Oh SNAP!

Today I almost broke my damned toes by stepping bare-footed onto a mousetrap. A very Tom-and-Jerry moment. But luckily I stepped on the trap in such a way that it did no damage.

Jeannie and I had a nice, relaxin' day of doing nothing, and then rotting our brains in front of the TV, watching the mice scurry across our living room. The moral: if you sleep over at our apartment, take the futon rather than the air mattress.

Banana Hammock

Today seemed like a pretty good day. We hit the market, and listened to THIS AMERICAN LIFE (it wasn't great), then I headed to work. I was training a new kid, Sam, and he did well. I was pleased with his progress. It is always nice when new people actually make themselves useful early on.

Right now Greg Brown is telling his CANNED GOODS story on the cd player. Jeannie's reading. She just started singing a silly song to nobody in particular. To me, I guess.

The other day I told her that after I die I want her to put together a Broadway show with all of the songs I sing to her. I wanted her to do this because I had just come up with a little ditty that day that went:

Nobody likes me,
Everyone hates me,
Everyone thinks
I'm an ass-hole.

One of my other favorite songs is:

Come take a shower with me-e-e.
And my banana hammock!
My banana hammock!

I like that one because it makes no sense and it includes the phrase "banana hammock," one of my favorite expressions.

Presto-Change-o

The Great B&N Music Dept. Rearranging of '06 was a rousing success. Now we just have to catch up on the other work that has fallen behind during the last few days as a result...

Today, the Jeanners and I are gonna hit the farmers market, then listen to THIS AMERICAN LIFE, which has become our Saturday routine. Then it's off to work for me.

Now to make brown!

The Pooch

For the last couple of days, I have had the expression, "screwed the pooch" stuck in my head. As in, "Boy, Rich, you really screwed the pooch when you knocked over that jar of pickles on the new carpet." Or, "Pat totally screwed the pooch when he cast BJ as Petruchio. The show really suffered as a result!" I don't know where this expression comes from (historically or how it got in my head) as I haven't heard it used for quite some time.

Last night I estimated that around 25% of the food in our refridgerator is pickle products.

Lots of rearranging going on at work. Making more room for DVD's and moving everything around. Hopefully we should have it done in the next day or two.

Dear Diary...

It's been a couple of days. Relatively uneventful, here's what's been going on:

1. Ian asked if I could design a set for 'Love's Labour's Lost.' I agreed, and I'm kind of looking forward to it. It'll be nice to do something mildly creative again, as the B&N has been keeping me in boring manager mode for quite awile. I read the play today, and the whole thing takes place in one location! So it shouldn't be too time-consuming.

2. Jeannie has kept a journal since se was like 13 or 14, and last night she was reading through some of her earlier journals, including the one from when she was 17-18, when we met. So I made an unexceptional spaghetti dinner and we ate out on the roof and she read me some of the highlights from when we met, including our first kiss and other firsts. All the drama and excitement, the highs and lows of being young and falling slowly in love. Who would've guessed that one day she'd be reading that journal to me, now her husband, on our roof in Baltimore. Not me. And I don't miss being that young and confused, either.

3. Work is getting mildly stressful again, as I start thinking about the upcoming holidays, and Elizabeth and Jeremy leaving, and schedule juggling and all that nonsense. Luckily, I am well aware that it's all just a music department in a bookstore, and it ain't really that important. I'm not going to invest too much of myself into this job anymore. I'm going to do a good job and not worry about it...

4. Had a CSC meeting tonight at Lesley and Scott's new home, which is large and still empty. I like empty houses, and theirs is very beautiful. The meeting was relatively uneventful but fun, one of those small-group social meetings that I enjoy, with wine and beer and where ideas are thrown around but not too much gets actually decided. But good ideas come up, and we all get reminded that we enjoy working with one another, and I think it renews people's sense of purpose a little bit. I think it renews mine, anyway. It's a very interesting mix of people, diverse talents and interests, and I think the diversity is what has kept us afloat this long.

5. I proposed to Jeannie that if/when we have a dog in the future, we should name it Jean Rambeau. I firmly believe that pets should have both a first and last name, and this would be an homage to American action hero John Rambo. My proposal was rejected.

