Appetizer
How are you today?

I’m partly cloudy with a mix of rain dripping out my armpits. A high of about 85 degrees, dropping to the mid fifties later this evening. A thin blanket will keep out the frost, but prepare for a mostly chilly morning.

Soup
Name 3 television shows you watch on a regular basis.

I don’t watch TV for two reasons: One, I stopped watching TV when I learned it had little or no intellectual value (duh.), and two because I stopped paying for cable nearly two years ago. It’s just too expensive and there are so many more worthwhile things to do with your time. Not that I do those things, but you get the gist.

Now, if there were TV shows to watch, I’d probably go for some modern day approach to German life. It would seem that, since two of my dearest friends are quite Germanly oriented, I figure I might could bone up on it. And since I’m hoping to go to Germany this next summer, maybe I could pick up some language along the way. Other than that, I’d love to just watch a couple loony British shows.

Salad
What’s the scariest weather situation you’ve experienced?

I’ve not fared much scary weather, per se, but I’ve weathered some nastiness in my time. I can’t imagine…

You know what, that’s all I got. I was gonna bullshit my way through this cutesy little twister game of Friday Feast where I bumped the answers to my questions up two slots and still tried to make them work out, but that’s hard, and I don’t feel like do it any other way. So tough titty, said the kitty. Now, I’m going to finish my laundry and eat some bruschetta that isn’t here. Damn, I’m hungry.

I dreamed I was running a marching rehearsal. All the junior high kids were outside on the street just next to the school. One group, consisting of Mrs. Head’s classes and the percussion classes, was far up the street, waiting for orders. The advanced band was right with me, marching slowly away from me. Mrs. Head was nowhere in sight.

I gave a command to about face, which my group performed well, heading them back to join the other company. However, having heard the order to about face, the company in the distance promptly turned on their heels, and marched away from me. Here I was, in the middle of a class, giving one order to two groups and getting nowhere. Is this how things truly are? Am I really running in circles this badly?

Today, during first period, the high school choir director comes and sits in my office. We exchange cordials, then discuss my time here. I express some concerns; he expresses ways to deal with them. He completely validated my worries. I have every right to feel this way, and it is okay. I will work this out, he says. I take it all in, make silent plans in my head. I wonder how my often changing of discipline techniques is affecting my classes, but dismiss it to worry about more important things at hand.

Later, after the percussion class, Mrs. Head informs me that I took eight minutes of class to just lecture the students over behavior, and that last Friday, I’d taken some thirty-five minutes. Naturally, I was in disbelief, and the feeling of failure and seclusion fell hard on me like bricks rained from imploding buildings. I try and try, I think, and get nowhere. The perception is nowhere, at least. I hope and pray that, one day in the future, the classes will finally get it into their thick skulls just what I’m wanting. In the meantime, I’ve got to change my perception so that I’m not waiting for them to finally catch on; I’m not waiting on them at all.

that could also be considered thoughts.

1. Wow, this Blizzard is really good. I miss Dairy Queen!

2. Squee! I love Weregeek

3. I hope I survive again tomorrow. (As though I might explode or something.)

4. I wonder why C isn’t online. I think I’ll text her.

5. Will I ever catch up on over 100 hours of podcasts? *sigh* Sadly, probably not.

6. Oh goodie! C is going to be online!

7. I wonder if I can actually make this doublet thing in time for the Texas Renaissance Festival.

8. I solemnly swear, on threat of self-mutilation, to submit a letter to IDDFOS for episode 46.

9. How do they get the ink in microball pens?

10. Chili, will this “ten things” idea really catch on?

Whirlwind.
Pinwheel.
Gyro.
Carousel.
Whirling dervish.
Centrifugal water sprinkler.
Saw blade.
Tasmanian devil.
Bi-polar manic episode.
Meth fit.
Seizure.
Domesticated stroke patient.
Cyclone.
Internal combustion fusion reactor core.

These are but a few of the images I acquire when I think about how I clean my house, office, workspace. I start fifteen things, finish three of them, somehow make progress, and only manage to sweat a lot. Tonight’s episode of similar incident left my desk, counter top, and boss’s work station mostly spotless. I have trashed hundreds of pieces of seemingly needless scraps under the auspice that, if it had been needed this badly, it wouldn’t be buried under mounds of often-used other things.

Shuffling through the mammoth pile of music left for someone to file away a near decade ago, I found a number of interesting selections, including “C’est Noel! (It’s Christmas!)” and “We’ve Only Just Begun,” which is probably close enough to the original crappy studio version of the same song that my mother might find it enjoyable. I, however, detest all things pop arrangement, but still fought off the urge to toss it along with myriad other crap items. One such thing might have been the “Scale Cards” I found, which are small 3×5 card stock sheets that contain all the major scales (a big part of a musical education) and a cartoon pirate-y parrot on the cover. If they weren’t nearly sixty years old, I might have tossed them, but my experience in archival work has taught me that nothing is not sacred in the face of historical references.

