Juno Jinn: Mollusk Hero

I Can't Draw

2011-09-30T16:18:00.000-07:00

Here's a cartoon I did years ago, click to get a better view...

I Can't Draw, volume 1

2010-12-27T23:14:00.000-08:00

CLICK TO VIEW CARTOON

Sorry this comes in a few days late for Christmas. I have been a bit distracted.

Girlfriend Trouble is Inspiring

2010-05-21T11:14:00.000-07:00

Last year, Everything2.com (the site where I publish most of my writing) conducted a poetry contest. Now, in my entire time on this earth, I'd only written about five pieces of poetry that I would dare share with another person, but I thought I'd give it a whirl.

Using my relationships of the last ten years (my so-called 'grown-up relationships') as inspiration, I found I was able to work up four pieces. If I say so myself, I think they were pretty good.

In order to set this one up, I must digress briefly into the bizarre realm of quantum mechanics. There's a famous imaginary model physicists use to explain one of the picky points of quantum physics---it is called Schrödinger's Cat, after physicist Erwin Schrödinger*.

Without delving too deeply into unnecessary esoterica, Schrödinger imagined a strange situation wherein a cat would be in box, hidden from view. There is exactly a 50% chance that the kitty in question has been killed (remember, this is imaginary, no actual felines were harmed in the making of this thought experiment). Now, in the 'real' world, it would either be a living cat or one who was pushing up daisies, but in the twilight realm of the quantum, it's actually 50% alive and 50% dead until someone opens the box and looks at the cat. Then it becomes 100% alive or 100% flown off to join the kitty choir invisible.

Clear enough? Okay, good.

Quantum Physics is full of this sort of wacky uncertainty---which makes sense because it is about tiny particles interacting in bizarre and nebulous ways. One of the most famous axioms is Dr Werner Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. It's a science of grey areas and strangeness.

So, back to poetry: at the time of the noted competition, I was in a situation where I felt approximately 50% as though I was a part of a happy relationship, and 50% like we'd be going our separate ways at any moment, pending her say-so. It was kind of confusing and disquieting. One morning, as I lay in bed pondering my strange and uncertain romance I said "it's like she's Schrödinger's Girlfriend." And, well, how are you gonna resist that?

So that's where the poem came from.

Schrödinger's Girlfriend by me

          Back in the old days
         Folks were so certain
        Predestination
         A path of God's choosing

        Along came the men
         With their proofs
        And their theorems
         All of it got just a bit more confusing.


I really would like to create the equations
   Define our relations
   With one derivation
Here is my question on many occasions,
   "What does she want me to do?"

It would be great if life weren't so complex
   We'd make an index
   Find a value for x
How can I calculate all the effects
   of simply my being with you?


        Newton defined things
         In terms of equations
        Took Aristotle and
         Swept him away,

        Einstein took Newton's work
         Made alterations
        And everything changed
         In a relative way.


Part of me wants you to make up your mind
   To tell me you're mine
   Or leave me behind
Sometimes it feels just a little unkind
   Never to know where I stand.

Sometimes I think that I'm asking too much
   My questions are such:
   Am I just a crutch?
I really can't tell if you're missing my touch
   And nothing quite goes as we'd planned.


        A teacher named Erwin
         A cat in a box
        Alive and yet dead
         Til observing reveals

        A genius named Werner
         Was always uncertain
        And sometimes I think
         That I know how that feels.

The poem got one of the highest reputations in the contest (the highest, not counting the little awards we call "chings"). Hey, quantum mechanics and relationships, these are two things we nerds like to think about.

*To pronounce this surname correctly, one has to do something like a zombie noise there in the middle. I encourage the reader, unless s/he is a fluent speaker of German (meaning, you could order a meal at a fancy Berlin restaurant without getting more that one or two eyerolls from the picky German waiter), to anglicize the pronunciation of this to shro-ding-urr. Otherwise one runs the risk of sounding really ridiculous, not to mention pretentious.

Recite, relearn, record...

2010-02-28T14:31:00.000-08:00

Back in High School, I took a poetry appreciation class. About 30 years ago, in case you are keeping track. Anyway, the for the final project in this class, we each had to memorize a piece of poetry. I had a real thing for Edgar Allan Poe, so I set out to memorize the Raven.

I realized, even at the time, that this was gonna be a dreadfully big thing to learn, but it is such a cool piece--plus, there's the whole 'challenge' factor. So I worked...hard. I think my classmates thought me quite eccentric, as I jogged down to the park reciting "...this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore, meant in croaking 'Nevermore.'" Of course, they always knew I was a little different.

Anyway, I managed to do it, and recited it for my final. The notoriously hard-to-impress teacher (Mr. Bickel) gave me an ovation. I felt pretty good about it.

After that, I just felt like learning more poetry. I learned some Robert Frost and some Shakespeare, and some Carroll and a few more by Poe. By the way, did you know that people "with taste" don't admit to liking Poe? He's supposed to be sort of 'pedestrian' or something. I'm often glad I'm not cursed with 'taste' and I can just like whatever I enjoy. But I have digressed.

So anyway, I also learned the song where Tom Lehrer puts the Periodic Table to music and the one where the Animaniacs sing the names of the nations of the world (more or less). I also learned the rather off-colour one by the new wave band the Nails, where the guy sings about the 44 women who have been in his life.

Roughly every other year, I'd go on a frenzy and see if I could remember all the pieces. I'd recite them in my car on the way to work (or doing deliveries for Dining In), and I even studied a few new ones. I learned Ozymandias by Shelley and a few pieces of drama (by Shakespeare...I think people with 'taste' are kind of divided on Billy the Bard too...but I think the old dude put some magic into the English language).

Occasionally, I'd record myself reciting them and challenge myself to see if I could get 90-95% of the poem perfectly...not missing or flubbing more than one or two words in 20. I discovered I remembered most of these pretty well.

In November, I decided I'd take the challenge once again. The idea was to go through each piece six times to my satisfaction, then record myself doing it, to make sure I knew it as well as I thought. It took a couple of months, but I not only did all of the ones I knew, I re-learned the opening soliloquy from Romeo and Juliet and learned more of Hamlet's exchanges with the gravedigger, so I know something like two pages of Hamlet by heart. Not a lot compared to what there is, but it's fun anyway.

So, by way of bragging, I present to you the list of stuff in my head, appropriately titled

LONG, COMPLEX, or just COOL THINGS I KNOW BY HEART
(in approximate order of when I learned them)
Poe -- The Raven
Poe -- El Dorado
Carroll -- Jabberwocky
Shakespeare -- Sonnet 18
Poe -- Annibel Lee
Blake -- The Tyger
Frost -- Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Shakespeare -- “If We Shadows Have Offended...” (closing soliloquy from A Midsummer Night's Dream)
Poe -- Lines on Ale
Carroll -- the Walrus and the Carpenter
the Nails -- 88 Lines About 44 Women
Poe -- Conqueror Worm
Frost -- Fire and Ice
Animaniacs-- Nations of the World
Lehrer -- The Elements
Shakespeare -- “Alas, poor Yorick ...” (graveside exchange from Hamlet, between the gravedigger, Hamlet, and Horatio--about 16 pieces of dialogue including the famous whopper that Hamlet says)
Shelley -- Ozymandias
Shakespeare --- Romeo & Juliet (Prologue --- "Two households, both alike in dignity")

That's about it. Next year maybe I'll finally get through The Bells by Poe. Don't tell the people with taste though.

Grammatical Goofiness: Plural Puzzlers!

2010-01-04T09:51:00.000-08:00

In High School (quite a few years gone now), I studied Latin, Greek, and Human Anatomy. In the interest of full disclosure, let me say that only one of those courses was actually offered at the tiny, private school I attended. The Latin and Greek were strictly self-study, and I prided myself on knowing the correct Latin plurals for the muscles, bones, and other parts of the body.

It was not too long before I hit a snag in my linguistic snobbery. Some of the names of body parts can not be correctly pluralized in Latin. Well, there’s a work-around, using something called the Terminologia Anatomica, but, if you are a purist for that system, you will refer to the pituitary gland as the glandula pituitaria. And we’re trying not to sound like a doofus here.

Not sounding like a doofus is precisely what it comes down to—accuracy is important, but not sounding ridiculous is also a big priority. By way of example, we often hear very educated people refer to stadia as the plural of stadium, but how far should we take that? These same educated people may sometimes say that the plural of museum is musea (although Answers.com says, succinctly, “No, the plural in English is museums.”) but with that plural, we run merrily up to the bounds of silliness and perhaps beyond.

The danger increases with the less familiar, more bizarre plurals, such as those purists who insist on pluralizing index as indices. The urge to point and laugh becomes almost impossibly high when someone uses irregular plurals like that. As a snarky joke, a friend used to pluralize “Kleenex” (registered trade mark) as “Kleenices” and “Xerox” (also registered trade mark) as “Xeroces.” Of course, if Kleenex were Latin, I think it would pluralize as Kleeneges or something…but it has been almost three decades since I cracked the Latin books.

Some other hilarious plurals exist in the anatomy world: femur becomes femora, sternum becomes sterna, mandible’s plural is sometimes given as mandibula (I’m serious…although even the stodgiest medical dictionaries seem to have mandibles nowadays), larynx becomes larynges, and one of the all-time craziest, the male reproductive organ called the epididymus pluralizes out as epididymides. There are also people who insist on pluralizing the word penis as penes (pronounced PEE-neez), which is also screamingly funny to anyone who was ever a Junior High School student.

One very educated friend suggested that if something is a Latin word, it should get a Latin plural. Here, we can run into trouble too. Camera is in the Latin dictionary. But you will never catch me saying “We have three digital camerae in our house” … again, not to sound like a doofus is a priority here.

This begs the question: why should it only apply to Latin? I know there are some very smart folks who use chateaux as the plural of chateau, so should all words of French origin be pluralized exactly as they would be in the native language? Of course, most French words use –s or –es to make their plurals, but it’s a highly irregular language. By some accounts English derives as much as 30% of our vocabulary from French, we would have to use a few zany plurals.

If we are going to use Latin and French plurals, we really should probably show some love to Greek as well. Then you would have to say “The centauroi were the half-man, half-horse creatures of legend.” This also implies that the plural of hippopotamus would not be “hippopatomi” as many wags suggest, but “hippopotomia” (or something very like that) … try THAT one at your next gathering of Very Smart People and see who takes you seriously after that. (“Dinosaurs” comes from Greek too, so I guess you could say “the Natural History Museum has many dinosaures (said ‘dino-SAU-reez’)”…you know, if you are feeling like doing so.)*

German is practically one of our parent tongues, so we certainly need to be accurate there as well. So next time you are gonna get some sausages at the deli, make sure to order a few bratwürster for dinner.

Many Italian food names are plural. But please, in your quest for accuracy, we implore you not to say “We left no spaghetto uneaten.” Seriously…

Hebrew often takes the –im form when pluralizing. That said, I suspect that any non-Hebrew speaker who says something like “there were two Rabbanim at that synagogue today” is likely to be sound like aforementioned silly person

Speaking of derivations from that language, while researching this article, I came across a wonderful piece about the plural of the word bagel. Two people were arguing over whether the plural should be “bagels” or “bagel” (as it would be in Yiddish) … the authority responds:

“I might say, as the rest of us who say “bagels” when speaking English — is right. Simply stated, the rule is this: When a word borrowed from a foreign language has become domesticated in the borrowing language…it obeys all the borrowing language’s grammatical rules, including those governing the formation of plurals.”

English is a language of exceptions, and of course there are some words that will always take irregular, foreign-y plurals. I’m not going to start saying “criterions” or “crisises,” for example. I’m just saying that it’s good to think before you pluralize. We must be careful not to sound like doofuses. Erm…doofi? No, doofuses…definitely doofuses.

*The delightful Miss Annie tells me that the Danish word for dinosaur is “dinosaurus” which pluralizes in Danish to “dinosaurusser.” Rather than spitting out that mess of a word, most Danes elect to say “dinosaurs.”

Ferret Jacket Moments

2009-12-23T00:49:00.000-08:00

I was reading some of my old Everything 2 work before bed and encountered this essay. It seemed apt as our little friend Nick passed away barely a month ago. It can still bring tears. Loving can hurt so much sometimes.

Ferret Jacket Moment

An incidence of strong sadness or tearfulness inspired by a silly or seemingly humorous artifact. A ferret jacket moment is brought about by the context or juxtaposition of the funny item in question with respect to other circumstances.

Davey was our first pet ferret. We had wanted to get one for a long time, but we had to do the research, ferret-proof the house and otherwise get everything in order, like good, pet-loving nerds will do.

September 1996—our local Petco store got a big shipment of silvery-white ferret kits. They danced and squirmed as we played with them at the store, and they made that hilarious little chuckle that ferret lovers call "dooking." One little guy in particular, the friendliest and most gregarious of the whole bunch, caught our attention. He wrestled with our hands and chewed on Suzi's rings. He shoved his brothers and sisters aside as if to say, "Me! Me! You know you want me!"

That was our boy.

Susan, who has a very mild form of slight autism, can sometimes pull really perfect names out of thin air (we suspect that these two things are related). She looked at the little rascal for a very long time ... "Davidson. Davidson Fitzweasel," she said. The name was perfect for some strange reason.

Everything that we had heard from people, books and web pages came true: Davey escaped from everything, he got into seemingly impossible places. Anything and everything was a potential plaything. He stole stuff—he stole a lot of stuff. Wee Davey stole lighters, snacks, socks, just about anything he could carry. The funniest were the bagel thefts, when Suzi's brother, Carl, would bring us fresh bagels from his job. It is one of the great sights of the animal kingdom to see a tiny animal dragging a bagel that appears to be as big as he is, hoping to hide it for later. We always caught him, or so we thought.

Davidson charmed most everyone he met. Whether he was trying to steal Carl's Twizzler candy (we have a great picture of the ferret, determinedly hanging from a Twizzler), biting feet, playing with our cats (we had four felines at the time, two of which seemed to like the little guy, two of which tolerated him), or resolutely chasing ping-pong balls around our hardwood floor like a turbo-charged soccer player, he was a charismatic little mustalid.

His mischievous nature earned him the reputation of being a loveable troublemaker. We even bought him a tiny black leather jacket–obviously, he could not wear it, but it looked cute hanging next to his mirror in the two-story cage. We thought of him as a tiny, silvery-furred juvenile delinquent with eyes the colour of sapphires.

Davidson died at the age of four years, fairly young for a pet ferret. A combination punch of cardiomyopathy and kidney tumour came on fast, hitting the little guy as if some cruel, antique god had blasted our little pet with a lightning bolt. The surgery was a success, but his little system could not handle the stresses and he never recovered consciousness.

The loss of a beloved pet is an incredibly hard thing. This one hit us especially hard. Largely, it was the speed—there was scarcely a month between our first inkling that Davey was sick and the time when he was gone. There was no time to steel ourselves, no time to plan for potential outcomes, just hang on and watch the ship sink. Suzi doesn't cry much—the child of unemotional, German Lutherans and the product of the Lutheran school system, she can be eerily stoic.

She cried this time. In our near quarter-century together I've never seen her heart so thoroughly broken. I suppose I must have cried some too, it is hard for me to remember.

We could not immediately deal with the depressing chore of cleaning out Davey's home, so we let it sit for over a week. We just emptied his litter trays and food bowls and left it. The rays of perhaps a dozen sunrises slid through the windows in Susan's room and lit up the tiny hammock where our little scamp had slept while the hearts of his adoptive human "parents" mended.

One evening we finally set to the task. We opened his cage and found his toys, shredded cloth and paper and countless petrified bagels (how did he do that??)—all his humble treasures ... and there was his little leather jacket, on the tiny coat hanger that Susan made for it. Then came the tears.

After our shared catharsis, Susan smelled like grief. I don't know that I've ever encountered that before. Grief is an odd fragrance, sort of like sweat and tears and a dash of some strange musty musk.

Suzi made a little crypt for the ashes of our first ferret. A clear acrylic box holds his miniscule urn, a thoroughly fossilized bagel, a couple of toys and that little biker jacket. Carl added a Twizzler to the box later.

...and that, my friends, is a ferret jacket moment.

Home Again

2009-10-30T14:56:00.000-07:00

Well, here I be. I made it home in one piece, and my wonderful adventure comes to a close. My two weeks in Copenhagen were just as close to perfect as any trip could be.

In two weeks I saw a castle built in the 11^th Century or earlier and touched 1000 year old masonry, I went to Tivoli Gardens, saw the Copenhagen City Museum (Danish: Bymuseum), ate a lot of good food, met many of Annie’s family (and they were all wonderful), walked a lot, ate a danish pastry or two (Danish: wienerbrød), and even spoke a little bit of Danish. Exhausting but fun.

It was so wonderful to see Annie, and to meet Jens, Maria, Tony, Louise, and little Sofia (one of the cutest babies I’ve ever seen). They were all so good to me, and every one of them was interesting, fun, and wonderful.

I flew back on Scandinavian Airlines. I sat next to a statistician from Stockholm. He bought me beers and we had the nicest chat for hours. I slept a little bit too. Flying back from O’Hare to Dallas, I sat next to a lovely older lady who, for various reasons, reminded me so much of my beloved and delightful friend Mia…Who is very much on my mind right now.

You know what that means? I had TWO good seat mates in one day. I think that’s a world record, actually.

I was welcomed by my wonderful friends, the best co-workers a guy could ask for, and some of my favourite clients in the world…including one I had not seen in a long time.

Travelling is amazing. I want to see more of the world. But there’s no place like home.

2009-10-26T11:32:00.000-07:00

Saturday, 16th October, 2009: Anni and Jens' Apartment

Well, I'm sorry I have not been chronicling my adventures more thoroughly. Mostly I've been having them, photographing them (hey kids! Check out my Flickr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/11701835@N02/sets/72157622561738496/), and hanging around with my hosts.

