Mowed Mom and Dad's lawn today. Hot and sweaty work, but something I look forward to when visiting home. With the roar of the motor and the steady walking back and forth, it's a bit zenlike and a good time for thinking.
I used to think quite a bit, but life keeps me too busy. (All right, I keep myself too busy.) Must make more time for thinking.
G just informed me that someone's placed an old school barber's chair and a Travelocity-esque garden gnome in front of our building.
Now, I'm willing to bet that they'll both be gone in the morning to new homes, because we recycle everything here in San Francisco. That being said, I do have to wonder what twist of fate brought those two items together? Did the gnome sit on the chair inside someone's apartment as a conversation starter?
OH yes, the gnome and the chair. There's a story behind that...
Or perhaps the chair was used by some back alley barber. You know, for cutting hair under the radar of the local stylist authority.
Most likely they were part of someone's post college "use what you can find for cheap" aesthetic, but that just sounds boring. I'd rather imagine a crazy story involving mistaken identities and a chimp. Crazy stories are always best when they include a chimp.
Not much to report besides the fact that I've recently become heavily addicted to Civilization IV and it's taking up what spare time I have these days.
Besides, gives me a chance to point you all to the following from Slate: classic novels gone pulp. Be sure to click on the lower left to see the full series. Moby Dick's my favorite.
I often wish that I were permanently plugged in to the internet. To be clear, this would be an optional permanent communication point. Like the cell phone, the purpose would be to keep me connected to the world, not the world connected to me. (Which is why, if you ever need me to really call/mail you back right away, I suggest that you actually say, "I really need you to call me back right away." Otherwise I'll feel free to take my own sweet time before doing so. (but don't cry wolf, that'll just piss me off and put you permanently back on my own sweet time list)
Point is...I had some great rambling thoughts I wanted to share that I thought out while starting in on the evening commute, but now I'm home and the day's finally caught up with me and I don't have the energy to rethink them out. So you get this rambling instead.
Going to relax now. I pity the poor public, forced to struggle on without my great thoughts.
I've been having some rather odd dreams over the past few days. May be a side effect of the various medications I was given last week, but might also just be because I'm sleeping 10-12 hours a day in an attempt to thwart this cold.
Either way, it's a bit like watching a foreign television station while I sleep. Like something in Dutch or Swiss where, thanks to years of German and French, I can almost make out the meaning. But not quite.
Last night a cloud of friendly moths swirled around me while I walked through a quaint 1950s town full of smiling folks who seemed to think I was quite special due to the moths and gave me various compliments. Rather nice actually, but I woke up wondering if we had any forgotten hamster food hidden in the back of a cupboard somewhere.
See, I used to have hamsters. Well, I should say that I had a succession of hamsters. Sometime around my 13th birthday, Dude convinced Mom that it'd be cool to give me some. So I got two hamsters and the supporting tunnels, cages and water bottles that make them extra fun. They promptly died within a week or two...as pet store hamsters often do. So often in fact, that the store offered a free hamster for any hamster you brought back dead within a two week period. Pretty twisted in a way, but we took them up on it and Dude went back with Mom for a second set.
One of them ended up chewing a hole through its cardboard carrying case, and Dude had to chase it through the South Shore Plaza Sears to recapture it. Thus it was that Houdini and Fluff came into our home. Fluff soon died and was replaced with yet a third and then a forth hamster, but Houdini obviously had the right spirit and lived for a good long time. (Well, in pet store hamster terms - he died sometime early the next year.)
So I had an empty cage and various tunnels and hamster balls with no hamsters to enjoy them. Until a close friend of the family, who had hamsters in her college dorm room, was told that they'd have to go or she'd be kicked out. We had hamsters again. She had named them Shithead 1 and Shithead 2 due to their pentioned for late night excercising. Since I fully expected them to die within a few months, I didn't really bother renaming them though I did shorten it to SH1 and SH2 when refering to them in gentler company.
The Shitheads lasted for more than three years each, quite some time for a hamster. Especially ones purchased in a pet shop. I found out later that they'd been given various non-hamster approved substances during their time in the dorm (mainly beer and pot during various weekend parties) My friend hadn't approved, but sometimes those sorts of decisions get made before one has a chance to stop them. Anyway. I'm convinced that it helped toughen them up and gave them the long lives they enjoyed.
