Picaresque

I described my son the other day as picaresque as he has entered a a mischief making phase coupled with the usual mercurial up and down of his rage. Why am I driving 90 mphs each morning? Its not because I am late but because the sooner I can drop both kids off the sooner they are separated and the sooner they stop fighting. Its knives out every commute.

And when I said that the person listening said "What does that mean?"

"Picaresque? Like a roguish scamp that dodges in and out of trouble."

"And that means?"

"Pain in the ass, essentially. But still lovable! Don't get me wrong"

I know the word picaresque from the Spanish version picaresca/o. And I know this because in 9th grade Spanish we read El Lazarillo de Tormes which is considered the first of the genre. That is all I remember and that it was written anonymoulsy and like any Spanish* (The country not the language) book it was hated by the church and was satire but I never found this funny. At least Don Quixote and Sancho got into bar fights.

Huck Finn is kind of picaresque. The crew from Always Sunny is picaresque albeit usually these are younger characters. In describing my son I employ more the roguish qualities than the low social class or, you know, exposing the flaws of the supposedly civilized society (My kids be pretty basic. Save for the fighting. God stop fighting!).

I remember the word picaresque because of my 9th grade Spanish teachers, Mrs. Ceida Fernandez. Who then taught me in 12th grade Spanish AP lit. She was Cuban but vehemently left leaning and very pro-PR, which was a statement in my school that heavily catered to families who wanted to have their kids learnt to speak English well and/or catered to expats. "You guys, in your whole careers, here at Baldwin take 4 instances of US history and only one of Puerto Rican history. What do you think of that?"

Not sure but I know that Ticonderoga is a real kick ass name for a fort.**

Mrs. Fernandez seemed kind of odd because for a Cuban expat living in PR she was pretty anti-American. Or, I should say, anti-imperialist to use woke language. Which is funny because most Cubans living in PR were very pro-American and rather conservative. Its like the Cubans in Miami and part of why Florida is such a wacky electoral state.

This paints her as pretty negative. She was a great teacher and was always a straight shooter with all the kids. She was our 12th grade senior class adviser and my school had a Mormon kid named Jeb who spoke zero Spanish and she was cool with him speaking in her mildly accented English. Just this was kind of quirky but its an inside joke of a "you had to be there." Otherwise known as bad writing.



*Brief segue that how I learned Spanish is how you likely learned English especially in middle/high school. IE a lot of literature. And I loathed anything continental but enjoyed pretty much any Latin American and/or PR writer we read. This is because of not just where I grew up but also the school I attended. I am hyper aware of this privilege and consider it likely one of the greatest things I ever enjoyed. School is cool guys!

**And a pencil. Which teachers at my school insists is the best but I still buy them the generic kind. Its a pencil, everybody. To which they counter, "Yeah but THIS (holding up the Ticonderoga) IS a pencil!"

Experiment: Some phony non-fiction

He had developed a habit of sleeping on the  couch. This was before the first trial. Some biographers believed there may have been a case of undiagnosed sleep apnea, but there never was an official review or suspicion. "He didnt mind it all," said Parker, Nelson's first son through his second wife. "He felt like a rogue." It showed he could remain unbothered even by something as quotidian as sleep.
"The couch would swallow you alive," continued Parkee. "Sit on it and you would never comeback."

Gerardo never left notes on this habit but other interviews claimed he loved it.  "I think he felt that he was on some journey" said his daughter, Philomena, also from the second marriage, citing her father's penchant to narrate everything. "So he was always bumming on someone's couch. My dad would would eat dry toast on the floor under the table sometimes and tell us he was eating his rations after being shot down over France. He would be ready to go after this bit of energy, crawling over trenches, back to camp. So, it was just another story to act."

An anonymous co-worker told me that she asked Nelson once if/how their parents ever had sex. "Houseguests sleep on couches, not spouses," she told me in our chat. When I asked the children they both answered similarly. "Never thought about it. They are my parents, you know?"said Parker.

After Work

What is the best feeling in the world after work?

It needs to be something quick and satisfying. Likely carnal.

Using a bathroom that is your own.

Drag on a cigarette.

Taking off your bra. (Or so I've heard. Ok...read on Twitter jokes and E card memes)

For me, right now, it is eating a piece of bread. Two pieces to get real. I get home and put two pieces of rye bread in the toaster (24 grams of carbs total!) and then eat them dry with a diet Coke. Then, if I ate no bread during the day, I roll forward some of carbs (30 grams per meal!) and eat another with a pad of butter.
These are not gourmet slices. But to me they are the level of the brown bread at Cheesecake Factory which is my favorite kind of mass market bread.

I then take my metformin pill with this quick meal. One of those esophagus busting pills. The biochemistry is lost on me but I then feel the opposite of my bread reverie. I want to throw up and I feel a distinct pain in ankle. It's going to snap! Its because you ate bread! Where is the couch and something to clutch?

Clutcher

In the last year, I have developed an awful habit of sleeping from 9:30pm to 3am. This obtuse schedule aligns with nothing.

