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.

Don't Think Twice, It's Alright

I had a dream last night that my brother and I were chaperoning Bob Dylan at some sort of lodge. Lodge isn't the right word, it wasn't like a ski lodge or anything, it was more like a non-expensive woodland resort. Anyway, he was going to be performing there, and my brother and I were charged with hanging out with him, making sure he had everything he needed, and basically being his handlers. And then my brother started making all these anti-semetic comments, using the word "jewed" as a verb, etc. Bob Dylan got upset, and I was totally embarrassed. And Bob Dylan started being really aloof and pissy, which is generally how he is decribed as acting in real life. It was very strange, and it taught me that I never want to be on the wrong side of Bob Dylan's disappointment.

In other news, the J-Dog and I have gotten lots of good work done over the last week or so. The snow that we got this week gave her two unexpected days off, so we were able to get some shit banged out in the evenings.

She's home from work now so I'm gonna go.

Radio Silence

I am procrastinating. I've been doing a mix of easy errands/jobs and procrastination all morning long. At the moment my two choices are: work on some wiring stuff so that Jeannie and I can start putting up drywall in the middle bedroom this weekend OR go sit in the bathtub and read a DFW short story that I started while taking a shit and that I remember not liking that much when I first read it but I was getting somewhat interested in while shitting. Or I guess there's an unspoken third option that I'm currently taking advantage of: write in the fucking blog, which you (I) haven't done in a million yrs.

The Jeanners and I bought a new used car last night, after a relatively unstressful but still stressful search. I mean, it felt stressful, but I'm sure it could've been a whole helleva lot worse. We ended up buying a 2004 Honda Civic Hybrid that we got a too-fucking-good-to-be-true deal on. So either the car is stolen or it's going to conk out in about 15 minutes. I'm hoping for stolen. Anyway, we weren't looking for a hybrid, but like I said, it was sitting there with this too-fucking-good-to-be-true price and it's a Honda and it was within the mileage range and price range that we were looking at, so we said "why the fuck not?" So I guess now we are officially capital 'L' Liberals, which I feel uncomfortable about because I don't like to identify myself with any sort of camp or tribe. I feel about politics the same way I feel about fraternities or the military: if I spent any amount of time with anybody who's supposedly on "my team," I would probably want to punch them in the face and then go join the opposition. Where the process would repeat itself. So anyway, in order to balance the potentially political statement of our car purchase, I'm going to start sending a weekly turd to our local NPR station, and start throwing away mass quantities of plastic bags at work. If I can round up any endangered animals I will grind them up into felafel balls and have a big vegetarian dinner party.

Hey, it's 2011! We did not make contact in 2010, as was previously advertised. Balls. There were a few decent albums that came out, though. Here's some of my favorites:

1. Beach House, Teen Dream. Yes, they are hipster darlings, but I really love this album. I can listen to it all the way through, I can't understand the words which means it takes longer for me to get sick of it, it's kind of lush but kind of lo-fi, and I like the lady's voice.

2. Laura Viers, July Flame. I think she's kind of like a female Josh Rouse. Great weird songwriting, nice instrumentation, good stuff.

3. Arcade Fire, The Suburbs. I'm usually pretty hit-and-miss with the ol' Arcade Fire, but this album is definitely my favorite of theirs. I don't like every song, but I like enough of them that I consider this album to be a winner. The whole thing hangs together well, it conjures a mood without having every song sound the same, and it's got a few lines that reach out like diamonds.

"Now you're knocking at my door
Saying please come out with us tonight
But I would rather be alone
Than pretend I feel alright"

I think those are my 3 favorites for the year. In semi-related news, I got The Very Best of the Staple Singers on Stax awhile ago, and I've really been enjoying it. I think that I would rate Mavis Staples as my #2 favorite female singer, behind Emmylou.

That's all I got for right now, I guess. I'm gonna go poke around.

G's & T's?

We no longer own Reverend Al. I did get a chance to go and clean him out and say a proper goodbye. I will admit that I had not cleaned the reverend al in quite a few years and found lots of interesting things in the back seat. In addition to lots of garbage. A random sampling of some of the things found: 2 pairs of combat boots, a curtain rod, a shower curtain rod, a propane camping lantern, numerous play programs, a pair of flip flops, and a mini maglite case filled with drywall screws. That's just the back seat. Other shit in the trunk.

