish lineage (The Dutch explains my miserly ways and the Irish and Cherokee throws some light on the drinking).

2. I may be an alcoholic.

3. I hate being touched, especially around the shoulders. People often do this for fun and I try to laugh it off, but I really want to cripple them for it.

4. I have a fear of heights.

5. When I was a kid I looked just like the fat kid in The Far Side comic strips, the one with the buzz cut and the coke-bottle eyeglasses. Boy, there’s some fond memories of my formative years.

6. My favorite ice cream flavor is tiramisu. Actually, tiramisu is a favorite dessert.

7. I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed. (Okay, I’m lying, that’s a line from There Will Be Blood. I might lie here and there in this list. More fun for me.)

8. When first meeting people I always assume they will dissappoint me in some way.

9. When first meeting people I always assume I’ll dissappoint them in some way.

10. I hate talking on the ’phone.

11. I hate waiting for others to stop talking on their goddamned ’phones.

12. I was born in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio in 1959. The Cuyahoga River caught fire in Cleveland in 1969, so I’m clear.

13. I love looking at lovely women, but it’s an aesthetic that has almost nothing to do with sexuality, or at least it rarely involves sexual fantasy of the sort that includes me. I think this means that I admire a woman’s appearance as an open-minded homosexual man would. Ye Gods, this bears thinking about.

14. I believe sex is vastly over-rated.

15. The smell of marijuana makes me physically ill. I don’t want that stuff anywhere near me.

16. I’ve decided that I lack the organizational skills and the discipline to be a successful serial killer. Not that I had any concrete plan to be one. It’s just a thought I had while watching Dexter the other night. Really, it just looks like it would be exhausting.

17. I despise bigots and will publicly ridicule them at every opportunity.

18. I enjoy listening to Jimi Hendrix while blogging. Jimi Hendrix, as a musician, is one of the few icons I willingly embrace from that era. All the rest of that "hippy" crap leaves me cold.

19. I’m in love with the idea of a benevolent God, but in truth I think the Earth (Gaia) is the closest thing to the concept. Gaia isn’t consciously benevolent, but it takes no stretch to understand that the better we treat Her, the better off we are.

20. I used to enjoy acting on the stage, and did quite a few plays in civic theater. When I was younger I wanted to go professional, but that was back when it felt as if it was the only thing I would ever do well.

21. I think I’ll never be half the man my father was, and I still miss him.

22. I haven’t had a physical fight in fifteen years. I’ve actually had relatively few fights, perhaps because when pushed I do "Cuh-RAY-Zay" pretty convincingly.

23. I loath being photographed by other people and will never submit to it gracefully. Go steal someone else’s soul.

24. I’m physically modest to a fault.

25. I’m a high-functioning sociopath.

[The Rob]

Isabella, Cathy, and I watched Superman (the 1978 version with Christopher Reeve) yesterday. It was my first viewing of it since, well, 1978 I think. I actually expected that someone might have to slap the goofy grin from my face as I watched it, gleefully wrapped in cozy nostalgia, but instead I found myself rolling my eyes a lot and fidgeting. No disrespect intended for either director Richard Donner or the cast, but MAN that was awful.

I don't blame the film. I blame 1978. That was a smuggly year, boy. Forget about the special effects that might as well have had the wires painted Day-Glo orange, the real unsightliness was all over every poor cast member and extra, in the form of really bad clothing choices. Who thought that plaid was acceptable for a suit jacket? Or pants? Or hats? The best bit in the movie is the pimp on the street voicing his approval of Superman's outfit. That speaks volumes.

I graduated high school in 1977, so by the time this movie was released I was well on my way in my quest to seriously **** up my life. So let's see what else was going on in 1978.



* The Academy Award for Best Motion Picture went to Annie Hall. Loved it. No flying wires apparent.

* The Most Popular Song was "Shadow Dancing", by Andy Gibb. I used to hate disco. I would listen to Kiss before I'd listen to disco. I'm not kidding. Now enough time has passed that I can wax nostalgic about both disco and Kiss (I just made the 19-year-old me of 1978 wake up in a cold sweat).

* The Jonestown Massacre. Apparently you can fool at least 900 people all the time. Or, well, long enough.

* First test tube baby - In vitro fertilization. A "Zowey!" medical breakthrough thingy, but I'm not sure this was really an "advancement in humanity" thingy. Time will tell, but you know Lex Luthor would have grown a YUGE army by now.

