Multiple Blasts From the Distant Past

I just decided to have a piece of that lovely apple pie for breakfast. I'll be right back...

DAMN, this is good pie. And the best part is that last night, Jeannie told me that she doesn't like it and it made her tummy hurt, so she's not going to eat any more of it. So I get the whole rest of the pie for myself. But really, I'm attacking it with pretty regular voraciousness, so it won't be around much longer.

Is there a better word than 'voraciousness' for the noun-form of 'voracious'? I think there is (maybe voracity?) but I'm too lazy to look it up.

Last night I spent a good portion of the evening friending people from grade school on Facebook and uploading old pictures. It is truly a trip. Very surreal seeing people that I haven't seen in 20 years, all growed up and with kids. Kinda makes me feel old, but not too bad. I don't think I've changed too much since then, though. Equal parts silly and serious. Equal parts happy and sad. Balanced. The only major things I've lost since then are excitement and, to a lesser degree, some curiosity. I don't miss the excitement, but I wish I could get some of the curiosity back.

The Jeanners had her last Physics class last night. It's strange, but I think she'll miss it. I think she enjoyed being good at something at which she thought she would be lousy.

I'm off work today. Many dishes to be done, and a trip to the gym. Maybe a long run.

Worked on some music last night. Recorded, took a break and went for a walk, came back and listened to the recording and it sounded like shite. Oh well. I guess that happens about 90% of the time, but the 10% that it doesn't is worth the effort.

Cheek, Cheek, Sack, Dick, Leg, Leg.

I've had some music sitting around, hoping something something would spring from it, but nothing has. So screw it. Here it is:



Jeannie made an apple pie last night, and I think it's the best apple pie I've ever had.

Thanks to all who voted in "Decision '08: Dough". The polls are still open.

Dough

Informal poll here:

Do you like eating raw dough? Doesn't matter what kind of dough. Could be pizza dough, could be pie crust, just any kind of uncooked dough. For the sake of the poll, though, let's leave out cookie dough because everybody knows that it's delicious.

Dough. Tell me all about it.

Okra, Enough to Choke Ya

Woke up this morning cosmically Bored, with a capital B, feeling blah. Yet had plenty to do. Just procrastinating. So I spent the morning sitting in the tub and chain-watching Sports Night episodes.

Been listening to some Chris Smither lately (who I would recommend for fans of ol' Greg Brown), and when I listen, the songs take me right back to our Alaska trip earlier this year, which was when I first listened to any of his stuff. I can totally picture Spiff and I in his kitchen, rolling dice, drinking Guinness, a bright morning light coming through the window, smell of eggs and bacon, listening to a lot of good tunes.

The J-Dog and I have been talking lately about our plans for the future, specifically house-buying and J-Dog-school-returning-to. We're thinking it's probably a pretty darn good time to look at houses, what with interest rates being real low and house prices dropping. And we've got some money in the bank that ain't doin' nothing. And it's a bad time to quit a job and move elsewhere, so it's looking like '09 might be the year that D-Bone and J-Dog hunker down and start playing Grown Up.

I'm off tomorrow, and I'm planning on doing some preliminary-type work on the set for the show I'm starting to work on, "The Country Wife", which will be going up in February. And laundry. Gotsta do laundry.

Magically Delicious

Back in June I went on a diet and started exercising, and ever since then I've been running a few times a week (more often in the summer, somewhat less in the fall/winter but still pretty regularly). Tonight I went running in the rain after a nice dinner over at Eric and Lauren's (who this afternoon kindly invited us over for dinner). Usually when I'm running I think about death or something like that, but tonight I was thinking about Art, and about Lucky Charms.

Lucky Charms is the best cereal, and when I was young I didn't really understand why it is the best cereal, I just enjoyed it. But as I got older and tried different things, I began to understand why it is the best cereal. One of the things that I tried that helped me to understand why Lucky Charms succeeds in being the best cereal was attempting to eat all of the oats and leave myself a bowl full of marshmallows. I figured that getting all of the oat-eating out of the way would leave me, at the end of the bowl, with about 10 bites worth of pretty much pure sunshine happiness. But I learned it wasn't true. For me, anyway. Spoonfuls of marshmallows were not as good as a mix. A balance. Of oats and marshmallows.

And here's the really important thing that I've learned since then: it's the oats that make Lucky Charms a cereal that can be regularly and consistently enjoyed--I could eat it every day and still be OK with it. And it's because of the oats. Just marshmallows I would get sick of pretty quick.

I think the Lucky Charms folks get it right because they have more oats than marshmallows. The marshmallows are there pretty much just to spice things up a little bit, but it's really the oats that keep you coming back for a lifetime.

