Scratch my nails down your back...or something like that.

Just got back from karaoke at Mango Manny's. Jesus, it was awesome. After 10 years of looking, I have finally found a place that comes close to Kirksville karaoke with Wendy. An amazing mix of people, some songs I have never in my life heard, some black dudes in women's pants with large afro wigs, a woman singing a Mary J. Blige tune with a white dude that sings country songs dancing along with her. I don't know. It's just a really great thing to see. A very Baltimore mix of people.

The A-Train came out to jaraoke with us. She's a pretty perfect karaoke buddy.

The crowd seemed to like "Parents Just Don't Understand," but was luke warm towards "Born to Run." "Born to Run" was a little higher and faster than I'm used to singing but it felt pretty good, vocally. I wasn't quite drunk enough to go crazy with it, though. Oh well. It still felt good. Didn't get to sing Phil Collins/Phillip Bailey this time, but maybe next time. Also next time, maybe a duet with the A-Train?

And I also enjoy...levitation.

It looks like it wants to rain outside. Please, please let it rain. It needs to cool the fuck off, the garden could use the water, and I noticed today that the grass is starting to brown. And I don't mind a nice brown lawn in late July or August, but June is just too early.

Ugh. It's been a bit of a crazy week. Sometimes I feel like I'm going a bit crazy, but I'm just at the very beginning part of it where it only seems like slight little changes that don't mean much. But then after a decade of tiny imperceptable changes you're completely batshit bonkers. "On Your Way to the Noble," I like to call it. (because the crazies like to hang out at the Noble.) Here is an example of a guy who is "on his way to the Noble":



Anyway.

I'm tired. Jeannie and I have been staying up past our bedtime (10PM) watching episodes of Mad Men's fourth season. It's really good. My favorite season so far.

I went for a run yesterday in the million-degree heat. I usually run down to Lake Montebello and around the lake and then home. And usually, during the summertime there are always a bunch of people walking or biking or running around the lake. Not yesterday. There were a couple of people on bikes but that was about it. I thought I was going to die a little bit. I only made it about 3/4 of the way around the lake and then I had to quit. I felt like I had stopped sweating, and my days of working at the power plant and learning all about heatstroke had taught me that that is a bad sign.

We're going to have some landscaping done. The dude might start next week. That would be pretty cool. Also, the house is just about ready to begin "Phase 1" of the insulation work. Also pretty cool. It will feel fantastic to get some of this deadlined work out of the way.

Yikes! The wind has kicked up and there is a nice little thunderstorm going on outside. Stupid wind.

Hott az Balz

It has gotten summer-time hot here in Baltimore City. 99 today. Yep. So ends my weather small-talk.

The Beej was in town for about a week, and last Thursday night I headed on down to Chez Kilpatrick and played some geek games until 4 in the morning. Seriously! And then the children Kilpatrick woke up at like 7:30, and Teresa mercifully kept them upstairs for about 45 minutes so I got to catch a little more sleep downstairs on the couch. It was a good time. During the geek games, by the way, I stomped on BJ and Pat's weak spines. Which never happens. For those keeping score at home, the last time I played spades with BJ I stomped on his spine, and the last time I played geek games (geek games, by the way, is a really dorky card-based game put out by the history channel called Anachronism. It's actually really fun if you're a big ol' geek like BJ or even just a borderline geek like me.) with Pat and BJ, I stomped on their spines. Also, I ate about a bag and a half of Doritos and drank 2 litres of caffeine-free Coke. A good night.

Then, on Sunday, the Jeanners and I worked on our roof all day, from 9 in the morning until around 9 at night. And I was a complete bitch the entire day. Seriously. Tremendous bitch. I complained the whole day and was grumpy and complaining and grumpy. All day. I am glad and surprised that Jeannie didn't accidentally nudge me off the roof. So props to the J-Dog for putting up with my b-crap. Also, mad props to the J-Dog for finishing the job all by herself on Monday while I was at work. Monday, when it was much sunnier and hotter up on the roof than on Sunday when I was pissing and crying all day, and she did it with no complaining. One of a kind.

Monday night the Beej came up to our place for dinner (actually, he had been hanging out at the B&N all day while I was at work, which is probably only slightly higher on the sucky-boredom scale than actually working there), and the A-Train came over and we headed up to the Hamilton Tavern for some tasty burgers. Once again, the Hamilton Tavern did not disappoint, and because it was a holiday, it wasn't super-crowded in there. Then we came back to the house and talked a little bit, and listened to some Rick Astley, and tried to figure out who the hell Aimee was talking about when she was describing a guy with long dark hair, circa 2004, who had a video on MTV where he wiggled his eyebrows a lot. If anybody knows who it might be, please send me a message because nobody could figure it out. Jeanners and I also realized that the A-Train would be a perfect karaoke companion, so the next time we head to Mango Manny's for some splended B-More-style karaoke, we will be calling the Aims.

That is all for now. Yesterday I put up some drywall and sweated a lot and ripped the ass entirely out of my shorts.

Words to Live By.

Disclaimer: the basic idea behind this post has been gestating in my head all day. However, it is being written after a particularly potent G&T, probably particularly potent because it was made without ice. Made without ice because the Jeanners is sleeping, and when I got up to put more ice in my glass before making the G&T, she stirred in bed, and I heard her, and I didn't want to wake her.

End of disclaimer.

During my high school years, I lived by quotes that I learned from the movie Dead Poets Society. Carpe Diem and "What's the worst that can happen?" Actually, I think the quote that I used to have run through my head is, "Even if it kills me." And really, those quotes worked pretty well.

During my college years I didn't live by much at all, but I wanted to be sexy, and I wanted to be artistic, and I wanted to be the guy in the corner of the party drinking red wine and chain smoking. It wasn't that hard.

During my post-college years, I have lived by the mantras of "Want Less" and "Talk Less," but I think I have taken those about as far as I care to go with them. I'm going to stop pushing them.

And so, my mantras for my mid-thirties, things I need to work on:
1. Take a chance.
2. Don't be negative.
3. Life should be fun.
4. Hard work is usually fun. With the right music and/or the right company.