* Ultrasound first used. Ultra-groovy.

* Garfield the Cat was syndicated.

* Love Canal in New York was declared a federal disaster. This refers to an actual canal. As in water. I feel I must clarify this, as we're discussing 1978 here and in certain publications in which certain biological amusements were described, the phrase "love canal" was used often in a way that had little to do with municipal waterworks.

* Space Invaders was the most popular arcade game so far as I knew, since every arcade and pizza place had one and people actually lined up to play it. I didn't play it that much, being more of an Asteroids player (at which I also sucked).



Isabella has come in to sleep in the chair behind me. She's stayed the weekend with us. I'm clacking away here and she's snoring. I'm going to have to tease her about that later, because she's always giving us grief about it.

I am, against all common sense, looking forward to the Dallas trip. I even posted a "freeway tour" of Dallas on my MySpace profile page, courtesy of YouTube. I like my job just fine, but I'll admit to that sense of "This again!" when I roll into the parking lot these days. I just need to see some different stuff for about a week. Get away from our neighbors. Drink more than is good for me. Eat grilled and fried foods. Sweat while sitting still. Hopefully stand outside during a lightning storm. In short, I need to hit the reset button. I need to get out of town before I really do wear out my welcome.

Oh, and that next installment of the "100 Things"? It's coming. Just not today.

Out.

[The Rob]

I have a brilliant idea for a screenplay, if only I had the wit, discipline, patience, and stamina to write it. A man has regrets about choices he made in his past and seeks to rectify them via time travel (like, he finds a machine, or steals one, or maybe he signs up as a volunteer for the testing, or maybe he just helps a gypsy change a tire and she's really grateful...see, this is where it gets really hard and I'd rather go watch television and have a snack), and he seeks to accomplish things he failed the first time around (a career in the United States Navy, say, or managing not to become a felon, or maybe writing a screenplay). Here's the gimmick: he has to fix all the wrong turns he'd taken while preserving the life he has in the present. That means he has to keep going backward and forward to check his progress and correct the missteps he's inadvertently causing in his quest to tie up all loose ends. He must finesse events so that all the bad judgements he made and crimes he perpetrated are erased without screwing up his future present (ay-yi-yi). This is what makes my story unique, see; no altering his present life, because his life now is how he wants it. No vengeful righting of wrongs done by some villain, just the protagonist attempting to swab his own decks. No tragedy for which he feels responsible and feels compelled to prevent, unless you count the many disappointments with which he's laden his friends and family as he's blundered his way through his own life and theirs. Does/did, had/has; cripes, just writing the thing down has me dithering over tenses.

No, I don't think this sounds like The Butterfly Effect at all. Was that a good movie? I haven't seen it. At least my idea uses a time machine. Or a gypsy. My gypsy would be CGI.

Have I stated that I love getting up before dawn? On weekdays I rise from bed at 4am and on the weekends by at least 5. I started doing it because it was difficult to fit gym visits into the after-work hours, but I've come to love this time of morning. Actually I always have, but now I'm appreciating it as I stretch and start the coffee and fire up the pc, instead of getting up from the keyboard and shuffling off to bed. Yup, on weekends I used to stay up all night, then collapse into bed and sleep until nearly noon. That's Saturday and Sunday, half of both days shot, and I got to carry around a screaming yawn in the back of my throat the rest of the day. I blame that scourge of the playground, the one that your parents and teachers begged you to avoid, the World Wide Web. I must admit I'm an addict. The Interweb, she is like the woo-mon who leads you down the alley and then streeps you of your self-respect as she shows you feelthy peectures of Alyssa Milano. Yeah, okay, I'll knock it off.

Speaking (typing) of the Internet, in my rambling travels through the ether I found a website called the zinester's guide to portland (no caps; does anybody besides me freakin' bother anymore?) that allows you to find stuff around town via catagories, complete with clickable maps and reviews. You could spend hours on this thing. Cheggidoot. I probably found it by way of surfing bicycles websites, but surfing for me is so stream-of-consciousness that I can't be certain. Maybe I was on Wikipedia. I spend a lot of time on Wikipedia. Actually I'm on it right now. No, it's not my sole research site, I always cross-reference ma, jeez. It is the first stop, however, and it's like walking into the library without a specific book in mind. This also explains the barely-catagorized rummage-sale heap that is my browser's bookmarks folder.

