1/1/12

a bright day
cold
windy
very windy

a bright cold windy day

just the sort of day made for starting over

under an orange sky

it was cold then
and the air was full of snow then
and seamless clouds reflected orange city lights
and made a violent sky
on a violent night

we were in love then
and hope flew round like doves then
and seamless paths bisected a future clear & bright
and made us make a choice
on a violent night

it wasn't that we thought it was the only thing to do
it wasn't that we didn't see the ending coming through
it wasn't like we would have stayed together anyway
what's done is done and in the past of who we are today

but we were in love then
under an orange sky

that dress is made of tulle.

it wasn't something that bothered her like it would bother other people. i mean, to be bothered by something, you have to understand that it is bothersome, if you see what i am saying. to know discomfort, you would have had to have known comfort at some point. it's all relative, i guess is what i am saying. the bottom line is that never having had a chance, she just didn't know any better.

you heard it here first

a few years back, i decided to run 2000 miles in one year. it's not as random as you might think, but i can see how you'd think that. so, how did it go, ace? well, i will tell you. it got off to a great start. GREAT. i was running once, twice a day. running. running. more running. woowoo!

then, it was like, hey... my ankle is a wee bit sore while i am running, and then it was really sore while i was running, and then it was hurting even when i wasn't running, and then i couldn't exactly "walk" on it, you know, exactly. but was i still running? you betcha! i diagnosed tendinitis and went to the orthopaedist, who is also a doctor to the local professional hockey team, so i knew he'd understand the class of athlete that i most certainly am.

he took an x-ray and discovered that i did not, in fact, have tendinitis. i did, in fact, have a fractured distal tibia. that would be 'broken ankle' to you layfolks. he pointed to the x-ray picture and said "here's the crack and here's where it's about to go all the way through the bone" and i said "so, i can still run, right?" he just looked at me, then he left the room and found the hugest stabilization boot and a pair of crutchers. he said "no weight bearing for six weeks".

therein ends the tale of my 2000 miles.

this and that and the other. years go by. what now? well, i certainly cannot run 2000 miles in 2012. that's just crazy talk and would simply be setting myself up for disappointment. do i hear 1800? 1500? 1283? no. no. no! 1000. i can agree to 1000. and, by the way, it'll be 1000 self-ambulated miles - run, walk, hop, skip, crawl, cartwheel, et cetera and so on and so forth. focusing solely on running will crush my serendipitous spirit.

so here's the PLAN for next year -- the GOAL if you will -- at least 1000 self-propelled miles.

you heard it here first -- 1000 miles in 2012.

LOCK IT IN!

you heard it here first

looking back over last year's booklist and seeing the lifeguard manual reminded me that i did, in fact, become a lifeguard last year. good on me! during the class, i was doing a lot of swimming for the class itself and also just because i happened to be at the pool, i would do a few laps. back in the day, at brigadoon, we did a buttload of laps for the lifesaving certification and also any advanced swimming class did miles of laps. we had a big red cross sponsored lap tracking poster on the dining hall bulletin board where anyone could put their name and then "x" out the little boxes indicated miles swum. it was hugely competitive and therefore is of course verboten these days. don't want to make little susie sinks-a-lot feel she's not as good as susie swims-a-lot. forget that miss swims-a-lot doesn't get a chance to feel good about herself.

but i digress.

last year i went swimming. so, i think it's reasonable to expect that i could do that again this year. i like swimming, and it's good for me. how could i go wrong? it requires wardrobe changes and driving to the natatorium, but let's not turn our blessings into causes for complaint, shall we not now?

i thought maybe a good goal would be "go swimming once per month" but the problem with a monthly goal is that if i don't go in january, i'm just screwed right off the bat and have to trash the entire goal.

i've decided on "go swimming 10 times in 2012". no mileage goal, no timeinthewater goal, no calendar constraint. just a simple commitment to go swimming 10 times. easy peasy. i will hopefully get this done before 20 december, so that i can avoid going swimming 10 days in a row... so here's the PLAN for next year -- the GOAL if you will -- at least 10 swimming sessions.

you heard it here first -- 10 swimming sessions in 2012.

LOCK IT IN!

you heard it here first

24 books this year, an even 2 per month. not a bad total, but only 2 non-fiction, disappearing spoon and the lifeguard manual. i'd like to read more non-fiction, and i'm fairly certain that's something i can make happen. if only i can find non-fiction books....

okay, srsly. non-fiction. disappearing spoon was actually quite good -- informative and intriguing, easy to read and educational, fun and facts. but it was over 300 pages which is a long time to stay focused. and i thought i could read two things at the same time, with DS being one of them, but i kept favoring the "other" until i simply had to quit the others and focus. that's twice i've said focus here, and there's no surer buzzkill than focus.

i read for fun, for leisure, and focus doesn't really go with leisure, but on the other hand... i don't want my brain turning to complete moosh. brains need exercise just like bodies need exercise, so here's the PLAN for next year -- the GOAL if you will -- at least 750 pages non-fiction.

you heard it here first -- 750 pages non-fiction in 2012.

LOCK IT IN!

books 2011

currently:

complete:
the disappearing spoon
[sam kean]
the language of bees
[laurie r. king]
the god of the hive
[laurie r. king]
flash and bones
[kathy reichs]
jane eyre
[charlotte brontë]
hp7
[jk rowling]
hp6
[jk rowling]
hp5
[jk rowling]
hp4
[jk rowling]
hp3
[jk rowling]
hp2
[jk rowling]
hp1
[jk rowling]
the yiddish policemen's union
[michael chabon]
american gods
[neil gaiman]
land of a hundred wonders
[lesley kagen]
swim to me
[betsy carter]
princess academy
[shannon hale]
the angels game
[carlos ruiz zafon]
they almost always come home
[christina ruchti]
lifeguard training manual
[red cross]
the broker
[john grisham]
queste
[angie sage]
the things we do for love
[kristin hannah]
physik
[angie sage]

it's possible i've been a bit hasty.

it's not so much that i'm the jump-to-conclusions type as that i am simply INTJ. i have what you'd call a high need for closure. dithering doesn't so much make me crazy as cause to arise in me a need to calmly, and with complete sanity, disembowel you. my old man is a bit of a ditherer, which he's wisely learned to keep to himself. well, mostly. i think that crap he pulls about supper decisions is intended simply to mess with me. well, mostly.

at any rate, i do not tend to jump to conclusions. rather, i consider the options quickly and i decide quickly. it could look like a jump from the outside, i suppose, but on the inside, it's merely a decision. and, it's decisive - a decisive decision. consider, decide, act, move on. ask forgiveness, not permission. sure, i have regrets -- i am human, after all (big surprise, haha) -- but it's not like you can know going in what'll work and what won't. not exactly, anyway. the vast majority of the time, all things ARE equal, and either path in the woods is as good as the other. just pick one and go.

so you'd think i'd be a big fan of goals, as goal-paths preclude other paths and reduce decision-making to virtually non-existent. i guess one factor in my refusal to set goals is that i enjoy making decisions. obviously it doesn't bother me, or i wouldn't set myself up to be doing it all the time. but, another factor is that if i don't have goals, i cannot very well fail to meet them, now can i?

doesn't really take a rocket scientist to figure that one out, does it now. all my merry talk about goals being societal constraints and how i need to be free like a bee to catch the serendipity breeze when it blows on by... well, that's all really very thin disguise for a fear of failure. a robust and tanned serendipitous existence is much more appealing than a weak and pasty fear of failure.

it's not that fear isn't justified. i don't live in boston, do i? i am not a journalist, nor do i own a BMW, although i think those two might be mutually exclusive anyway. i have never run 2000 miles in a year. i have never been to paris. instead, i live where i live and i drive what i drive and i do what i do. so things didn't work out over and over again. and, over again. and, again.

but, i am more than content, i am truly happy and fulfilled in a way that i am not sure would even be possible down those other paths. so, see, that's where the idea comes from that setting goals precludes happiness. a stubborn refusal to let go any of those dreams or goals would have landed me somewhere that i would not have all this that i do have, all this that completes me. see? goals are bad! goals are antithetical to fulfillment!

