smacky and bucky

Ah...Friday morning. Leftover Chinese food in the fridge for lunch, Alphabetical by the French band Phoenix playing on the iPod. I would need pharmaceuticals to get any more mellow.

Oh, we saw the updated listing for the house we entered an offer for on Monday. The asking price has been quietly lowered $25,000, putting it within putting distance of our offer that they refused 30 minutes after receiving. We were the only bid they got, and now I imagine they wish they had at least tried for a counter offer.You know how you get the feeling--quite strongly and suddenly sometimes--that something is "hinky"? That's what I've got from this. Lola still likes the place, but now I feel like someone slammed the door in my face, then opened it a crack and said, "Oh, are you still here? Wanna come in?" It's hard not to take this personally. The house has a hink vibe now. It would take a lot of incentive for me to want it again.

We're getting out of town this weekend. Going to relax and not think about anything for a few days. Read a little, watch a few movies (House of Flying Daggers, Hotel Rwanda) and just enjoy the moment together.

I retraced my steps back to the store after work yesterday and explained the problem to the woman at the returns/exchanges desk and she was super nice, which is super refreshing. No attitude, no suspicions that I took the missing item from the box myself. She even insisted that we cut open the clamshell on the new one and check to make sure all the parts were accounted for. If it wasn't completely inappropriate to tip in situations like that, I would have done so.

I know this makes me sound like a whore to technology, but yesterday, happiness was defined as watching episodes of Family Guy in vibrant color on a tiny tv resting on my lap. When my wife got home, I set the player down in front of her and hit play, and when the theme song to Family Guy started and her face lit up, I knew we had a winner. I also knew I had married the right woman. (Not that I had made a last-minute choice between her and the wrong woman...nevermind.) She actively participates in some of my geek-outs, and tolerates most of the others.

Oh, speaking of geek-outs, this is for De: Wanna go to LA?

Come watch the final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise with the Roddenberrys! Eugene 'Rod' Roddenberry invites you to "STAR TREK ENTERPRISE - The Last Episode" viewing party, presented by Trek United and Roddenberry Productions.

Forty years ago, my father created a television series that not only entertained
us but also opened our eyes to a brighter future. Although short-lived, STAR
TREK THE ORIGINAL SERIES proved that television audiences worldwide were filled
with intelligent viewers thirsting for thought-provoking content and the message
of hope. Two decades later with inception of STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION, he
showed that hunger to be thriving beyond expectation. Since then, STAR TREK has
flourished in many forms evolving beyond film and screen. Today, no longer
dependent on regulated media streams, STAR TREK has achieved a status of
immortality!

On May 13, 2005, I invite you to join me in celebrating the first 40 years of
STAR TREK and the vision of a better tomorrow.

DATE:Friday, May 13, 2005
TIME:6:00pm to 10:00pm
LOCATION:Embassy Suites LAX North
9801 Airport Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90045
310-215-1000
310-215-1952 - fax
www.laxembassy.com
ROOM RATE: (Discounted) $119.00 Standard Room (Optional)
Room Rate Discount Good for 5/11 thru 5/15.
All Reservations MUST be made before April 30, 2005.
ADDITIONAL COSTS:$15.00 Event Fee (Includes food, beverages, a goody bag, and a
$15.00 Roddenberry.Com store credit)

ROOM RATE DISCOUNTS:
Make your reservations now! Remember to tell the Embassy Suite reservations
operator that you are attending the RODDENBERRY event. If you choose to make
your reservations online, use promotion code ROD for your discount.
* Room Rate Discount only available on reservations made before April 30th.

For details go to TrekUnited.com or Roddenberry.com.

It would be fun to watch the last episode with Roddenberry's son and a roomful of geeks. I haven't watched the show all season, so I feel like I had a hand in killing it. I haven't had total geek overload since I went to Baltimore Comicon a couple of years ago. Since then it's been in small groups, like last Friday at Kung Fu Hustle. When the character made the "With great power comes great responsibility" speech, 20 geeks recognized the line from Spiderman, raised their voices and snorted as one. And I was one of them. (And it had been my wife's idea to see the movie. Told you she rocks!)

Last night we drove around aimlessly for a little while and ended up at a nice little restaurant about 30 minutes away. We had a great dinner. Across the street was a department store and I said "Why don't we go over and look around?" I wandered to electronics and saw that they were having a sale on those portable DVD players. I'd been looking at those now and again since they started to appear, but I never seriously considered buying one because they were too expensive (to me) for what they were.