So anyway, that's what I've been thinking about today. From the time I took my shower this morning, and at work, and right now.

For th last hour or so, I've been watching CHEERS, and then Tom Waits videos on Youtube. Ouch. Sometimes watching Tom Waits videos makes my chest hurt.

Tonight I made a joke about Castlevania. I think if you're going to make a joke about video games, Castlevania is a good video game to choose to make a joke about. Contra is a close second.

Authors I want to read:
Flannery O'Connor
Charles Bukowski

Music I want to Download because I don't feel like paying the B&N price for the CD:
Mavis Staples, We'll Never Turn back


Movies I want to watch:
Teen Wolf on Netflix (it's streaming!)
Watch the rest of 8 1/2 even though it seems a bit too foreign for me.

TV:
The Wire. I really do need to watch it so I know what the hell "Omar comin'!" means. Ha ha. I doubt I'll like it as much as thirtysomething but who cares.
Match Game. I wish I still had the game show network so I could wear a bathrobe and watch Match Game all day long.


Disclaimer II: This post has been moderately proofread.

It's Not the Heat, It's the Stupidity

Who the hell went and made it all humid all up in here?

Hmmmm. Not too much shakin' this evening. Just went for a quick walk with the Jeanners and talked it up real good. Had a quick chat with the Beej (who is coming to visit this week! Geek games, Thursday night!) on the phone to make some plans, now I'm just drinkin' a beer and probably gonna go read a little Jack London.

Did some drywalling this weekend (last weekend's drywalling party turned into more of a framing party so the drywalling party got moved back a week). Yesterday we had one of Jeannie's Americorp volunteers from work offer to come over and help because she wanted to get some practice doing drywall (J's Habitat affiliate subs out all the drywall work these days), and we've got nothing in this house so much as drywalling practice, so she came over. It was nice having a third person working because then it was more like a mini-party and less like another day working on this fucking house, but a little weird, too, because most of my work pants/shorts have holes and my balls poke out. And I had a surprise fart that popped out and made me feel like an 80 year old man, but the Americorp volunteer either didn't hear or was very nice and pretended not to hear.

I bought tickets to see Daniel Lanois' new-ish band, Black Dub, at the 9:30 Club in DC in a few weeks. I'm pretty fucking excited, for several reasons:

A) I've been following Daniel Lanois since I was 10 years old and I saw on my Joshua Tree tape jacket: "Produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno." And I thought that:
1) Those are really strange names
2) I don't know what "produced" means, but it sounds very important and it
seems like these guys must be responsible for the wonderful sounds on this
tape, almost as much or maybe moreso than the band themselves?
So I started looking for other things that had the name "Eno" or "Lanois" on them, and discovered some pretty great stuff. And this was way before the internet, so it meant lots of magazine reading and record store diving and just generally wonderful hunting time. So it'll just be nice to be in the same room as one of my life-long musical heroes.

B) The band includes Brian Blade and Daryl Johnson. Brian Blade is my favorite living drummer. He's actually a jazz drummer who shows up on a lot of pop stuff, too. The awesome drum pattern in Emmylou's "Where Will I Be"? Brian Blade. Anyway, he's not too flashy, just really funky and unpredictable and he's always dropping heavy bombs into the middle of his beats. Daryl Johnson is just a badass. Thick, funky bass. Once I was at an Emmylou concert and I thought it was Daryl Johnson playing bass, so I yelled out "Daryl!" but it turns out it was not Daryl. Jeannie still makes fun of me for that one. But anyway, Daryl Johnson is a badass, plain and simple.

C) Several other smaller reasons. Black Dub only has one album so they'll most likely play some older Lanois stuff. Lanois usually brings out the ol' pedal steel during shows, which is my favorite instrument but one that I don't get to see live very much.

Anyway, here's a little taste of the Black Dub (p.s. the singer is not my favorite but has been growing on me):



The Jeanners has gone to bed. I should probably follow suit.

Ghosts of High School Past

Tina B. and her man-friend, Dan B., visited last night. As previously reported, Tina B. is a friend from high school that the J-Dog and I had lost touch with and hadn't seen for 15 years. She's been living in Chicago since around 98' or so. It was really nice to see her. She seems to have aged in the same ways that the J-Dog and I have aged: a little more mellow, a little less wide-eyed, maybe a little quieter. But still fun and creative and down-to earth. It was just good to talk to her. I think if we all lived in the same place, we would all still hang out. Unless she thought the Jeanners and I are freaks or something. But anyway, it was really good to see her and catch up. And she and her fella are a really cute couple, and he's very laid-back and nice, and an interesting guy to talk to. It was good to meet him.

So -- hopefully it will not be another 15 years before we see Tina B. and Dan B. We now know that they are in St. Louis for a lot of the holidays, so we will make the effort to get in touch when we head that way.

Things we need to get before we have overnight guests again: suitable guest pillows. It is embarrassing to offer someone a pillow that smells kinda like it's been stored in your rectum for the last coupla years. It would also be nice to have a door up on the spare bedroom.

It's rainin' like hell right now. It's been rainin' like hell off and on for the last few days.

Had a run in yesterday at work with a crazy lady looking for "work" (not a job), but who refused to fill out a job application. Finally, she said, "Look. Just tell me, yes or no. Is there anything I can do here where I will get paid a hundred and fifty dollars, TODAY?" I had to tell her no. I should have told her that if she finds such a job that she should let me know because I, too, would be interested in throwing my hat in that particular ring.

Anyway, I think the Jeanners wants to check her shit (online shit, that is), so I will bid you a fond adieu.

Not Me

Today I saw a picture online and I thought for a second that it was of me. Then I realized that it was not me. But it sure does look like me.

All Good Things Must Come To an End (A Joke)

I have spent the evening watching old Cheers episodes on Netflix. I don't think there's annything in the world that makes me feel like a kid again as much as the sounds and colors of Cheers. The theme song. Somebody saying "Cheers is filmed before a live studio audience." The snappy bass-intensive jazz as an outside scene of the bar or somewhere in Boston is shown. And then into the episode. Cheers and Taxi and MASH. The shows that were shown in reruns after the news during my high school years. I don't know why it's those shows in particular that stir up such vivid memories, or really rather just feelings. No particular head pictures come into view, but more like stomach feelings. The world seems like a different world now than the world that I associate with Cheers, but I think that I'm pretty certain that it's me that's changed, more than the world.

