and we'll all float on (all right)

Well, there. I wrote most days in April. I may try this again some month. Maybe.

Here's a helpful hint, though: It might be best to have some sort of plan of action before declaring that you will make 28 or 27 or I don't remember how many consecutive blog posts. I didn't have anything in mind for this ordeal. I still kind of don't.

My neighbors seem to be having a fiesta of some variety, but I think they've somehow incorporated Kenny G into the mix. It's odd. And loud.

Also, I know I already mentioned this. But I am going to bed soon so I can wake up early and run several miles with thousands of other people, but mainly with Jeremy. And I am glad. Even though this training season has been rough. Even though we've been busy and trained kind of begrudgingly. Runs like this make me kind of reverent. And kind of majestic, apparently. But seriously. I like it.

Also, so I close in the spirit in which I began this Posts of April business, here- an unrelated Tiberius photo:

see? i am posting twice

My weekend To Do list is too full of too-giant of things. If I get just one of them done, I will count the entire weekend a great success.

And instead of making headway on any attempt at great success tonight, I am going to go try to get some sleeps so I will be extra well-rested to face it all head on, first thing tomorrow morning. Right? Maybe.

So I am posting two little photographs that have been doing nothing but sitting in a folder on my desktop for the past year-ish, along with hundreds others that need to be sorted, organized or (most likely) deleted. (These are not posed; he is very unsteady on a hammock. Also for some reason I am glad there is a turtle sandbox included.)

twofer

I didn't update yesterday. That's two misses on this Once A Day journey, which is almost over anyway.

Yesterday was busy. I worked. I ran. I made dinner. I bathed the dog. I had Skype Homers with Rachelle. Actually it was a pretty standard day and not too busy by most people's standards but it was taxing for some reason.

So today I will do two posts. Maybe.

The first is this. An assortment of things.

1. DID YOU KNOW THAT: I try not to use my favorite words very often?

2. Now you know that.

3. I wish I'd discovered gocco before it stopped existing.

4. I want to try Irish Potato Candy but that would involve a) time b) effort c) grocery d) focused attention for the making thereof. So that's a no go.

5. Jeremy and I are going to run that old half marathon on Sunday.

I am ready for bed, kind of. At 5:03 pm. At work.

Don't worry. I am at work but I am being productive. Waiting for some test results.

with a little help from my friends

Today was not the sort of day that looked like it needed to be spent in a lab. It was cool and cloudy, which seemed the sort of day that needed all shades open, and some Bob Dylan (as suggested by someone else) and/or Nickel Creek. Maybe some naps. Maybe some Arrested Development in the afternoon, after some calm/genuine productivity. All after a morning run and coffee, of course.

Some days are just obvious, with their requirements. This was one. I spent it in the lab, though, being busier than I'd intended and making progress on... almost nothing. Work included, now that I think of it.

On a bright side, I found a missing Beatles cd.

don't forget to listen to music

I don't know where I read that. I think it was someplace really, really trivial. Google says I probably read it on Sarah Silverman's Twitter. I don't know about that.

But for some reason, I find it to be incredibly sage advice.

This is a dumb post. But it's true. And I only say this because I had forgotten for a while, and it is much better to have remembered.

Only four more days of this daily nonsense! Then back to sporadic nonsense!

monday

1. Fog. 2. Work. 3. Traffic. 4. Corbin visited and we all had his leftover Easter cake

sandwich

You know the Fat Kid* comparison This is like a sandwich? No?

Rachelle and I came up with it years ago, and I think I've found more use for it than I ever imagined I might. We were, occasionally and surprisingly, kind of astute with our descriptions. Though I feel I might be going out on a limb trying to describe it here.

Basically, we use(d) it to describe a situation that offered a disappointingly limited amount of joy. It might be a variation on the old Time flies... thing... I don't know. One example was the final Harry Potter book. It was both thrilling and horrible to finally hold that book; yes, I wanted to read it very badly, but the party would end in 759 pages, a painfully obvious fact. Even though you could always read it again, it would only be new once.

I suppose you could push this idea to something kind of philosophical, or at least think about it in terms of the idea of Happiness, but because this is a BLOG, and it's Sunday night, and I have other fish to fry these days, I'm going to stick to sandwiches.

Anyway. Situations in which I could use the phrase as of late:

• Adobe InDesign CS5 30 day free trial
• The Walking Dead: Season One
• The Walking Dead: Compendium One
• The sandwich I made for dinner (obviously)
• Weekends lately

Whoops. You'd think if I was going to give a list that much build-up I'd at least have filled it up a little better.

*It's only Fat Kid because it likens life experiences to food experiences. I am in no way calling Rachelle a Fat Kid.

is it ethically wrong to do a post filled with pictures without linking their sources?

