Monkey Dick

Me:  "Hey, Monkey Dick."

Jeannie:  "Don't call me a Monkey Dick"

Me:  "Monkey's actually have very beautiful dicks.  It's a compliment."

BABY WE WERE BORN TO RUN

 tomorrow morning I'm leaving for a whirlwind solo trip to St. Louis for my Mom's 80th birthday.  14 hours of driving on Friday and then 14 back on Sunday.  Woo-Hoo!  I can't fucking wait.  3 days of not really thinking about anything sounds 1000% fabulous.  

The 3 things I'm looking forward to not thinking about the most:

schooling

CCC

Minecraft

Sammers has become basically obsessed with Minecraft, despite the fact that he's played it about 4 times in his life.  It's all he talks about from the moment he wakes up at 6:30am until he goes to bed at 8pm.  And it's making me want to stick pens and screwdrivers in my eyes and ears.  

Schooling is meh.  We've been talking about making a change, which would be a big fucking leap into the unknown.  But I'm to the point where my fear of leaping into the unknown is outweighed by my fear of becoming a stodgy, conservative, scared, boring, bored, stick in the mud.  

Jeannie took a picture of me and Anna the other day that I think looks cute.  I think it looks cute because Anna looks cute and because it's one of maybe 3 pictures where I look as cool as I secretly hope that I look in real life (but never do).  

 Secret confession:  sometimes the stock market affects my mood.  

Today I gave my kids (mostly Samuel) a stellar lesson about Capitalism and Communism using an example of a job we did at our house rolling pennies.  I told Samuel that he and Anna could roll the pennies and keep whatever they rolled, but that we would be totaling the amount and then splitting it evenly between them.  He argued that he should get more because he rolled more.  I told him that he was describing a Capitalist system, and that the system I was describing was basically a Communist system.  I told him that people who prefer Capitalist systems do so because they generally feel that not receiving more reward if you do more work feels unfair, but I asked him to consider how he would feel if it were he and I rolling pennies instead of he and Anna, and I would roll more than him, and he would end up getting less.  And I said that the nice thing about a Communist system is that (theoretically) everyone is taken care of or at least feels equal.  Anyway, I tried not to pitch one system over the other but pointed out arguments for and against each system.  

What a boring story.  

get offa my lawn!

This summer, Anna has learned to swim and ride a bike.  We have recently been spending lots of time at the local skate park, Samuel skateboarding and scootering and biking, and Anna mostly scootering and now biking.  Last week I had to take Samuel to the ER for chin stitches.  Boy was bleedin' like a stuck pig.  

     Last night I became the old man who goes out in the yard in his underwear at 3 in the morning and yells at his neighbors to turn the danged music down.  

photos from the past

When Jeannie and I moved into our house 11 years ago, the old man who had lived in it prior to us (he's the guy in the photo below with the airplane) left behind a bunch of photo equipment and hundreds of negatives.  I saved them and have always wanted to get them printed.  I recently found an app for my phone that scans negatives and saves the "printed" photo.  Here are a few of the results:

king of the ladies

Lately I've been trying to think of the worst pick-up line ever, and this is what I've come up with:

"I've been told my penis is soft like a baby's penis."

What do you think?

Rolling in the Dough

 This blog has now made me $1.11 over the last several years.  Only $98.89 to go and I'm eligible for a payout!!!!!!!!!!!

I shan't be quitting my day job just yet.  In fact, I'm at my day job right now, writing in my blog, so maybe I don't really need to quit my day job.  Speaking of quitting, though, I have been sending out music submissions to various sync licensing agencies.  Nothing but big fat rejections so far but I'm not gonna let that dampen my drive.  I'm not looking to quit my day job, but I'm tired of working on music and then sitting on my ass about it.  

Things are looking a little better since my last post.  I've been feeling a bit of free-floating anxiety for the past few days, mostly centered around work, but not for any real reason.  But I've picked back up on my running (I'd taken a week or two off because I seem to have a hernia-like feeling in my lower abdomen (although nothing poking out or anything) that running seems to exacerbate) and the running definitely helps the ol' Dan-mood.  