And the same is probably true of Art. For the analogy, I think of marshmallows as things that are florid, poetic, aesthetically beautiful -- the chorus, the hook, the really nice lighting; I think of oats as things that are mundane, boring, simple, quiet. The verses. The general wash.

Bob Dylan songs are, to me, the Lucky Charms of music; it's why they've stood the test of time. There's some great poetry in them, but there's a shit ton of incredibly mundane lines, too. The things are composed entirely of verses and no chorus, for the most part. And even breaking it down further, the lines are generally composed of oat words with a few marshmallows that are the ones that steer the line downward into your gut. And the music behind it all is usually pretty generic, repetitive, unassuming. Oat music.

So, the point of this all, I guess, is just a reminder to myself, to return to: if I start working on more music, I'm gonna focus on the oats.

Larry

I found out today that my uncle Larry died yesterday. He was a good guy. My mom's sister, Pauline, married him when I was around 13 or 14, I think, and he became well-loved by the family real fast. Super-nice, warm, welcoming, always smiling. Always said what was on his mind, and his words showed that there were usually nice things in his mind. I'll miss him, and I know my mom and dad will miss him a lot, too. And of course, my aunt.

But, I was told that he went home last night after a couple of different Thanksgiving dinners, sat in his chair, and a little while later fell over dead. Not a bad way to go. He deserved a gentle death.

That's all I got for right now. Thanksgiving was fine. Black Friday was fine.

Sally the Saw.

I rarely feel the desire to have relations with inanimate objects [anymore], but I bought this compound miter saw for CSC yesterday and I am totally in love. I have wanted the company to have a chop saw since, like, day numero uno, but felt that we were never in a position to spend the cash on one until now-ish. That's probably not true. We probably could've bought one at any point but for some unknown reason didn't. But the point is that now we have one and I love her and I've named her Sally.

It's the day before Thanksgiving, the bestest of all the holidays. I sure will be missing all the cool kids this Thanksgiving. It just ain't the same without them. We are, however, currently in talks planning for a fake-Thanksgiving sometime this spring, which is exciting.

I have made a kick-ass Christmas song mix to play at the store during this exciting holiday season. It includes classics such as "Do They Know It's Christmas?" by Band-Aid, "Last Christmas" by WHAM!, and "All I Want for Christmas is You" by Mariah Carey. And others. I'll also be bringing in my Herb Alpert X-mas CD, and the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack, a perennial B&N favorite, which for some reason was left off the offical B&N 2008 approved In-Store playlist.

Our radiators are actually working this year. It's a pleasant change.

Have a happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

(should I have put a comma after Thansgiving? Anyone?)

Sweep the Leg

Last night the J-Dog and I practiced a little dancing, then we practiced a little karate (jump kicks), and then we went for a walk. I learned that even though 5 years have passed since I quit smoking, I am unable to walk by a cigarette pack on the ground without stopping to see if it has any cigarettes in it.

I am sad that even though Jeannie and I were practicing our karate moves, I was still unable to entice her to watch the Karate Kid.

Had a dream last night that Sean, Schlueter and I were in rehab. Jeannie was also there, but just because she was visiting. Everybody at rehab liked Sean because he played guitar and sang. Everybody there didn't like Schlueter because she was trying to get everybody to smoke cigarettes, even though we had all quit. And Sean had an affair with our rehab counselor. That was my dream.

I'm gonna buy a chop saw this week for CSC.

Nada.

Not too much going on. Been busy at work. It snowed the other day!

I'll be damned if that big ol' annoying fly isn't still flying around our living room. And it's still annoying.

The Exception That Proves the Rule

The other day at work, a coworker and I were talking about blogs and blogging, and I said that 'the days when nothing happens are when the posts get really interesting.' Hmmmm. Today I'm doubting the veracity of that statement. Not much happened today so let's see if we can make this an interesting post.


Had a whack dream last night involving the Bosco family, Alaska, Sean and Nicole and two guys I didn't recognize, a broken bicycle chain, a funeral, the J-Dog, and staying with my parents in a hotel.

I'm sitting on the couch, and the sun is going down behind the church dome across the street. No birds in sight. A crisp sunset, no clouds, the colors changing in definite lines rather than an explosive bleed.

I used the master key to our building (which I [mistakenly and unbeknownst to others] possess) to explore the now-vacant apartment on the first floor of our building. It's pretty huge, and although the basement is very large and has a washer and dryer, it was also kinda musty and mildewy smelling.

Someone (I think next door) is listening to Tori Amos very loudly. Shame on them. Doubly.

