$$$$$$$

Million dollar idea:  a New Order tribute band called New Odor.  

Ok, maybe not a million dollar idea, but def a hundred dollar idea.

Russell pt ii

It is 3:46 in the morning, and I'm wide awake, thinking about my friend Russell who died late Tuesday or early Wednesday.  What a friend he was.  In the last 10 years, I've spoken more to Russell than to anybody else, with the exception of Jeannie, maybe.  Russell was truly a brother from another mother.  My mind has just been swimming for the last couple of days, and it's complicated because we were friends and coworkers.  I'm grieving his loss as a friend while at the same time worrying about how to replace him as an employee.  Ugh. The thought of doing this job without Russell seems 1000 times less appealing.  The thought of not having Russell to talk to, of not having his care and his warm smile be a nearly daily part of my life, seems cold and flat and scary.  I am so grateful for the time that he was a part of my life and I am going to miss him terribly.  Also, I'm going to be speaking at the funeral and I'm worried about that.  Probably going to lose it.  Or spew banalities like the ones I've written here.  Or both.  But really, I'm just trying to get shit out so I can sleep.  Ugh ugh ugh.  

Gillizen's Island

 Today I saw a stupid internet article about Gilligan's Island, and how they never got off the island, and it made me realize that Gilligan's Island could be useful in explaining zen/taoism -- they spent the whole time trying to get off the island, how much better would their lives have been if they just enjoyed the island and didn't try to get off (it)?  

Beyond Happiness

 Lots of weirdness happening!  

Jeannie is in NY for a conference this weekend.  

Samuel spent the morning puking.  

Anna is singing to herself in the bathtub.

I've been happy for months now.  Happier than I've been in a long time.  

My parents' 60th wedding anniversary is coming up in a few weeks.  The fam and I will be traveling in to St. Louis for a quick trip to celebrate.  

Went to a kid's birthday party yesterday.  

Anna wants me to write about Jeannie's upcoming jury duty.  She is sitting here next to me now in her PJ's.  We look like this:

Anna is telling me to label this picture "Anna and Dad."

Who's the Boss?

 Last night's dream:  Jeannie and I hired Bruce Springsteen to de-clutter our house. 

Bristol 7

 Tonight, a new expression was created, one that I will pass down to my children and that they, in turn, will pass on to their children.  And that expression is "Bristol 7."  And it means diarrhea.  

You see, like many families, we keep a copy of the Bristol Stool Chart on our refrigerator.

And the other night Samuel and I were looking at it and I asked him what his poop is like and he said 3's and 4's.  And I (jokingly) told him that mine were all 7's.  

And I don't know how it came up, but tonight at dinner we were talking about diarrhea and I referred to it as a "Bristol 7," and now I absolutely fucking love that expression.  

"I ran into the gas station and did my business and it was a straight Bristol 7."

"I missed work last week because I was stuck in Bristol 7's."

Plus, because nobody knows what it means, you can totally insult people without them knowing it:

"Damn!  You look like a Bristol 7 today, girlfriend!"

"Thanks for the lovely evening.  I haven't had a time like this since my last Bristol 7."

Anyway, I think you get the idea.  Enjoy it.  Have fun with it.  If you come up with a great Bristol 7 expression of your own, leave it in the comments!

The Daily Wiper-Diper Show

I just woke up from a dream where Jon Stewart had been hired as the new Technical Director for the theater where I work. In the dream, he was a germ- and insectophobe, so we spent the first day cleaning the hell out of the shop. He also asked if I could pick up "4 or 5 cases of those wiper-dipers" (or maybe wiper-diapers?). I wasn't 100% sure in the dream what he was talking about, so I verified with him that he meant boxes of rags.

Last Train to Kirksville

Recurring dream: looking for housing in Kirksville, MO. Sometimes I am looking for a house/apt for me and my family, sometimes I'm looking for just me. Sometimes it involves me showing up in Kirksville for classes or a job and not having anyplace to live, sometimes it involves me looking through classifieds searching for apts or houses. Rent prices usually reflect the 1995 market, I think. K-torr and/or E. L. Elz are often featured in these dreams.