But I noticed one last night. On sale, $20 off regular price, and an additional $30 rebate, if you can stand waiting 10 weeks to get it. Wow, that's a deal. The box says it comes with everything: rechargable battery, AC adapter, car adapter, headphones...great! One of us can watch a movie while the other drives to the river, honey, won't that be fun?

So I buy it, and we drive the 30 minutes home. All right! It's in a box, inside a sealed plastic clamshell, so no one has touched it since it was packaged in China. Get the scissors, cut it open, open up the box and start removing items. Open up the instructions and start reading the list of items that should be in the box. (You know where this is going, right?) Check, check, check...waitaminute...the AC adapter is missing. Not in the box. Not under anything, not wrapped in anything. Put everything back in box to make sure...yup...there's an empty space in the packaging where it should be. Without the AC adapter, you can't charge the battery, you can't make it work at all. After work today I have to drive 30 minutes to the store to exchange it. Sigh.

I was instantly reminded of an incident that happened when I was a little kid. I, my father, and a friend of my father's were going somewhere, and he had us stop at a bank. This was a Saturday morning, so it was strange. He told us about how this bank had something called an ATM. This was probably the very early 80s, when those machines first started appearing. You use this card to get money out of the machine whenever you want it. It's great. He inserted the card into the machine and the screen went blank. He pushed a few buttons and nothing happened. He never got the money or the card back that day.

Well, we didn't get that house. We were the only bidder, but we offered below their (really too high) asking price. They turned us down 30 minutes after they received the bid, so they're really confident someone will buy the place for what they want. I'll bet it will still be on he market in two weeks at that price, which is a sign it's too high, because nothing stays on the market two weeks in this area.

I wrote an author we had worked with about a year ago, asking if he'd be interested in a sequel to the last book, and he returned with ideas for three more books. So work, which I never discuss here, is going really well.

After we received the news about not getting the house, we decided to celebrate (drown our sorrows?) so we went to Ledo Pizza. They specialize in thin crust pizza... my favorite. I don't like huge mounds on thick crust. I got one with black olives, mushrooms, onion, salami, pepperoni, and meatball. THAT, my friends, is drowning your sorrow!

After dinner, we went next door to Trader Joe's, because we needed strange food items to keep us happy. I got yogurt covered cherries and ginger snaps with crystallized ginger in them. Wife got hulled pumpkin seeds and coconut macaroons.

I started reading We Thought You Would Be Prettier: True Tales of the Dorkiest Girl Alive by Laurie Notaro. I thought it would make a nice companion on the shelf with Just a Geek by Wil Wheaton. It's got some very funny passages.

Speaking of books, friends (those who like to read and discuss books now and then) are often surprised by my choice of reading. A master's in English and a job as an editor, yet it's very unlikely anything I read nowadays will ever be studied in a classroom. They don't understand that much of my time in Peace Corps was filled with solid days of reading. The college was closed with all the students protesting in the streets, we're told not to venture outside if you don't need to, and I'm sitting there with a pile of books in a concrete house with no air conditioning. Any activity more strenuous than turning a page brings on a torrent of sweat my body can't afford to lose. So for a few weeks there, my life was spent lying on a bed with a floor fan pointed at me, reading for hours and hours. I read big, thick, Russian novels. I filled in some of the gaps of my education, reading genres of literature I had (happily) avoided.

Now I just want to read what catches my interest. I've recently read a book about Hemingway's time in Cuba, a pulp mystery originally published in the 1950s, and a novel based on the character from the Fox show Dark Angel. I was never a literary snob (although I did sneer at The Bridges of Madison County, and yes, I read it to make sure it deserved a good sneering) but now I appear to be wallowing in literary junk food. I'm not concerned though. It's what I need now, outside the office. Eventually, I'll cycle back toward slightly more "important" books, but I'm so glad I read all the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books long ago, so I can appropriately geek out over the new movie coming.

HEY! Look to your left. I finally got off my butt and updated my links, wheee!

We went to see Kung Fu Hustle Friday night. It was a fun film, with lots of crazy special effects, and a few in-jokes referenceing American movies (including a very funny Spider Man reference, quoting Uncle Ben (Parker, not the rice maker)).