Today at work I was in a good mood, and I'm feeling pretty good about the way things are set up for Christmas. My unsucessful lobbying for people of a few weeks ago has bloomed into success, so I'm hoping that, although X-mas will be busy, it won't be crazy. Or too painful.

Every day I'm looking more and more like Shel. Head balder, beard bushier.

I'm about 7/8's of the way through Infinite Jest. A line that stood out: "It's weird to feel like you miss someone you're not even sure you know." Very true, DFW.

In case you were wondering, I just spent a ridiculous amount of time looking for that quote. I remembered reading it, and it struck a chord, but then when I went to look for it I couldn't remember if I read it recently or a week or two ago or what. I won't say how long it took me to find it, but it was far too long. It's on page 589, if you're interested. I basically reread the first 589 pages in order to find that damned quote.

Alright I'm done.

Dancing in the Dark

The Jeanners and I went out and celebrated our anniversary last night. We started out by going to a Mexican restaurant called El Salto II, which I thought was promising for its El Jimador/Chuy Arzola vibe but the food was kinda bland. Oh well. Then we headed out to the American Legion Hall in Towson for the Friday Night Dance.

A little preface: a while ago, Aimee and I had been talking about how it would be fun to go dancing, but not at a Baltimore meat-market style club, what we were looking for was something more like a wedding reception but without the wedding.

And the Friday Night Dance in Towson was pretty much like a wedding reception, except it was like a wedding reception where everybody was at least a good dancer. I'd say that Jeannie and I were in the bottom 1 percent of the dancers there. But it was a good mixture of ages, from probably 16 to 80, and a nice mix of casual and dressy outfits. And the band was kinda boring but decent enough to dance to. We had a good time, and I'm guessing we'll probably go back again sometime in the future. You up for it, A-Train?

Not much else to report. The weather has turned to usual November weather, and it's been rainy. I got caught in a little one-minute hurricane today walking from my car to work.

Jeannie is making fun of my typing. She is cruising for divort.

Four more years! Four more years!

Today is the fourth wedding anniversary of D-Bone and J-Dog. Please take a moment to stop whatever you're doing and join in the worldwide celebratory dance-a-thon. I sure hope Jeannie takes a minute out of her Physics class tonight to join in the celebratory dance-a-thon. (That squeaky sound you hear is the sound of a lone tear slowly making its way down my cheek.)

There's a big goddamn fly buzzing around our living room! Goddamn it, fly!

So much to write about I don't know where to begin...

Jeez, that big fly is annoying!

Last night Aimee came over for a long-planned and oft-postponed fondue party. Actually, it might have only been postponed once, but we haven't seen Aimee since last February, so this party was a long time comin'. I think it turned out pretty awesome. Hot melty cheese, tofu sausage, roasted cauliflower, apple cubes, delicious bread, muthaf*****' ham cubes, a bright and savory salad, and decadent cheese cake (4 varieties!) for dessert. Plus, we did some great internet research, most of which centered on the Sheen/Estevez dynasties. If you're ever planning a Sheen/Estevez trivia night, and you need to learn some fun-facts about either Ramon Gerardo Antonio "Martin Sheen" Estevez or Carlos Eugene "Charlie Sheen" Estevez, I recommend trucking on over to their respective Wikipedia pages. You will learn things. I especially was fascinated by the info on Martin Sheen's arms and their (the arms') relation to the way he puts on a jacket.

I also learned that Martin Sheen is not the father of all of the 'Young Guns.' Not even Lou Diamond Phillips (who we also researched a little bit.).

We also learned that there really is (sadly) a website called www.deadhookerremoval.com.

So anyway, it was fun. And at the tail end of the fondue party, PKP came over, because he was spending the night at our place because he and I had to be up in Towson early this morning for a performance of Macbeth, and he didn't feel like driving all the way back down to DC last night after his rehearsal. So he came over and parked on the wrong block, and then once he got to our apartment, he sat in this really squeaky chair and squeaked the whole time. Until he moved to a different chair. And then Aimee went home, and we blew up the ol' air mattress for Pat, and then we all went sleepy sleepy.

Then I got up early this morning because I had to be at the theatre at 7am, and I told Pat that I'd see him there and I went out the door (Pat didn't have to be there until 8am). And then I had been working at the theatre for a little while when the stage manager got a call from Pat, who told her that his car had been towed (from the block near but not quite in front of our house. Our neighborhood has fairly complex and bullshitty parking rules.). So that was super sucky and I feel really terrible, because it costs way too much money to get your car from the impound lot in Baltimore. Pat did tell me, though, that he yelled at the guy who was hooking his car to the tow truck (Pat arrived at the car just as it was being towed), and used lots of bad words and yelled at him (the tow guy) in a manner in which he had not yelled at anyone in a very long time. That people on the street turned and stared. This image makes me feel a little better. But I still feel bad.

