the cubist adventures of tophat dave
my friend northern miles summed up my week pretty nicely today, here. my ms paint skilz are rivaled only by his, which--let's be honest--blow mine out of the water. in addition, i am now a character in a comic strip.
which also reminded me that i haven't linked to him yet. how gauche of me! and yet he still applied his paint skilz to immortalize me on the interwebs.
you're all class, miles.
the best yet
From: Sarah
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 2:04 PM
To: Dave
Subject: remember
that dead finch we saw today? that was sad.
your mid-afternoon pick-me-up brought to you by . . .
_____________________________________________
From: Dave
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 2:05 PM
To: Sarah
Subject: RE: remember
Meh. I didn't think it was sad. Actually it made me hungry.
your mid-afternoon gross-out brought to you by ...
______________________________________________
From: Sarah
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 2:06 PM
To: Dave
Subject: RE: remember
______________________________________________
From: Dave
Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 2:13 PM
To: Sarah
Subject: RE: remember
even more fun with ms paint
in related news: click on the title of this entry to see a page that's hilarious beyond belief. no nudity, i promise. besides, i think the internet met and surpassed its nudity quota back in 1991, before Al Gore even invented it, and surprisingly enough it did that without the help of my blog.
pearlington
I just spent a week in Pearlington, Mississippi, helping to rebuild a house that was heavily damaged in Hurricane Katrina. I've been journaling about it for days, and I feel like I've hardly begun to understand what to do with the memories and experiences of the trip.
this is not the house.
Today, a friend at work who is also in my writers' group told me she hoped I would start writing about the trip soon. I told her I hope I can, too. But I need to just get all the journaling done now, just to preserve the raw memories and emotions both during and after the trip. Without that, I don't have a prayer of putting something meaningful together.
But to be honest, I don't know if I want to. I spent a week inside someone else's home. I was more intimately involved with its design and construction than I am with my own. I was a stranger, invited into that family because I was willing to briefly share life with them. What I learned of them and the time we shared are precious. I don't know if I want to share with anyone else. I don't know if I should.
But I probably will. Because I don't know if I can help it.
the next post
a window to the wide world,
poised to draw the curtain
he's holding for a moment
blinks and breathes--he's cheated.
sadness is over ...
... replaced by the very smug, satisified feeling you get when you have two companies quote an identical project with identical products and identical labor and the second company, without even knowing there was a first company, underbid them by $500.
this calls for ms paint:
i have ...
... this persistent sadness today. one of those feelings that tries to trick you into paying too much attention to it by writing about it or trying to channel it into some kind of creative expression. but as soon as you give it that little bit of acknowledgment, it expands like fungus, sinking feelers into dark, moist places you never wanted anything to touch.
if you don't do anything with it, it stays put, festers, feeds on itself, and slowly dies.
but it always leaves a spore.
germans have their own letter for "ss." it looks like a "B."
it looks like this: ß
* * *
this picture is a pretty cool way to sum up the trip to germany. a small village stuffed with modernized buildings in traditional architectural styles; contemporary living spaces and fashionable shops; a busy little village overseen by the ruins of a castle on the hill just outside of town; vast stretches of forest and farm land picking up right where the village stops, with no suburbia in between.
there's one aspect of this picture that says it best: cobblestoned streets lined with potted palms.
germany was a constant clash of old and new; classic europe and encroaching multiculturalism; expectations and reality. i know that all of germany isn't like this. but we saw an awful lot of the country in those two weeks and this kind of scene was pretty common.
here's another example: imagine walking through a crowd of german-speaking japanese tourists in the old walled city of rothenburg, when suddenly the clock in the main square begins to chime; doors open up and mechanical figures reenact the legend of the mayor who drank a gallon of wine all at once as part of a deal to save the city from marauding catholic invaders. meanwhile, you've ambled across the cobbledstoned square and absentmindedly stopped in the middle of a street, which--wonder of wonders--is actually open to cars, which -- wonder of wonders -- actually do exist in this place that still looks the way it did in 1450, except for the gigantic christmas store and the lack of livestock roaming the streets. and one of those cars nearly runs you over as it swerves around you, blasting german techno at decibels loud enough to make the bell in the cathedral vibrate a little.
it's going to take a while to digest these two very bewildering weeks. they were the cap of a spring that was pretty bewildering altogether, with my surgery, kara's graduation and career shift, and this long trip. suddenly we're home at the end of it all, trying to figure out how to live our lives now that these things that we've been preparing for for so long have finally come. what was it we used to do before we ever gave this stuff a thought?
getting ready
Friday, Kara's mother flies into town. Friday afternoon, she and I drive from the airport to RIT, where we will watch a non-graduation ceremony to celebrate Kara's impending graduation.
Saturday morning, Kara graduates at the actual graduation ceremony. Saturday evening, Kara, Kara's mother and I fly to NYC.
Sunday morning, Kara, Kara's mother, Kara's father, Kara's sister and I fly to Stuttgart Germany.
Thus begins long-awaited family vacation, touring southern Germany.
***
Tonight, I'm writing overly detailed house-sitting instructions for my brother and combing through my over-stuffred e-mail inbox. Replying to clients and friends, preparing them for my upcoming awayness. I have the feeling I'm giving them too much credit for the amount they will miss me.
