Three Words

Here are three more random words and something I whipped up about them.

"You need to watch out for grown adult that wear animal print as part of their everyday outfits." Jefferson (Do not call him Jeff) said this while shuffling out another Maverick from his pack. I lit it for him using the Bic I stole from the gas station, a simple blue one. 

"Unless it's supposed to be funny or they are planning to get lucky, any one that wears tiger print or zebra stripes or faux fur as their everyday is bad news"

"Peg Bundy wore animal print." I said. Jefferson was about two years older than me and I remember him saying he liked Modern Family so I think he'll get the reference. 

"Yeah, that is a TV character. You know anyone who wears animal print everyday?"

I could not. I did seem a a choice that was quite intentional. You can throw one a pair of jeans and maybe look nice but animal print, that says something. 

"I once dated a girl, " I said. "That the first time we...you know...she had tiger print underwear on. That was something."

Jefferson let the smoke from his cigarette linger in the cab of the truck and fiddled with the vent knows on the air conditioner. "You think she did that on purpose?"

I looked away beacuse I could feel myself get red. Do 37 year olds blush? Should they. I wanted to say that yes it was possible she took one look at me and decided that yes, these were the ones. But, I had to be honest. "No, I think it was random."

"Was she a hard body?"

"It was in college. I liked her. I guess, yes"

Jefferson finished his smoke and smashed the butt into his gloved hand. He then jumbled the butt and ashes into his pocket and fiddled more with the blowers. 

"Good for you. What are other adults we should avoid? Children are exempt as they know no better."

I look out the trucky cab and it's an empty Menards parking lot. We are waiting for it to open. "People whose whole personality is sports betting!"

Jefferson chuckles. "Sportsball"

"People really into World War 2 battles!"

He nods. "I've always been leery of guys that tuck their t-shirts in."

That was a sing of old heads at work. Why they tuckers their t-shirts in was lost on me. The custodian in my high school did that. I remember his grey t-shirt tucked into stiff blue Wrangler jeans and black Doc Marten boots. He was very odd and, once, in a rare bit of sincerity our senior year homeroom teacher, Mrs Alvarez, mumbled that "The sports page doesn't read itself" when asked where wad Mr. Masato.

"Guys will say it's to show respect," I say hald heartedly. "Watch out and they'll tuck in zebra strip t shirts pretty soon."

This got a decent laugh and became part of repertoire as we waited every morning for the stores to open.

Music Wrapped

At the the end of the year we seem split between people sharing their Spotify wrapped and those screaming to "Please Stop." Those people are also equivalent to "No one cares."

I did not have a Spotify wrapped as I use free You Tube music. You Tube was the place for me to get music for early adulthood because my preferred music was original scores from dubbed anime or the intro bumper for a TV show or scene from a movie. This was the era of the animated music video (AMV) and often that was the way to hear a song. I watched a mash up of the Halo 2 trailer because it was overlayed with audio from Serenity and the specific cinematic scene where the fly through the enemy fleet to drop on the forbidden planet. At one point, if I wanted to listen to Limp Bizkit's "My Generation," then I would need to bring up an AMV of Naruto clips.* So, I stayed loyal to YouTube which then spun off YouTube music which is just Spotify save it is red. It also has a wrapped function and all the API geegaws to share to the world. Unlike social media, where everything is thrust unto you, my guess is you come to the blog by choice. I scanned through the "Favorites" tiles on the music app and thought to put a narrative to some it.

Note: YouTube has an embed feature in its Share functionality that is just a string of HTML code. Blogger seems to hate this now as pasting it just renders the code verbatim. I need to tinker more but, for this post, I used the "link video" feature from Blogger.**

Across the Spider-Verse (Start a Band) by Daniel Pemberton

This is my most played/listened too song in 2023. If you have read this blog then you know I am sucker for things that feel "cinematic" and often set my everyday mundane everyday to these beats. My current job has me in a cube all day so how I get through the day is 1) The cinematic music 2)Energy drinks***and 3) Anxiety. I peel into and out of the garage playing these.

No surprise that this is my most played song considering I gushed about the original movie and also all the aforementioned. This jam, which starts ominous and then crescendos into the drums and synth rips, makes me both want to save the day and also be saved. Its my new Disintegration in terms of day dreaming about sword wielding cyber heroines. 

The whole album is full of bangers. "My Name is...Miles Morales" and "All Stations Stop Spider-Man" and "Spiderwoman" are amazing. FWIW, I think this movie is BETTER than the first albeit the first feels much more personal. Second one is also a bit too long.

Salam 1996 by Groove Dealers

This song reminds me of a friend who sends me esoteric jams (oddly via Spotify links) then I then copy and paste into the old big red You Tube. Between him and satellite radio**** is how I learn about any "new" music, which really is just older songs first heard. This is a hard pivot from the other jams here as its beat box gangsta rap.

False God by Taylor Swift

My new job has me leading client calls. Sometimes on a weekly basis as I keep them abreast on what we are, hopefully, doing for them. This is anathema for someone who has weaponized introversion and also struggles to express themselves orally. Mariah Carey was in town recently and my client mentioned how she was going. I mentioned how that must be fun and, fun story, I worked previously with someone who went to two separate Eras tours concerts and how this was both an amazing flex and also object of envy. This was all over a Teams call but the energy in that digital room brightened and all tension left the meeting "I did not know you are a Swiftie," us what the client said and I mentioned how yes I unironically enjoy her work.  False God is where I go to for both something I truly like (its the sax!) and also a somewhat non single deep cut. 

La Jumpa by Arcangel and Bad Bunny

As a Puerto Rican living in the 2020s I am contractually obligated to like Bad Bunny. I also am contractually obligate to be loud when I do talk. And, yeah I do like the guy. I could not imagine liking both reggaeton and mumble core rape as a younger man. I was firmly into my bleep bloop music. But, these cats do it and it really feels like magic. Saying "Luka, step back, la jumpa" feels like it should summon something infinetly powerful. 

Lights (BassNectar Remix)-Ellie Goulding and Bassnectar

My wife once listened to this song and said "This is a very you song." If you do listen to it then its a audible mashup of everything on the blog. Enjoy!

*I have never seen Naruto save for this video. And yes, I unironically enjoyed Limp Bizkit even walking about 2 miles to the local record store to buy Chocolate Starfish and Hot Dog Flavored Water.

** I have few actual regrets that haunt me. They are 1)Not going into computer science 2)Similarly, not getting into education sooner (maybe even teaching!) and 3) Letting my kids watch YouTube. I know, ironic. Not a screen free parent (have you read this blog? I was raised by TV) but can't stand the always on Gen Alpha screeching. 

***The best is Ghost. I can't stand Bang. Monster is the baseline (The tap water of energy drinks). I drink Celsius when I want to impress someone. 

****It came with my car and I thought it was amazing and now I don't know how to cancel! Every time I call they just make it cheaper.

Letters of Recommendation

Serena from three jobs ago emailed and asked for a job recommendation. My wife commented on how odd this was "That was ten years ago. She doesn't have anyone else she can ask?"

My ego deflated I said how I felt it was nice but when I did last see Serena she was too young to rent a car and I was just a few years out from being able to.

But, I had to complete this mission, out of not just professionalism, but also lingering attachment to work friends seperat3d by decades.

The recommendation form came via email link and the blinking cursor asked me to use this space to "say anything else you would like to share about 'candidate'". This wad after a series of radial questions gaming on a 1 to 7 (yes, seven) scale where 1 was "call the police" and 7 was "exemplary" It was all sevens with a few sixes to add some acceptable variance.

Here is what I wrote, unbound by any character limits

"You need to hire Serena! If you don't then I assume you must be interviewing an honest to God superhero in the other room. I could ask her to do anything and not only would she crush it but she would find ways to do it better. Remember, we worked a hybrid job split between a warehouse and office. She could be on the phone chatting with a client and then, five minutes later, be helping unload a truck beacuse it showed up when all the dock guys are at lunch. Serena had an amazing, almost uncanny, ability to learn discovering product nuances just from vibes. Clients loved her and our interns found her an ersatz young professional guru/mom. We are lucky she has dedicated her mind, body, and soul to helping humanity beacuse she could conquer the world. If that were to happen, I hope she would spare me since I hired her in first place and wrote this letter so yall can hire her to! Best regards!"

I never learned if she got the job

Return to Form

 It was always via text. Sometimes just a regular SMS. Sometimes over varying messenger apps (Facebook, Slack, Teams, Instagram chats, etc.) but it was always "I am writing something. Give me three things."