Saturday we looked at many houses, townhouses, and condos, with our realtor. All I can say is: Where do all the poor people live? Even the sketchy places we saw were listed at over $400,000. Yikes. Regarding this topic, I might have big news soon. Here's a hint.

Sunday the wife's parents came down and we went to brunch, followed by a visit to an open house. A house we are considering placing a bid on today. Aurgh! I'm not good at keep secrets! I'd better change the subject.

Between looking at houses, I've been reading Squeeze: Song by Song. It's an intriguing idea. The band had two main songwriters: Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook. For 99.9% of their career, Chris wrote all the lyrics, and Glenn wrote all the music. It's an unusual set-up. Each was interviewed separately, as the band has broken up and they still aren't the best of friends again yet. They're both refreshingly, brutally honest with their opinions. Example: One of their biggest hits in America as 853-5937. They put in on the record at the last minute, and were completely ashamed when it became a huge hit. It made them a lot of money, but they wouldn't even perform the song in concert, both of them aware it was trash. I love stories like that (and I actually liked that song when it was on the radio).

Another interesting point in the book is that both of them emphatically state that their songs got better with each album after Babylon and On (their last hit in America, and their last big hit anywhere), even as their sales continued to drop, and they were dropped from two record companies in two years at one point. They both also agree the final album by the band is disappointing, but I may have to pick up those other CDs. I know a used CD place where I can pick them up for about $4 each.

Oh, about two months ago Glenn Tilbrook played a solo acoustic show at a club three blocks from my office. I didn't know about it in advance, so I missed it. In the past few weeks, Lewis Black and Jane Fonda also gave readings at the bookstore two blocks from my office (on different nights. Though wouldn't a joint reading between those two be absolutely brilliant?!?)

Hey, do you have $1,000? Well if you do, you can take me to the charity event for the Children's Defense Fund. What's the event? I'm glad you asked. It's a VIP reception at the Kennedy Center with Carrie Fisher, followed by an advance screening of Revenge of the Sith. How advance? May 12. That's right, for $1,000, you can help a good cause, meet Carrie Fisher, and have bragging rights over millions of geeks by seeing the movie a week before anyone!

Okay, tickets are actually only $500, but I figured if you're coming all the way up here, you'd want to take me along. You can stay free at my house. We have a nice guest room. And since, from a story last week, DC is officially more expensive to visit than NYC(!), you'll actually come out ahead! How charitable of me! Bring your (non-Star Wars loving) spouse or friend along and he or she can go see the new Kevin Costner movie The Upside of Anger. We'll all have a good time.

I feel so much better today, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I got 8.5 hours of sleep last night as opposed to my usual 6. Maybe it's because my wife and I made up, which definitely lowered my stress level. Maybe it's because the news about the other two had time to sink in. Maybe something in my brain just went click, and whether that sound means a switch came on, or some component inside just popped from too much pressure (uh oh...) the end result is that I'm sitting here feeling really good, much better than I have reason to feel. I'm not going to question it (any longer). I'm just going to accept it.

We went to look at a few properties yesterday after work (as you may recall, we're considering selling our current house and moving into a condo or a smaller house, in order to bank some cash in this insane market). The first place, no lie, looked like something out of a horror movie. From the inside, it was clear that about five additions had been put on the house, over a period of several decades. Example: The hallway to the stairs to the basement. For some reason, the hallway was less than two feet wide. Maybe 18 inches total. What the hell? I had to turn my shoulders to walk down it. How many building codes did that violate? I had a definite urge to scream "3PO! SHUT DOWN ALL THE COMPACTORS ON THE DETENTION LEVEL!"

The creepiest part, though, was the fact that the owner did little things to cheer the place up, slapping bright paint up here and there, and the basement, oh my, the basement...a series of dark rooms, and off of one of them, at the end, they had put up sheet rock and painted and they were calling it a bedroom. It was maybe 6x8, room for a child's bed maybe, with a small half window at the top of one wall. It's the sort of room the press describe as "...where she had been kept prisoner for eight months, subsisting on american cheese slices."

Creep factor for this house (on scale of 10): 9, with an option to make 10, if it turns out it's also haunted with the ghost of someone killed there. Brrrrrr...


