Bump in the night

So it was about 12:30, and we were...not asleep, but headed there. We were all curled up in bed, talking, nonsense (he was tickling me, if you must know, and I was trying to get him to stop - no small feat, as I've discovered to my dismay, because he's much bigger than me.)

Suddenly there was a crash, that sounded like it came from downstairs. We sat up - instant Red Alert. There was no other noise, but he had to go check it out just the same. Me, I'd have stayed motionless for a good twenty minutes, then crept over and closed the bedroom door and hid under the covers the rest of the night. I'd have gone downstairs in the morning to see what was gone or destroyed.

But that's me. He, being the man, was heading downstairs to see what was what. He told me to get in the other room, out of sight and nearer to the phone, should it be needed. What he was gonna do, I don't think either of us knew. When my sister hears a strange noise, she sits at the top of the stairs with a handgun, which she is perfectly capable of firing, and firing well. We, on the other hand, don't have so much as a baseball bat in the apartment.

So he's downstairs, checking it out, and I'm upstairs, praying and shaking and trying not to cry. After what seemed like forever, he calls up to me, "it's o.k." and I go downstairs...and there's nothing. Nobody was there, and we couldn't find anything that had fallen or was out of place in any way. We checked the doors and windows, made sure everything was in fact locked up tight, and headed back up to bed, baffled. I was just wondering if such a loud crash could possibly have come from next door, when he discovered my curling iron, which had slipped off its hook on the wall and fallen onto the bathroom counter, causing the "crash" that sent us into an intruder-alert panic!

• Practice Drill: check



• To Do: buy a baseball bat

Genus V

Joseph Stalin Catskills Napoleon Bonaparte Afghanistan Soviet Union Hippocrates Solidarity Rembrandt Watergate Zoot Suit Leningrad Notre Dame Spotted Owl Mount. St. Helens Russia New York Reggae Audubon Mah-Jongg John F. Kennedy Miami Jefferson Davis Nostradamus Nelson Mandela Japan Madonna Vietnam The Boston Strangler Devil’s Island Australia Dodo South Vietnam Nile Eiffel Tower Wounded Knee Fax Franklin D. Roosevelt Catherine The Great Buddy Holly Mao Zedong Antarctica Scud The Pyramids Aaron Burr The Red Baron Cuba William Shakespeare Compact Disk The Challenger Loch Ness Tiny Tim The Whig Party Cleopatra The Falklands Exorcism Godzilla Mardi Gras Geronimo Elizabeth II Alcatraz The Great Auk Aswan Grenada Kent State Humphrey Bogart Phi Beta Kappa Mona Lisa Statue Of Liberty Benjamin Franklin Earth Day Amish Titanic Marie Curie Bastille Scotland Yard Rasputin Leonardo Da Vinci Marlene Dietrich Gemini Kentucky Derby John Wilkes Booth Ultrasound Christopher Columbus George Armstrong Custer Apollo Whales Bible Pyramids Malaria Babylon Geneva Martini Olympics Sing Sing 1776 Jesse James Cyrano De Bergerac Julius Caesar La Marseillaise John Belushi Polyester Ozone Catacombs Oscar Wilde Bazooka Cricket James Dean Shanghai French Revolution Hollywood First Amendment Ellis Island LSD Mohave Desert Casanova Croissant Hair Merry-Go-Round Charlie Chaplin

On The Road Again

Well, once again everything I own is packed in boxes, and the U-Haul is loaded up and ready to go.

I wonder, how many times have I moved since I started this weblog, fifteen months ago? Let's see...I was at Catalpa, then I went to Beaver Run, got kicked out of there (not bitter not bitter not bitter) went to Portrush, then here to NM, and now I'm moving back to my hometown. Back to Texas - yay!

So, four moves in a little over a year...five, if you count the hotel room where I "lived" for three days, after Beaver Run and before Portrush. It feels like more than that. And here's hoping this will be the last one, for a while anyway.

The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate

Do you have any idea what it's like to be obsessed with something for four years...and then to get it?

I'm not complaining - I'm not one of those who gets what they've always wanted, only to find they don't want it anymore. It's just a little hard to believe, that's all.

I keep expecting somebody to show up and tell me there's been a mistake - you don't just get what you want this easily.

Some middle-aged guy, short and balding, in a cheap brown suit with a clipboard.

"I'm sorry, there's been a slight mix-up...completely our fault...but you see, the 'Happily Ever After With The Man Of Your Dreams' prize package was actually won by a Mrs. Sarah Reide of Newark, New Jersey."