No evening news. No reading before bed. No tinkering with hobbies. Its pass out at a time when most people are looking forward to doing something, anything, that is not a responsibility.

And the early morning? Not even the fucking birds are up!

I don't wake up from these rested, mind you. Instead I wake up anxious and often sweaty and stiff. I have a penchant for passing out not in a bed or even a sofa (which would offer some dignity) but instead a small love seat in my living room. My head rests on the skinny part of the cushion just past the arm. My legs jut out over the other arm rest. Then I have my cat who sleeps above on the top of the love seat nestled between the cushions and wall.  And I don't have blankets but instead several pillows that I clutch.

I'm a clutcher when I sleep. I need to hold onto a pillow or wadded up blanket. Its my partner in this journey and when I wake up I look at it all groggily, "Where did this come from?" Its part of my nest which is much more appropriate to describe when I sleep. Pass out and then nest.

Being up at 3am, and feeling a tingle in your fingers despair in your heart sort of anxiety, I sometimes work. I knock out some emails and shuffle the papers I drag from the office. This makes me feel better and sometimes a coworker says "Wow you were up early. Email at 3:45am!" This small degree of attention makes my day ("You read my email?! Best friends?!) which counters any drowsiness. This also makes me make stupid mistakes which on my lower days I blame on others but mostly sends me into panics to make it right. "Don't worry. I got it! How can I make it up to you! Oh, I know! Let me wash all your dirty dishes after you eat lunch!"

This is hobby time. This is when I sleeve and unsleeve Magic cards. Clean my fish tanks. Or I keep plunking away at my world in Minecraft. I keep making little structures in the world and poking from island to island on it.

"Someone will see this and know that someone else came through! I will leave this chest with some iron ingots and sticks. A furnace and a crafting table. That way if they come through they will be set. Like a cache when sailors used to search for the Northwest Passage!"

I then stop when I see it is 5:30am or when that ennui hits that because its just me in this little world that no one will see this save for the stories I make up in my head. What I utter aloud in the basement clutching the Xbox controller.

Or I read, which used to keep me up, but now lulls me back into what is actually sleep. In that case I clutch the book.

Its a time for vices left alone with my reptilian thoughts.

Here is a good comeback to what that prick Velez said to me in 12th Grade AP Spanish. I am going to snoop at him on Facebook and think about it!

This would make a great story! Write it down, now before you pass out again!

We got that new shipment of laptops and I need to inventory them and I know Peyton with a E is going to ask why she doesn't get a new one and here is what I am going to say. No...wait, what about this.

I can't be mad at Peyton with a E. She looked really good yesterday.

Like all my posts this had a point (albeit imagined) when I began but now I want my early morning nap.

The Second 9/11 Post

Blogger has this function where it tells you how many people have viewed a post. I am lucky to crack into the double digits but a year ago I made a "9/11 Post" and it has so far gotten 109 views! I wonder how people came across it? That is a lot of porn bots! I don't know what else to say but because the day merits it and because it seemed to draw some attention here is another 9/11 post.

I have a tie for favorite non-fiction books albeit if I want to read a fun non-fiction book it will be Shea Serrano (Illustrated by Arturo Torres) Basketball and Other Things. But the tie is between two books that explore the same history albeit their focus differs.

One is Charlie Wilson's War by George Crile which was the first audio book I made a point to purchase (as opposed to schlep back and forth from the library) and felt quite sad when I upgraded my car ("You got a new whip" as one co-worker told me. Note that harboring a tiny work crush on her I had no heart to say "what is a whip?" But I put it together.) and it had no CD player. I know, first world problem but Blackstone Audio version read by Christopher Lane is poetry. There is an art to voice work and if my time watching maybe too many cartoons has thought me is that it matters. But that is for another post.

The second is Ghost Wars by Steve Coll which has a very haunting closing line that I recall quite often.

Some people cross themselves when they hear or see something awful. Another school shooting? Then let me put this down and cross myself "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost." There. Or "Thoughts and Prayers" I once worked at place whose primary donor base was predominantly wealthy Jewish folks and they thought me something that was quite lovely "May their memory be for blessing" From one of my favorite fiction books, Watership Down, I have line for grief and loss that goes "My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today"

Some people play with their hair. Or have verbal cues. They fill in sentences with empty wordy pauses. Like and you know and actually. A director at my school bites her lip. Tap pens. I once got told by an office mate "Hey stop shaking the damn floor with your leg! Nervous!?"

Whatever makes you feel better.

But, the closing line in Ghost Wars is "What an unlucky country."

It makes sense in light of the story which the author frames as ending on September 10, 2001. No spoiler alerts (Its non-fiction and history) but the reference is made to maybe if this one anti-Taliban leader had not been assassinated then the history of 9/11 (and the US and Afghanistan) would be radically different. And note that none of this is narrative stretching. This all happened 9/9/01 and into 9/10/01. Unlikely the wheels of the Saudi plot would have unraveled but such eerie confluences are why we enjoy history. Or, at least, I do.