After having awesome stuff pulled out of my belly button, it took a week to get back to work. It's taken another two weeks to mostly catch up on job work and general life work. Now, this trip is threatening to throw everything back into shambles. But I've paid all my bills throughg the middle of June. My brother is moving in while we're gone. My coworkers are ready to pick up where I leave off. So all that's left is to figure out how I'm going to fit 2 weeks worth of clothing into a carry-on. Yeah, we're packing tight.
***
Alias ends tonight. Forever. This will be a milestone in my marriage. Where can a couple ever find something they can share and love with such intense fervor again?
still not dead
Not dead. In fact, you might say I'm kickin it live in Windows 95. But don't actually say that. That would be ridiculous. I mean ... I don't say that. Ever.
Thanks to the Mileseseses for pointing their faithful readers over here this week. And thanks to the Mileseseses' faithful readers who followed directions and did what the Mileseseses told them to do and came here to check out et seq. Clearly, you are exceptional people. Clearly, you should be given prizes of great worth.
Unfortunately--due to the lack of blog posts since my surgery and the ensuing nightmare of catching up on life--I'm hemorraging readers. So, in a desperate attempt to make you think there's a reason to keep coming here every day, please enjoy these classic internet-flash-animation-type-cartoon-dealies. They never don't make me not frown. Quadruple negative.
Finally, based on personal experince, I offer this tip for your future Mother's Day reference: when you and your brother notice a lull in the Mother's Day dinner conversation, it is generally not a good solution to begin sharing stories about the intestinal disorder from which you both suffer. Nor is it appropriate to veer off into shared surgical and post-surgical experiences, especially when said stories involve methods and devices involved in collecting and disposing of various abdominal discharges, as well as the means of removing such collecting devices from the body once they have fulfilled their purpose. Rather, this would be an ideal time to give your mother her card or the beautiful hanging basket of flowers you bought her, or--failing those options--you should just ignore the silence and keep chewing. You and your brother can catch up on other business later. Like maybe over dessert. In the basement.
not dead.
Contrary to some reports, I am not dead.
Also, I am wondering: When a gall bladder goes bad, does it absorb happiness out of your body and turn it into tormenting gall stones? Because I have been noticeably happier since my gall bladder was sucked out my belly button and sent "away" (they won't tell me where). Suddenly, doing dishes is not such a bad chore, my job is kind of interesting again, and I don't feel compelled each morning to ram my car into everyone who doesn't give me a quarter of a mile of space. Oh, and Lost is suddenly a good show again.
Three weeks of sunshine and warm haven't hurt, either. My ricketts is clearing up, and the flowers have been stunning. Whatever caused my change of heart, I am grateful to be a little less troll-like.
There are some good stories about surgery and recovery. Highlights include a brown area ... with points, people pulling things--long things--out of my belly button, and adventures in anasthesia. But the stories need a lot of work to get them blog-worthy, so they'll be coming in dribs and drabs.
Have patience.
post surgical something or other
I have had about four false starts on writing a new blog post since my surgery last Friday. But concentrating on any one thing for more than a few minutes has been hard to do ever since a guy stuck a mask on my face and said "just breathe norma...."
So I'm feeling pressure to have something new up on the blog, but it's not an easy thing when after typing two sentences my brain wants to exert all of its powers to interpet the sound of the car that just drove by: what kind of car was it? how fast was it going? which way was it going? was it driven by a fat man who moved to town three years ago in order to look for his estranged daughter who left home eight years ago with her dog and the $500 she stole from the fat man's dresser drawer?
Yeah, stuff like that. It's a good thing I'm not back at work yet.
nip and tuck
Tomorrow they're gonna take out my liver bone.
Bonus points to anyone who recognizes that reference. I've tried it on a couple groups of people that should have had at least one person who knew, but so far nothing.
Anyway, I get to stay home from work for 2 weeks or so. That will be soooo nice! You know, except for the pain and new holes in my abdomen and all.
a post that's suspiciously reminiscent of those chain e-mails that preach to you about how you shouldn't forget how good life really is. sorry.
Last week I was missing our old apartment and a life that was a little less complicated. But to be honest, I don't think it was the life I was missing. It was having a nice window behind my desk. Now, I just have a wall.
The truth is, I don't want my early twenties back. Sure, I was healthier and less committed then. But that also came with a lack of direction, career, confidence, and community that were less than groovy. It was important to experience those things once. But I don't want to do it again. Not even to get back that higher metabolism, lack of responsibility, or the supposed "potential" I left college with.
I slogged through those years, waiting for some of the things I have now. I was a little younger, but I was short-sighted. I was healthier, but unappreciative. I'm glad marriage was tough then, because it's even better now. I'm glad we've had to work for our house, because that work has made it a home. I'm glad I took a job that isn't all it could be, because I've made friends there who mean something to me.
Plus, I'm done waiting for so many things. I don't have to wait for Kara to finish school; she'll be done in May. I don't have to wait for my brother to come home from the Air Force anymore; he's here. And I don't have to wait for my sister to finish her global trekking; she's got a career and a fiancée.
So yeah, I get anxious about life, my health, my bills, and my job that isn't all it could be. But with those things has come so much more that's wonderful and fulfilling--and lasting. It's stuff that doesn't fall into your lap at 22. It's stuff you have to wait for, stuff you have to earn.