So anyway, I think that brings us pretty close to up-to-date. I saw gas today for $1.97, the Macbeth performances went off without a hitch (I was just there for technical guidance and to act as a sort of assistant stage manager), I spent the afternoon doing dishes and eating leftover ham cubes, and then I bought a postcard with The Jesus on it to give to my wife. And that big goddamn fly is still buzzing around.

Tomorrow night the Jeanners and I will actually get to celebrate with dinner and questionable American Legion Hall dancing.

Sleepy Tears

Last night I woke up in the middle of the night and I was crying. Weird. Never had that happen before. I had been having a sad/weird dream about my mom dying [at the old power plant where I worked.] [holding 2 Marlon Brando DVD's.][Those are the weird parts]. What's also weird is that just the other night, Jeannie was laughing in her sleep, and I thought about what a strange thing it was that your brain is creating images vivid enough to make your unconscious body start laughing.

Last night before we went to sleep, Jeannie and I were laying in bed, cracking each other up. We decided that it's a good thing we're married, because neither of us could ever find anyone else who thinks we're that funny. She did tell me though, that I have the tendency to use the same jokes over and over again. Duh.

It feels like autumn has lasted an exceptionally long time this year. At least, it seems like the trees have been colorful and beautiful for a long time. I feel like usually by November it's gray and glassy and cold and the trees are black sticks. Not so this year.

Busy day tomorrow at work. All the Christmas stuff gets set up. 'Tis the muthaf*****' season.

I'm your density.

While doing research for this post, I learned that there are 13225 days until the presidential inauguration that will be held on Friday, January 20th, 2045. I will be 67 years old then. God bless the Internet.


It's November 5th, and that tells me three very important things:

1. It's Jack Steinmetz' first birthday. Happy birthday, Jack! Congratulations on some wonderful development!

2. It's Spiff Chambers' birthday. Happy birthday, Spiff! Congratulations on some wonderful development!

3. It's the day Marty McFly went back in time. Let's have a moment of silence as we think about this...


Speaking of Spiff Chambers, he's having a big CD release party this Saturday night, so if you're free, stop on by Maxine's in Girdwood, Alaska. Also, his CD is available from CDBaby. You should buy it.

How about that Barack Obama? Now, he just needs to live in a secure bunker deep beneath the earth and eat only pre-tasted food for the next 76 days. I am happy he won, and now I'm scared for him.

Voting Schmoting.

Only losers vote. So I decided to skip this one. I'll vote in the next one...

I'm just kidding. I voted. Jesus, I'm tired of people telling me to vote. It's like having someone come up to you and telling you to do your dishes, when you're already totally planning on doing your dishes as soon as you get home from work and have a gin and tonic. Get off my fucking back, voter police! I will say that I was pleasantly surprised in that it took me about 15 minutes to walk to my polling place, vote, and walk home. Zero line. It did rain as I was walking there, though. Also, I was harassed by the polling staff. But they calmed down as soon as I put my underwear back on.

Last night we had a company meeting for CSC, although there weren't as many people there as I thought there would be. But I still managed to get all nervous and bumble my way through my portion of the meeting--forgetting what I was going to say, lots of half sentences, etc. I think that any sort of social skills that I might have had in the past have gone away somehow, perhaps from lack of use. The only time that I spend any time with someone other than Jeannie is at work, and work has consisted of 6 years of saying basically the same 5 sentences over and over again. Anyway, I'm having a hard time around people.

Daddy update: he started his drip yesterday and everything went fine. No side effects. Woo-hoo!

I just got a call from my boss that they just caught this little bitch of a shoplifter that I've been wanting to catch for awhile. I really hated her because she was a normal college kid, totally has money and no obvious drug habit to support, just stole stuff cause she didn't want to pay for it. Jeez, if you're gonna steal stuff, at least sell it for drugs.

Addendum

An over-excited Schlueter has caused me to add that the new and exciting information mentioned in the previous post is not, in fact, really new and exciting. It is in no way cross-country move related or baby related. It has to do with changes to the way the theatre company is currently structured and set up. Exciting, no?

