Sudden showers

The last Tuesday in August finds me somewhat reflective, although not more so than normal in terms of visible light. It's 90° again. This has been a hot summer in Chicago, coming on the heels of no spring at all.

Soon the weather will break, the chill will set in, and we can all get back to complaining about how cold it is. In the meantime, I'm mainly tired of sweating so much.

*****

I recently took a nice mini-vacation with a friend, canoeing 40 miles of the Wisconsin River with nothing but our wits, far too much food, miscellaneous gadgets and as much comfort as could be fitted into our watercraft.

Though we slept in a tent on a sandbar, it would be hard to say we were roughing it. This was fine, as neither of us are noted for our hardy ruggedness.



The second day of our intended three was punctuated in the late afternoon by a rumble of thunder. We had recently talked ourselves out of correctly reading our map, so it was easy to carry our wrongness momentum into a belief that it was not actually going to rain. Though cloudy, nothing we could see had the dark look of rainclouds. Even long after it became clear to us both that rain was imminent, my friend shushed me during the thunder in the hopes that he could trace its origins to the nearby highway, some anomaly in the pavement or a vehicle that would put us in the clear.

Still, we searched for a place to put ashore. Thunder, after all, means lightning, and being in a metal boat on water didn't seem like the most wondrous place to be if giant bolts of electricity were milling about.

It had begun to rain by the time we found a spot to put ashore, on a little clearing which seemed to be the origin of all the mud in Wisconsin. We peered bleakly around at the mud and the giant mosquitos and hoped the rain would subside before we would have to make camp. It grew cold, and we found our jackets, put them on. The rainproof fabric was just another interesting sensation on my skin, in addition to the sunburn, sand, sunscreen and bug repellant. I fastened the hood and pulled its drawstring.

Before long, the rain began to subside, and we glared one last time at the muddy sinkhole before shoving the canoe back into the water in search of a better place to camp. We had seemingly no sooner pushed off than my friend spotted the bridge over the river ahead. This meant we had gone far in excess of our intended distance for the day, and now were less than a mile from our extraction point, with something like 21 hours to spare.

This was when the rain truly began.

It was possibly the hardest rain I have ever been outside for, or it felt that way. The tiny drops pelted the surface of the river so that it resembled stucco. Within moments I was blind, the sunscreen and insect spray rushing into my eyes from my forehead. My glasses were no help, as they beaded and obscured as much or more than the chemicals. We began shouting to one another over the roar of water. We would make it to the landing and figure it out from there, we agreed, the sooner the better.

We paddled hard. Harder, probably, than any previous point on the trip. I was in the rear of the craft, responsible for the steering. I shouted again that I was nearly blind, and that my friend should call out if we needed to alter direction. A pool of water was forming at my feet inside the canoe, and I began to wonder if I would need to stop paddling and start bailing it out. So in my blindness, I kept one eye on the rapidly rising water in the canoe and one on the bridge ahead that signaled safety and potential dryness.

In a strange way, this sudden storm was the most fun part of the trip, truly exhilarating. Though I was worried about our various calamities, I also felt kind of wonderful.

My cell phone was working, and we arranged for a ride back to the place our trip originated. In a flash, our trip was over, and we were left with only the mundanities of slogging back to Illinois. I have to say that even now, nearly two weeks later, I still feel a small amount of the sadness I felt when I realized we were headed home a day early.

My friend and I have made plans to repeat the trip. We have discussed the things we should do differently next time to enhance the experience. We have talked also about camping sans canoe in the fall when the weather turns crisp and a campfire becomes a lifeline. Perhaps most importantly, we seem to have rekindled a friendship that seemed as though it had lain fallow for too long.

*****

Forgive, please, the length and rambliness. I'm rusty.

The Lucy Conundrum

Normally, if I am asked to liken myself to a Peanuts character—which is no longer as much of a rarity as it should be, in the age of memes—I'd have to say I'm Charlie himself. I'm a bit hapless at times, prone also to repeating mistakes and finding myself crushed all over again even though I should know better. Also, I am not a good baseball player.

But thinking about this blog, I realize I have become Lucy, the obnoxious one who continually sets up Mr. Brown for one of his disappointments. And all she does is offer to hold a football.

Just in the way that I flit back in here from time to time with every intent of opening anew this blog of mine, which I think about far more often than would be apparent to anyone who clicks in to find I have once again not created a new post.

So, thinking about it, and myself as a writer, and how keeping this blog made me a better writer, I went and reread a bunch of it last weekend. It was sort of like reading an old diary, except that enough time had passed for most of the entries that it was a bit like reading the diary of someone else.

I wonder if Lucy fully intends to hold still each time. I try to imagine the scenarios that could pull a person away suddenly in the span between when Charlie starts his run and when he reaches that pivotal moment when foot fails to meet ball and he goes off hurtling through the sky. I wonder if Charles Schultz ever thought about the physics involved, and the impossibility of such a thing really being caused by the lack of a football.