Thinking about the pandemic:  In a hundred years or so, my great-grandkids might read about the pandemic in school or something, and they might wonder what it's like to live through a pandemic.  Or rather, what it was like for me, one of their ancestors, to live through a pandemic.  And so I say to you, my future great-grandkids, this is what it is like to live through a pandemic:  It's weird.  But in a not very weird way.  Things shut down, and when it became apparent that things were going to be shut down for awhile, I went into cutting mode:  how to live on as little as possible.  Jeannie and I cut our spending in half.  So then I didn't feel panicked.  I got used to wearing a mask whenever I might be around other people.  I got very used to not eating at restaurants.  I got used to spending lots of time with my kids.  Like, all the time.  If I'm not at work, 95% of the time I'm with my kids.  If I'm with the kids, Jeannie is catching some kid-free time.   The kids and I either go to the Gunpowder River or we go downtown.  If we go downtown we go on walking/biking/scootering adventures.  We are living on a partial salary from work (where I'm working part-time) and partial unemployment benefits (which are not much but might end up being more if the federal gov't decides to throw some more money around - nice in the short term but I worry about the long term effects of that).  

Actual work calls right now.  Gotta go.  

43

Well, my 43rd year is starting off as somewhat of a shitshow. it's about 4 in the morning, and I've been awake for a couple of hours.  Still in the middle of this pandemic, or maybe it's not even the middle, maybe it's the beginning. Who knows.  Yesterday was my birthday, and the highlight was going to work.  The lowlights were two run-ins with Samuel, one in the morning, one in the evening.  I was craving a g&t at night like nobody's business, but managed to abstain by just going to bed instead.  I'm currently in the midst of watching the series The West Wing, and enjoying it very much.  I have also currently taken on some of the grant writing duties at work, and enjoying that as well.  Working on two projects at home as well - fence painting and basement renovation - both making slow but steady progress.  The kids start school in a few weeks, and that's shaping up like it's going to be a shitshow as well.  How in the hell does kindergarten work over Zoom?

Feeling pretty low today.  Here's hoping that tomorrow's better, but this lack of sleep isn't promising.

odds and ends

1.  Yesterday my daughter told me that my shorts smelled like dogshit.  

2.  The theater is going to be not-producing for about a year due to the pandemic.  Half the staff laid off, the rest of us are 1/2 time.  Money gonna be tight. 

3.  New stripper name:  Buttery Spread

Gunpowder 2

I am currently sitting on the banks of the Gunpowder river with the kids.  The Gunpowder has been, and will continue to be, I think, my savior thus far this spring/summer.  It has probably doubled my enjoyment of living in Baltimore.  It's about a 20 minute drive from our house, but it feels like a drive to one of the rivers in southern Missouri (although the river itself is clearer, and, in my opinion, prettier than the rivers in MO).  Here, let me take a picture of where we are right now:

Things are fucked up, in the world and more locally.  We're still basically in quarantine (although stores and other spots are starting to slowly reopen), work is still shut down and half the staff is being laid off.  The other half of us will be basically working (and getting paid for) part time.  We're planning on the theater being shut down for performances for about a year.  Yesterday I had to lay off a very dear friend of mine, and it sucked.

So Jeannie and I have gone through and adjusted our budget, and we think we can make it work.  We'll be slowing down any progress on our house projects (although we did buy a big load of drywall so that I'll be able to continue work in the basement while work at the theater is slowed), and we're cutting back pretty much all unnecessary expenses.  

What else?  Yesterday I was going to yell at a bird for littering downtown, but then I remembered that I don't speak bird. 

Oh yes, there's also still a lot of racism in the world, and protests about racism, and it feels like things are unraveling in a way that it is far too early to tell if it's a good way or a bad way.  Thus, I find much solace here, by the river, with my kiddos.  

The gift of time

Been working on lots of projects around the house.  I seem to be failing on the big ones.  Still, it's nice to have the time to chop away at them. 

