Mundanities

[The Rob]

Yesterday the missus and I, along with Isabella and her mum Lisa went to Cannon Beach to see the sand castle contest.



Of course it was raining, because we decided to attend. We are unwilling rain gods and we are powerful.

For those who have never attended this annual event, you can view some great examples here. This year's competition was somewhat lackluster; not a great deal of participation in the contest, although attendance seemed substantial. It mattered not, as the contest was really just an excuse for us to go to the coast for the first time in two years.

There are few things I enjoy more than walking the surf, and I get much the same sense of immensity gazing at the sea as I do looking at the stars (when I can see them, anyway). I feel I could walk for miles and miles alongside the ocean. It feels like a blessing. Do you know the feeling when you come to a realization that this moment, right now, is perfect, that every sense is attuned to that perfection and you wish that you could keep that moment as more than just memory, to bask in it at any time you wanted? It's like that with me. I call them Gaia interludes, and they come while revisiting landscapes I haven't seen in some time but just as often they come spontaneously in new places.

Anyway. Isabella and I had a great time running in the surf and dodging the waves. My shins and calves are feeling the effort now (further hints that my legs need more work than just pedaling a bike), and my shoes are still out on the porch encrusted with sand and sodden, but it was a grand time. We gave it four thumbs up! The missus made a few dashes herself (I keep having to warn her that she's going to bust a hinge and be in real trouble but it falls upon deaf ears), but Isabella's mum Lisa chose instead to wield her fancy four-pound digital camera from a safe distance.

Lisa doesn't care for the outdoors and would prefer an air-conditioned bubble (with room service) at all times. Her presence was only a concession to Isabella, I suspect. I won't bust her chops too much, as she was a good sport about not taking face-forward photos of me (my request; I detest having my picture taken). Besides, she had to put up with a longish drive with my wife and Isabella in the back seat. Gawd. You would think they were the same age, and I mean six years old and not, uh, the other. They did everything but kick the backs of the front seats. At about the 25-mile mark Lisa started to get those hard lines around the mouth. At around fifty miles I swear I heard muttering. She did at one point clearly state that this was why Isabella was an only child. I myself was feeling remorse at the tortures my brother and I inflicted upon our parents during road trips.

Me: "He's poking me!"
Brother Bill: "I'm not either! Get your fat leg off my side!"
Dad: "Okay, stop touching each other. Jesus Kee-rist!"
Me: "Now he's looking at me!"
Dad: "Alright, stop looking at each other. Actually, one of you just get out of the car. Draw straws. Jesus Kay-Kee-rist!"

After a couple of hours we piled back in the car and drove homeward. That's when the torpor set in. Exercise followed by enforced inactivity in a moving vehicle and too many store-bought chocolate-chip cookies (road trips are not fueled by health food, c'mon!) is guaranteed to put me in an eyelid-sagging fugue state. Plus, my tail-bone starts pining for the womb and begins to fold over on itself. Extricating myself from the car after finally arriving home is an excruciating process and I'm thankful we went in Lisa's Outback rather than our Yaris, else I'd have needed the jaws of life to get out.

Isabella spent the night with us, and she and the missus are now up and awake and demanding, so I must close for now. I'll try to update in a more timely fashion from now on, but really, I just can't be trusted.

Now reading: D-Day June 6, 1944 by Stephen E. Ambrose. Riveting.

Guh-bye,

-Rob

[The Rob]

dr3amz r suxX0r kthxbye


I had another smoking dream Friday night, in which I succumbed to temptation, smoked a cigarette, and then felt overwhelming remorse and a heavy feeling of hopelessness. I'm staring my one-year no-smoking anniversary in the face here, so when does this **** stop?

Speaking of anniversaries, the missus and I celebrated our 16th year of matrimony this weekend by successfully staying the Hell away from other people. This is no mean feat, as practically everyone we know outside of work lives here in the same complex with us. What did we do? Well, since we've been married 16 years, obviously sex wasn't involved. Instead, we read books and watched home-improvement programming.

Yes, home-improvement programming. They're addictive, these shows. I find it really funny that, what with the industry in which I work and the number of DIY shows we watch at home, I still can't hammer a nail unless we're talking about the one growing from my thumb. Or yours, maybe. I'm that bad. Any home-improvement projects more complicated than vacuuming the floor are bound to go badly and end with much strife and muttered obscenities in the Garrison household. Usually the missus is content to leave me out of them now, but every now and then she forgets the near-miss with marriage counceling we courted the last time she sought to include me in some doomed decorating foray, and I have to prove to her yet again why it's best for all that I just trundle off for a nap and stay out of her way.