I scrubbed, I stacked, I hid, I folded, I moved, I trashed, I scraped, I divided, and I organized to my crazy little heart’s content, which now feels a bit unsatisfied, as I find I’m far from done. The light buzzing of my head after trashing a good handful of music told me, however, it was time to return home and find solace in either writing or reading. I’m staring at the clock and hoping for a bit of both before I completely keel over.

Morale: A Take 5 is the perfect dinner in a manic crisis, and there is nothing more satisfying that cleaning someone else’s desk for them.

Appetizer
What is your favorite type of art?

I like good art. Good art is good for you. Bad art is bad for you, and thus, i don’t like it. But to be less circum-inventive, I’d have to stick with music, since I’m sorta career choicing that particular art. Also, there is a certain allure to word creation, no?

Soup
When was the last time you got a free lunch (or breakfast or dinner)? Who paid for it?

Free lunch? There is no such thing as a free lunch, just ask Robert A. Heinlein. I have had a meal paid for often my family-ish types that live close to me. Sometimes, they just plain cook for me, which is good enough. Nothing like a hot, home-cooked meal that I did nothing to procure.

Salad
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how emotional are you?

You think I’m emotional?! How could you think that? Was it something I said?

Main Course
Approximately how long do you spend each day responding to emails?

Since I’m not one to respond to every little mail-in offer or mailing list I’m on, I spend almost no time at all. Rarely do I actually get an email from someone I know. That said, I probably spend more time writing new ones.

Dessert
To what temperature do you usually set your home’s thermostat?

I set it to cheap, or just over cheap. You know, somewhere between penny-pinching and sauna.

In this post, I will:

1. Provide further evidence that men are just as self-conscious and hold just as many body complexes as any generalized woman.
2. Prove that Long Distance Relationships are both possible and a horrible idea.

Here’s the skinny:
I am an semi-regular user of one popular dating site that will go unnamed for sake of…well, bias. I have met many many men on there of varying quality and quantity, and I have been both pleased and disappointed with the results that come from such meetings. Currently, my conversations have drifted into Brooklyn. His name will be NYC guy for quick referencing when you google me later.

He’s nice. He’s independent. This one has a paycheck, a steady job, a great resume, and the ability to probably get a job anywhere he wants. Or so he claims. He doesn’t have a high school diploma, or any college education, which sucks, but he seems to do be doing well enough, and claims to be a bit of an info junkie (which I doubt to some level, obviously). He’s an attractive man, from what I can see. Granted, he lives in New York, and I’ve yet to meet him in public.

(Note: for public record, I’m notorious for such relationships. Please don’t judge. If you could see my dating pool, you’d fling your love elsewhere, too.)

He’s a smooth talker, and he’s just cocky enough to be sexy. All good things.

However, I am not a pretty man. I am not cut from the same cookie-cutter as most “American boys” seem to be as you watch any brain-washing media suggestion of the male form for ages 14 and up. I am a little rotund in the middle, and…well, we’ll use the word Nordic. I don’t take my shirt off in public, I don’t go swimming, and I have finally found a shize of shirt that isn’t so big I look like I’m wearing a circus tent, but not so small I look I’m in a tube-top.

But I am not ugly at that. I’ve been loved for my body and I’ve been loved for who I am in my body. That said, NYC guy gave a cautionary “oh” at the sound of my tummy.

Sure he tells me that it doesn’t matter. Sure he mentions that he’s sure it’s fine, and that we won’t be able to tell if we really are physically attracted to each other until we meet face to face. Does any of this help me at all? I’ll give you three guesses, and they all start with “no,” and end in periods.

So, while I wait for the time to see him, I get to sit back and stare in the mirror and hope, one more time, that I’ll be enough for a person that I think might be worth being around.

Why, you might ask, do I not approach men in my own area? Easy:
1. The average gay man in this city is either a college freshman or over 30
2. The second largest majority of gay men has the maturity level of a broken condom.

He’s nice, he’s flattering, and he talks to me just dirty enough to keep me interested in him, but he’s showing reservation in something he can’t even qualify, and something that I’m a bit uncomfortable about.  What’s a boy to do? Hopefully, I can truck through this one. I’m tired of giving up over little shit?

Appetizer
When was the last time you visited a hospital?

It had to have been when my grandfather had a tumor removed from his esophagus. It required his chest to be cracked open, and this heart pushed aside. This has since made him quite sentimental, as I hear is the tendency. He can cry at the drop of a hat, and often waxes poetic. My grandfather is a strong man, and has a strong mind and heart. This new development is not unbecoming, and makes me feel much better for my own sensitivity.

Soup
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest, how ambitious are you?

I would only go so far as to say a six, but that’s because I think of such scales as half push-ahead, half slide-back. A four: a slow decline into sediment. A six: just clever enough to stay ahead of the recliner. Though a six is also only ambitious enough to put together a resume using magnetic poetry and Alpha-bits cereal.

Salad
Make a sentence using the letters of a body part. (Example: (mouth) My other ukelele tings healthily.)