Also working on music when I can.  I shall post the results here:

Corona Sketches

My Glorious Hole

We've been on lockdown for a few weeks now.   No school for the kids, no work for me, and the governor has issued a stay-at-home order for the foreseeable future. 

I'll be honest -- I'm feeling very lucky in that my quarantine experience has been, thus far, sort of idyllic.  Daily runs, increased sauna time, time with the kids, time with Jeannie, time to work on house projects, beautiful weather, and plenty of outside time.  My life hasn't been touched by illness or death yet.  And that's a big yet.  The situation around the world and in parts of the US is getting worse and worse, and there are major financial issues  looming on the horizon.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring?  Should I be doing more to prepare for a potentially disastrous tomorrow, or should I enjoy what is currently around me?  A balance of both, I suppose.  

The kids seem to be taking everything in stride.  Samuel is worried about not getting presents for his birthday, and that's about it.  Anna is rolling with everything.  The schools are trying to ramp up online learning, which is more of a pain than a help.  It's kind of like trying to homeschool with a backseat driver.  

I think that's all I've got right now.  

p.s. I meant to also add that 'Sabotage' might be the best song in the world to run to, and it makes me think of J. Knese.  

Love in the Time of Covid-19

Well, it's really even hard to describe what has happened since I wrote a few days ago.  We are in the midst of a global pandemic caused by a coronavirus that causes a disease called Covid-19.  

What does that mean?

It means that, within a week or so, nearly all of the sxhools around the country are closed.  Bars, restaurants, theaters, and other gathering spaces are closed.  Stores are having a hard time keeping things on the shelves.  Long lines at grocery stores.  We are told to stay away from any sort of gatherings of people.  And, amidst all of these things, a pervasive sense that NOBODY KNOWS WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON.  

And that sense comes partly from the fact that, at least in the US, things aren't really that bad yet.  I think there are just over 4k confirmed cases right now.  It's not like there are sick people everywhere, or that people are dying in the street or anything.  But there is a sense, based on the warnings and closures and restrictions that have come from government officials, that things could get very bad.  But nobody knows exactly what that would mean or look like.  

As for our daily life, we are pretty much restricting ourselves to being either ar home or places where there aren't any people.  Work and the kids' schools are closed.  We've spent a lot of time walking in the woods.  We've spent a lot of time playing outside.  We're going to work on building some garden beds today.  I gave Samuel a lesson yesterday about electricity using a solenoid project that I brought home from work.  Thinking about giving the kids some music lessons on guitar or keyboard.  

So anyway, that's where things are right now.  It feels like this could turn into a world-as-we-know-it-is-over type situation, or it could blow over in a week or two (although certainly there has already been some serious economic damage).  

I am resolved to make the best of it.  Enjoying the extra time with the kids, with Jeannie, with the beautiful Spring that's going on outside right now.  Extra exercise time.  Daily runs.  

That's all.  Hopefully we all have enough food and toilet paper the next time I write!

Mighty Old Men

I spent most of the day today listening to the album that Spiff and I made of his songs about 12 years ago, Steady Like Rain, and damn if it hasn't held up over time.  I think we did a pretty great job on that.  I remember putting a ton of work into it, but it was some of the most enjoyable and rewarding work I've ever done. 

I thought about continuing to watch Raiders of the Lost Ark tonight (begun last night) while Jeannie is out at class, but instead have brewed myself a cup of bengal spice tea, made a fire, turned out the lights, and have Spiff-o singing directly into my ear drums. 

It would be fun to make another album.  I wonder if he's been writing any songs?  Lord knows I haven't. 

It's been a little bit of a rough week -- started off Monday morning by yelling and cussing at Samuel.  For no good reason other than I hadn't slept well and didn't have the patience to put up with normal kid bullshit.  Felt bad about it all day and ended up apologizing as soon as I got home from work.  Sometimes I appreciate my mistakes as an opportunity to show the kiddos the value of a good apology.  Sometimes they just feel like awful mistakes. 

I'm not sure why else it's been rough.  Work's been fine, although coronavirus threatens to put a serious financial damper on the company's Spring -- normally our busiest season. 