Anyway. One thing that the missus did that I did not was watch Pan's Labyrinth. I wasn't in the mood for a movie so I read in the bedroom and then dozed off. It's just as well, because she reported afterward that it was one of the most depressing films she'd seen yet. Terrific. I don't do depressing movies. I've had them sneak up on me ("Im so happy I got to see that, because they did such a wonderful job in the previews of not letting on that I'll want to razor my wrists open in the nearest bathtub! Thumbs up!".), but you will never see me skip to the googleplex with the intent to watch a movie the sole purpose of which is to make me feel like crap for being alive and well. Schindler's List is a terrific film, I have no doubt. I will never willingly see it. Same goes for A Mighty Heart. Call me shallow, but I want to be entertained by a movie, not have my conscience raised. It's pretty high up there already, thanks. It's just a bitch because I was looking forward to Pan's Labyrinth. Crud.

The missus awaits in the livingroom, with brownies! D

See ya,

-Rob

[The Rob]

Sweet Suffering

The Tour de France is going skyward this week, into the Pyrenees. The mountain stages are my favorites in the big stage (multi-day) races because I get it all right there: beautiful scenery, graceful forms, the lovely minimalist structure of the perfect machine known as the bicycle...and the brute-force misery of human beings slogging defiantly up switchbacks, some with gritted teeth and steely determination, many with salt rings around their mouths from dehydration, probably more than one or two who would like nothing more than to pull over to the side, vomit down the side of the mountain, and stuff their distended, tortured lungs back down their throats where they belong. What's not to love?

I ride a bicycle nearly every working day. It's roughly five or six miles (depending on the route I travel) from my apartment to my place of disjoyment, and when I opt to use the MUP (Multi-Use Path; in this case the Springwater trail) I try to open it up and go as fast as I can safely manage. This translates as "not that fast" really, because I ride a bike outfitted for cummuting (aka heavy as all Hell) and I myself am outfitted in a physique better made for power-lifting (if I weren't so goddamned lazy) or blog-writing (bingo!). Still, I pass about as many people as pass me so I should be content with that because I'm a straight "B" personality. Let the world go by at it's own pace, y'know?

Well, y'know? No. Because although when I was a kid I could'nt care less about sports - hated any and all in fact, and it wasn't the sports themselves I detested but the mindset of the ignoramuses that played them - I have now found in my middle age, when it certainly feels too late and stupid to care, that I get really aggressive when on my bike. The Lycra-clad insects on their twenty-pound Litespeeds pass me arrogantly and without a word, and all I want to do is pedal like a fooken windmill, catch up to them, and try to fit my right elbow in their left ears (always pass on the left; simple courtesy). I'm outraged by their rudeness and want to shove my frame pump through their spokes. Why?

Well, I know why of course. I hate discourtesy and always have. Discourtesy makes me want to snap bones and suck marrow. I admit it freely. But that's not really it. It's competitive desire that feels like violence. If an emotion can camoflage itself as another, then this is proof of it. This is what bothers me. Nearly a whole life-time of sedentary living and bad habits has left me with the idea that it's best not to strive, and here I am at forty-eight years old getting angry about not being able (or more to the point, having to work so hard to be able) to keep pace with a twenty-something on a bike that weighs about the same as my shoes. It feels pretty pathetic. And yet. And yet...

It feels good to be competitive, to feel rage at others for their (perceived) arrogance and impatience with my own weakness, and feel the frustration mash the pedals down and around. It feels like a truth, the ache in my legs and the breath sawing in and out of my chest. It hurts and it feels more than a little futile, but as long as Mr. Carrot prances on his pedals in front of me, I keep on trying to latch onto his wheel just for the satisfaction of seeing him glance back and find me there. I've seen the double-take on more than a couple of occasions, and friends, it felt like those first twinges of an incipient erection. It's grand. Usually fleeting (it has taken me the entire length of the trail to catch up sometimes), but grand nonetheless.

These are the days when I walk through the door smiling, when I'm most effusive in the greeting of work-mates. If the fates don't conspire to immediately extinguish my chipper mood ("Dude...have you seen this?"), I can ride the glow all the way to lunch.