And this quick "aw shucks" (Note that it's attributed to Hamid Karzai who would become Afghan President after the NATO invasion) moment is not meant to be dismissive but burdened by years of violence and tribal war in Afghanistan. You need to read the book but I say it whenever the violence or tragedy of our world seems inevitable. And that what separates us from it is indeed our race, class, and wealth but also a decent amount of chance.

I say it often after mass shootings and their inevitable not just occurrence but "burn and turn" on our consciousness. "What an unlucky country"

You can't drink the water in the western basin of Lake Erie because of toxic algae blooms? "What an unlucky country"

Being very 2016...The Comey Letter. The Pussy Grabbing Clip "What an unlucky country"

Don't dismiss this as just poetry. If you have read this blog then 1)I am sorry and 2) You know I enjoy a good geopolitical thriller and 3) Harbor a reptilian desire to throw it all away and join the foreign service. I would have likely been one of those international volunteers that died in the Spanish Civil War. Maybe I would have run into Hemingway!?

And these books have them in spades particularly Charlie Wilson's War which is the more biographical/adventure one (focused on the history of the US intervention in the Soviet-Afghan war and one character in particular) then the other which is a broad history of Afghanistan and all the countries who (for what seems no good reason) decided to muck around.

I make it a point to re-read these books regularly (maybe once a year) and I am half way through Ghost Wars on this 9/11 anniversary. What I enjoy about the book is that, as one review says on the back of my copy, has "few heroes, many villains."

The world made by 9/11 (The War on Terror, Axis of Evil, etc) seems old in light of a new dynamic of Fake News, climate change, and increasing hyper nationalism. Threats now feel internal instead of some mysterious force scrambling up rocks in the Khyber Pass. This is not to dismiss the complexities of why this all happened and what a "War on Terror" means* but while the memory of 9/11 will never fade for me (If nothing for its salience and tangled history) the world it supposedly changed forever now feels reset. And loaded anew is something blunter.

I have often said that tragedies can't be zero sum. In college, during the 1 year anniversary of 9/11, it was very popular to say (or see) signs on my mostly left leaning campus that any US overseas ballyhoo (The War on Drugs for example) caused X number of 9/11s. So think of that! And while this is true I think it is foolish to quantify pain especially in light of such naked violence. This is not something we judge on one on those charts in your doctor's office. So, even 18 years later, I hope that those 3000 so people's memories be for a blessing.



*If you want my big fat guy on his random blog take then terrorists inherently want headlines and not necessarily violence. So a global war against them by say invading Iraq seems foolish when changing hearts and minds would be better. This is my "Jimmy Carter" school of neo-conservatism (something you may only hear on this blog) and the idea that certain American ideals, along with agendas, can be pursued through international escapades.

Kid Tricks

My kids cant read yet and my son fights homework with a rage usually saved for rock throwing at riot cops (ok, son. We are not trying out for the  Gaza tear gas toss back squad!) but dont say I never taught them.

Everytime my kids see a narwhal they scream...

"There goes a narwhal! Motion in the ocean! Air hose broke!"

Which is a bit from an episode of MST3K.

They also say "Hi-keeba" instead of "Hi-yah" when pretending to karate chop which is also MST3K.

And dont say the word troll because the kids will sign the Troll Toll song from the Always Sunny Nightman episode.

Take that, Fortnite!

Writing Prompt-Where Are You Now

In an effort to keep writing I decided to follow a writing prompt. This writing prompt is

"What time is it? What would you usually be doing? How would it be different if you were in a different place but at the same time?"

I know this is not the fruits of the muse but this is also a random blog in the lonely sandbar of the Internet. These are fiction pieces so buckle up because that was never my strong suit albeit I dreamed of it. I'm more of a personal essay guy with maybe a quirky work memo or bathroom graffiti in the quiver.

______________________________________________________________________________

My cousin shared with me a meme about Ohio. It went like this:

In Ohio we have nine seasons

1) Winter
2) 3 Day Spring
3) Fake Summer
4) Construction Season
5) Face Melting Summer
6) False Fall
7) Second Summer
8) Real Fall
9) Early Winter

Then over the 7 there is a little star that reads, "You are Are"

I gave it a like when I saw it on the Facebook feed. I have not see her since a weekend back in HS when we visited her family when my uncle, her father, suddenly passed. That was 20 years ago but she popped up every day with some meme or blessing. I showed the seasons one to Ricardo in the smaller truck this morning before we left the yard. "Hey, check this out"
"Oh, Ive seen that except its for Minnesota."
"Oh...you have family in Minnesota?"
"Yeah! They moved there after the hurricane back home. Work at Mayo Clinic. Facility services, the whole family. 2 shifts back to back."

And maybe its because of the meme but it does feel unusually hot. Could it be that powerful? At one of the schools I deliver the secretary has a printed cartoon meme by her desk. And she told me, once when I pointed it out, "I love them. They are little ideas that get in your head. That is what they mean. Little ideas. Like viruses."