It's been amazing. The city is gorgeous and old, with historical sites and sights on just about every corner (Danish: hver hjorne). Annie and Jens have been great hosts, taking excellent care of me and adjusting their lives to allow me into their home. I've been doing my very best to be a good houseguest.

Let me talk to you for a second about the food here. Holy cow. First off, Jens is a phenomenal cook. I mean, probably better than you are thinking. That good. He's been making some some delicious dinners, I'm not gonna be losing any weight on this trip.

Danish food is not that foreign to American sensibilities. These folks eat a lot of sandwiches, pasta, and other familiar fare.

A big exception is smørrebrød, a Danish favourite. Jens and Annie took me to a very fancy smørrebrød place Wednesday (Danish: onsdag). Smørrebrød is delicate gourmet ingredients laid out on a piece of bread. The chef's English was good, but her voice was soft, and my hearing is not so good...so Annie had to order for me. My favourite was roast beef with egg and bacon. I tried bites from Annie and Jens' lunches as well and it was all delicious.

I also had a French hotdog. A big long bun with a long hole in it. Squirt in some mayonnaise, slip a long hot weiner in there and you have a delicious treat. Why is everyone snickering?

The weather has been almost perfect every day. Bright shiny blue skies, cool to cold breezes. The sun goes down a bit early (it's 6.45 here and the sun is nearly gone) and it's pretty durn cold at night, but not unbelievably so.

We have seen some amazing stuff. I love those old historical things, and well, they got em here. As Eddie Izzard once said "I'm from Europe, where the history comes from." We have seen some castles and palaces, churches, and places of historical significance. It's a real playground for one who loves old stuff like this.

We also saw Tivoli Gardens, one of the biggest and most famous amusement parks in Europe. It was wonderful, but I didn't get to ride any rides, owing to long lines (plus, I didn't want Annie to get bored, she doesn't do the fast rides). We did buy some souvenirs and walk a lot. Maybe I'll get to sneak back out there before I fly back to Dallas, and ride some thrill rides.

Oh hey, I've managed to communicate in Danish (Danish: dansk...argh...that was a weird one) a bit. Seriously. A week in this country, and I'm actually to where I can read about 80% of what I see. Which is to say I can read 80% of 100% of the writing. Or 100% of 80%...no, not that latter. Not really. But I've actually gotten to where I can understand a bit of spoken Danish too. It's a very hard language, but I'm getting there. Annie and Jens had a few exchanges where I've understood almost the entire conversation. No, I'm not evesdropping, these were the ones in front of me!

I've also managed to communicate with some shopkeepers and the like. Today, Annie and I went for icecream (Danish: is), and I managed to tell the lady "I would like two flavours, caramel and chocolate turtle...which contains no shelled reptiles, it's a rich candy that is popular here). Annie complimented me, and she doesn't give out praise cheaply.

More from Copenhagen

2009-10-17T08:09:00.000-07:00

Friday (October 9th), Afternoon, 2pm

Copenhagen is a glorious city! I went for a very long walk today.

I slept well, as you might imagine...some slight allergies, but nothing more that you might expect.

Annie woke me up and she and I got some 'alone time' to hang out while she got ready for work. It was really great to reconnect with her.

Annie left me a key. After a shower (Danish: brusebad), I decided I'd try my hand at grocery shopping. I wanted a toothbrush and some sodas, nothing too complex. Armed with a 200 kroner (around $40) note, I went into the grocery store.

I don't know how illiterates survive. I had a big challenge identifying some of the products as I browsed, and I can read some Danish! I bought some mixed fruit juice, some Cokes Zero (they have em! SCORE!), and the all-important toothbrush. I felt pretty good about myself until I went to pay.

My tab was 65 DKr--I gave the lady my banknote (Danish: pengeseddel), the coin thing tossed out some coins, then things got...different. She looked at me and asked a question. I panicked. 'Ummmm..Sorry? I don't understand...' She asked me how much money I'd gotten (in English)...then I didn't know! Help!! I don't know these crazy moon-man coins. She handed me a 100 DKr note (maybe with slight exasperation, or perhaps amusement, I couldn't tell which) and I was on my way. Okay, well, whatever the case, I got my damned toothbrush (Danish: tandbørste).

After a rest, I went for a long walk in the park (Danish: park). Annie and Jens live just across the street from one of Copenhagen's biggest parks--Fælled Park. I walked its entire perimeter, snapping pictures, wandering, people watching, and window shopping. I never had to answer any questions, so I did fine, despite sore legs.

I thought I'd go back to the store and get some beer, but first, back to the apartment for a rest. And I konked. Hard. I didn't wake up when Annie (who had loaned me her key) rang the doorbell. I figured it out in a moment, but not before she'd gone away. She went down the street to see if that's where I was. Oh well, we laughed about it afterward.

That evening, Annie and I hit the town while Jens went to his gf's place (did the word complicated (Danish: compliceret) occur recently? Okay, just making sure...). It was Culture Night, a night where everything stays open late and people hit the street to see shows, have fun, and hang out. Copenhagen was crowded, but it was worth it...

I told her that I should write the Dallas City Council and sugges this. But then I said "the postscript would be 'hahaha, just kidding'" Coz seriously, Dallas isn't too interested in things like culture. Seriously! Fort Worth maybe...strangely.

After seeing some amazing sights and eating an absolutely fantastic dinner (Danish: en lækker aftensmad), we wandered to a trendy little place for a couple of $15 cocktails. Yeah, seriously. But here's the thing...across the square was a 2-person band. Just wait...you can't even imagine.

Okay, there was a man playing an electric guitar...well, playing may not quite be accurate...commanding feedback from it at a volume guaranteed to make your molars fall out. Like kind of mediocre Hendrix....but wait...there's more. Okay, on stage with him was a woman playing something in the trumpet family. I am informed it is called a lur, and it's a bit of a national musical instrument around here, but to me it looked like something from Dr. Seuss. So skin-ripping feedback combines with deeeep moaning trumpet sounds. Is there a word like 'surreal' only more extreme?

Anyway, so far everything is cool over here on this side of the Atlantic!

2009-10-09T02:53:00.001-07:00

About 6:45 local (DFW) time--1:45 in Copenhagen

The Canadair Regional Jet which is designated United Airlines filght 6087 charges like an angry bull and leaps into the clouds. Dallas, my home since birth, dissolves into pearly grey and is gone.

In a few hours, I will be in Chicago, where a larger airplane will carry me on to my ultimate goal.

Copenhagen, a gorgeous old jewel set high in Europe's crown--founded by hearty Nordics in the days of castles and longboats. The glorious European capitol promises to be a delight for a lover of history and folklore. The Northern Europeans have a certain rarified reputation for their exquisite taste in all things culinary--my guidebook, spare and economical with words, waxes almost obscene with descriptions of restaurants, cafés, and taverns--I don´t expect I will be losing any weight on this adventure, abundant exercise notwithstanding.

Suzi and I have several long-standing traditions. Among them is that before any long trip, we go to The Original Pancake House. This old Dallas original fills the belly with good, solid food, removing the need for snacks and allowing the sort of mental clarity that a filling meal can provide.

Thus sated, my best friend and sister figure went with me to the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. She offered me wisdom borne of multiple international jaunts and she encouraged me with happy words. Finally, she hugged me with her strong arms, and gave me a beautiful smile as I headed into the labyrinthine depths of the airport.

With an hour to burn, I read some news from a recentg issue of the week and also polished off the first sixth of a novel Leah leant me.

Novelist Laurell K. Hamilton is a favourite of my Chamorro paramour, and I was well aware that I might eventually get involved in this woman's writing. So, after Leah, her mom, and her best friend Jeff had copies of Encyclopedia of Beings, we started to talk about faeries.

It seems like almost every culture has myths and folklore about supernatural folk living in wild places. From tiny pixies like the abatwa of abatwa of the Zulu people to breathtaking giants like the Greek cyclopes, some were friendly, some evil, many tricky. Some, like the Japanese kitsune and the Scottish selkies, wore the forms of animals. Some like the redcaps of England were quite malicious, while others, like the Irish clurichauns, were pretty nice to have around. Fascinating stuff.

Wouldn't you just know it? The illustrious ms Hamilton has a serious of books about them. And so did the pretty girl from Guam descend upon me with a sack of seven books, and so did the mythology nerd take the bait. What can I say, I just can't refuse much to a pretty pair of deep brown eyes. Plus...fairies, ogers, sidhe, in the modern world. So cool. Of course, with the speed at which I read these should be a snap. I'll be through them no later than 2012!

ABOUT 11:50 pm (23.50) local time--5:50 Copenhagen time, somewhere near Flint, Michigan

The flight to Chicago went withough a hitch. I can seldom remember a more trouble-free trip. It took a bit of doing to get to the international terminal at O'hare, but I confess to having a secret weapon: the ancient mystical power of 'asking for directions'. I'm told that many men do not possess this magick.

A train ride and a long walk later and I was in line/queue for my flight. I had no time to eat, but they will be serving some food before I sleep.

So far my mood has been amazingly calm all day. I must now confess to a tiny panicky feeling as I was bording the plane.

I have a big confession: I put on a good, educated face, but I am far from cosmopolitan.

PAUSE HERE FOR A DELIGHTFUL DINNER
These Scandinavians feed you pretty well: roast pork, broccoli, bread, even a little piece of brie, 'wee Brie' brand. Why oh why have I never tought to call my 'fake wife' Wee Bree? Probably has something to do with my strong instinct for self-preservation, come to think of it.

So where was I? Oh yes. As Buddy, the hilariously flamboyant gay character on Kids in the Hall once said 'I may talk champagne, but I am strictly beer!' Honestly, if not for National Geographic magazine, the Discovery Channel, and thousands of hours spent studying a half dozen languages I'd never have the guts to try to converse in, I'd be as clueless as everyone who thinks I's so worldly-wise.

So I get on this big plane (an Airbus A340, in case you are keeping score) and everything is instantly different. People are dressed differently from what I am used to, they look different, and everyone is reading tabloids and magazines in Danish.

I got a little panicky at that point. I may not know much, but I definitely know when I'm out of my element.

The inflight announcements were in Danish (helpfully repeated in English afterwards). I've been studying Danish quite a bit for a year and a half. I could make out words. Just a few words.

As the dinner people came around, I warmed up a bit. Whenever I was served, I said mange tak, a fairly common Danish thank you--many thanks, pronounced, roughly, 'man-guh tack.' While my pronunciation is surely laughable, I guess it was charming enough, they didn't laugh anyway.

So, as the airbus sails over the cold, dark waters of the north Atlantic, I think I'll try to catch a nap.

TIME UNKNOWN--maybe 9 in the morning in Denmark, somewhere between Labrador and Greenland

Not resting well, its hot and not comfortable, I've dozed a bit.

I just keep on focusing on Annie, with laughing eyes like liquid sapphire and somehow the trip is all worth it.

About 10.30 Denmark time, somewhere between the British Isles and Iceland

Success! I managed to score some sleep---uncomfortable and sweaty but sleep is sleep. I dreamt I'd bought a necklace for Annie, that's all I remember (no, not pearls, why do you ask). A bit of coffee and I should be good. I think bringing sleepy-time medicine was the right thing to do.

BEDTIME--about 11pm (23.00) Thursday Evening

Arrived safe and sound. I've now met Jens, a delightful guy who reminds me just a bit of our friend Doug Zook. I've also met Asha, a good natured and silly little whippet. It's been a lovely evening with G & Ts, delicious pasta, and conversation.

Heading out to Denmark soon

2009-10-05T13:44:00.000-07:00

I sometimes wonder if English has too many words…but some of the kind of obscure ones are fun. Take penultimate for example. Did we REALLY need a word for “next-to-last?” seriously, I love the word, coz it sounds so dang high falutin’, but I don’t think many people would notice it if that word disappeared.

So, I just slept in my bed for the penultimate time before I leave for Europe.

I’m excited about going to Denmark, but I’m also a bundle of nerves. It’s my second time out of the United States, my first time to continental Europe, and the first time I’ve ever gone to a country where English wasn’t the main language. Okay, I know that virtually everyone I meet there will speak English, but still…it’s not what they speak at home.

I had an idea to learn enough Danish to get by, and have studied, on and off, for over a year. While my vocabulary has built up a bit, as the Danes would say “Mit danske er ikke så godt.” (my Danish ain’t so hot). So I won’t be holding any conversations. I might, possibly, perhaps get up enough confidence to order a beer (risking sounding utterly ridiculous), but I think my amateur linguistics will largely stay “on the shelf” so to speak.

Being five thousand miles from home, and not knowing anyone, is a bit strange. I’ll be staying with my sweet friend Annie and her boyfriend Jens (very complicated..it does however offer the possibility of awkwardness of nearly sitcom-esque scale). Also her delightful daughter has agreed to show me around a bit, which will be neat. I know a few E2 people over there too, although not very well.

There is a lot to do there—it’s gonna be a lot of fun. I am looking forward to meeting Annie’s family, and seeing her adorable grandbaby, Sofia.

Digression: when you get to my age, it’s not “do you want kids?” it’s “do you have grandkids?” Seriously, my at-home girlfriend (told ya it was complicated) has eight…and she’s younger than me!

But where were we? Oh yes…things to do in Copenhagen! So, there’s all that historical stuff I seem to love so much. They have castles and stuff…and the coolest amusement park…the one that inspired a young Walt Disney to make Disneyland. Seriously. We’ll have lots to do.

And Carlsberg Brewery offers a tour. With samples. You know I’ll be there…So yeah, sounds like heaven to me.

So I’m getting everything packed up. I need to send my amazing older sister an email and thank her for the plane tickets (yes, I already did one time! But come on…how cool of a gift is that??? It deserves two emails…and a couple shouts-out on the blog…and like, all kinds of thanks…THANKS NINA!).

I picked up my passport from the safe deposit box a couple weeks ago, and I’m taking my green scarf my client Averiel knitted for me (if you ever need knitted/crocheted goods, I’ll hook you up with her), and all my wonderful sweatshirts which I seldom get to wear here in the land of the warm winters. I’ll be breaking out my Beloved Black Leather Jacket and brand-new walking shooz too.

As it comes closer and becomes less abstract, I’m getting pretty thrilled about getting to go to Denmark.

So I won’t be around for massaging (or messaging) or anything til the end of October. I’ll not have time to check my Vampire Wars (so look after Escobar de la Cabeza de Pollo for me, my fellow children of the night) or my Sudoku games either, but I’ll get back to all that when I get home. I’ll be around on Facebook a little bit, at least to post pics (I hope) and status updates. I’ll update my blog as often as I can (I was kind of proud of how I did it while I was in England…so that’s what I’ll be shooting for.

I’ll keep you updated!

Now I lay me down to...no wait...

2009-09-19T12:27:00.000-07:00

Grammar is neat! I love to know the rules and minutiae of grammar, but I don’t necessarily agree with all the strange, obscure bits that one finds. And a few of them are just silly! Consider, if you will, the strange case of lie versus lay. As far as I can imagine, the only reason for this distinction is to give fifth grade English teachers something to be pedantic about after the charm of may versus can wears off.

Okay, I’ll spare you the fifth grade pedantry, but in case you don’t remember (or care), lie is used when you are talking about yourself (“I think I shall go lie upon yonder bed.”) and lay is used in the case of placing an object down (“Please lay your lorgnette upon the divan.”).

Seriously, though, as if the distinction between these two words weren’t arbitrary enough, let’s make the past tense of lie…oh, let’s see…let’s make it lay! Oh! Good one English! Thanks so much for that! Not that anyone uses that past tense, beause, really, “He lay down an hour ago.” is only appropriate if you happen to be an English teacher or if you want to sound like an 18^th century poet. And wouldn’t that be Byronic? Don’t you think?

This all reminds me of an exchange from that amazing television show, The Venture Bros.:

First Henchman: Gentlemen, choose your weapons.

Second Henchman: Is this them?

First Henchman: 'Are these they.'

Second Henchman: Who talks like that?

Who indeed? This makes me need to go lay down. To go lie down. To go lie…upon…my counterpane..ummm and dream of correct grammar. A lot.

(if you note grammatical mess-ups in this post, they are likely intentional. Or, rather, I’ll say they were intentional. You know, coz I’m a rebel who likes breakin the rules. Yeah, that’s me! Take that Strunk! Also, take that, White!)

2009-09-10T11:57:00.000-07:00

About 22 years ago, I took a college course which dealt with a lot of old myths. I started keeping a list of mythological characters at that point, and the list kept growing.

Eventually, I put it on my computer. And it kept on growing. About 13 years later, I decided to bind up my notes as a holiday gift for my friends (coz I couldn’t afford a real gift), and, to my delight (and surprise) it was well-enjoyed. In fact, I did a second edition a couple of years later. People seem to enjoy my off-beat, sometimes snarky approach to the classics, so I decided to add folklore and living religions as well.

Now, I’ve finished a third edition, especially for my friends. It costs $18 (plus shipping), and it’s available from Lulu Press (link below) or directly from me. Ordering from me will be a week or so slower than Lulu, but you save a couple of dollars on shipping and I’ll sign the inside of the book. Unfortunately, I can only affordably ship to the United States, so my friends in other lands will have to get their copy from Lulu (it's really expensive to send overseas. Lulu charges about 20 dollars, I'd have to charge 24 or so.)

ABOUT THE BOOK
The book is entitled Encyclopedia of Beings from Faith and Fable, it’s about 530 pages. Here is the copy from the publisher’s site (helpfully written by a friend who is a big fan of mine):

This enjoyable and exhaustive book takes the reader on a world tour through religions, myths, and folklore. Drawing over 6,000 entries from over 450 cultures, Encyclopedia of Beings is a sweeping reference work and an enjoyable and sometimes irreverent book for casual reading.

Beautifully illustrated by Suzi Eberhard, Encyclopedia of Beings is a joy to behold and a delight to read. Students of world religions, lovers of mythology, and casual readers alike will enjoy this book.