I wonder if anyone still clicks in here. I wonder if I can rediscover that part of me that sought out little tales and small jokes to bring back to all those I affectionately called "Blogreader."

Can't hurt to try.

If nothing else, it's a good way to avoid work.

Phoctober the one hundred sixth

We're a week away from getting our new President, the one we ordered back in November from the catalog. This will be the seventh peaceful transfer of power in my lifetime, as I was born in the vaporous remnants of the Nixon administration, around the time Butterfield admitted before Congress that tapes were made of conversations within the Oval Office.

Good times.

And if there is one thing our nation took away as a lesson from all that, it was never to re-elect a seemingly shifty Republican who has clearly misled the American people.

*****

What's that? Not a political blog?
Quite right. I apologize.

*****

What's that? Not really a blog at all anymore, since the word perpetrator who once filled these pages with his thought(s) disappeared under mysterious circumstances quite some time ago?
A bit wordy, but I can see your point. Again, I apologize.

*****

While we're on disappearances, did you know that the US government built a Liberty Ship in 1942 and christened her the SS Amelia Earhart? Seems a little strange to me to name a sea vessel after someone lost and presumed dead at sea, but I was not consulted.

I am almost never consulted.

*****

When last we saw one another, Phoctober was in full flush. For abandoning my post in the middle of a communal project, I truly do apologize.

I recently had occasion to look through my discarded photography and try to find some beauty in the shots that were total misfires for one reason or another. I found a few that worked in the same sort of way that some abstract art does: they just sort of appealed to my eye. I'll close this post with a few of those.

Bitching about Flugtag

Today was the corporate-sponsored Flugtag (Flying Day) and I trudged down to watch people fling their homemade flying machines into the lake. The basic premise is not much more complicated than that. People form a team with their friends, build a vehicle of some kind, throw it off a landing and watch it break nearly instantly and plunge into the chilly depths of Lake Michigan. Their device can have no engine, it must be human-powered, so one or more members of the team generally ride or follow their creation into the water. The debris is collected, some sort of arbitrary judging is scored, and then the next team takes their turn. I'm not certain what the judges purpose could have been, as all the attempts were measured in distance as well.

I had thought it might be a cool place to wander a bit and get some pictures of the flying machines, but I was mistaken. When I arrived, the main area for viewing the crafts had been closed, and the throng of us were herded to the beach just north of the activity. I walked south as far as I could go, but never once even caught a glimpse of the actual staging area, or any of the crafts that the assembled teams had spent so much time on. Instead, we had a jumbo screen and a network of inescapable speakers to bring us the inane and apparently limitless chatter from whoever was functioning as the emcee, and several of the "judges," most of whom seemed content to use the name of the team for a weak pun or sexual innuendo.

So it was all the fun of watching something on television, except in a crowd. And I was hungry. They had closed down the little food vendors along the beach, and I stood forlornly next to what would, on another day, be an ice cream stand. I surmised that the refreshments were likely available only inside the now closed-off main area, so the several thousand of us outside of that area were on our own.

Within about three team's worth of activity, I realized it was like watching something I didn't particularly want to watch, except in public, and with no other channels. Two of the teams, for instance—pretty close to one another in the lineup—had been inspired by the aerodynamic charms of the locomotive. In each instance the team had chosen "Crazy Train" by Ozzy Osbourne as their theme song.

I cannot imagine what had made it so crowded, save for this being one of the last nice weekends that can accurately be called summer, and our first day without rain for a few, with rain resuming tomorrow with the remains of yet another hurricane arriving in our area with its spent fury and thick blankets of rain.

Still, once I fled the crowded beach, it was a nice afternoon to be out and about in Chicago. I'm still kinda sad I wasn't able to get any good pictures of the weird "aircraft" from my vantage. I had thought I might post a few, and bank a few for some Phoctober fun.

Off the bus

Sometimes you get stuck on a bus for three months. Sometimes your blog just makes it seem like maybe that's what happened. It's a crazy world.

I feel like I'm back. From where I'm not sure.

Monday was Labor Day here in America. Congratulations to all the new mothers.

September is here, and I hunger for autumn. I miss orange, and wearing a jacket, and not sweating myself to sleep.

I feel like I'm back, so tag me with memes, leave comments. Help me find my footing again in the blogging world, if you're still there. Perhaps we can once again delight one another with tales of our exploits, strange encounters and worldly observations.

20 + 20 + 1 + 1/365

It was twenty years ago today that, twenty years ago that day, it was a year ago yesterday that Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released.

Sure, that's a long walk for a premise, but I'm still a little mad at myself for not doing "It was 20 years ago today, 20 years ago today" a year ago yesterday.

If Paul McCartney is to be believed, it was 20 years before that that Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play. So, a bunch of people learned to play on June 1, 1947.

I'm not sure I believe that, however. I mean, whoever heard of someone learning to play an instrument in a single day? And if Pepper did indeed possess such extraordinary musical teaching ability, why was he never promoted above Sergeant?