It is late September and usually the water route would be slowing down but this week it has been busier. Feeling it not just in my arms but in also the heave of the truck as the full bottles sway forward in their bays. When I leave the depot and pull onto Wakinmer Avenue I tap the brakes slowly and ease into the stop with all the inertia at my back. Each of the 100 jugs sloshing and glugging to every beat on the street and every footstep up back steps.
___________________________________________________________________________

Ugh, this is where I stopped because I realized I wanted to start talking about fluid dynamics which sounds so lovely (Fluid Dynamics! It can be raunchy or clever or just a great name for a bar. Or a boat.) but I know nothing about it.

Speaking Of Helicopters

While we are still on helicopters...

The trailer for the second season of Jack Ryan on Amazon TV came out and I am sucker for anything "spy" and/or geopolitical (albeit its still a derivative of a Tom Clancy property so get ready for cringe) and for sure I will be watching it this November.



In the first season there is a cool scene that I want to add to my list of dreams.* In it our titular hero is at a party. This is before he has emerged as the hero and is trying to convince people that he indeed is the only one that can solve the problem. Its a party in someone's backyard on the Chesapeake Bay and while our hero is trying to convince people (and flirt with the love interest) a Coast Guard helicopter shows up over the horizon and just lands right there in the middle of the party. Then two people come out and approach Jack Ryan and go something like "Mr. Ryan I am Officer So and So and I am here to escort you to the Pentagon under orders of the Secretary of Defense. Lt Whats Their Face is here to drive your car back to your apartment while you get in the helicopter with me." And then he goes and everyone is shocked at what this mysterious stranger has wrought. And what could they know!

I want that to happen to me. I am pulling up to the office or dropping my kids off at school and a chopper just buzzes the building and swoops into the parking lot "Hey! The President needs you to write a very long email! You need to come with us to Washington, now!"

And I would get in, no questions asked!


*Note this list includes 1) Owning a shirt that says "Staff" on the back 2) Planting a tree and 3) Making a citizen's arrest.

Fire Birds

I don't know what inspired me but I felt the need to re-watch one of my favorite movies as a child, recently. So I paid the $3 to digitally rent and watch Firebirds starring Nicolas Cage and Tommy Lee Jones

The Go-Go 90s

If you are one of my Russian porn bot readers then you may have seen it as Wings of the Apache which was the international release title.

I watched this movie way too much as a kid. It was one of those return to the video store and immediately renew movies to re-watch. The lone copy in Buho Video in Rio Piedras? Oh that was mine effectively.

That all said this movie is awful. Its like Top Gun but with helicopters save there is no awesome soundtrack or memorable one-liners. And if Top Gun did have maybe a tongue in cheek (or purposeful?) gay theme then...oh boy is the movie beyond manly.

"When do they get to the part where the blow up the cartel? That is all we want to see, right? Them kicking ass?" asks my wife about 75 minutes in and I realized I may have been doing a lot of fast forwarding as a kid.

The movie opens with a title screen/opening crawl. Like Top Gun!

Its about the war on drugs and a statement from Pres George HW Bush about the war on drugs. We are going to get you, ya drug dealers.

This is where the movies reaches its first radical 90s moment as it was a simpler time with the War on rugs. The War on Drugs made GI Joe and Cobra team up! Who cocaine must be a hell of a drug to get that to work. And while this was boiled down to simple "Just Say No" back home it has complicated socio-economic impacts domestically and abroad. That is beyond this blog (Because this blog is kind of like the Firebirds of blogs) but you don't send military advisers to a country without some ripples.

And in this case the country is...South America. All of it. The movie never names a specific country save it is set in the Catmarca Desert which per some cursory review is around Argentina. Which is not even close to where I think a hack writer would want to site a drug cartel movie (Really expecting the Columbia with a U to show up on the title screen) but that location looks a lot like the desert they train in over in the US so likely a money saver. The whole thing irks me know as an adult geography nerd as it is some "Africa is a country" tone deafnesses.

We then meet our here, Jake Preston played by Nicolas Cage.

Look...a lot has been said about Nicolas Cage and he has been in a lot of good stuff. He won an Oscar! But he is ALWAYS going hard. Going at 13 out of 10. And in this movie it is not charming or goofy but insufferable. He is chewing the scenery and trying to play a version of Maverick from Top Gun that would never make it past a first draft.

The most emblematic is this scene which is played 100% seriously



Oh this movie is cringe inducing. One particularly awful scene (that I luckily can't find) is one where Nicolas Cage and his love interest (Played by Sean Young who based on research for this article was kind of a minor sex symbol in the 90s. I was way too young which really sums up my explanation for a lot in this movie) have a training flight. And he lays it on thick and awful. He flies behind her helicopter and says "I got a great view of your tail" and then flies over her helicopter in a kind of inverted upside curve (which is cool to see) and then says "As I recall you like me on top." Which she laughs off because it was the go-go 90s and well...I think the Army still has a sexual harassment problem except now there is at least a class people take.