HOW TO ORDER
To order from Lulu.com Go to this link:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/encyclopedia-of-beings/7485530

The price is about 27 dollars, counting shipping To order from me: Send me $18 (plus 4 dollars for shipping, unless you live in the area and I can hand deliver it), Paypal, cheque, money order, cash, whatever. Make sure to include your address.

Email me: mythicalmystical@gmail.com and I’ll give you paypal or mailing details I’ll get your copy in the mail as quickly as possible. If it is for a gift, let me know and I’ll be happy to sign the inside page to whoever you specify!

Thanks everyone!
Kellum

What I am up to

2009-06-19T17:23:00.000-07:00

Literally thousands of my screaming fans have been begging to know about what I have been doing. Well, no…Literally dozens of my closest friends have been clamoring…no, not really accurate, either…Okay, my friend Jen suggested I link to my latest E2 articles and so forth and issue a little update so’s you can read some of my latest work, if you are of a mind.

http://www.everything2.com/node/1971803

A daylog (think: blog) post for E2. It’s an interesting historical parallel.

http://www.everything2.com/node/1973784

http://www.everything2.com/node/1973993

http://www.everything2.com/node/1976179

Three short articles I did for E2 based on the game Portal. These will make LESS sense if you aren’t familiar with the game.

http://www.everything2.com/node/1975801

A funny one from E2 about the word Gnarly. Like, totally!

http://www.everything2.com/node/1984333

A little article about a scary ghost from Guam. This is the kind of thing you learn about when you hang out with someone of Guamanian heritage. And did you know that the demonym of Guam is guamanian? Isnt that interesting?

Oh, and I have written a few in my blog:

http://junkill.blogspot.com/

but you know that, since you are here. Read! Enjoy!

And also I’ve been hard at work on my book…Encyclopedia of Beings, to be illustrated by my dear Suzi E. If the winds are blowing the right direction, and I can get it to output in the right format, I should be sending it to the printer by early next month!

and now, an utterly gratuitous picture of a slinky blonde!

Honour Among Squabbits

2009-06-19T15:32:00.000-07:00

Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve enjoyed making up words. One of the first neologisms I ever invented was yuckleburpia. It was an interjection, a sort of ultimate form of “yuck,” as in “Yuckleburpia! Carrots aren’t supposed to be that colour!” It could also be used as a kind of clunky adjective, as in “Those fuzzy blue carrots look really yuckleburpia.” It wasn’t an elegant piece of word-making, but it worked well enough when I was five years old.

Suzi has such a talent for inventing words that I’ve made a Suziisms dictionary, complete with terms like apocaplectic (to be so angry as to bring about the end of all things), monkoidal (monkey-like in appearance), skullular (resembling a skull), onionated (containing onions), succention (an ascending succession), and (of course), weasicular (similar to a weasel, ferret or other small mustalid).

In my career as a massage therapist, I’ve worked at some pretty wacky places. One of the craziest was in the heart of downtown Garland, Texas. The gals there were sweet, funny, and exceptionally silly. One time, apparently, someone’s child saw a chinchilla on the television and asked what it was. One of my colleagues slammed the words “squirrel” and “rabbit” together in her odd brain and told the kiddo “it’s a squabbit.”

It caught on almost instantly. We started calling each other “squabbit” and the word took on the meaning of anyone cute and/or silly. It usually means a kid, but its meaning has expanded over the years to include adults too.

So that’s your vocabulary lesson for today…

Squabbit: (noun) 1. A small child, particularly one who is very cute or mischievous. “Sofia is getting to be a cute little squabbit these days.”
2. Any particularly cute, silly, or mischievous individual. “She is a real squabbit when she feels the mood come on.”

Variant forms: squabb, squabbonia, squabbitissimus, squabberella, squabbitizer

Squabbiticious: (adjective) 1. extremely silly and goofy. “I don’t know what was with Jake, he was in a really squabbiticious mood that weekend!”

I still love my made-up words…squabbit that I sometimes am. So long as I don’t sound too much like a norkasaurus* or say anything cringeworthy**, I’ll probably keep using my panopoly*** of them for the rest of my life!

* really dorky person

** causing one to cringe or recoil in disgust

*** a vast array, from “panoply” and “monopoly”

Doing what I love

2009-06-12T14:52:00.000-07:00

I love my job. Back in my days of working 60+ hour weeks at the world's worst print service bureau, or faking it as a graphic artist, I never thought I'd be typing those words. At least, I never thought I would be saying them without sarcasm.

Massage therapy has been a very rewarding career for me. Not financially, well, I mean, I pay my bills on time and never lack for things, but I'm not making the big bucks by a long shot. In terms of personal satisfaction, however, it just can't be beaten! People come in to see me with soreness, tight muscles, tension headaches, insomnia, and a host of other problems. I work with them and they feel better. The praise I receive makes me feel like a hero, and knowing how effective massage makes me feel as though my job is actually making a difference.

Doing massage, even 20-30 hour weeks, is very taxing. Repetitive strain ruins backs, shoulders, elbows, and thumbs. We learn ways to keep ourselves safe, but so many of us ignore those tips and wind up sidelined. A commonly-cited figure holds that most therapists practice about three years before burning out (injuries are only one reason, among the others are low pay and dissatisfaction with the actual practice of massaging people).

The second day of April marked the seventh anniversary of my massage practice. If you count massage school, it's been nearly eight years...and I love my career more than ever.

Lately, however, there have been a few dark clouds looming on my horizon, so to speak. The deep joint of my thumb (the so-called 'saddle' or sellar joint) has been aching. My shoulders often hurt and sometimes there are fiery pains in my forearms. I recently heard that seven years is another peak for massage therapist burnout.

This is a little bit scary...or sobering at least. I really don't do anything else very well. (No, I don't. I'm not just being silly or self-effacing here...read on for explanation...) I'm one of those generalists who does a whole lot of things adequately and one or two very well. I've definitely never had a job I've feel such mastery of. Not to say that I couldn't be as good at something else, but it sure would be a long path to get there.

In my career, I've met a few exceptional massage therapists. One has been practicing for 28 years, several others for well over 10. One of our local clinics has a man in his 80s who is still massaging, and apparently does a heck of a good deep tissue massage.

So, I have resolved to be careful. I recently took a "Safe Hands" course that gave me tips on preventing injury and protecting my body for a nice long career. I have been putting ice on my shoulders and wrists, soaking in Epsom salt baths, resting, exercising...last week I got a (great) massage from my colleague, Kate. That helped a lot.

I dream that some day people will tell their friends: "You have got to go to Massage Envy Frisco...they have this 75-year-old therapist, and he does SUCH a great job!"

Writing About Not Writing

2009-04-25T17:16:00.000-07:00

This year has been one of trials and triumphs. I haven’t been reading, studying Danish, or even writing very much. House cleaning, and my favourite goofy online game Kingdom of Loathing have likewise suffered. I miss those things, and I hope to get back to them as soon as I can.

There have been quite a lot of ups and downs lately. As Danish director Lars von Trier said, at the end of each episode of his bizarre show the Kingdom: “You have to take the good with the evil.” Of course, he said it in Danish, so it sounded all cool and punk and stuff.

Anyway, there’s been some good, but also a bit of evil.

Over Christmas, our little ferret Ayumi ended her far-too-brief time here on earth. Bright little lights who burn so briefly, ferrets bring a lot of joy while they are here. But they are fragile and her tiny system gave up after a protracted fight with illness. That was four days before Christmas.

In January, Suzi’s dad got pneumonia. Hospital stays, oxygen treatments and a long recovery followed. Suzi spent more than two weeks out on the West Coast, helping out, leaving her hapless housemate to deal with things here. She was even out there through her birthday, which I guess we’ve still not really celebrated, two months later. We were both exhausted.

When she returned to Dallas, we both caught the flu.

The flu sucks—it’s not like some wimpy little cold where you sniffle for two days and return to normal. No indeed, this was a week of absolute misery, unable to do much of anything—high fevers, coughing, sleep for two hours, get up for one, then repeat the process. So anyway, instead of enjoying Mardi Gras in Port Arthur with my friends Sue and Jason, I got to enjoy a week of the flu. Not nearly so much fun, I’m afraid.

I don’t get paid if I don’t work…so that was not good. The last half year has had some highs and lows financially. One of my most stalwart private clients has had to quit getting her weekly massages. Her reasons are very good, I can’t blame her a bit, but it wasn’t exactly a welcome hit, particularly as Annie came out for two whole weeks in November. We had an awesome time, but two weeks with no work was not easy for me to budget.

Our immune systems thus compromised, Suzi and I entered into a roller coaster of sicknesses, with my germs heading for my lungs, and hers heading into her sinuses. She wound up with a root canal, I wound up with a hard-to-shake cough and inflamed salivary glands. Seven hundred dollars to the doctors, and the constant fear that I’m going to give this to my clients (even though the doc says I’m not very contagious). As of today (Saturday the 25th) I’m almost completely recovered.

We’ve also lost some on-line friends in the last six months. First there was an altercation in the game Urban Dead. Some people accused Suzi of doing some things that ranged from bad to downright hateful. First they didn’t like the expert way she and Chris role-play their characters (too good…intimidates everyone else and makes them not want to play with them), then accusations of varying sorts flew. They even accused Suzi of being so clueless that she “accidentally betrayed” her group to the bad guys. Next thing I knew, we were all on the outs with a group we’d been hanging with for years.

But we remained friends with some of them…for awhile anyway.

Then, well, our other characters got into it. I thought we were playing a game. Their characters started, to my perception, picking on someone we didn’t know. I tried to ignore it…and it persisted. I asked them nicely to stop, and it persisted. So, I had my character have a temper tantrum and storm out. In the game.

On the forum, I tried to explain that I was playing a character. But they realized that I am a bad person, not to be trusted. It got more and more vehemently personal. Chris and Suzi came to my defense and some WEIRD things were said about them.

We had it. We left. People who had said they would be our friends forever, evaporated. They didn’t return emails. They said things that hurt. A lot. Now they’re gone.

But we still have our Brits—some of the nicest people I’ve ever had the chance to meet.

But there is good to go with the evilness, of course.

I’m picking up more regular clients at the clinic. I keep hearing things like “That was the best massage I’ve ever had”, so that makes me feel good about my chosen field. The summer months are often a bit lean for massage therapists, so I have to try to get as many regulars as possible. When things are slow, I console myself by going through my notebook of them, reminding myself how many people really love the service I provide.

One thing I love about working in Frisco is the amazing variety of people I get to meet. One of my clients, from Taiwan, has taught me a few words of Chinese. Another, of Middle Eastern lineage, has let me try out my mad Arabic Skillz.

While I was in high school, we got a student who was born in Jordan. He was a great guy, and he taught me some phrases in Arabic. He even gave me some language tapes with Arabic phrases. Later, in college (Uni to you Brits), a nice guy named Sameer in my Organic Chem lab helped me learn some more.

So I met this wonderful client (Jeannie my dear young friend introduced us) and next thing you know, she, her husband, Suzi and I were eating great food at Afrah. I had tried out some of my Arabic on my client, her hubby was no less impressed. Turns out my pronunciation is still surprisingly good, even after over 20 years. So strange. My favourite phrase:

Hahl tata-kallum englizi?
(Do you speak English?)

My client has promised to teach me some other useful ones. So, you know, when I visit Oman or where ever, I’ll be able to order coffee and say howdy to everyone!

And we got another fuzzy-wuzzy. After Ayumi’s death, we took little Nick to the rescue shelter in order to let him pick out a new companion. He actually *sighed* when he saw all those ferrets, he was still missing Ayumi and I don’t think he wanted a new friend. But one little white ferret picked him out and came over and bothered him.—relentlessly. He eventually gave up, and we brought her home. We named her Xev, after the delightfully amoral (and frighteningly hot) woman from the insane science fiction TV show Lexx.

Little Xev is fitting in just fine. Fun loving, eager to please, and very friendly, Nick even gave up and started being friends with her after a while.

I’ve also had the opportunity to see a couple of amazing live performances. Ordinarily, I’m lucky to catch one show a year, but, but happy chance, I saw two within a week.

Brilliant Canadian songwriter/poet Leonard Cohen came to the Nokia Theatre and absolutely floored us. Ten virtuoso musicians, including three backup vocalists (each phenomenal in her own right) and a Spanish guitarist who completely stunned everyone with his technical artistry and the beauty of his work. Mr. Cohen, 74 years old, did eight encores, playing about three hours altogether. It was among the finest shows I’ve ever seen—ever.

Six days later, comedian-actor Denis Leary did a show at the same venue—his Rescue Me tour featured Leary and three other stand-ups taking turns on stage. Leary was crankily brilliant, of course, and Adam Ferrara was side-splittingly funny. The other two were not quite so funny, however. The first man seemed more suited to the Howard Stern Show, or working with that Imus guy perhaps—lots of vulgarity and not so much hilarity. Or perhaps the vulgarity was in place of actual funny content. It was hard to tell.

Lenny Clarke, who plays Uncle Teddy on the show, was pretty uneven. He was extremely political, and while I can usually laugh along with opposing viewpoints to my own (hey, our guys are just as idiotic as the other guys), his material often seemed to be geared toward inciting cheers or applause of agreement rather than actual laughter.

Overall, the show was excellent, despite the unevenness, and I got to see two of my absolute favourite people an stage within a week. Songwriter and geek favourite Jonathan Coulton will be here next month—I’ll be there too!

Among all this, I’ve had precious little time to write. In February, my friend Ella and I did a Brevity Quest for Everything2 (write as many articles as you can in a month—the only requirement being that they must be under 300 words). It was great fun, and we had even more entries than our last Brevity quest (which one of the guys called “possibly the most successful quest ever”). A guy who goes by the name “The Custodian” on there, was a one-man-writing-machine, cranking out close to a writeup a day, and they were really good ones too. I wrote three things, which is the last material I’ve added to E2.

Ella and I commissioned a BQ09 logo from Suzi, and she’s created some limited-edition swag in her CafePress store for the lucky winners.

That done, I’ve resigned my post as an editor on E2. It’s been a lot of fun, and a real honour, but for reasons you can probably infer from this blog, I have not had time to do a very good job—and you probably know me well enough to know how important it is for me to do a job I can be proud of.

Amidst all the craziness, my older sister Nina came into town. After Mother’s death, I kind of withdrew a bit, just wrote and kept to myself, it was really nice to see her again. She looks great! Healthy, happy, her family is doing well. We chatted over coffee at Starbucks and caught up.

Like a gift from the blue, unasked, Nina told me that she and her business have a stack of airline miles…she offered that if I ever want to go see Annie…

So guess where I am probably going this October!

Speaking of travel, I’m going to try to send Suzi to England to see Chris, Kat, Matt, Jess, Isla, Walter and that crazy gang. We are hoping to get her over there for August, they are doing some LARP thing called “The Gathering” I believe, and Lucian (Chris) needs his long lost sister Laura (Suzi) there. Besides, Brianna (Jess) is her bodyguard. What fun is it to have a bodyguard with nobody to guard?

So, obviously, despite the health issues, Suzi is still having a great time with her Brits. These people are just amazing friends for her. When she opened her CafePress store, they SWARMED it, buying dozens of items. They dote on her art and comment on her Flickr page. I’m so thrilled that she has people like that in her life.

I think things may be improving now. So I’ll hope for the best, prepare for the worst, and keep taking the good with the evil

(I wouldn’t mind a slight increase in the ratio, anyway.)

My First Controversial Essay from E2

2009-02-19T15:59:00.000-08:00

When I started writing at E2, I meticulously avoided courting controversy. There was plenty of it to go around on this crazy encyclopedia website, and I thought, as the new guy, I should just concern myself with improving my craft. Then I found a series of mini-articles at E2 that I had to contribute to.

On E2, a single title is called a “node” and numerous people can contribute to it. This can lead to back-and-forth arguments (something the editors detest), fleshing out of main stories, or even brilliant connections. This particular node did not have any good articles…mostly crummy one-liners. And it was entitled:

Hairy Armpits on Women Are Attractive

A matter on which I have a distinct opinion…in the positive.

Now I know how most people feel on this matter. Not just here in the US, but most of the world, my opinion on this matter is distinctly in the minority. I even had some rather insulting things said to me by someone I thought was a friend because of my opinion on that matter. I’m not one for controversy, really--all that bickering and sniping just makes people hurt. But then, one night, while doing my rounds with Dining In…it just hit me, and I started writing. The resulting article came out like this:

(Hey blogger...how do I do indented margins??? doggone it...I'll just put a section marker)

======+======

I grew up with a pretty thorough knowledge of the absurd cosmetic rituals that women have to go through. Proud possessor of two older sisters, things like lipstick, false eyelashes and a variety of facial and body care products were familiar sights around our home. One thing that puzzled me as a lad, though, was the shaving.

My father, who was born before the custom of women shaving caught on, told me that it was "classy looking" when women shaved. I was an inquisitive kid, and remained unconvinced.

I was aware that ' foreign' women did not always shave. Occasionally, I would catch a glimpse of an unshaved shin or armpit at the mall or on TV. I always thought it looked exotic. I can remember, as an adolescent, seeing an Asian woman in a swimsuit (maybe some picture from the Olympics) and noting that she was unshaven. I thought that this was very sexy.

I was delighted when Playboy, of all people, decided to run pictures of Madonna with her lightly fuzzy armpits and legs. I hoped that perhaps the sight of a beautiful, sexually attractive woman with natural body hair might inspire more men to think of this as less fetishistic and more natural. After all, I had heard that the whole custom was started as a marketing gimmick to sell more razors, so couldn't it be undone as easily? This was not to be, of course, and a lot of people found the pictures disgusting, because she had body hair. I doubt that Playboy ever ran any more pictures of women with natural body hair after that.

On occasion, certain famous women have decided to fly in the face the depilatory custom. Gillian Anderson had an infamous picture with David Duchovny and X-Files creator Chris Carter. The magazine (Rolling Stone or Spin, I forget which) decided to airbrush Ms. Anderson's pits rather than risk freaking out their audience. Susan Sarandon has likewise raised a few eyebrows by bucking convention and singer Paula Cole actually accepted a Grammy and made a video with unshaven underarms. The horrors!