And it was random...1) Waterparks 2) Cheese wheels 3) Purple

1) Bocce 2) Celery Stalks 3) Macaroni and Cheese

1) Chocolate cake 2) Legs  3) Sunny days

So I fired up the random word generator and got these

No job seems immune to the constrained digital windows of the work all staff (or hands if your place is fancy) meeting. Regardless of how large the group there always seem to be a mix of people

• Muted and with cameras off
• Inversely, people firmly heard and seen with everything (every pin prick it seems) captured
• Deflated workers staring into the screen but always darting eyes to the all other work they are actually doing
• Overly eager people way too into it. These people are either new or the very rare overly sincere unicorn that actually get something from these.

The proportion varies depending on company morale but, something seemingly uniform across industries, is some sort of kickoff ice breaker or question.

"What is one word that people would use to describe your personality. Please keep it positive!"

In these situations, I really do try my best albeit my word is likely "Self loathing." Or "high functioning depression"

Sorry, those are two words. Can I go again? 

But, I try to put on an engaged face. Mostly out of respect for the presenters (Extra support if it is someone asked to be a moderator. Not some consultant or professional development pro but the team lead three cubes across from you. Or the department manager a few seats below VP levels) but sometimes ill get queued up for a joke and everyone will politely chuckle and that hit of dopamine is all worth it. 

What really sucks the air out of the phony digital room is the slithering personality that wants to use the whole forum to sling mud. This is a sign of a toxic workplace but someone will take the chance to tell everyone off in a passive aggressive matter.

Precursors to this (Seriously, if you hear these then just sink in your seat or throw your computer out the window) are

• "I am just saying...."
• "I don't see color...."
• "All lives matter..."
• "I am going to say what everyone else is thinking..."
• "Fuck!"

Actually, the last can be good "Fuck! Guys, I did not think you would remember my birthday! I don't want to take too much time from AJ's presentation, but thanks everyone!"

But, I do not have the personality to thrive in these meetings. I'm just quiet trying to get to the end of the meeting so that I can go home. 

Boat Story

Help! I've been sucked into Below Deck (all the versions and umpteen seasons) and cannot escape.*

Through the power of my imagination I am now in the show tapped into the crew of the motor super yacht Synergy!

The produc...err...I mean guests have asked us to put on a talent show for them on the second night of charter. 

What will I do? Not blessed by any musical acumen or particularly good looks I would tell them an amusing anecdote...

I briefly lived in a small central New York town in the mid 00s. It was the biggest town for about 15 miles in any direction but even then it just had one gas station and yet two video rental stores. Also one of those towns that basically stopped on Sundays. Not out of any sense of piety but just due to sheer ennui. There wasn't anything else to talk about or do by Saturday night. So, the whole village of 1500 people or so just need a reset. Only things open were the coffee shop, the laundromat, and the dollar store. 

At the time I wad dating my then girlfriend, now wife, and our  dating anniversary rolled around late February. 

I am horrible gift giver. I had something but it took everything I had not just to give it to her the moment I bought it.

"HERE! LOVE ME!"

I then was filled with doubt as the piece of sterling silver jewelry from the local 10000 Villages store was likely not enough for an anniversary. I'll make her something! A cake! White cake with white frosting, her favorite.

It being Sunday meant only store open was the dollar store. It had cake mix but only yellow and frosting but only chocolate. That's fine. It's still cake! When I got back to my apartment I realized I had no eggs, which Duncan Hines told me was key to said cake. There was no options for eggs beyond ask a neighbor  (truly terrifying as a millenial) or walk a mile in the winter chill to the gas station over the village line, which, maybe had eggs.

So, fuck it, I just used extra vegetable oil. Same difference, right? It's yellow and full of fat. 

The cake baked up in a quivering yet still solid mass. It was likely a fire hazard, ready to blaze with even an errant spark. It was heavy, just full of oil and suffocated flour. "Like biting into a pimple," is what my girlfriend described it as. As a child, my mother would give baby oil to drip over our backyard aluminum slide and then wax paper to sit on while we slide. 

We were human torpedoes. I imagine this cake could drip out a good run if pressed to top of the key

Oil cake then became a short hand for horrible food in our relationship.

Rascal House Pizza? Oil cake!

The white bread, lettuce and mustard sandwiches our son makes? Oil cake!

Let them eat oil cake and either die (I'm addition to being horrible to eat it was even more horrible for you than cake!) or slip away free off friction

*Fwiw my dream crew

Captain: Glenn! (Such a nice guy!)

Bosun/First Mate: Eddie! (A bit basic but solid)

Head Stew: Daisy! (My wild Irish rose!)

Chef: Marcos! (Everything is a banger!)

Stew 1: Ross (I have him here as a stew but i know he was chief for a season. Mr. Olander!)

Stew 2: Scarlett! (Real shame we only got her for like three episodes)

Deck hand 1: Tony! (He can fire dance and loves getting up early)

Deck hand 2: Lara! (I love the way she says her name "Laaaaa---RAH!" and she fills the obligatory having someone from South Africa on the boat

Location: Caribbean 

Interlude

My father passed away when I was very young. It was the worst kept secret. My mother did home hospice so by end it was a frozen person surrounded by the hurly burly of well wishers. The window AC in my parents room, where he died, did not stop for two years until that night. The room had ivory inlay tiles that must have crackled when the chill ended and everything returned to to the tropical stifle. 

I wasn't there but I knew the moment. My mother came into my room and hugged me, rubbing down my back and arms with her hands. All of this was silent, a very intimate pantomime. We have never talked about it.

Since then I have always imagines this is what death must feel like. You are alone and ethereal bony arms pull you down deeper and deeper into and endless maw.  Your body shrinks to a naked pinprick and the arms swirl unto each other and end their labor. None of this is terrifying but instead quite mellow and matter of fact. It's the feeling of being stuck in traffic and realizing you are not going anywhere so might as well lay back. 

I write all this beacuse I have felt myself recently trying to fill a void, that naked pinprick, with something, anything. I'll watch endless reels and online memes sharing them to friends of varying tiers. Even three warehouse intern from two jobs ago. "Isn't this funny...err...Sean? Fuck, I only know your screename." I have so many people I miss and dwell on the opportunities missed to say I appreciate you, I love you, thank you.

I'll have two Xmas beers and I'm spinning on the couch after kids are in bed. My 40 year old metabolism does not play well with self medicating with alcohol. It's hell on my A1C but three drinks and I'll call all those aforementioned people I missed. "Yo, what the fuck up?!"

A friend in Colorado sent a box full of gummies so I'll cut rhe edge with THC and CDB and other alphabet soup solutions. 

I feel incredible, for only ten minutes however, after an energy drink. A white Monster or Oramge Creamsicle Ghost is instant win in a can. I'll sometimes be classy and sip the "healthier" ones like Celsius in the slim cans made to look like something more appropriate on a beach than the office.

It sucks to, get ready for a euphemism here, fantasize anymore. Purely for the brief dopamine that takes the edge off.

Four Ibuprofen, black coffee and a can of fizzy water is the "Do you ever think about dying?" potion. Medicated caffeinated sparkling waters? I am a man limited by means and not my ideas.

Heat Check

There is no heat like the heat of a crappy A-frame house. Bonus sweat if it is a rental where the landlord's son crashes in between tenants. He has left behind an assortment of thrift shop plates and cutlery. All in varying sizes and designs like a college apartment where everything is purloined from dining halls and SWAG give aways.

Up there it's an unnatural temperature. This specific set of air was never meant to sit under pine jousts and knob and tube wiring. There is always a single lonely light bulb for illumination and when it goes out, you are in the teeth of a dragon.

It's suffocating. Imagine dunking your head into a basket of towels pulled too early from rhe dryer. It doesn't just hit the skin and make you roll your sleeves but makes you want to simply abandon the idea of clothes. It's the waft of heat when opening an oven save that it sits like a thermal fog over the box of Christmas decorations.

I've lived in too many place like this. One where it boiled away my guppies in the fish tank. To save the others I had to regularly drip ice cubes into the tank. One that I owned where the house was wonderful but the attic and basement were both metaphorical warts. In this house is where we saw the husk of a rat (maybe squirrel) merged into the pine and ancient insulation. One place didn't have stairs into the A frame space. Instead you pulled a wooden panel off a closet wall and climbed up an angled ladder (like Discovery Zone. If anyone does read this I know they are 90s kids) to the area. We sparingly used this so we made this room my daughter's nursery. During holidays she would watch from her crib and chatter to us as we dragged boxes from the attic and made the temperature go up by five degrees.

"It would be awful to die here," said my mother once when we toured the home we owned and showed her the strangled sirroco air of the attic. I guess she is right save what would be great places to die? Surrounded by family with no pain? In a blaze of glory after kissing your lover and saying to never forget me? That is more a time than place. A cool place for sure.

Live From Rio

In the 11th grade, I sat behind a Brazilian-American girl in almost every class, Natalia. My high school had small classes (45 kids total in my entire class, 15 to a room usually) and it also had "tracks." If you were "smart" then you took, in 11th grade, AP Bio or Chem, English Honors, Spanish Honors, Trig or Calc, and then two specials of which you were encouraged to take AP French as it was the only AP special. If you weren't  "smart" then you took all this just "regular" versions. 

