Self Idiot

The Long Edit (A letter to Dave)

2012-02-08T01:16:00.001-08:00

August 13, 2009

Dear Dave,

I just read this letter I wrote (and never sent) you a little over a year ago. I have no idea what I was talking about in the letter.

I understand the particular angle my mind was in when I wrote the letter. My brain still gets stuck in that position from time to time. But it's never as vast and all encompassing as the tone of the letter implied.

The letter was somewhat drippy but it seemed to read well. So rather than roll my eyes and throw it into the recycling bin (that's what we do here in Seattle) I decided to send it along to you. Right after I send a letter from 2005 I just discovered. We have to keep these forgotten and overlooked bits in order.

June 25, 2010

Dear Dave,

I just reread the letter that the above note was referencing and decided it wasn't worth sending after all. The letter had some OK parts (such as a dictionary getting dropped on a pie to illustrate a point) but ultimately it read like a college era journal entry and there are too much of those sort of things with my name attached to them floating around the world.

February 8, 2012

Dear Dave,

Considering the rather ridiculous number of rambling, pointless letters I send your way you might find it hard to believe that there are even more letters that I for one reason (such as light chaos) or another (general disorder, for example) didn't get around to sending you. That's exactly what happened with the letter which now no longer exists and the above bits of letter discussing the letter which now no longer exists.

I have no idea what the letter which now no longer exists was about. I don't even know what the position my mind supposedly gets stuck in from time to time was. And I especially don't know how a dictionary being dropped on a pie would illustrate anything other than the inability of a pie to withstand the impact of a heavy book being dropped on it. (I doubt that was my point as most pies couldn't withstand the weight of a fairly small book being dropped on them so there would be no need for me to illustrate the point with a dictionary.)

But I'm sure I was right in recycling the letter which now no longer exists so there's not much point in thinking about its content. Let us never speak of it again.

I Remember Right Now Quite Well. (A Letter.)

2011-11-18T08:08:00.000-08:00

November 9, 2011

Dear Dave,

No doubt you are slightly confused because here's another letter from me when I haven't yet sent you the previous letter I wrote. Well, be confused no more! Because as I was just reminded by an episode of NOVA all points in time exist at once. This means that even though you haven't yet received the letter I wrote before this one (which you will have probably already read by the time you read this) we haven't even met yet which means this letter might be even more confusing as you have no idea who I am.

(Keep that no idea of who I am as it's far more interesting than who I am and it's much better looking. The no idea of who I am is quite a stud. Ladies want to be with the no idea of who I am, men want to be the no idea of who I am. Even some men want to be with the no idea of who I am because the no idea of who I am is 100% unadulterated AWESOMENESS and who doesn't want to be with awesomeness?)

If, through the fault of a wormhole or the perpetual chaos the universe is constructed of or is breaking down into, this letter has arrived in the hands of a 10 or 12 year old version of yourself I apologize for the confusion and possible terror it might have caused.

Your parents will probably have contacted the police. That makes sense but will be pointless as I'm over 30 years in the future.

Yes, that seems impossible. But let me draw your attention to the street name in the address on the envelope that this letter came in. That street doesn't even exist in your time. It's farmland. The farmer that owns it right now has no idea what's going to hit him in a few decades.

Also look at the stamp and see how much it cost to mail this letter which is of a standard weight and as such does not require additional postage beyond a standard first class stamp.

(Seeing the price of the stamp you might wonder if everyone in the future is a millionaire. No, we're not. We just don't write many letters due to the expense. Also we have tons of TV to watch, well over a hundred channels. Many of them with cussing.)

Now, if through all that blah-blah-blah about time, the universe, and uncertainty this letter has arrived in the hands of 16 year old Dave I apologize that your future friends are not as cool as you thought they'd be.

(That's one more reason to stick with the no idea of who I am because, as a careful reader such as yourself will recall, the no idea of who I am is AWESOME.)

(By the way, awesome is still awesome here in the future. In fact it's even awesomer.)

OK, so despite all the wild and wacky ways reality can supposedly bend at any moment I'm pretty sure this letter will make it to present tense Dave who by now knows that I really never have much point in mind when I write these letters. I thought I had a point when I picked up this pad and pen but then I began to meander back and forth through time. Just like life is supposedly doing right now.

(You realize, of course, that your right now is my back then.)

As you don't know (because I haven't yet sent you the last letter I wrote) but will recall, I was waiting for some books to arrive from England. Well, they arrived. What a wonderful world we live in! One can get on the Internet, order some books from England, and many weeks later, almost as if by magic, they will arrive at your door!

Well, it seemed like we lived in a wonderful world until I just discovered via an ad on TV that "they" made yet another Mission Impossible movie. I think I'm behind on the Mission Impossible franchise by a couple of movies. I'd better catch up before the new one comes out.