The thing is, when you get accustomed to natural growth of body hair on women, the converse looks a little weird. It looks fetishistic, maybe even pedophilic, as if our society is trying to get women to look pre-adolescent. Maybe that is the point, I don't know, I'm not a trained psychologist.

I don't actually think this custom will change in my lifetime, but attitudes in some places may have shifted a little bit. While on a trip to Austin, I happened to spy about six women who did not shave within about 30 minutes on the Guadelupe strip. That is more than I have caught in Dallas in the last six years.

It is not so disturbing that someone would shave a part of their body, what is weird is the lack of any choice in the matter. A man, for example, can go clean shaven, he can even shave his arms, legs and chest. He can grow a big mountain man beard, a pencil-thin moustache or a big old-timey handlebar. At worst, he'll be thought of as a wee touch eccentric. A woman, at least here in the Bible Belt, who does not appropriately shave her body, is considered too grotesque for words. But it is the way that God, or nature at least, decided to make women. And it is beautiful, at least, to some of us.

======+======

I set my expectations aside and posted it to everything2. To my great surprise, I got a huge outpouring of support, upvotes (we vote on one another’s work on E2), awards (we call them “C!’s”) and humourous anecdotes. Some of the people who agreed with me were (gasp) Americans, and not all of them latter-day-hippies, either! I was stunned.

Even a few people who disagreed with my basic premise found my candor and my writing interesting. I had one guy memorably tell me that he thought my premise was flawed—that even men should shave their entire bodies, but he found the essay such a great read that he voted it up anyway.

So, just today I was recalling this little essay, and it occurred to me with humourous irony, actually none of my girlfriends ever have had the natural look. I mean, not since college anyway. I had one very special lady who said she’d be fine with it…but her genetics served her in such a way that she never really had to shave her pits or her legs.

And so we come to today, I have met a woman who is very precious to me. And guess what? She’s European. And, as the gods of irony would have it, she stays completely clean-shaven at all times. And she’s made it plain to me that she’ll never change that habit. Oh well, I suppose true love has no eyes for such trivial superficialities anyway.

My Adventures in Danish, part one

2009-02-18T07:46:00.000-08:00

(I have decided, at Annie's suggestion, to start putting some of the more interesting anecdotes from my studies down on the blog and simultaneously to Everything2.)

Part One: Al begyndelse er svær
(The beginning is always tough)

Here in the US of A, people who speak a second language are something of a rare commodity—let alone those who speak a third or fourth one. The reasons for this are myriad, way beyond the scope of this article, but it offers a few disadvantages to us monolingual Yanks.

There is something uncanny about hearing someone switch gears from your native language to another, unfamiliar one. It is almost eerie—the voice is the same, although the accent changes, but suddenly the words are incomprehensible. There’s an odd feeling as if your brain just lost its ability to process words altogether. Perhaps there is just a mild drop of helplessness too...or at least self-consciousness.

I vividly remember the occasion when I introduced a wonderful German client to a coworker whom I knew spoke some German. It was a very odd experience, hearing two women I knew pretty well as they happily chatted...barely a word of their conversation comprehensible to me.

While visiting London with Annie, I had several occasions to remember that my own tongue is not her first or only. She would show me texts—-absolutely undecipherable to me—peppered with strange-looking words like ‘og’ and ‘på’ I told her it looked like moon-man language.

I will confess that I had next-to-no background in Danish. As much as I love languages, I had never studied the Nordic ones at all. I just knew a bit about their taxonomy and the high degree of mutual intelligibility among them. I knew the word ‘bastard’ in a couple of them (I used to collect that word in foreign languages—don’t ask, I can’t explain these things). I had seen “the Kingdom” (Riget in Danish) and heard a lot of the language because of that, but all I knew was it sounded a touch like German.

One afternoon, I sat at the end of my bed in our room at the Lynton Hotel in London, and Annie napped peacefully on the other bed. I went to wake her gently with a hand massage. I sensed consciousness returning to her. She sighed and said something like this:

“Vudehklogeh?”

The three pound meat computer between my ears went “Database search—not found. Alert: Data received contains no information.”

I think I awkwardly said something like, “Honey, are you awake?”

Upon which, she opened her stunning blue eyes, looked me in the eyes and said, “Vudehklogeh?”

For an instant, I had the irrational fear that the English lobe of her brain had shut down and this could put a real dent in our holiday. But mercifully, she blinked her eyes slowly, stretched prettily and said, “Was I speaking Danish?”

Soon after the end of our vacation, I resolved to learn some Danish. Who knows? I love learning language, this could be fun!

Next time: Hvaba'?

Grammatical Goofiness with Lum and Suzi

2009-02-13T15:05:00.000-08:00

Recently, I purchased a big bag of Bit-O-Honey candies for my occasional sweet tooth. In case you aren’t familiar, Bit-O-Honey is like sticky taffy, flavoured with the oddly organic sweetness of real honey. They’ll pretty much pull the fillings out of your teeth, but…mmmmmm… honey…. so delicious… so strangely funky…. try not to think about the fact that an insect made it…

Deciding to have a bit-o-fun with the name, I told Suzi “Now that we have Bits-O-Honey, we can share them with our guests. It’s too bad that Kofi Annan and Boutros-Boutros Ghali don’t drop in more often—we could have Bits-O-Honey with the Secretaries-General.” I thought myself awfully clever for that.

Without missing a beat, she retorted “We could take ‘em to Burger King for some Whoppers Junior.”

(She admitted that this was borrowed from The Onion. Still funny though.)

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go get a couple of Cokes Zero to drink.

For more information on pluralizing postpositive adjectives, see the following article on Everything2: http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1717187 or visit your local library. Reading opens up an amazing world of wonderment and knowledge and whimsy and other things like that.

Sunrise, Sunset

2008-11-02T12:04:00.000-08:00

In the musical Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye and Golde, our parental protagonists, sing a gorgeous and bittersweet piece called Sunrise, Sunset, about the joy and pain of watching their children grow up. We can feel their tristesse as they sing “I don’t remember getting older/when did they?” But I don’t know if Tevye and Golde knew that the pain can run both ways.

My mother died late one night, four years ago. My dad passed away quietly in 1995. While I was never all that close to my dad, it’s still a bit weird to think that Mother is gone. Every time I took a trip, I would call her on the phone and tell her all about it. I think she got a vicarious kick out of hearing about places she never got to see and things she never got to do. These days, each time I go on a trip, I feel as though I should give her a call and hear her laugh as I describe my adventures to her.

Richard and Carol Eberhard have been so good to me…they are like a second pair of parents, Suzi and Carl are the best siblings I could have dreamed of. You know, that feels mildly unfaithful to Mother, and the rest of my family. Mom had such a problem with the Eberhards—she later confessed to me that it was because she feared I loved them better than her. It is so sad that she never really believed that I had enough love in my heart for all four parents.

I also sometimes feel, albeit very mildly, that I am stealing from Suzi and Carl…but that’s another story.

I just spent a week with my “second parents” at their home in Los Angeles. We drove up to Cambria and stayed in a beautiful hotel on the beach. We dined like royalty, spent happy times talking, shopping, and just being together.

I see my second set of parents dealing with their own mortality now. Carol walks with a cane—Richard, still strong and vigourous in his late 70s moves a little more slowly than he once did. They discuss their mortality with their children, all three of us. I’ve come to love these geeky, ultra-intelligent, adoptive folks of mine, and it hurts to see another set of parents grow old.

A few years ago, songwriter Warren Zevon was unexpectedly confronted with a rapidly oncoming death from cancer. Someone asked him what he had learned about life and he said, “Enjoy every sandwich.”

See the beauty in every tiny detail of every day, because you never know what tomorrow will bring.

I think that is the only advice I can offer myself…to hold every minute in my heart, and to be thankful for those fine folks who took in a 17-year-old stray back in 1981, and made me a part of their lives.

2008-10-18T00:28:00.000-07:00

Today I am sitting in a nice beachfront hotel in Cambria, California. Outside, waves relentlessly pound a beach the colour of granite and the sun marches downward toward the Pacific. It's freaky idyllic. As I walked back to my room a little sqadron of monarch butterflies swarmed around my head, seeming to say "Stupid primates! You were so busy developing those big forebrains and opposable thumbs that you forgot to learn how to fly." Invertebrates say things like that to me all the time. Strange little arthropods.

Thursday we drove to Hearst Castle, that marvellous chateau in the San Simeon Mountains where newspaper and movie magnate William Randolph Hearst housed his art treasures. Two hours of walking, stairs, artistic marvels, history, and beauty. A trio of Australian blondes about my age flirted with me a bit, which was fun, although it made me all the more acutely aware that my own special someone is far away.

This has certainly been an interesting week. it started with my darling friend Suki taking me, Suzi, and our dear friend Chris out to see avant-garde violinist, composer, and performance artist Laurie Anderson. I've seen this woman perform about six times, and she never fails to top herself...It was a great start to this week.

The next day, I flew to Los Angeles to be with my "second parents," Carol and Richard Eberhard.

Richard and Carol are the parents of my best friend, Suzi. They have more-or-less adopted me and become more like family than people in my 'real' family are. They certainly treat me like family. They've spent a fortune on this trip, and we've been having such a nice time.

I sometimes tell clients that I met the Eberhards when I was about 17 years old, and they started having me over for dinner, they just never really stopped doing that.

We drove up the California coast, past post-card views and quaint little towns, to Cambria, a tiny dot on the map, crammed with more hotels than I have seen this side of Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

The first time I ever heard of touring Hearst Castle, it was when an ex girlfriend toured in in the 90s. I thought "What's the point of going to see some rich jerk's monument to his own ego. But Hearst Castle isn't like that. Well, it is a monument to a guy who was quite amazing, but had a bit of a brooding side and a flair for the melodramatic. In one of his big rooms he had a concealed panel where he could pop out, tuxedoed and suddenly be amongst the guests without anyone seeing him show up. Sometimes he would show up with a tray of cocktails and a towel over his arm and people who had not met him would assume that Mr. Hearst was, in fact, the butler.

Hearst was one of those amazing guys like Howard Hughes (albeit considerably less weird than Hughes) who did a bit of "it all." As a boy he toured Europe with his mother, as an adult he made a fortune publishing newspapers. Later, he inherited his parents' giant ranch and had the magnificent estate built on it. It's less of a castle than a ginormous villa, really.

Hearst went into the movie industry, which was young at the time, and entertained luminaries like Clark Gable, Hedda Hopper, Greta Garbo, W.C. Fields, and Charlie Chaplin at his California estate, one of seven homes the fabulously wealthy man kept around the world.

Men like Hearst make me feel a bit small. I mean, as a lad I thought I was destined for greatness--perhaps I would be an eminant scientist, a great doctor, or a captain of industry. I would see the world, and do amazing things. I never envisioned the quiet little life I would have. I look at the accomplishments of people like WR Hearst and I am suitably humbled.

I'd actually still love to spend a year or so touring Europe like young Hearst did. I'd take my sweetie, or my sis...preferably both, and see many of the great historical sites of the Old World. Work on my book, see places where great people did great things. That would be amazing.

This has been quite a year in the quiet little life. I went to England, spent time in Port Arthur with friends, went down to Conroe and got to pet a wolf, and now I am in California. It's been fantastic, really.

Then there's the love stuff. The last 12 months has been the most complex year, love-wise, in my entire life, but good. I'm more content than a man has a right to be. Really good, in the final reckonking.

When I back up and reflect on the blessings I have: my family, my friends, my girlfriend, a job I love...I feel very fortunate indeed. It's a quiet little life, but it seems to suit me well.

I'd still like that year in Europe though.

Some Links for a Lynx

2008-08-06T22:30:00.000-07:00

As I was giving out the URL for this here blog to another wonderful client tonight, I suddenly realised that I have never made the post I'd wanted to--a simple thing with the address of my Flickr photo album, Suzi's artwork, and a gratuitous picture of me with my new, shorter hair (and new glasses)

http://flickr.com/photos/11701835@N02/
This URL will take you to my Flickr site...a place where you can see my pics from London, from the Grand Canyon, from Wolf Park in Indiana, and even pics of me and my friends. It is almost too cool to comprehend that we can share our pictures like this.

http://flickr.com/photos/7694953@N05/
This URL takes you to Suzi (my little sister)'s Flickr site. She's quite a great artist, and I'm very proud of her--check out her art and her pics from her own travels

http://www.cafepress.com/wolfwaredesign
and this is her cafe press store. Speaking of cool...she can put her cool art directly on shirts, mugs, even undies! Her descriptions are totally hilarious, and the items are great...I have a "zen" mug...you all know what you are getting from me for Christmas, right?

and here is the pic I promised

Thoughts on London

2008-05-11T19:36:00.000-07:00

Some people seem to feel that looking at the miracles of creation—the arm of a spiral galaxy or an electron photomicrograph of a dragonfly’s wing, for example—is supposed to make a person feel small and insignificant. In my career as a science student, and later as an amateur nerd, I never foundit that way! I guess it’s a measure of how strong my ego is—but I would look at some distant nebula or some amazingly complex structure magnified twenty thousand times and I’d think “Sweeeeet” … but it never made me feel small against the creations of nature.

The creations of mankind are a whole ‘nother matter.

Need a dose of humility? Go to London. I was walking the streets once paced by people like Elizabeth the First, Winston Churchill and Charles Dickens. I mean seriously! It’s hard not to get a little intimidated—to look at one’s own quiet little life and just kind of shake one’s head.

“It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.” – Tom Lehrer

Of course Mozart didn’t hang out in London much, but Edward Elgar hung out there sometimes, and G.F. Handel lived there full time, and Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote a symphony about the place…well, you get the point.

Note to friends: this is not me being “emo” or dissatisfied with my life—please understand that no one is a bigger fan of me than…well, me! But there’s nothing wrong with a taste of humility.

Here I was, amid places where many great works of art were created, historical decisions made, great scholars born and educated, and famous entertainers launched their careers…it’s more than a bit daunting.

I fell in love with London in my two weeks there. I spent too much money, walked enough to give myself blisters, and made a lot of friends. I will go back when I can. Unless I find that giant gold meteorite I keep talking about, it may not be soon, but it will happen.

Another note to friends: I've now replaced the pictures on the other blog posts (except the first one, where it's just a pic of a Union Jack and a pic of an airplane) with pictures I (or in a couple cases, Dimmie) took. Please feel free to go look. I mean, you're here already and all.

Home again, home again...Jiggidy Jig!

2008-05-06T15:18:00.000-07:00

5^th May, local time unknown (probably something around 17.00), Flying over the Atlantic Ocean

Dimmie went home on Friday, and I really didn’t feel like writing much in here after that. Suzi came in on Saturday night, and, on Sunday…we rested. Today, it’s back to the USA and our regularly-scheduled lives.

I do have one great anecdote, relating to a restaurant called The Texas Embassy. We saw this place as we were taking a bus tour of the city, right there, overlooking Trafalgar Square. I looked and saw the Texas flag, outside this place that looks like a restaurant. Turns out to have really good food of the sort we have here. Dimmie took me there on her last day in England. (note that in the picture, the sign says "Michelob IMPORT!" hehehehe things are different in other countries)

The place surprised me, the music, food, and ambiance are all very authentically Texan. I may even write the place up for E2. Over margaritas, I explained the concept of chicken fried steak to Dimmie (even thought that wasn’t what I got for dinner).

Chicken fried steak, called “country fried” or “southern fried” virtually EVERYwhere outside the South, is basically a cutlet, tenderized, breaded and fried. Served with cream gravy and usually with mashed potatoes. Great stuff…not exactly health food, but very tasty.

So, instead of chicken fried steak, I opted for nachos, while she got a salad with fried chicken strips. The nachos were authentic, the beef was a little better than you’d usually find, the sour cream mellower, and they were a touch stingy with the jalapeños, but nacho making is NOT an exact science, and these were well within the parameters for a regular order of nachos. The nachos were good enough to make me homesick and the salad was bigger than my dainty Danish dame could finish. That was another accurate thing, huge portion sizes.

She’s never been to Texas, but she did catch one minor inaccuracy. Upstairs was a cantina, and over the bar hung a huge and lovely painting of a completely naked lady. Not hard-core, but definitely nothing you could show in a PG-13 movie.

“She’d be wearing something if these were actually Texas, wouldn’t she?” my travelling companion asked.

She learns fast.

Dimmie and I had a lot of fun. We walked and talked and shared, we saw London together and talked. I miss her, but we were together the right amount of time.

Suzi also had a good, if exhausting time, at the wedding in Cornwall, then spending time with Jess. I am constantly impressed by the level of friendship and love she’s found with this little tribe of amazing people…individuals she met, more or less by chance, on the Internet, of all things!

In 26 years of friendship with the woman whom I think of like a sister, I have seldom seen her so happy, so comfortable, so ALIVE, as when she is discussing her british friends—the adventures they’ve shared, the fun they’ve had, and the plans they are making.

Between my experiences with Dimmie, and the happy times Suzi had with Chris, Kat, Jess, Walter, Matt, etc etc etc etc … I could hardly be happier.

6^th May, local time 5:02pm, in my room, Richardson, Texas

It’s been quite an adventure! I slept 12 hours last night, and maybe the jetlag will have worn off. It’s a little bit weird to be back home, back to my quiet little life, but it was the best holiday…errrm…I mean vacation, that I could have ever hoped for.

Now comes unpacking, getting back to work, figuring out my finances (the airplane tickets were a gift, but the hotel stay was a big ouch!), going over two weeks of junk mail (that’s a lot), and generally trying to re-organise my life.

Big thanks to everyone who read about my trip, who helped out, and who rooted for us on our big adventure. It’s been magical.