Today at work I was scanning out product that was getting sent back to the warehouse. A mostly physical task that leaves my mind free to wander. Today I was trying to figure out the best plural version of "gin and tonic." Gin and tonics? Gins and tonic? Gins and tonics? I think I like the last one the best. Which one do you like?

I might be getting a cold.

I am definitely eating cheese and crackers.

Today at work there was a turd in one of the toilets that was a real monster. I would like to emphasize that it was already in the toilet when I arrived in the stall, I did not put it there. But anyway, it was massive and it ABSOLUTELY REFUSED TO BE FLUSHED. It kept getting stuck sideways and just hung out while all the water swooshed around it. Anyway, after several fruitless attempts to flush it I had to give up and try a different stall. And no, I'm not proud that I just left it there, but I really try to only clean up poop at work when I absolutely have to.

DFW's last (and unfinished) novel being published in April. On tax day. Cause it's about IRS workers. I am looking forward to reading it.

I think the Jeanners is home!

R.I.P. The Reverend Al Crawford Slater

Well, the insurance company decided to total my car. So the Jeanners and I will start looking for a new used car. Which is kinda sad because I liked the ol' Reverend Al Crawford Slater, but kinda not sad because it was really only a matter of time before he developed some major health problems, plus the cd player/radio had pretty much stopped working well at all. I do most of my music listening in the car, so when the cd player conks out it makes me sad.

Jerns and I got some real good work done on the house over the last few days:





It don't look like much, but it's a nice start to the middle bedroom. Now in that room we just have to rip out the old wiring, cut trenches for new wiring, run the new wiring, add some drywall nailers, drywall the ceiling, wait for the insulation folks to insulate the exterior walls, and then drywall the walls. Then add doors and trim and all that bullshit.

Not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow, but all in all it's been quite a decent weekend. I feel bad for the J-Dog, who will be returning to work on Tuesday after a two week hiatus.

I'm currently reading The Corrections, and I'm enjoying it. It's been on my list for awhile, so it's nice to finally be able to scratch it off. I'm about three quarters of the way through it, and I'm kinda ready to be done with it, though. I've liked it enough that I'll probably read his latest book when it comes out in paperback.

We had a real fun New Years' Eve the other night, and I actually stayed up until midnight for the first NYE in quite awhile, I believe. Katie the North American Traveler and her sister Anna and Anna's boyfriend Chris came over and we played Carcassonne and ate chili and baked macaroni n' cheese and drank tasty beer.

That's all I got fer now.

Serious Slacking

Where to even begin? Let's try here:

So a couple of Sundays ago Jeannie's brother Jake and her Dad arrived from Detroit (Jake lives in Detroit and had driven to St. Louis to pick up her Dad and then back to Detroit to work on his [Jake's] house and then to Baltimore (The Mo')) for a few days of visiting and hard work. We attempted to go to Hamilton Tavern for tasty burgers but the wait was too long, so then after a few false starts and wild chases of goose we headed over to Pappa's for some relatively forgettable seafood. Then on Monday and Tuesday Jeannie and Jake and Roger (her Dad) worked on the house while I went to work and ran my ass off in the pre-Christmas busyness. They worked mostly on electrical-type work. Sorting through the old crummy stuff and figuring out how to run new pretty stuff.

Then on Wednesday I was off work and we were all able to work on the house together. It was good times. We hadn't seen Jake in like 3 years, and in addition to being handy as hell he's fun to be around. So that was cool. And Jeannie's Dad was fairly calm and chill the whole time and probably one of the hardest workers I've ever seen and super-knowledgeable. So we had a real good time, and we talked about merkins and eventually made it to the Hamilton Tavern for a real long wait and some tasty burgers.

Thursday morning the Jeanners and Jake-o and Roggie drove off early in the morning and headed to the Lou for Christmas vacation. I stayed home and worked a long, busy day. Then on Friday morning I headed to work for a half-day and then drove to the airport when I was done around noon. Unfortunately, I was in a bit too much of a hurry to get to the airport and I rear-ended a small SUV a short distance from work. So I hurriedly exchanged information with the other folks (their car was fine, the front end of mine was a bit busted up) and dumped the car in the employee lot at work (it was drivable but leaking fluids). Took a taxi home from work ($27!) and jumped in Jeannie's car and headed off to the airport. Made it to the gate with 20 minutes to spare. No need to have hurried in the first place.