Over the years, I began to see the wisdom in their monikers. Mostly due to the frustration of having to clean up after pets who only wanted to nip at my fingers when removed from the cage. Then we moved across town and it was too much of a jolt for them. The move happened in September and by winter they had both gone to the great Habitrail in the sky.
My relief at no longer having to clean cages aside, I did feel quite sad when they passed over and held appropriately earth friendly ceremonies for each. I washed out the cages and tunnels one last time and everything went up into the attic.
Everything except one forgotten box of hamster feed.
The following spring, we began noticing a couple of moths fluttering about. Always two of them at the same time. I've always had a soft spot for moths and butterflies, and was loath to kill them, but there's a place for everything and fluttering by my nice sweaters gave me good reason to squish them. Thing is, within a day or two, they'd come back. I began to believe that there really was only two moths: John and Emily. I'd squish them on Monday and by Tuesday they'd be back, reincarnated as good as new...and with little need for new names. This circle of squish and rebirth went on for several months, but stopped by fall and I didn't think much about it.
Until the following spring, when John and Emily came back and brought Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice along with them. A thorough search was conducted and the forgotten box was found. When opened, a small cloud of moths swirled out.
Which, to bring this tale full circle, is, I believe, where the image of moths dancing around my head came from. Out of my past and into my subconscious wanderings. The point of this tale, if there really is one, is either that we all have so much stuff that we don't even know exactly what we have. Or....use tupperware when storing hamster food.
This tale has been brought to you by the letter C for CODEINE. Good for controlling coughing AND for rambling remembrances.
Macys, which recently assimilated my old fave Filenes in a frighteningly borglike move, has given me yet another reason to avoid shopping there. Bowing down to a small group of frightened bigots isn't the way to impress me. (or my friends...this news came to me via TNTP)
What makes it worse is that it happened in Boston. I keep hoping that the city will step up and become the leader that it should be, given the history Massachusetts has of encouraging free thought, but nope.
And I know this is just additional snark, but I do wonder if they'd have been less offended if the manniquin had been wearing a dress...you know, like Jesus and the apostles wore back in the day.
If the back right pocket of my jeans remains rip free, does that mean I'm no longer cool? Riding home on Muni tonight I noticed that this trend seems to have reached full saturation levels with San Francisco gays. There does seem to be a bit of differentiation in the size/number of tears. If the tears weren't so universally on the right hand side, I'd think that some fashionista decided we needed an updated version of the handkerchief code and forgot to cc me on the memo. (Not that I'd have much use for it these days.)
Note: The handkerchief code link in the above paragraph connects to a page describing various acts, some of which my more gentle readers will find quite distasteful. (In fact, there's many that I don't really understand myself, but I would never deny consenting adults the right to do with their bodies as they please.)
So, I've got a nasty cold. Best things for the smart guy to do? Bedrest and lots of liquids. Me, not so smart.
I did take yesterday off, but I went in today because I spent much of yesterday wondering what I would have to catch up with and just had to find out. I did take a little smorgasbord of pills this morning to help me face the day.
Working under the influence of intense cold medicine is a bit like working stoned. Everything seems either much less or much more important than ever before and you find yourself saying,"Sorry, what?" a lot.
It just got worse as the day went on. Tomorrow, I'm going to try to remember that staying home is not the equivalent of wimping out. In fact, it's not only the smart thing to do, but also the polite one. I'm sure my coworkers don't enjoy the sound of me coughing up lung bits in the cube next door.
Spent most of this week doing some minor copy writing at work and some pretty major document creation/manipulation. Came home tonight to leave a rather long response to names' latest entry, so I'm just about typed out.
I will say that I've seen both The Davinci Code and the latest X-Men movie this week and feel that neither deserve the negative reviews they've received from some quarters.
That being said, Davinci Code is too faithful to the book, and ends up a bit meh (that is, less than suspensful) to someone who read it first. (and Tom Hanks, though I like him as an actor, really wasn't who I wanted in that role.) Not my fave, but not the heinous atrocity others have claimed it to be.
X-Men: The Last Stand did lack a few vital scenes that would have solved some of my minor gripes with the film, but it's a slam bang action film with characters I've grown to love and I liked it much more than I thought I would. Especially after hearing the initial reviews. I'm also quite hopeful, given the context of some scenes that did make it into the final film, that those missing scenes I've imagined will appear on the eventual DVD release.