If I'm "lucky", the ride home will be a chase as well.

[The Rob]

Yesterday was quite nice. Got to sit outside with a couple of friends, drink canned American beer (yes, every once in a great while I enjoy a beer that doesn't require flossing afterward; sue me), talk non-stop for a couple of hours about nothing particular, and avoid doing the thing for which we were out in the parking lot in the first place, i.e. replace the brake pads on my bike. It did finally get done (in my living-room, because by the time we gathered sufficient wits to begin work it was time to eat and there was no way I was leaving my bike and tools in the parking lot unattended). Again, my hammy hands insisted upon hindering rather than expediting the work and I suspect the greatest advantage of having them is that they keep my wrists from fraying at the edges.

This week I intend to start the walk-run program in earnest. I've gone to the track at a school near home a few times in the last two weeks, but due to last-minute schedule conflicts it's been pretty scattershot. Time to get serious. I've run just enough to understand that it'll be a long time before I can run three miles (my goal) without walking a portion of it. Right now I've adopted an interval system wherein I walk fifty paces and "run" (more like a lurching trot accompanied by the gasping of my own personal exercise mantra
"Holy ****in' God this sucks and one and two and one step more you shuffling corpse and three and four...". (You think I over-dramatize? There are people buying starter homes now that had yet to be born the last time I ran on a track.) As I progress, the walking strides will become fewer.

In a way I dread this labor-intensive process and in another way it's cool to be out there battling age and inertia. My remains might actually be suitable for viewing once I finally fall off the mortal coil.

For the next three weeks Isabella and her mum Lisa will be in England visiting family. Upon the eve of their leave-taking, we declared our abject misery at their departure for so long; Lisa replied in kind, and Isabella said she'd miss her cat. None of this "Oh mummy! Whatevah shall we dooo? We ah leaving our deah friends evah so long and I shall be evah so sad until we may once again traverse the seas to return to them!" Nuh-uh. Isabella ain't down with the sentimentality at all. This little chick is going to be either a corporate attorney or a pro wrestler when she grows up. I hear that her nan isn't nearly so willing as we are to step and fetch for her, so perhaps we'll see evidence of gratitude when she comes home. Yeah, like Scarlett returning to Tara.

The missus and I have decided England will be our next Grand Vacation Trip*, should we find a spare five thou or so in the sofa cushions (I just looked up travel time via air from PDX to Heathrow; thirteen hours or more! My spine would forcibly eject from my torso after five hours and go scrabbling down the aisle in search of a parachute. Perhaps we'll go via ocean-liner). The wife would have to bring her own food because she doesn't think she'd care for the local fare. Me, I'd be all over it. It would kill me dead inside of two weeks, but I'm game. First thing off the plane, I'm going for a chip butty. (You ought to see the face Isabella pulls when this item is described to her. She'd sooner eat from the cat's bowl. Her mum is English, but this girl's palate is All-American.)

The mate, she stirs. Breakfast is in the offing. Adieu!

-Rob

* Our last "Grand Vacation Trip" was to a little desert town called Mitchell in central Oregon. Laugh if you like, but it was a great trip and we didn't have to sell anything or take out a loan to go. Oregon rawks.

[The Rob]

I'm staring a four-day work week and a four-day weekend in the face. Cowabunga!

I haven't had a long weekend just to have one in a long time; all of my weekdays away have been related to medical matters, which tend not to be relaxing at all. Waiting rooms are really the antitheses of relaxation. Who can revel in leisure with months-old magazines while sharing a room with people who are obviously much sicker than you? I'll be waiting on the missus, who is either having a relatively minor procedure done or is consulting with her physician du jour, as I sit surrounded by elderly people who are there in a desperate bid to NOT DIE. Add to that the fact that waiting rooms make me sleepy, so along with the tattered magazines and the sick people I also get tearing eyes and a screaming yawn beating against the back of my clenched teeth. I know this smacks of Allen-esque angst, but I hate to yawn in hospital waiting rooms as if I'm bored with everyone else's struggles to stay upright and breathing. "Oh, are we boring you? Get a load of this tumor!"