Me sitting behind Natalia was a matter of schedule and also because I majorly crushed on her. I made a point to go to volleyball games after school to just spend more time being her number 1 (secret) fan. Natalia then left at end of junior year to not graduate with us but we both ended up in same college town (on opposite hills and schools) and last time I physically saw her was leaving an Incubus concert at Cornell we had both attended in a sort of low key and very uneventful fake date.

That all said, this is a post about Taylor Swift. 

Natalia posted on her social media "Its Happening" and it wad her hand outstretched and fingers flared to make a perfect high five hand. And then several hemp bracelets on her wrist with beaded lettering saying "be love" The next post is her with glitter on her face "Taylor Swift in Rio!" That is much more evocative then seeing Taylor Swift in say Amway Arena in greater Orlando, Florida.

I like plenty a Taylor Swift song. I have a penchant for "hair brush" female led pop and pretty sure these are  not deep cuts but I like "Shake It Off" and "Anti Hero" and "Blank Space" and "Style" and "Bad Blood" I can't do the rom coms but a song about breakup and/or not needing a man and well, son of a bitch, I'm in!

If you have read this blog (And for that I am both appreciative and apologetic) then you have likely known I associate songs to the scenes I score with them. Most often these are adventure type fantasies with super heroes or everyday folks saving the day. They are sometimes very personal as I score the commute as I race to the office or a denouement type song after a stupid day.i hear a song and think "can someone have a sword fight to this? Or "would this make a good song to cold open a TV episode?"

This all lends to liking much more theatrical and instrumental pieces. I am part of the generation that typed into YouTube and Limewire  "Gundam Wing final episode song" searching for those esoteric sounds.

Sometimes I will use a "normal" song in these scenes. Normal songs are songs with words and/or not from movies/tv/video games. One is "Cruel Summer" which I'll use to cold open an episode with my usual heroine, star of show of former blog posts. In it she sits on the cornices of a tall building. Batman and Daredevi brood but this is more like Spider-Man and its hidden reflection up where the city she swears to protect has some limit. It is late September and just chilly enough she brought hooded zip up sweatshirt up that she has draped over her shoulders. "Cruel summer" is a, no surprise, poppy love song about a forbidden relationship. In this scene we don't get to those lyrics but instead mostly just rely on the modulated drum line and refrain "Crueeeel summah!" Because she is reflecting in what made the summer cruel and in this story its not a bad romance (However lonely it is being a hero) but its something else. Day job going poorly beacuse of all the heroic. Family members targeted beacuse someone found out who she really was. An embarrassing video of her taking a hit and tumbling over into a subway line. She won that fight later, no worries, but it made it online. Just thinking of ways it was a cruel summer and hoping the fall improves, which it will, beacuse these are all made up stories anyway and why would it be anything but triumphant? 

These sound better in my head.

Pet Poultry

There is a Tractor Supply Co in Fairview Park, Ohio, next to the Ace Hardware and across from El Rodeo Mexican restaurant. This would be fine save Fairview Park is a Cleveland suburb as firmly not rural. It is mostly known for looking the same as the four other suburbs that surrond it save Fairview Park has the "good" Target and an ongoing saga over the defunct community pool. Both liner and roof of the indoor pool have leaks and finger pointing has been furious. 

The store has to cater to weekend yard warriors. The kind of guys and ladies that rake every leaf of the yard and need all the toys.  This TSC also has the rural trapping of selling live baby chick's. Doubr Fairview has zoning that allows chickens. Neighboring Cleveland allows them but your dream coop is behind red tape and clemency of city hall. Further west you do get "cities" that, 15 years ago, were fields so maybe people truck in from North Ridgeville to get chucks to have them run around the ample acreage out in Lorain County.

The chicks make for quick win with kids, especially when they were younger. It is the mall pet store from our youth where you could lose time seeing actual puppies in windows and tropical fish on neon blue gravel. The kids would glee and ask to keep one and we would tell them just how impractical it all is.

I had pet chickens growing up. Around Easter the local supermarket back home in Rio Piedras would sell dyed baby chicks. We would walk in and to the left was makeshift wire pen (like a baby corral. It likely was some general managers baby corral) with thrown pine hamster bedding, straw and corn. Then dozens of baby chicks in pink, slime green and electric blue. Reading this now it all must sound horrific (and indeed it was wrong and fucked up but it wad Puerto Rico, a godless country where peiope would sell dogs under highway overpasses) but to me it was firmly enchanting and bucolic. 

My mother bought me two! A green and blue one we let run around our backyard. This was a time after my mom's old dog, Punky, had passed but before she got me my first dog so the birds were free to rumble around the yard, picking at insects and the mangoes fallen from the neighbor's tree. 

They molted away the neone and turned the normal earth tons of the average chickens. One was a rooster and I don't remember it crowing but it was also Puerto Rico where it was standard to see someone ride on horse down a highway. 

They were sort of just there until one day they were not.

"They died of blindess," is what my mother said. I took this as absolute fact. The timig coincided with a visit from my grandmother who, according to my mother, "loved me in her own way." Note that I know tell my children this same platitude of my mother to them. But, my grandmother was firmly old school Puerto Rico, grown up in a time when the divide between urban and rural could be measured in decades. 

I never saw bodies or a grave. They were just gone and my grandmother back on her way three hours away to the west coast. Did she take them in a cage on "la Linea?" La Linea was an informal bus network made of large vans that plodded between towns. Like an island wide taxi on a set route. I guarantee live poultry has moved along these vans but did my grandmother do that? Or did she butcher them and take them fresh frozen? My grandmother once said she tried to quiet a neighbor's dog by throwing hunks of beef laced with pellet rat poison and she carried a can on bug spray on walks to dissuade neighbor hood strays. I could see her thick hands do the deed of wringing their necks and turning them into a stew.

I believed the blindness lie well into adulthood until someone pointed out "How could a chicken die of blindess?" In my personal dictionary that is the memory associated with epiphany.

Sword Tuesday

Reporting today that around 8am on a lowly Tuesday I saw a young woman crossing Euclid Avenue wearing a green hoodie and a pair of fencing rapiers. Her hood was up and she dragged a rolling backpack wheeled bag behind her. Noted that I automatically swore fidelity to thr mysterious woman walking downtown with swords. Occams razor would say it's stage props or some student club, but this blog is not a realm of logic. She had to have been saving the day! Or doing some crime! But, nothing as basic as returning from a practice. 

Taunting

My best friend growing up had a handy crafty dad whose day job was architect. He made a live tabletop war mini game called "Tanks and Battleships" with ships made of painted clothespins and tiny tanks made of cork and balsa wood. It's the miniature scene out of Bettlejuice just much more homespun and focused on WW2 style island hopping combat. Like big boy tabletop games (like Warhammer 40K) it was all about range and how much your guys could move. And dice. The rules...well I don't remember ever seeing a rule book or agreement but six was the truth. You wanted a six. It is like hitting a 20 in Dungeons and Dragons. Why we didn't use d20s I never thought about until I was much older so we just slummed it with six sided dice. 

My friend invented the ultimate cripied taunt to throw off your roll. We will be 40 something years old and check in twice a year on our respective birthdays and we will say "Dice demon, dice demon! No more six!"

When you hit a six after being taunted...you felt like a God. When the taunt worked and you didn't hit a six then you just wanted to be very very small.

I'll scream dice demon in non rolling situations. Dice demon people throwing free throws or fully loaded baseball counts. Dice demon your boss when they ask for a volunteer and they are forced by the collective unwillingness of the team to pick someone to talk. "You guys are a tough crowd so I'll have to pick someone...."

Hit them with "Dice demon! Dice demon! Pick someone else!"

Rice with French Fries

My doctor will hate me for this but nothing beats the double starch. Bread plus more bread equals absolute win.

Talking things like the peirogi dumplings stuffed with potato and fried onion. Or throwing some potato chips on a ham and cheese sandwich. That always hits right after school or when you are high. There is a place in Pittsburgh, PA whose claim to fame is dropping fries inside your sandwich instead of on the side. I bet you can order them on the side but they give you a mean look and a record scratches in the background.

The zenith of double starch is Puerto Rican Chiness food. This cuisine is not much different than American-Chinese takeout style food save that it comes with fries. The standard plate is fried rice  (never white), the entree protein (there are no veggie stir fry or tofu options. The greensare in the rice you see) and then fries. That plate is both life and the ender of worlds.

The entree protein is only thing that alternates. I felt the most popular was Peppsr Steak which I am sure is an actual elegant dish in its native origins but in PR was a soupy slosh of green peppers and straps of cheap cuts of beef. The other big one was "al ajillo" which means "cooked with garlic." So anything just swimming in a garlic sauce. 