Fink! Insurrection never gave Emperors reward!

Main Course
If you were to start a club, what would the subject matter be, and what would you name it?

Anonymous Alcoholics, designed for the discreet drunk. Meetings are nightly, where we will all get together, drink ourselves stupid, and forget each other’s names and details all night long.

Dessert
What color is the carpet/flooring in your home?

Gray, smattered with some smoke and dust colors. It really brings out the eyes of my oak and walnut furniture.

that are on my mind.

1. I think I would like to start being the kind of person who tosses their keys on the nearest surface, only to not find them later.

2. I wish my wallet didn’t poke into my nerve endings when I sit down.

3. I wonder if I should include a male Companion in my Serenity campaign. It would make for a very interesting thing, having a male professional sex-friend.

4. This alka-seltzer stuff is pretty tasty! Who knew?!

5. I wonder if I should wear the gray-blue pants with the brown sandals and the green button down tomorrow, or the deep blue jeans with the gray tennis-shoes and the P-ville polo; or maybe the deep blue jeans and the tan sandals with a t-shirt/polo combo.

6. I need to download a lot of music for the kids. And I need to decide on songs for the Christmas concert. And I need to decide what order the pieces we listen to are in, and why.

7. I wish I had a puppy.

8.  These jeans are totally falling apart.

9. I hope Allen calls me back soon.

10.  This time stamp thing is pretty nifty. I’ll have to use it more often.

Her exposed belly, full of vigor and life
held things on both sides of its thin, muscular barrier.
Inside that womb, the cantina of life, the bunker of creation
lived a child, exhaling its last few cell-growth moments
before its big debut.
A fidgeting monster-boy, one that would growl and howl
kick and scream, run and have wings made of
homemade lemon chicken and other tasty creations
A creation that would bear the weight of no woman or man
except when smothered in love and kisses
by a father and mother who loved even before
the stage lights were flung down.

Outside the fleshy concrete walls of being
knelt a man, head cocked in joy
To listen to the last remaining burps of mitosis
To listen to the unutterable coos of his son
To make sense of words that weren’t there
hoping to hear I love you’s between kicks and grunts
And finding each one.

The walls churned with life. Her belly flashed in the sun.
There were ripples there. Waves that crashed on shores.
Her taut stomach, burgeoning, bursting; so full.
She was water, and every pulse of care showed.
and every pulse of care reverbed.
She was water; she was an ocean.

[Editor's note: scrap the first edition of this junk post]

C meanders about genderization and anthropomorphization of vehicles, which I completely disdain. I’ve never owned a vehicle with any sort of mild sense of gender or sense of self. Hell, my last car didn’t even have a personality. It just, one day after fifteen long years of mild highway use and occasional roadtripping, got the rickets and kicked over. It was a Buick, and never crossed the 100,000 mile mark. A life lived poorly.

Actually, now that I think about it, I didn’t even bother to take it to the doctor. Great, now I feel like I shot a horse with a bum leg before I ever tried a band-aid. Got a paper cut? That’s too bad; get the injection kit, will ya?

The car-now-deceased was only vaguely female, but it was a Skylark, so take that for what it’s worth. It only ever harbored the best in bumper-sticker paraphernalia: “I think, therefore, I’m dangerous.” (Tide Logo) “Doubt, against even your toughest claims!” Then were the couple of Kappa Kappa Psi stickers, which will be replaced shortly. I’ve got my life member decal that I need to put on the new car, though I don’t know if the tint is going to work out so well with the graphic.

New car? Yes! Shiny and silver! Pretty! Super hyper cool! You break you buy! It wasn’t love at first sight, but it sure was love at convenience, because I had no car, and this one seemed to be sexy enough and not terrible on the pocket book. It’s a Ford Escape, and its not bad. I think the gas mileage is going to be a bit…inconvenient, but what relationship doesn’t have its problems? It’s an SUV, and I swore I’d never date an SUV, but I’m not convinced I’m doing that badly over my other car’s gas mileage. In fact, I could be doing much better! But, being the anti-corporation, green-minded, eco-conscious pagan that I am (laugh) I’m surprised at myself anyway, and am wondering when the surprise will turn to doubt, and then guilt. Guilt leads to trade-ins. Trade-ins lead to Japanese models. Japanese models lead to the dark side. I can feel my soul reeling already.

No decor just yet, other than my graduation tassel, which is pink. It’s the only pink thing I own. An escape is an effeminate SUV. It’s a soccer mom SUV. It is not a sexy hunky twenty-something SUV, but it appeals to my pretty sentiments, so it will do nicely. But that damn pink tassel, proud as I am for what it is, and what it means to me, is the only non-standard option in the vehicle, and I’m sure everyone thinks its a girl’s car. Or maybe its a girl car. Girls like pink, right? I forget…

One day, I pondered briefly on a name, just in case I decided the car needed one, or I was suddenly bounced in the head with a ball-pinned hammer and felt the need to collect inanimate “friends,” I would be prepared. The only thing that came to mind? Escapé.