Besides which, Paul McCartney is a dubious source for information. After all, we are talking about a man who has denied his own death for more than 40 years. Everyone knows that Paul McCartney died in an auto accident in 1966, and that the Beatles drafted a ringer named William Campbell to take his place to keep the cash machine a-rolling. The Fab Three and Mr. Campbell then sprinkled clues about this fact on all of their subsequent releases, ostensibly because they suffered from a condition much like fictional villain the Riddler.

Conspiracies are fun. Especially when we get to assume that those conspiring are thumbing their noses at us.

Personally, I always thought that the thing at the end of "Strawberry Fields" said "I'll marry in Gaul," which I took to be a prophetic vision of John Lennon's wedding in France more than a year later.

*****

I just heard that Bo Diddley died today. I'm not a giant blues fan or anything, but I enjoyed more than a few of his songs. If nothing else, I was always amused that his song "Bo Diddley" was often covered by other acts (including Buddy Holly, who was no slouch as a songwriter himself).

My song "The Moon Topples" has never been covered.

For Mr. Diddley, a moment of silence followed by a "buh. buh. buh. BUH-buh."

*****

Astute readers will no doubt notice that it has been a few months since I posted. Apologies. I never intended to stop blogging entirely. I still don't. I just had nothing to say, I suppose. With respect for your intelligence, however, I will avoid any sweeping proclamations regarding the blog being "open" again or anything like that.

A sort of writing meme

Minx is desperate for links (linx?). How else to explain her pouncing upon me within moments of my reopening the blog to tag me with a difficult writing meme. My blogbody was barely warm again. Oh, I link you, foul Minx, but I also have a surprise in store for you in the next couple of days. (chuckles to self) Get ready for some day-rueing, my friend.

*****

On with the meme...

What is the last thing you wrote?
Clever to put this one first, so my answer isn't "the answer to the previous question." I wrote an email. Does that count? It had no symbolism, though. Very little conflict. Even the characters were crudely drawn.

Was it any good?
By what standards? It conveyed the information I needed to convey.

What's the first thing you wrote and you still have?
Hmmm. Bad fantasy stories from 8th grade, I think.

Write poetry? Angst?
I write poetry sometimes. I'm not sure what you mean by angst, though. Are you offering me angst? No, thank you.

Favorite genre of writing?
I seem partial to word writing.

Most fun character you've ever created?
Aside from myself? I find secondary characters to be the most fun, because they can go a little farther out.

Most annoying character?
Protagonists. They just refuse to do what you tell them sometimes. Also: characters with shrill voices.

Best plot?
I'm not particularly plot-driven. For me, it's all concepts and characters.

Write fan fiction?
For a writer's meme, you sure have included more than your share of sentence fragments. And, no. That story in which Mulder and Buffy team up to defeat the Borg was not mine. (shudders) OK, that's maybe unfair. I don't actually read fan fiction, either, so I shouldn't be saying snarky things about those who do.

Type or write?
Proficient in both. Is this a job interview? Am I doing well?

Ever go back to an old idea?
Absolutely. The current novel is the one I tried to write when I was 19.

Favorite thing you've written?
I'll answer this when I see a parenting meme that asks which child is best.

Do you show people your work?
Sometimes. I'm a bit weird about it, and it makes me terribly anxious, but I understand that it makes me better, so I force myself to do so, among a selected group of trusted folks.

Did you ever write a novel?
Yup. Did you?

Favorite setting for your characters?
Low. So they simmer.

How many writing projects are you working on?
I assume we can have the definition of "working" be somewhat fungible? If so, somewhere between three and ten.

Do you want to write for a living?
Makes sense, since I seem to live for the writing.

Ever written anything in script or play form?
Moon Topples: (to self) Nothing presentable. (sighs)

Five favorite words...
You have completed this meme.

Which character most resembles you?
Of mine? Uh, many of them, in the right light. Of other folks' stuff, I get Eeyore a lot.

Where do you get your ideas for other characters?
Is "people" a suitable response?

Ever write things based on your dreams?
Sure, but more often I get ideas when I am just on the cusp of sleep. I create much better if I am nearly asleep. Works for songs, too.

Do you favor happy endings, sad or cliff hangers?
What a weird question. I'll ignore the implication that there are only three ways to end something. The story goes where it goes. I suppose "sad" is probably the one I lean toward, but you have to give the story the ending it wants, or there is no point.

Ever written anything based on an artwork?
No, but a friend of mine said he might do some artwork based on one of my descriptions of a painting. Which is the opposite of what you asked, I suppose.

Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write?
I took out all of the superfluous "u"s from the silly Brit spellings in this meme. So I guess I am.

Ever write entirely in chatspeak?
OMG! No. lol.

Entirely in L337?
I made a calculator say "boobies" in third grade. I assume that counts.

Does music help?
With what? I understand it's handy for beast-soothing.

Quote something you've written.
"...there was no fan in the bear's head, and there should have been."

*****

I tag Signs, because she told me to.