Japhy/Psychology/Booze/Fish

Having trouble getting to sleep. Thinking about Gary Snyder. He's pretty much the last one left of those original Beat folks. I'm finishing up a reread of The Dharma Bums, and also reading a fabulous nonfiction book called Poets on the Peaks that I stumbled across a few years ago. I'll be sad when he passes. I guess I'm sad already, in anticipation of his passing. Maybe there being one left is just as sad as there being none left. I'm also thinking about being fucked up regarding social situations. I have a pre-placed thought in my head that I am Not Wanted Around. This applies to social situations, it applies to my marriage, it applies to work -- pretty much everywhere I find myself. I'm trying to figure out where this thought comes from, and as far as I can tell, it comes from being the youngest kid always trying to hang out with older kids and never quite being able to fit in well with whatever they happened to be doing, and it comes from being a child nerd. It manifests as me feeling uncomfortable doing anything or going anywhere that I am not specifically invited to do/go to.

Semi-related: I passed the 3 year mark with no booze the other day. I don't know how long I can go. My brain and body definitely feel like they're missing a vital piece. It's all so strange. 

 Not related, or maybe only very slightly related: I've started catching fish when I go fishing. For over a year, when the kids and I would go fishing, we would catch absolulutely nothing. Not even a nibble. Then I started using a lure that we found along the river one day and my luck has changed, proving that maybe it really has nothing to do with luck.

My PR Strategy

 This is what I wrote to some music company that commented on an Instagram post: 

"Hello, responding to a comment about my PR strategy. My PR strategy is this: I write a song and then record it. Then, I throw it up in the air, where the wind catches it and tumbles it over and around. It eventually lands amidst a small pile of rocks, or underneath one of those guardrails next to the highway, where it is found by a curious possum who picks it up and carries it back to its house in the base of a dead sycamore. After an hour, the possum eats it, and it makes the possum very, very sick. The possum starts throwing up and having diarrhea for the following 3 days. Then the possum is fine and goes back to its normal life, but the weird thing is that everywhere the possum puke and the possum shit touched - in three springs beautiful young saplings sprout and begin to grow and they end up having leaves that are the same color as my first car: a beautiful, burgandy 1992 Dodge Spirit. And everybody that walks by those trees and sees them is overwhelmed by (to be cont'd)

(cont'd from previous message) an urge to visit my Spotify page and become one of my followers. And let me tell you something: this fucking WORKS. Every time. Also, I have no money. But I have two beautiful children. And the other day, my six year old called me "Pop," right out of the blue, so I consider myself pretty lucky."

I wonder if they'll write back?

Correspondence

 From an email to Eric:

"Life here is going along nicely.  I'm balls deep in HVAC repair and replacement at the theater.  We joined a neighborhood pool which has been lovely (although I might have broken their diving board).  We are planning a trip to the Lou (and Denver) in mid-August.  We have some baby chickens in a cage in our yard.  We have blackberry and raspberry bushes in the yard, and when I cut the grass I always stop for a few minutes and try to find some ripe berries to eat right off the fuckin' vine.   The kids are wonderful and terrible.   It's been hot and humid and some of my shirts have a stink that laundering doesn't seem to take away, and because most of my shirts are some shade of blue I can never tell which ones are gonna have the pre-loaded stink that activates as soon as I start sweating (I'm wearing one of them now, which is what makes me think of it).   I just lost a $5 bet with a co-worker who seems to be taking advantage of my terrible memory.   I'm rewatching Arrested Development.  I just finished a 3rd or 4th reread of One Hundred Years of Solitude.   I've been not running because it's been too hot but I need to get back into it."

The End of the Strange Times?

 Well, it was seeming like this whole pandemic thing was receding in the rear-view mirror -- we opened a show last Friday, we've basically stopped wearing masks except when we're indoors someplace that's not home (which is rare), we joined a pool and we've been mingling outdoors with maskless greasy people -- but then I just read something about the Delta Variant that will apparently overrun the world now.  Hmmm.  