You may be surprised to learn that there is no pornography in my bookmarks folder. Nothing. At all. That I would call pornography.

It's a lovely morning. I should give the bike a cleaning, but circumstances with a downstairs neighbor suggest I do it on the balcony. I really hate having neighbor troubles, those uncomfy moments when we come face-to-face in our comings and goings, particularly when we used to be friends, but it can't really be helped. This is why I used to fantasize about lonely duty at an arctic station. Sartre wrote "Hell is other people", and there are times I'm prone to agree. Ah well, perhaps we'll only have this problem for another month.

Okay, here's ten more. Chew slowly!

26. I suffer from fairly severe dysmorphia.

27. I have 26 teeth left in my head. At age 14, four molars were surgically removed due to over-crowding and impaction. At age 22, two were removed because I feared dentistry, not realizing that ignoring a huge cavity for so long would ultimately end with a dentist's knee on my chest as he pried two molars out the old-fashioned Wild West way. It's not fun to hear a dentist grunt with effort. Thank the godz for happy gas.

28. Every summer I'm tempted to use spray-on tan because I can't tan naturally without cooking myself like a ham. I can't use the spray-on stuff either, however, because it always splotches and streaks and I wind up looking like the living embodiment of a Grateful Dead concert.

29. Animal abuse enrages me and I would without hesitation bludgeon someone into a coma for it.

30. My moral values are very important to me, and I loath myself when I step off the path.

31. I'm pretty certain no one would really care for my turn as Emperor. Count your lucky stars.

32. I'm allergic to "celebrity news".

33. I drink far and away too much coffee. When I quit smoking I thought every other attendant vice would abate. Nope.

34. I love driving through the desert at night with Mexican music muttering through the static of the car radio. Actually, hearing the radio stations wax and wane on a road trip is one of my very favorite things.

35. I have a highly-developed sense of olfactory memory.


Time for Sunday brunch. Exit.

[The Rob]

It appears our downstairs neighbor has moved out, or is in the process of doing so. Night before last we found a plastic bag containing various books we'd loaned her hanging on our doorknob. It was good of her to return them (although one might argue that the message conveyed had nothing to do with either honesty or courtesy) but this situation sucks and, quite honestly, I could do with having no neighbors ever again. Well, except for our next-door neighbor Donna who is a sweet lady and apparently has no vices whatsoever except Christianity. We're going to petition her to look after the cats while we're on vacation in Dallas. But other than her, I would like it if we had an armed perimeter (armed with blueberry tart cannons; I'm not Satan so I don't wish death or dismemberment on anyone, but blueberry stains are a bitch and so that would make anyone on a clothing budget think twice before knocking on my damn door).

I went in for a physical exam Friday afternoon. The "exam" turned out to be a simple Q&A re: How's Rob Feeling?, with nary a syringe or rubber glove in the room. I described my various aches and pains (few and minor, all things considered), and voiced concerns about weight gain after quitting smoking (I am really frustrated and depressed about that and so my habits henceforth are going to be as Spartan as I can manage without wearing the brushy helmet). My blood pressure was 130/82, which isn't bad but annoyed me anyway. With all that out of the way, now I can schedule a real draw-and-poke physical with a lab. So is this how it's done these days? Was she simply screening me? If I was in radiant health, would she have said "We don' need no steenking pheesical"? Or in the event of really poor health, "Look, there's really no point here, I'm afraid. Why don't you just go home to your recliner, flip on the tube and relax with a tub of chips and let Nature take it's course"? I'm in the middle, so I get to starve for twelve hours and then have strangers stick me with stuff. Really glad I only have to do this once a year. Or so.

Of course she had to bring up the magic number 50 and the way adults these days celebrate it: The First Colonoscopy. She read the expression on my face and said it was okay, they knock you out for it. I seem to recall Katie Couric getting this done on live television, yakking away as a tiny camera broadcast The Inner Katie to the masses. Is my physician lying to me? Or are news anchors really made of nerveless plastic as I've always suspected? All of this I suppose is necessary due to fun family habits such as aneurisms and cancer, but that doesn't make it any more comfy. For anyone who demands a sphere of personal space be honored at all times (like me), a physical examination is highly uncomfortable. I'd give it a skip if I didn't know that my wife would warp space and breach the sound barrier to get me there.

Let's me talk about something else.

I'm thinking.