yeah...

i am beginning to think i can reach a middle ground somewhere. a place where there are goals, stretches, a path to growth... a place where those things are, but where also there is a flexibility, a posture of listening for opportunity, an openness to serendipity.

three wise men

one of my coworkers is brilliant. he is smart enough to realize there are a lot of things he doesn't know but wise enough to kindly explain those he does. and, he gets my jokes. he believes that a couple thousand years ago a junior high school aged virgin girl gave birth to a baby boy, which baby was conceived by an act of the supreme creator and was designed & destined to die by sacrifice thereby becoming the saviour of the world. what a tale, eh? how could a brilliant man believe such a thing.

i know another equally brilliant man who demonstrates his brilliance in the same manner as this first - he asks when he doesn't know, he patiently explains when he does, and he laughs at all the right moments. he believes that although this very same supreme creator could have, and in fact plans to, do the very thing [or something quite close thereto] that the first man believes... this man believes the supreme creator has not done so quite yet. he has an equal belief in this wildly impossible tale, the only difference being he sees it as a tale of the future, not of the past. what a tale, eh? how could a brilliant man believe such a thing.

i know another man of brilliance equal to that of these first two. his curiousity drives him to avidly seek knowledge he doesn't yet have and his compassion drives him to gently share that which he already possesses, and, of course, he understands my humour. this man doesn't believe at all what the first two believe. this man believes in neither creator nor creation, in neither father nor son, in neither story - past nor future. this man believes in the tale of the present, told in the actions of his fellowman. what a tale, eh? how could a brilliant man believe such a thing.

to my mind, the tale of no tale at all is the most wild tale of all. why? oh, sure, it's to do with the way i was brought up, with things i learned in childhood, yes, sure. but, because i believe what i believe, i believe human minds are made a certain way to be opened a certain way at a certain time and that what goes into the mindvessel at that certain time, that specific time that the mind is opened in a specific way... that very knowledge becomes the core, that very knowledge goes past knowledge that is held and looked at and known with the mind, and becomes knowledge that simply IS.

do i believe in this certain-time tale because my mind was given this belief at this specific time... making the certain-time tale in fact true? or, is this belief in the tale because of the tale a sort of doubling-back, a sort of building the tale on itself. if i had been given another belief at the certain-time, i would hold true something else... if i had been told, at the certain-time, a tale contrary to the certain-time tale, then i would not believe the certain-time tale, and my disbelief in the certain-time tale would be precisely due to the certain-time tale's being true.

but, i digress.

three men of equal intellect hold to be true three divergent belief systems. is one correct and the others alltogether wrong, or is there perhaps another system of belief that is outside these three and instead of excluding any, it includes them all.

in wintertime, they sleep.

bees live in hives
all their wee short lives.

bees make sweet honey
but don't get any money.

bees buzz around
to fly above the ground.

bees visit flowers
for hours and hours and hours.

bees will give a sting
to anyone who gets in their way.

cause they're busy.

i mean, it's robert downey, jr. what more do you need?

we went to see the new sherlock holmes movie last night and contrary to the findings of all the professional reviewers, we found it highly entertaining. the costumes and sets were flawless, the action spectacular, the dialog sparkling, the characters amusing. don't tell the professional, but they don't know what they are talking about. these sherlock holmes movies seriously make 1891 look like THE place to be - 1891 in a gypsy camp, or on a half-blown-up train, or below the stage at the opera. even the dirty street urchins are dirty in a cute way.

bourbon & cedar & soap on a rope - season of light, season of hope

....lights - decorations - boiled custard - russell stovers - oranges - nuts in the shell - candy canes - santas lap - bourbon - fanny battle - cheese ball - sugar cookie - gift wrap - curlie ribbon - paper fill - brown packages - UPS shipping....

back in the day, there wasn't a UPS store in every strip mall. there wasn't package pick-up at your door. there wasn't "if it fits it ships for one low price". there wasn't free shipping at the dot-com, mostly because there wasn't a dot-com to speak of. back in the day, if you wanted to ship holiday gifts, you went to the UPS shipping location in a light-industrial office park out by the airport. every year, we'd trek out there to ship gifts across the country to cousins i knew by name only. every year, we'd get lost. every year. every single year.

how often did we do that, really? memory is such a funny thing. it was at least twice, probably three times, but was it more than that? i don't know. probably other people went in later years and i just stayed home.

it was fun and funny and we had a good time. we would sing carols and drive around miles of office parks while she searched for the UPS. i mean, i guess she was looking. if she wasn't looking, who was? certainly not me. i was just a kid for crissakes.

....spice round - lite brite - advent candle - advent calendar - cedar tree - name ornaments - chanel no. 5 - grape jelly and scrambled eggs - bubble yum - madam alexander - new jeans - add a pearl - sleeping bags....

pluswise, i could kick your ass at words with friends.

12 drummers drumming
11 pipers piping
10 lords a'leaping
9 ladies dancing
8 maids a'milking
7 swans a'swimming
6 geese a'laying
5 golden rings
4 calling birds
3 french hens
2 turtle doves
and a partridge in a pear tree

i had to look it up, but i only forgot the geese and just had the drummers and the pipers transversed. i'd say my memory is fairly solid. scrabble, sudoku, crossword puzzles -- all recommended for keeping the ol' grey matter in tip-top condition and all part of my daily routine. ...okay, i just lied a little bit right there. i play a ton of words with friends, and i have sudoku for the nintendo-ds which i play... well... sometimes, and i have a crossword puzzle book right here... in a box... where it's been for several months. but that's not the point! the point is that i do something specifically to strengthen my brain every day. brain-xercises. in return for all the brain-xercising, i can recite christmas carols from memory. who can't see the value in THAT?

my 2000th day

and then he said, "We might, for example, set a goal of blogging once a day just in case, serendipitously, something beautiful strikes us that day."

a goal is an end-point, a place you want to be. olympic speed skater is a goal. olymic gold medal winning speed skater is a goal. straight-A student. college graduate. entrepreneurial restaurateur. daily blogger. a goal is a level, an accomplishment, a milestone. a goal is concrete and measurable.

"my goal is to be a good mother." see, that's meaningless. there's no way to measure that. what is good mothering and how do we know if she's gotten there? while not getting into the myriad and controversial definitions of good mothering, let's just look at the difference between "my goal is to be a good mother" and "my goal is to have my kids at school on time every day". a goal must be quantifiable.

what else? the goal of getting the kiddos to school on time is fairly basic. the goal of getting your child into harvard by the time he's 8 is unattainable, the bar is too high. the goal of not beating your children daily is ridiculous because it should be a given, the bar is too low. a goal must be attainable yet challenging.

quantifiable, attainable, challenging goals are steps on the path to personal growth. however...

modern society is obsessed with goals. where do you see youself in five years? what is the next promotion you're working towards? when do you plan to retire and how will you fund your retirement? when you graduate high school, are you going on to college, and if so where, and what will you major in, and when will you graduate, and what job will you seek?

yikes!

the problem with goals is that they shut down opportunity. when you're on that path in the woods, and you come to that fork, if you're too focused on your goal, you might not even see the fork. if you see the fork, the choice, maybe you'll take it and maybe you won't, but how can you live a rich life if you don't even see the fork at all?

the value of goals is that if the allure is strong enough, you will keep your eyes on the prize and not be distracted by every pretty shiney thing you see. if you are on a strong goal-path, decisions fall away because you always choose the goal-path.

i like to imagine i live serendipitously, open to opportunity, unfettered by goals. i know it's not completely true. i have a goal to be faithful to my old man, a goal to retain job security, a goal to maintain my health. these goal-paths preclude other paths, sure, i can see that. but who would want to go down those useless paths anyway??

fresh dead air

i am fascinated by dead air. it rarely happens anymore because radio stations, like everything else, are nearly completely automated. one song just clicks right into another from a satellite feed. even if you personally do not have satellite radio, chances are you're listening to radio via satellite.