I was just going to do one of those terribly unique posts filled with a bunch of images of interiors I appreciate, for various reasons. One of which might be because I may or may not be moving in the nearish future. But I don't have the time or energy to figure out where I got these images. I just usually drag them to my DEPT OF THE INTERIOR folder and never think of them again.

The picture above, for example, might be from the book Handmade Houses. Who knows though. If it is, I want that book.

I don't know where this one is from. I looked, to no avail. But I really don't have time to keep looking up links. Done. Good night.

füszdeltreese

New rule: The rest of my posts for the month of April must be created while I am greater than or equal to 50% awake. This one would not qualify, but luckily the rule doesn't take effect until tomorrow.

It's been a long week. And I wanted to post a video for an advertisement for fuszdeltreese, but I failed to get permission from the actor. He said, actually, Do not put that online. So you are missing out on a short video of my brother in my car on family vacation (c. 2008), advertising fuszdeltreese, which look misleadingly like tweezers, but which are actually intended for "micro-teasing" one's hair.

He says it's not funny, but I feel it's pretty classic stuff.

Oh and for the record, the Corbin pictured above is from the 2010 trip, not the same one the video's from.

The main danger in Sleep Posting (besides the wandering subject matter) is that I can never remember how I intended to end. Long week. Fuszdeltreese. Funny? Bedtime? I have a lot to do this weekend? Maybe some reference to that? Don't know.

Happy Earth Day. How about that.

tips and hints. from me to me.

1. If it is cloudy, mountain music makes the drear even better (see: Big Rock Candy Mountains, John Denver, etc).

2. Finding a new place to live means packing up the old place. Get on that.

3. Moderation. (see: Flavor Ice)

4. Even though the fellow who brings you coffee every day (who you're to marry) makes it delicious with additives, black coffee is still tops. If it is black coffee that he makes, this is ideal.

5. Bikes are not for closets. You love your bicycle. Remember?

6. If it is sunny, use the colors of Sufjan Stevens. Focus on the Age of Adz.

7. Weddings do not plan themselves. Evidently this is a hard lesson to learn.

7a. Re-reading Tolkien is not helping. Put it down and do work.

8. Word asks if it should replace an identically-named document with the one you're trying to close. THINK, SELF.

9. Bed = nice, priority, motivation. Bed after elongated workday and run = grand reward of proportions outside my descriptive capability

you can pretty much tell the exact point at which I fell asleep in the last post

There are jokes all across the board about IVs of straight coffee. I can't decide if that's what I need (the IV, not the joke), or just exorbitant amounts of sleep. Of course the latter seems more appealing, and honestly what I'm more inclined to do.

But there is so much to be done. Tonight is too crowded with things to do and think and worry about.

Coffee it is. Hopefully coffee leads to motivation leads to productivity. Though the fact that I even hope that means I do not take lessons from history.

story hour

In fifth grade we went to Exchange City. In our district, fifth graders spent several months excitedly planning for this daylong field trip. Exchange City was like a miniature indoor city, complete with courthouse and radio station, and every kid had to apply for a job in the city, and the teachers would decide which kid would do best in which job, based loosely on what positions we applied for. We had to learn how to write checks, balance our checkbook, submit resumes, make laws, vote for laws, etc.

I think I applied for radio DJ, doctor (blood pressure takers? I don’t remember), and like… artisan. Or something.

They made me bank president.

Our first hour of the day was spent in training. The factory kids made their items to sell while their corresponding retailers learned the ropes at the registers, the bankers figured out how to process paychecks and debit card withdrawals, the law enforcement finalized the laws and punishments, the food service kids learned how to wipe tables.

Actually, writing this out makes me wonder if the whole thing was kind of a sick joke amongst the teachers and parent helpers.

Eventually the radio kicked on, and the first shift of the day started, and we had our one-day city.

I could go into detail, describing the city and commenting on a lot of aspects of this field trip. But I won’t. I’m bored with this story, a little. And my mind is wandering.

I just wanted to say that as the bank president, I worked all day. Each kid was supposed to get a break in order to go be a citizen, keep the city alive, buy stuff, break laws, etc. During my break, I went and ate my sack lunch at the restaurant (which only sold Hi-C, which really goes to show their faith in the food service kids), then went to start shopping the stores. And before I was able to purchase a single junky craft, some bank teller came and got me because there was a problem in the bank. And my break was spent sorting through pay stubs and catching up on the piled up mess from when I was at lunch.

I was one of the richest kids in the city. Literally. The bank president tied for the highest paying job. But all I bought was a cup of Hi-C. And maybe some ribbon on a stick at the end of the day. I don't remember.

