It's been going for a week now.
In my head.
Over.
and over.
      --and over.
And it won't stop.

I've had the Bill Murray SNL Star Wars song stuck in my head for over a week:

• It started on a three-hour drive back from (customer location), as I guided coworkers through a rainstorm. They were sleeping all around me; I wanted to unscrew my head and make them listen.
  
• It continued as I mowed the lawn, tended the garden and worked out over the weekend.
  
• It didn't stop during my Monday meeting-avalanche.
  
• And as I walked out to my car this morning, it rang louder in my ears than the schoolbells.

So goddamn it, if I have to suffer, you're all* coming with me!

*Actual level of suffering may vary, and physical harm not guaranteed. Void where prohibited, especially on Mos Eisley and in the state of North Dakota. bwh and associated staff do not actually wish any harm to their regular readers, except maybe Those Certain People. And hey, how about Darth Vader in that black and evil mask? Did he scare you as much as--- aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggghhh

Tags: miscellaneous bitching, music, the company man, total goddamn cluster-fucks
actual sounds + voices: as advertised

A long time ago,
there was a boy
who read only fact.
He had no use for
Doctor Seuss;
Dick and Jane were
far too tame. Instead,
the full-color photos
of cephylosaurs grabbed
his imagination.

Time passed. And then, a
Certain Someone handed him
a story with which he
was ultimately unfamiliar.

For someone as well-read
as the boy, he had not
ever encountered this
worn and well-thumbed book
before. So he read it,
very
quickly
(forthereisacertainsomethingtobesaidforeconomyoflanguage),
and was astounded.
It had taken the boy over
twenty years and
twenty million pages to
learn the lessons contained
herein.

And had he read it, a
quarter-century ago, he may
not have made those
certain sorts of mistakes
that young people tend to make.
He would have been aware
that one can only
complete one's self, and
needn't wait around on
a missing piece before
rolling along.

Better later than never, though,
to become truly whole:
not missing a piece,
but a Big O.

Tags: book reviews
actual sounds + voices: Sigur Ros: (something else I can't pronounce)

After two months of downs and ups and downs and ups, I've pulled past the plateau. Rhythm is restored. Miles are being run at a more casual pace. Weights are being added to the pile. (And then video-game-yoga pulls all the knots out of my back.)

I've officially reached a net loss of 46 lbs. since early December.

I'm not at my end-of-2003 size yet, but I'm well over halfway there.
I would need to go back and check, but I do not think that Emily has ever seen me this small, except perhaps in photographs.

No time to rest on laurels, though; there's more work to be done, and the last thing I want is to spend another jot with a bucket and a mop and an illustrated book about birds.

Tags: working out
actual sounds + voices: Nirvana: "Oh Me"

For those of you who aren't actively monitoring the pulse of cutting-edge American mindless television, tonight was the premiere of The Greatest American Dog, network television's answer to that question we had all asked ourselves once or twice: "What if my pet could be on Survivor?" I know this because I have seen it. And I knew what was going to happen next; lo and behold, I was not disappointed.

Cassandra had been casually disinterested throughout the show, but Emily decided it was time to teach her the "jump onto someone's back and stay there" routine promoted so heavily by the show. She curled into a ball on the floor and began exhorting the dog to jump, and suggesting I help out. I knew this wasn't going to end well:

• For starters, I don't think any dog owner is really going to want to teach the dog to jump all over them; and
• Cassandra listens to Emily a lot more closely than she listens to me. Not that she doesn't listen, but she knows Emily is In Charge, with the exception of when Pickles is around.

Ergo, I said, "Allow me."

I took took a breath, then exhaled through my nose and turned into a pill bug on the floor. Six months of working out, and two months of video game yoga, have started to pay off -- I effectively did a twenty-minute abdominal crunch. Meanwhile, somewhere in the outside world, Emily was using treats to teach Cass to jump.

The evening was, let's face it, already a little bizarre; things took a turn for the worse when Cass tried to climb up the back of my head. It felt as though she were doing something unspeakable -- and receiving treats for it.

*WHOMP* *WHOMP* *WHOMP* *WHOMP* *WHOMP* *WHOMP* *WHOMP*

Finally, I heard (rather than saw) Cass fly in a graceful arc from a foot away, then felt the little wind in me expunge when she stuck the landing on my back. She lasted for half a second, then fell off; gravity is her worst enemy, and she has never defeated it.

I slowly uncurled myself from the spot on the floor and dusted myself off. My ab muscles were on fire from the flexing I did, and my hip joints were not thanking me. (They still aren't.) I staggered about, trying to regain my motor functions. Cass, chuffing happily, ran over to the door, where she was snapped into her harness and taken for a victory lap.