"Your name was drawn for our 'Chocolate Cheesecake Fantasia' prize, featuring a lifetime's supply of Godiva's Chocolate Cheesecake ice cream, which you registered for at a supermarket two years ago."

And then he looks down at his clipboard, fidgets a bit, and h-hems nervously.

"Unfortunately, they've stopped making that particular ice cream..."

No Onions!

I used to work at a sandwich shop. It was in a small town, and sometimes - to emphasize the importance of getting every order right - my boss used to say "There's two people in this town who, if they touch an onion, they die...and one of them is a doctor."

Um...how did they know? I mean it's not like, if I get around cats my eyes start itching, or if I eat avocados, I break out in a rash.

Same as ever

Kenny and I played mini-golf yesterday afternoon, and he beat me. Bad. Twice!

Afterwards, we went to grab something to eat, and we ended up sitting at the restaurant for about five hours. (Note: It was fast-food; we did not sit camped out at some poor server's table for that amount of time; that's a very, very bad thing to do, and I hope everyone who reads this understands that.) We talked and talked, and talked - about anything and everything, from family and growing up to politics and current events.

We used to do that all the time. We used to sit in his car all night and talk about everything until the sun came up. We played the soundtrack to Jurassic Park, over and over again.

So much has changed in the years since Kenny and I first met. We've gone our separate ways and come back, two or three times, and we've both traveled roads that we never would have imagined. We've come a long, long way from the people we were then...and I wonder sometimes if we've changed too much, if we've lost the common ground we once shared. That worry has lessened over the past three months, still it's comforting to know that some things haven't changed.

Episode III

We stood in line for 2 hours...and we were not the first ones in line, not even close.

As far as sheer volume of geeks, the line for the new Star Wars couldn't touch They Might Be Giants in concert. But there were people in costume, and we got to watch several light-saber duels while we waited for the doors to open.

Man, it was so worth it! The movie was great, as I'm sure everybody knows by now. And there was one spot where I almost ran away with myself. At some point in the middle of the thing, Palpatine said "I have good news..." and it was all I could do not to finish the line for him:
"I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance, by switching to Geico!!"

Sith Happens

Summer Reading List?

Jake has a Summer Reading List? That's so cool...why don't I have one?

I will mention, in my own intellectual defense, that I am currently reading Diary by Chuck Palahniuk, and it's intriguing and I have no idea what's really going on, though clearly something is, beneath the plot's surface. Steve Martin has another novella that I want to read, once I remember what it's called and go find it. And I've reserved my copy of the upcoming 6th Harry Potter book...but other than that I don't really have any summer reading lined up.

If anyone has any suggestions for things I ought to read, please let me know.

Or...perhaps I should say, anyone who knows my taste - though my curiosity is such that if a book is recommended to me, I will usually read it. My own favored authors include Nick Hornby, Peter S. Beagle, and Dave Barry...I also like Sherlock Holmes, short stories, Alex Cross and Alex Delaware mysteries, anecdotal essays (a la Dave Eggers, Kate Cohen, or even Maya Angelou), and usually any fiction that features an artist or musician as a main character.

And no, Cassie - I haven't yet read Wicked, but I haven't forgotten it. I just haven't found it yet.

Graduate

I was at a college graduation today, and this was the cover of the program: simple, tasteful, a photo of a graduate and pretty lettering...

I'm a little curious about the particular graduate in this photo, though. One can assume that the people who put together the program did one of two things: either found a model and dressed him up and took the photo themselves, or dug through some sample photos for a picture of a graduate - in which case somebody else, at some point in the past, found the model and dressed him up. The photo is clearly posed, and headless, so that the only information conveyed about the model is that he is a graduate.

But that's not quite the only information you get. Beyond the obviousness of race and gender, there's also the watch - to me, it looks like the watch of someone who is responsible, financially stable, already has a solid job, no nonsense, no Mickey Mouse logos or aviator-style bells and whistles or funky chunky leather band.

Then there are the bracelets - hand-knotted, the type usually given by friends or worn in honor of a particular cause or organization. There aren't enough of the bracelets, and they aren't flashy enough, to be trendy or faddish, so he's clearly wearing these for a reason. So the bracelets suggest to me that this graduate is socially conscious.

All in all, I can see how this model could look, to someone (such as a university faculty member or trustee) like a good, generic graduating student. Responsible, stable, socially aware...

...and married?

Holy Guacamole!

That was the headline for yesterday's newspaper. A kid was seen entering a junior high school with a suspicious-looking package; cops were called, everybody went on high alert, parents showed up, the school was partially evacuated...turns out it was a 30-inch burrito that the kid had made for an extra-credit project!

Here's the story.