I have some fun projects I'm working on at work that involve me making contraptions with winches and solenoids. 

25 years of nasty, dirty lovin'

Yesterday on my drive home from work I realized that it was the 25th anniversary of the night Jeannie and I first went out.  Isn't that crazy?

I remember arriving at her parents' house when I was picking her up.  Two of her brothers were sitting outside as some sort of stone-faced gauntlet that I had to walk through.  I remember her coming to the door wearing her red dress, and I was very struck by how hot she looked.

I have little pictures in my head of what dinner was like (was it at a place called Del Pietro's or just Pietro's?  Was it on Hampton or Watson?) but I really don't remember much of dinner.  And I remember dancing some at the Casa Loma Ballroom, but that's about it.  I think "In Your Eyes" was one of the last songs played, and I remember having to get up the courage to ask her to really dance.

That's about all I remember from that night.  But how many interesting things got set in motion!  Most notably, this:

"I don't have confidence in your continence."

Just a funny sentence that I want to remember.

UPDATE: Operation Jacked Like Patrick Swayze

There is a suspended bar in the scene shop at work that I have started using as a daily pull-up bar. 

Quiet and Relaxing

There is not much better than when the kids are in bed, the house has been cleaned up, the lights in the house are mostly off, and I'm sitting with some relaxing music playing and a cup of tea. 

I've been working hard lately on the set for Measure for Measure.  I designed the set, and I haven't been crazy about the design, but it's just now getting to a point where I'm starting to like it.  We tech in two days, and I think things will be ready to go, provided that things go well tomorrow.,  Lots of painting and lighting work to get through.  Also, a school fundraiser at Skateland that I somehow need to make time to attend.  I do love me some Skateland.   It's where I hear all the good new pop music. 

The Jeanners is at a school board meeting tonight.  She's cool like that and she gets to be on the school board.  (Actually, it's because they conned her into volunteering).  I'm not sure if I should sit in the sweat box without her or if I should wait for her. 

I think I'm gonna watch some Ken Burns on Netflix now. 

Like the Wind

I was watching Road House the other night, and I came up with my new year's resolution:  To Become Jacked Like Patrick Swayze.  

In other news, over in the sidebar there,  I have posted a link to access pretty much all the recordings I've ever worked on.  

$$$$$

Million-dollar idea that literally came to me in a dream last night:  parody movie called, wait for it..............

....Alpaca Lips Now

baking my ass

The sauna is probably my favorite place on earth right now.  At the end of a long, physical day, I enjoy sitting in the heat, sweatin' me nuts off, talkin' with my baby, and listening to soft tunes.  I've crafted a sauna playlist that I think would be the envy of many a massage therapist.  

The sauna is also good for keeping muscles from tightening up after a long run.  It's especially enjoyable after a long run in sub-freezing temperatures, like the one I had today.

I think it might also be a good place to record vocals or acoustic guitar, but I haven't tried that yet.  

¡Viva le sauná!

Future Author

Anna often plays by herself, playing with little animal figures and narrating stories to herself.  I just heard her playing with a toy horse and narrating the following story:

' "Excuse me," the horse said as she farted.'

pooping towards productivity

Two things that have bothered me lately:  i haven't written in the blog enough (and thus will have gaps in my memory when the memory portion of my brain inevitably craps out and I am forced to reconstruct my life by rereading this blog)

and

I spend too much time looking at stupid junk on my phone.  Much of this stupid-junk-looking is done while sitting on the toilet.  The amount of time I spend sitting on the toilet gets slowly bumped upward and upward because it is a time and space when/where my body and brain are (sometimes) free from the demands of my work or my children.  So I might tend to linger a little longer than I need to sitting on the toilet because I am relatively free to do/think what I want while I am sitting on the toilet.   And yes, I know it's bad for my butthole.  

So my solution is this:  instead of, or in addition to, looking at stupid junk while sitting on the toilet, I am going to write in my blog while sitting on the toilet.  