Lost, Museums, and Bunny Pals

2008-05-02T16:25:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, 4:44pm (16.44), Lynton Hotel, London

I've had a couple more wonderful days of walking, touring, and getting lost. Getting lost is really a lovely thing to do on a trip (better in London than, say, New Orleans or Los Angeles, though). Monday, we took a bus tour which went around many of the sights of this old city. I did not wear a jacket...well, it was warm when I left the hotel. Anyway, it wasn't TOO bad, and I wasn't the only person around with short sleeves, but it was a bit chilly.

After the bus tour, we got lost several times, but that's all in good fun. With the A-Z, and all the streets and tube stops being so well marked, it's almost impossible to get very lost. But it is so interesting to walk down streets and through parks, squares, past ancient churches and brand-new shops. London is a great place to walk.

Yesterday, we got lost yet again...this time in some very posh...er...I mean 'swanky' parts of town. Chelsea, Sloane Square...we saw Harrod's, in addition to hundreds of places which sell expensive clothing and housewares. I'd have loved to linger, but I developed a really bad blister on my right Achilles' heel area...owtch! Blisters aside, this has been a perfect holiday...or ... ummm ... vacation, as we'd say in the states.

Thursday, 8:00pm (20.00), Lynton Hotel, London

Yesterday, Dimmie and I went to the Natural History Museum. Unbelievable...Fossils, dinosaur reconstructions, and a real, live tyrannosaurus rex. Well, it looked pretty real to me, anyway. It was some of the best animatronics I've ever seet. There were also the obligatory taxidermied animals--superb specimens which were a total delight to the biology nerd (not that I know any biology nerds or anything!).

After that, the tube and a long walk took us to the British Museum. Every place is walking distance to my dear friend Dimmie...I believe if the Atlantic were paved (and there were abundant cafes on the way), she'd just walk over to visit me!

Okay...I'd heard about the British Museum...a lot about it...but nothing, and I mean NOTHING can possibly prepare you for it. It's unbelievable. One of the first things you can see is the Rosetta Stone...the genuine, bona-fide, ROSETTA- FREAKING- STONE!!!! In the flesh...or in the stone, more correctly, I guess.

They also have Greek and Roman artifacts galore and a couple of tons of amazing old stuff from Egypt, Assyria, and Sumer. They had more cuneiform that an....than a....well, let's just say that they had a LOT of cuneiform. We only took in a small portion of the museum and yet it was absolutely amazing.

I had my geek hat on pretty much all the way throught the museums--I was finding gods, goddesses, and heroes from numerous cultures...I should have brought a notebook to write them all down for Mythical Beings. Among the Mesopotamian stuff, I saw some carvings dedicated to my favourite Sumerian king...yeah, I have a favourite Sumerian king.... WAIT! Where are you going? No...hear me out....My favourite Sumerian king is the great Ashurbanipal (685 - 627 BCE) ... but mostly because his name sounds quite a bit like "As your bunny pal"... and if that's not a great reason to love an ancient middle eastern potentate, I don't know what is... (and that may be the most Kellum paragraph ever written, in my opinion!)

Further adventures in Old Blighty

2008-04-30T09:47:00.000-07:00

Monday 5:15pm (17.15), Lynton Hotel, London

Saturday was a gathering of E2 writers organised by my wonderful friend Ella. The noders (E2 writers are called noders, just go with it!) and I wandered London, looking at historical places and things. Ella is quite the history maven (she's the tiny one in the photo)

After a full day of walking and talking with these amazing folk, it was dinner at an Italian restaurant (in Islington...I just like saying that name!). I got an American calzone--red bell peppers, pepperoni, maranara, and lots of cheese--not particularly 'American' but really delicious.

Then, it was off to the pub for a pint, and amazing conversation. Like the American noders I've met, the Britnoders are a terrific bunch: articulate, opinionated, and freaking brilliant. I participated in (or just listened to) a number of great conversations. If you'd like a full run-down of how it went, here's the link to the stories (the one by Sam512 is especially funny): http://tinyurl.com/2p678v

I must confess, like the USA-vian noders I've met, I occasionally felt quite out of my depth. It is a bit intimidating and sometimes a bit demoralising to spend the day with so many really smart and knowledgeable people. Fortunately, they were warm, kind, and accepting--I just kinda kept my mouth shut so as to avoid seeming ignorant or boorish. I used to have a real "thing" about seeming ignorant, but that's eased up over the last ten years, I've been much more accepting of myself as I am. You know, "I don't have to be the best or smartest, just the best at what I am..." That's kind of hard sometimes when you are confronted with so many amazing people in one place. I got a pep talk from Dimmie, and that helped. I think I'm okay now.

After walking six miles or more a day, Sunday was a day of rest. Dimmie and I walked a bit, but a lot of shops are closed in London on Sunday.

There's a little shopping centre (we Ameravians would call it a mall...often pronounced to rhyme with 'gal' or 'Hal' here) near here which is named Victoria Place. Despite its insipid constant announcements ("Hungry? Need a break? Our food court is just upstairs...") accompanied by mind-numbingly simplistic music (what I call 'mental patient music')...the place is pretty good. We frequently shop there, they have a mini-grocery store ("Sainsbury's Local"), a drug store/chemist ("Boots"), and about all the other crap you need for living. Sainsbury's also carries Gin and Tonic in a can...which is so cool and always makes for a fun evening.

We went to a French Cafe upstairs at Victoria Place. Gods and Buddhas have I spent too much money on this trip, but it is so worth it...it's been one of the best holidays (erm...I mean "vacations") that I've ever had! I ate a very good croque monsieur. Unfortunately, even Starbucks (yes, they have them here) had closed down by the time we finished.

More fun in London Town

2008-04-28T10:13:00.000-07:00

Sunday, 3pm (15.00), Lynton Hotel, London

This trip has been amazing! I haven't had any time to write in this here blawg, so here are a few notes about how it has proceded:

On Tuesday, I went to the Tower Bridge. There's a tour that takes us waaaay up, overlooking the Thames, and I know that neither Suzi nor Dimmie would be interested (both of em hate heights). It only cost £7 or so and, for a history and science geek like me, it was very interesting.

After a shopping trip to Soho, I took a coach out to Heathrow to meet Dimmie. We almost met each other, or rather, I missed her, but she saw me and we linked up and headed back to the Victoria area to get some pizza. The pizza here is so different from American pizza ... nah, just kidding! It's more or less identical! The salad bar, on the other hand, looked like it had some daunting and mysterious items, so I just ate pizza.

On Wednesday, we went and met with our friend David and his girlfriend, Leah. The four of us walked a lot, coz that's what you do in London. I had 'spoken' with David many times online, but he's even better in person, of course. David and Leah are fun-loving, quiet, devoted, and exceptionally good-humoured. We spent a lot of time walking around near Buckingham Palace, St. James's Park, and Green Park. Beautiful scenery, and so much green--expanses of it with bicycle paths and side walks, flowers, trees, and lakes. Also, there were some really huge swans, geese, and even a couple pelicans.

I had a splendid time meeting David and Leah.

For about a day and a half thereafter, Dimmie and I did exactly what you would expect. Exploration, fun, plenty of laughs, exercise--this vast city of stairs and rain has done a lot to keep us both soaked and exhausted. At the very least I'll be in great shape when I return to the Big D.

Sunday, 10:45pm (22.45), Lynton Hotel, London

Friday afternoon, we went to meet Dave, another online friend. He took us through the Bourough Market, a food marketplace of frightening size and variety. A thousand kinds of food: meats, cheeses, fish, breads, baked goods of every description, beer, wine, sweets...I could easily have gained back all the weight I'm losing on this trip there--guess it's good I'm pretty much out of money!

Dave took us out to his lovely home and made a delicous dinner for us. His wife Iza and amazingly cool daughter rounded out the crew. A neighbour, Judith joined the fun and stayed for dinner (she'd just become a grandmom that very day, so we had a lot of fun toasting to her and the baby and just being silly). Laughs abounded, good conversation, scrumptious food...everyone had fun. It was a perfect evening.

2008-04-27T04:59:00.000-07:00

Monday 12:30pm (12.30---whoa, they match!), by the side of the River Thames, London

I just went on the London Eye flight, like a colossal ferris wheel, standing just across Westminster Bridge from Big Ben and the famous Houses of Parliament.

This sucker is huge...135 metres tall (which is something like 400 feet)... The so called 'flight' takes 30 minutes and goes at a stately pace in a climate controlled capsule. My capsule was full of German-speaking tourists. I took lots of great pictures, or pictures I hope look as good as I think they do....it is overcast, but bright, so I could not tell how they looked.

I made my first two stupid tourist mistakes: one today and one yesterday---neither one was too bad. Yesterday I went to the cash machines to get some money (that's the problem with being a tourist. It costs money.). On the way there, I picked up a big, frosty bottle of water. I set the bottle, unopened, on a table near the cash machine, then turned, got £40, turned around and my water was GONE. Some crafty bugger got a free bottle of water, thanks to the American tourist. The lesson is, never leave anything unattended in London. It only cost me a pound at least.

Today, I decided to go on the London Eye and the attendant River Cruise. I got my tickets, walked out and suddenly realised, the combined fee was £55!!! That's not dollars, son, that's a lots of money. I looked in my hand and discovered, I had two tickets for each!!! It was easy to walk through the queue and get £27.50 put back on my card, but a little embarassing. A pound is almost two dollars, so that's a pretty dangerous mistake...and yeah, I did pay the equivalent of $55 for the two events, but they were totally worth it.

Getting a bit of a blister on my third toe of the left foot. Londoners not only walk everywhere, but London is no place for those who hate stairs. On the plus side, I've walked more this weekend than I normally walk in a week. I will HAVE to go to Jeannie or Mary or Lianna and get a massage when I get back to Dallas.

Monday a bit later (maybe 14.30 or so) in a nearby sandwich shop at Embankment Tube Station, London
The other hotel owner, Mark, Simon's brother, was there this morning. He loaned me a small handbook called London A-Z (remember, the final letter of the alphabet is pronounced 'zed' here...which, cool as it is, does seem like it might detract from that ABCs song we sang as kids). It is like a miniature London Mapsco (a reference probably lost on non Dallasites!)---a tiny map book with every tube stop, street, and landmark clearly marked. It's been a lifesaver...On the Eye, I looked about and identified a lot of landmarks, buildings, and streets.

Boats and maritime stuff like that have always been a source of fascination for me. I'm not sure why, coming from landlocked Dallas, but maybe it's a matter of loving the exotic. The river tour was money very well spent...we saw tons of landmarks and I took a lot more pictures (all hail digital photography!), which I'll put up on Flickr when I get back to Dallas.

After that, I set out to find some lunch, across the appropriately named "Hungerford Bridge." Now, I know that I didn't come a quarter of the way around the globe to eat at Quizno's, but a club sammich sounded really good, and the place is right here next to the tube station; Also, they have odd British-y flavours of chips...I mean crisps. They're actually different names for basically the same things we have in the good old USA: barbecue rib (think BBQ), cheese and onion (very similar to nacho cheese), and vinegar and sea salt (which we call...vinegar and sea salt...pretty much).

London Trip: Days Two & Three

2008-04-24T12:28:00.000-07:00

Saturday late, Lynton Hotel, London

One of my friends on Everything2 wrote an article about Heathrow Airport, so I knew what to expect. Still, it was not as bad as I feared. Suzi and I took a coach (that's a long-distance bus...as opposed to those double-decker things that are so characteristic of London...those are just called 'buses') into town and wound up a mere two blocks from our hotel. The Lynton, our hotel, is a great place, cozy, clean, and homey--it's just great. It's also very inexpensive, which is great, but I'd probably stay here even if I had a lot more money.

Our host, Simon, is a really nice man--a big, boistrous, jolly fellow full of good humour and good advice. Just what you want from a B&B guy.

After shopping, lunch, and a nap, we went to a local pub for a snack and a pint...who should we run into but Simon? He bought us a couple pints and we all had a laugh or two, then Suzi and I feasted on baguettes filled with brie and bacon.

Chris (just Chris), as our local Anglophile expert, had advised me about English bacon. It's not like American bacon---I never ever EVER thought I'd say this...I never thought it was possible. It's actually better! It is something a bit like a compromise between our breakfast bacon and Canadian bacon, but REALLY smoky and thick and crisp. It absolutely blows my mind. I've said that bacon is the reason I could never be vegeterian...and it's still true.

Before I came here I hoped to have a drink at a real English pub on this very night. It's interesting, I recently read an article to the effect that we Yanks don't really have a homologue to the pub. I think the author was right. A pub is much more than a bar or a bar & grill--it's a big part of the social landscape and a sort of geographic centre for neighbourhoods. Very hard to describe.

After a couple of drinks, we came back for a good night's sleep. There aren't many perfect days in a lifetime, I'm going to remember this one.

Sunday Noon, Camden Town, London

I've made the following observations about London so far:

I can deal with people driving on the left. You can get used to it pretty quickly, actually. But the steering wheel being on the right side of the car (while eminently sensible) just looks strange to me!
I know they're "pounds" or "quid" but I keep trying to say "bucks"--as in "That's a buck 'n' a half...I meant one pound fifty." Also, it's kind of hard to remember that they're twice as valuable as a USA buck. So four quid may not sound like much, but that's almost eight dollars!
People look different here. What I mean is, in Dallas, there are certain accepted models for dress, hair, etc. according to your social status, age, etc. Back home, middle-aged businessmen dress and look a certain way, teen-aged rebels dress a certain way, angry loners have their look as well. Minor (but only minor) deviations are allowed. Here, it is much less strict. I've seen middle-aged businessmen in suits with nose-studs, for example. I think it is because the city is so cosmopolitan, I've noted the same thing in New York.

Suzi was very sweet last night. Little Sis turned into Big Sis, being protective and lavishing me with lots of advice. It was really touching. This morning she and I had breakfast at the Lynton (eggs, toast, sausage, bacon, tomatoes, and beans--filling and delicious!)... After that, she was off to Cornwall, I walked her down to the cabstand and she grabbed a cab to Paddington (normally, these so-called 'black taxis' are not a very good value, but she wasn't going far and it really beats taking the tube...at least for someone who hates stairs and escalators as much as my beloved Suzi). A hug and she was off. I hope she has the time of her life!

I went to Camden Town to meet Catherine, a friend from on-line. Simon at the hotel told me that the buses are much better than the tube, but for the life of me, I could NOT figure them out, so it was down to the tube station to get some advice from the information people. A few false starts and I got an Oyster Card (a transit pass that is re-fillable...like a little credit card thing), and was off to Camden Town. This afternoon promises to be very cool, as this is one of the major punk and goth centres of the world.

Sunday 11:50 (23:50), Lynton Hotel, London

I had an absolutely amazing time. Catherine gave me the tour of Camden Town. Punks with hair spikes that would make rhinos jealous, women with hair the colour of cotton candy, people with enough piercings on their faces to qualify them for careers in cutlery display...all this and SO much more. I was in heaven.

Afterwards, we went to her home and I met her husband, Anthony. LOVELY people, very charming and good hosts. Simon, another friend, came over and the lot of us drank, talked and had a laugh. Dinner was marvellous--wine, and a Mediterranean style tapas too complex and varied to adequately describe here: fresh bread, delightful dips, fabulous cheeses, hummis, and a dozen other items...As my 'Second Mom,' Carol likes to say, "If you leave hungry, it's your own fault." ... heeding that advice, I ate and drank VERY well.

Afterwards we chatted about a dozen subjects, played some Wii games (oh, NOW I see what those are about... great fun!), and I got treated to an exhibition of some of Catherine and Anthony's lovely photography. They are extrememly talented, and I was quite impressed. I also got to hear some tales about the places where they grew up.

Catherine also took me to a Goth pub...that was really cool. The heart of weirdness...Although one fella sorta gave me a little trouble. He said something to me to the effect of "You don't belong here, mate!" while clapping me on the shoulder rather aggressively. It wasn't a real problem, but it was a little weird. I mean, come ON! I was wearing a Bauhaus shirt and everything.

Catherine paid me a big complement when she told me that I don't look at all like a tourist, for which I'm glad. Tomorrow, I think I'll allow myself to look like a tourist and go do some touristy things.

London Trip: Day One

2008-04-21T02:02:00.000-07:00

Friday 5:45 pm Dallas time (17.45)
Wednesday, this abstract entity of a trip started being very tangible. I packed by suitcases and suddenly my plans of the past year began to be very real.

Yesterday before work, Suzi and I took our little ferrety friends to the veterinarian's office, where they'll be boarded for over two weeks. I hope they don't get too lonely! But the people at this particular clinic love ferrets quite a lot. The young man at the desk played with them affectionately as we waved bye-bye to our fuzzy-wuzzy friends.

I have quite a few people named Chris in my life right now--eleven by one count, including three at work and four on Eveything2. I have been editing/co-writing a story for a co-worker whom I call "Writer Chris" or "Chris F." I finished the first draft of his latest story, a supernatural thriller sit in Dynastic Egypt, and sent him my comments just before it was time to leave town.

Chris' story is a real diamond-in-the-rough-draft. When he approached me about it, he was afraid it did not quite have enough story...but this is what an editor does, I am helping him flesh it out. We're really excited about working together.

But he was not the Chris who came to pick Suzi and me up and take us to the airport. That Chris has been one of my closest friends for over 25 years, and, by token of our long friendship is known, simply, as Chris. Okay, sometimes I call him "Texan Chris" to my overseas friends!

Chris arrived, looking quite dapper from work, all slacks and tie and button-down collar.We petted the kitties goodbye and we were off. Thanks to his clever thinking and thorough knowledge of back routes to the airport (and a quick call to Sally), we got there, deftly avoiding the horrors of highway 635 and we were there in good time.

We all have "airport horror stories" to tellk but today was not one of them. We got aboard the plane and into the air with almost no difficulty. So here i sit, aboard a Boeing 777, flying over Missouri at 29,000 feet (8,800 metres). In another seven hours, I will be in London...my first time in a foreign country.