I told the parent sponsor who was helping in the bank, “I have the most money but this stupid job means I don’t have time to spend it.”

And he just chuckled knowingly*. At the time I thought that was condescending and frustrating, that he didn’t get my hint (DO MY JOB FOR ME, MICHELLE’S DAD).

I'm not going to end this with some life lesson I've learned in retrospect. It's not like I now have the highest paying job and no time to revel in its benefits. And I certainly don't want to justify that condescending chuckle by ending on an OH, ADULTHOOD note. Absolutely not.

Yeah. There is no moral of the story. I was just thinking about it today. And I am literally falling asleep at the keyboard, as usual. Sorry. As usual.

*This response, in any of its forms, really REALLY grinds my gears. To this day.

stuff from tonight

1. A sick puppy

2. No, there's no poltergeist here, Jori. Just fans.

3. One of about four photographs I took on our trip. I'm so glad I jumped all over that opportunity to make art. Good one, self.

4. The official start of FlavorIce season

elsewhere

Helicopter Game

Fosterhood in NYC

These are my current online vortexes. The first is a nice cure for anxiety. I don't know why, but it works, and I don't question it. The second, I read like a novel.

i can't decide if this means i've failed

No new post yesterday due to no Internet... So maybe my Post Every Day for the Rest of April Initiative has failed. For the record, I would have posted about Tiberius, ham, or driving to Texas.

And tonight I'm not really feeling too posty, either. I will say that the past 24 hours have included:

• Several fire pits and associated circles of conversing
• Lakes and ponds
• Driving and more driving and traffic
• Cold
• Outdoor morning coffee next to a quiet fire
• Crawfish

And more things, like abandoned games of bocce ball and a scorpion.

majestic

At the risk of sounding too... majestic or nostalgic*, I miss making art. Or at least attempting.

I know. I am the first post-undergrad online to ever say this.

But it's true. I miss it terribly. Not that anything I ever came up with was really worth it, necessarily. I mean for the process itself. For some reason I am lacking the capability to articulate exactly why I miss it. I have been sitting here thinking and typing and backspacing for longer than I care to admit.

But I do think it's important. If for no other reason, it's a pretty decent diversionary tactic. But I think that's actually one of the least of the reasons.

Literally anything else I can come up with right now is so. terribly. majestic. And so: I will spare you.

*Thanks to my brother, this is one of my least favorite words. If you ever want to have a word ruined for you, have him say this one, and he will oblige with gusto. So often, single innocent words are ruined by one individual. See also: gumdrops (Meredith et al, (2007) Unacceptable pronunciations delivered by professors. Observations and Investigations in the Surprisingly Offensive, 9 (2), 91-101.)

oh no, this is a total cop out for a post

But this was released today, and the actual preview comes out tomorrow. Jeremy says we are having a watch party for it. The preview I mean.

Creepy eyes, huh.

I would also like an -athon of the original five. And maybe even the Tim Burton one, for good measure. It's been awhile.

On the bright side, I also typed up my To Do list and have been admiring it ever since

Wait. Why has no one addressed the fact that I had a kind of 90s Saturday? Jim Carrey movie + Tetris + Home Depot + Big Gulp ?

You may quietly note that fact now.

In other news, I fell down a wedding vortex today. I was doing work at the same time, of course, but Western blotting requires a lot of sitting at one's desk and waiting for various incubation periods. And I looked at about a thousand weddings and websites and... it's exhausting? Irritating? Necessary?

For some reason I didn't find it helpful at all, and I would like those hours back.

zombie

This was kind of the type of Monday where I was too tired to resist and/or fight the upcoming workweek, so I just kind of went into worker drone mode. And then I stayed in worker drone mode after work, on our run. Then I was still in worker drone mode when I made dog dinner and human dinner and now all I can think about is bedtime.

I did rise up out of this disengaged mode of operation long enough for our weekly allotment of The Walking Dead, though, which we are carefully rationing out at the painful rate of one episode per week.

And there is probably some clever way to tie all of this together, zombies and being a workweek zombie sometimes and the fact that I said human dinner. But I'm not feeling it. The cleverness required, I mean.

Aaaand the dog just brought me a collection of socks. Helpful.

i would like a weekend

starting now.

Accompanied by a soft bed and 7Up and tea and Iron & Wine and Tetris and/or Jetman. These are the diversions I'd be into, during this fictional extra weekend.