 

 

 

Discussion Questions

1. How far would you go to teach a dog a trick? What's wrong with you?
   
2. How many signs of the apocalypse have we had now, anyways?
   
3. Didn't you think Deacon deserved to be voted off instead?
   
4. Does managing to catch the season premiere of Burn Notice (as I folded laundry) in any way redeem me? Why or why not?
   
5. Bonus Question: what's the worst pun you can conjure in response to this entry? +5 for a standard pun, +10 for a double-entendre, +20 for a full-house, and +50 for a compound triple-entendre pun. Go ahead; I triple-dog-dare you.

Tags: biological complaints, campy british sex, lt's theory of pets, miscellaneous humor, yes i'm an idiot
Where: nigh on twilight
actual sounds + voices: My Bloody Valentine: "Soon"

I've returned from vacation refreshed and ready to go.
What was I doing, you ask?
Of course I'll oblige you:

• Having the chimney cleaned and capped. The cleaners removed what must have been four birds'-worth of feathers (to say nothing of soot, dust and gunk) from the fireplace afterward.
  
• Maintaining the yard (mowed twice, weeded twice, trimmed the hedges, watered the flowers) and the garden (I'm proud to report we have our first peppers and pea pods -- no sign of tomatoes yet, but their plants are huge).
  
• Playing an awful lot of Rock Band with my sisters, parents and my future brother-in-law (and, briefly, with my girlfriend as well). (For those who keep track of such things, I'm ready for Medium drums, Hard guitar and Expert vocals.)
  
• Patching the basement. This has been on-going; it continues to on-go.
  
• Replacing the track for my bedroom closet's sliding doors. Unfortunately, I've discovered the source of its problems is that the guiding footer doesn't actually reach the doors. Ergo, I either need a new set of doors or an enormous guide. (I also started making plans for in-closet organizational shelving, but I'm only on the measurement stage.)
  
• Angsted (yes, it's a verb) (hopefully, it'll stay past-tense) in a local coffeehouse, in regards to my age.
  
• Acquired Coldplay's Viva La Vida and the Ting Tings's We Started Nothing.
  
• Won a pencil in Bingo.
  
• Started putting the playlist together for another mix cd -- but I need ideas: can you (yes, you) name songs with church bells ringing? Any genre, any decade. Yes, I already thought of Coldplay; yes, I already thought of Pink Floyd.
  
• Finished one book (Persepolis, see below) and started another. I was distracted, though, because I happened upon my Philip K. Dick compendium up in the office.
  
• Watched the Montana sunrise from the safety of my couch. (Thank you, Discovery in HD.) What I want to know is, did Horse 213 really require the MySpace camera angles? Tangent to this, I'm impressed that when the ducks went by the camera, Pickles freaked out.

That's all I've got to say about that.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a pile of work here that'd fill all the cracks in my basement and then some.

actual sounds + voices: Coldplay: "42"

( The review, in the format of a College English Composition paper )

Short response: I liked this and recommend it.

Tags: book reviews
actual sounds + voices: Coldplay: "Lost!"

For those curious:

1. Today (as of two hours ago) is my first official vacation day of 2008. I've spent roughly the last four months working between 25-50%. I'm pretty it was audible, the steam coming out from my ears. I'm working my way through decompression and trying to restore parity. Ironically, the hardest bit is not logging onto work.
   
2. Next weekend: Iron Chef, Battle Carrots.
   
3. I'm putting together the to-do list for the week. There's an awful lot that hasn't been done around the house: between netting for the garden (to protect the peppers coming in from the Hitchcock birds patrolling out back) and patching the basement (now that I've got the time to spend on it), I expect I won't be bored.
   
4. Quote of the Week: "I like teasing you about [writing]. It's like nipple clamps for your creativity."
   
5. Currently reading: Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis; EM Forster, A Room With A View. I expect to have finished both and posted reviews by the end of the week. I'm not sure how I'll manage a review of Persepolis in an impressionistic style, just because I have trouble with stick figures. I may need to subcontract the review out to someone with artistic talent.
   
6. Is it bad, that I have The Ting Tings on repeat? They're yet another example of becoming enamored of a song just because it was on VH1 at 3:50am. Despite this, the bassline makes me want to get up and bounce around.
   
7. Tangent to that: I finally picked up the new [P] album, and it confuses me - I didn't think they could get further away from "Sour Times" than "Humming," and yet "We Carry On" ...?
   
8. If I'm putting together a cd of infectious / obscure bouncy music, what belongs on it? I mean, besides The Ting Tings and Creature?
   
9. I took out a handcrafted wedding roadsign on the way to a well-hidden ceremony. In my defense, I was trying to dodge an oncoming vehicle on a one-line road, and I was not driving Winona. Caveat: I also could have come to a stop and waited it out. Admission: I'm secretly thrilled I did that.
   