I had the day off today and headed to the beach. A nice 3 hour drive down, listening to a mix of Fleet Foxes, K.D. Lang, Paul Simon, and Robbie Robertson. A nice 3 hours hanging out at the beach, swimming (Damn cold. Nobody else in the water), and a nice 3 hour drive home, listening to a mix of Fleet Foxes, K.D. Lang, Paul Simon, and Robbie Robertson (the Robbie Robertson and kd lang held up surprisingly well to 6 hours of repeated listening - the Paul Simon and Fleet Foxes, not so much). I got a bit of a sunburn, although it wasn't sunny the whole time I was there, a little cloudy when I first got there. I ate a hotdog and an ice cream. I read a little Jack London. I thought about going in an arcade, then decided I would be too depressed when the video games cost more than twenty five cents. All-in-all it was a good day. Got a chance to relax and reflect, to get off the feet for a little while, and to get tossed around by the waves a little bit.




The Jeanners gets back tomorrow. I am looking forward to her return. Life is very lonely without her. Plus, I stop eating vegetables and my poop gets weird.

Through the wonders of Facebook, our old friend Tina B. and her boyfriend will be stopping by in Baltimore on an East Coast roadtrip that they're taking next week. Tina B. is a friend from high school that the Jeanners and I haven't seen for about 15 years. Yikes. She's also the girl that taught me that girls can be freaks, too. And I mean that in the best possible way. She is a true original, and I look forward to seeing her and hearing what life is like for her.

Jeannie has put the kibosh on my plans to have a drywalling party after she gets back into town tomorrow. However, Sunday - drywalling party.

Music Round Up

There are quite a few decent albums out right now. We've been listening to some great music at work and I brought some of the CD's home, so now I've been listening to them both at work and at home. Here's a few recent ones that stand out:

Paul Simon, So Beautiful or So What. (A-) It seems like pretty much everything Paul Simon puts out is at least excellent. This CD is totally solid all the way through, but my only complaint is that a couple of the songs start to sound alike, and there's only one song that really jumps out and grabs me by the nut hairs.

The Fleet Foxes, Hopelessness Blues. (B+) This CD picks up right where their first album left off, and adds a few new sounds and instruments to keep the material sounding fresh. But really, this CD is great to listen to for the same reasons as the first: gorgeous harmonies, interesting song structures, and some interesting songwriting. The songs can start to sound the same a little bit and there's only a few standout tracks, though.

Robbie Robertson, How to Become Clairvoyant. (B-) This one's my least favorite of the bunch, but it's got a couple of nice songs on it. Robbie Robertson puts out a solo CD about once a decade, and the one from the 80's was hit-and-miss, the one from the 90's was pretty bad, but this one's definitely listenable. I like his voice a lot. If Tom Waits' voice is 50 grit sandpaper, Robbie Robertson's is about a 150 grit. Maybe 200.

k.d. lang, Sing it Loud. (A) This one is, surprisingly, my favorite one. I've only liked one other k.d. lang album before this one (Hymns of the 49th Parallel), and I think I only liked that one because she was covering some great songs. But I've liked a few of her other songs along the way, too. But this album is listenable all the way through (although one of the worst songs is the first one, which is just a bad idea), and there are a few songs on there that are pretty perfect. The album as a whole reminds me of Josh Rouse's Nashville, although there's definitely some differences, too. But I was not surprised today to read that Sing it Loud was recorded in Nashville. Really nice pedal steel all the way through, some nice banjo, and some low twangy tremolo guitar. The songs, though, are really pop songs but with country instrumentation. Anyway, here's one song off the CD that I think is just about perfect:



Anyway, so that's what I've been listening to for the last week or two. After work, Jeannie and I spent Saturday afternoon putting in the sub-flooring in the rear bedroom, and we listened to a mix of all of the cd's, so now in my head, the songs conjure images of working back there together. Which is not a bad thing. Here's the room with the floor in it, by the way:



The tricky part was getting the new floor to match up well to the edge of the old floor, but I think we did a good job. Anyway, the new floor at least keeps the mosquitoes out.

The Jeanners left for Birmingham yesterday. I don't know if it was because I had the bed to myself or because I was pretty tired, but I slept like a log last night. I was completely suprised when my alarm went off this morning. But anyway, I talked to the Jeanners last night when I got home from work and she said that somehow she managed to score a cushy hotel room while most of the other folks at the conference are staying on a church basement floor. Which is nice for her cause she has a hard time sleeping and staying asleep. Also nice for her because it's easier to bring dudes back to a hotel room than it is to a church basement floor. Trust me, I know.

That is all I got. I am going to take an hour nap and then I am going to go down in the basement and start tearing shit up.

Edwin Ignatius Elliot Icabod O'Brien (E.I.E.I.O.)

Last night I had a dream about a deli where I used to go eat lunch during college. They had delicious 1/2 pound burgers for a dollar ninety-nine. I believe that included fries. Then, after enjoying one of said tasty burgers, I would sit back and enjoy (indoors) several STOCKTON cigarettes, which cost $1.16 a pack. The good ol' days. I think it was one of those good dreams that's gonna make me feel sad and ill-at-ease for the rest of the day.

I am working an unusual (for me) Friday night shift today, which is why I have the morning off. I have been busting my ass all week, so I don't feel guilty about having a nice, leisurely morning. I also just realized that because I have the morning off, I can make a nice, tasty breakfast. Unfortunately, I did not plan ahead and I have no biscuits in the house. I think, then, that I shall make some fried potatoes to go with the eggs and fauxsage. Fry up the potatoes and fauxsage, throw in some scrambled egg juice and mix 'em all up in a down home skillet.

In world news, Osama Bin Laden has been killed. But world news seems very far away these days, so I have no thoughts on the matter.