off-the-air can happen through mechanical failure of some sort, such as a lightning strike to the radio transmitter, or perhaps these days a computer glitch will knock a station off the air. when you are off the air, it means you cannot transmit for whatever reason.

dead air is different. dead air is on-the-air silence. you CAN transmit, in fact, you ARE transmitting, but what you are transmitting is silence. dead air is generally caused by human failure. specifically, the dj is not present in the booth at a crucial moment -- when a song is over, when the commercial finishes, when the handoff comes from the network station.

last night i was listening to NPR. it was 19:00 and the news update that runs before 'fresh air' was running. blah blah blah news news.... then the newsreader clearly finished. i don't remember precisely, but i know he definitely gave a sign-off of some sort because i mentally tuned back in for the brief local news that runs after the national update and before terri gross takes over. it was 19:06 when he signed off. and... that was it. we fell into dead air.

i'm imagining the local guy isn't in the booth because he's off having some gastrointestinal disorder in the station's restroom where there are speakers casting the station's programming, and he's in there listening to the national news, wishing his guts would hurry up and sort themselves, knowing what's about to happen... and then he hears it: nothing. dead air!

i'm thinking that's pretty funny and that 'fresh air' will pick up again at 19:10 but 19:10 comes and goes with no 'fresh air'. huh. i kept listening, but eventually i was home and it was 19:17 and still nothing. so that's 11 mins and counting, but as fascinated as i am with dead air, it's exceedingly difficult to explain to anyone why i would sit in the garage and listen to it. i mean, i know that YOU understand, but i am talking about the rest of the world.

so i switched off the car and left the dead air to its own devices. this morning when i switched on the poor little bunged-up slingshot, click & clack were merrily cackling over some odd woman's fuel pump. sometime in the night, the dead air had been resolved.

wished i'd been there to hear them come back on.

serendipity in a world of convergence

skip a rock
skip a payment
skip it
skip it
to my lou

skip a rock
skip a payment
skip it
skip it
to my lou

if someone told you something
told you something
something new

would you be better off for knowing
knowing something
someone knew

skip a rock
skip a payment
skip it
skip it
to my lou

if you never heard the story
someone told
told on you

would you be better off not knowing
knowing something
someone knew

skip a rock
skip a payment
skip it
skip it
to my lou

skip a rock
skip a payment
skip it
skip it
to my lou

rubber baby buggy bumpers

remember what i was saying the other day about the wax in my ear? wells, i got this box of stuff called 'murine ear wax removal system' which sounds like it would have gears and pulleys and shit, but it's just some drops and one of those blue baby booger bulbs. i'm fairly certain you know what i am talking about but if you will just google 'blue baby booger bulb' and look at the images tab, well it's right there - right at the top of the page - because clearly the scientific name for the device is blue baby booger bulb.

ergo.

the 'system' consists of putting the drops in your ear, waiting a few mins with your head tilted over so the drops don't pour out, then tilting your head over and letting them pour out, and following with a rinse of warm water squirted into your ear canal using the blue baby booger bulb. easy peasy.

ergo.


i turned on some 'rizzoli & isles' to keep me company, cranked up the volume since one ear would be even more blocked than normal, and loaded up the ol' ear canal with drops. the box advises not to be alarmed when the drops start fizzing, and so i was pretty excited about some wax melting action that was going to take place right there inside my head. i figured there'd be some fizzing and popping, the wax plug would get all jimmied up by the bubbles, and then i'd turn my head over and pop! it would just fall right out. HAHAHAHAHA! idiot.

ergo.

there was either very little fizzing, or wax plugs cause not only reduced hearing but also reduced sense of feeling in the ear canals. wait... you think there aren't even nerves in there? well, let me tell you that yes, there are definitely nerves in the ear canal. i know this because this one time? at band camp? (HAHA. okay, i never went to "band" camp, but that was funny.) this one time not even at any sort of camp at all, but at plain old home, my ear was all jammed up with water. perhaps i forgot to mention that i was on the VARSITY swim team. anyhoo, jammed up, see. probably the wax plug all sponge-bobbing it in there, soaking up the h2o. so i was of course digging around in my ear with my pinkie finger which had a righteous allotment of pinkie fingernail. unfortunately, that got me nowhere, so i decided to try these drops called, creatively enough, 'swim ear'. drop... drop... eeeeeyyyyiiiiikkkeeessssss!! fire! fire! my ear is on fire! i stuck my head in the sink and filled my ear up good and well with water water water. then, i thought to read the box. ingredients: alcohol. brilliant!

ergo.

after the application of the drops the other day, nothing popped out of my ear, so i used the blue baby booger bulb to 'flush gently with warm water' and i was 'careful to position the water stream so as not to block the water exiting the ear canal'. in other words, i worked the system. worked it. worked it. worked it.

ergo.

i didn't work. no giant wax plug did dislodge and fall forth, no - not even a tiny scrap of wax deigned to descend its perch. pluswise, the next day, i had some random sharp pains in my ear. they were real quick little stabs so it wasn't a big deal but it was disconcerting and uncomfortable. so i was discouraged and i didn't work the system again. however now i think that perhaps the pains were caused by the dislodging of the plug. perhaps continued application of the drops would result in further dislodgment until said plug DOES fall from the ear canal like so much manna from heaven. on the other hand, perhaps it will just cause additional, prolonged pain in my ear.

ergo.

close your eyes and you'll get a surprise!

it's that time of year again.

enjoy!

good things come in small packages.

it's a bengals christmas.

here we are trying to get to the moon when the bottom of the ocean is beckoning.

today i heard a story on NPR about eric whitacre's virtual choir. apparently it's not a new thing, just new to me. maybe new to you? anyway, mr whitacre is completely into choral music. he writes it. he arranges it. he conducts it. he comprehends the transformative power of choral music and wants to share that. remember singing in grade school music class? or, at summer camp? or, on the bus with your friends on the way to a football game? or, maybe in an organized chorus?

if you've ever sung in community with other people, you know what i am talking about here. there is power in choral singing. power to move hearts, change lives. i am not kidding around here - there really is power in shared music, and i'm fairly certain we're supposed to be doing something with music besides amusing ourselves. (i believe you were given an assignment to ponder this, weren't you now.)

anyway, virtual choir. what mr whitacre does is he posts some music online, and if you want to participate, you download the sheet music and you learn it and you sing your part into your computer and post it on youtube, and then mr whitacre gathers all the pieces and puts them together into a chorus.

it's sort of haunting, this creation of communal experience through individual inputs. i mean, yay for us doing something together, but we're not actually truely together. we're only virtually together. we all shared the exact same completely different experience together.

not that being in person together changes the fact that we're all experiencing differently. i mean... we're all always looking through our own lenses, so we're not ever fully together. being physically near tends to cause us to feel that we are sharing something, but besides perhaps a cloud of body odor, is there an innate sharedness to simply being geographically closeby?

on the space-time continuum, we can share space or we can share time or we can share both. if we both participate in the virtual choir, what are we sharing? we do our part in different places and at different times and mr whitacre does his part and then we view the output in our separate places, at separate times. is this community? do we have a shared experience?

quesadillas, unlike pizza, are really not all that good cold.

just saw a commercial for this new show called 'work it' which pretty much looks like a remake of 'bosom buddies' which was this show where tom hanks and peter scolari could not find an affordable place to live except in an apartment house that was for women only. i don't remember exactly why they couldn't find another place to live, but i think it probably had something to do with being idiots. also, an apartment house for women only is a problematic plot construction. why? because it is stupid. in conclusion, what ever happened to peter scolari?

it's been a this-and-that kind of day.

take responsibility.
give credit.

........................

if only for the sake of the things you thought you'd do
when you were just a kid, with your life ahead of you,
if only for the sake of the plans that you once made,
take those lemons in your life and make some lemonade.

........................

what is renée zellweger up to these days?

........................


........................

i remember doing that thing with a kid where you hold his hand and someone else holds his other hand and you both swing him along down the sidewalk. i mean, i remember being one of the swingers. it is possible i do not remember being a swingee because it never happened, but it's also possible that i don't remember it because it happened all the time. it's easy to forget the things that are normal.