My Dream Last Night

So here's my dream last night:

CSC was performing Romeo and Juliet at the St. Louis Municipal Opera, known to those in the know as The Muny. For those not in the know, The Muny is a huge, 10,000 seat outdoor theatre in St. Louis, which performs mostly musicals of the Oklahoma! and South Pacific variety. And in true Muny fashion, CSC's Romeo and Juliet had a 200 member children's chorus, a huge balloon release, and 10 minute scene changes. BJ was there, and during the long scene changes, members of the cast would come out into the audience and we would all hang out. Some folks from grade school and high school were in the audience. Pat played the role of Balthasar, although in his final scene he was beheaded, which I don't exactly remember happening in the real play. Anyway, Pat's final scene, in my dream, was a filmed version of his beheading, and then his beheaded head saying his final lines. I remember thinking to myself that Pat's final, beheaded lines were the best performance that I had ever seen. By anyone. Ever. Unfortunately, because of the long scene changes, most of the audience had left by the time Pat's final scene rolled around.

Well, anyway, it was good to see the Beej and the folks from St. Louis. I wish I got to see more of my friends in places other than dreams.

Not too much else going on. The J-Dog is finishing up 4 days off work, the lucky duckling. On Thursday I had the day off as well, and it was a beautiful fall day, so we decided to drive around looking for some adventure and autumn color, and ended up at Catoctin Mountain Park out near Frederick, MD. Walked around a little bit in the woods, saw a little waterfall that probably would've been more impresssive in the Spring.

Got a CSC company meeting tomorrow night, at which I will be presenting new and exciting information. Lookout!

Funnies

Thanks to OAA for posting several things over the last few days that have made me laugh out loud.
(oh, and the audio is probably not appropriate for the workplace.)

How the Day Sounds

At work we listen to a lot of the same music over and over again. For the last two months or so, we've had a CD in rotation called Three Flights From Alto Nido by a guy named Greg Laswell. It's generally agreed that it's the only CD that we've been playing that the music dept. employees can still stand. I think the song "How the Day Sounds" is pretty damn solid.



My dad had a meeting with his oncologist to find out the results from the bone marrow test and CAT scan from a few weeks ago. It looks like there's no cancer in the bone marrow, which is a very good thing, and the doctor didn't have the results from the CAT scan. Which I don't quite get, but my dad doesn't seem too worried, because he said they did a CAT scan when he first went in with the kidney stone and they only saw the tumor in his abdomen. So who knows. But the bottom line is that he starts treatment on Monday with some drug that I've forgotten the name of but have written down, and it's some sort of drip. And he'll do that for three days, then go in the next week and get it for one day, and then the week after that, etc. for like 4 or 5 weeks. Then they evaluate. Anyhoo, that's the plan.

Strange thing: the kidney stone that my dad orginally went to the hospital for seems to have disappeared. Neither passed (that he knows of, and from what I've heard about kidney stones I get the idea that you can usually tell when you pass them) nor showing up on any sort of scans.

I feel a bit distant tonight. Wouldn't mind a G&T, but I think I'm going to abstain. The J-Dog is whipping up what smells like it will be a delicious veggie lasagna. I did help a little, but I've abandoned her to come fart around on the internet in the living room.

Effluvia

This morning I woke up with the word "effluvia" in my head, and I had no idea what the word meant, so when I got to work I looked it up. Feel free to view its meaning here.

I was off work today, except that I had to go in this morning for our weekly Monday-morning manager's meeting. This week's was especially painful. People seemed to be in their grumpy pants. Plus, I was going to use this week's meeting to start lobbying to get the right people working in my department for December, but because everyone was in their grumpy pants, my lobbying was not as successful as I would've hoped. I will continue my efforts throughout the month of November.

It was an overcast, gray day today. And after the meeting I went to the gym, and after the gym I came home and took a nap. And then my girlfriend came home from work early and we napped together. We both had spent the weekend working, so it was nice to get a little together-naptime in.

Tonight, we made our plans for our anniversary celebration, which will be happening in a few weeks. On the actual day of our anniversary, the J-Dog will be in her physics class, so we are celebrating on the following day, a Friday, and we're gonna go dancing at an American Legion hall. On a "50's and 60's" night. The website looked absolutely batshit crazy, so I'm both nervous and curious.

Thomas Tallis

I do enjoy sitting on our couch in the evening and listening to some relaxing music while watching the birds fly in loops above the houses and church dome across the street. There usually seems to be bunches of birds around in the evenings. Today's listening is The Tallis Scholars Sing Palestrina, which I borrowed from a guy at work and have been enjoying for the past few days. I think it will be a good November-Winter album. It's chilly in our apartment and the tip of my nose is cold.

Had an inventory at work last night, and a relatively painless one at that. We were done at around 1am, early enough that Abbey and Dan P. and myself had a couple of beers after we were finished. A good time. Work is better when you hang out outside of work every now and again. I don't necessarily know if that's true across the board or if that just happens to be true for this particular job at this particular time.