Thanks for the nice comments, folks. I wish you all lived closer. We could have a cookout this weekend. How do you like your burgers? Or chicken breasts, or bratwurst, or veggie dogs (which my wife likes)? Anyway, you made smacky smile. Thanks.


Two points if you can name the source for today's entry title. Two points and a pack of gum, flavor of your choice!

(1) I had an argument with my wife because I'm stupid.

(2) Someone I know just died of cancer at age 30.

(3) Someone else I know, who is supposed to be getting married in July, is being treated for cancer and it just got worse.

These days, I usually don't remember my dreams unless I'm stressed or sick. When I was in the Peace Corps, I had intensely vivid dreams for over two years, thanks to the anti-malarial drug mefloquin. (A drugged banned in Britain, by the way, but still given to folks working for the U.S. government. Oh boy!) Dreams like a three-foot tall lizard jumping like a frog, hopping toward me, and I'm tied to a chair and can't move. Fun things like that.

But for some reason, for the last few nights, I'm remembering my dreams again. Sunday night I dreamed I was in an apartment and someone said "Let's go to the party next door." We were walking down the hall and I asked "Is Chaka Khan going to be there?" Well, guess who answered the door? Chaka Khan. I said "Oh, I love your music!" Now, I know she did I Feel For You, and Tell Me Something Good is a kick-ass song, and I'm Every Woman was used in Oprah commercials, but that's the extent of my Chaka Khan knowledge. I don't own anything she's done. Inside at the party, my wife and her mother were arguing loudly and everyone was uncomfortable.

That's Sunday's dream. Last night's is hazier. The only thing I recall was the world being built around me. Literally. I could see construction out of the corner of my eye, but when I'd turn my head, it would be normal. Someone or something was building the world as fast as I could look. But it wasn't quite perfect, because I kept catching glimpses in my peripheral vision.

So, what does it all mean? My wife and her mother talk all the time, and I can count their arguments on one hand, so they're rare.

I'm thinking of calling in sick tomorrow. I cut the grass yesterday, and though I've never had allergies before, my sinuses are now bothering me.

The weather was glorious this weekend. I actually got a little too much sun Sunday and almost got sunburn. It's at that moment when you wake up and your skin feels a little too tight. Five minutes more would have been a sunburn. I hadn't planned to spend the entire day outside. I had a book I was going to read. It was actually in my hand! But then someone asked me to help cut down a dead tree that was leaning dangerously close to his house, so that took a few hours, including cutting it down, then cutting it into stackable pieces, then loading those pieces onto a trailer and pulling it to a woodpile and finally unloaded the wood from the aforementioned trailer. [Insert lumberjack song here for Lauren]

The job was rewarded with a boat trip out into the Chesapeake Bay, however, so it was all worth it. But that did mean even more sun on my poor body. Remember that it's been a long, cold, dark winter, and I have an office with no window. I'm not used to seeing the sun, much less basking in it for hours on end. The last time I was used to the sun was when I was in Africa. After I returned, I resumed my life under fluorescent lights.

I lead a double life now. During the week, I'm the editor. On the weekends, I chop wood, I plant bushes, I take nature walks, I kayak, I ride a mountain bike. My weekend life outdoors gives me energy for the windowless office and the fluorescent lights.

I'm sorry I don't have much to say today. I'm about to go grab lunch, then slog through a few more hours of work before collecting the wife and dog, feeding the cats, and heading off to the river. If the weather does what is predicted, I'll be on the water Saturday morning. It's gonna be sweet.


Remember Stretch Armstrong? I had one when I was little. My older sister convinced me to stab it in the chest a few times with a pencil. That effectively killed poor ole' Stretch. But with the Fantastic 4 movie coming this summer, Toy Biz is going to release a Mr. Fantastic that is basically Stretch with a blue suit on. I think I'm going to have to pick this up. It's rare you can recapture your childhood without resorting to eBay.


Mini-rant:
I hate the term "ethics violation." It's just a clever way of saying "An action that if I do it, it's simply unethical, but if you do it, it's illegal." And politicians found guilty of ethics violations can usually do one of two things: Call it a vast [right/left]wing conspiracy ("The other side is out to get me!"); or Apologize--in the vaguest way possible. So vague that you don't even use the first person anymore, saying something like say "Mistakes were made." Completely divorce yourself from the act, and you'll be okay.