Foodie

Scholars, of course, tend to disagree on many things. That's why I can pluralize "scholar" and not confuse you, good reader. If they all agreed on everything, there would really only be a need for one. This bickering among experts is their bread and butter.

So it is a little surprising to find that all the experts are in complete agreement as to what constitutes a perfect meal: Kraft® Macaroni and Cheese Dinner.

It has to be Kraft®, obviously. The proprietary faint orange glow of their cheese powder is enough to set any learned gourmand to salivating. It is the only boxed meal of its kind with any right to the title of "cheesiest." The ease with which such a meal is prepared only helps it retain its status as king among foods.

But even in the universal acclaim for the dish, experts still find ways to split into various camps. Some cite the macaroni itself as the reason for greatness. Others, more predictably, say it is in the "cheese sauce," a creamy blend of powdery packet, half a stick of butter or margarine and a quarter cup of milk. Within this camp, the butter vs. margarine debate alone is enough to fill a textbook.

Obviously, to a foodie such as myself, the real joy is not in either aspect alone, but in the merging of the two. The alchemy that somehow makes the whole far greater than any of its parts, like a fine musical performance for the tongue. Sometimes I add a spoon or two of sour cream to the mix, but it is impossible to really improve on perfection itself.

And it isn't even necessary to chew it.

*****

Oh yeah? Well, what did you have for dinner that was so special?

Not much of a blog post, really

Not a lot to report today. Busy, busy.

I'm in the process of reading what I have on paper so far for the novel, seeing what I have done, what is still to be written, where what I have down is no longer what it is supposed to be. A little disheartening that things that are no longer in keeping with my current thoughts include the very beginning, but it was a much better read than I would have thought. Not ready, or complete or anything, but better than I thought.

I still plan to post an Ask the Moon today—as soon as I get home from rehearsal—but as I have no guarantees that it will still be Thursday when I return, I thought this brief post might hold you until then. Run, sentence, run!

I guess that begs the question about daily posts: if my "day" goes well past midnight, does it still count as the same day for NaBloPoMo purposes? Or is a post for each calendar date of the month required?

The moon tarries

Not a lot of time for a big, cool blog post today. In fact, I still haven't even made it home from hanging out with my friend Rich. Instead I'm scratching away at a keyboard in his wife's office, listening to an aquarium that sounds an awful lot like a man urinating.

Those suffering from Phoctober withdrawal will be happy to learn that I took quite a few pictures today, and should post some of my results on Monday and Tuesday.

In the meantime, stay warm and keep thinking of things to Ask the Moon!

And I wasn't even tagged...

I cannot recall where I first saw this meme, but it's been making the rounds, and it's the type of meme I like: vaguely worded enough to play with.

1. Pick out a scar you have, and explain how you got it. Well, at first I thought this said "pick at a scar you have," which would be an unpleasant thing to ask someone to do, and really something you could do with a scab more easily than a scar. Hmm. Don't know which one to pick. The one on my knee from when my brother tried to kill me as a toddler with a toy tractor? The one on my finger from cutting apples with a sharp knife while mad, years later, at same brother? The three tiny ones from my super-cool laser appendectomy? Now I've gone on and on without picking one, let alone explaining it. I guess I should just pass on this one.

2. What does your phone look like? List your reasons to buy it? Well, first, "list your reasons to buy it" is a statement and not a question. Which makes me wonder who, if anyone, proofreads memes. (Just kidding. It is obvious that no one does, or ever will.) The phone in my house looks amazingly like a Uniden cordless telephone, unless they mean the other one, which looks more or less like the kind which was popular in offices in the late 80s. Sturdy base, twisty cord, etc. My cellular phone looks like the Motorola RAZR. They all look like phones. I don't know what to tell you, or what sort of answer you were hoping for here. I bought them to be better able to communicate with people who are not here in my apartment.

3. What is on the walls of your bedroom? See, this is the question where they try to trip up unwitting but guilty souls, get them to say something like "a harness" or "the skin of my most recent victim." I, however, shall relate nothing so embarrassingly personal. I think it's a trick question, really. The obvious answer is a thin coat of paint. Flat, interior, off-white in case you had follow-up questions.

4. What is your current desktop picture? A picture of you, Blogreader. (creepy laugh). Okay, at the moment it's the one from yesterday's Phoctober offering: a picture of the Thames as seen through a locked gate on a bridge near Waterloo Station. I totally want to move there, as should be painfully obvious to even the most casual reader. Sham marriages are fine. Email at left.

5. Do you believe in gay marriage? Again, the wording here makes me suspicious. Like, do you believe in Santa Claus? I do believe in gay marriage. I have seen it. I also support it. I will further editorialize that if someone else being in love and celebrating that publicly threatens your own union, you are almost certainly doing it wrong.

6. What do you want more than anything right now? To finish this meme and work on my novel. To finish this meme and have a nice chat with friends. To finish this meme and find love. To finish this meme and be awarded a million dollars. To finish this meme seems to be the main thing.

7 . What time were you born? 8pm. Wait. Are you doing my chart? Someone already tried that. It was like my fourth blog post. Save yourself the trouble and read it here.