My feet have really been bothering me lately. I (perhaps unwisely) went for a pretty long run the other day (down to lake montebello and around the lake and then back home, and I'd never been able to make it all the way home before because there's this killer fucking hill that's on the way back that gets me every time--but the other day I made it), and it actually feels like running helps sometimes, but not long runs like I made the other day. Or maybe I just need to do some stretches before running or something. And, of course, standin g at work all day isn't helping. I now wear two different insoles in my shoes, which seems to help a bit, but my heels still hurt a bit. Anyway, boring stuff.

The Jeanners and I went to karaoke last Saturday night. We were supposed to meet some folks there, but they stood us up. But it was fun, anyway, although I only got to sing one song and it was Bon Jovi and unexciting. But it was some good people watching. We debated the beauty/patheticness of someone who goes to karaoke every week and drinks several pitchers of beer and wears lots of tough-guy biker gear (plus a very incongruous bluetooth ear thingie) and sings Guns n' Roses songs. There really is a great mix of people at this particular bar, though. And relatively cheap beer.

J-Dog leaves town on Sunday for a week. D-Bone flying solo. I have plans to lock myself in the basement and get some work done (not meant as a double-entendre) and come up only to shit and go to work.

Breakfastime soon.

Does this have to do with teabagging?

Right now there is a latino-looking man using a weed whacker around some of the trees next door, and he's wearing one of those black, long-sleeved shirts with what appears to be a white, embossed skeleton torso on it, a la the Cobra Kai halloween costumes. Anyway, that doesn't have much to do with anything, I just happened to look out the window and that's what I saw and it made me think of the Cobra Kai.

Fear does not exist in this dojo.

Not too much going on today. I'm off work, and after doing some dishes and Ipod updating, I'm now going to spend the rest of the morning and probably a good portion of the afternoon pulling nails out of the floor of the back bedroom. We gots to take the floorboards up to try and level the joists underneath so we can then put down some hardwood on top and not feel like we're listing to the starboard side.

Perhaps I shall have a tasty egg-based breakfast before beginning.

Right now I'm listening to a CD that was sent to me by the U2 fan club (don't laugh at me), and it consists of duets that the band has done over the years. Right now I'm listening to a live duet with Mick Jagger on "Stuck in a Moment" that makes my perineum hurt. And not in a good way.

I finished The Pale King. It's strange to say, but it's about 550 pages long and it feels like it's maybe the first 20% of a novel. When it's published as "unfinished," it makes me think that maybe it lacks an ending or it needs to be polished or something, but that really is not the case in this instance. It was good, and I enjoyed reading it, but it really was just the beginning of something that, if DFW had been around to continue it, would have been gargantuan. It really reminds me of, like, finding a dinosaur bone or something. We've got like one tiny leg bone here, and the real ferocious, massive beast that one day was born and lived and ate and died will have to be a lost thing that exists only in the imagination.

I think I definitely will have eggs, and then it's off to pull nails. If I get done early, I might play a little Civ III.

p.s. The title of this post (or something like it, I can't remember exactly what Jeannie told me I said) is something that I said to Jeannie while I was sleeping 2 nights ago and she pulled the sheet up to cover me a little better.

Dick Tricks and Poop Crunches

Happy Easter! Or as I like to call it, Greaseter.

The Jeanners and I busted our respective asses this weekend. Well, actually this Friday and Saturday because I had to work today. But anyway, Friday and Saturday we busted our asses. Got some drywall hung in our future bedroom and also our future mancave/unconceived potential future child's room. And because I'm a sucker for before and after pictures, I give you before:



And after:



There is a guy who has been coming to the store for the whole time I've worked there, pretty regularly, and he works for the local symphony orchestra. He is actually the librarian for the symphony, and he's a 100% classical music expert. Like, seriously. An expert. A super smart guy, always rumpled, bespectacled, balding with whisps of hair on the top that are always sticking up and waving around with the lightest of breezes, and totally and completely depressed. He is completely devoted to the arts and is watching interest in and support for the arts grow smaller and smaller every day. Especially his branch of the arts. And bsically, he looks around at the world and it seems like the complete opposite of the type of place he'd like to be, and it seems to be moving in the wrong direction, and he always seemed to be terribly lonely and isolated and basically I have always just been waiting for the day when he stopped coming in and I could safely assume that he had finally committed suicide. Well, he came in today and I was asking him how things at the symphony are going, and we had a variation of a conversation that we've had many times where he tells me that things at the symphony are going shittily, and things at symphonies around the country are going shittily, and that people aren't supporting the arts anymore, and that the arts "save us from ourselves," and that without art and literature and music, what do we become? I said "robots" but the correct answer was "shit." He actually started crying as he was talking with me about this. And I felt really bad, because I have total respect for the guy and I agree with him quite a bit and I can empathize with his rationally suicidal outlook on life. And so we finished up with that conversation and I figured it was just another typical conversation with Mr. K, but then he told me that he had a girlfriend (which is big news because one of the things that he was always lonely and suicidal about was the fact that he always seemed to be interested in one woman or another be they were never interest in him), and they had gone to high school together and had crushes on each other, but never acted on them, and then she got married and moved to Texas and had a son, then divorced, etc. etc. Anway, she'd been in Texas, and really lonely, and had been doing that thing where you pray for "a sign," and somehow she was visiting Baltimore and on a bus, and the bus lurched to a stop and Mr. K, who was also on the bus, bumped into her. And they chatted and then Mr. K sent her a message on classmates.com and she's been coming up to visit and stuff and now there is talk of new girlfriend possibly moving to Baltimore and moving in with Mr. K. So he said (today) that he had to run because he had to seriously clean up his house.

Anyway, it was cute and funny and he seemed a little less suicidal.

Untitled.

Today, I think, was the first time that I ever took a poop which I described to myself as "woolly."

The Heel

I have worked some long days this week, which means I have been on my feet more than usual, which means my legs and feet have been hurting more than usual. Perhaps time to get new insoles.

Yesterday at work I saw a medical book that was called, like, "Treating Minor Emergencies," or something like that, and it had a drawing of a cross-section of ear with a bug in it on the cover, and inside it had treatments for things ranging from sunburn to removing a lemon (or jar) from somebody's ass. Also had some pictures of some pretty gnarly-looking skin ailments.