So this coming (four-day!) weekend, I intend to do a long, unhurried bike ride to Gresham and back. [Edit: Perhaps I'll carry a length of lead pipe with me, whaddaya think?] I haven't ridden that side of the Springwater in ages; actually haven't ridden those many miles in one trip in four years, in fact. This morning's newspaper (The Sunday Oregonian) included a community guide titled "Destination GRESHAM", which I suspect is an error on the part of the distributor; a couple weeks ago we received the morning paper two hours late and delivered by a sweating, panting man, and two days later we were delivered the previous day's issue. These people have issues with time and date, so it's not outside the bounds of possibility that they may also have a tenuous grasp on place as well. Anyway. This newspaper suppliment is what gave me the idea to ride to Gresham.

I'll ride it, that is, unless my bicycle flies apart. An ominous ticking noise is emanating from my drivetrain and it's driving me mad. Every revolution of the pedals, tick. tick. tick. I suspect it's a bottom bracket problem, but when I took the bike in to be serviced, the mechanic's conclusion was that I'd (once again, just like last year around this time!) worn out my rear cassette and chain and needed them replaced. Well. Son of a bitch. Okay, let's just do that again, shall we? I also needed to replace my rear tire due to broken glass and debris provided by winos waiting for buses along my route to work. So. One tire, one cassette, one chain. Nearly $150.00 American. Nifty, y'know, because I just have it lying around.

Picked my bike up from the shop, rode it to work the next day. Tick. Tick. Tick. You might say I was ever so gently perturbed.

I don't necessarily blame the shop guys because they see the same stuff day in and day out and this was likely the most common solution in their experience. A spanking work-load (the lads behind the counter were all bustling about looking harried the day I picked up the bike) leads to on-the-dash diagnoses, and sometimes they're just wrong (I suspect that physicians work the same way, which is why after major surgery and several consultations and tests over a two-year period my wife still has the same pain in the same places; The docs don't get a simple "tsk tsk" and a pass though. People aren't bicycles). I'm not outraged and am not going to go scream at them for it. I trust them when they say I need things replaced because they have always been great. Often they have pointed out less-expensive alternatives to me, which says a lot about their ethic (this is Bike Gallery on N.E. Sandy in the Hollywood District I'm talking about, by the way). I will be going back for a re-evaluation if I didn't manage to rectify the issue myself yesterday, testing and tightening every bolt on the thing. That's pretty much the limit of my abilities and available tools. I can't touch the bottom bracket itself because it takes a special (expensive) wrench, and in my hands that probably wouldn't do me any good anyway, the dexterity to butter a slice of bread being the limit of my legerdemain.

Today I will do a few household chores and then I'm burying my nose in my current book, pausing only to snuffle treats and quaff whiskey. That's what Sundays are for.

Quote of the day: "It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get." - Morarji Desai, Indian Statesman and Prime Minister

[The Rob]

This is the longest interval in which I've not posted (if one doesn't count the year between the first post on MySpazz and the second). This is an unfortunate trend. I can promise to do better, but really, is that being realistic given my track record here?

Three weeks ago (see, right here is an argument for posting more often!), while I was riding home on the Springwater trail, I was stung (or bitten; Satan insists upon redundancy management and so equipped his special spawn to do both) by a yellowjacket. I detected a blur of movement on my right and then felt the impact of a small, vicious organism on my left shin about a hand-span above the sock-line. Within a second I further detected the signature match-burn that, under ordinary circumstances, would have me gyrating through the motions of what I like to call the Tourette's Dance. (It's an ugly dance. Think Danny DeVito on stilts, on "Soul Train").

Thing is, it wasn't ordinary circumstances. I was on a bicycle and so couldn't give in to the urge to scream and flail. Instead, I kept pedaling as smoothly as I could manage and kept my eyes forward because I knew that if I looked down and actually saw the little winged hellion gnawing on my flesh I'd freak and bale off the bike and add contusions to venomous insult. All the while, the thing kept munching away like it's a pasty white boy buffet (or thrusting like it's coupon day at Madam Shagnasty's.) and it is somewhat worse than "not fun".

Oddly enough, although it hurts like Hell and it's all I can do to stay on and move forward, there was just the slightest twinge of pride in the back of my mind; I was maintaining, not giving in to howling and thrashing and panic. Ask my wife how I react when one of these evil bastards manages to get into our apartment and you'll understand from whence that seemingly out-sized pride comes. In short, yellowjackets fill me with dread. It's like any other phobia (non-sensical and useless), but my immediate response to their presence is to flee. I believe it stems from a childhood incident in Puerto Rico, when I was stung about ten times in one go by paper wasps who took exception to a kick ball lodged in the hedge too close to their nest. I was nine, and I remember being very proud of myself for not crying. My mother made me sit with my hand and my foot each in a bowl of ice cubes and water; after about ten minutes of that I was thinking that maybe I'd rather just go back to the hedge and taunt the wasps into finishing me off.