Or, instead, I could do something useful with my time such as organizing my underwear drawer by color and type. (Actually it isn't a drawer so much as a pile. But it's all clean. At least the pile on the chair is. That would be the really swell leather chair I put in the bedroom so I could sit by the window and read. But like all chairs that end up in the bedrooms of people worth knowing* my chair has mostly been a laundry pile holder.)

*I am mainly thinking of all the people I find worth knowing and am not actually referring to myself as someone worth knowing. Also I'm not making the argument that a pile of clean laundry in the chair in one's bedroom is proof that the laundry piler is worth knowing.

Anyway, the reason I'm tired (I know you wanted to ask but you didn't out of politeness) is because I went to bed last night an hour later than I had planned and I got up this morning an hour earlier than I had expected. That's two hours less sleep than I'd hoped for and when factoring in all that time and universe craziness it's possibly a year or two of sleep that I missed. Maybe I'm still sleeping. I hope I'm not because that would mean when I woke up I'd have to write this letter all over again and (as you've no doubt noticed by now) it's a fairly tedious letter.

Possibly due to the years of sleep I missed last night I just realized that if I did organize my underwear "drawer" I wouldn't just have color and style to consider but pattern as well. Maybe I should just watch the Mission Impossible movies and leave my underwear in a chaotic pile in the chair in the bedroom. Stupid Tom Cruise and his awesome movies.

Even though by the time you read this letter I will have had many nights sleep I still haven't actually gone to bed yet and I'm sleepy. Good night.

Woofmutt

Oh! (A Letter.)

2011-11-17T09:39:00.000-08:00

PAGE ONE

November 2, 2011

Dear Dave,

The (EXPLETIVES DELETED) advertisers and their #@*%$! (EXPLETIVE ILLUSTRATED) Christmas ads running on TV! It's November 2nd (see above date). I saw my first Christmas ad at 12:50 AM November 1.

This is not why I wrote. But as I am writing for no particular reason everything is going just fine.

Anyway, back to TV...

PAGE TWO

Just saw an ad for potato chips featuring a type of red haired, freckle faced kid that has always seems to be around in all eras of mass media. Maybe these red haired kids aren't actually an ever present type but are a handful of alien or supernatural beings who make a living being in ads, movies, and Norman Rockwell paintings. Maybe now that I've realized this the Red Haired Freckle Faced Kid People won't let me live.

PAGE FOUR

On page three, which I just threw away, there was a drawing of a lizard. In keeping with the theme of this letter, the lizard drawing was for no reason. It was also a lousy drawing. So I used my powers as

LORD
GOD
ALMIGHTY
of this
LETTER

and destroyed my lousy lizard for no reason. Just like God did to the dinosaurs.

THE END

PAGE FIVE

If the fact that this letter is still continuing after the last page ended with THE END is blowing your mind let me point out that THE END only referred to THE END of the story on the previous page and not THE END of the whole letter. But thanks for getting caught up in the letter.

November 8

Now, let the mind blowing continue as I will end this letter here even though it continues after this page for several pages which were all written at a previous date to the date that I am writing this here. For some reason there was a blank spot on this page so in the interest of being green (I'm lying) I'll use this space to conclude the letter instead of starting a whole new page.

Woofmutt

PAGE SIX

November 6

I am feeling fine thanks to a couple of glasses of white wine. I don't dislike white wine but I only ever drink it when I get it for free. If I'm paying for wine it's gonna be red. If I want something like white wine and I'm paying for it then it's gonna be beer.

PAGE SEVEN

But enough about me drinking like a girl and back to the topic at hand: TV.

Earlier today I heard an ad that asked a question I'd always been pondering: Are all tampons the same? I didn't pay attention to the answer the ad gave as I wanted to keep the mystery alive.

In other ads...

One of the cell phone companies is running an Xmas* ad that, to the tune of Walking in a Winter Wonderland has the refrain "Walking in a 4G wonderland" (so clever!) but to me it sounds like they're singing "Walking in an orgy wonderland."

*Technically Xmas is pronounced Christmas so one should write a Xmas not an Xmas. But I say ex-mass. So there.

PAGE EIGHT

The Simpsons has pretty much sucked this season. Hopefully this is its last. The episode that was just ended wasn't 1/10 as funny as the pages I wrote while it was on and those pages ain't really funny at all. Or so I recall. My head is cloudy with free girl wine.

PAGE NINE

Dude!

You are too old for me to call you dude. For some reason it's a term I only use dude with boy kids like my nephews. No, wait, let me make an incredibly boring clarification and say I mainly use dude with boy kids (in a jokey manner, not a trying-to-be-the-cool-old-guy way) but there are certain situations in which I use dude with my boy contemporaries. Being drunk and talking "guy talk" is generally the prerequisite to the use of dude with a boy adult and it's mostly used to express the idea "Just shut the fuck up for a second and pay attention to what I'm saying."