Edit: If you're on my friends-list already, this won't impact you at all; this is more a general announcement for the casual passersby.

I'm slowly stepping through the 1000+ entries in this journal and moving most everything into a friend-locked position. I won't say that the journal is going Friends-Only in entirety (because it's not); however, anyone who's interested in reading the last ... six years' worth of posts had better do it fast.

That's all I've got for now. If the mood strikes me, I'll put some posts up here in spare moments, but don't be surprised if I stay as f***ing far away from computers as possible, over the course of the next week.

Where: nigh on twilight
actual sounds + voices: The Ting Tings: "Shut Up And Let Me Go"

"Bullshit, I'm getting old! But that's okay. Because, thanks to the fear of death in this country, I won't have to die ... I'll 'pass away'! Or I'll expire, like a magazine subscription."

I'm up late this evening, and I was startled by the spontaneous thunderstorms what sprang up not too long ago. Now I know: it's George Carlin, and he's pissed off because he has to 'pre-board' before he can get into Heaven.

Jump off the moon, that great choice-filled pumpkin in the sky, and fall toward the ground. It is the ground, isn't it? Rather hard to tell from this height, and when we first get going, the destination isn't really important, it's the journey.

By the way, I'm not typing this on a Remington SL3 Electric Typewriter, I think we all know to what dastardly and damning ends those sorts of machines will work, but I measure it close enough for government work.

So we're off to the races, and once we make it past the shockingly cold little synaptic gulf between moon and world, we find ourselves falling falling falling. Like a sperm whale, in fact, just with a little less blubber and slightly more maneuverable limbs. Also, with a much higher chance of profanity.

We race past the tallest trees on Earth and Jupiter: sequoia are matchsticks in comparison, and Everest is a lego block next to the Empire State Building. We have fallen from the shoulders of giants, and the whooshing sound must mean they had enormous baked beans for lunch. Then we hit the branches of point and plot, each bludgeoning us with a hammer of philosophy. Try to dodge them as one might (if one wished), they bridge the gap between trees in the same way that a frenetic author like Robbins might form some sort of semillogical connective tissue between Douglas Adams and Neal Stephenson. --and the thorns remind us that there is a lot more over which to curse.

Then the cloudlayer of mist clears away, and the enormity of the world is laid out beneath us. One last branch in the back of the head drives the point home: "Oh," you say, "that's what he meant." And then we hit the ground: hard stop, now disembarking, please remain seated until the seatbelt sign has been turned off. You pull yourself out of that imprint in the ground, dust yourself off, and wonder the fuck just happened.

Tags: book reviews, meta-writing
Where: nigh on twilight
actual sounds + voices: headache vibrato rattling bone matter

Part I
B. has always been intrigued by stories. A nine-year-old can't articulate as many ideas as he would wish, but he will sit before his writing implement of choice (IBM-Compatible PC) and address the world with as much earnest desire as any adult counterpart.

He knows there is a lot more to life than the fantasy novels on which his first efforts are (poorly) constructed, but he does not know enough to write another kind of novel. Still, he has made up his mind: eventually, he will write something grand, and fantastic, and he will graciously and humbly accept all of the accolades heaped upon him. Because it isn't about the attention; it is about the art. He doesn't know the phrase l'art pour l'art, but he believes he has internalized it as his koan.

His chapters are sometimes constructed of multiple paragraphs, and while he feels that some sort of romantic element should be included, he really has no idea what to do with it. That subplot will simply be tabled until the next draft.

 

 

Part II
B. is in his early twenties, home from another state and visiting with his family. The time and distance has not been kind, and he is wearied by life after the great college party. (Though, in fairness, he grew bored of those during his time of indoctrination.)

He is at home, but it is not home: though he spent a summer sleeping on his parents' couch in 1997, this was the house into which they moved after his high school graduation. His home is somewhere back on 507, gathering weeds. He's slowly building his own concept of home, in another state, in his adult life; it's slow going.

In the meantime, he runs a small website with an intrigued fanbase. Literarily bold and incisive, his work is an exploration of form, context and medium. His writer friends either stared, confused, or stared, consternated, as he had explained the concept of the infinite digital canvas and merging multiple tributaries of narrative text into a single river of thought.

His parents inform him: his little sister, finally in elementary school, has started working on a novel. He surreptitiously reads the first couple of paragraphs (heroine searching for her kidnapped older brother) and his heart breaks.

 

 

( Epilogue: May 13th, 2008 )

Tags: book reviews, fables and reflections, meta-writing, seesters
actual sounds + voices: U2: "Red Hill Mining Town"