I put in my time and earned it once. Why would I want to earn it all over again? Plus, I'm not even 30 yet. I need to put in a few more years before I'm elligible to pine for days of yore.
recent coolness
Fresh Yarn
A friend of mine recently sent me a link to this site. Lots of personal essays here--some good, some not so good. But most of them are worth reading. New essays are posted every three weeks, and all of the old ones are archived. Almost as interesting are the bios that are available for every essayist. You may recognize some of them.
Have fun ...
thanks again msn search
i am now the #1 msn search result for "et seq." this took a surprisingly short amount of time to achieve. i know this because of my friend statcounter (thanks buddy) and it's taught me some interesting things. for example, i've learned that some parts of the federal government are woefully unaware of the meaning of a common legal phrase.
the EPA:
they are two recent entries on a growing list of federal agencies who come to the blog from msn search. only slightly less disturbing are searches that originate with law firms--real law firms--asking "what does et seq. mean?" i do not lie. employees at law firms need msn search to tell them what their law schools apparently forgot to mention.
but back to the goverment. i'm kind of relieved that they generally take one look at the blog and move on (see "0 returning visits"). because the thing is, this is not a good time to be on the fed's radar. it's bad enough wondering what my family thinks of the blog. now i've got big brother to worry about, too. it's a good thing i'm proud to be an american where at least i know i'm etc, etc, etc.
and at least i don't get readers like these.
the language of love
-----Original Message-----
From: Kara
Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 3:07 PM
To: Dave
Subject: :)
Hi!
Loves!
-----Reply-----
From: Dave
Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 3:08 PM
To: Kara
Subject: Re: :)
Fklfckedkfvujjkrfuhjsedfgyhfdk
!!!
-----Reply-----
From: Kara
Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 3:23 PM
To: Dave
Subject: Re: :)
Rough day?
-----Reply-----
From: Everson, Dave
Sent: Thursday, April 06, 2006 3:25 PM
To: Kara
Subject: RE: :)
Not really.
gracias, etc.
many thanks to those who answered my call for comments. when my blog makes me rich and famous, you can be those people who say, "we used to read him way back before anyone else did. you don't believe me? check out the March 28, 2006 post. yeah, that's my comment. me and dave, we pretty much go way back. i saw him in the airport one time and i almost touched his suitcase. it was so great. i have a coffee cup he threw out. wanna see?"
oh, and props to new girl for the birdhouse song--no more flicking boogers at you. props also to jamie for nicely capturing the essence of my sarcasm. and props as well to chuckieeverdapper, for being brave enough to venture out of his dark corner of the interwebs. on the day you made that daring move, 5 other people were not as brave as you. statcounter told me so.
finally, i like to use trebuchet as the font for my posts. but every time i choose trebuchet, i hear the voice of strongbad saying, "trebuchet," with that last syllable stressed and spoken a little higher, like it's something he's momentarily interested in. anyway, congrats to strongbad on his sesquicentene-mail.
hello?
i'd like to point out that i have made comments available ever since i started this blog, but apparently, interweb, you don't think you need to leave hardly any. you're wrong.
do you need some encouragement? here you go: the first comment i ever got. now doesn't that make you feel pretty good about whatever it is you have to say? the bar has been set.
now talk to me.
heart of darkness
i'm having a really hard time not writing blog posts about writing blog posts. rationally, this seems like a lame thing to do. it's like watching the preview channel--a tv channel that's totally dedicated to other things you could be watching right now. i end up watching the preview channel when: (a) i am on vacation--the only time i don't have to settle for broadcast tv; and (b) the vacation has gone so badly that there's nothing to do except watch tv and desite having 900 channels, the best thing on is the preview channel.
nevertheless, 9 times out of 10 i have to fight not to write some kind of commentary on what it's like to sit down and think about the process of writing a blog entry. my mind says "cut it out, loser, this is stupid," and most of the time that's the end of it. but sometimes my heart says, "shut up mind. you can't even do math." this is a low blow, because my heart knows my mind is sensitive about its math skills--most socks are better at math than my mind is. but this typically gets my mind to slink off into a corner to sulk, and my heart gets total blogging freedom.
when that happens, my blog posts become this hybridized first-draft, controlled stream-of-consciousness, journaling kind of thing. writing that way opens the door to whatever my heart is mulling over at the moment, which lately tends to be writing. and since my major writing outlet right now is the blog, that's what i end up writing about. i don't know if that's bad or good. probably bad because i don't have a ton of readers. but it's good for my heart, because i really enjoy it, and my heart needs more good things.
but sigh. i'm starting to bore myself. my mind has stopped sulking in its pity corner and it's sending out loud signals that it wants a new distraction. so this post is over. mercifully. and satisfyingly.
many thanks
to jamie, whose link to me on her blog last week gave me tons of traffic. clearly, jamie, you rock. and i still stand by my comments: you have a unique, natural style that i hope you keep trying to develop. people who can write, should.
thanks also to the shrinking mokey readers who have been checking me out more than once. keep coming back. your first impression was right: i'm awesome.
finally, to those who never checked me out at all, i guess i can't blame you. but i also hope you lose your keys tomorrow and have to get copies made, and i hope that your car key has that chip thing in it that is next to impossible to replace, and when you finally get all your keys replaced--and copied twice because you're afraid you're going to lose them again--i hope you find the first set in your coat pocket.
sorry--i wish i was a bigger person. but i'm not.