PAGE TEN

That last page was pretty pointless but so's this whole damned letter. Also I'm still sorta buzzed on free girl wine. Buzzed enough to not feel OK with driving to the store to get some strawberry cheesecake ice cream. (Strawberry cheesecake is probably a girl flavor?) I don't need any ice cream (Who does need ice cream? Other than people in TV shows recovering from tonsillectomies.) so it's just as well I can't go get any. THANK YOU FREE GIRL WINE!!!

Back to TV: I was gonna watch some BBC crime mystery detective drama thing but the "Previously on BBC Crime Mystery Detective Drama Thing..." scene collage at the beginning of the show made it look far too complicated to bother with while being sorta buzzed on free girl wine.

PAGE ELEVEN

There's an ad for some sorta frozen snacks which has a song by Jimmy Durante in it. Sorta an odd choice as I'm pretty sure most folks don't really know who he was. But the ad also lightly jokes about cannibalism, so there you go.

Just saw an ad for Michale Buble's Xmas album. He sounds like Bobby Darin. Lucky for him Bobby Darin isn't widely remembered by the Marching Morons so he can get away with it. If he sounded like Elvis he'd be screwed.

PAGE TWELVE

In other ad news...Wanda Sykes has an anti-homophobe PSA running on TV but I just saw that she is also doing a voice over for a Gain laundry soap ad that focuses on all these free spirited women. I'd just seen Wanda's PSA so when I saw the Gain ad and heard Wanda's voice, I thought all the women in the ad were going to be lesbians and it was some sorta Lesbianism is AWESOME! BE cool with it! ad campaign. Instead it was a "Doing laundry can be AWESOME if you do it with GAIN!" ad campaign. (There were only women in the ad so apparently doing laundry with Gain is not for men which means doing laundry will never be awesome for me.)

PAGE THIRTEEN

Where the hell are the two books I ordered from England? Usually stuff I order from England (muffins, toffee) gets here disturbingly fast. But these books are taking FOREVER!

(I know you have almost nothing* to do with the lateness of the books but I thought my rant would be a nice break from all the TV talk.)

*You probably have absolutely nothing to do with the lateness of the books, but I'm leaving a small measure of possibility for the supposed randomness of the Universe.

GO BACK TO THE END OF THE LETTER WHICH YOU HAVE ALREADY READ

Avoidance Post

2009-02-26T19:01:00.000-08:00

I have not posted here in over a month. Oh no!

This isn't my main blog...Well, achulky (as the nephew says) I don't really have a main blog anymore as I don't really have readers.

Yes, I usually do the things I do just cuz I like to do them. (And if I think something's funny, I laugh.) But when it comes to putting all the words in my head onto a page it really never seems that important. And when I go to a library or book store it seems even less important. What the world does not need now is another book.

Or blog. Or reality TV show or baby or sports team or snack cake.

But I'm being a snob. Listen, if you want to write a review in your blog of a reality TV show about a woman writing a how-to book for making sports themed cakes for babies then I believe in your happiness.

But please, don't make me watch the show. And if I tell you I don't watch the show please don't relate the latest episode to me. Unless you're doing it as a dance around a fire while grunting and waving your arms a lot. I believe we all have the God given right to relate a story in that manner.

Where was I?

Oh yes, avoiding studying for a test.

And I was going to mention I am compelled to write more if I think people are achulky reading what I write. More importantly if they're amused by what I write. This isn't all that amusing so I'm stopping right now.

Word!

2009-01-06T08:47:00.001-08:00

I have a business English class this term. I’m not sure what the title of the class actually is, it’s a fairly basic name. It may just be called Business English. I know it’s not one of those irritatingly exciting names such as Effective Dynamic Business Communication Through the Written Word or How to Change Your Life With Just One Complaint Letter a Day!

The business English class apparently is about…Well, I’ll let you guess what it’s about. It’s a required course for the program I’m in (accounting), or at least I think it’s required. Either way it’s a decent class for someone like me whose only English structure classes were in high school and who spent all his time during those classes drawing pictures or writing things which had nothing to do with the sort of writing I was supposed to be focusing on.

I more or less know how to effectively communicate with written language but my understanding of the structure of English is probably at an 8th grade level. I’m pretty sure of my nouns, verbs, conjunctions, adverbs, and a few others thanks to Schoolhouse Rock, but when it comes to commas, semicolons, regular flavored colons, ending a sentence in a preposition, dangling participles, or run on sentences I’m not exactly sure. Was that last sentence a run on sentence? I don’t know. If only there had been songs about those subjects on Schoolhouse Rock. Instead of wondering what I do and don’t know about English structure I would be instead singing Don’t Let Your Sentences Run Free! or Oh! My Bad Comma!

Everything up above was actually my first assignment for the business English. The instructor wanted to see where we were in our writing. We could just write about anything. He just wanted a sample. Too late I realized I should have written "for someone such as myself" instead of "for someone like me". And I would have used "instead" only once in the last sentence. I would have done that anyway if this were just a blog post. But I let it stand for the sake of history.