Friday 7:42 pm (19.42) Dallas time/8:42 (20.42) local time

A nifty display in front of me shows my modern-day magic carpet's position and speed. We are passing over the Great Lakes, into Ontario. I want to see them someday--I wrote an article on E2 about those five inland seas. their geography is so fascinating to me. My friend Joel went us there a couple years back and I have a lovely pic of him on my computer: he stands on a rocky shore, smiling, behind him a seemingly endless expanse of beautiful azure spreads out forever.

I note that we are headed toward the Kingston area. Somewhere, 31,000 feet below, my sweet Facebook friend Bernie is probably gotten to bed early--she's been busy. Next to me, my darling Suzi, sister in all but genetic reality, watches Cartoon network. To my right, my row-mate, a young military guy with the obligatory short hair, watches a subtitled movie. Ah bliss, a nice quiet row-mate.

Back before Dennis Miller decided to stop being funny and became bitter and angry instead, he had a very funny monogogue about the sort of row-mates he apparently always had..."Jonathan Livingston Humans" who would cheerfully chat the entire flight about their trips, try to show him the skull bong they'd bought in Jamaica, and ask him to interpret their dreams. "What am I here, freaking Queequeg?"

Thankfully, I have never really encountered one of those irritating creatures, but I'm sure they must exist! Why would the stand up comics lie?

The Last Ride of Jidosha Cavalier

2008-02-06T19:18:00.000-08:00

The first time I saw him, I knew we’d become great friends—I could tell at a glance that he was smart, reliable, and a lot of fun. I hoped we’d stay together for a long time.

Jidosha was a 1997 Chevrolet Cavalier—Okay, I’ve been accused of imparting personalities to my belongings…guilty as charged! I guess I’ve always been a bit of an animist (I name my computers too, always after a computer, cyborg, or robot from a book or movie).

By April of 2004, my old car, Robin was wearing out—getting fuel leaks, suspension problems, and that sort of thing. At the time, I was studying Japanese. More precisely, I was studying Kanji, the flexible and beautiful writing system of Japan. One of my vocabulary words was jidosha which means ‘automobile.’ Each syllable is a word:

Ji (自) = self

Do (動) = move

Sha (車) = vehicle

That sha is the same word that got transliterated as shaw in the word rickshaw (from jinrikisha = ‘man-powered vehicle’).

I called him “Ji” (pronounced exactly like the letter G) for short—that little car got me through my years of delivery driving for diningin.com. Ji saw me through some very good times, and some very bad ones. Sitting in the front seat, between calls for Dining In, I wrote some of my best nodes for Everything2: Platonic Life Partner, Dorothy Dandridge, Jay Ward, Everything Stops for Tea, Tripanosomiasis, Breast Massage, and a half a hundred other of my works got conceived in the front seat of my little white car.

Ji got me safely to Mother’s house in Early, Texas dozens of times to see her, and my dear sister Marilyn. And a few days after Mother died, when the full gravity of missing her hit me, I pulled over at a public park and cried my eyes out in the front seat of that little white car.

But Cavaliers, like people, have a predictable and limited life span. Both of my previous Cavaliers lasted about 150,000 miles (that would be around 240,000 kilometres for you folks that use a sensible system of linear measurement—you know who you are!). As the 150k mark loomed, I got a bit of a sense of foreboding.

Last Wednesday, I went to get my hair cut by my dear friend Cecilia. On the way home, Jidosha started to shake, rattle and roll… “Maybe it’s just a spark plug or a coil or something…” I thought hopefully. “A tuneup will be all Ji needs.”

But it was not meant to be. Ji needed head and valve work—a very pricey proposition. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to pour a thousand or more bucks into a car that isn’t worth that, particularly when you’re saving up for a very expensive vacation, so it was Hobson’s choice.

So, late Sunday night, I drove my poor old steed home from Green’s Automotive. His engine sputtered and gagged for the interminable mile to our house.

Why is it that the French have such cool words to describe emotional states? Tristesse is usually translated as “pain,” “sadness,” or “melancholy,” but to my understanding, it is a deep, aching sadness…a very profound, empty feeling. Driving home in my old car brought all those old memories back, the good times and the bad…The last ride of Jidosha Cavilier was a mile of tristesse.

I picked up his replacement today, a blue Toyota Corolla. Older, but less worn than Jidosha. It sits in the driveway, ready to carry me to work for the next few years. I’ll donate my old white car to charity in the near future.

Setback and Drawbacks—Murphy Strikes Again

2008-01-02T14:51:00.000-08:00

Did you know that Murphy, of Murphy’s Law was a real person? I certainly didn’t. And his law, as usually quoted, is not what he actually said, which is terribly disappointing to me. I like to use the popular version of Murphy’s Law:

If anything can possibly go wrong, it probably will

…at every possible opportunity. The real version, alas, is far more mundane, actually, it’s similar in spirit but I challenge you to read the eye-crossingly dull writeup in Wikipedia describing why the popular adage is incorrect. Go ahead! What’re you, chicken? Bok bok bok! C’mon, I double dog-dare you!

Ahem. Anyway, it is a little like finding out that Benjamin Franklin never said “A penny saved is a penny earned,” but instead gave some dull (and rather less pithy) discourse on the minting and management of small-value coins. Luckily for us, the marvellous Dr. Franklin did in fact utter the line about pennies, so one of our treasured aphorisms, is, at least, safe.

I guess Murphy’s Law is not itself safe from the ravages of the Axiom Commonly Referred to as Murphy’s Law.

You know, I think I shall continue referring to that axiom as Murphy’s law. If anyone challenges me on it, I will claim that I am referring to goth rock superstar Peter Murphy, former lead singer for Bauhaus. I mean, as a rock star, surely he could be no stranger to things going wrong. Or maybe sitcom character Murphy Brown…in sitcom world, things go wrong all the time…it’s one of the chief sources of humour.

Or maybe even Eddie Murphy. I suspect, at some point, during the making of Haunted Mansion, he must have thought “Didn’t I used to be a huge box-office draw?” And then maybe he thought, “If anything can possibly wrong, it probably will.”

So that brings us to my hobby, passion, and obsession: Mythical Beings

I’ve been working hard on my project all last year, hoping I can get copies ready by my birthday or so (23 March, btw). It’s great fun, but somewhat slow going. So yesterday I did the math…the results, as the wags say, are sobering.

It looks like, if I can put in two or three hours a day, every day, on the project, including work days and weekends, I might just barely make it. Of course, there is no possible way that can happen, not with house cleaning, work, and friends…not to mention the all-important E2 and on-line games.

So, it looks like Mythical Beings, Third Edition may take most of 2008 for the first printing. The better news is that the second printing should not take so long.

Murphy strikes again…someone named Murphy does, anyway!

A Christmas Tale

2007-12-23T22:52:00.000-08:00

Listen up, children, and you will hear the great tale of the mystical gift-bringer who visits us all this time of year.

While the kiddies snooze away, this magical character soars high above their homes, coming to each to dispense goodies to those who deserve them.

I am talking, of course, about the Christmas Bird.

Every Christmas Eve, the great Christmas Bird wings his way into civilized areas, flying high above the world. The haunting melodies of his magical bagpipes carried on the crisp night air (kiddies in warm climates simply change that to “balmy” or some other appropriate adjective).

Of course, he really doesn’t make moral judgements, like the other guy, though. I mean, he is more about judging people on annoying behaviour. You know, that guy who was talking too loud in Starbucks on his cel phone? Or that couple who would not shut up in the movie theatre? They aren’t getting a visit from old Christmas Birdie THIS year. No sirree.

But that couple at the restaurant, the ones who kept taking their screaming infant outside to calm him down—I’m betting THEY’LL be heaing magical bagpipes this 24 December.

Likewise, good tippers—Christmas Birdie LOVES people who leave appropriate gratuities (the person who tipped me $40 recently…she’ll probably be getting a visit from a certain large avian in a couple of days here).

Now, the Christmas Bird doesn’t really have presents…not exactly...I mean, who's he gonna get to build them? He finds lost items, or fixes things around the home that were broken. If you’ve been careful to signal your lane-changes while driving and you find something you thought was gone forever—think hard—did you catch the sound of bagpipes? Or if you are the type who always leaves a tip for your barista, you may find that your car runs a little better after Christmas or your computer boots up faster in the new year.

The Christmas Bird even has a distinctive catchphrase—as so many great holiday icons do. You know, Santa says “Ho Ho Ho!”, the Saint Patrick’s Day leprechaun says “Erin go bragh!” and, on Valentine’s Day, Cupid says “Duck and cover, or I’ll arrow your ass!”

The Christmas Bird says “Merry Christmas, boys and girls!” Okay, I guess he’s kind of uncreative sometimes.

So now you know the story of the Christmas Bird. Next time, perhaps I’ll tell you about the Birthday Cacomistle, the Easter Frog, or the Hanukkah Kitten.

Or even the .. I dunno..the Arbor Day…Ape … or some darn thing.

Happy Holidays to all my friends!

Kellum, Suzi, Kenny, Cassandra, Ayumi, Nick, Jack, and, of course, Andromeda (who got left out of the picture, but I think she doesn't mind too much)!

2007-11-28T08:54:00.001-08:00

I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted on here. I've had some crazy stuff happen...some good, some very sad.

I kind of lost my will to write for a little while, but I'm back. I have been working on Mythical Beings very hard, and the first printing of the Third Edition should be done within a couple of months. I'm very excited about it.

Oh yeah, and I flew Suzi to England to hang out with her friends there. But that's her story to tell!

I leave you with this little thing my friend John sent me...

It would take 10 Long Island Iced Teas to kill me

and also these little bits of good news

47%

67% Geek

Cleveland Dating

Heading Out to the Great Midwest, pt. 2

2007-09-16T17:51:00.000-07:00

It was good to see Charlie. We used to spend at least one evening a week with our crazy friend, but as he’s been up at Purdue doing the PhD thing, we’ve had to make do with a phone conversation every Monday night. We caught up for awhile, Charlie treated us to a rather unpracticed (but incredibly adept, in my own opinion) rendition of Rhapsody in Blue. I tried to read the music and keep track of where he was. Once upon a time, I was pretty good at that (my High School girlfriend was quite a good pianist and I used to turn pages for her). I was pretty well out of practice, but it was fun to try. It was also really neat to get to see Charlie play. He’s quite amazing at the old ivories!!

The three of us went to see the Simpsons movie. While we waited, Suzi and I played air hockey. Now, in 25 years, I can’t ever remember beating her at this game…But I did! I guess the Jedi training is really paying off!

The movie was, contrary to what a young friend of mine had said, quite funny. Of course, the three of us are all huge Simpsons aficionados…so that helps

Spider Pig! Spider Pig!
Does whatever a Spider Pig does…
Can he swing from a web?
No he can’t coz he’s a pig!

After the movie, we went to our favourite Mediterranean restaurant in West Lafayette, then back to Chez Charlie for some more hanging out and talking.

The next morning, we hit the Route 66 Diner, a local landmark---always hearty fare. We then went to a coffeehouse and hung out and talked, checked email and all that. We checked the Urban Dead crisis (which wound up with about three people leaving our little group … it’s complicated) and chatted with Charlie. All day, I was staring at a place called Hot Box Pizza. I was getting hungry.

The Wolf Howls at the wolf park are one of the West Lafayette “things” … the wolf park has several packs of wolves that researchers and students can come and work with. On weekends, we humans pay money and the researchers show us how to say “howdy” to the beautiful lupines.

We sit in bleachers just yards from the wolves (there's a fence). We had a great time…the audience would go “Ooooooooooooooooo” and, when we quit, the wolves would all be responding in their beautiful, mystical voices.

After that, we went to Charlie’s, hung out, and ordered a pizza. If you’ve been paying attention, I’ll bet you can guess where we got it from. The menu was as suggestive as the name of the pizzaria!

----------========-----------

Bright and early the next morning, I set out for Bloomington Illinois. I got to the Flat Top Grill just ahead of the E2 gang. It was cool--my editor friend Joe was running this shindig, and, of course, his significant other Tom was there as well. I also got to sit at lunch between two of my friends and catch up on the latest with them.

We went back to Joe’s for some games, some beers and lots and lots of talking. I was really happy to get to spend a lot of time with Joe and Tom, who are two of the best friends I’ve made one E2. Additionally getting to know a certain Rogue Poet better and the video-game maven whose screen name is Passport. It was a wonderful time! (In the photo of us playing Chrononauts, Tom is the guy in the hat, to the left is Vandewal, to the right are Rogue Poet and Passport.)

Tom and I had some fun--he has an amazing steel-trap mind that can do some cool tricks. His thing is the Periodic Table of the Elements. He gave me a chart and I quizzed him, he could (at least 80% of the time) match up an element with its atomic number on the chart. Amazing stuff. He could do it in reverse too, I’d say a number and he’d have to figure out what element it was. He did that one almost as well!

To me, the friendships one can forge online are every bit as real as any that you can make in person. I think of the people on E2 who have gotten married, hooked up, or become lifetime best friends. I think of Suzi and her new British friends, Chris, Jess, Kat, and Matt. And I think of my own pals like Joe, Anni, Tom, Andy, Kevin, two Chris’s, Eric, and so many more. There are certainly some dubious sides to the newest technologies, but there are also some silver linings, and this is a big one.

Anyway, we got home safe, sound, and of normal size after our midwestern adventure. A splendid time was had by all.

(and I leave you with a picture of Andy and me!)

Heading out to the Great Midwest

2007-09-04T19:52:00.000-07:00

Our trip to Indiana started out with one near-disaster after another. The night before the trip, we packed and prepared to sleep. A personality conflict in our group in the game Urban Dead had been looming on the horizon for some time. Tuesday night, it blew wide open.

Additionally, Suzi’s new (used) laptop is not working properly. She had it in the shop for repairs for over a week, and they scarcely touched it! So, we had to go pick it up so that we would have it for the trip.

Between the on-line drama and the computer, we had quite a time getting on the road.

You know those torn-up pieces of tire tread you see on the highway? Denise once told me that these are colloquially called “Alligators” because of their ability to bite onto your tires and never let go. There was a whole field of them littering a highway in Oklahoma. It was as if four or five complete tires had disintegrated into fist-sized bits all over the road. There was no dodging this minefield … we thought we had gotten away, though.

A few miles later, there was an awful, dragging sound under Suzi’s car. We pulled off of the road, got out and inspected the vehicle, just certain that it was going to be something horrible.

The rubber, molded plate underneath the engine had come loose and was dragging. Back when I was in high school, they called it a bash plate. I’m not sure what the real name is. I think the 'gator had torn the bashplate loose, at least it isn't a crucial part of the car.

I found some wire in the trunk and Suzi set to work. Head and shoulders under her Honda, on the shoulder of an Oklahoma freeway, vehicles zoomed past at 80 miles an hour. I heard her comment, “I am my father’s daughter.” No question about that. She got the bash plate secured and we were off down the highway again.

(photo by my friend RoguePoet)

Somewhere along the freeway was a big, friendly “speed zone” sign.

“Okay, self,” I told myself, “slow it on down.”

The speedometer read 60. The speed limit sign ahead said 45.

Do you ever have those times you can’t get yourself to do what you need to do? I just could not get it slowed down.

The police officer ahead turned on his lights instantly.

When he reached the car, I was almost laughing, I was polite, but not obsequious or servile. “You got me dead to rights, sir! I was telling myself to slow it down.”

The policeman took the whole thing in good humour, letting us off with a written warning and an admonition to “Slow it down.”

The Howard Johnson’s hotel in Effingham, Illinois was pretty nice, but the promised wireless-in-room did not seem to work. The Night Manager could not figure it out, so we had to wait to find out about how the Urban Dead drama shook down.

to be continued...

This Time I’m in it for Love…

2007-08-28T22:26:00.000-07:00

When I was a little kid, I hated doing schoolwork. I mean, I guess you probably did, too – but you did it, out of pride, fear of punishment, or simply because it was expected of you. For whatever reason, you did the work and got the grade.

I did not. I mean, not very often.

I skipped school and frequently failed to do my homework out of lack of motivation. There was no reward if I got A’s and no disincentive if I flunked. Which I did, sometimes.

(click on this picture to get a closer look of me in fourth grade, also the evil teacher with the very bad taste in slacks)

Later on, I learned to balance my love of shirking, daydreaming and reading books with getting B’s and C’s and not skipping quite as much school. I bumbled through high school and college in this fashion. One time, I wanted to prove to myself that I could do better. I made straight A’s that semester. Immediately thereafter, it was back to the B’s and C’s.

My biggest motivation was always recognition. You can’t really show off grades, and I always wanted to hear how brilliant I was. And I genuinely believed that I was gifted, so I never cared too much for what the report card said.

I followed the same pattern with my jobs—I did my best, within reason, but I was frequently late, and often missed work. I worked hard out of a sense of pride, but I found it was pretty difficult to get motivated to care very much. As genuine recognition is pretty scarce in the workplace, I mostly worked for the paychecks and out of a fear of disappointing my bosses or summoning down their wrath if I screwed up.

Everything changed when I went to massage school.

Suddenly, I was doing something I wanted to do, I’d chosen it, I was paying for it with my own money…as a result, I was never late for class, not even one time, not out of pride or fear—but because I wanted to be there. I studied really hard, and aced every test—I was number one in the class, and yet, while I was (and am) somewhat proud of that, it was never that big of a deal. It just felt … natural somehow.

That was about six years back. Now, having been at Massage Envy for almost two years, I’ve only been late one time (it was unavoidable, an accident had shut down the freeway), and only had to call in sick a small handful of times. It’s funny, I’m not even proud of that. Maybe in a sort of detached way, but really it is just the way things are supposed to be. I’m not late because my clients depend on me … it is where I want to be, need to be … it is where I am meant to be.

I don’t even take criticism personally. Sure, it’s no fun if someone doesn’t like my style, but for some folks it just is not a good match. I’m not the best therapist in the world, not even the best therapist I know, and that doesn’t really matter to me. I know I am doing my very best, and feel so damned good about it! I love what I am doing and it is actually fun to go to work—I know that sounds absurd, but there it is!