Another cringe-y scene takes place in a laundromat where Nicolas Cage is once again trying to "charm" her bu you know grabbing her and pinning her against the machines but she eludes him all while folding what seems like 30 pairs of lacy delicate pairs of underwear. Its a whole basket full of them. She has no other clothes! This movie took 3 guys to write do you know that?

Tommy Lee Jones is in it and he is always fun albeit it is funny now to see him being chided for being the "Old Man" at 40. That was his shtick even back then. He has got aphorisms for days and channels everything from that search scene in The Fugitive where he lists every house he wants searched. Except that scene was good. My favorite aphorism is "You are going to be busier than three peckered goat."

The hell?!

He also pronounces helicopter as "hee-low-copter" during random times. This would be endearing if consistent (maybe its the old gruff veteran way of saying it) but its not so it is annoying.


Aside from the mean old drug dealers (For real there is a scene that is supposed to create pathos I think where Nic Cage watches a new clip about a major drug bust but that police are helpless to stop the endless tide of drugs. Did Sean Hannity write this?) there is an internal conflict because Nic Cage's character has an eye dominance problem and he can't fly the Apache without fixing it. I never got this much as a kid and still not too much today but it is due to having to use a sort of heads up display in one eye and then use the other eye to watch a screen (or look out the window). But these are two man aircraft so isn't someone supposed to fly and the other shoot? I am sure its a legitimate problem (and I appreciate its not something super hackneyed like the pilot has got the "shakes" after his buddy died) but it feels a bit too specific and underwhelming. This is where they wanted to get the verisimilitude badge?

Don't worry that is also solved by Tommy Lee Jones and some, again, women's underwear. Tommy Lee Jones straps what I assumes is his wife's underwear to Nic Cage's head and ties a sort of periscope to his eye with that and a ton of duct tape. Then they go for a drive in a Humvee around the base with him only using that scope. I guess it forces his weak eye to do all the work? I don't know but Nic's wingman says "I always said you would look good in red panties, Jake"

Really? How did that come up? Of your wingman? Maybe "You always look good in red" but that seems really granular.

I am not one to judge but I think one of the writers had a clear thing going on

Of course I was drawn to the action which TBH there is very little of. The final 15 minutes or so with a lot of setup through convenient exposition. The cartels have hired a super mercenary to protect them. He is unstoppable. Literally entire armies of other sovereign South American countries can't stop this one guy so they need Nic Cage and the Apache helicopter. These helicopter scenes are fun albeit they don't have the deep pit of your stomach feel of good action scenes. I think I just liked helicopters and had not discovered AirWolf just yet.

I am no expert on military tactics or helicopter warfare but watching as an adult I have to think

• Does it make sense to have helicopters dog fight like this? Can we just shoot the mercenary helicopter down with like a jet? Or a missile? This is the only way?
• I know the cartels had a lot of money and ended up effectively running some SA countries but these guys are sophisticated enough that they could buy two freaking fight jets to fly along with super mercenary?!

The movie then ends as you expect. At one point my wife asked me if Sean Young's character dies ("Because this movie fucking hates women!") to which I say not because its pretty much paint by numbers style. This would be a bit charming if maybe the movie were self aware but it plays it dead serious.

I'll leave you with the trailer which comes off a jumbled and wimpy for what is supposed to be a man movie. It doesn't tell you much but gives away everything. Enjoy and remember to keep your nose up.

Trailer for Fire Birds on TrailerAddict.

White Claw

Today social media is a buzz because of reported shortages of White Claw hard seltzer. And supposedly  Ohio is the number one drinking state for it. Which makes sense because Ohio has become Arkansas on a lake.

"That's unfair," you say. "Its beyond popular so how can it be trash. Elitist much?"

Or "Slammimg on White claw is slamming on things women inherently like and you are projecting the patriarchy"

Or "You had a post about loving fizzy water once even posting a blurry photo of Lacroix. Please stop hypocrite"

To which I say...someone read this?!

My recent diet changes had me try Whiteclaw and...its not bad. It needs to be stop time cold. Absolute zero cold. Crack the sap in tree branches cold so it sounds like the January forest is alive. We are dancing school cold! Then it feels pleasantly sharp and winnows the bottle of the Dimetap battle aftertaste. Because of this I glug them down. Your hand itself is the enemy.

They are not that bad. I have 4 in the fridge and I feel powerful.

A Play

Good looking co-worker: "Oh hey I like that shirt you are wearing."

Me: ***Just say thanks. If you say anything else besides thanks they will think you are beyond weird. Don't read too much into this. Its just a pleasantry.*** "Ah...well, thanks. I like your um salmon colored pants!"

GLCW: Huh?

Me: 😬 "Its cause I really like lox. You know like on a bagel!"

GLCW: Ok...well...bye!