Lots of smallish jobs to get done today.

4 Score

The jeanners and I had a fantastic weekend trip up to Katie's farm outside Gettysburg. Well, it's actually outside Arendsville (or something like that) which is outside Biglerville. The farm itself may or may not be located in Ortanna. Anyway, we drove up in a leisurely fashion on Saturday afternoon, stopped and bought some pottery at a place where a co-worker of Jeannie takes pottery classes, and arrived in the late afternoon/early evening. Took a tour of the area and headed over to Katie's sister's (Anna's) house for a tasty meal and socializin' and game playing. Good, good time. It was really nice to just hang out with people that I feel fairly comfortable with. They're good folks.

Sunday we had a slow morning and a big breakfast and then explored the area a bit. I got car sick and ate mexican food. I had three cokes.

It was definitely a battery-recharging trip. It would be nice to be able to head up there on a regular basis. It's really not too far away (about an hour forty-five), and it's an easy drive.

It was back to work for me today, which was uneventful, and the Jeanners had the day off, which meant that she got to work on a plan for the future kitchen, and do a little garden work. We just finished watching a little Thirtysomething, which was a bit of a weeper.

I'm about halfway through The Pale King. Right now it feels more like a collection of stories than a novel. Understandably, I guess, considering it's unfinished. But it's good. Every time I pick it up it makes my stomach hurt.

Last night the J-Dog and I were in laying in bed and talking, and it felt kinda like the talks that people have who are just starting to date and who stay on the phone for hours talking and learning all about each other, and it's the kind of talk that makes you fall in love with the other person and makes you realize how wonderful it is to really "connect" with another person. It makes you realize why people use the word "connect" to describe that phenomenon. Anyway, it's the type of conversation that you have fewer of when you've been together awhile, but it was nice to know that they still happen every now and again.

Death and Taxes

I bought the new DFW book yesterday and started it. I'm liking it so far. Not quite as off-putting as IJ was at the beginning of the first read, but it's not exactly a page turner, either. But it's good, so far. Reading it makes my stomach feel very empty and very heavy at the same time.

It's been a weird week so far, kind of. Every day I feel like I should really be doing a lot of work, but every day there just isn't time to be doing a lot of work. Dishes have to be done, dinner has to be made, we need to go shopping and pick up a few things, etc. So it's weird because I've been busy but not felt busy enough. Ugh. Plus, I've been feeling very empty lately. Like, existentially empty. As though there are no thoughts or feelings inside that have any relation or meaning in the outside world. Or even the inside world. And that's the real pisser. I've had not really many thoughts or feelings that even I've found interesting. Of course, this is a little more dramatic-sounding than it actually is, becuase it really just feels...empty. Neither good nor bad. Like listening to the noise of a fan. A constant 5 on a scale of 1 to 10.

Still been exercising and trying to diet, although haven't been real crazy with either. I will tell you this, though - if I ate felafel every day I would get fat. Probably has something to do with the deep-frying.

There's a stack of dishes that I need to attend to. This weekend we are planning on heading up to Gettysburg to visit Katie the North American Wanderer's farm. Looking forward to that, as we're hoping to make a leisurely, scenic trip up there, and then when we get there there will mostly likely be game playing and good times and such.

Talked to my brother on the phone yesterday. He sounded stressed and tired.

Truck, Car, Susquehanna

There is a guy that comes into the store who is kinda dumb, usually pretty drunk, and fairly religious-seeming. He has a bit of a Pete Rose-meets-Moses mane of hair, and I once saw him on the sidewalk outside of our store with a lawnmower (the push kind, not the riding kind), and a case of beer on the lawnmower. Yesterday he came into the store looking for the Def Leppard song, "Animal," which he says has the line "Car...Truck...Susquehanna!" in it (a little subsequent internet research has revealed that the song does not have the line in it, but whatever). He then proceeded to tell a story about riding his bike to Ocean City from Baltimore (southeast, about a 3.5 hour drive) and being near the Susquehanna River Bridge (north, in Pennsylvania), when a huge storm rolled in, "bigger than any storm you've ever seen." Apparently, the storm included "balls of lightning" that fell from the sky, and a "blue grid of electricity," that was later explained to him to be St. Elmo's fire (he also wanted to order the soundtrack to St. Elmo's Fire), and so he "stood up on his pedals" to get some momentum going and outrun the storm. Eventually, he says, the storm did subside, but now it was nighttime, and he had come to the Susquehanna River Bridge. He said he got about a quarter mile onto the bridge when a car and truck started to come onto the bridge "in tandem." At this point in the story I interjected that he must have had to throw his bike off the bridge and then jump in after it, but that's not what happened. He actually only had to throw his bike over the median (I didn't realize that it was a four-lane bridge) and then jump over it. He then flagged down a car and asked to be driven over the rest of the bridge ("it's always important to ask for help.") The moral of the story was that the storm somehow saved his life, because he had pedaled faster to get out of the storm, and then he ended up on the bridge at a time when the car/truck tandem did not kill him. I'm not exactly sure how that all works out, because in my mind it was the storm that put him on that bridge exactly when the car/truck tandem happened to be coming across, but whatever. He told the story much better than how I just wrote it, and he was actually able to end it with revealing the fact that the Def Leppard song, "Animal," has the line "Car...Truck...Susquehanna!", so the line ended up as some sort of climax or punchline to the story. Which made it kind of exciting. I'm kinda sad that the line isn't in the song.

It is Saturday morning. This is what Saturday morning means to me:

1. Wake up when Jeannie leaves for yoga or pilates or whatever it is.
2. Internet checking. Pooping.
3. Car Talk
4. Big Breakfast.
5. Jeannie returns
6. Start the day's projects.


Which today involves work in the back bedroom. Some masonry work, some wiring, some furring strips, maybe even some drywall. Eventually (maybe tomorrow?), some AC duct work. On wednesday we had a meeting with a guy from the company that did our energy audit and who is arrainging all of the insulation work that's going to be done, and he did a blower-door test on the house, which was pretty exciting. A blower-door test is where they put a big fan in your door blowing outward, which lowers the air pressure inside your house, and then they see how much air rushes in and where the air is rushing in from. Basically, it's a where to see how leaky your house is and where it's leaking. It looked like this:



The dude's name was Paul and he was very nice. He reminded me vaguely of Stinky Steinmetz.