I guess that's about it for now. Back to work tomorrow, not really looking forward to it.

The Boob Tube

Tonight after work, Jeannie and I watched FIRST BLOOD (Rambo pt. 1) on TV. I enjoyed it, but Jeannie mocked it the entire time, despite the fact that early on she said she wasn't going to watch it and was just going to go to bed. Yet she stayed and watched it, seemingly just to mock it and ruin it for me. It's worth watching the whole 2 hours of the movie just to hear the song at the end, which has got to be the terriblest song of all time. So very very bad.

Then after the movie, we were flipping channels and caught the tail end of K-Fed's performance on the Teen Choice Awards.

What a night!

To-Do List Blog

Things I scratched off my to-do list before going to work today:

1. Sit around in my undies.
2. Fry some bacon and eggs.
3. Watch Mr. Rogers.

Alert the Media

Eric has updated his blog. He's not dead. Praise the baby Jesus.

We've been catching some mice in our apartment. Unfortunately, they seem to avoid the happy, mouse-friendly trap that we have set out and go right for the quick, violent, deadly one. Well, it's entirely up to them...but still, we're sorry Mr. and Mrs. Mouse.

I've been thinking lately, and reading a lot, and it seems that I'm in a point in my life when I really don't give much of a damn about the world around me, or politics, or art, or ideas, or anything at all except being with the Jeanners and taking each day as it comes. And, since the Jeanners and I are technically one flesh (wink, wink) and therefore the same person, this means that I care only about myself. Which is not entirely true because I care about my family and friends, but still, the point is that I think my life has an extremely narrow focus at the moment. Should I be apologetic about this? Is this something I should try and change? Is this a viewpoint that I will eventually come to regret? I don't know. I tend to think that it's ok, that viewpoints and outlooks come and go and shift and change all on their own, they don't obey the brain or the heart. And it sounds corny and trite, but I really don't see how there can be anything wrong with focusing on loving one person as deeply and fully as you can. But still, I feel like I'm becoming narrower and narrower and I don't know what to think about that.

Rich wrote and said he got bored with blogging. Lately, I understand what he's saying. Still, I think it will be fun to look back at this in 30 years and have a laugh. Plus, my grandkids can know what my poop was like...and lately my poop has been frustrating. I won't elaborate, and you can thank me for that later.

Nu Shooz

Happy birthday to the capital-D Dude, the man who inherited Elvis' soul, known to at least a couple hundred as Flippy the Magnificent.

Today Jeannie and I spent the day exploring our fair city on foot. We walked down to the HArbor and Federal Hill, looking at stuff along the way. It was a beautiful day, and we've been wanting to walk downtown for awhile.

Also, this evening, we went shopping for some new shoes for me, and I was able to find my favorite $10 sneakers at Walmart that I haven't been able to find for a few months. Woo-Hoo!

Hot Damn.

Well, Jeannie and I both have the day off tomorrow, and we were planning on going to help move some stuff from the CSC offices. But we got an e-mail tonight from Lesley that said that things are pretty well under control and that we don't really need to come help. Sweet Jesus! I think it's literally the first time that anyone from CSC has ever turned down an offer of help. But I'm happy to accept the rejection.

So now we've got a whole day off together and nothing to do.

We had a great day down at Ocean City on Monday. MAW and her family are such wonderful hosts, and the weatheer was perfect, and the water pretty calm so Jeannie got in and we frolicked and had a grand ol' time.

Why has Rich's secret blog been taken down? Inquiring minds want to know...

29

Today is my stinkin' birthday. It's off to work in a little while, and then the Jeanners and I are going out for my special birthday dinner. Someplace seafood-y.

Tomorrow we're going to drive down to the ocean for one last summer frolic.

Are the Seats in this Boat Warm or Cold?

Friday night, I just got home from work, and I'm glad to be home. Work is boring again. Training a bunch of new folks every week.