........................

mustard is good on hot dogs, but not so much on your shirt.

........................

it's entirely possible that jim caviezel is an automaton.

and then she goes, "there's a wax plug in your ear."

"what?"

haha. hahaha. ha. get it? like, what?, i can't hear you, there's a wax plug in my ear.


when i was a kid, the pediatrician cleaned out my ears every time i was there, using a skinny metal tool that had a loop on the end. sort of like what the dentist uses to clean your teeth only not sharp because that would just be stupid. he told me i'd be dealing with earwax my whole life. i aged out of the pediatrician's office eons ago and haven't cleaned out the ol' ears canals since. so where does that get me... gets me a one-way ticket to waxville!

and then she goes, "there's a wax plug in your ear."

she told me that i can go to a specialist and get the plug vacuumed out, but i don't know, man, i just don't know. maybe i'll get me some ear candles, take care of it myself.

snips and snails and... and... what is it again?

i went to target to purchase a baby shower gift and came home with a pack of underpants, a half gallon of milk, a bag of pretzels... and a baby shower gift. whew. close one. that place is a storm of distraction and i almost didn't make it out with having obtained that which i went in for to get.



what do you think? little boy clothes with little puppies on them. i am sort of thinking they're so cute and sort of thinking yawn. i mean clothes don't really seem "fun", but then, when it comes to babies, the fun is sort of built in, isn't it now.

betcha i can!

there's this place i like to hang out online. i like the banter, the camaraderie. sometimes we have serious discussions. sometimes we just talk smack. sometimes someone leaves in a huff, never to return, and when they inevitably do return we give them a really hard time so they'll know how we really missed them. there are dorks and sycophants, math geeks and word geeks, personae and Real People, boys and girls. most of the folks there are fairly smart, and they're both quick witted and good humoured. able to give a joke, and also able to take one.

the thing that draws this group together is that we're all distance runners. some of us run longer distances than others, some of us faster than others, but in this group everyone's run a marathon. or, more likely, multiple marathons. the sorts of things we take for granted other people would never imagine. people in this group don't run dozens of miles every year. they don't run hundreds of miles every year. they run thousands.

generally, you don't run thousands of miles a year just for the hell of it. generally, you would have a goal - a race or series of races that you'd plan to run. you'd fit these races into a schedule and build some training around them. me... well, i am more the hell-of-it kind of girl. alls i want to do is go running, as far as possible, as often as possible. does the racing schedule justify the running or does the running justify the racing schedule? is the race the end, the culmination of the training... or is the race just the means, something society can comprehend, is the race merely the excuse to go running crazy far?

anyway.

when you've got a race schedule and you're hanging out online with other folks that also have one, and oh by the way, you all started hanging out in the first place on account of the obsessive running which is the basis of the racing schedules, well, you are going to start comparing results. it's natural.

leaning towards the hell-of-it side of the spectrum, i don't generally get into the racing talk. it seems so pointless to run against a clock and then compare your results to someone else's. even if you ran the same event, you weren't racing, not truly. i don't know... i don't think i will be able to explain it well, but to me, racing is me and joey warnock tearing across the playground to the swingset. mano a mano. that's it.

i am not fast enough to go head to head with anyone from this group i hang out with, but i thought of a way (besides bionic legs) to change that. what do you do when you're on the playground, and you're fixing to race some kid to the swings, and that kid is younger than you, and smaller, and slower. what do you do?

you give him a head start, that's what you do.

so, here's what i am thinking. i can race you, and you, and you, too -- i can race all of you, if i were to get a head start. you'd have to find the right race event, probably a 5k, and it would have to be chip timed, and where they leave the start mats open, and probably where the start and finish aren't shared. i'd take off first, and after like 5 minutes, then you could start, and after say 6-1/2 minutes, well then you could start. after maybe 8 minutes, you go. then - you would go last. you'd have to wait like 10 minutes, at least! that's why it would have to be a chip timed race - so that you would get your fair shot at having your speedy time recorded appropriately.

anyway, see what would happen is that if it all goes according to plan, if we all run our butts off, then we should all end up coming down the home stretch just about the same time, see, because we were racing each other the whole way, just some of us got a head start. then, in the final yards, we're actually neck & neck, pounding it out, straining for the finish -- because whoever crosses that line first is the winner. the winner of our race within a race.

alls you'd win would be bragging rights, of course, but c'mon... what could be sweeter?

you will find me easier to get along with while you do those things that bring me happiness.

if you wanted to purchase a gift for me,
you could purchase for me
a cardigan sweater.
make it a warm one,
a soft one,
not itchy.
turn cold winter cozy
so i won't be...
difficult.
if you wanted to purchase a gift for me,
you could purchase for me
a cardigan sweater.

if you wanted to purchase a gift for me,
you could purchase for me
a pound of dark coffee.
make it a strong one,
a smooth one,
not glitchy.
turn cold winter cozy,
so i won't be...
antagonistic.
if you wanted to purchase a gift for me,
you could purchase for me
a pound of dark coffee.

if you wanted to purchase a gift for me,
you could purchase for me
a book of smart stories.
make it a droll one,
a rare one,
not kitschy.
turn cold winter cozy,
so i won't be...
distempered.
if you wanted to purchse a gift for me,
you could purchase for me
a book of smart stories.

if you wanted to purchase a gift for me,
you could purchase for me
a piece of fine music.
make it a sweet one,
a tuned one,
not pitchy.
turn cold winter cozy,
so i won't be...
inimical.
if you wanted to purchse a gift for me,
you could purchase for me
a piece of fine music.

(before you know it,
we will be in springtime,
and we may go outside again,
and frolic.)

blah

the day was actually going pretty well til i ran up on a curb and mangled my sweet car. why did i go in that way?! why didn't i make sure i cleared the curb before turning?! why even come here at all?! totally pissed at myself. that is all.

hp1 hp2 hp3 hp4 hp5 hp6 hp7.1 hp7.2

thought i was going to watch 'once upon a time' off the tivo but forgot that it comes on sundays not fridays so there wasn't one to watch. flipping around the channels i found a harry potter marathon on ABC family. yay! i have all the DVDs of course, but they only work on the little telly. for some reason the DVD player on the big telly doesn't work. well, it IS fairly old. i think it might be made out of wood. so anyway, i am relaxing after a long day of chores and watching some harry potter. so g'head and mov'along. leave me be.

quarter moon

if i reach out my hand to you
will you reach out to me
will you meet me in the middle
where the others used to be

reach out across the ocean
reach out across the sky
reach out above across to love
across the wonder-why

if you reach out your hand to me
i will reach out to you
i'll reach beyond the space between
and pull you safely through

reach out across the ocean
reach out across the sky
reach out above across to love
across the wonder-why

this wouldn't happen in boston.

when i walked out of the dentist office, there were two women and a girl in the hallway. the girl was maybe 3, 4 years old. one of the women was ushering her into the washroom, saying, "knock when you're done, i'll come in and help you". why not go in with her? it's a big room, a onesie, she's a little girl. c'mon! anyway, so the two women were standing there, in the hallway, clearly not going in anywhere, and i had to pee. the men's room was just sitting there, and they're both onesies, so who cares, right? i walk up and say, "hey, i guess i'll just go in here - haha." i walk to the door. put my hand on the doorknob. turn the doorknob. open the door. BAM! some guy's back in my face. jeez! who doesn't lock the door? "who doesn't lock the door?!" i exclaim! "that would be my brother," goes the not-with-girl woman. well, hell! who doesn't tell someone they are about to open the door on her brother?!

north south east west - who's the gal we love the best?

heard on NPR today that the government holds the key to job creation and then i heard that the US postal service is cutting 200,000 jobs.

saw this on a license plate: om sai. i am fairly certain it's a mantra on mother earth, but on the other hand, really not sure at all. saw THIS on a historical marker outside chattanooga, tn: chiara. i swear, that is what it said but cannot find anything about it anywhere.