coolness of the week
a long time ago, i ran across the path to freedom website when i was looking for information on putting a garden in the back yard of our little urban plot of land. we have about a tenth of an acre, and i was looking for ideas from other people who had grown vegetables and other garden lovliness in a small space. when i came across this site, my first thought was typical east coast cynicism: crazy hippies. but i kept reading because, despite my first reaction, my attention was hooked by the presence of actual facts on the website and well organized links to concice and compelling information about what these people were trying to do. suddenly, i wasn't cynical anymore. i love how california and the people who live there make you stop being cynical. well, not all californians, but the ones i like to hang out with.
turns out, the website people have a plot of land about the same size as ours in a neighborhood similar to ours, and they have made a mission out of turning that into a completely self-sustaining system. it not only provides the food they need, but it produces enough surplus that they have a significant business selling produce to local restaurants. they're honest about the fact that it is incredibly challenging, but they also have had compelling successes. after 5 years, they're still at it.
anyway, i think it's pretty cool. i'm not taking my house and my little plot of land off the grid, but it sure gives me a lot of inspiration when i look around my little back yard and wonder what i could possibly do to make it frutiful.
check it out.
no cereal, milk or juice for two days
-- i got good cereal.
-- did you get cheerios?
-- no
-- did you get life?
-- i'm not answering any questions like this.
-- what kind of cereal did you get?
-- blah blah blah blah blah blah rice and wheat flakes with strawberry blah blah blah blah blah.
-- *smile*
still in love
I almost made a terrible mistake.
Yesterday, Kara came home and said, “I want a date.” Then she looked at my face, which must have communicated something like “make me leave the house and die,” and she said, “No, tonight’s not good. Tomorrow?”
“OK,” I said. “Tomorrow.”
Today I came home second and found Kara on the bed sorting mail. I flopped down with a long sigh and waited for the cues that would let me know how much she still wanted to go to dinner.
But Kara quickly perceived that I was wiped out and cranky, and she muted her excitement so I wouldn’t feel overwhelmed. Even though I knew better, I interpreted her quietness to mean she wasn’t too keen on dinner anymore, and I felt safe enough to say, “I don’t want to go. I’ve had a crappy week, I have a ton of writing to get done, and I’m exhausted. I really just want to eat here. If you don’t want to cook, that’s fine. We can just order in.”
Silence. Crap.
“You wanted to go. You’re upset, aren’t you?”
“… I’m … disappointed … I’ve been looking forward to … I understand. You’re tired and stressed and even though I want to go, I know that a lot of the stuff that’s going on is out of your control. It’s fine if we order in. Just not pizza.”
I almost took her up on it. I almost settled for an unsatisfying take-out dinner from a restaurant neither of us wanted food from and an evening spent working on inane projects in separate rooms.
But I kept chatting. And as the conversation went on, I knew that what I wanted most in the world was to make Kara happy.
“OK. I feel better. Let’s go.”
“What about your work?”
“It’s OK. I’ll do it later.”
“I’m skeptical that you really want to do this.”
“No really, I want to go.” And I did want to go.
We went. We had a great dinner. We agreed to buy a dishwasher. It was a really nice mid-week date. Now I’m tired, but not exhausted. I’m busy, but not overwhelmed. Most importantly, Kara’s happy. And so am I.
Nights like this show off the difference between one year of marriage and six. And that makes me excited to see what 30 years can do. Stay tuned.
pick a little peck a little
when i was very young, i wanted to be a teacher. the reason i wanted to be a teacher was that i wanted a teacher desk. i was fascinated by all those drawers and dividers and pen holders and knick knacks. later on, i stopped wanting to be a teacher, but i never stopped wanting the desk.
so, when i got an office with TWO desks at my last job, i thought i was pretty much at the pinnacle of my career. some days i would switch back and forth from desk to desk, just to point out to the universe that i had everything i wanted. apparently the universe thought i was getting cocky, because one day my job and my two desks were downsized. suddenly, the dream was over.
or was it?
yes it was. my next job--which i still have--was in cubesvilleland, and it came with exactly zero possibility of an office. nevertheless, the universe decided i could keep some small measure of privacy. i ended up working across the aisle from "the library," an empty cube that was used as a communal dump for books and papers that no one wanted. since there are a grand total of three actual offices on my floor, working across from the library was about the most private situation i could have asked for, and, even though i only had one desk, i was relatively content.
until last fall, that is. last fall the universe decided to spice things up a bit by bringing new girl to cubesvilleland and plopping her down in the library. suddenly, with new girl in the library, i was facing a problem i had never anticipated. and i'm still dealing with it.
the problem isn't new girl herself. she and i get along fine. we have a similar sense of humor. we went to the same college. new girl and i are good. the problem is that instead of working across the aisle from the library, now i work across from a person.
and you can't pick your nose in front of a person.
yep, nose-picking: everyone's dirty little cover-up. i'm convinced everyone does it and we're all going to keep doing it until humankind meets its ultimate demise. i guarantee that every time you pick your own nose, there's someone else three rows down doing it too. but, for better or worse, our society makes sure that most people would rather fart in an elevator than be caught picking their nose.
i'm no exception. i'm not an avid picker, and i'm definitely not an eater. i'm just like anyone else--from time to time, things get stuck up there that can withstand even the mightiest, windiest blow, and it takes a little prodding to get them moving. i have a box of kleenex and a garbage can to keep the process sanitary. and when things get dicey, the men's room is right nearby. when the need arises, i have everything i need to get things taken care of. but now i have something else that makes the whole process more complicated: an audience. and i don't like it.