Note there was very little Chinese food delivery in PR so this was always a face to face experience. There are an estimated 450 Chinese restaurants in PR and i would guess 99% of them are the greasy pan cafeteria style heaven doling out fries with rice and orange chicken. These places also loved the word cream in them. I think one was also an ice cream place beacuse there was Star Cream and Star Cream II and my birthplace was known, among other midly interesting quirks, for having corn ice cream. At a place called Rex Cream. Served with cinammon dust I also think Rex Cream was always just an ice cream place but it somehow got the Cream moniker and it was confusing to me, at least.

I can't prove this story (can I any on the blog? Your trust matters most to me!) but in senior year of high school I broke put of my introverted shell and went on the semi organized senior beach weekend to Guanica, PR. I had no clue why save my mother insisted (so I could be just a bit more normal), another very introverted friend of mine was going (likely same reason as I) and there was a chance to see classmates in their swimsuits. Priyi and Marilyn were going and that was half of my HS hall of fame so for sure going! 

Here is where we drove by an abdoned Chinese place named, no joke, Kum War. The driver screeched to a stop and we took pictures blessed by both fluent English and adolescent asshattery. Did they know what they were doing!? No way! Someone said they would mail it to Maxim magazine, a sort of cheesier Esquire (The RC Cola to its Coke) that had a "Found Porn" mailbag column. The kind of place to send pictures of typos in local Penny Saver that read "Local ass saves the day" Not sure if he ever did. This being 2002ish would involve actually printing picture and sending a letter and that seemed a lot even for us quite privileged  (albeit we did not know it at time) high school kids.

There was a "better" Chinese food place my mother would order from called Kimpo Garden. That place delivered but it took hours (They move like an IV filled with road tar is what my mother would say. Sounds better in Spanish) and it did not have fries. But the lemon chicken came in whole deep fried breasts and actual slices of lemon so it felt elevated. If the place had a fish tank in the lobby then no way would it have fries. There was also Yum Yum Tree (apparently now closed) which was an Asian fusing thing that slung take out favorites and sushi. My mother and I loved sushi and would put away while bamboo boats of it. There she marveled at the front of house guy named Juan Chen who was "an Asian who can speak Spanish."

There is none around me but I will see the social media algorithm feed me stories of Puero Rican Chinese in the mainland states. You can recreat it at home. Get the local lunch special at the closets takeout place (Extra points if named something Cream) and then an order of fries from just about anywhere else save McDonald's because those fries are too thin and good for this. Burger King is food. Needs lots of heat and starch to let sauce entree do the work. No egg rolls needed.

Silent Alarm

 About two jobs ago, my cell phone got listed as the call number for the building's panic alarm. For the whole building so the daycare on the first floor, the revolving door business offices on second and third, and the travel agency in basement. It made great use of the glass window wells facing the outside adorning them with neon signs of palm trees and parrots. Whole pagodas and a hot pink flamingo wearing sunglasses. I worked for the building (changing lightbulbs and moving furniture around. Guiding trucks onto the small dock.) so I understood why someone volunteered my phone, but the only qualification I had was I worked there for more than two years. That seemed to be the cutoff.

I then subsequently left the job but they never changed the number. I would oddly get calls from the security company. "Is everything ok? Should we dispatch police?"

And I would have no answer save "Umm...not sure. I no longer work there."

Sometimes the agency would ask for a confirmation code. So, they could not send police. And I would also be at lost muddling in my mind for the passcode. Was it the name of the building "Altamira?" The number of the building? "3655?" The name of the owner and landlord "Millardo?" None of these worked and they would send the police for nothing. 

Someone accidentally bumped the plunger by the front lobby desk. Or a new hire wanted a chair on the left side of the welcome desk, instead of the standard right, and thought the white button was just some other geegaw to move around. 

It was always nothing. But, you never knew. Not in today's work world. I would text my former supervisor and remind him to change the number but he would ghost me. In my new job I once had to make a delivery to the third floor office (An adult GED center that took up basically the whole thing) and asked the teacher there if she knew of anyone. She did not and said she would ask her boss but that someone else took care of the business side. 

The last time they called I let is go directly to voicemail. I head the familiar voice "This is Northwest Security Service Solutions calling about a silent alarm." It was early afternoon and raining hard enough that water seeped through the weak seals of my windows. Must be something with the power like a spike or surge that caused it to spike. This time I imagined myself the hero. Cutting through the rain my black Honda Civic something much more predatory and menacing that would screech to a slide stop right by the big plate glass doors. Inside would be panic as people scramble for exits and winged villains try to snatch people away to fly through the skylight roof. There would be people fighting back. Those people I enjoyed working with or found charming. The lady on second floor (I think she worked in marketing for something. There was a print shop up there) with the long black braid and Lisa Loeb glasses would be there holding people back with a sword. Entering the fray I would not debate why I returned to some place that would not race back to me. 

A post I didn't write

"My final day at the magic shop, I stood behind the counter where I had pitched Svengali decks and the Incredible Shrinking Die, and I felt an emotional contradiction: nostalgia for the present. Somehow, even though I had stopped working only minutes earlier, my future fondness for the store was clear, and I experienced a sadness like that of looking at a photo of an old, favorite pooch."

-Steve Martin, from his autobiography Born Standing Up

Spooky Season 2023

 Every year I say it* but this year I am doing it. I am going to try and watch a spooky movie everyday between now and Halloween. Spooky season being abut September 15th to November 1st. I won't do a post per movie but here is a mega thread of the season. Its a long one!

Smile-Its The Ring, which was already a re-hash. It had a neat marketing campaign (what with the cardboard cutouts of smiling people placed in random places like MLB playoff games) but its rather paint by numbers. The one striking scene comes at the very end when the villain shows its true form in a direct full shot of an unusual sort of monster. Mid movie

Signs-Only thing gets under my skin more than aliens are living dolls. I remember being really spooked to see this one back in the day but my son is now all into the unexplained so we gave it a shot. I did not remember much save the one scene (the TV scene from Brazil) that is still excellent even when you know the result. It really drops off in later half once all tension is gone and becomes a sort of one room chase movie.

The Neon Demon-Snoozy movie that thinks it has a lot to say but is quite predictable. Thinner, Black Swan, and Suspira with just better looking people. Lot of neat people in it and wow Jenna Malone is topless in one scene. 2003 version of me would have loved that. Look at that!

Friday the 13th: Part 2-These movies have such a complicated lore that always forget this one is a very clean direct sequel. Same movie as the first. I always think best part is five ten minutes with the apartment scene and several fake out scares. Then the title card the explodes. I literally LOL

The Host-my exposure to Korean media has been this movie, Squid Game, Parasite, Pororo the Penguin, and Tayo the Little Bus. I remember this movie getting a lot of hype back in the day. The monster effects are dated and less of a monster film than a horror of our sick sad world. 

Critters-The video store back home had a big cardboard display movie promo thing of this in the back and holy shit was I scared of that section. Watched this with my children who laughed at the monsters which are beyond the wall goofy. 

The Cabin in the Woods- A rewatch albeit have not seen it since it came out. I am very glad this movie exists and how it homages and lampoon so many tropes. If you have never seen it then come in with no background,  please! 

Also, holy smokes, Anna Hutchinson is in this! In a lead role! She was Lily the Yellow Power Rangers in Jungle Fury! Did not realize that until now.

No One Will Save You- It's cottage core Signs. The heroine even wears a flowing frilled night gown as she runs from aliens in the misty moonlight. Sincerely enjoyed this film even with the tacked on B plot. No jump scares instead relying on a clear cut dread. Also it's about an hour and ten minutes before anyone says anything in this movie.  It's all grunts, moans and screams (phrasing. It's not that kind of movie) for most of this. Fire in the Sky vibes also which scares me endlessly as a youth.

Goosebumps (Hulu 2023 version) I adored the book series as a youth. Every time that Troll or Scholastic book order form came to our class I scanned to get the newest one. When the original show came on I was hyped. And the material never was solid, even by YA standards, but I you are reading this blog it is because I wrote my own Goosebumps fan fictions and knockoffs on sheets of loose leaf paper. 

Anyway, this series (A cheat, I know. Not a movie) is great. Its not ashamed of its source material (like the 2017 Power Rangers movie) but does bring it to modern TV sensibilities. Its an anthology with Elm Street vibes (The sins of earlier generations visit their children) and not too scary. Its also...wholesome but in United Colors of Beneton way instead of Family Circus kitsch. 

Note: I did not realize this was a series releasing episodes weekly. So I watched as many as I could be 10/31/23

Five Nights at Freddy's: Ok, so, I only know about this because its some sort of horror game popular with kids and a previous job I had involved being a digital admin for a K-8 school. We had this program that sat on the student's Chromebooks and let us see their viewing and browsing history. A lot of FNAF stuff. Lot of hentai and ASMR as well.

 Even my own children knew about it and we had to see it! I truly felt at my most old man watching something I had no clue about save "haunted Chuck E Cheese."