did you ever notice on 'friends' how big the apartments are? who can afford an apartment like that in NYC? not a bunch of kids, that's who not! we were watching the episode where pheobe tries to teach joey to speak french, and then the next episode had thanksgiving flashbacks including one where pheobe was a french-speaking WWI nurse. so, french to french and also a in the flashback epi there was a young chandler with his parents and in general, although not in that epi, chandler's dad is played by kathleen turner. then, we switched to 'law & order' (rerun much??) and on that epi, kathleen turner was a guest star. see? get it? it's all connected! IT'S ALL CONNECTED!

have you been thinking about the communication issues i put forth yesterday? have you? HAVE YOU?

i'd hammer out danger. i'd ring out freedom. i'd sing out the love between my brothers and my sisters.

when we say "communication" we mean "prose" and the more important the communication, the more prosaic it becomes. chatty emails become fun newsletters become formal newspapers become dry journal articles. we've relegated poetry and music, not to mention visual art, to the realm of entertainment. even on television, with all its capacity for visual storytelling, Serious Information is delivered by a series of yapping heads from the yapping anchor desk to the yapping field reporter. ever heard of "show, don't tell"? yeah, right.

by selecting prose as the only acceptable conduit of Serious and Meaningful Information, we're missing the boat on the power of all these other forms of communication. imagine... the weather report delivered in song. news stories dramatized with actors. a professor delivering a lecture using dance. the laws of the land in the form of a painting. your nephew is born and instead of a phone call, you receive a sculpturegram.

sound ridiculous?

what about sign language? in case you don't really know much about sign language, i'll tell you that sign language isn't spelling out every word - unless you need to for something specific like a name - and it isn't a one-for-one transposition of any spoken or written language. it's a completely different system and involves motions, facial expressions, and body attitude. it is communication of thoughts without using words. it'll blow your mind a little if you let it.

what about baby talk? when you comfort a baby, you don't reason with her -- well, hon, i've changed your diaper and fed you and now we really all need some sleep and i realize that rainstorm is loud, but it's just water, sweetie, and some electrical conditions in the atmosphere, nothing to worry about, so just hush on up there and go to sleep. HAHA. no. you hold her and sing a little or coo or hum.

words continually get us in trouble or disappoint us. they're often inadequate. we can never think of the Right Word, if there even IS a right one. we say that a picture is worth a thousand words, but we go right on trying to corral our world into letters on a page.

imagine a peace treaty that is a piece of music. because of the status of music in our worldview, it sounds hokey to "teach the world to sing in perfect harmony" but c'mon. open your freaking little dried up raisin of a mind! we have all these forms of communication for all the different aspects of our lives, and we keep trying to force prose to do it all.

just promise me you'll at least think about it.

look, ma! no hands!

we were watching this newsmag on the telly and they were showing some sort of community agency in some city handing out 'free' bicycle helmets. (helmets for your head while you are on your bicycle, not helmets for your bicycle itself.)

key points:

1. the residents of the section of town in which the helmets were being distributed were affluent enough to afford to purchase helmets.

2. there was directly across the street from the hander-outers a locally-owned small business bicycle shop that would have no doubt benefited greatly from an influx of a several hundred bucks' worth of helmet purchases.

but, who's to say that affluent folks wouldn't be well-served by someone handing them a bicycle helmet. even though they could afford to purchase one, perhaps they wouldn't purchase one (perhaps stubborn, perhaps don't understand the benefits) ergo not having one, wouldn't wear one. they would be living a life with less safeness than could be achieved by wearing a helmet, ergo their life would be lesser, lower quality than potential. but now that someone handed them a helmet, they will wear it. see? that's great. improvement of life.

and, who's to say that having multiple bicycle helmets handed out to the local residents won't benefit the locally-owned small business bicycle shop. perchance the recipients of the helmets don't own cycles and will trot on across the street and acquire one each. perchance they have cycles, but now having received helmets, they'll be inspired to pull out said cycles and get them tuned up. more business for the local business. maybe the newly-helmeted will desire a basket or a bell for their cycle. can't think of a better place to purchase a basket or a bell, than in a locally-owned small business bicycle shop.

so, it's all turning out for the best, this handout of 'free' helmets.

but, just for a challenge, the reporter asked the woman heading up the head-protection handout - "why should tax dollars be used to supply bicycle helmets for this group of people?"

and, just as you'd expect, the chief hander had a handy reply. "oh, it's not tax dollars," she said handily. "it's a government grant."

it's not every day you turn 59.

the vandy football team took it to wake forest yesterday to become eligible for a bowl not titled "quiz". [arguably, both vandy and wake are more likely participants in a bowl titled "quiz" - both being superior academic institutions. similarities continue as both employ the colours black & gold and both sport pasty colonial-clad male mascots.] although vandy couldashouldawoulda beat a number of SEC foes this year including georgia, arkansas, florida, and tennessee -- wins which would have put bowl eligibility in the 'decided' column long before the final game -- and although there are altogether far too many bowl games -- diluting the qualification for any one of them -- despite all that, it is nice to qualify. even if half the teams qualify these days, that does mean that half do not, and vandy's generally on the unqualifying half. so, good on ya, vandy!

the titans followed suit, prevailing over tampa bay today in a hard-fought muddy contest that saw five buc and four titan turnovers. [the slipperiness of the ball sparked a fireplaceside discussion as to the physics of warm-air-filled footballs on cooling days, the effects of rain and lowering barometric pressure on the surfaces of new footballs. we came to no conclusions, there beside the unfired-up fireplace.] a particular high point came not far into the first quarter after the bucs scored a field goal -- on the resulting kickoff return tommie campbell took the ball on a reverse from marc mariani and followed with a 84-yard run back for a TD. that was entertaining, and seeing as how NFL is really all come down to entertainment these days, and seeing as how those boys have all day long all week long to practice, they should really be able to conjure at least one reverse, flea-flicker, statue of liberty, fake punt, or other thuswise trickeration at a minimum of one time per game. sadly, within two plays, campbell was sidelined with a shoulder injury. [i would tell you how he's doing but my attempts to gain entry to the titans website have been soundly thwarted. i have no idea what starbux might have against the titans. or, vicey versey.] hoping that campbell's okay, and also, congratulating chris johnson on a 190 yard game. i have been squarely on the cj-haters bandwagon, but if he wants to prove me wrong, well that's a-oh-fine by me.

everything looks better when you're winning.

and then there were two

i came in here to address seasonal holiday cards, so of course instead i am pillaging my co-buxers.

currently, i am pondering how some people can rock the whole highwater-pants-scarf-in-hair thing, the whole meg-ryan-in-you've-got-mail thing, the whole i'm-too-cool-to-care thing. obviously, TRYING to be too cool to care defeats the whole purpose. i mean, if you're too cool to care, the last thing you're doing is trying. pluswise, meg ryan has wardrobers and hairstylists and suchnot so that she doesn't have to care, even if she were not too cool not to. if you see what i mean. "grande skinny nonfat-whip gingerbread latte" in the highwaters and coif scarf over there, she looks as if she believes she is too cool to care, but to believe you are too cool to care, you have to recognize your place on the coolness scale and assess yourself as uncaring, and in so doing both, you lose the game. as it were. but here i, "venti christmas blend plus double shot", consider things and i conclude that highwaters are ridicularious. who buys pants that don't fit? besides meg ryan's wardrobers.

there should be a proviso against wearing stretchy pants with a word emblazoned acrossed the buttocks and an additional limitation on tucking said pants into a pair of uggs and yet further stricture on wearing said outfit on a 75º day, even if that day is in november, to the point where these regulations would combine to cause anyone thuswise wardrobed to immediately burstalize into flame. ergo, i am fully prepared for the patron in the next chair to combust, spontaneously or otherwise.

if you came into a starbux with the intention of having some sort of gift exchange, say for instance a holiday thingamajig or a birthday whatsis, and this starbux you came into was previously habited by a potentially combustible patron in one chair and an exceedingly cool, although not in highwaters, patron in the next chair, and perchance the remainder of the entire store was vastly devoid of patronage, and you were going to, say, share a vapidly inane tale of your muddy boots whilst exclamatorily unwrapping previously stated giftage... would you for this adventure choose seats directlynextto the seats already occupied, in lieu of all the freakingly empty seats? explain.