from now on, i have to turn around and see if new girl is there. or in an emergency, do a quick check to see if she's looking my way. all those years working in my office and across from the library i could forget my inhibitions and go to town anytime. if i wanted to, i could have stuck my finger up my nose and left it hanging out until it was needed. but no more.
so here's to one more thing i've traded in for job-security and benefits. just like my second desk, the salary that was really tied to performance, and that satisfied feeling at the end of a day doing a job that actually mattered to the future of my employer, the freedom to pick my nose is gone. and that trade is looking more and more like a bum deal.
coolness of the week: jamie @ valparazo.blogspot.com
i discovered jamie's blog by accident last week and totally dug her style. the february 23rd post is the one that caught my attention. and here's another noteworthy one.
i can't put my finger on exactly why i liked it. i avoid the word authentic when i talk about writing, because when i hear someone say a piece sounds authentic, i have a hard time believing they really know what they mean. but in this case, it's the best word i can come up with. and there's a voice peeking through that's really fantastic--straightforward and unapologetic. and she makes such rich descriptions of everything: after you read that first short post i linked to, you know an incredible amount of information about the couple in wal-mart and about her. and actually, what you learn--or almost learn--about jamie is the most interesting part.
anyway, i hope she keeps writing. check it out.
reload reboot reload reboot reload reboot
tonight i spent hours and hours wiping and reloading the hardrive of my laptop. eventually i won, because here you are reading about it. i guess some important piece of software or registry or compy karma got sizzled, which made it impossible for the computer to "go." with my limited compy skyllz, the only way i could fix it was to start from scratch. meh.
the compy loved it. it got to make bar graphs and ask me questions and play around in DOS a little bit. compy was totally living it up.
i, on the other hand, was not living it up. this process, it turns out, is one of the most mind-crushingly boring experiences you can imagine. i tried to spice things up with some high-quality boob-tubular entertainment. no such luck. tonight, tv choices consisted of dancing with the stars, olympic figure skating, american idol shoot-yourself-in-the-head-boring eliminations, and a rerun of the only episode of this year's CSI i've actually seen. so there i sat in the middle of my living room floor, ignoring american idol and cradling the body of my laptop as it joyfully reabsorbed XP. i was tempted to run out to the street for a mouthful of gravel to suck on, just to round out the experience.
but i have to say, there were some little rewards. this oozing plaque of icons and settings and preferences had slowly built itself up on my compy, like some kind of nasty creeping skin disease. wiping everything clean gave me a chance to fix stuff i had meant to fix for months.
but it wasn't enough. when compy finally finished putting its brain back together, i logged in and quickly discovered that compy hadn't just replaced windows. oh no, it had totally wiped the hard drive. at first glance, no big deal. this is a laptop, and most of my important files were safely stored on señor compy grande, our bigger, cooler, non-breaking-down desktop. but i lost all my outlook stuff. this is the killer. i don't care about the old e-mails, but the calendar and contact list were pretty much priceless. putting it all back together is going to be about as much fun as giving myself a lice treatment.
nevertheless, it's late now and the hardest part is over. eventually american idol made us both so antsy we put in napoleon dynamite, which is like the 40oz malt liquor of entertainment--cheap, easy, and guaranteed to drain your brain. the movie is over--even the wedding scene at the end--compy is going to bed, and as soon as this post is published, i can go to sleep in sweet peace, too.
tomorrow, we reinstall office.
pier 1 update
update: wife reads the pier 1 post: "that chair looks like it's something out of someone's garage."
*pause*
then laughing, "no i don't mean that in a bad way!"
conclusion: maybe my rural maleness is safe after all.
pier 1
i admit it. i heart pier 1. it's one of my favorite stores, because the stuff there just looks so cool. i mean, who wouldn't want this awesome chair and matching ottoman in their den? see--i knew you would agree.
also, i did a mild metrosexual thing at work today--foofed the hair and wore a new microsuede sport coat over my pink untucked casual button-down and jeans. considering the general tedium that characterizes men's fashion where i work, it was a pretty pretentious move. i mean, if you were to pose all the men i work with in a line, you'd get this sort of wrinkled, stretched-over-bellies, earth-tone rainbow.
i should be honest: most days my clothes do nothing to diversify the local fashion scene. but today i was tired of working in a constant state 
of drab. so i loved the way i looked.
in conlusion, i know what ottomans and microsuede are. more to the point, i care. but i did not know those things when i left home to get married and make my way in the world.
what the hell else has five years of city living done to me?
a post just to post
i'm feeling uninspired, but i want to post something. so here's a picture of mike and stacie, some good friends we miss. they moved to tupper lake in september so mike could follow his dream of being a librarian. who knew it would lead him to the middle of the adirondack wilderness? it was their apartment where i wrote the first ever entry to this blog. since then, they've bought a cool house there, which means they're staying for a while. sigh.
they're one of the last of our couple-friends that hasn't had kids yet. it's surprisingly important for a couple in their late twenties without kids to have other kidless friends.
we used to go out to dinner with them once a month. we skied together, watched movies, chit-chatted. and they're the only friends we have who are happy to sit in a room and stare at us for hours with nothing in particular to say or do. sounds horrendous, right? with most other people it is. but we can do that with mike and stacie and feel completely comfortable. it's our special bond.
so they're good friends--who live four hours away from us--and we miss them.
what happened at work once
all names but mine have been changed to protect the jobs of the innocent. this is ridiculous, but see dooce and dooce and dooce.