What I'm going to write about today is:  today I was talking with an elevator inspector about how much I enjoy being married.  It felt really good to 1) be happy about being married, and 2) share that info with someone.  

I had a dream 2 nights ago about using applesauce as mortar.  

vomit

Here's what's happening:  I'm currently sitting on the toilet, having diarrhea.  Yesterday and last night I was pukey.  

Another year of Christmas Carol is open, and my schedule has finally calmed down.  I was actually able to clean my office and the shop, which is awesome.  They've both been a wreck since May.  

We spent Thanksgiving with the Schluetermetz', which was fantastic except that Jeannie was illin' for a good chunk of it.  We rented a cabin in McHenry, MD, which was a perfect size and layout for our two families.   I had very stinky farts for most of the trip.  

The toilet paper we have in our house right now is truly sub-par.  Like, worse than gas-station-quality toilet paper.  

Belvedere Square

Owners of Belvedere Square, take note:  I have never given much thought to jingle writing, but I believe I may have just created the best corporate music since St. Louis, Missouri's Wehrenberg Theaters 1980's masterpiece.   Originally conceived as a song for my kids, this week I decided to flesh it out and commit it to tape.  And I've been listening to it non-stop FOR DAYS.  Literally thousands of times.  And now you can, too.  Listen to it HERE.

Tomorrow I leave for vacation.  I've never needed a vacation so badly in my life.  I need to Not Think About Work for awhile.  A long while.  As long a while as I possibly can. 

Jeannie and the kids left for vacation last Saturday.  So I've had a week with the house all to myself.  It's been predictably wonderful, but in unpredictable ways.  Previously, if I had an extended amount of alone time, it would be spent with G&T's and Netflix, pretty much exclusively.  This week was spent with music recordings, home projects, sauna time, and yes, Netflix, but not in an all-consuming way.   I've felt, dare I say it, semi-healthy.  I'll be coming up on one year of alcohol abstinence in September, and I'm currently debating whether I should stick with teetotaling or whether I should try and move to a more moderation-focused practice.  Not sure.  

About an hour ago I looked through a family photo album that the Jeanners gave me on Fathers Day and now I really miss the ol' wifey and kiddos.  

Jeannie totally bumped into EL ELZ in St. Louie today by complete happenstance!

Gonkity Bon Bons

For a long time now, I've wanted to record versions of the songs that I've heard sung by my family -- by my Dad, mostly, at sing-a-longs and family parties, etc., but also lullabies sung to me by my Mom that I now sing to my own kids.  Over the last few months I've been carving out time to sneak down to the basement to work on the recordings and finally got them to a point where I'm ready to be done with them.  Check out the results here.

The main reason I've wanted to do this is so I can give a copy of the songs to my parents, who love music and have long lamented the fact that I don't do a lot of singing and playing at family gatherings. (There are 2 reasons for this, by the way -- 1.  I can't remember lyrics at all.  And 2.  I would much much rather tinker around with basement recordings than play live in front of people.)

The Middle

It's the middle of the night.  Actually, it's probably closer to morning, but I am not going to worry too much about the specifics of the thing.  I have been lying awake worrying about various, low-level things for a few hours, and trying to meditate myself to sleep, or at least to sleepiness, without much success.  I feel:  wide awake, old, slightly hungry, sore, mild need-to-poop sensation (English needs a word for this), contemplative, worried, fine.  That's about it.  I'm about a week finished with a 3-week long work project that put my mind, body, and family through the ringer and has me questioning what the fuck I'm doing.  I'm 8 months into a not-drinking project that has me wondering whether life is better with or without gin n' tonics.  I've applied for a different job, had an interview, and didn't hear anything back, and that's the first time that's ever happened as far as I can remember, so that has me questioning whether I'm spinning wheels or moving forward.  (I should add that I applied for the other job not because I'm necessarily unhappy at my current job, but just to find out more about the other one).   I am having a hard time finding enjoyment in things, which is weird for me.  I've always considered myself fairly depressive, but there's always been things that I've enjoyed or looked forward to.  My current state of being is that I don't particularly feel a high (for me) level of depression or "psychic pain," but I don't feel much capacity for excitement or enjoyment, either.  I guess the best way to describe it is that on a scale of 1 to 10, nearly every minute of nearly every day feels like a 4 or 5.  And I don't know if this is a good or bad thing.  It is bad only in that I desire 8's or 10's.   My whole adult life has been driven by a practice of trying to even-out my highs and lows, to get to some Zen state of non-attachment, and while on the surface it seems like that's what's happening, if I dig a little deeper I wonder if I'm just attaching myself to the wrong things:  to work, to distractions, to the pursuit of money and security, and that these attachments are leading to fear, worry, and the weird anger that has been popping up lately, and that has never been a part of my emotional landscape before. 