When I was young, I dreamed of being a big-name author or research writer and seeing my name in the book stores. When I started Mythical Beings, it was because I had visions of becoming a big-shot mythology expert. Everything2 was about dreams of glory and accolades and people telling me what a jolly good fellow I am.

The thing is, the more I write, the less I care about all those things. Don’t get me wrong, it felt absolutely great when Paul Grushkin put my essay in his book. And I love to hear from people on E2 that something I wrote touched them in some way. And the gals at my writers’ group seem very keen on my work (all the while never letting me get away with anything). But I would do it even if those things weren’t there. I’m finally doing it for love.

I once told someone that I was an “avid amateur” writer … totally forgetting that not everyone uses that word the way I do. The word is derived from that Latin word, amare, where we get words like ‘amorous’ … amateur means lover. And that it why I’m doing it these days. I’m doing the writing and the myths out of love.

And, I guess, in that sense, even though I am a professional massage therapist, I’ll always be a bit of an amateur there too.

Mythical Beings, Third Edition

2007-07-03T15:37:00.000-07:00

Way back in 1989, I dug out a list of mythological characters that I had put together in college, taking Dr. Nancy Tuana’s Women in Western Thought course at UTD. I wanted to put them into the computer so that I could remember who is/was who in classical myths and keep them all straight when I read Joseph Campbell’s the Hero With 1000 Faces.

After reading Campbell’s book, I was hooked on expanding this little file and adding all the characters I could find in books. Later, I went back and added references and more. The thing grew out of control!

So, anyway, as most people reading this know, I’m doing a third edition of Mythical Beings this year. I’m not sure what I did to deserve all the positive feedback and acclaim that I’ve gotten, but I certainly do appreciate it! I’ve been working very hard, adding some fun stuff to the new one, revising and expanding, checking sources, and otherwise just working on my favourite hobby. I'm up to doing almost an hour a day on the silly thing. I’ve even put a few mythical characters up on Everything2 as I’ve revised them for the book.

As any of you who have ever perused Mythical Beings know, I have a lot of crazy, popular-culture stuff in there. Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and other characters from the Star Wars films sit next to Loki, Hanuman, and other gods and heroes. In edition two I even added Torgo, the Master, and Roland (the Headless Thompson Gunner).

So, for my Third Edition, I was persueded by a certain (handsome, blond, Plano-living) gentleman of my acquaintance to add some of the wonderous characters from the mind of the late, great JRR Tolkien. Several of my dear friends are helping me out, because the last thing I need is getting called on the carpet for using a name incorrectly or some such thing.

I have also found a self-publishing house. This is distinct from a “vanity press” in that I do not pay them anything at all up front. My work is printed on demand (and at a very reasonable price---copies should retail for about $22) and shipped to people who order them. It all looks very classy, perfect bound (flat spine) trade paperbacks … good stuff.

I spoke with someone I know who is in the legal biz (a couple of someone’s, actually) and they are of the considered opinion that the inclusion of Star Wars, Ghostbusters, and JRR Tolkien characters should not be a problem so long as I add a statement to the copyright page to the effect of:

‘fictional characters are included with humourous intent and no copyright violation is intended …”

bla bla, characters are property of their respective copyright holders.

I’m not too worried about that. Apparently, about the worst thing that they could conceivably do (because my potential profits, a couple bucks a book, are so miniscule) is send me a C&D (a cease and desist notice) and tell me to take their characters out of the book.

But, when I started thinking about it, I thought, "what if a bunch of copies of this sold?"

It would just be my stupid luck to have a success and have to revise it at the last minute because the estate of the Late Professor Tolkien decided they wanted a cut of the action.

So I came up with this solution:

First, I create my third edition as planned. I order copies and my friends order copies and all the people who want one get copies.

Immediately after that, I can make a Third Edition, Second Printing, which would contain a wee bit more serious stuff and none of the silly stuff. That can be the one which I tell clients and E2 people about. Also, not telling E2 people about the first printing means I don’t have to hear about how “all Star Wars movies were so puerile and stupid and bla bla bla bla bla…”

Any of my friends who would say that, already have. And I’ve already stuck out my tongue at them!

Of course, none of this stuff is lost. I keep it all in the main notes, it is just that I can expurgate anything I want before something goes to press. Then I can pull the first printing off the site when the second printing is put to bed, so to speak. I think this solution should keep everyone happy, and if someone decides (by some crazy miracle) to order a couple hundred copies for their college mythology class, then I don’t have to worry that I’ll have Christopher Tolkien’s barristers ringing me up at four in the morning to tell me that I’ve made a mistake.

I may just leave in the Ghostbusters stuff … having Gozer the Gozerian in my myth book is way too fine.

2007-06-08T20:32:00.000-07:00

Hey, my friend Wendy found this fascinating little "About me" site. You pick pictures that describe your ultimate things and then it sort of psychoanalyzes you. Check it out.

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Bumper Sticker Shock

2007-05-29T10:16:00.000-07:00

I’ve always enjoyed customizing my stuff. When I was a kid, I would trick out some of my Hot Wheels cars with paint or stickers. I wasn’t all that creative at that age, so mostly it looked pretty crummy, but still … this was not just some toy out of the box, this was my own – mine alone, no one else had one just like it.

As a grown-up I enjoy bumper stickers. I don’t want to be one of those kooky people with fifteen stickers on his car, a few well-placed and presumably clever ads, slogans, esoteric symbols, or obscure quotations will do!

Three and a half years ago, Carl (my younger brother in all but actual genetics) gave me a wonderful bumper sticker as a stocking stuffer: “What Would Cthulhu Do?” Cthulhu, the mad and nearly omnipotent monster god from the wicked and weird worlds of H.P. Lovecraft --- I’ve always had a soft spot for the guy. I put it on my car with pride. That bumper sticker helped me out of a jam one time. I ran out of fuel and a young pagan rescued me, “If that had said WWJD, I’m not sure I’d have stopped.” He said.

I can’t blame him. I’ve been “witnessed” to a few too many times myself.

But Cthulhu’s bumper sticker was looking a bit ratty. I finally removed it, or, more accurately, it just sort of … fell off. Anyway, it left my little white car looking a bit naked, I’m afraid. I have an E2 oval (like those country things GB for Great Britain, SWE for Sweden, that sort of thing…), my Homestar runner window decal, a triple A thing … A couple of bumper stickers would look nice!

Now, I have certain rules about what I will put on my car. Not just any old sticker will do for my little car Jidosha (Japanese for “automobile” I call him “Ji” for short). First, no politics…For one thing, my political beliefs are a death sentence in my hometown. My sister had her car vandalized for putting a Mondale/Ferraro sticker on it. If a relatively mild-mannered dweeb like Fritz Mondale can provoke that kind of response, I shudder to think what they might do to a car with a sticker that supports John Kerry or John Edwards or some other person whom Dallasites fear might usurp the White House.

Also, I would like my bumper sticker to be legible. I love bumper stickers. I love to read them, and I always feel sad if I can’t make out what they say because it is too small, too low-contrast, confusingly rendered, or too complicated. This always fills me with a sense of sadness.

Dear Driver:
I would have loved to read your witty quip, infuriating political statement, silly aphorism, or fun trademarked phrase, but I couldn’t make it out.

Signed,
Kellum

Also, as a former graphics professional, I really want something with at least a bare modicum of taste and design sense.

That brings us to CafePress. Once upon a time, in the bad old days, finding an appropriate bumper sticker, button, or t-shirt required hours of wading through badly-photocopied catalogues full of incredibly geeky fare (I heart James Doohan! I heart Airwolf! My Other Car is a Tardis!). Now, with the Intarwebs, you can type in a word or two and voila! You are transported to a world of wonders!

But what to search on? I really don’t have many hobbies that aren’t so esoteric that no one would have heard of them. What good is an Urban Dead bumper sticker? The Kingdom of Loathing ones are funny, but I just gave one to Suzi (“I stole your accordion!”), so that might be doubling up.

Perhaps I will try mythology. Ahhh … a wonderland! Apart from the “Follow Your Bliss” and the inexplicable “Global Warming is a myth” (people still think that, even after 99% of the scientists on the world have confirmed it? Oh right, there are still people who think the earth was created in seven 24-hour days …), there were many wonderful ones. I selected one that says “Eat. Sleep. Mythology.” … and then I found the MythBusters bumperstickers.

Have you seen this thing? The Discovery channel’s Mythbusters is hosted by two special effects experts tho take urban myths and subject them to some scrutiny: If you talk on the cell phone while pumping gas, will you set yourself on fire? If you are underwater, are you safe from bullets? If you throw a penny off the Empire State Building, will it have the power of a rifle bullet when it hits the pavement below? Are people with piercings human lightning rods? It’s been compared to if JPE and I had a show, although it is sometimes hard to tell which of us would match up with which host.

The Mythbusters team doesn’t “ just tell them myths, they put them to the test” – and very amusingly! They crash things, burn things, drop things out of airplanes … thir stalwart crash test dummy gets electrocuted, burned, dropped, and mutilated a lot of times – but no Mythbusters actually get harmed. Okay, that’s a total lie – host Adam Savage winds up, often through his own fault, getting hurt regularly. They blow up stuff – a LOT of stuff: a cement mixer, a Chinese throne, a pair of pants, a jet of flame, and even a Civil War vintage rocket powered by meat (you think I am kidding???)!!!

So anyway, Suzi and I have gotten into this show. They had bumper stickers, T-shirts, and buttons with every conceivable quatation from the program. They also had the obligatory “I (heart)…” and every member of the cast.

And I wound up ordering this one, a comment from host Adam Savage, who had just been confronted with video evidence that he’d said something he claimed he had not.

"I Reject Your Reality and Substitute my Own!"

Now I can customize my toys to my heart’s content.

(Suzi pointed out that a blog about bumper stickers is kind of a one-two punch of underratedforms of communication! I love them both!)

A new kid in town

2007-05-16T18:00:00.000-07:00

The ferret rescue shelter was a whirlwind of little fuzzy creatures when Suzi and I went to visit. How were we to pick one? All the little dancing weasels were so cute it seemed like an insurmountable task.

From a hiding place, a ferret popped up like a snake charmer’s cobra, wanting to get a look at these new humans. His coat was the deep brown of roasted coffee beans and little white stripes on his face gave him a distinctly badger-y appearance.

The lady told us that his name was Cosmo.

Sometimes you pick the pet, sometimes the pet picks you. Cosmo kept his eye on us, played with us, never strayed far from us. We had been adopted.

It’s pretty common to rename pets after you adopt them from a shelter. We try to keep their shelter name as a middle name or nickname. That is why Cassie-cat’s middle name is Annie and Jack is “Jack Casanova” --- a fitting name for our Cajun lover-boy.

Ferrets are extremely skillful thieves – Davey loved bagels and twizzlers (as well as lighters, treats, silverware, and almost anything else that wasn’t tied down), Indiana would make off with any empty Starbucks cups that were in the house. The name Rob was a bit of a subtle pun --- it’s a name, but also a verb. The word “nick” means to filch something … so:

Thus, Nicholas J. Cosmo --- latest entrant into the Eberhard-Johnson household.

Ayumi wasn’t so sure about this new chap. We’d had a bit of bad luck with one from the shelter who was way too rough with her (he had to go back, but I’m sure they’ll find him a nice home!).

She seems to have changed her mind. Looks like little Nick is here to stay!

Pity Party (and a really good movie)

2007-05-05T12:06:00.000-07:00

So, apparently I have bronchitis.

I’ve been coughing for years, the result of allergies to pollen and house dust. It comes and goes, as allergies will, with the season. But my cough for the last few weeks has been different.

The cough has been painful, persistent and unrelenting. After I heard from DL that bronchitis was ‘going around,’ I suspected. Thursday night, I did not sleep much, coughing my head off until the muscles of my chest ached.

So, Friday, I went and got looked at by the doctor. After he did some chest x-rays and listened to my lungs extensively (“Inhale deeply…” *breeeeaaathhheee coff! Coff! Exxxhaalll—coff! Coff!), he realised that I was right.

So, I’m having to stay home from work today, which is good, I don’t think I could do a lot of massages today.

But I'm gonna miss the money!

=======--------------=======

My mother died two and a half years ago. Her passing was not entirely unexpected, but still painful.

Mom was many things, some of them good, some of them not so good. After her death, I have spent some time re-evaluating her life and forcing myself to admit that Mom was a real pain in the ass quite a lot.

A reformed alcoholic, she had many of the flaws stereotypically associated with that group--- she could be selfish, short-sighted, and given to fits of unreasonable anger. She hated most of my friends, particularly the ones who were the best to me in a pinch, and she never believed in their good qualities. She would often think anything that happened was about her and, of course. someone was always out to get her, out of jealousy, of course.

But she was my mom, and I loved her. And I miss her. Like many good moms do, she gave really good sympathy.

When I feel this crappy, I want nothing more than to call my mommy and hear her say “You poor thing. Now make sure to take your medicine and get lots of sleep and go to the store and get some orange juice…”

=======--------------=======

Last night, we saw Taxi Driver for the first time. I’d always heard it was a classic, but I’d skipped it repeatedly, as I suspected that it isn’t my kind of thing. Big movies, important movies often leave me flat as a flounder. This is particularly true of Movies With Something To Say. They leave me scratching my head going “huh?”, so I skip them.

But, being a fan of DeNiro and Scorsese and that crowd, we got Taxi Driver from Netflix and watched it. I have to say, it was remarkable. Despite knowing the whole plot, or so I thought, the ending still surprised me, and DeNiro’s performance as the socially awkward and freaky loner Travis Bickle was every bit as good as people seem to say.

Despite it being A Big Important Movie that Grown-ups Like (I tend to favour kids movies, or things where CGI mosters terrorize people ... that type of thing) I still enjoyed it. And, it was weird to see some of the actors so young! Baby DeNiro! Baby Harvey Keitel! Baby Albert Brooks!

A very interesting and thought-provoking flick.

Everything2, too!

2007-04-09T12:55:00.000-07:00

I never seem to get tired of telling the story of how I first found the website that would turn into an obsession and ultimately change my life for the better.

It was late 1999 or maybe early 2000 – the Internet was new…well, it was fairly new to me anyway. I used to love to randomly wander the backroads of the electronic frontier, never knowing where my virtual perambulations would land me. To that end, I would type words, phrases, names, whatever … into a search engine (I think I used Alta Vista at the time) and see where the magic would whisk me off to.

I remember typing ‘cat’ into the search engine. Among the countless hits was cat@everything2.com “What’s this?” says I.

At first glance, it appeared to be a rather comprehensive survey of the cat command from UNIX, which is a command to connect files (concatinate them) together. I’m not much of a fan of UNIX, it reminds me of a job I once held for a year, despite being gossly underqualified for the position. I almost moved on … but “What ho?” There was also a description of the domesticated animal. And a mini-review of B. Klibin’s immortal cartoon book Cat. “Just what exactly is this site anyway ….?”

At the bottom of the page were links. Lots and lots of them, linking the page about cats to other things on the weird site --- fiction, essays, factual pieces, humour … all sorts of strange stuff.

I was hooked.

As the years rolled on, I kept looking things up on Everything2. Anytime I would read a factual book or if I wanted to know about something, I’d go to E2 first --- the writing was consistently better and more entertaining than Wikipedia or the other online resources. It was frequently more interesting than looking in an encyclopedia.

I particularly enjoyed watching VH1 Classic with JCP and Suzi --- a cheesy Heavy Metal video would come on and I would look the band up on E2. The articles were usually written by people who employed phrases such as “I know they’re mostly horrible, but…” and “…guilty pleasure…”

About two and a half years ago, I started writing articles for E2. I did some good work --- I did some not-so-good work. I met some nice people who helped me improve my writing and my self confidence. I learned the arcane lore of Everything 2.

About two weeks ago, the supreme honcho of E2’s day-to-day operations, Lord Brawl (coolest. Screen name. ever.) wrote to me.

“You’ve been well-recommended for the Content Editors team. Are you interested?”

Wow.

I told him to wait, then I wrote to some friends.

In 2 ½ years I’ve made a few friends on E2. Some of them I’ve even met in real life. As they answered my questions and addressed my concerns, a picture started to emerge.

As one friend pointed out: it is not so very different from what I already do on there --- I read, evaluate, write notes to encourage or correct the writer. It’s just that now, I have the tools to really do it: I can hide or remove writeups, I can give rewards to writers as often as I wish (formerly, I could only do this one time per day). But most importantly, I have access to the Editors’ Forum. This allows me to participate in the discussions that will shape E2 in the upcoming times.

Thanks Lord Brawl, I won’t let you down!

2007-03-20T12:24:00.000-07:00

Robert Roy McFerret 2001-2007

Sunday morning, sometime around 7:15, our ferret Robbie died. I thought I’d get that out of the way first thing.

In 2001, our first ferret, Davey, died and by summer, we were ready to bring another little friend into our happy household. It was to that end that we stood in a pet shop in Richardson. Six pairs of eyes examined us---twelve tiny perfect jewels behind six little bandit masks. They were the biggest ferret kits I’d ever seen at the time, bigger in fact than Davey had been when he was full grown. The big baby ferrets were the colour of lightly burnt toast, with little pink noses that twitched adorably as they sniffed our hands to try to locate treats.

One of the kits, a gregarious male, had an odd white blaze on his head, shaped very much like a sword! As we had recently enjoyed Liam Neeson’s turn as the eponymous Scots hero in Rob Roy (for about the fifth time), the name seemed ideal for a huge, charismatic rogue*. That little sword really cinched it.

The word ferret derives from roots meaning ‘thief.’ You can see vestages of the Indo-European root (meaning ‘to carry’) in such words as pilfer and filch---it’s appropriate, because ferrets will make off with just about any damned thing in the house.

Robbie started his career in a big way---he started with our hearts.