From: Rose
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 1:18 PM
To: Susie; Nancy; Jack; Dave
Subject:
Jack = troublemaker
From: Dave
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 1:19 PM
To: Rose; Susie; Nancy; Jack
Subject: RE:
what just happened over there?
From: Rose
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 1:21 PM
To: Dave; Susie; Nancy; Jack
Subject: RE:
Jack getting out of control again, you know how he is.
From: Jack
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 1:21 PM
To: Rose; Dave; Susie; Nancy
Subject: RE:
Rose was screwing around again - I had to set her straight.
From: Rose
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 1:22 PM
To: Jack; Dave; Susie; Nancy
Cc: Mick
Subject: RE:
SHUT UP! I was trying to mind my own business and all I get from both sides is DO IT ROSE, COME ON ROSE, DO IT! Then I don't even do it, a certain other person does it, and THEN Jack says he was just minding his own business trying to work. Uuggghh.
From: Dave
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 1:23 PM
To: Rose; Jack; Susie; Nancy
Cc: Mickhew
Subject: RE:
this is fun. please give me another completely out of context hint that's partially true.
From: Jack
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 1:32 PM
To: Dave; Rose; Susie; Nancy
Cc: Mick
Subject: RE:
OK - here's the really true story:
I was sitting here, diligently doing my work, minding my own business, when all of the sudden Rose jumped over the partition between us! She jumped right over - no running start or anything! She landed on top of my monitor, balancing not unlike Cameron Diaz on that old guy's sword in Kill Bill. At the top of her mighty lungs, she proclaimed, "[sleeping coworker] is asleep yet again!!!! I'm going to involve you in mischief of many types!!!!" Mick & I pleaded with her to rethink her drastic plans, but the Goddess of Tomfoolery would have none of it and our cries fell upon deaf ears. She smote us w/her massive SAP password & left us for dead, then proceeded to force a camera in poor Mick's hands, obviously to frame him, and compressed the shutter taking incriminating pictures of our associate (shudder). I tried to assist my compadre, but could lift only two fingers in his defense, so weak was I from the wrath of the Goddess. She swore her revenge - indicating that one greater than her would hear of our supposed indiscretions. With that there was a wailing and gnashing of teeth. Rose swept away, triumphant in her nefarious slackitude.
mundane saturday
This morning we got up somewhere between 8:30 and 9:00, having stayed up last night to watch most of the opening ceremonies of the winter olympics. We've been slowly straightening up the house: vacuuming piles of pet fur, putting away piles of clothes, scrubbing piles of dishes, washing piles of laundry.
We also put up really wonderful new curtain rods and curtains in our bedroom. I have to talk about this, actually. We are slow decorators. Check that--we're binge decorators. We've lived in our house for 2 and a half years now, but we've been taking our time with redecorating. This is partly to conserve money, but mostly because we have never really been sure how we wanted to redecorate. Stuff seems to get done all of a sudden. Some piece will fall into place (a new chair, a great color) and we'll finally figure out how to build a room around it.
So, back to the story, Kara had a bedroom binge recently that was brought on by finding the perfect comforter cover. She's been looking for the perfect comforter cover for 3 or 4 years now, and she finally found it on the website of a store (yeah, it's that one) whose closest branch is several hours away. Her sister, however, lives 15 minutes from one, and she agreed to pick everything up and ship it to us.
While we waited for the package, Kara found matching sheets, curtains, and curtain rods. We put up the curtain rods--the last piece of the puzzle--today. Now that everything is in place, I have to say our room is a much nicer place. The problem is, all the new stuff points out the glaring need for a new paint job in the room and a new dresser. But before any of that can be done, there's a long line of other stuff to finish: (1) replace two odd-sized exterior doors; (2) replace the washing machine; (3) buy and install a dishwasher; (4) reroute the bathroom exhaust fan so it leads out of the house, rather than into the attic; (5) finish patining the stairs and the upsatirs hallway. And then there's the kitchen ... oh man the kitchen.
So, I think this is why we're bingers. Each job we finish leads to something else that still has to be done. And we enjoy living life so much more than we enjoy home improvement. So when a lull happens or inspriation drops from the heavens, we take a quick break to tidy something up. But until then, we're just good at living with things the way they are.
tonight on lost
we were wrong about everything except hurley. he was both sweaty and nervous. but next week the counter hits zero. what will it mean?
why (some more), plus american idol and george hamilton. that about covers it.
i got to thinking today that there's another reason i blog instead of writing in a journal. i read james michener's memoir last year, in which he insists that a writer must have an audience. a piece of writing is never complete, he says, until it has been published. he defines "published writing" as a piece that is made available in some accessible format to an audience which then reads it. writing has a purpose which isn't fulfilled until it's published.
that would call into question my point about the art changing the artist. maybe it's just that shitty first drafts don't change writers as much as polished writing that's prepared for publication.
but this is getting boring. tonight is the last night of american idol auditions, which really shouldn't be missed. this one takes place in boston which has all kinds of potential for lots of talent and lots of untalent.
also, although george hamilton is an unnatural color, he is famous. this is not a new observation. however, i'm not sure how i want to end this post, and that's what came to mind.
why
In the fall I took a copywriting class to support my freelance work. After two years of winging it, I decided it was time to get some actual training to make the whole self-employed writer thing feel more legit. Since then, I've decided that the self-employed writer thing would feel more legit if I was indeed self-employed. What I make freelancing mostly goes to replace appliances and house parts that break.