This is harder than it looks. I wish I was like some of the bloggers I regularly read. Some never miss a week and the words just flow out of them like, uh, like flowing stuff. Me, it's like giving myself a haircut with pliers.

We actually had a thunderstorm that lasted more than thirty seconds last night. Awesome. I was outside for a few minutes of it, escorting an elderly drunken neighbor (another self-made victim; we tend to attract them somehow) across the parking lot to her apartment, then back to our own apartment because she left her purse there, and then back again to let her into her place. Then back once more to our apartment where I decared to my wife that I would never again let another human being through the front door. I sound so like a mean person, don't I? You can be honest. This isn't news to me.

I am actually looking forward to our trip to Dallas but my focus in thinking about it is just me sitting in my seat on the plane reading a book. Just that. I have no idea why, but reading during a flight is one of those special pleasures for me. Since there are four of us going together, one of us will be seated behind the other three. I volunteered to be the odd one out. This probably won't spare me unnecessary conversation but it might curtail it a bit. The missus and I have agreed to share one suitcase to check, so we'll only have to pay the robber barons of the airways $15.00. Isabella always travels with a zoofull of stuffed animals and junk, plus the steamer trunk of snacks, and her mother will probably have to bring her own closet-load, so I forsee a cha-ching! rendered in basso profundo for her at check-in. I'll have to be alert in case she swoons and crumples to the floor so I can safely step back and out of the way.

My goodness but I have a bad attitude this morning.

I hear my neighbor downstairs, so I have to go eavesdrop. See ya.



Last book read: From A Buick 8, Stephen King (It's a keeper!)

Book currently reading: Darkly Dreaming Dexter, Jeff Lindsay (Great so far.)

[The Rob]

This is the house in which I spent most of the first eight years of my life. This is 1003 N Plains Park Drive in Roswell, New Mexico. This is a very recent picture; it didn't look like this when I lived there. Odd that I don't remember the color of the house when I lived in it, but it wasn't this color. I seem to recall that there was a tree in the front yard, and that pole jutting up from the ground on the left side of the frame used to be a yard light, fashioned to look like an old gas street lamp. It used to be black.

The back yard was girded by a chain link fence, I remember that very well. Who is the sadist that would build a chain link fence in a climate that often provides temperatures of 90 degrees and above for three months of the damned year? I'm surprised I wasn't branded for life.

Lately I've been wanting to go there, to Roswell, and stand on the sidewalk and look at this house. Haven't got a really good reason to do that (other than the drive there would make for a really great road trip!) but nostalgia can be a powerful motivator I suppose. I liked living there when I was a kid. I talked to my brother Bill about this urge I have, but he can't really relate to it. He was all of four years old when we moved from Roswell to Ramey Air Force Base in Puerto Rico in 1967. He doesn't remember it. He doesn't even remember standing in an ant bed screaming his head off in the alley as our mother dashed to his rescue and I did my big brother part from a safe distance: throwing my hands up and yelling "Well move for cryin' out loud!" I was also probably laughing too, because I was one stupendous jerk of an older brother (and also not a terribly bright one, since I never learned not to tease and laugh at his expense after he'd grown enough to punch me out).

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I got a call from the clinic last week regarding my physical. In summary, I was told I need to cut back on sweets and carbs and get more exercise, but that it didn't appear I was in danger of falling down dead without help from outside influences. Okay, fine. I'm on the program and have a goal to be healthier and more svelt (svelter?) by the end of the year BUT...the vacation trip is hands off. I will not behave myself for that week. Many are the times I have denied myself this treat or that one, but there'll be none of that in Dallas. This trip is about relaxation, couch-trippin' and watching DVDs and computer gaming and drinking and actively seeking fried, fat-laden foods. Oh, I'll do some core work and use my brother's BowFlex (last time I was there it was serving as a very expensive coat rack) and I may even convince myself to do long walks in the relative cool of morning (82 F and 98 per cent humidity). The rest of the time? Chillin' in the true sense of the word. Have I said that Texas is the air-conditioning capital of the world? If all the air-conditioners in Texas were to shut off at once, the abrupt drop in pressure would quite possibly send the Earth wobbling right out of orbit. I kid you not.