8. Are your parents still together? Physically? Are they still in their respective pieces? My mom is. Probably my father as well. They certainly aren't married anymore if that's what you're after, you nosy, nosy, nosy meme. They divorced in early 1981. Driven apart by the Rubik's Cube and "Bette Davis Eyes."

9. Last person who made you cry? Um. I guess my grandmother's funeral was probably the last time, other than tearing up sometimes at movies or tv shows. That's not a very fun question, Memewriter. Did you write this thinking that most people would enjoy being reminded of whatever thing someone did to them that made them so sad? Shame on you.

10. What is your favorite perfume / cologne? Hmmm. Not really a big fan of either. If you are wearing enough of either one for me to take note in my conscious mind, you are most likely giving me a headache.

11. What kind of hair/eye color do you like in the opposite sex? What kind of hair/eye color? An adjective to describe the actual color I might have a preference for? Is this so you can publicly humiliate me and say I hate people with auburn hair should I choose to say "chestnut" or something? You are making me tired, Memewriter. As for the answer I must assume you actually want, I like hair that is brown, red, black, blonde or other. As for eyes—which are, after all, the window to the soul—I like a sclera of creamy white (not too red), a pupil which is round and appears black but is in fact clear and the iris to be either brown, blue, green, gray, hazel, or any other naturally occurring color. Dyed hair is fine. Dyed eyes are confusing. And a good way to blind yourself.

12. What are you listening to? Why? The soft clack of laptop keys. Why? Because I am depressing them with my fingers to produce the letters which make up the answers to this meme. I also have the Kinks' Village Green Preservation Society playing, and I can hear the shushing of cars on the street, an occasional shout from outside, and some sort of rustling sound right behind me which I can only hope is my cat and not an intruder.

13. Do you get scared of the dark? Not of it, no. Sometimes I am scared in it, though. Anything could be hiding in darkness. I have no way of knowing, since I rely so heavily on my sight to give me information. Great, now I'm freaked out and have to investigate that rustling sound.

14. Do you like painkillers? When I am in pain, or just generally? I get migraines, and during those times I love them. Other times I guess I do not think about them much. I have a feeling that I did not understand this question.

15. Are you too shy to ask someone out? Wait. Are you trying to get me to ask you out, Memewriter? I'm flattered, of course, but I don't know you at all. Burying an implied interest within a meme is not the way to capture my attention. Maybe we should just be friends for a while and see what happens. If that was not the goal of this question, I would say that the circumstances of asking someone out fluctuate wildly. There is no brief answer which would satisfactorily answer it in that instance, except possibly "sometimes."

16. If you could eat anything right now, what would it be? I assume you are looking for something like "pizza" or "chocolate," but that would be a poor answer to such a ridiculously open-ended question. Working up slowly, I suppose a meal at the Italian place that used to be on Grand Ave but which is now something else entirely. And then the moon, South America or the polar icecaps. A building, submarine or all the Monopoly game sets ever produced. Any of these would surely bring me some measure of fame, which I could use to help me when I start shopping for a book deal.

17. Who was the last person who made you mad? As in angry, I assume, and not crazy. This is not a difficult feat to accomplish. Should I sift through all the various things which irked me today and settle on the biggest, or simply do as you ask and relate that most recent? I shall do the latter, in which case the answer is me. I shall not explain myself.

18. List one habit you have that has the potential to annoy people? I think my tendency to answer memes with long-winded answers which may or may not even address the question being asked probably annoys some people. Especially when I seem to be more interested in proving how clever I am by attacking the semantics of the question—when it is painfully clear to almost anyone what the question is actually driving at—than contributing to the spirit of the meme and answering questions for the benefit of those who might wish to know something about me. Perhaps even you are annoyed by this tendency.

19. Who was the last person who made you smile? You, Blogreader, for reading this far. I'm frankly shocked you stuck with it. I know you must have other things to do. I barely made it to the end myself. I am flattered. I smile at you.

More about bricks

Last week I mentioned the demise of the Lighthouse Diner in my neighborhood, and seeing the crew out early in the morning, sorting and stacking bricks.

I like the idea of bricks as urban molecules: universal, interchangeable Legos they use to build the city. When the building comes down, the bricks go somewhere else. Why would you throw away a perfectly good Lego?

It turns out that the bricks in question were being claimed by a company called Windy City Antique Bricks. Here is their truck, all loaded up and preening atop a bed of rubble. I could tell that the truck was there on the off chance that someone might take its picture, so I indulged it.

Out and about

I've grown quite fond of my morning walks. I generally leave the house shortly after dawn, which is nowhere near as early as it would have been even a month ago. Stupid hemisphere, stupid wobbly planet.

Every restaurant which is open early in the morning seems to have a small cadre of morning regulars, generally older men. I watch them greet each other and the workers behind the counters. The workers sometimes have their regular orders already prepared for them. If one of the men has been absent the previous day, the others give him grief about it. Since they all look to be somewhere around retirement age, I suppose this is their way of having somewhere to go, a routine to start the day, and a sense of community. While I doubt I could be satisfied with a Croissan'wich from Burger King every morning, I am nevertheless a little jealous of their little morning community.