All the employees in my office have to attend a 2-hour "Diversity Awareness" class next week. If I bring my Peace Corps certificate, can we say "been there, done that?" Besides, my company is a non-profit, so we're already all bleeding-heart liberals anyway. How could we embrace diversity more? I'll have a report following, unless repeating any of it could get me in trouble. Can't be too careful. Anyway, it should be a hoot (hoot in this case defined as both boring and uncomfortable.) I wonder if this will make all of us feel more awkward around one another, like we'll be able to categorize people in ways we never knew we could, at the same time being told it's wrong, but then again, we also need to be proud of all our diversity too. I hope we can avoid a span of uncomfortable months during which everyone is thinking (but not saying) Who knew he was gay? And she was Jewish? And he's half Pacific-Islander? How about that? Before he was that guy down the hall with the funky shoes. Now he's the Greek Orthodox guy down the hall with the gay sister. Doesn't make me like his shoes anymore than before. But now if I mock his shoes, it's a hate crime. (I hope the sarcasm and humor is coming through. I'm not being very subtle.)

There heard a comedian recently doing a bit about a guy mugging another guy, and he asked him questions about his race and sexual preference, and finally asked the guy to sign a form declaring that he understood he was being robbed and beaten because he had a Rolex on, and it was not a hate crime. (The point being that a robbery was a petty crime, but if it was tried as a hate crime, the penalty would be much more strict.) They say if you have to explain the joke, you shouldn't have told it. Sorry.
I'll stop here.

I could talk about the boring things, like how I had to leave work early yesterday to meet the dishwasher repairperson (It was a female. Repairwoman? Repairperson?) and she was able to fix it, and it was just complicated enough that I was assured I never would have figured it out myself, so I didn't feel bad spending $70 on her 15 minute repair.

But that's boring, so I won't talk about that.

Kate: I might be that guy across the hall from you, but I doubt it, unless your name is really Janna, because that's who has an office across from me. Is that you? Hmmm? You're getting all your info about Memphis from google, then writing as if you live there! Very sneaky...

Have you seen this ad for McDonald's? The "I'd Hit It ad campaign?" Yes, someone in marketing at McDonald's decided to target the hip urban market by using a little street slang. Unfortunately, they chose a phrase meaning...well..."I'd have sex with it," which really promises a LOT from their dollar menu. Check it out here. I'm a really dumb white guy, and I know what that phrase means. McDonald's also hosts this site, which (no bs) shows Asian people eating McDonald's food. It celebrates Asian cult-...okay, I have no idea what the hell they're trying to say here, but it's hilarious...

We haven't watched Hotel Rwanda yet. I had one day to fill up 10 huge paper bags with lawn clippings and last fall's leaves so the city could pick them up today.

If I'm ever tempted to purchase something like this, someone smack the hell out of me. (Get it? Smacky Got Smacked. It would be like Freddie Got Fingered but it wouldn't cause nausea and suicidal urges.) Don't worry, the link is nothing pervy. It's a dog costume! The sick thing is, of course, for most boys who saw Return of the Jedi on the big screen, metal bikini Leia was a defining moment in their young lives, if you know what I mean. Dressing a dog like that is all kinds of disturbing. You are dressing your dog in a costume that resembles a bikini. A SLAVE BIKINI.

Mission accomplished. Madeline now has a new collar and tag. It's a gold/yellow toned (I completely lost the ability to spell color for a second there. Collar, color, cooler...damn. That was strange.) It's jarring to see on her, because for the first year of her life she was the diva in the pink collar. Then it fell apart and we needed a new one and they didn't have pink, so we went with red. It made her look too grown up; red is a cheap color (no offense if it's your favorite, I'm just using internal monologue like in a film noir), so this time I went with gold, with a little brass tag. Very classy. She seems to like it.

Oddly enough, the Target next door to the pet store was sold out of Hotel Rwanda. What the heck? Did anyone look at this week's new releases and say "Ah, Hotel Rwanda, that's gonna be the big seller this week!"? I think perhaps Target understocked the title. Or maybe I'm completely wrong, and everyone in my neighborhood skipped this movie in theaters and wanted to watch it now. I waited, because I knew the DVD would include a full-length documentary on Paul Rusesabagina.

I ended up getting something else, a title that's only slightly less powerful in intensity: The Bob Newhart Show - The Complete First Season.