Last weekend the Jeanners and I took a day off and headed down to DC to hit some museums and walk around. It turned out to be a pretty nice day and some of the trees were blooming and it was a good day to be out and about. we started out at the National Gallery (of art), which is probably my favorite museum, and then we headed over to the Building Museum, which I had never been to but was one of the coolest buildings I've ever been in. The main atrium looks like this:



They also had a really great exhibit on the woman who designed a lot of famous murals and mosiac works, including some of the mosaics in the dome at the St. Louis New Cathedral. It was pretty amazing to see the process for how shit like that is done. Also amazing to see pictures of the workshops in what must have been the 30's or 40's (I don't read too closely, I guess), where rows of guys are sitting at tables working on tiny portions of these huge mosaics. Does shit like that get done anymore?

It is almost time to make breakfast and listen to Car Talk, so I will bid you a fond adieu. To you and you and you-oo.

p.s. I've gotten some sort of swamp bug bites from somewhere. Itchin'.

Sad Sack.

Here's the line that appeared in my head the other day:

Reading too much Kerouac
has turned me into a sad sack

It's true. I've been reading a bunch of Kerouac stuff lately, mostly re-reading old stuff that I've read a few times before, biding my time until the new DFW book comes out on tax day. I've also been watching and listening to Kerouac interviews that I've found on Youtube and the rest of the internet. Most of them are pretty sad, because he's usually pretty drunk, especially the interviews from the 60's. The ones from the 50's are pretty good, though. He comes across as extremely shy, and a little drunk, and sad. And egotistical. I found one audio interview from it sounds like around 1958 or '59 where Ben Hecht is interviewing him, and that one was pretty interesting. It sounds a bit like Hecht was mocking him a little bit.

The internet has made my relationship with authors a strange thing, because until its invention, I would read a lot of books and have no real idea what the author looked like or sounded like or acted like. They were entirely mysterious beings who could speak in my head, with my voice, with words that were not mine. Pretty powerful stuff. Now I can watch videos of DFW or Kerouac on Youtube and see that they were not, in fact, otherwordly beings but just normal people, with voices that sound entirely different from mine and their own weirdnesses. It's powerful to watch videos of them, powerful in a different way, and definitely much sadder. Sadder maybe because they're dead and it's always sad to watch videos of dead people, but sadder because they're so normal, and their normalness makes the things they wrote seem that much more brilliant. Who knows. Whatever. Nothing. Nevermind.

Jeannie and I had a damn productive day today. Rented a truck, loaded up our scrap metal, took it to the scrap metal recycling joint, got piz-zayed (paid), headed to the Home Depot, (ate a Home Depot hotdog), bought 20 sheets o' drywall and some lumber, came home and unloaded it all, ate a quick dinnersnack, and framed up the ceiling in the back bedroom. We were busting ass mostly because in the middle of the day I proposed that we bust ass today and then take tomorrow off. So that's what we're gonna do. We're gonna take tomorrow off and maybe head out to some museums and spend a nice day together out and about.

That sounds freakin' wonderful to me.

Remember when I used to eat like 6 hotdogs a day? That was fun.

Duffy Moon

When I was a kid, my friend Doug used to always quote an after school special that he had seen called The Amazing Cosmic Awareness of Duffy Moon, which apparently aired in 1976, according to IMDB. He used to say, "You can do it, Duffy Moon!" which is, apparently, a phrase used in the film, perhaps repeatedly. Enough to stick in my friend Doug's head. After hanging around with Doug for a while, I picked up on the use of the phrase, "You can do it, Duffy Moon!", even though I had never (and still haven't) seen the original movie. Then quite a few years later, I had been using the phrase fairly regularly when I met Jeannie, who had also never seen The Amazing Cosmic awareness of Duffy Moon, but who, in time, also started using the phrase. Then, after Jeannie and I went off to our respective colleges, Jeannie was using the phrase "You can do it, Duffy Moon!" and met her friend Gena, who also had never seen The Amazing Cosmic Adventures of Duffy Moon. Tonight Jeannie was talking with Gena on the phone and learned that Gena still uses that phrase. And thus, a phrase has been passed down through 3 degrees of separation from someone who has actually seen the film from which it was taken. Is this how figures of speech get started?

Dead Letter Office

Yesterday my sister called and left a message asking if I would write a letter to my nephew, who is going on retreat soon, and apparently when these high school kids go on retreat they get letters from family members offering words of love and encouragement or advice or something like that. And I've written letters like this before to various members of my family when they've gone on retreats, and I'm sure at some point in my life I got a letter from someone in my family when I was on a retreat, although I don't remember it. Anyway, my sister asked if I would write to my nephew, because she says that he reminds her of me, and I would agree, I think that he's a lot like I was when I was in high school. And she's worried about him, which makes me think that he's probably getting involved with drinking or pot or sex or something like that. Who knows. But he's basically a real good kid. So anyway, Jesus, what the fuck am I supposed to write? I remember getting a letter from my other sister when I was 17 years old, and she gave me all kinds of advice that I didn't need and I didn't heed, and I've held it against her to this day. So the last thing I wanted to do was write a letter to my nephew, who I like, and have it become something that from this point on makes him think I'm a dick. So anyway, I did it, immediately after listening to my sister's message, I sat down and started typing away, writing a lot about things that were going on with me when I was in high school, and being fairly honest and down-to-earth about everything, and saying that I basically have no idea about what sort of place he's in right now. I have no idea about what he likes, who he spends his time with, what he wants out of life, etc. But I also said that I know his mom is worried about him, and that his mom is one of my absolute favorite people on earth, that if I was ever on top of a building about to jump off, his mom would be one of probably two people that could talk me down. So anyway, i wrote about a three page letter, and I think it was pretty honest and not presumptious, so I hope to god that it doesn't make him hate me. Really, I'm probably not the person in my family that should be writing encouraging letters to family members. The end result is that I feel like a dick anyway, and I think I would feel like a dick no matter what I wrote. Ugh. But it's been mailed so who knows what will happen.