i'll be over to the publix, fetching milk and whatnot.

and then it rained

hello. did you miss me? yeah, you probably didn't even notice i've been away. well, except for mr alfie over there in the corner with the variety of deoderants, which is probably all for the best, really.

the other day, i walked a marathon. "walked" because i am not much with the running these days, although hoping to get back into it soon. what? oh, i hear what you are thinking - walking a marathon must be lonely. firstly, not so much really because my head is full of thoughts most of the time, but secondly, not this time at all because... mini-me walked with me! the whole way! can you believe it? well, believe it!

a couple days before the marathon, she was all, do you think i could walk a marathon? and i was like, sure - any reasonably fit person can walk a marathon if you just decide you're going to do it and decide that it's okay to be tired and in a bit of pain. and she was all, what about this one - do you want company? and i was like, yes sure! so i had to pull some strings and all because it was last-minute, but got it all worked out and so 6:30 sunday morning, we were off!

we tramped and trudged for a couple hours and everything was going okay when the first raindrops fell. we said, hey, it's not supposed to rain for like 3 more hours! but, we said, at least it's not raining hard. it started raining hard. we said, at least it's not raining really hard. it started raining really hard. we said, at least it's not windy. the wind started to push us around. we silently mutually agreed not to mention how it wasn't hailing.

rain and wind. that's miserable, but you know, we were miserable together, and misery loves company. well, a certain sort of company. around mile 10 or so, the rest of the field started passing by. that's not exactly the sort of company you want. see, the actual start was at 8 - we had an early start. except for the very slowest, all the 8-starters passed us. that's just how it is, and i'd told mini-me this was going to happen, but it's still sort of bitter-sweet being passed. you are cheering for the field, but then... you are getting left behind. over and over and over again. there comes a point you just want them all to go on by and leave you alone but after that... there comes a point you get used to it.

one thing about walking for that amount of time, or really, simply living for that amount of time, is that you're going to have to take potty breaks. if you subtract our potty break time from the overall, we made a pretty good pace. even with the breaks included we were still hitting a well under 20-minute mile, so we weren't strolling around out there.

it didn't rain the entire time. we ate crackers and sang songs. we drank gatorade and saw deer. we identified the rare japanese maple. we talked about a bunch of stuff and talked about nothing. i complained. mini-me complained. we both complained. blisters came and went (ow!). knees hurt. tylenol were consumed (in moderation!). uphills became easier than downhills. the miles ticked to 13 and started ticking "back" to 26. we walked. we walked. we walked some more.

when we finished, there were mud and hugs and cookies. we hobbled to the car and went home to take showers. looking forward to it, it seemed possibly impossible. looking back, it was definitely impossibly impossible.

i think we might be on a break.

you & i. us here. this thing where i write and you read. we might be on a bit of a break on account of i am fairly busy just now. on the other hand, we might not be on a break. maybe it's over. maybe i am never coming back. probably because of your body odor. ew.

here. fold these towels. c'mon..... puh-leeeez??

reading 'the god of the hive' i realised i'd missed the book before. there were too many references to a story i didn't know. laurie king writes the mary russell series as if they were all one book -- the next one picks up right where the previous one left off. i mean, Right Where. not like a quick recap of the current status and off we go. no, it's more as if the new book were merely the next chapter in the previous book. it's really cool and i really enjoy it, but it really highlights when you've skipped one. so, i inadvertantly skipped 'the language of bees'. a quick check in my local liberry's online catalog, type in my liberry card number which i of course have handy in my vast memory banks, click, click, wah-lah. book at my fingertips, right here on the iphone. the only drawback is the screen is so small that about 3 words fit on a page. other than that, it's stupendous.

books 2011

currently:
the disappearing spoon
[sam kean]
the language of bees
[laurie r. king]

complete:
the god of the hive
[laurie r. king]
flash and bones
[kathy reichs]
jane eyre
[charlotte brontë]
hp7
[jk rowling]
hp6
[jk rowling]
hp5
[jk rowling]
hp4
[jk rowling]
hp3
[jk rowling]
hp2
[jk rowling]
hp1
[jk rowling]
the yiddish policemen's union
[michael chabon]
american gods
[neil gaiman]
land of a hundred wonders
[lesley kagen]
swim to me
[betsy carter]
princess academy
[shannon hale]
the angels game
[carlos ruiz zafon]
they almost always come home
[christina ruchti]
lifeguard training manual
[red cross]
the broker
[john grisham]
queste
[angie sage]
the things we do for love
[kristin hannah]
physik
[angie sage]

WE ARE THE .1%!

although you'll find differing calculations across the world wide webernet, the most prevalent estimate is that less than 1% of the world's population has completed a marathon. of the folks who have NOT completed a marathon, virtually zero have any understanding of the desire TO complete one, EVER. so, right off the bat you have a very small number of people who even GET IT at all. then, of the folks who HAVE completed a marathon, even if you presume ALL of them understand the allure of RUNNING marathons, you have to know that nearly NONE of them have ANY comprehension of the motivation to WALK a marathon. i mean, c'mon. who does that? if you're "crazy" to run marathons, well what the hell do you have to be to walk them??

there is something simply beautiful, simultaneously peaceful and empowering, about moving your body with your body. sure, you can get in a car and go really far, or get on a bike and not have to hike. but... to simply use... this... this three cubic feet of bone and blood in me, this thew and sinew, this one foot in front of the other. THIS. HERE. ME. to use myself to move myself puts me squarely in the ultimate reality. thump, thump, thump goes my heart. thump, thump, thump goes my step. arms move. lungs move. eyes move. legs move. it's me, in action. whatever made me and whatever made this world did a job beyond wonderful to make me and the world fit together so precisely. the air is just right for breathing! my legs are just long enough to reach the ground! my feet bend and my arms swing. it's amazing. simply, simply amazing.

are you getting this? probably not. you're most likely of the 99.9% who don't get this shit at all, but even if you're of the .1%, the tiny percentage of people who GET marathoning, you're still not in the .1% of that .1% that gets walking. but that's okay. it's fine, really. i don't need you to understand it because i understand it.

and, with any luck at all, come sunday afternoon, there will be a new face in the .1% of the .1%, and if that happens... no. WHEN that happens, when that happens... then, she will understand, too.






i found this calculation of the .1%, and it seemed reasonable to me.
In 2007, there were an estimated 407,000 marathon finishers in the USA. Double that and add some and let's assume there were 1 million marathon finishers worldwide last year. Let's assume for the moment that nobody ran more than 1 marathon in the year (I know, I know...but I want to get a conservative number here). Let's also assume that the number of people who have run a marathon but didn't in 2007 multiplies the total number of marathon finishers by 10. That puts us at 10 million people who have finished a marathon at some point in their lives worldwide. 10 million as a percentage of the total world population of roughly 6.6 billion is 0.15%. I'd think the assumptions I made would drastically overestimate the number of people worldwide who have finished a marathon at some point in their lives. I'd say a fair estimate would be roughly 0.1%.

gerroff yer butte dae

my fitness has gone to hell in a handbasket. i lost all motivation to lift weights several weeks ago, and in the past couple weeks i've pretty much quit running too and now soccer season is over. i am a giant lump that eats cookies. i am the cookie lump. stupid lung testing i was talking about yesterday, remember that? had to get off the asthma meds for a week to prep for it and the gddm doctors can say whatever they gddm please about whether it's asthma or not, but i tell you, i stop that stuff and feel like crap. CRAP I TELL YA. tired and sickish. so i feel better now i guess, back on the meds, but hell, i couldn't work out much less run when i was off 'em so that's a week right there, and before that, well, it's not like i was a paragon of fitness. now what? oh, let's go walk a marathon on sunday. oh, good, sounds like a really great idea there, ace. brilliant, truly. such a gddm idiot. then, well, i won't go into it all, but you can bet your left breast and not risk losing it that i won't be working out at all until at least 28 november.

so there you have it. 28 november is officially Ace Get Off Your Butt Day.