*****

By 7 am, a crew of about six workers were toiling on the former grounds of the Lighthouse Diner, separating bricks into piles. Periodically, they would strike a brick with a hammer, perhaps to knock off the cement which used to hold it to another brick. I watched them work for a couple of minutes. They worked very fast.

I wonder where those bricks are going to end up. Another building, one assumes. For the rest of my walk, I am looking at all of the bricks in the buildings I pass, wondering what structures they have previously been a part of.

*****

I stopped in at Tommy's Cafe, one of the more interesting hybrid establishments in the neighborhood. They are a full, working eatery, but also have a surprisingly large selection of new and used musical instruments. Mostly guitars, but I did spy a few other types of noisemakers in there. I was tempted for a moment by a clarinet, before recalling that I don't really have any money anymore. Not to mention that I do not play the clarinet.

I mentioned that I had not been in since they changed locations a couple of years ago and said something vaguely complimentary about the new setup, which makes the place seem much nicer than it did when it was a couple of blocks east of its current location. Now it has levels, and a much larger selection of guitars.

In exchange for my flattery, I was given one of the worst cafe mochas I have ever tasted, although in fairness it was also by far the cheapest.

And apparently they make Star Wars-themed guitars now. I spotted Darth Vader, a Stormtrooper and Boba Fett. Wonder why they only had villains. Wonder why they make Star Wars guitars. Before I left, I also started to wonder why a music store had talk radio on instead of something musical piping through the speakers.

Comcastic!

My phone was ringing. The tiny letters within the orange glow on the face of the receiver informed me that it was my cable service provider. They had also called me about two hours earlier, hoping to trick me into getting the Showtime movie network. I had not been interested.

I answered and acknowledged that I was me when the guy asked.

"You guys just called me," I said.

"Oh, well, that was probably an offer about Showtime?"

"Yeah, I wasn't interested in that offer either." I hoped he would catch the implication that I was also disinclined to take advantage of his offer.

He did not pause. I have had jobs like his. They train you not to pause.

"We are calling you today to talk to you about your telephone service."

"Oh, well, I'm definitely not interested in that." I was already aware that they offer a competitive service to the landline, had weighed the pros and cons and decided I was not interested. Two years ago. The addition of the slogan "Comcastic" had not swayed me.

"Sir, you aren't interested in saving money?"

"Seriously? That's your sales pitch?"

"Well, you may not be aware..."

"You're pinning your hopes on the assumption that I am stupid and easily bullied?"

"Sir, I..."

"Sorry, bub. I am not even remotely interested. And I asked you people quite some time ago to never contact me by telephone again. Think you could write it down this time?"

I pressed the little button to terminate the call soon afterward. As I mentioned, I have had this sort of job in the past, and I am nice to people who call me about half of the time. The other half of the time it seems to be my intention to get the caller to hang up on me.

One constant through all of this is that I almost never buy something from someone who has called me on the phone. Please, telemarketers, make a note of this. If you would like further data on my shopping habits, I will also never buy anything from (or click on) a pop-up ad, and I am incredibly unlikely to get excited after seeing a commercial on television.

Hope this provides an acceptable balance to yesterday's post, in which I was nice to a stranger. Didn't want y'all to think I'd grown soft.

Labor day, and a tomat-ode

Monday was Labor Day in America. As it is a day off of work to celebrate the working folks, this is often the year's most ironic holiday for me.

Other countries hold similar celebrations on May 1st. A little research revealed to me that some of these international celebrations of labor can be partially traced back to the Haymarket Riots in 1886, right here in Chicago (the American celebration can be traced back slightly further, to 1882). Grisly stuff, the Riots, but you can read more about it here if you are so inclined. Apparently, getting an 8-hour workday made into law was quite a difficult process.

Why does it always seem like the fair city of Chicago is only ever noticed when something horrible happens here? But enough of civic self-pity.

*****

I spent my Labor Day laboring, once I finally finally shook off the shackles of sleep late in the afternoon. I am proud to say I was putting words upon paper again, although not on actual paper. Actual words, though.

What finally roused me was a phone call from my friend Craig, who was returning from a weekend visiting his folks on the other side of the state, near the Mississippi River and the Iowa border. This is the area from which he hails.

Craig was calling me to get me to come outside and claim some of the tomatoes which his father grows, and about which I have been pestering Craig since the last time he gave me some, late in the summer of 2002. I ate them like apples, juice running down my chin. They were heaven itself.

It should be noted that I adore tomatoes, even the hard, mealy things which use the same name and are commonly available here in the city. These are something else entirely. Craig's childhood home was a working pig farm. His parents retired some time ago, but the 25 years of pig feces has left them with some incredibly rich soil. Tomatoes apparently leap forth from these patches of land like the cicadas which flooded the air earlier this summer.