Spooky

My son uses an app called Epic to read books for school. We paid for the full personal subscription this summer to prevent that summer brain drain. It's a wonder app loaded with books and then "read to you" functions that are like visual audio. Looks with flyout words. The app has minigame functions like rankings and  badges so it feels quite satisfying  to click "Finish Book" and see the screen sparkle with confetti.

The app customizes a personal library for the user and my son had developed a penchant,  organically,  for something from my past.

He adores books about unexplained phenomenon.

And it brings me back to tween and HS years where I began a "Para Science Club" (We could not call it Paranomal Club for fear of offending good Chrsitian folks. Aren't we a private  non secular school I told the princiapl. Yes, we are but stil...)
And this club was lame. Like the kids from Stranger  Things but with nothing to do. Our adviser, Ms Iorio, was the delight of the 7th grade boys and while glad to have the bodies it was still a bunch of 7th graders hearing about man eating plants from us seniors. We were so cool.

Seeing the words he reads are touchstones to a powerful developmental memory. I hear of those studies that say the music you loved as a youth will always be your favorite. There are no new tastes only what we have forgotten.

These words are touchstones. These incidents a collective memory I can connect him too

The Flatwoods  Monster
Betty and Barney Hill
Kirlian Photography
Geists
Psychic Vampires
The Rendelsham Forest Incident
Bob Lazar
Fortean  Times
El Chupacabra
Cryptids
The Greys

I show my son a picture of the original printing of Communion and he is not chilled (as I was. That feeling that crawls from the top of your heart and into your chest) but just covers his mouth but still showing a huge  smile.

The Audience For This Post Is Narrow

If existent at all then the audience for this post is narrow. It would be beyond awkward if anyone at work discovers this blog. Not because I slam anyone but because "Wow, that guy is weird." Or worse...that guy is boring. So no one will get this except me but it claws at my mind.

There is a pair of co-workers I am going to now jointly refer to as "The Raptors" because they are young, smart, assertive and "they test for weaknesses. so be careful when you present about the HR protocols!" And they keep you on your toes and keep you honest and are a through line for my tenure in my current gig. And they should have feathers because it makes scientific sense in dinosaurs and would look whimsical on people but I get it because it looks goofy. Plus allergies. And the mess!

And this is reference to Jurassic Park and the Muldoon's great white hunter pitch when we see the park feeding them. My kids have recently gotten into these movies (Their favorite is Jurassic World which is the best sequel but all of the sequels are not so great so there is that) and that came to mind.

Because of this I am going to change their MTG color alignment to Naya (White, Green and Red) because for sure they are core white with one leaning more so to the other. SO easy to splash the other color and because Naya dinosaurs ROAR! Zacama has three fucking heads!

Quick aside (If there is any constant to this post) is that whenever I think Jurassic Park I think of Channel Awesome Nostalgia Critic take on Jurassic World.



And I know that if you spend too much time on the Internet like I that there is justified concern over how Channel Awesome and the Walkers treated former employees and content creators (People I really like like Angry Joe, Linkara and Lindsey Ellis) but I am human and this whole bit gets me.

"I'm a raptor"

All I Want Is Bread

The doctor called and said "You are pre-diabetic"

"That's  not surprising," I said.

"I don't  want you to be diabetic!"

"Neither do I!" Albeit I thought this and did not say it aloud.

What runs in my family, I had dodged. High blood pressure? No, that's fine. High cholesterol. It's ok. The potential  to be diabetic? That I manifested myself defying any notion of genetics. I am the forerunner and my legacy is built on endless gummi bears.

The doctor put me on a low carb, high protein  diet. Cut down on the processed foods and skip the sodas. I never drink much soda but candy is processed and I would clean a stranger's gutters out with my daughter's plastic paw Patrol beach shovel  (It has Zuma on it, appropriately) for some candy. My shame is gone to ground if there is a Milky Way Midnight around.

And all I want is bread. All I want is the "taco de sal" which is a wholly un healthy but so satisfying of a dish. You take a flour tortilla and grill it in a scintillating hot frying pan with butter and salt. Just for a few second while the skin browns and blisters. That with a coffee or sparkling water was my vice. I've never smoked but if if really feels as good as people say then this has to be close because it felt illegal. Also, awful for you.

All I want is tiki drinks swirled up with rum. Rum a liquor literally made from sugar. Tiki drinks based on a trinity of rum, sugar, and lime. Now I can just have the lime. I imagine im a sailor fighting off scurvy. Shuffling dry powder from deck to deck and using the butter juice  to soften the hard tack bread.

The doctor also warned me of side effects of a pill she ordered. "Most patients see a 10 lbs weight loss when on it. Because it often gives diarrhea"

Like constant? Because I wondered that that would likely kill you before the diabetes.

Here he lies. Died in the bathroom trying to beat diabetes. Too bad.

"You actually dont have diabetes. This is just a kind of normal diet people do," my wife says.