Anyway. My shin still bears the scars of the encounter on the trail. The little punk must have been in a really bad mood.

***********************************

Recently I was asked by two women I know to defend my sense of aesthetic. In other words, they wanted to know what I find so appealing about another female acquaintance.

It was really annoying. Once again I was called upon to prove that I am not, after all, a hog of a male human being. I briefly (very briefly) considered saying something like "Well, you know what I like in a woman? My dick!" just to see them spit up their wine, but I didn't. Again, I tried to explain that my sense of beauty is holistic, that I try not to see women in terms of generalization, that yes, there are certain fashions of dress that I find sexier than others* but that it's the person wearing them that ultimately matters, natter-natter-natter-blah-blah-yada-yada, to the point that even I was bored. So maybe I can put it better here, and from now on I'll just refer people to this entry when once again this stupid conversation presents itself.

I love to look at women. It does not mean I want to **** them. It means they are very pleasant to look at. This may surprise you, but in terms of physical beauty there are men I find pleasant to look at (although this is most often in the "I could be that, if I ran ten miles before my regular three hours at the gym every day!" sense). My criteria for appraisal is individualistic. Cup size does not matter. A shaven vulva is not mandatory. If your idea of my personal aesthetic is that I like big boobs or long legs or luxurious hair, and that I exclude personality and heart, then you are (a) wrong, (b) insulting me, and (c) being very unkind to the women I find attractive who just so happen to possess one or all of these traits. It's also somewhat telling of your own sense of self-worth. Please don't be that woman, because, you know, that's unattractive. I will never apologize for being male, whatever hormonal or historical baggage you perceive saddles that denial. Thank you. Can we just move on now?

That felt good.

Today's quote: "It's no use growing older if you only learn new ways of misbehaving yourself." - Hector Hugh Munro

*I'll just say that spring and summer on SE Hawthorne Blvd is a treat for the eyes.

[The Rob]

The missus and my physician have colluded to force me into an appointment next month. If I don't make the appointment, my prescription for blood pressure medication won't be refilled. This bites. Generally I visit a doctor only when I'm jetting arterial spray, but my wife has been relentless lately.

I actually had planned to have a physical examination done after January 1st as part of a goal of mine to lose the rest of my excess weight (okay, RE-lose SOME excess weight and lose the rest of the weight that I hadn't lost during the initial campaign...'kay, that's stupid. What I mean is that I lost a lot of weight some years ago and kept it off until I quit smoking last year, whereupon my metabolism stuck a wicked big twisty rusted knife in my back before rolling over and lapsing into a coma) and ANYWAY the main point here is that I'd hoped to avoid getting on the scale at the clinic before I'd gotten close to the weight loss goal. I would monitor progress in the meantime via the kinder, gentler scale we have here at home. Home scales are your mother, quietly admonishing you for that second sandwich eaten over the kitchen sink, suggesting that instead you might want to take a brisk walk around the block. Clinic scales are bitch-goddesses with strap-ons. I don't like the clinic scale, mommy.

So now (except for the table-creaking fried chicken dinner of which I partook* last night) I am brimming with discipline and purpose. Salads and soups or cereals for supper Monday to Friday, no exceptions! No cookies, cakes, pies, ice cream, or fried foods. Add a couple more mornings on the treadmill at the gym (I already do at least three mornings per week but I can manage, surely) or intervals up and down that bastard hill outside our apartment here. Avoid driving the car when I can ride the bike (easy). Thank the Gods I put down the cigarettes and started the gym again, because at least this time I'm not starting from scratch and I'm not anywhere near the weight I used to be.

It would be nice to greet my 49th birthday in better shape than I've ever been.


************************************************** **********************


I love the eerie autumn and winter months; I love the atmosphere. In pagan circles it's thought that during the month of October the veil between worlds is thinnest, and I can see why. I love cold and fog and I'm looking forward to strapping the halogens on the bike and riding in the dark (and a side benefit is that, even in this bike-y town, the number of cyclists on the roads and trails decreases substantially in the cold months, so there are fewer arrogant, rude stick-insects with whom to share the asphalt). I plan to do a lot of walking this season. I want to walk just to walk. I haven't done that in a long time.