Christmas vacation was busy and mostly fun and a little bit of a blur. Saw lots of family members, got to hang with Ricky Elz finally and also got to see Karista and Drew, which was a most pleasant surprise. Also got to spend some quality time with Richie Rich, who introduced us to the Big Chief. I will leave that entirely open for interpretation. Ice skated, ate way too much, drove around a lot.

On the last day I was in town, I headed over to see my parents, who had bought a computer for themselves for Christmas. I spent the afternoon teaching them some basics and then headed to an AT&T store to set up their internet service and order a modem/wireless router for them. When I say the basics, I mean THE BASICS. This is what a left click is. This is what a right click is. This is what a file is. This what a folder is. This is called "the desktop." It was pretty funny. And also fun. They are funny.

Then the Jeanners and I flew back on Tuesday morning (a large snowfall narrowly missed The Mo' and landed just north in Philly and NYC and such) and I headed in to work on Tuesday afternoon. We shopped for some new pants for me, we took care of taking the car to a shop and getting a rental car while the insurance co. figures out if they're going to fix it or total it, and we did some work on the house. Which brings us to right now. Jimmy Smith is playing on the CD player, my butt is falling asleep, and I think I'm gonna have a G&T made with gin given to me by a co-worker.

My shoes are horrendously stinky. I think they are the worst smelling shoes ever. Must buy new shoes.

Sweet Little Jesus Boy

It seems like every year I find one Christmas CD at work that just pumps my nads for the season. Last year: Phil Spector. This year: Andy "Fuckin' A" Williams. It is a bit overblown and schmaltzy, but whatever. I personally like his rendition of "O Holy Night" and a song that I had never heard before, "Sweet Little Jesus Boy." I also like the title "Sweet Little Jesus Boy." Perhaps I will steal it for my autobiography or auto-biopic.

Jerns and I have done some good work during the last week. We're doing some more demo, tearing out a wall between the kitchen and the future 3rd bedroom. As a result, there is now a little plastic bubble-room in our kitchen. It looks like this:



Also featured in that picture: Jeannie wearing a towel on her head. There, now you've seen it.

Tearing down the wall also involved moving a water line for the refrigerator ice-maker (which kinda sucked), some phone wiring, and a doorbell + wires. I enjoyed tinkering with the doorbell, and tinkering with it makes me want to invent and build a fully-electric xylophone. Perhaps when I have free time again (and after I have perfected the art of playing the pedal steel guitar) I will devote my life to the pursuit of the EX. (Electric Xylophone).

Getting back to the plastic-bubble room: It is fun to turn off the lights in the kitchen and then turn on the work lights in the bedroom behind the plastic bubble room. Kind of a weird theatrical lighting effect. Maybe in a future set I'll incorporate the plastic bubble room.

The Jeanners and I both have the day off tomorrow. The plan: lumberjack breakfast and then mucho worko.

I bought a backgammon set the other day. I just said what the hell.

Slacker

My 700th post.

I have been a slacker lately and not written in nearly 2 weeks. Apologies. No good reason, I suppose, just busy and haven't really felt like writing.

The other day I took a poop and it was the largest turd (girth-wise) that I've ever dropped. Just thought you should know. I felt a little violated afterwards.

Worked on mixing Spiff's song for the week after Thanksgiving. Sent it off a few days ago. I was mostly happy with the results, although when I was mostly finished I went back and listened to the rough mix that they had sent tom me along with the tracks, and realized that there were definitely things about their guitar sound that I liked better than mine. Not a fun thing to realize when you've put in a few days worth of work. Nonetheless, I think the song sounds good, and I also got to work out a bit of a Diddy-style remix. There's talk of maybe adding a little bass part at a future date.

Tami's production of A Raisin in the Sun opened last night, and the jeanners and I went to the show. The kids did a pretty great job and the show went well. It was great to see how excited they were at the end during the curtain call when all the people in the audience were screaming and clapping for them.

After the show, I headed up to the Rec Room for a little gathering to celebrate the promotion and impending departure of one Brian G from the Towson B&N. He will be taking over as the receiving manager over there in Pikesville. Best of luck, G-Man.