But I fear become my father who died at 50 from choices he could have changed. I worry that I won't be there to prepare my kids for all the gives me anxiety in the world. This is how you purify water (because climate change will force more people to the well watered great lakes.) This is how you grow stalks of corn and trellis tomatoes. This how you jam in a drill bit (to board up your windows from super storms or maybe angry fanatics storming the streets) and how to escape a room in a mass shooting.

I worry about the cost if it becomes true diabetes because this is America and because I am selfish.

Because of this...I am not eating bread. Or, better put, eating lots less. So it now feels a luxury akin to how people market steak. Look at the marbling  on that galaxy of seeds and colors on the rye.

Up on the Fifth Floor

I had a day where I was alone the in office. Alone because it was summer and people take time, whether it be in broad strokes of vacation or little cuts here and there. Also along because some of my colleagues that were working had meetings or other consequential happenings around town.
And it was warm in the office. The top of a 5 story brick building with 80 year old windows that muscle down on any attempt to open them. And when you do you need a iron bar to prop them open or they will guillotine your fingers off.
I enjoyed the feeling of the heat. The pin pricks of moisture on your skin or arm roll of your shirt. Its feeling very alive and very threatened at the same time. Its the angry glow of a baking car interior when you first get in. "I love this feeling," I told a co-worker once to whom I gave a ride back to their home.
"But you have air conditioner, right" he asked.

Alone in the office I did not turn on the A/Cs which were wall units mounted under those windows. I sat in the heat with just a single oscillating fan whirring away. Typing and emailing and filing its like any other day except quiet and warm. I, as I am prone to do, begin to Walter Mitty and I imagine myself as the classic detective in the noir movies. Slung over a desk waiting for someone to walk in through the door. But first I would see their shadow as it becomes large in the window well. The fan would be on my desk and made of metal and it would grind. The client would be beautiful because this is a fantasy. They would likely look like a co-worker because I had them and because of where  was imaging all this.

Once I cooked up the bravery to take a creative writing class at the educational annex out in the burbs. Where kids take culinary lessons and train on how to be HVAC technicians. And the most cutting feedback I got was. "This is good but I would like to know this isn't taking place at the local college gym. I went there and I guess you did this because it is way too obvious." I smiled but then I never returned.

But its work even down to the color of the break albeit everything is a deeper shade of black and and the contrasts are sharper. And because its work this client, however striking, asks me what anyone does when they walk into my tiny saunas.

"its toasty in here"
"I enjoy the heat! Don't like air conditioning"
"But you have it, right?"
"Yes, I have solved enough cases to purchase one"
"What?"

Musical

If you let some thing go long enough then it will become meta. Except for this blog which was meta from the first point because I imagine everyone knew the intricate backstory and references of failed blogs of years prior.

And I am not clever enough to have come up with that. Its a TV Tropes thing for sure. But they will make in jokes or maybe even have an episode where all these things come to a head. Or there is a musical episode because why not!? I sound great in the car so lets sing!

I sometimes think about a musical at work. I am going about my day and we break into song.

Its kinetic as people bounce around from room to room and complete tasks.Its a Busby Berkeley routine set to Jimmy Eat World's "Authority Song"



Its how the hustle goes
see what the jukebox knows...

See it is us walking in to start the day and this replaces all the usual pleasantries and good mornings. Lets get ready to go. The jukebox is checking messages and morning announcements.

Or in a very kinetic motion I hit a literal jukebox that pushes out these announcements in pop art styles that flash on the screen. Maybe I spin a coworker in a big twirl so she leans back and hit this jukebox to start the scene. In this montage I am 40 lbs lighter. And coordinated.

Honesty or Mystery?
Tell me I'm not scared anymore

Again, lets do this. Its me and 4 other people climbing up the stairs backward and snapping fingers. This whole thing has this 50s big band Grease feel and its hackneyed but the song fits it. Someone vaults over a staircase railing in this montage and they Parkour spin to land elegantly on the ground.

And that chorus..."Do I-I-I-I-I-I-I?"

You know there are five ladies poking out of offices and classrooms to sing that. Just their heads poking out from the door frame to fill the space.

Mind you this whole montage ends with people getting to their desks. Its like that opening scene in La La Land where everyone zips and jives on the freeway before it ends with one single sweep of every door and keystroke of a log in.

Before all that for sure it will become much more active and people spin from room to room. Switch chairs that they slide over the office to each other.

If those were Roy's headphones
You bet he play What Goes on

This line befuddles me but I deal with headphones so I imagine someone popping out from out of frame with broken headphones and a frown on their face. Then I take a look and pocket them to fix later but uttering this line for sure.

Ah well I'm here
That means something doesn't it

I already said how this ends so maybe we should close on here?

Quick Exercise-Lakeview

I found myself fortunate to have an elevated view. Even a few stories up I can see the lake and break wall tops soaked by waves. This spring broke records for rain fall and from the position I can see it. Not just in the break wall but also the submerged docks under a inch of water. Still usable but annoying just like the soggy shoes of those walking it.