Anyway, the guy teaching my class told us that we all needed to create a blog--"it's just essential for any professional writer to have a presence on the web," he said. He suggested blogger.com, so that's what I used. I never had an audience or topic in mind. I started blogging because I had to. But I kept going because I liked it.
The semi-discipline of writing semi-publically has been good for me. I said a couple of posts ago that I've been minding parts of myself that I haven't paid much attention to in a while. Writing is part of that. I'm not particularly excited about what I'm writing. But I'm excited that I've been writing intentionally. It's satisfying to give myself these painless exercises and feel good about accomplishing them.
Honestly, though, I'm ambivalent about why I'm doing this as a blog and not as a private journal. Posts like my depression entry last week make me feel like a tool because I don't enjoy reading stuff like that from other people. It's hard to pull off a piece of writing like that and keep it engaging and unpresumptuous-sounding.
Despite that danger, though, the benefit of posting on a blog is that it forces me to pay attention to my style and structure and syntax so that it's not just sloppy, stream of consciousness, "shitty first-draft" kind of stuff. The stuff here isn't super polished, but all of it has been read and reread and edited to some degree.
So I guess what this boils down to is that it's good practice. I'm slowly refining my style, listening for my voice to develop, wondering how it will evolve. And I don't have any expectations for this other than personal satisfaction and maybe some lasting creative discipline.
I know of only three people who read the blog from time to time: my mother (dammit), my wife, and my new friend Angela from Irvine, CA who was the first stranger who put a thoughtful comment on the blog. For a long time my Blogger profile had only 24 views. Last night I noticed it had suddenly jumped to 129. That hardly counts as a presence on the web, but it's not total anonymity.
I have no idea who my readers are or if they're coming back or how often they do. I guess there are ways to figure that stuff out, but I don't think I want to put that much effort into this site. And that's not really the point, either. I'm just thrilled, in my deepest most selfish parts, that people are reading me. That is so much damned fun.
next week on lost
From: Dave
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 12:40 PM
To: Losties; Non-Losty
From: Losty #2
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 12:48 PM
To: Dave; Losties; Non-losty
From: Dave
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 12:50 PM
To: Losty #2; Losties; Non-Losty
From: Losty #2
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 12:52 PM
To: Dave; Losties; Non-Losty
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 12:40 PM
To: Losties; Non-Losty
do you think they're going to go look for that radio antenna near the black rock?
From: Losty #2
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 12:48 PM
To: Dave; Losties; Non-losty
Probably not.
From: Dave
Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2006 12:50 PM
To: Losty #2; Losties; Non-Losty
you're right. jack is gonna flip out. locke is going to be all mysterious. charlie is going to whine and get angry. claire is going to cry. hurley is going to get nervous. sayid is going to stay calm, but look concerned. kate is going to tag along behind someone. sawyer is going to pout in a corner. sun is going to get kidnapped. no one is going to figure anything out. rousseau is going to eat a banana.
From: Losty #2
To: Dave; Losties; Non-Losty
Oh my god, thank you so much for making me laugh so hard, Dave.
("non-losty") unfortunately won't get it :(
You forgot the newbies:
Eko is going to baptize everyone. Ana will shoot someone and then pout about it and live in the jungle. Libby will put the moves on Hurley and he will just sweat. Rose's husband will be non-existant.
see for yourself
i'm not painting the stairs tonight
this will be one of those blog posts i hate. one that totally belongs in a journal, rather than posted publically--the kind of post that romantic, depressed teenagers love to create.
* * *
i'm wonderfully depressed.
i'm the kind of depressed that happens when, alone in the house on a chilly night, you walk up the stairs to your bedroom and change into the most comfortable clothes you own, and you sit next to a heating vent in the dark in a snug thrift store easy chair that is shaped perfectly to wrap itself around you.
it's the kind of depressed you get when the list of things to do is so long that it becomes almost mythical, too impossible to be true--and therefore unncessary to complete. you can resign yourself to not doing the stuff on the list and instead you can write about it.
i feel tired and listless without also feeling guilty. i feel full and satisfied and healthy despite having had a lousy dinner.
for once writing seems like the most important and most fulfilling way i could possibly spend the next hour, until it makes me so sleepy that i will float myself to bed, knowing i will sleep contentedly and wake refreshed and satisfied in the morning. satisfied because nothing will matter so much as having awoken refreshed.
it's kind of like the feeling i might have had when i was a teenager if someone had come to my house one evening to tell me how not to feel angst. the secret would not have been to get rid of the things that cause angst. the stranger would have told me how to get rid of the angst itself. and after i did that, all those wants and needs and hormones would continue on, but only as another big, mythical, impossible pile--they would become completely other, something objective that i could look at and choose whether or not i wanted to believe in. and if i decided it was real, i could pick some other time to actually care about it.
i'm minding parts of myself lately that have gone unminded for many long years. i knew they would eventually push to the surface. i could feel them trying to get out. from time to time, i tentatively tried to coax or pull or prod them. but they wanted to come out on their own. i had this feeling that if i let them work their way out, like a caterpillar works its way out of a cocoon, they would emerge the stronger for having had to fight their way into the light. i've heard that caterpillars that are cut out of their cocoons cannot fly, because their wings remain atrophied, never having been forced to push and pull and grasp and tear their way into a world infintiely large.
