Month: November 2008

For the 30 days following this blog’s five-year anniversary, I am reposting some favorite, popular, or unique posts. Feel free to contact me to suggest some of your favorites. If you’d like to comment, click through to the original post.

This week I’m especially thankful for my friends. I was going to re-post the following on Thanksgiving Day, because that’s when I originally wrote it; but no. I’m going to re-post it now.

And I’m still thankful for everything on the list. And they’re all still in my life. Well, except for Smacky. I hope he’s chasing down his kill and feasting on the still-warm remains, out there, somewhere.

*****

• Thanks to my family for reminding me where I come from and for always feeling like “home”.
• Thanks to my sister’s in-laws for never even noticing that there’s a distinction.
• Thanks to my friends for being the most honest, straight-forward, and ethical people I know. Plus, you’re all hilarious. Have I mentioned that lately?
• Thanks to my coworkers for always trying to just fix it.
• Thanks to Smacky for being about as “cat” as anyone can be.
• Thanks to Apple for making such sexy sexy hardware and software.
• Thanks to my negative voice. Without you I wouldn’t have a challenge to overcome.
• Thanks to the netroots for finally becoming a progressive, political force.
• Thanks to everyone who voted Democratic in the last election. I was so scared that… shudder… well, let’s not think about that.
• Thanks to redheaded women, everywhere. Just thanks. Damn. Yes, even the crazy ones. Especially them.
• Thanks to Brooks running shoes for making the perfect shoes for my feet.
• Thanks to the framers of the Oregon Constitution for all the free speech protections. I appreciate and use them almost every day.
• Thanks to the New Atheists, like Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins and James Randi. It may take another 500 years but ours will be the majority view someday. Or we’ll be dead and unable to care.
• Thanks to the Iron Horse, Maya’s Tacqueria, Backspace, Twin Paradox, the Limelight, the Acropolis. It’s not just the food that keeps me coming back, although that’s excellent, too.
• Thanks to all my favorite living authors, too many to mention, but here’s a few: Tim Powers, Bruce Sterling, Carl Hiaasen, Arthur Nersesian, Neil Gaiman… the list goes on and on and deserves it’s own post, if not it’s own site (but www.bookslut.com is already taken). You inspire me, amaze me, and fill me with envy and I would read every word you write. Fuck that – I would pay for every word you write.
• Thanks to God, for not existing or showing any evidence of ever having existed, in spite of everyone looking for You. You’ve got everyone fooled, and boy, is everyone going to feel silly when they realize You’re not there. Then we’ll all have a good laugh and finally get around to that whole “world peace and love” thing people have been promising for centuries.
• Last, but not least, thanks to each and every one of you who reads this, or anything else I’ve ever written. I do it for myself because I’m a selfish bastard, and I’m still amazed that anyone else even understands it, let alone enjoys it and wants more. I wouldn’t stop even if I could.

…I’m sure I’m missing people. I’m sure there are people out there who would prefer a specific mention rather than being included in a broad category. I’m sure that I will think of much much better/funnier things to say immediately after clicking “Publish Post”.

But I’m also sure that you’ll understand. Happy Thanksgiving.

For the 30 days following this blog’s five-year anniversary, I am reposting some favorite, popular, or unique posts. Feel free to contact me to suggest some of your favorites. If you’d like to comment, click through to the original post.

By February 2006, I was stuck in a rut as far as blog posts went. I was mainly blogging about my running and diet. Big whoop. I mean, it was important for me to keep track of my exercise, and keeping a journal, online or whatever, was part of the process that kept me going and kept me honest. But it wasn’t exactly electrifying reading.

And then, one rainy night, walking in my neighborhood, I ran across something new, and it sparked a little experiment that I called “Creative Week”.

But first, I blogged the inspiration. Enjoy!

*****
Last night, after being out all day, I got home to discover that Smacky was out of food. He was visibly agitated about it. I decided to walk up to the grocery store to replenish his supply.

It was raining a little bit, but I didn’t mind. Was bundled up warm.

When I got to SE Milwaukie and Bybee, there were trailers parked all down Milwaukie Ave., and tents and people with walkie-talkies and headsets. As I got closer, I saw little “No Parking” signs that indicated the reason for all this activity.

They were filming… something.

Since I had to go past it all to get to the store, I poked around. For a moment I thought they were filming in the Moreland Theater. But when I looked in the Limelight Restaurant next door, I saw a whole crowd of people, in chairs and standing up, all staring at a bunch of monitors, and at the bar next door was a yellow sign saying “Bar Closed – just for today”. Looks like the bar was the set.

The parking lot of the Wells Fargo bank next door was packed with more trailers and tents, and one tent was marked “Extras”. In the street was a little sign:

Sorry for the blurry pic. Camera phone.

I walked on up to my grocery store, bought a bag of cat food (almost NINE BUCKS for a 5 lb. bag! That seems expensive, but then, I guess that bag will last me a couple of months. I wish I could eat for that cheap. Except delicious food, not cat food). I asked the checker if she knew what was going on down the street. She shrugged. “I don’t know… I heard, it was just a rumor, but I heard that Rebecca De Mornay was involved somehow.”

“Really? That’s cool!” I said.

She shrugged again. “It’s just a rumor.”

On my way out, I saw another grocery girl. “Do you know what movie is being filmed down there?”

Fumbling with a cigarrette, she shrugged. “I heard…” – she looked around as if someone might be listening in – “The Rock.”

“The rock?”

“You know…” she said. “The Rock?” She was a tiny girl, shorter than me, but she indicated a giant of a man with her hands, smoke trailing from her now-lit cigarrette.

“Right. The wrestler. I gotcha.” I headed back into the rain.