Tonight looks like it's going to be a great episode of Lost. Watch this show. I won't discuss it here, because it's so good, if you haven't been watching it, you need to get it when it's released on DVD and watch them all before season 2.

Yesterday I was asked to contact an editor at another publisher to discuss co-publishing a book, since I had a past relationship with the person. We had worked together when we co-published a tie-in book to a PBS series when I was at my last job. It's going to be odd speaking with him again, since I haven't spoken with anyone even peripherally connected to my last position. I didn't leave on bad terms or anything, I was just really close to burning out, and I had to get the heck out of there. And never speak to any of them again. But the publishing world is pretty incestuous, so you're bound to come into contact with some of the same people sooner or later.(There is that vague enough? This is not a work blog, but I like to mention having a job now and then so you won't think I'm sitting in a park somewhere making everything up. Nope, I'm in a small office with a door that's always open, and no window.)
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Meridian Bioscience sent a deadly strain of the flu to THOUSANDS of labs across the United Stated and around the world. It was incorrectly labeled. This strain of the flu killed between 1 and 4 MILLION people in less than 2 years (between 1957 and 1958), and chances are no one you know has an immunity to it. This is how the world is going to end. Not through terrorism or war, but through carelessness and stupidity. Nice going.
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And Britney Spears, a few weeks after saying the tabloids are lying and making up stories, just announced she's pregnant. The father, her husband, is the same man that left his last girlfriend around the time she was giving birth to their second child. He's quite a catch, huh? Unfaithful, makes about as much money as a substitute teacher, and probably barely finished high school. At least by the time she decides to start recording again, the public will have moved on to someone younger.

My spam filter on my primary personal email address is set really high, meaning you almost need to know me to get through. I lowered it a touch when friends from my Peace Corps days started writing from all over the world from new strange email addresses, sending huge attachments with pictures of gorillas and Victoria Falls. But it's still rare to get spam, so when I do, I sometimes open it. The one I got today was for a dating site that promises:

We're safe! We screen for felons and marrieds.

Yeah, at first that was amusing, but then it dawned on me that this company assumes that to "singles," there's little difference between felons and "marrieds." Ouch.(When did MARRIEDS become a noun? What movie or tv show was it that had the character saying "We refer to you people as "the normals"?) I'm married, but I never held up a liquor store. And you sent your dating site to ME. That's the awkward thing. If this email was a person, it would be the one at the party telling a joke about Jews to someone, and having the person respond, "I'm Jewish, ya jerk." Oops. You can't respect socially inept spam.

A few weeks ago I received a letter from the Republican party asking for a donation. The letter started by thanking me for helping to get Bush reelected. Oh man! What did I inadvertently do that helped him?

Never found the cat's collar and tags, by the way. I even crawled into the crawl space under the house. I'm picking up a new one after work. I'm also going to get Hotel Rwanda.

Oh, and I came across the lyrics to the theme to Fall Guy, the Lee Majors/Heather Thomas show about stuntmen (stuntpersons? What's the nonsexist term?). I wasn't actively searching for them. It's a long story. But here they are:

I never spend much time in school but I taught ladies plenty. It's true I hire my body out for pay, hey hey. I've gotten burned over Cheryl Tiegs, blown up for Raquel Welch. But when I end up in the hay it's only hay, hey hey. I might jump an open drawbridge, or Tarzan from a vine. 'Cause I'm the unknown stuntman that makes Eastwood look so fine.

I believe there was also a verse about Burt Reynolds, but that could be incorrect. I'm searching an old corner of my mind, and it's pretty dusty back there.

(Thanks, yet again, to Al Green for today's entry title...)


A relaxing weekend at the river. The weather was gorgeous, sunny with a nice breeze. I got out in the kayak on Sunday morning.

We returned home, however, to a strange sight. One of our cats was missing her collar, and she kept hissing at her brother. I looked all over the house, and I can't find her collar anywhere. Where the hell could it be? It's red, and it's got a breakaway clasp on it, so if she snags it on something, which she must have, it will pop off, rather than strangle her to death. I suspect she was crawling around in some small space, got caught on something, and freaked out. Her brother came along to see what was wrong, and now she equates him with the trauma of getting her collar caught. Either that, or they were fighting and she lost her collar in the fight. I think I'm going to buy her a new one after work tomorrow, after which time it will mysteriously appear in the middle of the room on the floor, as if it had been there all along and I just hadn't noticed it.