I have been listening to the Midlake CD very much. I like it very very much. It's not for everyone, but I think it's one of the most solid CD's I've heard in a long time. And the lyrics are strange. One song features the line, "The seats are cold in this boat," and a different song has the line, "The seats are warm in this boat." Well, Midlake, which is it? Are the two songs about two different boats? Anyway, enough about Midlake.

Our good friend Aimee came over last night for dinner and conversation. It's always good to catch up and find out what she's been up to. She said that when she reads my blog, she is unable to view the new sidebar with the random Flickr picture. Instead, the sidebar is now blank. Jeannie said that the same is true on her boss' computer. I asked my computer geek friend Patrick from work about it, and he said that it is most likely due to some sort of compatibility issue with the browser they're using to view the blog. I wonder how many others out there have problems enjoying the advanced features of this blog? Just for the record, I use Netscape to enjoy this blog as well as many other wonderful things on the Internet, which I'm told using Netscape is a very uncool thing to do. But I like it.

Alright, I'm going to enjoy some brief quality time with my wife (and maybe popcorn!) before I got to bed...

The Music Report

1. Today I bought a CD by Midlake, called The Trials of Van Occupanther. I think I'm going to like it a lot. It's kinda strange, at times very pretty, and interesting. I would say it's a hybrid of Sufjan Stevens, Rufus Wainwright, and Fleetwood Mac. With maybe a little My Morning Jacket thrown in. But just a little.

2. Greg Brown has a new CD out as of yesterday. Saw it at the store, but haven't had a chance to listen to any of it yet.

Bacharach

Tonight I saw the Geico commercial with Burt Bacharach in it. He looked palsied or like he has had a stroke or something? Has Burt Bacharach had a stroke? The last time I saw him was in an Austin Powers movie, and he didn't look like he's had a stroke.

Another quiet night at home after a semi-long day of work. I'm wondering if this radio station plays jazz every night?

Tomorrow I'm running some errands with the Jeanners. Probably sell and buy some cd's. Gotta go get a key made for Elizabeth.

Also, since my bass is in Ohio with Rich, and my guitar is missing a string, perhaps it's a sign I should break out the keyboard and record some good, old fashioned, gay techno music.

Stop Time

When I was little and used to picture what I thought my life should be like, I think I used to picture a night kind of like tonight. Jeannie is sitting reading a book, I've been sitting on a chair sipping a beer, and we're listening to some Louis Armstrong and other jazz stuff. Our apartment is looking and feeling just the way we want it, very calm and spacious and relaxed.

Last night after I got home from work we watched The Squid and the Whale, which was pretty interesting. It made me think a lot about what life was like as a kid and how much easier life is now than it used to be. How nice it is to grow up and find that there's very little in this world that truly matters. Strange to think that there was more bullshit in my life when I was 10 than there is now.

Long day at work today, but not too bad.

New Look, Same Great Blog Flavor!

I spent the morning doing some tweaking to the ol' blog template, so now as you read my innermost thoughts, feelings, desires, pet peeves, and lower GI workings, you can gaze upon pictures of my friends. A steaming-hot cup of visual nostalgia.

I figured I needed to spice up the blog a lil' bit since what I've been writing is boring trash. Image over content, that's what I always say...

If you don't ever see a picture of yourself here, it could mean one of 3 things:

1. I don't really like you.
2. I don't have any pictures of you.
3. I have reached my bandwidth limit for the month on Flickr and you will just have to wait until next month to see yourself displayed on this blog.

Which reminds me, if you see yourself on here in a picture that you would like me to take down, just let me know. The only exception to this is the one of Jen Schlueter fisting the turkey. Sorry, Jen, it won't be taken down.


Today's me day off, and life is pretty perfect.

Busy at Work.

I had another whack dream last night, but I don't remember any of it, other than that it involved the Schlueterileymetz'. I've been trying to conjure a memory of what it might have been about, but I've had all day to forget about it.

I'm going to try and stop writing 'been busy at work.' Although it is true, I'm tired of writing it. Perhaps I shall invent a web-abbreviation for it, such as BBW? Also, since we bought a new camera a few months ago for our California trip, I have had to fight the urge to post pictures of our most banal daily activities. I am trying to put together a Flickr page with pictures from the California trip and the new apartment and some of our weekend trips, so I can send the link to my family and they can see what's been going on in our lives. Cause they don't get to read this here blog (and hopefuly they never will -- so everybody keep mum if you're ever talking to the more tech-savvy members of my family [i.e. anyone under the age of 45]}...