Anyway...this movie is bad. Maybe if I played the games but it can't stand on even hackneyed plot points. The animatronic puppets, which seem like they were done in practical effects, do look good. And Matthew Lillard is in it as a villain!

Skinamarink-This movie made me angry. I had the same feeling I felt after leaving Blair Witch Project and asking my friends Bernie and Germain (Bernie had a car and Germain was the friend who was part of another friend group tangentially connected by Bernie) if we had just been tricked. This movie would have been much better had it been 10 minutes. Instead its an hour of...nothing. It could be something but in theory I could do a standing triple back flip! And just because I can't does not make me somehow an auteur gymnast. I am glad they made this movie and it has its hype but not for me. 

Texas Chain Saw Massacre-Never seen the OG one and aside from the Leatherface mask and chainsaws don't know much. Ill be damned it does not lose a beat. It would have been wild to see this in the 70s. It had to have the feeling you were watching something truly beyond comprehension. I was most shocked by how content it was in its wanton weirdness. The dinner scene with just every bonkers prop on the table. Grandpa and how he is both the world's worst and somehow most terrifying vampire. 

*To no one who can listen.

The Lamest Time Travel

I'll sometimes find myself shocked to a freezing stop because I imagine "where was the last time I experienced this? or "what was my life like last time I was here?" I'm worried time will snap back and Ill go to the last time I had chocolate covered jalapenos (A snoozy double date at Huntington Beach in Bay Village, Ohio) and have to re-live my whole life from that moment. With all the knowledge of the past but the same resources, people, and places as the original time. Dare I reset the timeline and try to change it? Or just re-live the time spent between high and low moments? 

One time my oldest cat got out and spent most of the day circling the hours and lingering in the low sightlines of our ranch home. She eventually came to the front door and batted at the glass bottom panel of the half screen door. Our other cat, a chubby black tomcat, lost his mind. He puffed up and snarled and hissed, all in defiance of his usual loopy doopy manner. If our life was Peter and the Wolf, then he would be the kazoo. Maybe she spent so much time outside that she got another scent? The smell of another animal? To him, this was a whole new cat he was meeting for the first time all over. No clocks moved back or forth but that is my feeling. My fear.

Any self serving person would hate to go back to high school. I car less and overweight, even with the cumulative knowledge of 30 plus years, would still seek solace in books and cable TV. Let me read all the other things I didn't focus on. The hackneyed thing to say is that I would try to get with girls with another shot at it. But, honestly, I would try to stop the cringe inducing embracing things done and said to try and impress the 25 or so girls in my HS class. I'll never meet these people again. . I know that because the time gods sent me back when I thought of last time I made an Oedipus Rex reference (9th grade Spanish). Not worth it and risk embarrassing my self in a whole new way.

If I went back to college then I would take the two more classes to graduate with a minor in art history. And not sell my Magic cards in the funky LGS above the used bookstore for $200. Which was a killing back then but the memories are worth more now. 

In adult hood, I hope the time snap takes me back to meeting people for first time. "Oh, here are your copies. I think you left them on the machine." Those memories are Cinco de Mayo ones. The gaudy beaded stylized Mariachi hats the Mexican place makes you wear on your birthday.  I drove by a shuttered pizza place yesterday (which was previously a failed yoga studio) which was also a coffee shop we used to stop at when my son was very young and we pushed him around the neighborhood in his stroller. Those memories are fall leaves and black forest cake.

A lot of these are food related. Makes sense since it is so connected to our mind and our very need to seek nourishment. But they are also run of the mill. I'm in a thrift shop and see a mustard corduroy jacket and I think of last time I wore corduroy. It was in junior year of college when I was at my skinniest and I am helping my girlfriend mover into a summer sublet. A place with a submarine slice of a kitchen with a manual gas stove called Martha Washington. 

There is no power in this form of time travel. It would be random but controlled by the triggers of the everyday. 

The last time I laid down painter's tape--Painting my son's nursery an electric blue

The last time I struggled with an exterior dryer vent--a soggy house we rented for four years after we barely escaped the mortgage of our first (and only) home. The rental had a history of clever "non-code" solutions by the landlady's dead husband, including what had to be a whole addition done just with lots of pluck. 

Every time I zip up a windbreaker I think how that was my shtick in high school---to wear this grey and black and yellow (Batman colors!) wind breaker even though it was always 80 degrees and sunny. I should wear less windbreakers save I go back armed with just more archival knowledge and smattering of who wins the Super Bowl. 

Autumn Colors

Autumn has a lock on its brand. The changing leaves, pumpkin patches, sweater weather, and apple cider. This transcends all weather and biomes so that someone in San Diego looks for the same signs as someone in Erie, PA. 

I did not grow up with Autumn. To me, autumn memories began in late teens in college in upstate New York. That is quintessential fall-y place. The local used bookstore, anchoring a pedestrian shopping district, was even named Autumn Leaves. 

To me, a sign of fall is on highway roadsides. That is when the dips between road berm and private property line bloom with the goldenrod, New Englad Aster, milkweed, and Queen Anne's lace. Fall is gold, purple, green, brown, and white. 

Goldenrod is the main character. It's dozen of varieties, differentiated by nuances like number of leaves or how flowers are arranged, dominate the landscape below the changing trees. Their paintbrush flowers sway back and forth as the cars swoosh past. 

The brightest is New England aster. It's neon hum purple feels out of place. Sometimes tiny white fleabanes pop out from under looking like first drafts of daisy flowers.

Milkweed either looks unassuming or just loud. When loud it can be gross. Are the leaves covered in the frass scat of Monarch caterpillars? Milky sap from leaf joints pouring out? Are the pods about to burst or have them spent themselves throwing thousands of prayers into the wind? They are brown and pale green looking ready for the long sleep.

I like when the Queen Anne's lace balls back up into a fist. The flowers dry up and curl unto themselves to wave menacingly at the creeping chill.

Phrases I've Taught My Friends

Never pulled off any great cons but I got a whole group of people, spanning family and coworkers (present and past), to call sparkling waters "fizzy waters." And just through natural charisma! 

Or pity. Or boredom. 

My children drink fizzy water at same clip I do. Our house files with rhe slithering hiss of them popping a can right before bed. We will sit in our wood paneled basement with the built in bar and hi fi stereo (Long defunct, set by a guy named Bud, the former owner) and full the air with opening cans. Save it's not shitty dad beer but generic fizzy water. 

Never seen a pineapple fizzy water. That would make my son happy. For fall I once got a set of pumpkin spice fizzy waters. Those really crystallized all the hate fizzy water get save when you "scream peach through a desk fan in other room" you still can maybe get some taste of peach. The PS H20 had all the flavor of snorting pumpkin pie spice without any sweetness. My mom used to put pieces of pumpkin like bay leaves in her beans. Only the green Puerto Rican pumpkin mind you. The quintessential orange pumpkin did not exist there even imported. 

There was also Puerto Rican lettuce, a frilly leafy kind grown hydroponically on the island. That one company had the lock on the market and it became the island lettuce, romaine or a head of Foxy always imported. Puerto Rican lettuce, the old ladies said, would make you drowsy.

I've also fooled people into Mami stories. These are tales of my mother solving problems and being an absolute bonkers person doing so. 

"Do you have any more Mami stories?!" I would get from women too beautiful to be talking to me. Men too interesting to be seem with me. 

One Mami story is more of a repeating moment, sort of a family meme that repeats itself over and over. Sometimes Mami would have the pressure cooker and be frying something on the stove at the same time! She would have a pot of rise going in background also beacuse why not?

To my mother (And to me. All ghoulish jokes aside I will never own one due to the fear. And it being 2023. Mostly fear, however) pressure cookers were death dealers. The Nazgul from Lord of the Rings? A pressure cooker for sure had to be one of those dark riders. 

She would seal the lid and then let it cook while the spindle on top hissed and wheeled. 

"Don't get close!" She would say if you got in even a four foot sight line of it. It tasted fear and sensed movement, a terrifying pastiche of several villians. 

Only scarier thing than a pressure cooker was frying something. Which my mother did quite often. Porkchops (chuletas) or bistec empanado  (breaded fried steak) or tostones, arañitas, or sorrullitos (fried plantains and or corn meal) or, rarely, almohabanas (rice meal cheese buns made with cake flour)....always something frying. 

"Get out!" She would scream as she flung thawed meat and plantains into the amber oil. My mother resued oil until it was the color of Tang. And then it would pop and gurgle and belch grease. "Watch out" she would yell even if I was two rooms away.

But sometimes she would have both going. She would make this culinary version of Scylla and Charybdis and dare us to thread the needle if we wanted a glass of water or get to the backyard. 

"Be careful!" She would then take a sharp suckimg breath like the gasp of air after seeing someone take a stumble "No, don't get close! Go away!" Talk to my mother and you would be safer in the core of Three Mile Island. Stuck 10 feet below the summit of Everest. Anywhere but in that kitchen.