He brought me five tomatoes, with instructions that I should be careful to eat them today and tomorrow lest they split their skins and attract insects.

Not a problem. Two have already fallen. After I hit "publish," the third shall meet its fate.

Shorn to be mild

That's right, Blogreader, a double pun, specially designed to induce a groan and a rolling of your eyes. Other possible responses include a sharp sigh, a frown, wondering why you bother to read this blog, or a narrowing of your freshly-rolled eyes. All of these are normal, and should resolve on their own.

I'll give you a moment to forgive my punnery before proceeding.

*****

It does not take a genius intellect to deduce that getting a haircut from someone with whom you do not share a language can sometimes result in a vast discrepancy between the intended haircut and the one on your head as you exit the place, a little bit poorer financially, and with a bemused expression stapled on your face. Often, one will also have an urge to reach up and check the haircut for up to six hours after the event.

In spite of decent scores on several standardized tests, I have found myself in this exact situation on more than one occasion.

I have been contemplating a shearing since October or so, whenever it was that I began injecting "my hair is getting long" into conversations regardless of the topic currently under discussion.

Saturday, as I wandered stickily along Chicago Avenue looking for pictures to take, my hair kept obscuring the viewfinder of my camera, or sneaking into my mouth when a breeze picked up. I have accidentally lit it on fire on several occasions while putting flame to cigarette. I was also sweating heavily. I felt I had had enough when I chanced upon a hair salon which was open and bereft of customers as a result of a street fair which was not yet underway, but which had blocked off all traffic for several blocks to allow the vendors to set up.

I asked the woman nearest the front how much a cut would cost and, deciding it was a reasonable price, walked into the back to have my hair professionally washed. I assumed the first woman would be the one doing the actual cut, and she spoke English well enough, but it turned out that she was far too busy fussing with her own hair to do mine. Instead, the young woman who washed my hair was assigned to follow through to the end.

I was asked how I wanted it cut, and I answered. The woman from the front walked back and asked me again, translating my answer into Spanish for the benefit of my stylist, who nodded and began cutting.

Our path together was a jagged one. She started by cutting too little, and then cut too little again before I said the word "drastic" and she seemed to understand. With that one word, she removed more of less all of my hair as I stared morosely at myself in the mirror four feet away.

I had thought I might get something along the lines of late '65 Beatle, but ended up with Contemporary Bland. Still, I guess it'll be a while before I start moaning about needing a haircut again.

As a side note, my friend Ian called my longer hair, coupled with the blazers I started wearing a lot last fall, my "writer's costume."

So here it is: my freshly shorn locks, in a picture I call "Self-portrait at Bus Stop," taken an hour or so after the cut.


At the Puerto Rican market later that day, Junior's brother told me that every time he sees me I look more and more like "someone who fits in." He cited my formerly purple locks and the long hair I had had earlier in the day. I told him that my work with the CIA demands that I be somewhat flexible about my appearance. I added "and my morality..." under my breath, and his eyes widened and he clearly did not know whether or not I was joking. I enjoyed this. Then he told me I looked like I was putting on weight.

One final note: Blogger's Terms of Service require that all blogs publish at least one post about the blogger's hair, and one about the blogger's children and/or pets every six months. So I am only doing my duty by telling you about all this. I'll probably get the one about my cat out of the way tomorrow.

A letter to the internet, and some questions answered

Dear Internet,

Is it really such a funny joke to have my wireless network collapse on the day that I quit smoking? I am not famous for being an overly patient man under normal circumstances, and your little prank was really not appreciated.

Small slip this morning, Blogreader, after the networking problem combined with a coffee difficulty to reduce me to tears. But I am back on the wagon, back in control and moving forward.

*****

Minx answered a series of questions posed by Clare, and invited me to do the same. Here goes...


1. What is the Book Whisperer?
The Book Whisperer is a mythical creature who can suss out the hidden meanings contained within virtually any book. A friend to high school English teachers and students. The most famous Book Whisperer, Cliff, has put together a series of small books containing the secrets teased out of many tales. If you didn't understand the part about the ducks in "Catcher in the Rye," a Book Whisperer can help.

2. Why can I smell when it is going to snow?
You can't. What you are smelling are the bodily secretions of the Snow Mite, a tiny creature dormant for much of the year, but who performs a vital function in nature by preparing the ground for snowfall. In the period before a snowfall, these guys work very hard, and end up sweating a lot.

3. Tell me about a road that leads to a world where there are no ideas.
Sometimes, the same road leads to your day job.

4. How can I get a memory out of my head?
Alcohol and time. Alternately, many memories can be removed by thinking of a pop song you dislike. The song will slowly expand in your brain, taking up all available room.

5. Where is Shallowland and what lives there?
My best guess is American suburbia, land of soccer moms and SUVs.

6. Who is the man that lives inside the sun?
Well, I guess he'd be a cousin of mine, since I live in the moon. Oh, you're asking who he is? Frank.