I'm currently reading Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach, and it's a great book. This, coupled with the change of season has my mind turning to death and what comes afterward (not in a morbid way). I've never been a fan of the Islamo**-Judeo-Christian tradition of a petulant deity tossing folk into a pit of eternal fire (or ice, or river of excrement, or swarm of wasps; read Dante's Inferno sometime to see how a repressed Italian Catholic poet would settle some scores if he were God Awmighty. Man, that guy can hold some grudge!) If people actually do live on in spirit regardless of what they'd done or how they'd died, and in fact all the harm done was to the mere flesh, what sense does it make to bury some murderous fool up to his neck in hot coals (or whatever) while his victim kicks back perfectly healthy on a cloud sipping ambrosia and learning to play the harp? Wouldn't it be easier, and kinder, for all involved to greet everyone at the gates with a handshake (or maybe a really fierce noogie if a particular he or she gave you a really bad time when you were both Earth-bound)? Wouldn't it suffice if, since everyone is now going to live forever in peace anyway, the bad people in Life just sheepishly admitted to the people whom they did dirty "Hey, y'know, that thing? My bad." and just get on to the serious business of Happily EverHereAfter? I think so. I could hang.

Quote for the Day:

"When you look back on your life, it looks as though it were a plot, but when you are into it, it's a mess: just one surprise after another. Then, later, you see it was perfect."
-Schopenhauer



* It's a real word. I looked it up.
** Okay, I'm not really sure that's a real word, but I wanted to be inclusive.

[The Rob]

I haven't been near this keyboard for most of a week. Once upon a time you couldn't pry me away from the thing, but these days other matters intervene. This is not necessarily a bad thing. F'r'instance, you can't blog about a life you don't have.

My life. Let's look at that a little more closely, shall we? Not "My Life", as in a biographical context; I mean "my life" as in a pondering of the likelihood of truncated longevity*. Statistically, when considering my parents' lifespans and those that went before, I have approximately twenty years before I hop that Midnight Train (is The Great Beyond anything like Georgia? Is the Afterlife muggy?). That estimate is reinforced by my unfortunate lifestyle choices; most of my life I've spent idle; eating and drinking too much while getting too little exercise, and smoking like I was allergic to air. I've expunged the worst of those, but perhaps it's too late? I've spent more years unhealthy than I have otherwise.

Then there's the bicycle. My general fitness is much improved in part because I ride pretty often, but the frequency also ups my chances of the Early Exit via vehicular misadventure (something we've seen too much of here recently). I'll take those odds, obviously, but I'll admit there are times when I join the speeding metal boxes on the road that I wonder what the Hell makes me want to do it. Actually there are times I wonder the same when on the relatively safer Springwater trail; if anything the CTQ** is worse there during peak hours, but at least my inhalation of exhaust fumes lessens.

Possibly my most potent nemesis is The Big Casino. There are incidences of cancer on both sides of the family, so the odds that I'll receive a slice of that pie are quite high. I'd rather go out under a Winnebago than waste away from the inside out, frankly. I have little say in that apparently, because I can make all the best choices in food, exercise, and lifestyle and still contract cancer because of a genetic disposition. If this turns out to be the case, I'll be SO mad.

Saint Peter: "Welcome to Heaven. We hope you'll enjoy---"

Me: "Is there chocolate cake and pizza in there? And Lucky Strikes?"

SP: "I beg your pardon?"

Me: "I want chocolate cake and pizza and Lucky Strikes, and all the other godd-- uh, dang stuff I missed out on in my useless attempt to delay this little meet'n'greet. I want some satisfaction, man!"

SP: "Uh..."

Guy Behind Me: "Dudes, is this gonna be awhile? You should have a food court out here or somethin'..."

Me: "Back off! I have bed sores and my nasal passages are raw from having tubes stuck up in there for the last year! What were you, a quick mulching accident? Wait your turn!"

SP: *flip* *flip* *flip*

Me: "What are you doing there?"

SP: "I'm making sure you aren't in the wrong line."



"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" """"""""""""""""""""""


I use post-it notes to remind me of subjects I wish to research. I stick the post-its on the monitor. It strikes me as absurd that I affix a low-tech device to a (middling) high-tech device to remind me to use the high-tech device, but many people do this so at least I'm not alone.