I haven't heard Car Talk in weeks. Sad faced.

I have probably contracted mesothelioma while working on our rear bedroom. But we got some good work done. Hopefully more good work will continue as we get closer to the end of the year.

Work has gotten busier but not crazy yet. Today it seemed like everybody and their mother wanted to tello me their life story. Why? Why? I'm still working on perfecting my "I'm sorry, I'm sure you're a very nice person and I'd like you to continue coming here, but please stop telling me things about yourself because I really don't care, and I just want to put away those CD's over there behind you" facial and body language.

Waiting for Jerns to get home.

Ugh.

Hm.

Hmmm.

The Magic is in the Math

"The Magic is in the Math" was the official slogan of this year's fake Thanksgiving visit to Ohio, which this year happened to be held on real Thanksgiving. It is a seriously good thing to be a thousand or so miles closer to the Schluetermetz', and the trip proved to be totally fun and relaxing and the emotional battery recharger that it has been in years past. The only thing missing was the wit and wisdom of one Uncle Rico. The trip included: card tricks, psychic connections, living room defecations, pants ejeculation (sic), spades, tasty food of all sorts, Oregonian visitors via Kentucky, massive downloading, smoked cheddar, toddler beat boxing, and Ok Go videos. The trip did not include Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire or, suprisingly, stinky farts.

This morning Jeannie and I woke up in Columbus a little after 5, left around 6, got home a little after 1, then I headed to work for Black Friday. It was fine. Uneventful.

While I was in Ohio, Sean and his buddy posted some tracks that they had recorded that I will be mixing down into a song. I got a chance to do a little preliminary work, but I think I'll really jump in with the wrenches and screwdrivers tomorrow before work. So I'll spend some upcoming free time working on that. Also hope to get some work done on the house, work on the final Hamlet matinees, and finish the lighting for Tami's Raisin in the Sun. So there's a lot to do in the coming week, but hopefully it will all fit together like a nice little puzzle.

Jeannie and I started drywalling the ceiling of our future bedroom, and I would just like to take moment to praise Allah for the invention of the drywall lift. Seriously. I don't know that I have ever appreciated the usefulness of a tool as much as I did when that fucker lifted those sheets of drywall right up to the ceiling and held them there. I think it has saved our marriage and our shoulders.

Currently: my stomach is rumbling. There's no ice in our freezer (we used it all to transport a super healthy turkey to Ohio in a 5-gallon bucket) so I can't have a gin & tonic, I'm eating popcorn, and I think my arse is gonna 'splode soon.

Twice the Phlegm

Well, the J-Dog is now officially sick as well. I think that my illness is in the last quarter of its life, but I fear that hers is just beginning its upswing into serious drainage territory.

I have the day off today. It's my first day off in a few weeks that I haven't had to work on CSC set stuff or Tami set stuff. In fact, it's the first day off in a long time that I really have nothing on my plate. It's like a day off like in the olden days. Here's the lowdown of the day so far: woke up, took a bath and read some On the Road Original Scroll (not too crazily different than the final published version, but the parts that are different I like better), called my mom, did the dishes. I am now listening to tunes and eating eggs, toast, fauxsage and juice. Mental note: we are now out of eggs, fauxsage, bread and juice.

I would like to propose that if you don't like the song 'Train in Vain,' by The Clash, then there is something wrong with you. Perhaps something deep and dark that goes all the way back to childhood.

Still on the agenda for today: run the bathroom wiring into the basement. Maybe some drywalling, although this whole 'sittin' around doing nothing' is feeling so nice that I might say fuck the drywalling.

Now playing: David Bowie's 'Life on Mars'. I came to this song late but it's pretty damned good.

Thassall.

Junip

Junip is a new band/cd from Jose Gonzalez. It's pretty good.

I have been sick for the last few days. Nothing bad enough to keep me from going to work or anything, just a little cold. I think that I tend to get sick when I've inhaled too much sawdust, as I most likely did while I was working on Tami's set last week. Still, everything got built, and on Friday I headed over to her school and set everything up. Everything came together nicely and worked well. Still, it was a lot more work than I had expected. We had a meeting on Tuesday to figure out what everything should look like, I built it all on Wednesday after work and Thursday, and then on Friday loaded it in. A lot of work in a couple of days.