the way i feel tonight, i think, comes from resigning myself to the power of what is coming alive. i can't live by lists and chores and responsibilities and degrees of authority anymore. i can respect and choose to follow them from time to time. but i can't live by them anymore. my choices are becoming those of an artist.
this here...this is crappy art. it's a rough draft of a piece of writing that probably should never be brought into the light of day even if it were polished. but its power doesn't lie so much in its public form. its power showed up in the way it changed me as i made it. this is what it's like to create something that in turn recreates you. it's like what god feels when a theologian is born.
so this is art for the artist's sake, which is dangerous as a public statement. and, frankly, i usually hate having to see it. but it's probably ok once in a while--i think there might be a little bit of value in sharing it.
the front hall is blue
it used to be white. a dirty, stark, sun-killing white. now it's blue. startling, unusual, non-matching blue. will we come to like it? will we paint the rest of the rooms to compliment it? will we paint over it in two weeks? only time will tell.
giraffes in the air
this is a little off-color, but when i found it by accident the other day i was eating lunch--it made me squirt yogurt out my nose. now that you've been warned, enjoy!
http://giraffesintheair.ytmnd.com/
(by the way, this is unfortunately one of those things that seems to work best when viewed in explorer. ytmnd.com is a wildly popular website. if you're like me and you generally avoid using explorer for security reasons, this is probably a safe exception. it hasn't infected me with any malicious code that i'm aware of. besides, how could someone who created something so funny also be a devious, scumbag hacker?)
weiner dog
there are a bunch of kids in the neighborhood who play basketball and football on our street because there's not much trafdfic here and because none of the neighbors here are bothered by it.
they have met susie several times. all summer they asked me a rotation of questions when we passed them on our walks: what kind of dog is that? is that a labrador? what's its name? how old is it? what kind of dog is that? is that a labrador? and on and on.
i was suprised on so many of our walks that the same kids who met her a day ago or a week ago seemed to have absolutely no memory of her at all. we'd walk by the perpetual basketball game and someone would ask "is that a lab?"
susie is half labrador retriever and half schipperke. schipperkes are long, low-to-the-ground dogs that no one has ever heard of. because of that, some people, most notably kara's mother, are convinced that susie is half dachsund or even basset hound since she is so short and long. but they're wrong. how the combination of schipperke and lab came about has generated a lot of fascinating conversation, but however it happened, our dog is the unmistakable result. at first glance, you think she's a labrador puppy. but then if you look closer, you see she's really long, really short, and her face is really pointy. and after you live with her for a while, you can't miss the schipperke personality. wikipedia says, "consistent, positive training is a must or life can become a contest of wills." yep.
so anyway, by the end of the summer, most of the kids finally knew susie by sight, and remembered they had seen her before. and every once in a while they'd yell out, "hi susie!" it's the middle of winter now, but we had this freakish 60 degree day yesterday and basketball was in full swing. susie and i walked by, and as i waited for a familiar hello, i heard one of the kids say, "that is a short dog" and another answering, "that's a weiner dog."
oh well.
calvin
i started writing a capiton to this picture in which calvin was saying something like, "damn straight you're gonna pet me."
then i felt guilty about saying "damn" on the internet and for covering it up by foisting the words onto my cat who, if he could speak, would not need to say the word to make the same point.
of all the places to feel guilty for saying "damn," the internet is probably the last one i need to worry about. but i feel a little guilty anyway. probably because of my mother.
a long time ago, my mother and i decided we weren't going to swear anymore. i was a first child, and i don't think my parents realized how much i wanted to be just like them in every way. for example, i'm told that one saturday i spent the day watching my father working on some tough house project. the next morning i passed the time in mass by showing what a quick learner i was. over and over.
so, now that my verbal genius was getting embarrassing, my mother decided we weren't going to swear anymore. and i, wanting to be like her, went along with it. i checked in every day: "i still didn't swear!" "that's good david." "did you swear?" "nope. i didn't swear either." we were reformed.
we were.as i was starting to type this post, my mother e-mailed me asking for the address of the blog. the address i had given her was spelled wrong and she needed the right one because she wanted to take a look. so it won't be long before she knows i finally dropped my end of the deal. but i happen to know that she dropped the ball, too, a long time ago.
so we pretty much ended up on the same page, which is what i wanted all along.
sleep tight
this is the third time i have posted a picture of this house (first time; second time). it's set back a little bit, just down the road from my parents' house, and for as long as i can remember--even when people lived in it--it's been gray and old. it has a long story, but the parts i know are not very interesting to tell. the house was new long before i was born, at a time when small farms were the backbone of the country. the farmer who lived next door to us, who was old even in my earliest memories, was born in there.
somewhere inside it there may still be the bedframes that my brother and i slept on when we shared a bedroom. twin beds with tall metal headboards and footboards. when we got hand-me-down bunkbeds, my father gave those metal beds to the migrant workers who lived in the house.
i would dearly love to explore the house and look for those beds. but the building is rotted through and open to the elements. before long it will be gone the way of the family that built it and the farm that grew around it.
welder
- i want to be a welder. i'm totally in the wrong trade
- why do you want to be a welder?
- because you get to wear the helmet. and you use the zappy zapper.
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