One Of Those Days

2008-11-30T22:01:00.000-08:00

The day
had ran wildly
beyond night and stars
so that when it climbed
over the edge of the world
towards our dark rooms
and warm beds
its steps were heavy
and all it thought of
was sleep.

My Hapiness Is In The Mail

2008-11-25T07:50:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was easy and trouble free and utterly sucked. I have no idea why. It was just one of those days that God sometimes doesn't know what to do with so he dumps 'em on me.

But there was one bright spot: My favorite alcoholism treatment center radio ads have added a THEME SONG!

It's a very old fashioned radio ad, odd sounding song and it makes the announcer sound like he's shouting. The announcer is Pat O'Day (or something like that), a former Seattle radio hotshot who is apparently a recovered alcoholic yet always sounds completely smashed in the radio ads...Which is why I like the ads so much.

I also like the ads because they're humorously anti-drinking (unintentionally). Even wine with dinner is a crutch and shows your whole dinner party are weak willed lushes. Carrie Nation would be happy. If she weren't in Hell.

Anyway, today already tastes a little like yesterday so I don't have good hopes for it.

But there should be 3 (yes THREE) Tullycraft records slowly making their way to my house. Once I get them everything will be great.

And I know what your thinking, but I can quit music anytime I want, man. I don't have a problem, music just helps me even out. And get up in the mornin'. And relax at night. Plus I usually have an record playing with dinner. And if your with friends, well you've got to have music, it'd be rude not too!

And sure, I go out and listen to too many bands sometimes...But it's only like once a week at most. Hardly a problem.

It's not as if I have to listen to music, I choose to do it. I want to do it. That doesn't make me an addict. An addict has to listen. I just want to.

You know what? Maybe you're the one with the problem, ever think about that? You just can't stand to see people being happy, that's what your problem is. Jeez.

Damn it! When are those new records going to get here???

The Squares Are The Weirdos

2008-11-15T11:10:00.000-08:00

There was more to this, but why be so wordy? I'm not writing an article or paper. So my core observation is this:

The highly creative and avant garde was once portrayed in pop culture as the world of weirdos, now the ordinary and plain is what's presented as the realm of the oddball.

It used to be in a movie or sitcom the suggestion that everyone went to an ethnic restaurant and sit on pillows and eat strange foods was made for humorous effect. Now it's the couple that doesn't want to eat sushi but sings the praises of Olive Garden that we laugh at.

Oh wait, to pad this out I think I can make a list!

WEIRD THEN..................................WEIRD NOW

Thrift shop fashion.........................Matching his & her shirts

Jazz........................................Elevator/background music

Eclectic decor..............................Matching living room sets

Neighbors growing their own food............Velveta

Modern Art..................................Formal family portraits

Making couscous for dinner..................Making meatloaf

A night class in pottery making.............Bridge club

I Would Now Like To Do My Impression Of Someone Who Almost Doesn't Give A Damn.

2008-11-02T22:52:00.000-08:00

Tonight "King of the Hill" dealt with MySpace. I was watching it with friends who don't do any social stuff online. They don't watch YouTube either. And of course they don't read anything I write and post.

But we got talking about MySpace and blogging and I said most of what I post on other sites are funny ha-ha pieces which no one wants to read because they'd rather watch videos of dogs barking at flushing toilettes.

This immediately got two of my fairly intelligent, literate, friends who all have a good sense of humor laughing and they wanted to know if such videos existed. My other more internet savvy friend assured them the videos did exist and there were also videos of cats flushing toilettes. More laughter.

As I was leaving the room to wash my hands I wondered if the written word had much hope. Just then I heard one of my friends mention a video of a monkey sticking its finger up its but. They all burst out laughing and laughed and laughed and laughed.

It's not often you ask the universe a question and get an immediate reply. And getting a reply that comes with a laugh track? Magical.

A New Post In An Old Posthole

2008-10-08T22:42:00.000-07:00

I logged in to look around and saw the NEW POST button so I pressed it and here I am.

But let's get to the pointlessness right away.

And I think this one should be extra pointless. I just wrote a letter to a sort of long lost friend and as he's someone who has always known that meaning doesn't need meaningful content I feel in a slightly abstract mood.

Plus it's fall. But I don't want to write about fall because I really want to write about fall and I don't feel like taking the time to do it right right now.

I need to go to bed. Before 11. To make up for not having done that last night or the night before or...

(Gone To Bed)

Lost & Found

2008-10-01T19:07:00.000-07:00

Somehow I lost my way to this blog. Not that it really mattered. Well, it did a day or so ago when I had something I wanted to post, but now I don't know what that was.

Fortunately my friend Tui over at Mental Mosaic* has been by here and helped me find my way.

There's a Hallmark card in there somewhere, but I'm not writing it.