As I neared the bar set again, I spotted a guy hauling a box of stuff towards the base camp. “Hey,” I stopped him, “What’s going on?”

“It’s a movie” he said, with a smile.

“Right. I kinda got that,” I said. He was walking away. The box didn’t look heavy but it did look bulky. “What’s the movie?”

He turned around part way and spoke over his shoulder. “It’s called ‘The Music Within’. Go take a look. The set is just down there. It’s kinda cool.” He pointed down the street with his chin.

‘Kinda cool’? He didn’t sound like he worked with them… sounded like a fellow sightseer like me.

I looked around again, and made eye contact with the folks guarding the doors at the Limelight. I got nods of recognition in return, and smiles, but couldn’t bring myself to talk to them again. They seemed so… busy.

After I passed all the activity, I called Tracy. After filling her in on the movie being filmed in my neighborhood, I asked her to look it up on IMDB to see who might be in it.

She found it listed, but didn’t recognize the one star listed. A bit more googling but she couldn’t find much more info on it.

But, you know… I had a cat to feed.

For the 30 days following this blog’s five-year anniversary, I am reposting some favorite, popular, or unique posts. Feel free to contact me to suggest some of your favorites. If you’d like to comment, click through to the original post.

With my struggle to control my eating habits, there’s a phrase I use often that tries to encapsulate the helplessness I feel, but which really just serves to deflect any sense of agency I should feel.

That phrase is “accidentally ate”. As in, “I accidentally ate an eggnog milkshake and it was delicious.”

Here’s the (short, but sweet (like chocolate cake)) post where I first used that phrase publicly.

*****
Suddenly there appeared left-over cake in the break room this afternoon. German chocolate cake, and a lemon cake. Several of us were in there accidentally eating some.

One lady commented, “Well, we don’t want this to go to waste, do we?”

I replied, “Right. Eat up! There’s people starving in Gitmo, after all!”

For the 30 days following this blog’s five-year anniversary, I am reposting some favorite, popular, or unique posts. Feel free to contact me to suggest some of your favorites. If you’d like to comment, click through to the original post.

Anger is funny. At least that’s what my friends tell me. So when I go off on a rant, about something as simple as trying to find a bowl of soup, it produces something that makes my friends laugh, even as I’m seething in thwarted anger.

Which, now that I think about it, makes me laugh, too. Eventually. Everybody wins!

*****
I’ve spent the past half-week fighting off that stupid cold virus that’s been beating up my co-workers and friends (“that’s a pretty big virus”) and it’s taking its toll.

My days have consisted of work and sleep, with intermittent periods of eating and the occassional email exchange with friends. Lots and lots of sleeping. In fact, I’ve spent more time asleep since Sunday than I have at work. No, I’m not sleeping at work, although a couple of floors down in the building where I work is a little room with a cot and an alarm clock that’s expressly there for the purpose of taking a quick nap at work if necessary (I love the county sometimes).

I haven’t been running, either, because running lowers the immune system or something and I want to fight this crappy giant cold virus (I picture it being much like a red-orange-yellow beach ball, with spikes) so I can get back to running and breathing and enjoying things like coherent thought and not blowing my nose and such.

The world takes advantage of my confused, doped-up-on-over-the-counter-medication state by dangling things that might relieve this misery a tiny bit and then sliming it in gelatinous oozing confusion. I wanted some soup for lunch. Soup. Simple hot liquid with something tasty in it. Kinda hard to find downtown, but I walked past this sandwich place I’ve been meaning to try and, sure enough, on a little sandwich (ha-ha) board out on the sidewalk they list their “specials”:

Grilled: Roast Beef, cheddar, roasted red pepper, red onions, blah, blah, I’m losing focus here… Soup: Black Bean

Coolio! Soup and a sandwich. I walk in. To my doom.

I see that they have two“soup and sandwich” items on the menu: both of them have a 12 oz. soup, but one is a “half” and one is a “whole”. Obvious first question: How big is a half? I ask the counter girl that, and she pauses.

“Uh… well” she hems and haws, making vague size motions with her hands “it’s, uh, half of a whole sandwich…”

A bespectacled boy with a blonde soul patch pokes his head out from behind an oak wall, holding a loaf of bread in his hands, muttering something that may have seemed, to him and the counter girl, to be an answer to my question. Already confused, I decide to order a “whole” and hope I don’t get a “whole” loaf of bread. I guess I could save it for dinner. They’d better not charge me more than the menu’s stated price of $8.25, though.

“OK, I’ll take your roast beef and black bean special.” I state this as decisively as the phlegm in my throat allows.

Again, counter girl looks lost. “Um… well, you’ll have to” she hands me a little clipboard with a chart full of options on it “fill this out.”

“I can’t just order the special?”

“You can customize it however you want.” She replies. I step aside to study my options, getting a bit frustrated.

Roast Beef wasn’t even an option on the menu. A sign hanging over the register explains that if I want Roast Beef or Pastrami that I’ll have to write it in, and apologizes for the menus being confusing. Yay. Some validation. Yes, yes, I am confused.

I manage to fill out their devilish form with only a couple of mistakes. I accidentally checked an option that made the counter girl think I wanted the “Kid’s brown bag” special, when instead I wanted the “whole sandwich and soup” special. I also marked “Orange” on one part and “apple” on another for my choice of fruit, but I did that on purpose to highlight how confusing the menu was. Either I was too subtle or not subtle enough because it went right over countergirl’s head.

I probably won’t go back, even though the soup was pretty good. The sandwich was average and the oatmeal-chocolate-chip cookie was kinda thin. And, no, I didn’t get a whole loaf sandwich, either, so the value… not so good.

I just wanted some soup, dammit.