In other non-news, I've been running and gyming and trying to eat well and staying away from the booze. Haven't had any alcohol for about 2 weeks, although tomorrow I am planning on going off the wagon on both my dieting and booze-abstention. Hanging out after work with folks from work, heading over to the rec room where I will have, most likely, nachos and G&T's and perhaps chickin fingers. Maybe not chicken fingers.

The weather is gettin' nice! Jeannie got home from work early this evening and we sat out on the porch! Felt great.

Lotsa work planned this weekend...

A Door? A Pocket?

I've started and stopped and restarted this blog post several times now, on a couple of different days. Things seem a little pointless at the moment. It is a "one foot in front of the other. One foot in front of the other" kind of day. Week. Month. Trudge, trudge, trudge up the hill. Head down.

Mutha Board

I am writing this from the laptop that was dead, and has risen. I decided, on the advice of both Jeannie's brother and a tech-savvy coworker, not to attempt to solder the chips that needed to be replaced. So I ordered a new motherboard online for $70 and replaced the whole thing myself. Which I'm pleased about, considering a week ago I knew jack shit about the insides of computers and now I can take this thing apart and put it back together in about 10 minutes.

The Jeanners and I had a meeting yesterday with a guy that's going to be doing some grading, excavation, and masonry work for us, and it was a bit frustrating. As much as doing most of work ourselves has made this an insanely long project, it has been mostly a project with a low bullshit level, and pretty much 100% of the bullshit has come about when we've had to work with other people, whether it's folks doing work or folks arranging money or whatever. Sartre was right, hell is other people.

On a positive note, however, on Friday we had a company come in to remove some asbestos floor tiles that were in a back bedroom, and it was pretty dreamy to leave for work in the morning and then come home and have the job finished. It was pretty much exactly like the "elves come in the night and finish all the work" fantasies that I have been having several times a week for the last year or so. So now the floor back there looks like this:




I'm gonna try and lose a few winter pounds over the next few weeks. That means no delicious treats and no booze. And lots of running. This is either gonna make me feel really good or really grumpy.

A Proposal

Come on over.

We'll drink beer and put on an Aretha Franklin album, LOUD, in the living room.

Hang out.

You can sleep on a comfy air mattress in a 30% completed room with a mopped floor.

Dentist McGillicuddy

A woman introduces a man at a party and says, "This is my husband, Dentist McGillicuddy."

A woman introduces a man at a party and says, "This is my dentist, McGillicuddy."

Which is funnier?

Last night we watched the movie "Shutter Island". It held my attention but was dumb. Leonardo DiCaprio should never play any character with any sort of accent (and yet it seems that EVERY character he plays has some sort of stupid, unnecessary accent), and should never play any character over the age of 18.

The laptop that Jeannie's brother gave us before Christmas died yesterday. I have narrowed the problem down to two particular chips on the motherboard, and am contemplating buying the chips on e-bay for 10 bucks and attempting the fix myself, even though I've never done any sort of electronics repair. Yesterday, though, I was successful at taking the laptop apart twice and putting it back together with only one screw left over. Should I do it? Soldering would be required.

Tonight we met with a landscape designer and I feel slightly overwhelmed.

Josh Ritter has re-released his album The Animal Years with a bonus disc where he plays the whole thing solo acoustic. What a good album. I haven't listened to the bonus disc yet, and I'm sure it won't be as good as the original album, but still a pretty cool thing to do.

The upswing

I just took a nap that made me feel like I took a fistful of roofies. But hell, I was tired and I needed a nap.

All of the things that I wrote about in the last post that were giving the J-Dog and I a tough time have become things of the past: we are scheduled to clear on our renovation loan on Monday, we've chosen and bought a hallway light fixture, and the visit from Jeannie's Dad and Bro is over, and turned out not so bad. In addition, our taxes have been filed, and we should be getting a snazzy refund that will take some of the sting out of our car purchase.

Yesterday I had a day-long training session out at the Ellicott City store, and it was boring and pretty dumb, but at the end of the day I got to stop in at the CSC offices, since I was so close. Nice to see the CSC peeps, since I've been out of the loop lately.

Ugh. My head is muddled. I'm having a difficult time writing this right now.

Blurgh. Or Blargh.

The Jeanners and I are both a bit grumpy and discombobulated today. Apprehensions about the people at the title company not getting our renovation loan shit in order in time to close by the end of the month (which is when we need to close by), frustrations choosing hallway lighting, and an impending visit from Jeannie's Dad and older brother that we're both a little anxious about. Things just don't seem to be smooth or easy today. An uphill day.

It's windy as hell here. If you know me well, you know I don't like wind.

Tonight I dumped a good amount of pasta on my shirt while attempting to eat it. The pasta. Not my shirt. I was attempting to eat pasta and instead dumped it on my shirt.

Yesterday was a beautiful day and I heard 'Where the Streets Have No Name' on the radio while driving home from the liquor store with the sunroof open. It doesn't get much better than that. Especially since it was followed up by Prince's 'Let's Go Crazy.' Also, it got up to 65 degrees inside our house, which is the warmest it's been in several months.

Reality

Two facts that I have always known, but that over the last day or so have sunk into my gut to a level where I realized that, although I knew them (the facts), I did not necessarily TRULY KNOW THEM:

1. Bert and Ernie are puppets. They are not real people. The rest of the muppets and sesame street casts always seemed like puppets, but for some reason those two never did.

2. The word 'spankin' ('If you keep that up, you're gonna get a spankin!') is not a word. It's a bastardized version of 'spanking.'

Jobs.

I have realized over the last week or so that I like Michelle Obama. Since we've been sans TV for awhile, I'd never really seen her speak much or anything, but I've caught a few things here and there online and at work during the last few days, and I have cast my vote. Pro Michelle.