*I would have put in a link but when I do all I get is a page with the links gif on it. When the hell is the future going to get here and using all aspects of a computer and the internet is like watching TV? http://www.mentalmosaic.com/

So Let It Rain...Let The Rain Fall Down...

2008-08-20T00:36:00.000-07:00

It's late summer and it's been raining raining all night.

No doubt there are a lot of sad faces out there in the night, frowning into the dark and thinking "It's August 19th! THIS is summer?"

I think it's great. I have both the windows open in my bedroom so I can hear the rain and get all of the cool air I can.

Rain is one of the main reasons I moved to Western Washington almost 20 years ago. I could happily live in rain under gray skies all year long.

Tonight I made a "rain" playlist for iTunes to shuffle through. 34 songs, almost 2 hours. Mostly country, not just because I have a lot of country in my library but it seems that country artsists have more songs about rain.

It's been a great late evening sitting here listening to "Comin' Down In The Rain" by Nanci Griffith, "A Better Rain" by George Strait, "Thunderstorms And Neon Signs" by Wayne Hancock, "Storms Never Last" by Waylon Jennings and Jesse Colter, "We've Got A Good Fire Going" by Don Williams (where the title for this piece came from), and a bunch of other songs all backed by the sound of actual rain outside the window.

After Some Soap And Water

2008-08-18T23:01:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite things about summer is heading out in the night having just gotten cleaned up. It's the only time when it actualy feels exciting to have showered and shaved and shined. It makes me feel like I've escaped the weight of the day and am somehow part of the cool edge of the evening. So I guess I could just say: It makes me feel cool.

Heading off into the summer night freshly polished has a feeling of optimisim to it that the morning shine rarely has. It's probably a feeling based on association. Usually if I'm cleaing up at the end of the day it means I'm headed off to do something fun. Maybe it's a little about change. Even if there is absolutely nothing to do and nowhere to go a shower and clean clothes is still a slight change.

Chris Ledoux has a song called "County Fair", an upbeat tune that really nails the feeling of going to the county fair...The real deal kind of county fair that's pretty much the only big event for the year. Where I grew up we had that kind of fair. The fairgrounds were in the middle of famous rolling hills of wheat, miles away from any town. And other than some minor 4th of July celebrations or getting out of school the county fair was the big fun of the year.

About this time last year near sunset I was in the camper at my aunt and uncle's place in the far east end of the Kittitas valley, listening to KXLE from Ellensburg and getting ready to head into the Kittitas County Fair when"County Fair" came on the radio.

I'd never heard the song before, it might have even been the first Chris Ledoux song I ever heard. Looking out the camper door I saw the valley was all long light and shadows from the setting sun, so I stopped what I was doing and stared west while listening to Chris Ledoux sing a story I'd never experienced yet knew well.

It was one of those private moments that gets nailed down in your memory and probably doens't make a very interesting blog. But I'm not going to bother rewriting this.

Well there's a full moon in the western sky,
And there's magic in the air.
Ain't nothin' I know of, can make you fall in love,
Like a night at the county fair.

Quitting Time

2008-08-17T00:21:00.000-07:00

The drive I took just after sunset of a hot day was really to just be in the cooling air listening to music. There isn't anywhere around Seattle that I enjoy driving anymore. I've explored it all and I'm tired of city life.

But the air and the old mix tape reminded me of other drives around sunset, other places I'd rather be,

The moon looked full and was orange thanks to our long hot days and polution. I pulled into a riverside park to watch it rise but noticed the park closed at 9 pm which gave me only three minutes. I watched til 9 then headed towards the Sound.

I found a small waterfront park I'd never stopped at so I did. It turned out to be a good choice as I was the only person there.

This has has happened to me a lot in Seattle. I've been in really great parks on nice days and I'm the only one around.

People here tend to go where everyone else goes and only go when everything is absolutely as they think it should be for outdoor ventures.

Though REI and Northface labels are sported by at least half the people you pass if the sky is overcast or the temperature below 60 the parks are empty.

The park I was at tonight was a long narrow stretch of land below street level and running along Puget Sound. No view of the city as it was south of Alki.

The air was cool, the small waves breaking on the narrow bit of beach was nice. Across the Sound were the lights of a few towns on islands. Beyond the towns there was the silhouette of the Olympics. Lights from ferries and other boats floated across the water.

It was really beautiful. And it did absolutely nothing for me.

All I could really feel were memories of how I used to feel when I saw the scene I was taking in.

But tonight no aspect of it interested me. I didn't wonder where teh boats were going. I didn't think about taking the Fauntleroy Ferry sometime to see what was on the other side. I wan't interested in the towns with the lights. The sound of the waves and scent of the water was nice but left me blank.

I really don't want to be here anymore. I'm just hanging around out of habbit. I need to make a plan to break the habbit.

Indifferent

2008-08-15T00:49:00.000-07:00

As I talked,
she looked blankly at me,
as if I were
fading away
as I spoke,
and she was wondering
what color
to paint
the wall
behind me.