I'm looking forward to this trip way too much. I actually hate anticipating things because when I'm doing that I'm not paying adequate attention to what I should be doing now. Probably everyone's like that, yes? Look forward to vacations, look forward to retirement, look forward to the next cigarette break or sexual encounter or television show. This is actually why I'm going to start walking again, walking for the exercise but also walking for the enjoyment of it and no other purpose. When I walk just to walk, no destination in mind, it's living in the moment. I notice and can appreciate the neighborhood, the trees and yards and houses, the different aromas and sounds, the cracks in the sidewalk. I get some of that from riding the bicycle too, but even that too often is mere propulsion toward an end result because I'm usually riding to and from work. It's not wandering. I want, need, to just wander.

The missus and I have decided to make more trips to the seaside from now on, and strolling the surf, for me, is the best therapy and antidote for Too Much On The Brain.

Dang. I need to toss some groceries down muh neck. Later.

[The Rob]

Almost Forgot How


That was some hiatus.

I have no excuses. I allocate my time poorly when not bound by an enforced schedule. Plus the Internet, she sings the siren song and leads me astray to dash my good intentions against the jagged rocks of my Favorites menu. Do not Tread this Path, curious Pilgrim, lest ye Kill four Hours and Tempt the Wrath of thine Spouse.

Attended the tent sale at Joe's last Thursday and bought a couple new pairs of kicks pretty much at the insistence of the missus, who for some reason believes the world at large will judge her for my admittedly lackluster approach to personal dressing habits. It's true, my work sneakers were approximately eight years old and had started to look as if they were molting to set free a pair of sandals, but they were comfy. What do I care what my workmates think? It's not a singles mixer, for Christ's sake. But no, I had to wade and wedge between racks and racks of clothing and shoes with about a three million other citizens who'd lost their minds when we all decided to go shopping immediately after work. Seriously, I simply can't imagine a better way to follow up the workday than shuffling in circles with a bunch of other tired, annoyed folks. On an empty stomach, yet. I finally worked out that the faint rumbling noise I kept hearing was everyone else's stomachs clamoring to be fed too. After a bit it sounded like a language. A grumpy language.

By the way, is there anything sillier than putting on a new pair of shoes straight from the box, taking perhaps five whole strides in them, and saying to yourself "Yes! Perfect!" as if those few steps are an adequate test of footwear you'll soon be wearing all day? My work sneakers felt terrific at the store (uh, tent); wore 'em to work the next day and by noon it felt like I was standing on a church pew. Stores should provide lease-to-own options on shoes.

The danger of shopping for me is that, too often, my inside voice shoves it's way out the screen door and stands on the front porch in it's tatty undershorts. The missus says "Ohh, these are nice, what do you think?", and I'll wander over and say something like "Yeah, those aren't bad at all. How much?" I'll read the price tag. "*******, MY EYES!". I'll turn to look at my wife in disbelief, but she's suddenly become intensely interested in something else at the end of the aisle. It's a pity when it happens in a restaurant, because her avenues of escape are limited. She's learned to shrug and smile apologetically and simply say "Tourette's".

So two pairs of shoes and five t-shirts and one pair of shorts later we finally queued up to make our escape. There was a woman with one arm in a cast standing sentry at the exit (tent flap) checking shoppers' receipts. I wondered about the arm; was it a non-work-related injury? Or did she bust her elbow across a would-be thief's jaw? I sort of prefer the latter scenario. By the time we were out of there I'd wanted to use my own elbow a few times.



I just had a vacation and here I am looking forward to taking more time away. This next time will be closer to home, however, because as fun as the trip to Dallas was, it wasn't all that relaxing. I can't really relax in other peoples' homes. It doesn't matter if they're related to me, I'm just not fully at ease in any environment save my own. A nice three-day weekend where I can loll on the sofa and eat popcorn and watch television or read sounds ideal. Cripes, a nap now sounds nice; why do I get up so damned early on weekends? (Answer: A cat who could give a crap about what day it is, time to get yo' ass up and make wiff da tuna, punk!)



Just for different I'm providing below a short list of websites I like. No particular order of importance, just places I like to visit.

EuphoricArythmia -- Nice forums, nice folks. I go by 'Rob of Earth' there.

ForumGarden -- Same here. I'm 'The Rob' when I log in.

YourHomeForum -- Aaaand another one. Look for 'I, Rob' here, if you've a mind.

Mike's Amazing World of DC Comics -- I love comic books and graphic novels.

Alien Loves Predator -- It's warped. I love it.

Wondermark -- A favorite online comic. Genius.