Today I was thinking about the different jobs I've had. I can't remember why. This is what I remember: It was about 2pm, and I had just gotten out of the shower. I was sitting on the edge of the bed (in the dining room), putting on my shoes, and sunlight was coming in through the blinds. It was windy and I could hear thr trees outside blowing in the wind, and I could see the shadows of their branches moving around in the room. Anyway, here's the list of jobs I remember:

1. ticket-taker at high school hockey games.
2. worked for a lawn-care company, mowing lawns.
3. worked for a sod company for 1 day and then quit.
4. grocery store. Started smoking regularly while I worked there.
5. worked for a contractor for a few weeks, maybe a month.
6. worked on the Goldenrod Showboat. 75 performances of Hello, Dolly!.
7. Scenic carpenter at Stages St. Louis.
8. Auditorium Manager at Truman. I still have nightmares about this job.
9. Power Plant. Many jobs at the power plant. Laborer, Coal Gang (bulldozer driver, tugboat worker, and a cushy job sitting at a computer and operating belts), Plant Oeprating Engineer. I still have nightmares about this job.
10. The Nobes. After 8 years of working there, I have finally started to make what I made when I started at the power plant.


Had an inventory at work last night. Relatively uneventful. I got home around 3am and then worked this afternoon at 3. Unfortunately I have to go in tomorrow at 7, and I should really be in bed right now, but I needed a little while to wind down, aka drink a gin and tonic and eat most of a baguette with a ton of butter.

Had a tasty dinner for jeannie's birthday at The Hellmand, a place where we had never been but was nice and cute and good food. I got her a manure fork for her birthday, which is what she had asked for. A manure fork is pretty much the same thing as pitchfork, but ergonomically designed specifically for picking up and throwing ("pitching") feces, I guess.

Highlight of the week, probably: got an e-mail from the Beej on Friday night - "Are you working tomorrow" - Saturday morning at work he magically comes strolling through the door and we get to catch up a little bit. He was in town for a lightning visit in order to take care of in-law familial obligations with his ladyfriend. Always good to catch up with the Beej. Just thinking about getting to see him makes me happy inside my head.

Guitaw Hummin'

My poop for the last couple of days has looked and smelled remarkably like what it was in its former life: rice and cream of broccoli soup and corn and peas.

Sorry about that. I needed an intro. Something to get me started when I don't have much to write about and what I really want to write about (the house and what we've been doing with it over the last couple of days) I've decided that I don't want to write about anymore because I've become a little obsessed and it's the only thing I seem to be able to think or write about. Like somebody who's obsessed with their job or their kids or their new girlfriend or something, and there ain't much more boring than that. So I'm going to try and not write about that very much anymore.

Which leaves a big nagging hole in the "topics to write about" area. There's always poop. There will always be poop. So there might be even more writing about my poop than usual in here over the next, oh, 5 years or so.

What else is there? The Jeanners has a birthday coming up. Card and present purchased, baked goods baking will commence over the next day or so. Her birthday's on Saturday, and unfortunately I have to work during the first part of the day, so that kinda sucks a little but not too bad. We'll do something fun that night. Maybe watch a 'Thirtysomething' AND a 'Mad About You.'

The Jeanners and I looked over our finances the other day, and the past few months have been one big fiesta of money-spending (especially with the new (used) car purchase, which was in our price range but definitely at the very tip top of our price range), so we have decided to make a conscious effort to save some dough. Our usual method of saving money is just getting our paychecks, buying whatever we want or need during the month and then whatever's left over goes into savings. That has worked pretty well up until now (we don't really have expensive tastes), but with all the money we've been putting into Mr. X (I think I'm going to start saying
'Mr. X' instead of 'house' now) and the money we spent on the car, it seems like a good idea to make a bit more of an effort.

Starting to reread Kerouac's Desolation Angels. Definitely one of my favorite books.

Some things that I've always wanted to write in here but have never found the right context in which to insert them:

1. Every time I cook with garlic (which is about 2 or 3 days a week), I think of Drew H.

2. Along the line of human development, I'm guessing there was a year in which human comfort and the level of negative human impact were relatively balanced. That is, at some point human comfort started costing the earth a whole lot to maintain, and I'm wondering when was the last time that it didn't cost the earth a whole lot to maintain, but comfort levels were still relatively (within the context of all of human history) high. Just before the industrial revolution? Is that the type of lifestyle we should be shooting for in order to minimize our impact on the planet? Or is there a futuristic, high-tech solution?

3. I have bunions. I think it is karma for publicly making fun of a former girlfriend's fucked up feet. Although, in my defense, I only made fun of her feet long after we had broken up, and to people that didn't necessarily know who she was.

Lately I've been wishing I had time to really put some serious work into recording, but then when I do scrape together an evening to head down to the basement, the stuff I record is boring and well-trod and pedestrian. Ugh.

Today I am off to Lowe's in Hunt Valley and Second Chance. Every time I go to Second Chance I think to myself, "I'd skin awhile and cry awhile." Which if you're a This American Life buff you might get but if you're not then you just think I'm stupid. I'm guessing that 99% of the four people that read this think I'm stupid.

H A M

The Jeanners is off helping Katie the North American Traveler pack up her shit and get ready for another move, this time up to Gettysburg to farm with her sister. She's (Jerns) been gone most of the afternoon, and I've spent the afternoon working on wiring. Up in the attic a lot, eating a lot of insulation, not wearing the proper PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), not a good idea. I'll probably be coughing a lot tomorrow.

Yesterday I was at the grocery store and I bought some ham, which is a big deal cause since the J-Dog don't eat the meat we generally don't have any meat at home. So last night I made some delicious mashers for dinner and tonight I had a tasty meal of ham, leftover mashers, and some crusty bread that the J-Dog bought this morning.

What should I do tonight? The Jeanners probably won't be home til a bit later, so I have awhile to entertain myself. Maybe a little Civ III, maybe a little recording or remixing. Who knows. Maybe watch somethin' on Netflix.

Because a co-worker of mine changed his availability to being only available on weekends to work, it means that I have had quite a few weekends off lately, which has been awesome. The Jeanners and I have been able to make some good progress without driving ourselves crazy.

Another weird tidbit: a coworker of mine who is in his mid-40's had a seizure the other day, went to the hospital where they found a brain tumor and did an emergency surgery on him the next day. Jeez. You never know what's going to happen to you over the course of a week, I guess.