Flat, Black, Round, and Dusty

2008-08-13T22:48:00.000-07:00

So I had this yard sale on some of the large and heavy things that went to live with a nice family on a farm was my vinyl records.

About half of it was easy to toss away. Thrift shop finds that seemed like a good idea at the time but which barely, if ever, got listened to.

The slightly difficult ones were records that I actually paid real money for at one time because I seriously loved the music. Most of those hadn't left their sleeves in at least a decade and yet it wasn't easy just to toss them.

There really wasn't much vinyl romanticism. I like the sound of vinyl, but not because I notice depths and texture not present in CDs. I like vinyl for the flaws, the crackle and pops. It's the same way I like the sound of AM radio. Old pop and country in mono coming across the AM has a warmth to it like the lights from a house on a cold night.

But vinyl is a pain. It takes up a lot of space, has to be treated nicely, loaded carefully on the turntable, cleaned, and halfway through the album it has to be flipped over. Once upon a way back then that was state of the art and we liked it. But these days whne I'm lugging a box of it to another location I just think of the clever bumper sticker I saw: Vinyl is heavy.

Still, there is a pile of vinyl (much smaller now) that I keep hesitating on. Albums (or worse, one single song on an LP) that I might want to one day hear.

A few of these songs I doubt are available on CD ("The Bumble Bee Song" by a band called The Edge), but the rest of it I really don't need on CD or want to buy again.

Since I have the space and the turntable why not just hold onto them? (Asks the man with boxes full of memory infused bottle caps and receipts.) Maybe finally one day I'll have one of those super rare LPs that go for $100 instead of the $1 most of mine are worth.

Life Is In The Boxes

2008-08-11T23:44:00.000-07:00

I just had a yard sale and there's still too much left around.

Unfortunately it's not large objects that mostly fill every corner and shelf. If it were all big things, like the two 5 gallon glass bottles I got rid of this past Saturday, it'd be easy. I could look around and say "OK, the anchor, the petrified log, the matching bent cane rockers, and the kayak frame have got to go!"

Instead it's small stuff. A lot of things that could fill a lot of pockets. Or file drawers. And most of it is worthless if not genuinely useless. But it's all crammed full of meaning for me. Damn it.

I have at least a dozen smallish boxes packed with everything from one of my baby shoes to a couple of my grandfather's teeth. (Apparently they were saved either by him or my dad in order to make some sort of jokey necklace out of.)

I have a couple larger boxes full of letters from friends from back before the internet and back when my friends had time to write letters. There is at least one large box of photos dreaming of being in an album some day. Several boxes of half written this and half drawn thats.

Just out of curiosity as to what I was holding onto I grabbed one of the smaller boxes at random and looked in. This isn't even a complete list of theitems inside...

-My 2nd year college ID
-A fake ID from the same year with just my nickname on it
-Sonvolt ticket stub from 1997
-Dave's Idaho license from 1988
-A photo of a dog on a sidewalk in Portland
-A receipt fer the purchase of some bed rails in 1997 (no idea why I kept that)
-Clipping from a paper announcing my dad was chosen Washington State National Guard Soldier of the Year. No year mentioned.
-Dinosaur JR ticket stub from 1993 and the Dinosaur JR earplugs I bought there
-A drawing of a bomber droppin bombs "from Uncle Sam" made by my dad when he was a kid
-B&W photo of a spaniel I found at a junk shop
-A page from an old address book with 4 different addresses for Saprky
-An "ad" for a poetry "zine" Max and I ran in our "zine" Green Sugar back around 1990
-A photo of Dave's now departed dog Wobble
-A matchbook from my favorite Vancouver BC hotel, the Sylvia
-Elvis stamps
-Receipt from dinner at Taco Bell on my 32 birthday in 1997
-A playing card from some old game with a picture if a dog fixing his doghouse on it
-90 day guest pass from Costco in 1989 with Dave's picture on it
-Uncle Tupelo ticket stub for November 14th, 1993
-My Grandpa Mac's obituary from 1966
-A photo of a dog in a wheat field that Michael took somewhere
-My senior year Highschool ID card with a pic of me dressed as a nerd
-Amtrak ticket stubs from a Seattle-Portland day trip Dave and I took when he was visiting 7/31/97
-Otto's Microsoft ID from over a decade ago.
-The bottom of a vending machine coffee cup, the kind with poker hands on them. This bottom has the Ace of Spades on it
-Air ticket receipt from a trip to LA to see Max, March 6-11, 1997
-A lightbulb I stole from a merry-go-round in San Francisco during spring break 1987
-Thunderbirds Vs Winterhawks ticket stub for March 4, 1994
-Matchbook from the Downtowner Motel in Spokane, a dive Saprky and I stayed at on a a convertible trip
-Ticket stub to the Oregon Museum of Scinece and Industry (?) for Sunday May 25th, 1997
-Some baby teeth remains...Either mine or the niececs or nephew's.
-Martinelli's cap from my 25th birthday in 1990. Martinelli's cuz I didn't drink yet.
-Coca-Cola bottle cap from June 1991 in Nampa
-Beer caps from:
June 18th, 1991 Max (Bud Light)
July 3, 1991 Otto (Redhook)
June 1992 Dave and Max and I (Henry Weinhart's)
August 1992 Dave (Sam Adams)
-Wine cork from Mike and DJ's wedding in 1991
-Wine cork from a bottle I drank with Max and Tyger on July 24 1992 (don't know what that was about other than Tyger was visitin' Seattle)
-A bottle opener stamped to look like a baseball player which reads "DRINK OLYMPIC DRY GINGERALE...SEATTLE, U.S.A."
-Marysville Taco Bell receipt for December 20, 1996 on our way to Vancouver for Christmas
-X concert ticket stub for aprill 22, 1994
-Receipts for birthday presents bought for Sparky in September 1996 while I was in Nampa visiting Dave
-Taco Bell receipt from 1996 for Sparky's 36 birthday
-Safeway receipt from 1997 for the purchase of some ice cream on my 32nd birthday
-Thunderbirds vs Winterhawks ticket stub January 28, 1994
-Receipt for a a breakfast Otto and I had at the Space Needle on February 11th, 1994. Steak and eggs. 2 coffees.
-My long departed cat Crispin's pet ID tag.