What sounds good for breakfast? Any freakin' thing right now. Time to join the missus at table and peruse the morning newspaper. See ya.

[The Rob]

I've changed my schedule and it's taking a while to adjust. I had been getting up at 4 a.m. during the week so that I could go to the gym at five, and it worked well for most of two years but lately I'd found myself watching cartoons (yes, yes, now go read someone else's blog and feel superior) for two hours until SWMBO got up. Not terribly constructive, so I decided to shift the gym schedule to after work so that I could still enjoy time with the missus both in the morning and evening.

Oddly, and actually counter-intuitively, my muscles are not exactly over the moon about this. I'd have thought they would cheer and say "Thank You! We are all now limber and warm before you make us work so hard, whereas before we were sleepy and grumpy! To honor your wise and kind decision we will reward you with a few more centimeters to the biceps, 'kay meng?" But no, apparently muscles are more like cats than dogs, an analogy that seems even more fitting when you consider that an over-worked shoulder does feel as if it's being mangled like a catnip toy. They'll just have to get with the program, because this schedule is sticking around. It's nice not to have to go to bed at freakin' 9 p.m. I can record the cartoons.

The gym crowd in the evening is different from that of the morning. It seems that all the moaners and screamers prefer later hours (insert your own tacky joke here). I'm a quiet toiler in my pursuit of a taut and powerful physique, but some of these other fellows sound like they're passing stones. I find it a little difficult to concentrate for that last trembling rep when the guy behind me suddenly yells "GUH-KUH-KUH-GLAAHH!" and then drops the 300-pounds he'd been using on the floor as he walks away (always with his head down as he towels his face; I suspect that what he's really doing is stuffing an eye that ejected from his head back into it's socket). I never hear women do this. Is it truly a gender thing? The very few times I have yelled like that during a strenuous effort, I was near coma some seconds later, so in this context I believe it's actually the gym equivalent of pawing the ground or beating the breast except it comes after and not before. "HELLO! I HAVE JUST LIFTED THIS ENORMOUS WEIGHT AND HAVE SQUIRTED YOU WITH MY PERSPIRATION FROM EIGHT FEET AWAY, THUS PROVING MY INDOMITABLE STRENGTH AND MY WILLINGNESS TO HURT MYSELF TO IMPRESS YOU ALL! WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE PICK UP MY EYE OVER THERE AND BRING IT TO ME?"

I've noticed that men always look at these other guys grunting and screaming, but the women never do. Just an observation, dudes.





A fellow member in a forum posted a thread suggesting people take photos of where they live. I might, if I can get my other chores done today, go out walking in the neighborhood with a camera. This would be a healthy thing to do because before I can get to a neighborhood I have to travel a mile or so because our apartment complex is in the middle of a light-industrial area. Unless I want to take photos of the Goodwill and the half-mile of straight, boring road leading out to more interesting architecture, the better bet is to walk to downtown Milwaukie and on to the neighborhoods beyond.

I took some photos on the Springwater Trail on my way home from work at Spruce 'n' Abuse some months ago...




...but I need to get some skillz because I'm almost never happy with snaps I take. Photography in the hands of the gifted is a favorite art of mine, but as yet I don't seem to have the knack. I just need to make myself take more photographs, but it's just not something I think about ordinarily.

Here is where the magic happens, by the way:








At least so far we've been left to ourselves this weekend. The wife needed a break from tending the kid and her little friends. That's what happens, one kid becomes four or five because of course she wants to play with her friends and then they're all over here and the missus is suddenly mommy-surrogate for them all because some other mothers can't be bothered. Annoys her (and me) no end. Plus, Lil Angel is morphing into quite the little princess who is convinced that anyone taller than she is a servant. The missus and I have discussed it, and we have decided we are going to school the young miss in the proper ways of adult/child dynamics (pardon me while I rub palms together in malicious glee). I love this kid, and I'd rather she not grow into yet another mouth-breathing, resource-consuming drone, because folks, we have enough already. This might sound like an anti-youth rant. Tough. I was in danger of becoming one of those myself once upon a time, and I consider myself fortunate that I had parents and others who were willing to make me absolutely miserable for a chance at a useful life. This will sound so clench-jawed John Birch-y I'm sure, but kids know and deserve everything unless caught early and convinced that they don't. It's just a Truth.

Wow. Soap box be a-creakin' mon.

Love (most of) ya. L8erz.