Stickers

When I worked at a school, teachers loved handing put stickers. This doesn't seem too odd to us aging Millenials and Gen Xers. We literally sometimes got gold stars on graded homework. Or, if lucky, a scratch and sniff one with a cartoon marshmallow next to a campfire that says "Hot Stuff" It always smelled chemical like synthetic wave sweetness. 

But these were decent stickers. The vinyl kind that you could slap on the side of a water bottle. 

These came in random huge lots from Amazon. "Can I get these?"they would send me in an email and I never said no*.

But they, upon arrival, would need to ve checked. Like Halloween candy. They often came with random and very not K8 friendly things. These seemed designed by a graphic design AI that watched Porky's five times in a row.

A real wild one was a vintage roller skate with looping text on the side that said "Girls in bikinis on roller skates" 

One was a plate of spaghetti that said "Send noods" in saucy red font like a splatter of marinara.

"Nice melons!" next to an other wise cartoon vinyl still life of a watermelon, honeydew and cantaloupe.

If not thirsty then they could be oddly deflating

"It's ok!" said one that my daughter got. Each letter alternating autumnal colors. 

"It's ok" is what you say when the kitchen messes up your order. Or when you have nothing left to say to console someone. Your wife says that to you after an argument. "There there" must have been too many letters.

"It will get better" said another in neat pink letters hemmed by a chasing comet. 

Why would you want a sticker of that? It has to be ironic like the sign that reads "Another day in paradise" over the nurse's station. Note that "Another day in paradise" is also in the manic sticker bag and yes it has palm trees.

Manic sticker bags also dance right past copyright into "fuck it. It will cost them more to sue us" territory. They are nice unofficial versions of EVERY pokemon. Even lame ones like Feebas. Steve and Alex from Minecraft in every pose with every item and weapon. Axolotls in pink, blue and gold. The Fortnite piñata. Kirby and Kinge DeeDee with carnival hammers. 

Finally there are just the straight up vice ones. All centered on alcohol. Here the stickers are similar looking, but legally still ambiguous enough, to their name brand counterparts. That is as sticker of a bottle of Fireball whiskey. As obvious as they are in the tub at the gas station. Doesn't say Fireball but those swirls kind of look like that cartoon devil. There is also a sticker of a bottle of wine and once the Assistant Principal pulled out a "Yes way Chardonnay" sticker from a bundle.

These manic bags have loose quality control and just goblin mode.

*Some would say I was too nice. Some said I was a sucker for anyone even tangentially cute. What I will say is it was an easy win for an otherwise hard job they had to do. Stickers? Yeah no problem.

The post is full of spiders

There are spiders so large in the space between the shower and the interior wall that they make shuffling sounds. Sounds like a deck of cards being manhandled. When your family really gets into Uno for one weekend or one long power outage and it's that bite of cardboard on cardboard. That is the noise the spiders make.

They peer into my shower and notice everything with their eight eyes. The Sudsy Bear soap that smells like Florida Citrus Grove. And the matching Herbal Essence Rosemry shampoo and conditioner. 

I'll share a secret. I don't use the shampoo. I just use the Suday Bear. The bottles are there in case a lady friend spends the night. Also have one set of fresh towels to never be used in case of that. The bottle of generic 9 in 1 body wash is for bachelor's of the plebian variety.

Another secret? Don't have many lady friends visiting. Just big noisy spiders.

I told my landlord about the spiders. He lives above me in my Lakewood duplex on Hickory Avenue. "They are so big that they need shoes!" 

He dismisses me. "No way. It will be winter soon and they will all die" 

I'm setting the news alert on my phone right now. The terms are "ohio," "spiders," "death" I'll hear one day how big spider kills Doug the landlord. Just strangled him with the hairy wiry legs that each must be size of a pool noodle. The spider won't move into the apartment. It will hard shuffle back into the walls.

I sleep at night under mosquito netting. It'd an interior canopy of gossamer meant to discourage the spiders. I imagine them dropping down from celliling like a Muppet from sixth circle of Hell and push through the fabric. Not enough to break it but enough to push the balled cloth and its wiry brittle knuckle down my throat. I stop snoring and gag to try and throw it off. Stab at it with the Bic pen for my dream journal. When I get up I'm coveted in yellow green ick and the spider curls inward in its dying throws. Got one. I hear shuffling. I swear it sings "Hello my fucking rag time guy" and now there are more.

Hatchet Coming

 Getting up each morning now involves a minimum of three wheezes and an audible groan along with the clickety-clack of some knee. A random ankle. Left or right? It varies. As I end up on the wrong side of middle aged I am still alternating between personalities. My friends have locked into personalities.

The bourbon guy with endless $80-dollar bottles of brown that he will never drink.

The technologista guy talking about crypto and AI.

The vintage gal able to find lovely dresses and kitchenware from the leftovers of the Rust Belt.

The motorcycle guy.

The positive affirmation lady. I cause good things and good things will come to me.

The collector. You pick what but just waiting for the market to turn on XYZ thing. 

I don't have a locked in personality save the anxious guy. The fussy guy. My wife tells me "You seem to only operate when you can worry."

I dabble in all of the above. Maybe not affirmation but I try to get that "heart" reaction on chats with friends and colleagues and always searching for that high. 

Recently, I found myself sharpening my hatchet. Which, considering I own a hatchet and varying small knives rated from everyday to kick ass, along with a sharpening block, that maybe I am a knife guy. A blade master. That sounds bad ass. But, I suck at sharpening. Another fine motor skill lost on my stubby hands. I am able to get big burrs out and I guess they are sharper but I want the immediate bite against my thumb as I feel* the blade and have them slice through the newspaper all the knife gurus have laying about their workspaces.

My hatchet lives in the trunk of my car. Which contains many items I consider "emergency needs" but could also quickly pivot into "enterprising serial killer"***.

There is the hatchet. 

Then the wrecking bar. Not a crow bar as its not hook but a solid shaft of iron painted deep October goldenrod yellow. It has a bladed wedge tip on one end and then a slight curve at the other end. 

Then two sets of jumper cables. A portable tire pump that runs off the car's cigarette lighter** and two pairs of work gloves. There is a roll of paper towels and armor all wipes. A roll of duct tape. A bag of N95 masks and sand paper squares A 50 foot extension cord and then the tool box. In the tool box got the usual stuff plus a headlamp I stole of a low voltage electrician, wire strippers, Sharpies, extra strength sticky squares, electrical tape, utility knives, voltage testers, random screws and a can of WD40. 

In my previous line of work I bounced between sites and it was nice to have tools at the ready. I did find use of all of these in a K-12 EDU setting even the hatchet which the trio of fifth grade boys deemed "awesome." 

To, I guess, my credit, all these items have helped at some point. I did once help jump someone's car in a random lot out on Green Road on east side of Cleveland suburbs. The wrecking bar helped with moving furniture and prepping for bulk pick up day. That is my tool box now. Our normal one buried under boxes yet unpacked from our last move. Its a handy little space in the back of the Honda Civic.

Maybe  I am the problem solver guy. Always worried.

*I wanted a stronger verb here but everything I came up was too suggestive even in context. Caress? Finger? Stroke? 

**I can't call it anything but that even knowing it is not the power port.

***Listing it all out for the post it really is suspicious. I am one pair of women's underwear and pair of heavy rubber gloves from being rolling probable cause. 

A Job

 I don't dream of labor. The ideal job would be writer. But, that ship sailed. I look at the news and realize I am supremely fortunate to have landed where I am professionally. Its ok. Some say good. And it could for sure be worse.

I do want the physicality of moving around. The warehouse job where you actually did something. But, then a chance to just take a break. Stacking pallets? Loading carts up with derelict and leaky UPS batteries? That is a young man's game. I was just helping for a sec. But, I got some important emails to write. 

I don't want to rely on others and chase people down to help. "When will you make it to this client? They called and were upset." "Sorry to chase via email but I need you to sign this agreement!" I don't get hit with the "not my job" very much anymore* but no one has enough time or energy to put out all the fires. Meanwhile I need to stay in my cube.

How nice it is to be emotionally separated from work. It is 5pm and the day is over! Check emails after hours? Who do I look like, the President. But, what do I do know? My therapist will say I was "addicted to chaos" and I pay her to be right. 

These are co-workers. That you like. But, not brothers and sisters like the warehouse job. Not people you are emotionally invested in. That sucks that Deb in Finance is made at me but it is what it is. At the other places? When I was younger? I would be devastated.

I am glad to not give it all my emotions. My love, my anger, and all of my sorrow** But, I want to. Open up and be raw and exposed. To then lash out when it just guts you and leaves you driving back home in silence. No music or nothing. 

*Have worked with custodians who don't clean. Truck drivers who do not back up their trucks. Volunteers who asked to be paid. And school nurses who refuse to take temperatures. 