7. When did you first know who you were?
A Thursday at 8:23 am.

8. Why do gnats fly in spirals and never hit each other?
Practice.

Wait. Why do they not hit each other? Well, because that would hurt.

9. What is love?
Magnetism.

10. How can I capture a free spirit?
Tie a string to a stick. Use the stick to prop up one end of a box. Place a lure on a small dinner plate on the ground under the box. When the free spirit comes to investigate, pull on the string, releasing the stick and closing the box. By definition, though, once you've captured one, it is no longer free.

File under "birthday comma happy"

Six months from today will find us in the year 2008, no doubt tooling around with jet packs and flying cars. We are at the year's spongy midsection, where it has begun to show its love handles.

On this date in 1858, Darwin read his paper on evolution to the Linnean Society. Four years later, the battle of Gettysburg began. One hundred and one years later, both the zip code and "She Loves You" were rolled out to the public. Not too many years later, the Walkman was introduced on this day. And somewhere in there I was born, on this date in 1973. Don't even get me started on "Canada Day" which has plagued my birthday on calendars for as long as I can remember.

Thirty-four. I kind of miss the years where there always seemed to be some sort of significance an impending birthday. In the teenage years, each new number seemed to bestow some new duty or privilege, exciting things like driving and voting and finally being allowed to see all the "R"-rated films I'd been watching all along.

In America, at least, once they allow you to drink (at age 21) this is pretty much over. I think at 25 is when most car companies will rent to you, but that's about it for magical powers bestowed by virtue of age until 59 and a half, when the retirement fund I do not have can be drawn from without penalty. Demographically speaking, I suppose being in the final year of the 18-34s holds some sort of significance. Soon I will be less valuable to marketers.

It was this day last year that I made the decision to write. Will I epiphanate epiphanize reach some sort of big decision this year as well? I kind of doubt it. The decision to seriously try to write was a pretty big step down a path I don't see myself leaving anytime soon. I'll probably take stock at some point today, see where my first year of writing has led me, aside from the obvious boon of having this blog, and all the lovely friends I've made here.

I share my birthday with Willie Dixon and William Strunk; with Dan Aykroyd, Debbie Harry and Princess Diana. I very nearly share it with my good friend Ian as well, who was born about 12 hours after I was, and who will always (ALWAYS!) be younger than me, and should never forget that I am the elder and deserving of reverence.

Anyway, yeah, it's my birthday. Don't have anything big planned to mark the date. I'll probably just check to see if my driver's license has expired and call it a day.

The Bee Gees

More weird little internet thingies today. Only yesterday, in fact, I learned that I can do better on a trivia quiz than a monkey!

I like this one because all I had to do was type in my URL and it does the rest, based on incoming links measured by Technorati. B-list certainly isn't bad. I do sort of wish they had some color options, though. Pink doesn't exactly go with the color scheme around here.




And I am apparently quite safe for children as well. I did this one a few days ago and was designated PG because I used the word "punch." I'm pretty sure I used it in the non-hitting sense, but they don't seem to have a contextual aspect to their ratings, much like the actual MPAA. Now, though, it found only a single use of the word "death," and granted me an all-ages pass. How "death" is preferable to "punch" beats me. My guess is also that it only checks the first page of the site, as I know I have used the word "fuck" a couple of times, in my Nano fiction excerpts alone. I believe I had a character say that something "rocks like a motherfucker," and another character echo that phrase in benign agreement. So tell all the kids to come on by the Moon Topples Big-Fun Family Blog.





UPDATE: Tell the kids to stay away after all. I guess these things can change pretty quick once you start dropping the F-bomb.

No sleet, no heat, not even gloom

Saturday in Chicago was a rainy day. As I walked home from breakfast with a friend, it may have been more accurate to call it a mist. There was no need to rush or walk close to the buildings, no need to ask my friend to cover the few blocks to my home by automobile. It was raining, but only barely.

I was reading one of the rinky-dinky local neighborhood papers last night, which mentioned that Chicago had recently placed among the worst in the nation for mail delivery. Of post offices in Chicago, it was my own which was singled out as a travesty, even by the seemingly lowered standards of the Chicago bunch. The article mentioned complaints of mail being delayed by weeks or months and/or arriving damaged, bent or broken in order to be forced into the mailboxes.

Then it discussed all of the positive changes going on at the branch. New staff have been hired and, according to the article, the whole place was now on its way to being a model of efficiency.

How do I reconcile this optimism with the sight I saw walking home on Saturday? Crossing the final street of my journey, I spied our postal carrier (the same one who compromised the security of my building last year) standing grumpily under an awning of a corner building. Several feet away from her, and not under the awning, was her cart of mail. I could see the ink running on the address panel of the topmost envelope.

When you work in a profession with a famous creed claiming "neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" (there are also versions which mention sleet and "dark of night") should you really be shirking your duties so visibly within easy view of those on your route? Would it really have been such an arduous thing to pull the cart underneath the awning with you? There was plenty of room.

Of the four horsemen of the postal apocalypse, only rain was present, and not very much of it. Apparently, I am still angry, four days later.