Not all of these items bring up exact memories. Most of the wine and beer I can't recall the particulars of, but I can recall many times just hanging out drinking with my friends.

Some of the trips I'd need more than a date to figure out exactly which trip it was. Others I know right off. I havea photo in a frame from the day trip to Portland with Dave. He's at a table in an Amtrak car. The phot is in a frame because it's just typically Dave.

The various dinners at Taco Bell I can't recall exactly but Sparky and I used to go there a lot and sit and talk for well over an hour if not more. The food was fast, we never were.

Breakfast at the Space Needle with Otto happened because back then in the winter the Space Neele ran 2 for 1 coupons in order to drum up business. It was the first (and only) time I had steak and eggs for breakfast. The food was merely OK. The waiters wore tuxes. At breakfast. It seemed odd.

I'm not sure why Michael gave me the picture of the dog sittingin the wheat field. It was dog he had known somewhere and had been mpressed with. The dog looks happy. The dog on the sidewalk in Portland I photographed while down there visiting Tyger. Here and there I have quite a few snaps of "stranger" dogs.

When I die I figure cremation makes the most sense. I wonder if they can toss in all the boxes of stuff with me. That'd make sense too.

Letting The Old Guard Down

2008-07-31T18:46:00.000-07:00

He's a professional. Young enough to to know it isn't OK to be sexist but old enough to remember the "Boys Club" era.

And he's wealthy enough to not concern himself with whether the other guy thinks like he does before he makes comments that are shaded with old mindsets. At least he's that way with me.

Talking about his profession he says that most of the young people entering it are either women or foreigners. He mentions it twice.

"As long as they speak and comprehend English fluently," I reply, "I really don't have a problem with women entering the profession."

Of course he laughs. He'd probably repeat the joke, but all of his colleagues are women and foreigners.

Quoting: Woody Allen

2008-07-30T23:38:00.000-07:00

"I was in bed...But could not sleep because of some fried chicken in the icebox that I felt entitled to."

Around 1981 when I first read the above line from Woody Allen I thought it was hilarious.

The line comes from his short humorous piece "The UFO Menace" and for some reason the line has stuck with me.

I of course think about it when there's fried chicken around but sometimes, like tonight, it pops up in my brain for no reason at all.

I Don't Really Believe This

2008-07-27T00:08:00.000-07:00

I was walking back from the store tonight telling myself a story about a time traveler.*

I'd reached a point where our hero had found someone who believed his predicament. They were in a private library discussing the possible existence of creatures that stole small metal objects across time ("time crows"), and whether the probability in a coin toss had a greater effect beyond heads-or-tails.

A coin was tossed as a book was randomly pulled from a shelf. The book turned out to be a volume about beings of the spirit world including ones that fit their ideas of the "time crows". It was two books in one, a book published in the early 20th century which included a reprint of a book from the early 19th century. Each book had a cryptic dedication in it. Reading them our hero realized they referenced things from his youth, names of highschool friends, things that only he and the named friends would know. He concluded that in some future time jumps into the past he wrote the books for himself to find in the library at that moment.

Ok, now cut away from my mind wandering nonsense to real life...

Along the sidewalk came Patty, a neighborhood lady who rescues dogs from bad homes and has 4 herself. She walks them twice a day, 3 black cocker spaniel sized dogs and a chihuahua.

But tonight she also had a white dog. 5 dogs total.

The white dog was new to me, so I asked Patty about it.

"Oh that's Riley," she said, "I've had him a long time!"

"What's a long time?" I asked, "I haven't seen him before."