Not sure. 

I do think it's funny that in my 20's I put together a collection of songs that I called "The Middle" because I felt like I was in the middle of things. 

I'm gonna try and let myself sleep, because the gears of life will begin to start grinding again in a little over an hour.

The Armchair Expert

I have been binge-ing a podcast lately called Armchair Expert.  It is a two-hour interview show where Dax Shepard interviews his friends, mostly celebrities but occasionally phD's and other experts or pseudo-experts on a particular topic.  I'm not sure why I am drawn to it, but I do find it entertaining and occasionally profound in a relatively shallow way.  Does that make sense?  Is there such a thing as shallow profundity? 

Anna turned 4 two days ago.  Read about her birth here.

Jeannie turned fortysomething ten days ago.  I don't have her birth story on here.  But for her birthday gift this year, she got what she needs most:  time to herself.  She rented a house somewhere in the country and she is there now, reading and journaling and probably meditating.  She and I are very different -- when she is left to her own devices, she gravitates towards things that actually make one a better person.  When I am left to my own devices, I usually end up in a tiny pool of alcohol, ice cream, and TV.  Although, I am proud to report, I have not had any booze since September 28th.  No big terrible problem that caused me to stop, I just found that regular drinking was really messing with my sleep.  If I had a drink I would fall asleep wonderfully 3 hours after having that drink, but then I would wake up entirely 6 hours after having the drink.  So I was getting like 3 hours of sleep a night (fast math), and was then just generally cranky and useless. 

A-train has moved back to Pittsburgh.  Happy for A-train, sad for Dan and Jeannie, but also happy because we had a really great visit with her a few weeks before she left.  Really really great.  Met at a restaurant for dinner and then instantly like 3 hours had passed.  She's pretty much the best.  I remember when I met her on the day of the Pigtown Festival...

My latest musical crush is a guy named Henry Jamison.  I think if I was a little bit better musician, and a little bit more literate, and had put more focus into music, that the music I ended up recording would sound like his songs.  For a good place to start, check out the song Through a Glass from his album The Wilds. 

Tonight I took my kids to Chuck E. Cheese's and then out to dinner at a Chinese buffet. 

Poetry

Million-dollar song idea, first lines:

     "Poetry,
      It makes me sick. 
      It can suck
      My fucking dick."

    

We're Growing Closer Together

Christmastime is here at last.  I'm sitting in my office in the basement of the theater (where I recently

 brought some ginormous 3' tall speakers that came with our house -- they are AWESOME.  My man-cave is becoming the place I've always wanted), A Christmas Carol student matinee is going on upstairs.  I've got some light bulbs to change when the show is over, and then I'm gonna do some pants shopping. 

I've been enjoying my kids lately (although I've been spending a lot of time at work recently - a coincidence?).  It's amazing to see them developing their own emotions, and wrestling with those emotions.  And Jeannie's been doing a bunch of research about emotions and development, and people that are stuck at certain stages of development, and it's interesting to think about our kids and try and figure out the best way for them to become the best, most comfortable versions of themselves that they can become.  How they can be comfortable with their own emotions, and get to know them, and know where they come from and what they can do.  Anyway, it's all amazing.  And stressful, and hard, but fun. 

Come Away Death

I posted this on Facebook, so everybody's probably seen it, but I just wanted to include it here as part of my digital record.