It's been a long week. I'm looking forward to a day off, but it won't be arriving until Monday.

I straightened up our apartment when I got home from work and made our bed. I am slowly (finally?) discovering the pleasure of making your bed on a (at least semi) daily basis. It just feels good to get into bed at night and have all the sheets and blankets be cool and heavy and smooth and cover your entire body, instead of having them bunched and twisted and trying to figure out exactly how they're twisted so you can stretch and pull them the right way to at least get your ass and legs covered enough to be warm.

It's just about dark outside.

Domingo

Havin' most Sundays off with my lady friend ain't a bad deal at all.

Although we didn't do that much today, really. J-Dog did a lot of physics problems, and I was on call as a consultant. So I read a lot of IJ. And we went to the farmer's market this morning and bought a lot of vegetables, which vegetables I then spent the evening chopping and peeling for a vegetable-roasting extravaganza which will probably take place at our place sometime this week.

Got an inventory this week at work, which I never look forward to, but I'm always glad to get 'em done. And a production meeting tomorrow night for The Country Wife, which will be going up in February. Not exactly sure what my job will be yet on the production (maybe designing, probably building) but perhaps I will find out more at the meeting...

I don't know what to title this one.

My dad got the results back from Monday's test, and the thing growing in his abdomen is, in fact, his old lymphoma. Back again. So that's the bad news. The better news is that it's stage 1, which is the slowest growing type, and most easily treated. So the plan right now is that he'll try some sort of drug that has apparently had some success treating this type of cancer. No chemo, no surgery, no radiation. So that's the plan, unless some of the other tests that he had yesterday and today show that the thing has spread or anything. And if the drug doesn't do anything, then I would imagine that chemo is probably the next step.

Anyway, I talked with him this afternoon, and he sounded both disappointed and relieved. He did use the word "crappy," which is a word I don't think I've heard him use before. "Crap" yes, but not "crappy." Anyway, I guess I'm feeling disappointed and relieved, too. The results could have been better, but they could have been a lot worse. So that's that, for now.


I got contacted by Maya Dimova on Facebook. It's good to hear from her.

I just tried to eat something that I thought might have been part of a stale chip, but it turns out it might have been part of my shoe.

Anyway, Maya Dimova, yes. She's married and living in Italy and has two sons, 6 and 2. Crazy Maya Dimova who used to work at The Blimpie. Now employed by Teatro alla Scalla. Wonderful.

To those who have at some point worked where I currently work: someone got fired from where I currently work, and I don't want to be super gossipy by mentioning this person's name, but I will say that he/she had worked there a long time, he/she knows where Osama bin Laden is, and he/she apparently routinely had his/her car's tires shot out.

Ok, Jeannie just got home from class. Yay! So I'm gonna hang with her now...

Perhaps it might very well indeed do a body good?

It is a beautiful autumnish day, and I am off work.

I had a dream last night about hanging out with K-Torr and his kid (perhaps as a result of leaving a Facebook comment several days ago about hanging out with K-Torr??)

There is a mouse (or some sort of animal) scurrying about in one of our living room walls. I am glad that it is stuck in the wall and not in our apartment. Nonetheless, the scurrying sounds are not enjoyable.

My dad starts his 3 days of tests today.

My dad has not been to a dentist for roughly 40 years. And never has any tooth-related problems. He says it is because he drinks a lot of milk. And he does drink a lot of milk, usually a glass or two a day. And since I have started dieting and stuff back in June, I have also started drinking a lot of milk (of the fat-free variety), about a gallon a week. And back before I started drinking the milk, I had been having some pain in one of my teeth, but since that time the pain has gone away. And so, long story short, I think my dad is right and that drinking milk is good for your teeth.

(or my tooth has become so rotten that the nerve inside is finally gone.)

Last night I ran to the B&N and then made it halfway home before I had to stop running and start walking. While I was running, I was thinking to myself that surely this had to be well over 10 miles, that I could easily run a half marathon, etc. Then I got home and Google-mapped it and it turns out that I only ran about 8-point-something miles. Which is good, and I'm pleased, but not nearly as impressive as the pain in my legs made it feel.

Laundry. Dishes.

Kachunk. Kachunk. Kachunk. Kachunk.

Today I rode my bike to work. And I haven't ridden it for a few weeks, and it's been sitting outside the front of our place (which is where our bikes live), and the chain has gotten kinda rusty. And so every time I pedaled, the chain would slip. Which made for a very annoying ride, indeed.

When I got home I oiled the chain which seems to have helped.

Not much else going on. The Jeanners and I went dress shopping this evening. The mall on a Friday night is a scary, scary place.