*In the event that my estimable reader saw, and did not (for some incomprehensible reason) enjoy, this magnificent movie, he or she is cheerfully invited to pretend that I am talking about the 1953 classic, Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue (starring a young Michael Gough, no less!).

There is an axiom among the aficionados of small, domesticated mustalids that the “perfect number of ferrets is always one more.” The old timers call it ‘ferret math’ – that tendency to keep adding one more ferret to the household. We have never succumbed to the lure of four or five ferrets running all over the house---two is a pretty good number for us. Robbie had a chocolate-brown playmate named Indiana (named for Indiana Jones, of course) and later, a little scamp of a ferret girl named Ayumi.

He grew big---really big. Until I saw some ferrets who had been crossbred with polecats (their wild cousins), I had never seen a ferret as big or fit as Robbie. Turns out Rob Roy was indeed a good name for him, even though his little sword faded into a tiny pinstripe over time.

The word that comes to mind when I think of my little mustalid friend Rob is affectionate--- he was a gentle giant in the truest sense of the word. I never saw him bite anyone, unlike Davey, the juvenile delinquent who developed ridiculous nicknames like “Bitey McNibbles” and “Sir Bitesalot” … or tiny Ayumi, for whom play bites are her favourite way of saying “hello.” Robbie’s preferred greeting was licking, nuzzling, and cuddling. He was hard not to love.

In the span of a ferret’s life, six years is a long time---there are some health problems that plague older ferrets.

Monday night, a week ago, Robbie became weak. Past midnight, my stalwart best friend and platonic life partner, Suzi and I had to race down unfamiar freeways to an emergency ferret vet many miles away.

The diagnosis was not particularly cheery: insulinoma. Insulinoma, not rare in older ferrets, is a type of pancreatic cancer. The insulin-producing cells of the pancreas (beta cells I think they’re called. I’m too worn out to go look it up.) grow out of control, flooding the body with too much of the sugar-regulating hormone and leading to a blood sugar crash. It is treatable, but not curable.

Robbie seemed better for a few days, but this was a lot of strain for his little body to go through. Saturday night, he was very weak. We’ve had enough pets to know that this could be the end, we hoped not, but we tried to be realistic.

I’d love to leave this on an optimistic note, or say something clever and creative, but I really don’t feel like it. I’m a little numb. At least it was a quick end, something I guess most of us hope for. At least he had a good long life (six years is not a world record or anything, but it is pretty good for a ferret and the longest any of our four have made it so far). At least … at least … at least.

As with so many pets (and humans too), who have ‘gone before,’ he is gone from this life, but Robbie lives on forever in our hearts.

I close with a quote from a distant acquaintance years ago:

“You don’t own pets. You just pay rent on them until it is time to give them back to God.”

No Love Lost

2007-02-16T20:36:00.000-08:00

A Tuesday---my day off. Cold, grey, windy … the perfect weather to make a pot of tea and spend the day playing Kingdom of Loathing, catching up on my friends’ blogs, and reading webcomics.

Oh yes, and there are hours of happy time that I can spend on Everything2, which has just done some improvements and is blazing along at relative lightning-speed right now. I have about four pieces that I’m about ready to ‘put to bed,’ including a history of Tarot cards, a bio on American beat poet John Giorno, and a … rather off-colour short story.

Oh, sure, there is laundry to do, bills to pay, catboxes and a kitchen to clean, but those are easy chores. A simple matter to fit them between fun tasks.

With my damnable enthusiastic optimism, I forgot to factor in Time Warner Cable Internet and their frightening unreliability. Silly me.

My housemate, best friend and platonic life partner is Suzi. She is the veritable Calvin to my Hobbes, Jim to my Artie, Ernie to my Bert … So Suzi has to work an extra-long day (she’s a floral designer, tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, ‘nuff said), she appeared in my doorway to awaken me with bad news:

“Time Warner has been called. With any luck you’ll be online in a few hours.

I slept another hour.

As I write this, I have been awake for about nine hours. The net was up for about three of those hours. Just long enough for me to get a few things done, then it went right back down, like some evil undead monster which only rises from the crypt for a brief time, then returns to its sarcophagus.

But, yeah, enough of such silly imagery!

Some months ago, after suffering through a horrible spell of having almost no Internet connection at all for over three weeks, Suzi wrote a letter to the local head of Time Warner Cable. It is as funny as it is acid, and I would like to share it with you. So here it is:

Mr. C----

(This is a long letter. I hope you read all of it, I'd like to hear a response. Or I could just post it on a series of public internet consumer sites. Your call.)

I want to share a bit of customer history with you.

Back in the summer of '06, we had Comcast cable and internet service. Our friends would gather at our home on weekends and we would watch Something Weird On Demand, TV Time On Demand, or just leave video music station The Tube on in the background while we talked. We were complimented on our digital cable television. The internet was steady and reliable, with only an occasional hiccup in service. During the week, my partner and I would peruse Discovery On Demand or any number of the wide variety of channels offering such service. It was a simpler, easier day. People laughed more then.

It was before the dark times. Before Time-Warner.

The changeover would be swift, painless, they said. Why, we would not only have the same quality, but it would be better! What marvels of customer service we were promised! Then, as I watched, my beloved digital cable turned into a stranger. I asked Something Weird on their website if they were to be included in this new regime. They thought they were. Alas, no. Also gone were TV Time, Discovery, The Tube and at least half of the On Demand channels.

What was left was a shambles.

Aside from incorrect listing information and uninformative program descriptions, what paltry remains of the On Demand service there were stopped updating. From, what was it? September? until now, there has been one update to the On Demand content I still use---Cartoon Network and Adult Swim. One. In nearly four months. Last I was able to check (did I mention that On Demand has gone down with my net service.. again?) Adult Swim Comedy was down to four single programs that have been listed since the summer. On Demand is now relatively useless to me and that makes me sad.

But I knew nothing of true horror until what has become known as "The Upgrade."

Junkill notes: Cue scary music, wolf howl, evil cackling, and thunder crashing!

It was a Wednesday back in October. The notice on the door announced that the service in our area was being "upgraded." This seemed wise, at first, because despite it supposedly all being the same equipment, since the Time-Warner takeover every time it rained our net service would go down. The flyer said that the work should be completed by that evening. Fine.

Of course, it wasn't.

The digital cable TV came limping back after three days and 5-6 calls to customer support. It was almost amusing how one person would tell me to switch the cables around in the back and then another would tell me I needed a technician. Yet another just had me turn it on and off a lot. I think he was new. A tech did eventually come to the house and fix the converter box. Then it only took 2-3 more calls to customer service to get it loaded properly. Finally, I could go back to taping a show I had already missed two episodes of due to the disruption.

The internet service, on the other hand, had just begun its nightmarish plunge into a hoary netherworld of equipment failure, miscommunications, tech appointments and incredible frustration.

After the start of The Upgrade, it was a full week before net service was restored at all. I believe there were two techs in a couple of days that time. One dutifully checked the modem, replaced the cable indoors and checked everything before saying it was "a line problem." I already knew that. Everything had worked before The Upgrade. The second tech did something about the line problem.. I think... I'm not sure I even saw him. The only people giving me reliable information at that time were the subcontractors doing the actual Upgrade. I attempted to speak to Time-Warner supervisors twice, but they never called me back when they said they would and, hard as it may be to believe, I do have to leave the house from time to time.

The internet worked for us for a few days before conking out again, and again, and again, and again. If you look at my service history, you will see that we went to the office and got a new modem, which worked briefly until the switch over to the RoadRunner service. Then *pause to chuckle bitterly* the modem we had just gotten the week before was no longer compatible! So a tech came out on November 2nd, and replaced it. Yay. For fun, I started trying to keep track of the number of different people I had spoken to at your company. About then, it was up to fifteen.

Keep in mind that during this time, both my partner and I were attempting to conduct business over the net. As the weeks progressed, my partner was growing increasingly furious as he missed client emails and therefore meetings. I was having a hard time sending graphics to a new client. We spent forty dollars on T-Mobile service at Starbucks, just trying to keep up. I forbid my partner from speaking to Time-Warner representatives numbered 16-23, as he was beginning to froth at the mouth.

Junkill notes: Those of you who’ve met me will have a hard time imagine me that angry. It doesn’t happen very often. You shoulda seen it. Or, y’know, not!

I, myself, was close to snapping. It was the constant having to phone, wait on hold for ten to forty five minutes and restate my situation to a new, clueless rep (my name, address and last four digits of my social just started coming out as a stream). It was the inconvenience of having to try and scrounge net service at other places—not to mention paying $45 a month for the privilege.

Junkill notes: We have since found a wonderful little Mediterranean café in our neighbourhood which has free wi-fi, but the point is we should not have to do this at all!

Eventually, even though I was trying not to take it out on the poor saps who answer the phones (they didn't make the decisions), after being told that the soonest a tech could come out would be five days from then, my tone must have spooked someone around representative #27. She "escalated" the issue and, despite it being a Sunday, said someone from the administrative offices would call me back by 3 pm that day. When 3 pm came and went and we packed up the laptop for Starbucks, I called Customer Support. Rep #28 told me that those offices just aren't open until Monday and I had been misinformed. At Starbucks, we looked over satellite dish brochures. While we were away, Representative #29 from admin DID call and left a message at 5 pm. My partner wanted to ask him if Time-Warner would pay for us to install a competitor's DSL line, but I grabbed the phone.

Monday, November 20th, I eventually spoke to Admin Rep #29 and he said he would take care of it that day and customer service would give me a month's credit for net service. At long last, a "super tech" came out in the evening. He checked up and down the lines and finally located a problem in the ground block. He replaced it and both the tech and I, weary from each of our long battles with The Upgrade, wished each other well.

The two weeks that followed seemed blissful. Oh, sure, the digital cable service was still awful, but at least the internet service was working. Maybe it would stay that way... maybe it's not so bad.. or maybe I was just fatigued and hallucinating.

The Upgrade would not give up so easily. The Upgrade will not die so quickly. The Upgrade merely waited, lulling us into a false sense of security until a weekend neared, rubbing its allegorical hands together and cackling. I like to imagine that it also twirled its moustache.

This past Thursday, December 7th, the internet became intermittent. Okay, alright, no need to panic. It came back in the evening. Its not like that. It won't happen again. It can't!

Friday: The net works sporadically. The Upgrade waits until I am talking with someone about a banking issue and checking my account online to flatline. It comes back in the evening. A migraine begins to roost behind my right eyeball.

Saturday: I call Tech Support and speak to #36, who passes me to Tier 2 #37, Andrew, who obviously knows what he's doing, but finds the diagnostics "puzzling." He says I need a tech there and transfers me to #38 who tells me that it will be next Thursday before a tech can come out. Perhaps I could go to a local office and replace the modem? Oh. They aren't open on Saturdays.

That evening I determine that it isn't the modem. On Demand, for what little it is worth, is also out at the same time, giving only an error message. I call Customer Service back and attempt to get the name of Admin Rep #29 and his phone number. They can't find it in my customer history and tell me someone from the records research department will call me before 10 am Monday morning. Sure. Sure they will.

Sunday, December 10th, 2006: I sit here, writing to you. The modem blinks the ready light at me impudently. Later, my partner and I will go out to a local Arabic cafe that offers free wireless.

My partner has decided that Time-Warner internet service is a contender for the most shoddy product he has ever paid money for. (Keep in mind that the closest competitors are a 1975 Toyota Corolla he got for $200 that had the ceiling stitched back on with leather cord and a $10 naughty video tape he bought in college that was so bad it now travels the world as an absurdist party favor.) Myself, I'm trying to think of any product or service I've ever dealt with that has been this stressful, slipshod and unreliable.

So, at this point in my saga of the War Against The Upgrade, out of a month and a half to two months, I have had uninterrupted internet service from Time-Warner for two weeks. Tell me, would you pay for a car that only started one third of the time? Would you be happy with electrical service one quarter of the month?

Would you pay over a hundred dollars a month for all of this? Would there be any reason to stay with such a company? Any redeeming feature to the service at all?

Tell me.

I'll be here. Waiting.

Only, don't try and email me---my net service is kind of unreliable.

For the record, he never got back to us. Maybe we were a little slow, but SWB, came out today and installed a DSL. It is marvellous!!!!

Their other competitor, DirectTV is coming out next Wednesday to install a satellite dish.

I think I’ll send Mr. C. another copy of Suzi’s letter. I’m going to attach a Post-it Note that says “DirectTV and SWB DSL thank you for not responding to this letter 2 months ago.”

2006-12-26T22:31:00.000-08:00

The date was 3 December, 1981, the movie was entitled An American Werewolf in London, the setting, a grubby little theatre at Northtown Mall, a place which had certainly seen better days. My date was a bright and eccentric young woman whom I’d met at school.

Twenty-five years later, she and I rented An American Werewolf in London on DVD and JP, DL, Ben and JCP came over to watch it with us. The next day, Suzi and I paid a visit to Texas de Brazil, a Brazilian-style steakhouse. Men in crisp, white uniforms brought around skewers heavily laden with steak, chops, bacon-wrapped chicken breasts and picana – garlic-marinated beef roast. It was magnificent and extremely filling!

All this is really just a rather sneaky attempt to introduce you to my group’s (utterly absurd):

THREE LEVELS of FULLNESS

You see, when you eat, you will eventually reach a level of satiety – when you feel just full enough to happy and contented. This level of fullness is called the “Rundly-Trundly Kitten” phase (also known as the “Roly Poly Kitten” stage). You’ve eaten enough, your parasympathetic nervous system kicks in and you feel like it might be time for a nap.

Now, perhaps the food is better than all that. Perhaps you can’t quite stop yourself in time and you find yourself just a tiny bit over full … Afrah Mediterranean Restaurant anyone? You may not be in pain, but you are a little bit past that cute little kitten. This level of fullness is called Plump Mary (a/k/a Plump Merry). This name comes from a T-Shirt that Dave Barry saw when he was visiting Japan.

Okay, got that? Now – it gets a little bit weird from here out.

Now you had a bit too much food. You’re in trouble. You’re huge, bloated, uncomfortable …

The many creators of Dungeons and Dragons came up with a LOT of monsters. They went from the sublime to the ridiculous, and sometimes the ridiculous was pretty sublime. One of the silliest things they came up with was a ghastly and powerful giant frog called (aptly enough) the froghemoth. It seemed funny, until your D&D characters encounter a two-story amphibian with a really nasty attitude.

How humiliating is it to have your characters eaten by something like that?

So, when you get to that stage beyond the adorable, fuzzy kitten, beyond the oddly named and merry Ms. Mary. You’ve reached a challenging pinnacle of gourmanditry (just made that word up! Like it? Feel free to use it as often as possible!)! Congratulations my friend, you have reached the FROGHEMOTH LEVEL.

Nasty customers, those froghemoths (but what a great name “frog+behemoth=froghemoth … say it with me “frog-HEEEEE-moth”). As a parenthetical note, after I hit forty, I resolved that I’d swear off being a froghemoth ever again. It’s just too obnoxious of a feeling.

After Texas de Brazil, I was plump, quite merry, not unlike our friend Mary. Suzi said she felt the first traces of amphibian characteristics sneaking in. Perhaps her arms were waving around (just a tiny bit) like the tentacles of some huge frog-monster. I think she called it Tentacle Mary.

Wherefore the blog?

2006-12-15T11:30:00.000-08:00

“Gentlemen, I have been BLOGGING!” --- Supervillain The Monarch, to his henchmen (from the Venture Brothers)

Kyle was one of a kind – a wildly creative, intelligent and highly silly young man at my high school. He had the enviable combination of looks, brains and friendliness that made him popular and academically successful. Every high school in the world probably has a Kyle or two, and yet Kyle was one of a kind.

Kyle could make up stuff of such exceeding silly strangeness that we would be paralyzed with laughter, simultaneously wanting to scratch our heads and say “What the HECK???” On time, Kyle talked our friend Jon, good-looking, popular athlete, into playing Dungeons and Dragons with our gang. Jon wanted a caveman character – the dungeon master (me) allowed it. Jon looked to Kyle for a suitably Stone Age name.

“Throgg Blogg!” Kyle exclaimed. The name stuck. And we were stuck with a caveman named Throgg Blogg (at least until some ogres cut his career tragically short).

The first time I ever heard about blogging, it brought my mind back to our friendly (but doomed) caveman with the silly name. Despite the odd name, I love the idea of the blog. It’s like one of those family newsletters that people send around on the holidays, but frequently updated and voluntary. It doesn’t get thrust in my face, I can go to it whenever I please.

It seems so recent that I first heard of blogs, and now EVERYone seems to be keeping an online journal: grandparents, kids, families – there are so many of them it is hard to know where to start. There are political ones (galore), ones based around online games, ones related to hobbies … one day I fully expect to find that my cats have been blogging (and how aggressively CUTE would “Kenny’s Corner” be?)

If our ferrets had a blog, every entry would go something like this:

“I just ate a snack!!!!

Snack! Snack! Snack!!!!!”

And that would be all.

A couple of my dear friends keep blogs – Wendy shares adorable pics of her little girl and cracks me up with her offbeat observations on everyday life. JB offers his own sort of News of the Weird and best of the web alongside his own notes. And Ben – a guy I’ve known since we were both teen-agers, provides his readers with remarkably wry and well-written slices of life and succinct, wonderfully interesting factual pieces. A couple of my editors from Everything2 have online journals too – is it any wonder that I’m reading fewer books than I used to???

With as much as I love talking about myself, can it possibly surprise anyone who could conceivably be reading this that I am starting a blog?

So, this will be a space for my musings, mutterings, and all manner of missives. The general populace of E2 doesn’t necessarily want to hear the story of Throgg Blogg, but I’m betting that my friends will. I’ll probably update weekly or fortnightly, in between work, E2, and, of course, the ever-important Kingdom of Loathing.

So, as my favourite waiter at Besa’s Italian Café always says:

“…aaaaaand …. ENJOY!”