Unrelated: a very-blurry-due-to-long-shutter-speed photo of Where We Found the Dog after Several Minutes of Suspicious Silence.

saturday

0630- alarm

0700- actually rise

0715- get ready, go feed the dog

0730- drop off the dog

0740- run ten miles

0930- reschedule vet appointment due to mild injury (not mine) on run

1000- recovery

1100- sleeps

1200- breakfast/The Cable Guy

0130- more sleeps

0200- Tetris battles with Jeremy

0245- go visit the dog

0310- need caffeine = BIG GULP

0400- Home Depot, Target, Petsmart

0600- retrieve dog

0610- play with dog

0700- begin pizza makin

0815- pizzas/Family Guy with Jeremy and Corbin

1053- now. blog.

Orhan Pamuk's Snow

I suddenly realized earlier today that I love the book I'm currently reading. I mean, thus far. I’m only about three quarters done with it, and up until now, I thought I was just tolerating it. So much so that I leave it in my drawer at work and pick it up only at lunchtime. But it occurred to me suddenly that even on its simplest level, it's so thoughtful that it's scary.

Some of the books that are actually my favorites never make it to my Favorites list, which I fear may be dominated with general entertainment pieces that I happen to find well-written and/or bearing a vaguely significant message.

But some of the best books I’ve read, the most revealing or with the greatest value/truths involved, I don't know if I've really enjoyed reading. Or, maybe I just haven't noticed that I've enjoyed them. That’s… annoying of me.

NOTICE: that does not mean that all books I love for their entertainment value are meaningless to me, or that I neglect powerful/valuable books when speaking of my Favorites. I’m just saying I neglect some good ones because I’m too lazy to push myself to hear them speaking to me on a level other than WHOA, MAGICAL WORLD??!??!??! Or something.

Actually, I'm not entirely sure what it is I'm trying to get at, so don't hold me to any of this. I can't move my neck because I fell asleep mashed into the corner of the couch and woke with a start and in pain. So yet again I'm writing while sleepy and in this case, more concerned about regaining head/neck mobility.

To early Friday nights-

too tired to come up with anything worthwhile

He learned that stomping his foot on the keyboard made the computer beep at him. He literally took this picture of himself. The dog, I mean, not Jeremy. Though he also is probably aware of the stomping thing.

*I don't know if he wants me to make a disclaimer or not... for safety's sake though: This is a post-five-mile-run photo.

question:

What happens if you eat a dead/dehydrated brown recluse? Not that I did, for sure. But the possibility isn't nearly as remote as one might hope.

Jeremy and I recently started taking training for the half marathon just a little more seriously. Maybe not at the level at which it needs to be, but still a little more seriously. This means our evenings now consist of the following:

• Get home, get ready to run
• RUN run if we have energy, or else shamefully walk home after running as far as we can
• Get back to grossly hot apartments
• Someone go pick up the dog, someone make dinner (that's called teamwork)
• Eat dinner
• Jeremy does work things, I do other things and both must mind the puppy

If dinner is consumed pre-9pm (I know, too late), it's a victorious night.

Tonight? She was not victorious.

Plus I am 90% sure a crispy spider got mixed in with the chips yesterday.

ignore the yeaaah at the end

Or on second thought, maybe just turn down the volume.

Day Two of Post Every Day has found me kind of empty handed and the hour is kind of late. So here is a link to a puppy video of a dog completely aware of which trick he is about to be asked to perform. Also, it is an old video. Also, I promise not every forthcoming post will be about my dog.

Click here, because I am too tired to mess with HTML formatting and am therefore redirecting you to my YouTube video.

march 31 2011

Things that I don't dislike about Oklahoma:

1. The innocence regarding snow storms- can be kind of irritating but typically accounts for many days off
2. The remnant- there are still people here from college that I enjoy, including my brother
3. Jeremy's football season- it had to grow on me, and it has major downsides, but watching him coach both amuses me and makes me proud (this probably isn't confined to Oklahoma though)
4. Familiarity- people at Halal Mart and ZamZam and other various places know us, which is neat
5. Rain storms are so rare that when they happen, it brightens my whole day
6. The dirt is red. Weird yet cool.
7. The sunsets are actually very incredible.
8. Birds trying to fly south make it as far as Oklahoma and realize it's warm enough to hang out for a while and they are everywhere. Also weird yet cool.

This isn't the PROS list for staying here. It's actually one of the pros that Jeremy and I came up with: We do have a few compliments for Oklahoma.

Which is good, because as of last Thursday, we've decided to stay here for another year.

declaration

If you thought I was joking about the puppy photographs, you were sorely mistaken.

In this particular instance, you are also getting a complimentary shot of his dumb new toy of which he was formerly afraid but which now he enjoys biting.

Anyway. The declaration is this: I am going to post something every day for the rest of April. No reason, no prescribed plan of action. I can't decide if I find this endeavor interesting or obnoxious. I fear it will be the latter. Apologies in advance, as usual.