Saturday was the anniversary of me and J-Dog being hitched. Jeannie didn't want to hang out with me. Sad face.

However, on this Friday we will be heading out to Frederick, MD for a tasty meal, a concert with Emmylou Harris, and a romantic one-night stay at a Holiday Inn. Cue the Barry White.

Then next week we head to Ohio, about which I am exceeding pumped. Don't even get me started about how pumped I am.

Noodle soup is probably starting to get cold there on the stove.

This GoodEarth 'original' flavored tea is pretty damned good, but Jeez, don't try and brew a second cup off of the first bag. Weak ass. It must shoot it's tea-load in the first cup.

Big Spiff Chambers sent me a message the other day about mixing some songs that he might record up there in Alaska. Sounds like a pretty fun project. I like working on long-distance projects. I also like the fun of mixing songs without the pressure or work of writing or recording them.

Today I had a meeting at work at 7 this morning, then I go back this evening at 5pm to work a short shift. I have spent the 8 or so hours in between attempting to sleep.

Tonight after my short shift I will be stopping by a 30th birthday party for my co-worker and friend, Abbey. When I die, Abbey will be the one who takes over the music department and leads it into the 22nd century. Or maybe the 23rd. I'm banking on higher life expectancies by then. I'll need the extra time to finish working on the house.

Don't Bring Home Herpes

Well, the J-Dog was home for one day, and now she is back out of town, this time in Talladega, Alabama. She'll be gone till Friday. For work. So she says. I say it smells like a big sweaty man affair to me.

It was good to see her while she was here, though. It's really quite boring and depressing being home without her. On Friday and Saturday I watched all three Back to the Future movies. BTTF #2 did not hold up as well as I remembered, even though the second half was much better than the first half. Still, though, I always judge how bad the world is getting by how much things look like the bizarro 1985 where everything was seedy and casino-like and gangs of bikers ravaged the city and set everything on fire. Sometimes the world seems a lot like that and sometimes not as much.

At the moment there are three shitty, five-dollar doors sitting in the living room that are waiting to be put into some flats that haven't been built yet. For my friend Tami's show. Tomorrow I meet with her after work to figure out exactly how the set should work. Then Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I'll build shit.

I should really go to bed, as I have to get up early tomorrow. But I'm not tired. I will regret this tomorrow.

Oh-so-close to being done with IJ. Probably less than 30 pages. I think I'm going to read the original "scroll version" of 'On the Road' next. Then "The Corrections".

That's about it for now, I guess. Looking forward to this week being over...

Squat 'er on the Water

It's been a long time since I last wrote. Things have been a bit busy around here. I find that bullet points are handy for bringing everything up to speed:

* A friend of the Jeanners' from college passed away on Sunday from breast cancer. A terrible, terrible tragedy. She was our age, 33-ish, with two small daughters. The Jeanners is (understandably) pretty bummed and flying to St. Louis tonight after work for the funeral tomorrow.

* House work is on hold for two weeks because I'm currently working on the set for the CSC show at Goucher College (which is tomorrow), and then next week the Jeanners is out-of-town at a training/conference thingie in either Alabama, Arkansas, or Georgia. I don't think it's Georgia, though. Anyway, between her unexpected trip to St. Louis and the work trip, she'll be gone almost a week and a half. Sucky. However, I will be busy while she's gone because I have agreed to half-design/build a set for my friend Tami's middle-school production of 'A Raisin in the Sun.' Should be relatively easy, but time-consuming nonetheless.

* Then we go to Ohio, then Thanksgiving, then work gets busy, and then there's another CSC show at a high school somewheres.

* I've been able to build the set for CSC at home. It's been really nice having somewhere to build and not be working outside or on a parking lot somewhere.

* I have finished with the stripping/sanding of the doors for our future bedroom. I'm tired of doors, and I'm gonna take a little break before starting on the doors for the other bedrooms and the linen closet. The last door was a real pain to work on. The paint DID NOT want to come off. At one point I actually said to the paint "The power of Christ compels you to come off this door!" It did not seem to help. The only thing that did seem to help was using about 20 sanding discs and just sanding the hell out of it.

* I am hungry. I should probably have some dinner.

* Almost done with Infinite Jest. About 150 pages to go. So good. Next up: The Corrections.

* Been working on music at night when I get the chance. Pretty abysmal results.