I like sentences that use multiple forms of punctuation all in a row, so that the sentence ends up looking more like a math equation than a sentence. Probably picked up from DFW.

Which, by the way, I am ever so pleased to announce that Pat Kilpatrick has started reading 'Infinite Jest.' He called the other day with some questions. Sounded like he was about 50 pages in. The next 100 pages or so will probably determine whether he sticks with it. Hang in there, Pat!

Hot Like Oven

I had a crazy dream last night involving Eric Elz and a couple of people I haven't thought about in a decade or more, including Tim Bantle (from high school) and James Dutt (from middle school). Eric had a terrible haircut and was very strange in my dream. When I woke up, Jeannie asked me if I remembered being on my hands and knees on the bed during the night, which I didn't, and I don't even want to know what I was dreaming about while that was going on. She said she tried to talk to me but I wasn't making any sense, but eventually she was able to talk me into lying back down.

It's been hot here, as I guess it's been hot all over the damned country. If it isn't hot where you are, consider yourself lucky.

Been busy at work. Loving the new apartment. Blah, blah, blah. Same ol' b-crap.

Wide-Open Day

How are Jeannie and I going to spend our Sunday? We've been oscillating between getting outside to do something adventurous or just staying at home and getting more unpacked in the apartment. Tonight, though, I am planning on BBQ-ing.


I wrote the above paragraph yesterday morning, Sunday, at around 10 in the morning. Then I couldn't think of anything else to write so I just saved it. Tonight, Monday evening, I can tell you exactly how events unfolded yesterday:

Jeannie skipped her yoga class, and she and I worked all day yesterday getting the apartment into shape, with good results. Our living room now looks like this:



Which is fine by us.

One thing I like about our new apartment is that the stereo sounds really good and I can listen to it with no guilt because there's no one living beneath our living room. Right now I'm jamming to some Curtis Mayfield.

We caught a mouse yesterday morning. Unfortunately, he chose the mean trap rather than the happy trap. Sorry, Mr. Mouse.

Jeannie might be quitting her architecture job today. I'll have to find out how it went when she gets home.

Last night after we finished working, we walked down to Rocky Run for some drinks, and I drank a very large stout that tasted exactly like a very large glass of cold coffee, but better. Anyway, it was a nice little date. All in all a very good day.

Long and Boring.

Long and boring is how the last few days have been. At work anyway. At home, Jeannie and I have been taking walks in the late evenings after I get home, enjoying the new apartment and the new neighborhood. At some point we should have people over for beers, conversation, and maybe games.

Been thinking lately about maybe eventually working on some more music. Not sure what it should sound like. The two songs that lately I have been wishing I had written and recorded:

1. Maps, by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
2. Another Day on Earth, by Brian Eno.

I don't know what it would sound like if those two songs had a baby, but that's probably what I would want my new songs to sound like.

Also been missing my weekly lunches with the Beej. I hope that his summer is continuing nicely in the Missouri.

CSC

Spent the day in at CSC packing stuff up and throwing things away, getting ready for a junk sale on Saturday that will be taking place before CSC moves to a new space in August.

I spent a lot of the day thinking about CSC, about how just when I can be all ready to quit doing theatre stuff once and for all I go in and have a good, fun day like today and it ropes me in for another season. As I was thinking, I came to the conclusions that it's really just the large-group activites that I don't like. I tend to like the smaller shows, the smaller group meetings that are less planned and more intimate. And I like puttering around by myself and moving stuff around. So now that things are settling down again at work and at the new apartment, I feel a bit more comfortable about working on the shows this year. I guess it's all a matter of balancing work and home and CSC and free time.

Also, Ian told me that he read the blog the other day, so this evening I reread through a lot of old blog posts to see if I'd said anything bad in the past...surprisingly the only negative stuff I found were some un-stellar reviews of past shows. But nothing that I think was unaccurate or mean, so I didn't have to erase them from the blog or anything, ha ha.