Her hissing is clearly directed at her brother, by the way. It's not one of those general "freak outs" cats sometimes go through during which they hate everything and will claw you if you look at them funny. No, she still jumped onto my lap and wanted me to pet her. She just growled when her brother approached. The only reason we leave them alone over the weekend is because they both hate riding in the car so much now that they whine constantly if you try to take them somewhere. They're happier to stay home and sleep all weekend. Except when they're fighting now, apparently. It's sad, because the boy cat clearly wants to make up and the girl kitty is having no part of it. We've all been there guys, am I right? (Imagine that last comment in bad stand-up comedian voice, and you'll understand why I had to say it.)

We watched Sideways Friday night. Good movie, but I think Paul Giamatti is a little too good at playing the pissed-off shlub. (I know that's a sign of good acting, when I imagine that he's like the character in real life. I just hope he's not like that miserable bastard.) I like the ending too. Spoiler if you haven't seen it:















Ending when it did, with him knocking on her door, was perfect. I was afraid it was going to end with the student reading and him looking like he wanted to kill himself. Then I was worried it would end with him listening to her message, and you'd never know if he had to courage to go after her. I'm also glad they ended before she answered the door. We didn't need to big "music swells, actors embrace Hollywood ending" either.

On the other hand, seeing Thomas Haden Church's ass as he went to town on top of Sandra Oh (who scares me a little with her lazy eye) was awkward, since we were watching the movie with my wife's parents. There should be a warning on these movies: "Contains a comedic sex scene that may make you uncomfortable if you watch with your in-laws." I'd have appreciated that. Would have been a good moment to leave the room for a second.

Wow. You guys are good. A lot of those interpretations are spot-on, and some of it hadn't occurred to me at all. Lauren: I do tend to "get over grief quickly," mostly by not dealing with, or expressing it. It has been the cause of many discussions in my life. (Aren't you upset about 9/11? Yes, but I don't think it's healthy to watch 47 hours of coverage in a row.) Kate: I think you've hit it, with the stage interpretation. In my current job, I do stand out (in a good way), but I've been wondering if perhaps there isn't more. More of what, I'm not sure. Monstee: Single-breasted jacket, but I am a fan of the boobies (though they don't have to be any particular size. They're all good. And look at our last few Presidents. Who seems like he'd be fun to hang out with, and who seems like he'd be a self-righteous stick in the mud? The sex addict or the reformed alcoholic/born again Christian? (Not a swipe at you, Lauren. Just so many Christians have no sense of humor. It's why stupid shows on Fox are being fined millions by the FCC, instead of being mocked as harmless trash. So many people think they should control WHAT exists, instead of just choosing for themselves what to (or not) watch, listen to, etc.)

Anyway, I awoke from that dream thinking it was my subconscious sorting out an idea I had been playing around with the past few months. I've been wondering if it would be possible to go freelance. I haven't mentioned this to anyone (not even the wife), and I haven't even begun the research into what it would take. I saw the dream as life moving forward (nominated for the award) whether or not I'm prepared (searching the trunk). Having to make the speech is definitely being put in a stressful situation (I don't have panic attacks, but if I know I'm going to have to speak, even if it's a small presentation in front of four colleagues I joke with every day, I can still fret about it for days in advance.)

John Lennon said "Life's what happens while you're busy making plans." I've tried to remember that as I go through these days, and live in the moment. I don't want to think "If I just get this next job, I'll be happy. If I just get this, I'll be happy. If I just DO this, I'll be happy." I want to be happy NOW. And sometimes that means I come off as not caring about things, or being emotionally distant. I'm working on that, too.

Last night, I had an excellent meal but terrible service at a restaurant. The two people I was with wanted to complain to the manager (and one of them did), but I thought back to my time in Africa. Waiting over an hour to get a traveler's check cashed; sitting in the sand on the side of the road in the desert while two guys spent 2.5 hours fixing a bus tire (no spare); waiting while they loaded 500 bags, 10 bicycles and 4 goats onto the top of a bus before we could leave... all these things remind me that a world exists where life moves at a slower pace. In France, dinner takes hours and hours, and they certainly don't value speed of preparation over quality of food like we do. Americans go to lunches that promise "in and out in 15 minutes!" We've actually become a society that wants it fast, and if that means it's not necessarily good, well, that's okay. I just need to get back to my desk!