28 november. yeah, i'm all excited just thinking about it.

yeah.

thank god it's not tomorrow....

opening a box of pandora worms

i didn't go to work today. instead, i went to the doctors office for yet another test to determine if i have asthma. the doctors have all been fine going along prescribing advair, which makes me feel better, helps me run better, allows me to participate more fully in life. but i decided to open a box of pandora worms and try to figure out what is really going on.

a few years ago i started having difficulty sustaining the same workouts that i had been used to - sometimes to the point of coughing fit, dizzyness, excessive sweating. at first i thought i was merely "getting old", but it simply didn't seem right. other people didn't age like this. it was like i was dozens of pounds overweight, when i clearly was not at all.

blah blah blah. medical journey. blah blah blah.

one of myriad doctors - a rheumatologist - suggested advair. i used it and within a week was feeling markedly better. super! since then i've been on a constant prescription for advair. end of story, right? well... not that i am one to question improved quality of life, but... i'm not diagnosed with asthma, so why am i taking an asthma med? do i have undiagnosed asthma? or, do i have something else that advair is relieving? and if the latter, is advair the best choice? and, more to the point, if this isn't asthma, what the hell is it?

so i've been questioning and pushing and prodding, and my primary care doc suggested this specialty clinic, so i went there and they listened to my history and did the same old baseline tests and said, well - doesn't look like asthma.

duh.

c'mon.

they scheduled a methocholine challenge for today. feel free to google that on your spare time, but don't expect me to waste time here telling you what it is. guess what? you're not going to believe it, but this test came back... normal! no asthma. so, i went over the results with the nurse and then the doctor made a showing for like 3 minutes, tops. those guys are constantly moving moving moving. i believe that if i could get some concentrated focus from a doctor for, like, 10 mins, i could really make some headway healthwise. i mean, look what happened with the rheumatologist who suggested advair? he listened and then made a spot-on suggestion. next time, i should block the door before the medicine man can disappear.

anywattle, the test today came back normal, and it's supposed to be a BINGO for asthma, so i definitely do not have asthma, right? wrong. the doctor has yet another trick up his sleeve - a mannitol challenge. it's a new test specifically geared to reveal exercise-induced asthma. unfortunately, they could not do it today because i had already inhaled stuff for the meth challenge that would affect the mannitol challenge. too bad, because all these separate visits are a bit wack.

i have a distinct feeling the mannitol challenge will come back normal because that's just what tests do with me. normal, normal, normal. you'd think normal would be good, but if i am normal then why can't i breathe normally? when i workout, i am stressed for breath, like asthma. when i'm between doses of advair, i can feel it if i don't take the next dose on time. first, my eyes hurt like prickly, how they do when you get tired, you know? then, i realize i am breathing through my mouth. then, i get a low-grade headache, and if i let it go much longer, i get a worse headache, and if i go without advair for a week, like you have to do to prep for the meth challenge, the chest pain goes into costochondritis.

the advair makes me feel better. i should just be satisfied with taking it and feeling better. who cares what the cause is, if there's a cure... right?

* sigh *

going back to find a simpler place and time

on the way home i got rear-ended. in my CAR. gosh, you are a perv. there was a delay up ahead, and so i was phoning my old man to tell him there was traffic when i looked up and saw the car in front of me had stopped. yikes! but then, whew!, i got stopped but then, bam!, the car behind me did not. ugh. so i was all stopping in the road and she was all stopping in the road, and she got out and i got out and she was like, are you hurt?, and i was like, nah..., and she was like, can you move your car to the side? and in my head i kicked myself (ouch!) for not thinking of that. what a dolt! so we got back in our cars and moved them to the side and we were all, i guess we should exchange info?, but then a cop drove up from all the coppage that had turned out for the actual wreck up ahead. he was all over the need your registration shizzle, and thank medusa i had fresh registration and insurance card sitting right on top of the pile of otherwise useless muck in the glovebox. (no gloves.) we were all three standing by the side of the road when the other driver goes - well the guy behind me just left and i don't know where he went but he ran into me and then he left. and the cop was like, you got hit, too? and she was all, yes, that's why i ran into her. and here's the thing - that happened to me once, for reals. i got stopped and i was all whew and then i got rear ended and ran into the car in front of me. so i know it can happen. but... so... see... the cop, he tells us to each go to our own car and he'll do the paperwork, and he comes over to my car, and he goes, did you see another car, did she mention another car before? and of course i was, no. and he was, when did she first mention getting hit by another car? and of course i was, only in front of you. and he was, what did she say? and i was all, are you hurt and can you move your car to the side. he was like, okay. i felt bad for her, but it's not like i am going to lie for a stranger. just in case it comes back later, it's easier to tell the truth. so, the cop, he did the paperwork and wrote out each driver's info for the other driver, which was super nice and helpful, and gave me his card with the incident report number, and the paper with her info on it, and my license and insurance and registration, and gave her hers, and then he helped us get back out into traffic, and that was it, really. that was it.

once upon a time, there was tuna on sunday nights.

so i am watching "once upon a time" which is a new television show starring gennifer goodwin. why do i like the show? let me count the ways.

firstly, i like gennifer. she is very pretty and in the movies she always plays the smart, spunky character. i am a fan of the smart and the spunky.

secondly, it's an intriguing premise. all the fairy tale characters - snow white, prince charming, jiminy cricket, gheppeto & pinocchio, rumplestiltskin, the dwarves, the trolls, the stepsisters - all live in a place called storybrooke, maine. they've been enchanted by an evil spell, so they don't know they're fairy tale characters. they think they're real people. from the fairy tale, snow white and prince charming had a daughter who escaped the spell and was delivered "elsewhere" and is named emma. turns out emma was sent to the real world and grew up in foster care and is now a bounty hunter. ten years ago, she had a son, put him up for adoption, and he landed in storybrooke. he's studied the tales, and knows that emma's the one who can unlock the spell. he finds her (turnabout on the bounty hunter!) and gets her back to storybrooke where she meets snow white, who is her mother but locked in time is like her same age and who in storybrooke is a schoolteacher named mary margaret blanchard. anyway! emma is the key to unlocking the spell. that's all you really need to know. what if you're the key to unlocking the spell? what if you're locked in the spell??

thirdly, maine! one of my favorite states.

fourthly, the dialogue isn't sparkling with newness, but i've heard a whole lot worse. and, it's not merely about the words themselves - it's a matter of delivery. the little boy henry, who is adorable, says, "the hero never believes at first. if they did, it wouldn't be a very good story." seems trite here on the page, but to hear him deliver it. so cute! i do wish the evil-queen-slash-mayor would stop calling red delicious apples honeycrisp because they are clearly not, but other than that, it's highly watchable.

fifthly, sunday night is time for disney and although this isn't disney, it's ABC and that's close enough. ABC-disney, tuna salad sandwiches, pickles, and deviled eggs. and, maybe some chips. and, a slice of cheese.

fairly certain this isn't the progress the pilgrims had in mind.

black friday makes me sad. this year, some stores are rolling back into thanksgiving - opening at 10pm or midnight. thanksgiving remains the only holiday that hasn't been commercialised because they haven't been able to figure out what to sell us besides food.

black friday has become the basis of the fiscal year for retail in the USA. the reliance on black friday sales to boost the bottom line should not be sustainable, year on year, yet the retailers continue to bank on it. the sales tricks, the pricing lures, the giveaways, it all grows every year, and now the bloated commercialism of black friday is impinging on thanksgiving.

competitive spending. pssht. why do people want to compete to spend? don't they realise that the retailers are supposed to be competing to win our dollars, not the other way around?

i am a capitalist, sure, of course. but black friday is out of control.