** G Gundam reference for those in the know. 

Cringe

Today, I spoke for a solid minute into the headset mic asking a question during a group call to then find, I was on mute. And, no one said anything. No friendly "Oh hey, you are on mute. Can you say that again?" Everyone ignored that purple ring around my sullen avatar. 

It made me think of grating horrible and awkward moments. The ones that make you get up at 2:45am and wonder "How did I say that!? How did I survive?" The ones seared into your mind.

Here is one. A true story. My sister is much older than I. By, about a decade. By the time she was out of college and beginning her adult life I was in early high school. One time, she brought down a boyfriend to visit the family on the old island of Puerto Rico. The guy (Real nice guy. Ended up marrying him) wanted to learn Spanish and write down phrases to practice. He asked to go to a drug store and get a notebook. I overheard this and said "Oh, I have one you can use." I ran to my desk and found a tiny spiral bound notebook and scanned the pages. They were all clear. Which, was good as I had one notebook where I would write the most purple prose. Star Wars fan fiction (The Adventures of Kryat Squadron) and then narratives to myself of pretty girls in high school and how they would, of course, adore me. I once noted how Marilyn M wore her volleyball uniform all day (That was allowed if you were on a team) and how that was awesome. How Rachel H dressed up as Supergirl for Halloween and the wind hit her skirt just right sometimes to get a peek at her underwear. Did I tell you this is cringe?

But, this notebook? No, it was clean. I double checked it and gave it to to the guy. As I walked back to my room I heard him say "Is this a love poem?" and then I ran and locked myself in the space. I turned on the window AC and made it blast along with the stereo so that I could pretend to ignore any rings. "Let me see," was last thing I heard my sister say as I ran way to bury myself. Hours later they went to dinner and I snuck into his room* and scanned the notebook and...fuck...there was a poem there. About Irma A and how she was formed from all the elements into this goddess and it had to be dealt with ASAP. I ripped the page to pieces and flushed it in separate waves down the toilet. They never brought it up. Maybe they forgot? Or maybe they were too kind but this is the only record. To be read by the few eyes that see this.

Here is another cringe one. It also involves my sister save we are much younger and in the countryside of the hilly interior of Puerto Rico. I don't remember the town but the scene is something out of Sound of Music save everything is tropical. But yeah the rolling hills and open gullies set by wood framed country homes. We are there because a neighbor of ours (Who was Basque. What an Inception of the historical losers. A Basque guy living in Puerto Rico!) would take us to this big Basque party up there and we just went because it was one of those things your parents dragged you to. My childhood is lots of parties sitting on chairs or in corners trying to find a tv to watch. My sister was there playing with other young girls. She was always more outgoing and she and three other girls (I assume somehow Basque? There could have been maybe one Basque guy and he just had the gift of too many friends) playing Monopoly.

"Can I play?" I asked. They said sure. And I rolled some number and landed on the rail road. "What does that mean?"

"Oh you get on a train and have to leave the game. Thanks for playing" They all said.

And I believed it! Fuck! I just walked away to walk around the grounds and wait until Mami said it was time to go home.

This blog could be cringe but I think it can be too sincere sometimes for it to be too awful.

*My mother being Mami made sure to keep the adults in separate beds as they were not married. But only because "What would his parents think?" And, I don't know. They were not there. 

Lost messages

Scrap of paper fluttering between the carts of the Kroger on Nagelwood Road

"Bird seed

Prime Energy drink

Salami for the cat

Kale

Apples

Vegetarian oyster sauce

Ibuprofen

Baby carrots

Duck eggs

Heavy cream

Pale ale

Snickerdoodle Poptarts"

Found in the first drawer of a desk at the abadoned TRW facility in eastern Cleveland, OH.

"One thing I never said is I love you. I realize you likely knew that and I can imagine you rolling your eyes when reading this. If, for some reason, you didn't then there it is. Ill miss working with you and this place."

From a performance review, leaked when a junior project manager left their tablet on the bus

"I adore May. If she were to ask me to jump then I would ask "How high?" With my whole heart. But, whole heart, means a whole view as well. And yeah, she can be a "mean girl" to those she doesn't like working with. It really does feel like high school sometimes over in Project Services."

From a pooly written IEP in the Lakewood school district 

"Devon shows am ability to read good words and phrases when supported. Needs to build reading stamina without aide aid"

Graffiti scrawled over the rightmost urinal of the Parallax Bar's men's restroom.

"There are no secrets this year"

From the Stardew Valley reddit

"I'm afraid to marry one of the bachelor's. I play on a shared tv and my parents would wonder why I'm courting Alex (I just love his himbo self). Is there a way to hide the heart indicators when you give gifts. Playing on Switch if that helps.

Little Rhythms

If there is a globe then I must spin it. To just see if it works. 

There. It works! 

Let's play that game where we spin the globe and then you jab your finger at it. Wherever you land, that is your next vacation!

Splash! 

It's always the ocean. The big extra empty part they put the legend on. 

If there are tongs then I must clickity clickity click them. Make sure they work!

The door frame above room 305? It's slightly higher than all thr others. This used to be a drama classroom with a sunken stage. The "Glorietta" as they called it twenty something years ago. But it's gone save for the oddly hidden dips and bends of the floorboards. The door frame is higher and swear every freshman boy has to slap the thing on the way in. Cut it out, Jose! And Parker and Devon. Stop it. You will ruin the paint.

Speaking of kids...they drew hopscotch on the sidewalk. If I'm walking and they have drawn a hopscotch course then I must do it. My ankles! The ears of everyone in the whole damn neighborhood after they hear me scream "Oh my body!"

If we are ending service for the night and the manager tells me to clear out the bus trays...I'll kiss every roll of bread before tossing it. That is the body of Christ.

Fan Service

Content warning: This post is extremely and awkwardly "gushy." If you have read this blog then you know I have a penchant to day dream and imagine everything in a cinematic way. I would not have put this key to paper but the image has stuck in my head for weeks and no one reads these posts. And, noting that, the content warning seems moot, but, still wish to be considerate. The whole post has a fan zine solo hype post vibe. Which is rather appropriate what with the origins of this blog.

That all said...

I want my heroine to save the day. To flip over cubicles with grace and strength and hold the people stopping me from meeting my KPIs at the end of a fist. I previously worked at a school and she would settle the angry parents and the people who would not file sub plans. She fixes everything changing via a magical transformation. This all happens set to my action music of previous posts. Big synth scores to set a sword fight.

In the transformation  I am the camera and spin slowly around as spindly arcs of light crackle around her. Starting from the top, she will cock her head to the side and close her eyes and streaks of neon pink and electric blue ribbon through her hair. The clothes on her flash away to be instantly replaced by the costume. The onyx gleam of a black leotard lined with the same pink. Her arms glow with same pink and blue glyphs until they end at her fingers and form into twin swords. They are short and broad machete like. All black with neon glow along the edges like something from Tron. She crosses them and presses to her chest. My eyes, the whole scene, keeps moving around and from her hip  the same glyphs run down her legs. From those patterns her boots form, wrapping from her ankles into neat slips. We then start spinning back up across the back of her legs and back until we end at her eye level. She pulls the swords down to her side. With blades akimbo she opens her eyes and inside it is blue comet fire and whole hearted resolve. The whole scene radiates warmth and power like seeing a cosmic moment. A ship on fire across Saturn's rings. A stone rolling down Olympus Mons. The arclights of my heroine ready to save the day. To slay, as the kids at said school used to say. 

Favorite Video Games #1

 Dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig.

I can tell you the first time I ever played Dig Dug. It was the early 90s and I found myself at an urban amusement/theme park called Felicilandia. Note that Felicilandia sucked. Large and ungainly it was a county fair made permanent by the tropical latitudes. The sort of rides they truck in to the fairgrounds every summer? Those were held down by cinder blocks at this park. It had an open air arcade with rows of cabinets, their backs to each other, under a high zinc roof. There I first played Dig Dug. I don't remember anything happening or "clicking" in that moment but it is the only game I can remember exactly where I was when first playing it.

DigDug is a maze game, like PacMan*, except you make the maze as you dig through the brightly colored strata. There is a satisfaction in clearing away the level albeit that is challenging as the game eventually sends the enemies into a frenzy and speeds them up.

How you defeat your enemies? Will you poke them and then you blow them!** But, seriously you pump them up with air until they pop.

A great feeling in Dig Dug is finessing killing two enemies on both sides of you by flippings the joy stick left and right pumping one enemy and then flipping to the other before the first deflates. You are able to shuffle them back and forth until you are out of a jam.

You can always go deeper in Dig Dug save that not much changes save the color of the digital dirt. Your level is signified by a flower on top Roman numeral style. Each little tulip is one level and then big spindly one is ten. 