Sometimes you just have to stop. Stop and breathe. Don't just take that next shallow breath as you run to the next place. BREATHE. (This moment brought to you by the Oxygen Council: The Incredible, Edible Oxygen.)

I've gone through a long period of not remembering my dreams lately, so when I do wake up recalling one, I try to get it down before it's gone. Last night I dreamed I won a Grammy for the audio recording of my book. (In my dream I'd written a book.) I was surprised to be nominated, but when they told me--in advance--that I was going to win, I started rummaging through the trunk of my car looking for the blazer I had last worn to someone's funeral. They were going to call my name and I couldn't find the jacket. I ended up going on stage without it, and I woke up just as I said "This is so unexpected..." (Oh, one of the nominees I had beaten was Bill Clinton.)

I never got to see the title of my book.

Do you know what it all means?

[Tomorrow: What it all means. At least to me]

I read. I read for work, I read for pleasure. I'm not a literary snob. With the exception of cheesy romances, I'll read most anything. I'm currently reading:

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Hard Aground by James W. Hall

Hunting with Hemingway by Hilary Hemingway and Jeffrey P. Lindsay

Dark Angel: Before the Dawn by Max Allen Collins

Feel free to mock any or all of the above. I don't mind.

Lordy, do I need a haircut. I wait forever between haircuts, like maybe once every six weeks. It's not a money saving plan, because I go to a barbershop down the street for $12. The place has six barbers, three male, three female, all Vietnamese. I think all of them have taken a swipe at my head at one time or another, because for $12, I'm not exactly picky about which one does it. The male barbers talk to you more, but I can take or leave small talk anyway, so it's fine by me. My wife would prefer if I went more often. She says it's too drastic a change. I wait six weeks until my hair is all bushy and wavy, then boom(!) it's short again. I won't even talk about shaving. I hate shaving. I do it every (week)day because I don't want to look like I've been on a drinking binge the night before and didn't make it home. Shaving is a pain. (Yeah yeah, ladies, you don't have to mention armpits and legs...I know. But in the winter, you can go days without shaving anything. I don't have that luxury.)

Last night we caught the end of some design show, and they were redoing a dormroom for this guy. They installed a mirror on the other side of the small room that ran horizontally the length of the bed. Ick. The last thing a college guy needs is a full length mirror across from he bed. When they did the "final reveal" I said "Great, now he can watch himself masturbate," and my wife responded that women would get freaked out if they went back to his room after a first date and saw a mirror running the length of the bed.

Yes, I love my iPod, but iTunes has a lot of gaps in their library (and I'm aware that if they catered to my wishes, they'd go out of business because maybe 20 people would want the same things I want). You still can't beat the feeling of finding a rare CD, or a new CD that just came out, sitting in the local used CD store for $6.00. Even at their reduced "whole CD" prices, it's cheaper to pick it up used. And you can sell back piles of old CDs for credit at these stores and pick things up later for free. I picked up the new one by the French band Phoenix, a live New Order, and an old Bryan Ferry, all for under $15. These stores make me think twice when I'm considering spending $15 on an impulse buy of some CD by some band with one catchy new song. If I wait a week, the used CD place will have 10 copies for $7.00.

Yeah, I don't have a lot to talk about today.

Headline on Yahoo News: Pope's body moved . That can be read so many ways it's scary.

Kate (another editor who blogs, how 'bout that?) posted a 10 Things (Almost) Nobody Knows About Me list, and while I usually don't use this as a confessional, I thought I'd be a sport and list about five. So, here we go...

Five Things (Almost) Nobody Knows About Me

1. I don't mind spiders or bugs or snakes, but I get seriously bothered by big clumps of wet hair, like in the sink or the shower. For some reason it makes me gag.

2. After I graduated college, I was so unsure of what to do next--and unmotivated--I worked for over a year in a warehouse, stacking boxes that came off a conveyor belt. No one I worked with knew I had gone to college.

3. When I was 21, I dated a woman who was 34. I worked with her in the warehouse. We had nothing in common. She liked Nascar and country music, and I tolerated it because the sex was incredible.

4. More often than not, when someone is telling me a story that's over two minutes long, I stop listening. I can't help it.

5. I failed freshman biology, yet my last two jobs have had a strong science component.

Okay...that's enough. Feel free to add your own to comments, or post in your own blog.