The lake appears marbled. Oceanic cerulean on the horizon and then closer to the edge a strong chocolate brown ribbon likely 100 of yards wide. Its "catfish water," which is a term I coined for the slurry you toss from a home aquarium during water changes. There is silt poured from the river but I beat there is fish scales and detritus layered up and down in a watery parfait.

Then at the shore the brown breaks and its the dusty geode blue I am used to. Where it goes clear in tiny portions scooped into your hands.

"I've never seen it that way," says my roof mate. "So high and in those colors."

It has been a slow summer so I reply "Yeah, you are right. Must be all the rain"

Wrote this while tired

At around 9pm every night I develop a special kind of tired. Dizzy tired. Not slap happy or exhausted but just out of sorts. I will yawn in sharp gasps and my eyes will well with tears. My legs hurt and the arch of my foot gnaws through all the steroid shots. Through the custom fit insoles and stretches. I'll stutter and hug every throw pillow on the couch. "Let me rest for just 10 minutes," I'll lie to myself, my wife, my family. My life. I used to hobby. Now I pass out by 9:30pm.

As a youth I had a water bed. It was a hand me down from a neighbor who passed it in pieces over the backyard fence. Then my family rebuilt it piece by piece. We then went to the store and got new sheets for it. Ones specifically marketed as "for water beads," which at the time made us feel very sophisticated (it was at a Kmart but this was a find) but was truly a scam. It was a comforter.

It fooled people. I had no real chairs in my room so let's sit on the bed and...woah! What the fuck! It fooled relatives who thought it a wondrous novelty like the block of ice in a Hundred Years of Solitude. It fooled my dogs who jumped on it and just looked betrayed. My father sank into it before he died. I had a girl in my room once. Just the two of us. Water bed. And, nothing happened albeit yeah I hyped that up.

"On the water bed, man!"
"Wtf dude? Its Nora and I bet not"
"Man...damnit....fuck you"

In college I slept in a high loft. On the extra long mattresses meant for Japanese pod hotels. I can put my desk and dresser underneath it! My little 13" TV on top of the dresser. Saving so much space!

But I had no sheets. I slept on tapestries. Some given to me by friends as gifts and others I found around campus. I worked as a cleaner over the summer and we all scavenged dorms for items left behind. My entire late college lifestyle was a series of castoffs. The nicest thing I had was a bicycle i bought called Guildenstern.

My girlfriend came to visit one summer, driving straight in the night 6 hours from Ohio and saw the tapestries. The baby blue knitted rug over them. "Please change these or I will never sleep in the same bed as you again." I went to work the other day and she had gone to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought a whole new set of sheets for me.

Made of bamboo fibers
Wow! Was there a white sale?
The fuck is a white sale?
My mom said the best time to buy sheets and towels was during a white sale. Was there one? Where did you go?

Years later I now sleep on a couch. Dizzy tired and hugging pillows. I ball up old hoodies for pillows and was up actual pillows into my arms. The dip where my body has worn the couch into a sad gravity prevents anyone from getting up from the couch without setting down their drink.  It is where I am dizzy tired.

Another Play

A bit of scene setting...before teachers leave my school for the summer they have to clean out their rooms. Like a check out/walk through before you leave.

How I Think The End Of The Year Will Go:

Staff: Hey, I am ready to be checked out.
Me: Yeah, you are! Phrasing, am I right!
Staff: 😁😁😁 You are so funny

How It Really Goes:

Staff: Hey, I am ready to be checked out
Me: Ok, coming! ***Drops the bag of trash and stack of Ipads I am juggling and runs back up 3 flights*** Ok...I'm here.
Staff: Why are you so sweaty? Are you wheezing?
Me: ***Darth Vader noise*** No, I'm good...I'm good!

Kids Bopz Spoken Word

Toddlers in children's literature and shows are such serene creatures. Inherently full of wonder and sincerity. And, indeed, this can be true like the time my daughter encourages her mercurial older brother when he doesn't want to climb the monkey bars. They all say very true and swee things emblematic of being embossed between pages of hardcover stock.

But where is the sheer uncut bananas ridiculous stuff. The blows over a pretend balloon.
"Hey, give me that. What do you have in your hand...wtf....there is nothing here?!"
Daughter: "He wants to take it from me!"
"But there is nothing?!"

The anger at looking out each others windows in the car. "Stop looking out my window! stop it!"

The drill down and plant feet into the ground meltdown.
"What did you say?! Where did you learn to say "suck it!"
Son: NOTHING! WHO CARES?!
Me: Tell me where. No videos. No toys. No nothing until you tell me
Son: 1.5 hours of screaming and crying and "I hate daddy. Mommy is stupid"
Me: OK, where.
Son: pinky malinky!
Me: WTF. The hot dog show on Netflix. Was not my first guess.

Where is the awkward. "Well if you are Christians you can come to my bible study this summer" some random 8 year old in leopard pants and a pink Alaska hate tells us. WTF. You just met 10 minites ago.

Daddy?! Do you know this song "Num num num num num num num num num num num num num!"