Upon this morning's post-it are written the items "Episcopal Church" and "statism". I have already read up on these subjects. Right now I'm chatting with my brother via IM while writing this AND contemplating the fact that I haven't read any ForumGarden posts yet this week. I have to cop to feeling just a bit stressed about this, and because of that I feel foolish. If there was no such phrase as "artificial stress", there is now. Here's a fine definition of that: When the cable DVR starts stacking up with programs we haven't yet watched, I start resenting television. I'd feel better about it if it was stacked up with Ken Burns documentaries or "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer", but more often it's some on-the-fly recording from the "History" Channel (Unidentified Submerged Objects! Red Alert!). This is yet one more indication that our love of technology really isn't doing us any favors. I'm not saying I want to go live with the Amish***, but there are times I wish I had the guts to throw all this junk out and learn to once again be content with books, and walks through the neighborhood, and coffee and newspapers on the front stoop****.

Seeing as how it's getting more expensive to live, I may get my wish sooner than I expect.

Today's Quote: "If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?"-Rumi

* That sentence just sucks raw.

** Clueless Twit Quotient

*** The Amish got it goin' on. I'm a fan of the Amish. I just don't think I'm cut out for the lifestyle.

**** We don't really have a stoop now. We did once, and it rawked.

***** This was an asterisk-intensive post this time around.

[The Rob]

My brother has had electrical issues with his office space in his home for weeks now. He works from home and is able to use his laptop for that purpose, but his desk machines remain idle until he can re-wire and re-route upstairs. This has meant NO GAMING, and I'm jonesing just a tad here.

Bill (my brother) is the only opponent in on-line gaming I've had and the only one I want, quite frankly. I'll admit here to a bias; I don't seek other players on-line because I suspect that many of them are the same sorts of mouth-breathers that leave comments on YouTube or Amazon. I'm allergic to what I call E-egoism*, a social malignancy evidenced by persons who suffer from either an excess of personality or an absense of same and who seek solace on the internet to salve their self-absorbed needs. They're everywhere, fairly gibbering with the desire to advertize their superior knowledge and taste in all things except, apparently, literacy. I imagine that half the keys on their keyboards are very dusty. They won't let proper punctuation get in the way of their campaign to assure the masses of their raging intellect, hellz no. The gods forbid the rest of us go through Life ignorant of the fact that we are hopeless luzerz because of our enjoyment of a particular band/movie/book. I despise these people.

Anyway. I would imagine that the on-line gaming servers for any particular game are rife with this sort, admittedly adept individuals with cyber-weaponry yet maladroit in social intercourse. Brother Bill's derision is hard enough to take at times...

Me: "Damn, where are y---" *bang!* *dead*
Bill: "I'll admit you've got guts, 'cause I can see 'em. Brain much, though?"
Me: "Keep talking, I'm reloa--" *bang!* *dead*
Bill: "Ah, there it is. You might wanna pick that up and dust it off a little."


...so taking smack from a stranger, particularly some slack-witted youngster with delusions of self-worth, would be too much.

Know who's worse? People who actually are pretty smart and are quite aware of it, but choose to wield a Cause with which they seek to bludgeon all who hold a differing opinion. Case in point: Cycling zealots. Anyone who knows me understands that I am very pro-bike and believe that getting citizens on bicycles is one very significant way to improve not only the individual lives of those people but Life As We Know It. I don't perceive every human being driving an automobile as a murderous sociopath Hell-bent upon decimating the atmosphere and littering the landscape with the crushed corpses of hapless bicyclists.** Unfortunately there are those who do, and the internet forums are rife with them. If they were reasonable in their opinions and courteous to others in the conversation I wouldn't carp, but too often they are condescending if not outright belligerent (I suspect that many of these are the kind you'll find picking fights with motorists during Critical Mass rides, the sort who feel that the rules of the road are meant for others while they stand exempt. My bouts of road ire are usually directed toward these twits). I've mostly learned to simply exit a thread and to avoid those kinds of conversations. Mostly. Kind of.

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Dang it. SelectSmart still insists that I'm an "American Liberal". I keep hoping for a more interesting result.

Quote for the Day: "I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well." -Henry David Thoreau

* Pronounced "eeegoism". Don't give me grief over the spelling of "egoism" either, because "egoism" and "egotism" actually have two slightly different meanings.