I have mixed emotions about things going back to normal, but I definitely don't feel like doing the whole lockdown thing again.  I want my kids to be out of this damned house.  I want to not be wearing a mask all the time.  

I discovered the other day while cussing at people in traffic that I can do a not-too-shabby Al Pacino impression.  So far, my favorite thing to say in his voice is, "Step on the gas, you fucking cocksucker."  Which is offensive, I know, but ever since I watched DEADWOOD, "cocksucker" has been a cussword of choice for me.  I apologize for my use of the word.  

Deep thoughts

 Samuel turns 9 today.  

My phone fell in a river so I'm pooping with a laptop on my lap.  

I was carrying it (my phone) in my shirt pocket.  Nothing good ever happens to my phone when I carry it in my shirt pocket.  Shirt pockets are just for cigarettes, silly.  

Jabbed and rubbed

 Vaccine shot #1 complete as of an hour ago.  Hair has started growing from my palms.  I'm sure that's normal.  

Also, I've discovered (or rediscovered, maybe) that the key to my happiness lies in running at the beginning of the day and having my head rubbed at the end of the day.  Everything that happens in between then does not seem to matter very much.  

life rolls on

Well, we're pretty close to a year into this coronavirus thing.  Still doing virtual school, still working part time, trying to get some spontaneity into our routine.  

In the last week I've come to realize how important running is to maintaining my happiness.  Gotta do it, even though I never want to.  Gotta do it. 

I took out a Facebook ad to try and get people to my Spotify page.  To early to tell if the results will actually be useful.  

The most boring post in the world.  

Bad News

 I just did a little research and discovered that the million dollar idea I had in this post is not original to me.  Back to the drawing board.  There is nothing new under the sun.  

TV Star

 I didn't sleep well last night.  Woke up around 2am after having a weird dream in which I was driving cross-country, solo, and stopping at every river I crossed to float down the river a little bit in a little inflatable boat that I had with me.  Anyway, woke up in the middle of the night and it seemed like every thought I could possibly ever think decided to flow my brain during the next 3 hours or so.  I am trying to figure out why my brain decides to do this.  :Last night I decided it was because I ate rice for dinner.  Remind me to remember to test that hypothesis the next time I eat rice.  

There are leaks at work that are making me absolutely bonkers.  

I've been working on music, somewhat steadily, for the last few months.  Things could possibly turn into something short-album-length.  I've got about 6 or so songs right now.  There's one song that I did as a collaboration with a woman that I met on the interwebs who liked some of my instrumentals, and she apparently has binders of lyrics sitting around and asked if she could send me some of the lyrics.  So I said what the hell and she sent me the lyrics and I worked up a song for some of them and the song turned out pretty good.  Probably some of the best recording I've done, anyway.  Good vocals, clean guitars, bass-y bass, simple melody, backing vox, decent ambient-y sounds.  All the hallmarks of a quality Dan O'Brien jam.  

I've been doing live streams of random moments in my life on Instagram.  It's fun.  It feels like an extension of my solo-performance piece in college, but in reality it's probably more closely related to stuff I've written in here in the past.  Basically, I'm trying to recapture the notion that I have something worthwhile to say, or at least that the fact that I don't have anything worthwhile to say should not serve as a command to not speak.  Basically, I feel myself feeling less and less inclined to speak, and I worry that one day soon I will literally blow away and disappear forever.  So I am attempting to not let myself blow away by making videos of boiling hotdogs and telling people my thoughts.  

Balance in the Force

 I hate to jinx shit, but I will go ahead and sayd that life feels pretty danged good right now (with the exception, of course, of everything that's going on in the world around me, which feels as though things are on the brink of complete collapse).  But in terms of work/life balance, the developmental stages of our children, the relationship of Danners/Jeanners, my relationship to stress, my relationship with eating/drinking/exercising/my body, progress in our house and yard --- it all feels weirdly.....fine.  Great, even.  

We are in the midst of PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2020 and it seems to be following the course of all other events of 2020 - in other words, it's a bit of a shitshow.  

Speaking of shitshow, I really need to go to the bathroom.    

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!