Today I found on Rich's secret blog a link to the Steinmetz Family Rhymin'. Holy Jeez, it's good. Holy Jeez.

Tonight Jeannie and I have some un-planned hang-out time. What shall we do? I'm predicting that no matter what we do, some ice-cream eating will take place. Probably from cones.

At the moment I'm kinda sticky-sweaty from working at CSC and I need a shit and a shower. For the last few days I've been picturing myself doing some recording, which means that in a few weeks I might break out all the equipment and see what happens.

I make the stinky gas!

Patrick Kayak Pork

The last few days have been b oth eventful and uneventful. The fun started on Saturday night when Patrick C. left his keys at the B&N and was forced to spend the night at our place. Stupid Patrick! So we popped some corn and watched a bad SNL.

Then on Sunday (after taking P-rick to retrieve his keys) Jeannie and I wanted to get outside on our day off, so we decided to go to Gunpowder Falls State Park and rent a kayak. So we headed out (it's only about 20 minutes away, which is nice) and rented a kayak for a little while and paddled around. Then watched people learning how to windsurf on a day with very little wind.

Then a brief trip to Target and the grocery store where we bought some fixin's for a nice dinner, then brought them home, stuck our camping grill out on the roof and had us a nice little barbeque.

Yesterday was all about going to work. The crazies kinda drove me nuts last night.

Today is also all about going to work. ANd then tomorrow I'm going down to CSC to help get ready for the office-move.

Rocks.

The Jeanners and I went to Rocks State Park yesterday on our day off, it's one of our favorite summertime swimmin' spots. The water was pretty low, and it's a pretty, um, rocky place, so we didn't stay too long, but it was a good time.



This morning we walked to the farmers market to pick up some tasty vegetables. On the way home got a call from my good buddy Chris Bosco, who I have not talked to in a damned long time. Reminded me that I still need to send out an e-mail with our new address and phone number....

Off to work.

Surprise

I have been really enjoying Paul Simon's latest cd, Surprise, which was half-produced by Brian Eno. It's a very interesting combination.

Also, saw Pink on Letterman tonight, and was expecting to not like her. But I ended up liking the song.

Tomorrow I'm playing with me wife all day.

Certi-mofo-fiable!

The music department passed the big ISO certification yesterday, which means I can stop stressing out over all the bullshit now. Woo-Hoo!

Not too much else has been going on, except for me stressing out. The apartment is starting to come together, the books are up on the bookshelves, and now we just need to figure out how to work Jeannie's painting area, and how much of my recording junk we want to set up. I'm kind of leaning towards just setting up the recording stuff for the couple-day periods that I seem to record in and then taking it all down and storing it when I'm not using it. We'll see. That might be a big pain in the johnson.

I was very happy to hear that Henry's surgery went well, and also glad to hear that Jen Schlueter's play went very well and that she got some offers to stage it from a few different theatre festivals. Nice work, Schluets!

We finally have the stereo set up in our living room and it sounds really good. I'm glad there's no one living below us because now I can listen to music guilt-free. Also, we get PBS in our new place! Now I can watch all the British mystery shows that the centenarians who come into the B&N are always looking for. By the way, Jen Schlueter, centenarian means someone who is 100 years old. And I'm glad I looked it up in the dictionary because it turns out that I was originally spelling it way wrong and you would have publicly shamed me for it, I'm sure.

Can anyone out there tell me how to get Jeannie to stop hitting me?

French Onions

Tonight when I got home from inventory I couldn't find a place to park on our street, so I parked on Calvert and walked a block to the house. Here's some things I encountered on the way:

1. A bumper sticker that said, "My cat didn't make the honor roll."
2. A strange french onion dip smell. I think it was just garbage.

Inventory went fine, I got home around 2:30 and found an e-mail from my old grade-school buddy Mike Zahra, who I keep in very very loose contact with. He just moved to Miami, where he is in his like 30th year of training to be a doctor. He was the drummer in my first band, the Sons of Cain, which consisted of myself, him, and Doug Krey on bass. We weren't very good, but it was fun. And his parents were kind enough to let us use their basement.