"Well Riley came from..." she began a detailed story of how she got the dog. Final point: She'd had the dog a year.

Now, I'm someone who notices things most people don't. I could ramble off some examples but I'll just stick to this: If Patty had had 3 black dogs and one white dog (and the chihuahua) I would have noticed.

I'd have also remembered the dog's name. Riley was the last name of my best friend in high school.

So the punchline is: I was imagining a scenario where a time traveler sent a messages to himself across time using the names of high school friends as an attention getter when I encountered a dog that I had no recollection of ever having previously existed and the dog had the name of my best friend in high school.

Funny. But yes, not really worth all these words.

*I'm not sure why I figured I needede to hear another tale of time travel and parallel worlds. Nothing really set it off. I didn't have a particularly clever take on it. Most of it was standard time travelling stuff: The hero, through no intention or fault of his own, finds himself moving back and forth through time. He has a control over it, except he can't get back to his starting point and he can't stay in a time that isn't his for very long.

Why am I going into details that aren't all that creative or new? Because I didn't want anyone to think I was just walking home imagining how cool it would be if I had a time machine.

Story Teller

2008-07-26T23:46:00.000-07:00

I was walking back from the store tonight telling myself a story about a time traveler...

Wait, let me explain...

I've been crafting fictions in my head since I was pretty young. Stories. I get an idea and then let the story develop. It usually starts with dialog. One character asks or says something and a conversation begins.

Sometimes it's a short story. I get an idea for a situation and the watch what happens.

"Christs All Over The Wall" was a short story I told myself about a guy whose housecleaner felt she saw Jesus' face in one of the flower clusters on the handprinted wallpaper the guy's ex-wife had put in the dining room. He pointed out that the same face could be seen in each flower cluster. Absurdity ensued. I recently saw a preview for a new movie that has a similar story.

Most of the time it's a long story and I add to it every now and then. Back in college it was a road trip story. Since 1990 there's been a fantasy story. Wizards. But not like that English kid.

What seperates me from most people who like to tell themselves stories is that I don't feel compelled to see the story written down. If I did I might have written a whincingly bad road trip story a couple decades back. Or I might have just seen an ad for a film adaptation about a guy with this wallpaper...

Hey, Vast Anonymous Expanse!

2008-07-26T22:59:00.000-07:00

I am sort of messing around with this blog as a way to let off the word build up in my head. Sort of.

I like to talk. When it comes to ideas and observations, cracking jokes and just generaly ranting and raving I can talk and talk and talk. Yacking.

But there's one caveat: I only enjoy talking with people I think are worth talking to. People who actually pay attention to life...And like to talk. I want an actual back and forth conversation. I can hear myself talk anytime.

The people I like to talk with the most are my friends. But I live many hours away from most of them. Face to face interaction happens once a year at best .

Phone calls don't work all that well as my friends all live the modern life with kids and/or careers which means they're usually going from here to there and there and there. I have plenty of time, they have a houseful of kids or a film screening to go to.

So I've gotten used to not sharing my thoughts with anyone. But occasionally I want to say something. Yay for the internet.

Prefaced

2008-07-24T13:57:00.000-07:00

There's a lot of preamble for a blog not intended to have world wide appeal.

But this is a lot like pop culture: Little content, big noise.

What's New & Different!

2008-07-24T13:42:00.000-07:00

The exciting new aspect of this particular blog is that I don't intend for this one to be read by anyone. Or for it to be that exciting. Except for the occasional sudden explosion or ninja attack.

What has been different about my past blog attempts is that no one really read them. My friends weren't interested/didn't have the time/didn't go on line/didn't think my writing was that funny or interesting but didn't want to tell me so they instead said they didn't have the time or never went on line.

My online acquaintances mostly like fewer words and more pictures. I have trouble with brevity and don't own one of those Digimon cameras.

I also have trouble with goals. But here are my goals for this round:

-Refinement will be at a minimum.

-I don't care if anyone laughs.

-Shorter blogs and more of them.

-I don't care if anyone reads this.

-More ninja attacks.

-No promotion of this blog.

-No more crazy sexcapades just for blog material.

-An original music score for each blog entry.

-Money back guarantee.

-Absurdity and the other not absurd thing will mix freely.

-A return to the 1 hour Happy Hour.

And a bunch of other stuff I have no intention of holding myself to.

Another Completely Unnecessary Thing

2008-07-24T13:22:00.000-07:00

This blog is unnecessary.

That's OK. This particular blog isn't really meant to be for the world, even though I'm sticking it out there anyway, and it's going under my commonly known internet identity.

Speaking of unnecessary...

If you use Google like a giant spell check because your computer is too slow and your browser too old to properly run a quick spell check and you type in "unnecessary" (or your attempt at the word) you will see there are "about 50,8oo, ooo results for unnecessary".

That's a lot of unnecessary.

And now I'm going to add to it. Again.