Dig Dug is the only game I can see I am somewhat good at. And good in the way of netting high scores. Not anything to specifically brag about. The world record is in the millions but I can get to 75,000 which is enough to hold it down on the arcade side. This is the oldest game on the list (1981) and it is one where you can memorize patterns and "get gud." The first few levels are all muscle memory save when you want to have fun and mess around. Clear all the spaces and try to crush four monsters at once with a rock. 

It is GREAT to crush enemies with a rock. You can kill them by pumping them. When there is only one enemy left, the last one freaks out and runs away meaning you can always leave one survivor. Crushing with a rock? Now that is classy. It is using a semi colon appropriately. It is satisfying like pulling a long seam of painter's tape off the baseboard. Two enemies at once with a rock! Just lovely. Three? Its Babe Ruth calling a home run blast. Four at once?! Pure power!

Dig Dug reminds me of The Happy Dog bar in Cleveland and playing for hours with out of town friends on the square table stop cabient. Your look down into the game and can set your drink on the glass! Later that night...we had an early Halloween party and told everyone we were expecting our first child. 

There is a Dig Dug port on the arcade game at work. One (the best) of the 5000 games on it. I swear no one plays the thing save for me (Dig Dug) and someone deep down the hall who plays Tetris. More digging for me. 

*Made/owned by same company and the DigDug characters are canon in the PacMan lore. Whether the lore is in the original games I doubt (Ms. PacMan had cut scenes) but the later games had something.

** I know that is not the exact quote but too good to turn it down

Favorite Video Games #2

 My daughter's first day of kindergarten began in her room on a Chromebook that I had, years ago, bought and provisioned for children that were now likely second graders. This was right in middle of the Covid-19 pandemic and remote learning. And her teacher was holding the morning meeting Zoom call letting everyone know the rules even though we were all, using the parlance at the time, asymmetrical. I recall her teacher, who, at the time was also a coworker, being everything on the screen, highlighting her freckles and curls "We are going to teach each other. I know a lot about letters and numbers and animals. I don't know a lot about Roblox or Fortnite or Minecraft, but I bet you do"

Minecraft. Yes, my kids knew a lot about it. Minecraft is likely the game I have played the most in my entire life. Xbox did this thing where during its 20th anniversary it sent reports of hours played and Minecraft came in at close to 800. And in vanilla* Minecraft. Note, my children shared my account, but yeah its a lot. I spent many early morning evenings during the work from home period just going endless in Minecraft.

This is a favorite video game because it is game I played with both of my children who have dressed as Steve, the "hero" of the game, and then an axolotl. Which is not from Minecraft originally but my kids know what it is because of the game. 

Minecraft is the biggest video game of all time. It is likely the most successful (over 100 million copies sold. We own five different versions of it on multiple platforms) albeit there is debate that Tetris beats it. It is so big Microsoft bought it from the original developers and now its licensure is integrated into bundles of licensing for Windows, Word, etc.

Trying to talk about it is akin to trying to talk about an entire country. A good writer would struggle and this is just a blog I write to be read by a lonely bot on the shores of Lake Baikal, Siberia, Russia. So I will talk about things that impressed me about the game and why I played it so much.

Minecraft is a sandbox game. Everything is block and the world is made of distinct biomes, inspired by real world and fantasy locations, that are randomly generated when the game save launches. The game has a decentralized lore where the word is live in (There are monsters** and people but you are the only person that has any impact on the world). There is no reason for you, the player, to be here.

And when you begin a new world (Seed in the game's nomenclature) you are just dropped into it and that its. There are no tutorials or in game prompts. Just go. Build or survive. I always played survival which is the more arcade style element where you have health and hunger and enemies can damage you. The other is creative where every block (feature) is available and you can fly/float in every direction and you can make anything. But, fuck, I did not know that and I sucked when I began. I am not ashamed that I, as a "noob", did not know how to make a bed and spent the first in game week (about 40 minutes in real time) awake, never saving, and being attacked by the mysterious Phantom monster. That only comes out when you don't sleep. 

My children, at the time 5 and 7, had to tell me, having learned the lore and mechanics from YouTube. How do you make redstone work? How do you get to the end? How do I tame a wolf? How do you make glass? TINTED GLASS!? These are all things they taught me like I helped teach them brush their teeth and make toast.

Once briefed by my in house advisors the world was mine. My favorite thing was just to walk/sail for hours (literally) and, as I move, setup small base camps and cairns (lit with torches). I would find a unique spot where the landscape seemed unique and make an ersatz castle from the materials there. Then, after that, would hike back to my original starting point and my original home. Then, I would repeat this, going in another direction. Eventually I would stumble on old camps and bases and recall a specific time or memory. Here is the home I made by the swamp where I first saw a Witch. Here is the mine where I first found some diamonds. I named it Big Hole Country. There are spots by rarer biomes (Mushroom forests and Jungles) and a spot where I dug an underground and underwater tunnel uniting two islands across a digital bay. 

I never achieved the holy grails of Minecraft (beating the Ender Dragon) and never found a Woodland Mansion but that world is still there. 

*Unmodified. Most games, especially BIG games, have modding communities that let you tinker with the code to make things look a certain way, sound a certain way or get really out there. Way beyond me. 

**The iconic Minecraft monster, the Creeper, needs to be up there with Goombas and the PacMan ghosts as iconic video game villains. Their wonky yet menacing blocky look and their tendency to just sneak up to you and then EXPLODE really makes you feel worry from the curls of your toes. You are digging underground and constantly turning around to make sure that soft whisper isn't behind you.

Favorite Video Games # 3

 You ever see that meme where someone is holding a sign that says "Your music saved me!" and then the next panel it is something like "Never Going To Give You Up" or "Cotton Eye Joe"?

Stardew Valley, number 3 on the list, has that same vibe save that it is sincere with no hints of irony.

Stardew is a farming simulator where you build up an abandoned farm from nothing but packs of turnip seeds and rusty gardening tools.

Stardrew is a slice of life simulator where you live in a small port town and meet, and possibly romance, close to 20 distinct non playable characters (NPCs).

Stardew is retro pixelated top down combat simulator where trying to get to the bottom of Skull Cavern is as hard as any better known dungeon crawler. 

Stardew has a fishing mini game (a tricky one but once mastered you never want to stop) which is a lock for making me love any game*

Stardew also have a classic video game vilian, a time limit, with each 24 hour day (about 15 minutes of in game time) being your chance to water crops, feed animals, buy seeds/supplies, harvest your artisanal products (You can make wine, beer, cheese, etc.), chat with your NPCs, fish, chop wood, mine, and then go sell your items. And there is a wizard and cat that sells hat. Oh, and doing all this helps you save a run down community center beating out a global conglomerate (Joja Mart) and their threat to small town life!**

And, while I didn't need saving,*** this game is loaded with a vibing and wholesome community of people who say how it cured their depression. How it made them good cry.**** How it winds them down after a long day. It cures their anxiety. It makes them feel accomplished. They bonded with their spouse over a shared game. 

The game was also made primarily by a single guy, Concerned Ape, who is sort of tech bro we THOUGHT we were going to get when unboxing our first PCs.

You hear all this and the game is not overwhelming. You can play at your own pace and if you don't want to mine (and fight goofy cartoon monsters) then you don't. You don't want to fish? No problem. Sure, you don't get to see every cut scene and check every box but that is ok. And, if you are completionist, then this is the game for you. And a diverse set of things to track down, make and find. Not just more of the same in a huge map. When I found the enigmatic Prismatic Shard I screamed "OMG A Prismatic Shard, yes!" and my wife laughed from the neighboring room. "What a nerd!" This game can be many things and it can also provide satisfaction to us elder millennials who dream of maybe owning a home in a walkable community and saving the world with our sustainable agriculture. Get friendly enough with Shane, the surly town drunk NPC, and you save him for suicide in probably the darkest scenes in the game. SDV firmly makes you the hero of your own story.  

With so many options you can sink hundreds of hours into the game and then start a new save and have a distinct experience, particularly with the dating/marrying option. I don't have the heart to start a new save so it is just me and the local sculptor, Leah, and our kids on Ironhoe Farm. 

*Does your video game have a fishing mini game? Then you automatic get 8 out of 10. Does it have women holding swords? 9 out of 10. Women have neon pink/blue, etc hair? Fuck! 10 out of 10. Must buy!

**UNLESS you got the Joja route and buy a membership and instead just repair the community center with money. Doing this nets same in game effects save the forest spirits (Yeah they help fix the community center when you offer them crops) have to exile themselves. This is the bad choice and controversial among fandom. 

***At least, not that I know of. If any game will save me it will have a fishing mini game in it. 

****In the early part of the game you are given a choice to adopt a dog or cat and name it. It is common for people to name them after childhood pets often long deceased. And eventually, if you pet and feed the animal every day, the game will prompt you with a text that says your pet loves you. And its sweet and cut like a knife.