11/11/11 - it's ace day!!

i wanted to tell you a funny story about something that happened at today, but nothing funny happened at work, nothing funny happened on either commute, nothing funny happened before leaving home this morning, and nothing funny happened after coming home this evening. nothing. not a thing.

don't believe me?

some random odd dude rode his bike out into the intersection during my evening commute and stopped while facing me and just sat on his bike and was looking at me all like "what?? what????" and so i honked at him and he moved. HAHA.

around 1:30pm the human resources department circulated an email inviting us all to come to the cafeteria for free snow cones. as far as i know, nobody went. HAHA.

during a midday web conference, the presenter asked many times for the folks who'd dialed in to mute their phones to cut down on feedback. one of the dial-in attendees announced she couldn't hear the presenter. then, another dial-in attendee tried to agree that he couldn't hear, but he was drowned out by the sound of another dial-in'er keyboarding. HAHA.

just after arriving downtown, i ventured to the coffeeshop for my daily dose of overpriced affectation. their method of customer loyalty involves stamping a little marker-stamp onto the coffee sleeve. they have this new marker that has different shaped stamps, so the girl goes - do you want a star or a swirly? and i was like - i am feeling like a swirly. she goes - maybe you need to see a doctor. HAHA.

first thing this morning, when the alarm went off, i hit the snooze, but i couldn't go back to sleep, so i got up anyway before the alarm went off again. my old man was like - what time is it. i was like - morning. HAHA.

believe me now?

with apologies to elvis who heard about this already.

today i received an email about a $92k wire transfer where to finalize the transaction, i merely needed to complete the paperwork, but i declined because i thought, what do i need with $92k worth of wire?

could have been that story reviewing that book about copernicus. maybe? .... nah.

i heard something on NPR today that i wanted to share with you. too bad i cannot remember what it was.

maybe it was the story out of seattle where they've developed a program to keep kids in school by using a combination of fun wakeup calls recorded by rappers and prizes for perfect attendance. one mathematics teacher was all - that's not real life, because if you don't wake up and you miss work, you will just get fired. well, thank YOU, mister mathman. sheesh. firstly, way to have a heart, and pluswise at my work, you can get awards for perfect attendance. so there.

maybe it was about the EU and how they're freaking falling apart. who would want to put up with greece, ireland, and portugal? with partners like that, who needs... uh... non-partners? okay, so the greeks gave us stocism and yoghurt. from portugal we get the incomparable portugese language and some fine dry white vinhos. ireland gave us the colour green. but c'mon guys. get a job. did you know slovenia and slovakia are EU countries? i wasn't even sure they were countries at all. iceland is a candidate, and damn if they didn't go completely freaking bankrupt, what, like last year? yeah. that's a good plan. let iceland in.

maybe it was about how we all hate the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard. we hate it so much that if you just mention "fingernails on a chalkboard" people will shiver. alternately, if you tell folks you're going to play them a selection of übermodern music, and instead you play a selection of fingernails draaaaaging down a chalkboard, they will be all - umm... nice.... haha. people are idiots. seriously though, researchers have discovered the frequency of that sound falls in the range to which our ears are most sensitive - 2000Hz to 4000Hz. who knew? well, because these researchers just discovered it, i'd have to say - no one. anyway, i was sort of torn between viewing this research as a complete whogivesashit waste of time and wondering what the implications are for corrective devices for those with hearing loss issues.

i don't know.

maybe it was one of those.

fishes don't use dishes.

this guy called brett ratner was supposed to produce the 2012 academy awards broadcast. he directed the new movie tower heist and when asked about rehearsals during the production of the film, he replied -- "rehearsal's for f@gs."

huh.

what do you think? do you think people just cannot say anything anymore, have to watch ever word, political correctness is out of control? or do you think that there are words that require watching, that are completely unnecessary, and people can and should be careful?

what if he'd said --

rehearsal is for retards.
rehearsal is for sissies.
rehearsal is for geeks.
rehearsal is for swimmers.
rehearsal is for girls, for cowboys, for bad actors, for worms, for drunks, for ballerinas, for high schoolers, for matthew broderick, for shoe salesmen, for firemen, for fire fighters, for foo fighters, for television shows, for teachers, for rocket surgeons, for butchers, for bakers, for candlestick makers.

rehearsal is for your face.


what ever happend to sticks and stones? why can't we shake it off?

what ever happened to mutual respect? why can't we treat each other nicely?

this was really difficult to write what with the teevee blaring friends and then football and whatnot. so, you should appreciate my efforts.

the US census bureau is the agency that provides the info about how many folks in the USA are living below the "poverty line". the census bureau defines the line and then analyzes census data to reveal how many folks are where, in relation to the line. if i understand correctly, the official formula takes only food cost into account. today, the census bureau released new data based on a new formula - the supplemental poverty measure. the new formula includes all sorts of expenses and income not previously accounted for.

the former formula (like, 50-year-old formula...) on which the official rate is based, assumes the average family spends 1/3 of its income on food. you know what "assume" does... right? well, most families now spend more like 1/7 of their income on food. why? i don't know. people make more money? doubtful. food costs less? well, food doesn't cost less, that's for sure. the old formula doesn't take assistance like WIC or food stamps into account, and the new formula does. maybe these forms of assistance result in folks spending less of their income on food. so, they should have more disposable income, right? hmm...

the new formula also takes government housing into account. the old formula either didn't take housing into account at all or assumed a fixed portion of income went to housing. the new formula accounts for the free (i.e., pre-paid [by you & i]) housing colloquially known as "the projects". so... not having to pay for housing should result in folks's keeping a larger portion of their income... right? fewer poor? what am i missing here?

tax credits are also figured into the new formula, on the income side.

expenses such as medicare premiums and deductibles, cost of prescription drugs, commuting and child care payments -- none of these were formerly taken into account. because these costs directly negatively impact household income, figuring them in would result in a higher number of poor.

basically, the supplements would decrease the number of poor and the expenses would increase the number of poor, and in fact, under the new formula, the number of poor has increased. well, now... that's a shorthand. the number of poor hasn't increased, per se. it's our recognition of what constitutes "poor" that's supposed to change with this new formula, and with the changed recognition of what is "poor" comes a resultant increase in the number of people in that group.

so. more folks are living below the poverty line because the line has moved.

it's moved in another way, too - a quite sensible way. under the old formula, geography isn't taken into account. cost of living is different in different places. poor in los angeles is not going to be poor in greeneville, tn. fairly much a "duh" point, eh? taking geography into account will not necessarily result in a higher or lower number of revealed poor, but would be expected to result in a shift. and, it did. the new figures show more poor in the west and north, and fewer in the south and midwest.

the new figures reveal more elderly to be considered poor than previously were, fewer african-american poor, and fewer children living in poverty. this is because the former group has large medical expenses, and the latter two receive a bit of supplemental aid such as food stamps and tax credits. none of the expenses (minuses) or aid (pluses) were taken into account before, and it all makes a difference not only in the numbers on paper, but in the actual, daily lives of these folks.

the official poverty calculator used by the census bureau will continue to be used to determine eligibility for and distribution of billions of dollars in federal aid. why? well, probably because the new formula is too new to be reliable and the old formula is unreliable... in known ways. don't want to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire. don't want to cut off our collective nose to spite our collective face. don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater. or, whatever like that.

that's all i've got. i'm just glad there're people considering this stuff, and i hope it results in wiser uses of my tax dollars.

books 2011

currently:
the disappearing spoon
[sam kean]
the god of the hive
[laurie r. king]

complete:
flash and bones
[kathy reichs]
jane eyre
[charlotte brontë]
hp7
[jk rowling]
hp6
[jk rowling]
hp5
[jk rowling]
hp4
[jk rowling]
hp3
[jk rowling]
hp2
[jk rowling]
hp1
[jk rowling]
the yiddish policemen's union
[michael chabon]
american gods
[neil gaiman]
land of a hundred wonders
[lesley kagen]
swim to me
[betsy carter]
princess academy
[shannon hale]
the angels game
[carlos ruiz zafon]
they almost always come home
[christina ruchti]
lifeguard training manual
[red cross]
the broker
[john grisham]
queste
[angie sage]
the things we do for love
[kristin hannah]
physik
[angie sage]