Started work on a new song last night. I'd been playing around with some chords and very sketchy lyrics for the last few weeks, and last night I was able to record a nice solid foundation, now I just need to come up with something to make it all interesting.

Tonight we watched part II of the seven part HBO miniseries John Adams. The second part was better than the first (but seemed longer -- was it longer?) and it's getting engaging. We'll see.

The reread of IJ is going well. I'm around page 180. Kneser, are you hanging in there?

Here We Are Now, Entertain Us

Wow, listen to those stocks fall! You can almost hear them whistle as they fly by! I listened to This American Life on Saturday, and the show was all the about the "current economic crisis," and basically just tried to explain what the hell is going on, and how it happened, and possible outcomes and/or solutions. It's pretty scary. And a little exciting. Although I'm guessing that if I had children, a home, or any sort of responsibility it would be less exciting and just scary. But anyway, it was a good program, and worth listening to online if you're at all interested in economics (which I usually am not, but still found the program interesting).

I have started rereading Infinite Jest (and have already, at page 77 or so, been reminded of why it is the Greatest Book Ever) and it has got me thinking about entertainment, and what type of entertainment I like, and I'm realizing that without a TV and with very limited exposure to movies, the entertainment I've been enjoying is a lot different than what it used to be. (It just took me like 5 attempts to try and type 'different' correctly). My current top pieces of entertainment (and maybe I would so far as to call these things 'art'): DFW stuff, Savage Love, This American Life, and Car Talk. And I think there's a definite common thread among them all, and it probably has something to do with the narrative tone and the word conversational.
But then who cares.

BJ called me on the goddamn telephone the other day. A mere one day after Schlueter and I had decided that we were writing him out of our respective wills because he is a non-answerer. So he's back in the will. TO BJ GAILEY I BEQUEATH: ONE SMALL-TO-MEDIUM SIZED BAG OF SNACK CHIPS TO MAKE UP FOR THE BAG I ATE.

For those who haven't heard: we think that the J-Dog got the highest grade in her class on the ol' physics test last week. She got like 160+%. She's a hard worker.

A Look At Yesterday

7:15am --Alarm goes off. Hit snooze once. Shower. Leave for work.

8:30am-11:30am -- Work.

11:30am-12:50pm -- Drive to bus station at the Maryland Travel Plaza. Get required passes for parking, pick up bus ticket, wait for bus.

12:50pm-4:30pm -- Ride bus to the Port Authority bus terminal in NYC. Listened to some DFW readings, latest David Byrne/Brian Eno album, et al.

4:30pm-7:30pm -- Arrive at the Port Authority bus terminal in NYC. Walk around Times Square a little bit. Buy some beers and a bag of Doritos. Walk around a little more. Get approached by a man who asks, "Is your name Augustine?" Take beer and Doritos and hunker down across the street from the back door of the Letterman show. For some reason, this is my absolute favorite place in New York. It's a good place to people watch, and it's out of the way. I saw, in order: Bill Hader, Calista Flockhart, various Late Show band members, Alan Kalter, and Paul Schaffer. Then walk to Schlueter's hotel, just around the corner.

7:30pm-10:45pm -- Schlueter arrives at hotel, we walk to restaurant in neighborhood. Some type of pub. I get my steak, have beers. Schlueter gets a wrap of some sort, has beers. We talk about lots of things. Good time.

10:45pm -- I check my phone and see that my bus leaves in 45 minutes. Pay tab, quick goodbye on 8th Avenue.

10:45pm-11:20pm -- Run down 8th Ave. a few blocks to the Port Authority bus terminal, which is large and confusing. I ask the person at the information desk if she knows where my bus will be leaving from. She says Gate 74. I find Gate 74 with a few minutes to spare. Above Gate 74, one of the destinations listed is the Maryland Travel Plaza (my destination), so I figure I am in the right spot. There is no bus and no people there. I wait for the bus to arrive.

12:15am -- Still no bus. I ask a Greyhound baggage dude walking by if he knows when the bus will arrive. He tells me that my bus left from Gate 78. He says that the next bus will be at 3:45am and that it will take me to downtown Baltimore, not the Maryland Travel Plaza.

12:15am-3:45am -- Fitful sleeping on the floor of the Port Authority bus terminal. Buzz from beers going away rapidly and unpleasantly.

3:45am -- Board bus to Baltimore. More fitful sleeping on bus.

5am-ish -- Vomit in bathroom at back of bus. Thank god for gum.

7am -- Arrive at downtown Baltimore bus terminal. Wait for transfer to Maryland Travel Plaza.

9am -- Arrive at Maryland Travel Plaza.

9:45am -- Arrive home. Poop.