Off to bed.

ISO!

Hmmm. Got an inventory at work tonight and ISO certification tomorrow. Which I know means nothing to most people out there, but to me it means stress and stomach-knots. Yuck.

I'll be glad when tomorrow's over.

The apartment is starting to shape up. We had a little bit of a shelf-building fiasco, but when all the dust settled we were left with two lovely IKEA-bought bookshelves.

Friday Jeannie and I get to play together. Maybe swimming?

High Fidelity

Last night as I was sitting in front of the computer, writing, I was trying to remember what it was I wanted to write about. Today at work I finally remembered what it was: on Wednesday night I went over to Pat and BJ's to play some geek cards, and Pat was a little bit late getting home, so BJ and I watched the movie HIGH FIDELITY while we waited for Pat to get home. I had seen that movie before, a couple of times, and I like it. As I watched it again, I was more aware of the parts that I didn't like, but I was also very aware that the movie helps me put my job in perspective, helps me not care too much about it, and helps me remember that maybe I'm not going to work at B&N for the rest of my life. So I need to get a copy of that movie so I can watch it when things get rough.

Today I did a bunch of laundry at the laundromat a couple blocks down the street. Tomorrow I'm gonna do more.

Today and tonight Jen Schlueter's play is being performed in Columbus. I hope everything goes well, and I hope the music works. I expect a full report of how it all goes down...

Pink Eye.

Not a bad day at work today. Got a lot done, and it wasn't super busy. I'm getting settled back into the routine of things.

Unfortunately, the apartment still isn't very settled. Jeannie and I haven't had a chance to do any major unpacking yet. So the plan is to do some work on Sunday, when we both have the day off. We also want to do something fun, maybe swimming in the rapids at Rocks State Park.

Jeannie thinks she has pink eye. I hope I don't get it.

Hmm. That's it for now. Tonight's BJ's last night in Baltimore for the summer. He and I went to Pete's Grille for breakfast this morning, but it was closed.

Out and About

We're back from California, the land of zero humidity.

What a wonderful trip it was. We got to meet some really cool new people, and reconnect with friends we haven't seen in awhile. It was especially good to see Dr. Witz, who has been reprimanded for not updating his blog.

Since it's been pretty much universally agreed that pictures can be sold for nearly 1000 times the value of words, here is a painfully brief recap of what happened on the trip:

The Jeanners and I arrive in California. We drive north from San Jose and set out on Highway 1, which is painfully too curvy. We abandon Highway 1 for the more boring but less motion-sickness-causing highway 101.



These are pictures of where we stayed. It's a 5 bedroom house named Crane Dance located right on the beach just north of Mendecino, CA. Lots of people stayed there, which brought it down to an affordable price range. The top picture is of one of the doors (there seemed to be lots of doors), and the bottom picture is Dr. Witz (left) and Kevin Lowry watching the sun set from inside the living room.


This is the happy couple, John (K-Torr) and Christmas. The wedding was very beautiful. Perhaps some of the hippies I met this trip will have rubbed off on me and I will be filled with more peace and love. I am actually not joking about this. Not entirely, anyway.


The whole gang, on the beach. The beach was interesting. We walked from the zen house where John and Christmas were staying, through a section of desert-like sand dunes, then down onto the beach. The water was paralyzingly cold. Seriously. I honestly and no joke thought that my brain was frozen when I got out of the water. It was fun, though. The Pacific is very different than the Atlantic.


Jeannie and I in wine country. After a lot of folks left, Jeannie and I went wine-tasting with Jeff, Casey, Jessie, and Rema. I forgot to set the timer on my camera, otherwise the rest of them would be in this photo, too. I was probably trashed.


Well, that's all for now. Eventually, once we get all the pictures uploaded I'll post a link in case anyone who was on the trip wants to download or print any.

It was really an amazing thing to get to hang out with such fun and interesting people. Sunday-night club, I hope you all made it to your flight safely.

DO NOT want to got to work tomorrow. Ugh.