** Hummer drivers though; what are they thinking??

[The Rob]

This is actually the second go for this entry. I typed the entire thing and then lost it when I attempted to edit the title. I don't believe I can convey just how livid I am at this moment. That's never going to happen again. From now on it's WordPad first. Jesus Christ.

This has not been a good month. At all. Over the last three weeks the missus and I have suffered a two-stage malady that first stuffed our heads and lungs with cotton and lard and then pulled our intestines inside out through our gullets. It's possible we each had two separate illnesses in sequence (I've always understood that intestinal distress is bacterial, not viral), in which case we truly did suffer an embarrassment of riches. I'm nearly fully recovered, but the missus is still somewhat of a fly-blown husk. I've spent few days at the gym and just as few days on the bike. I'm looking forward to next week.

Happy Seasonings to you all. Guess what? Way out of character for me but necessitated by the continuing antiquation of this beige box before which I toil, I went willingly into a mall. You should be tittering into your hebal teas right now y'all, because I absolutely loath malls. People lose their minds, their peripheral vision, and a great deal of their sense of courtesy in malls (and yes, in supermarkets as well, but I will occasionally join the herd in search of food even if the process is distasteful), and so ordinarily you couldn't get me into a mall without first administering either a syringe or a mallet. So imagine how I feel about malls during this time of year. When I first saw Dawn of the Dead (the 1978 original with the classic, slow-moving and moaning zombies, not the remake featuring the shrieking undead pelting along like Carl Lewis), I turned to my companion and whispered "I thought this was a zombie movie. This is just the security cam at Red Bird".

We went in search of the Dell kiosk. This is actually a pretty painful process for me because the hard truth is that I'm a piker when it comes to spending money. I believe that price should be based upon weight, which is why my wife has such a difficult time getting me into a shoe store. Chances are I'll never own an mp3 player, at least not until after everyone else has had their skulls hard-wired for entertainment media and the prices for players drop to the value of pocket lint. I love gadgets even when I don't know how to use them, but anything more technologically advanced than a post-it! pad quickly soars beyond three digits and I just find that appalling. I don't know why I'm such a miser. I didn't have a particularly impoverished childhood (my parents might have had a differing point of view seeing as how they were the ones actually paying for everything) so I don't know why I feel the need to hoard pennies. Actually? That's a lie. I know why I'm a miser. It's because money flies away no matter how desperately I try to keep it. So I'm a poor miser. My misering skills are meager. I'm a miser, just not all that wise, huh!, giveitaway giveitaway giveitaway now!

Anyway. I had a specific computer model in mind, one that is terribly expensive (to me) for less power than I desired but I was really trying to cowboy up and serve our budget. I was being an adult. I had even done the research and had printed out the specs we wanted. I showed the printout to the missus before we went to the mall. She smiled and nodded. She is seemingly pleased that she has married a thoughtful adult. We drove to the mall (*shudder*) and upon locating the Dell kiosk we approached a sales rep.

Sales Guy: "Hello, can I help you folks?"

Me: "Yes, please. We would like to purchase a computer. Here is the printout of the specifications we wish to have included. I have been a responsible adult in doing my research for this item and even though it still feels as if I'm asking to be rolled like a Burnside drunk, I think this model best suits our needs while doing minimal damage to our paltry finances."

Wife: "But what about the sleek black one with the nice graphics card you said you'd rather have? Don't you want to ask about that one?"

Me: "..." (I can't speak for a moment but I'm trying like mad to spontaneously learn telepathy so that I can ask her via psychic link what the Hell she's doing, assure her that I love her as no other entity in the unknowable Universe and without her I am mere grit but DAMN, you are plucking my testicles like grapes here! BUDGET!)

Sales Guy (thinking): I ought to offer this lady a percentage. Ka-CHING!

So now we own a Dell XPS 420.

Yes, I'm happy, or will be when we finally take delivery of the thing. Shipment has already been delayed once and in all likelihood we won't receive it until after Christmas. Given the time of year and the fact that half the nation is iced up this is disappointing but not unanticipated. Meanwhile my wife went behind my back and bought both F.E.A.R. and Bioshock so that I may properly christen that fairly screamin' video card. Pity I can't play them now, but this box would actually spout smoke and tip over if I attempted it.

I'm still aching to see this month over, though.