So it was good to see Schlueter. Would I do it all over again? Yes. I would probably just have the Doritos, though, and not the beers before dinner. And I would ask someone different where I was supposed to catch my bus. But other than those 2 things, it was a really fun trip.

The Internet is Not Dead, Bitches!

I am getting a cold. Perhaps acquired from my father (who had a cold this weekend), perhaps acquired by swimming in the ocean when it was probably too cold to be swimming in the ocean. I went to bed last night at 6pm and woke up this morning at 6am. I drank a half gallon of juice throughout the day at work today. Must kick this bastard in its johnson. What the hell, "johnson" isn't in Blogger's spellcheck dictionary? How the hell can one compose a decent blog post without "johnson"?

My parents arrived on Friday evening and we drove up to Wildwood, NJ when the Jeanners and I got home from our respective jobs. We spent the weekend going to the beach, exploring the Jersey shore, swimming in the hotel pool, eating at various restaurants, and driving. It was a good time. Although Jeannie and I did have an argument. Which was definitely the low point of my trip. Thanks a lot, Jeannie! Sheesh! It makes me want to buy some new shoes and get a divort.

My parents ended up staying in our place on Sunday night, which was not planned but worked out fine. It's weird to have your parents sleeping in your bed (not while we were in it, of course. We were on an air mattress in the living room).

Found out some shit about my dad's stomach tumor. I'm gonna call it a tumor, because although nobody knows quite what it is, I'm pretty sure you can call pretty much any unexplained growth a "tumor". So anyway, he showed my the report he got from when they gave him a CAT scan for the kidney stone (which still hasn't passed, by the way), and from the report I learned that the tumor is not in his stomach (the organ), but rather his abdomen. And it's 11cm X 11cm X 8cm. Which is bigger than I had imagined it to be, and seems big. So it's concerning. And his tests are scheduled for October 13th, and it'll be like 3 days of tests, and I'm sure just not very fun. But we had a good chat about it (in the jacuzzi at the hotel) and he seems ok with it, and ready to face whatever is on the way. And of course, there is still a chance that it could be nothing. So we'll see...

Thursday I am going to take a bus up to NYC after work and meet Schlueter for a fabulous New York dinner (I think I'm gonna have a steak, goddammit) and then bus back late Thursday night. Looking forward to it. Headphones, reading material, walking around New York, Schlueter, dinner, headphones, reading material.

Doesn't Anybody Care About Long Turds Anymore?

A few interesting DFW links I have come across in the last few days, especially interesting if you've read Infinite Jest:

http://theknowe.net/dfwfiles/pdfs/Wallace-Amherst_Review-The_Planet.pdf

and

http://www.granadahouse.org/alumni_letters.htm

Also, purchased the Dolly Parton album Jolene yesterday and have been totally enjoying it. If you've ever thought that maybe you might enjoy a Dolly Parton album (and I know you have), I would definitely recommend this one as a good place to start. There's a bonus track where she sings a song called "Cracker Jack" that's about her childhood puppy (the titular Cracker Jack), and I know you're thinking, "Jesus Christ, Dolly Parton singing a song called "Cracker Jack," and it's all about her childhood puppy -- that sounds like my idea of a very very bad thing," but it's really not. And two main reasons it doesn't completely suck are A) subtle production and B) Dolly Parton's vocals. She can sell the songs, and she does it by honesty.

I had a dream about The Beej last night. I think he had come to town to see some sort of CSC production. It was nice to see him, even if it didn't really happen.

Both Jeannie and I were sleeping very very soundly this morning when the alarm went off. It's not often that we're both sleeping well. And 5:45 felt far too early.

My parents are still planning on coming for their visit this Friday. Daddy-o has not passed ye olde kidneye stone. But left a message today saying that he feels up to the trip.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that I'll bet that this is the first blog post that ever talked about David Foster Wallace and Dolly Parton. Two great tastes that taste great together.

Update!

Well, there really isn't much of an update. My dad went to the oncologist on Friday, and the oncologist said, "Yes, we should perform tests on whatever this thing is in your tummy that showed up on the CAT scan for the kidney stone." The semi-good news is that the oncologist did not seem like the tests needed to be performed immediately and said that my folks could come out here for their visit and then get the tests when they return to the Lou.

So, now I'm just hoping that my Dad passes his stone (ouch!) before they come out here, we have a grand ol' time, then he gets his arse back home for tests and everything turns out hunky dory.

Other updates:

I ran 10 miles the other day. Jeannie knows all about it.

Eating less fat makes for very long turds. There, I said it.

Schlueter might be coming East! Possible NYC rendezvous in the works...