Needle through Trees (Photo of the Day)
NaBloPoMo Day 24: Upside Down
Today’s NaBloPoMo Prompt: Free Write
Roadtrip! Went on a roadtrip. I’m writing this on Friday in advance, in case I don’t make it back. But since it’s posting on Sunday, I’ll write it in the past tense, as if the road trip happened.
Left the house in 7 minutes I mean last Friday at about 3 PM, right after I wrote this post. Went to the gas station (reminder— need to go to the gas station) to fill up and get some road snacks. But then as I’m writing this I remembered I’m fat and so I won’t get any. I mean I didn’t.
Listened to some podcasts as I headed down the stupid-busy highway 5, and then highway 90, which was also busy but not as bad. Destination: Winatchee. Which I think I just spelled wrong. But that’s okay. Headed there for a bachelor party, some white-water rafting, beer tasting, rock n roll good time.
Or should I say young country! For the bachelor’s best man’s his younger brother, an Okie (respect) and I’m sure a fan of the old C&W. Which I don’t mind too much, as long as I don’t have to listen to it.
Oh right, past tense: so we camped and rafted and drank and farted around, and then I drove back early on Sunday. More podcasts. That is, if I remembered to take the car charger. (Note to self).
All in all a very good time. And if my wife is reading this: yes I took sunscreens, no there weren’t any strippers. I don’t think.
Today’s NaBloPoMo Photo Prompt: Upside Down
I don’t have any Instagram pictures of anything upside down. So I’ll show you the what’s down about the upside of something. Fame can be good. But it can results in asshats writing graffiti about it. Destroying public property. And that assierhats photograph it and post in on Instagram. Tools.
Zone In, Zone Up, Zone Out.
Postaday for May 23rd: The Zone. Tell us about your favorite way to get lost in a simple activity — running, chopping vegetables, folding laundry, whatever. What’s it like when you’re in “the zone”?
Music is the key to get me into something, kind of a way to drown out the background thoughts that keep me from getting busy. You know, all those urges and frustrations and over-analyzations. For example, I’m listening to Pandora right now, which makes it easier ti ignore that “over-analyzations” isn’t probably a real word.
Cleaning the house, writing, doing paperwork, doing the filing, running, all of it requires music, most of the time. And Pandora is my drug of choice. I’ve got a couple hundred different stations, most of which I don’t listen to, since it’s all about whimsy which is ephemeral. My latest have been stations based on The New Mastersounds (laid back studio-funk jazz) The Sound Defects (minimalist adult industrial hip hop) and Bitter:Sweet (electric lounge).
I made up those “genres” by the way.
Of course is doesn’t always work. Today’s been kind of rough, getting into things. A couple of tiring days, my allergies kicking in something fierce, and a general lack of motivation. But when it does work: oh man, the zone. Its hard to describe being in the zone, especially to someone who’s never been in it. And for those who have, they know what I mean.
Better to describe what it feels like afterward. You come out of the zone and you feel so accomplished. Like you got something done, something meaningful, impactful. You’ve been heads-down at a task for maybe hours, but you don’t feel tired at all, you almost feel rejuvenated.
Its all psychological, of course, and after a bit your body catches up and reminds you that you are, in fact, tired, pretty exhausted, actually. But if you’ve timed it such that what follows is sleep: what a satisfying sleep.
And music is the doorway tog et there. For me anyway.
Old Man Ape (Photo of the Day)
San Diego Safari Park. Cropped to square so I can post it on Instagram.
NaBloPoMo Day 23: Outside
Today’s NaBloPoMo Prompt: Free Write
Big ol fat dude. Not really. That would be too easy. Be 300 pounds, lose 50 pounds, do it in a weekend, feel motherfuckin’ triumphant. Or be 400 pounds, lose 100 pounds, do it on a Friday, beer n wings to celebrate. Life is sweet. Friends buy me new shirts. Old pants are a novelty; post before n after pics on god damn Instagram.
But nope. Not that fat. Just a little fat. Fat enough. Got the gut, can suck it in, so if I do, then forget, the before n after pic’s a sad one. There’s poetry in failure, right? I’m a limerick. There once was a dude in his forties. Who longed to be fit and play sporties. But those rough twenty pounds filled his poor ears with sounds of laughter when he wore those tight shorties.
Not even a good limerick. Twenty damn pounds, that’s it. At least there’s a kind of panache in fighting those last ten pounds. There’s books for losing those last ten pounds. There’s fitness instructors in early 90’s spandex with amazing hair who explain how hard it is to lose those last ten pounds. That’s veteran-status suffering, friends. That’s tragedy unto an existential scene in a drama comedy on HBO.
But twenty? Slob. Put down the Coke, then, slob. Another night in front of the computer scooping spoonfuls of peanut butter into your gob, slob. Go to bed early, get up early, jog a few miles, eat a healthy breakfast. That’s not working on the atomic bomb. That’s basic human shit. If you can’t do that, you probably can’t vote right either. Your shirt fits a little snug because you’re a horrible American. You’ve only got one pair of jeans left and that’s why our country is going to hell. Thanks. Slob.
At least I had a triumph today. A beer for breakfast. And one for lunch. Even if beer is fattening, it’s not, not all by itself. Tequila for dinner, I think. I’ll be skinny in no time. I’ll stand next to 2004’s Jessica Alba and say sweet things like “Don’t worry, you look just fine in that size.”
Today’s NaBloPoMo Photo Prompt: Outside
Kauai, Hawaii
Puttin’ the “Alien” in “Alienate”
Postaday for May 22nd: Worldly Encounters. The friendly, English-speaking extraterrestrial you run into outside your house is asking you to recommend the one book, movie, or song that explains what humans are all about. What do you pick?
Book: Finnegan’s Wake. I have not read all of it and I am hoping that, like me, the alien will read a few pages and then toss it aside and decide the human race is too confusing to understand as a single entity. Heart and lungs, skin and bones. That’s more or less the only way we’re all the same, and any assertion to the contrary will sprout contradiction after contradiction.
For the most part, people are good, but there are a choice few who take advantage of this truth and exploit it for their own ends. I’d hate to have the alien read Harry Potter and decide we’re all courageous, only to have some coward steal his space ship and use to do donuts on the moon. Nor would I have the alien read The Stranger and find us all so disconnected and depressing that his plans to build a hyperspace bypass through our planet are accelerated out of indifference. And I would of course hate it if the alien read Dan Brown.
So I’d go to the book store and buy the book, and just so know one there would think I’m going to give it to extra terrestrial alien, I’d wear a sweater with patches on the elbows, make sure my goatee was grown out, and I’d stop by the coffee stand inside the bookstore itself and sigh at the quotidian menu and, seemingly reluctantly, order an espresso and frown when they served it and frown when I sipped it.
Back at my house I expect the alien would be sitting on my front porch, the beer I’d given him to drink while I was gone long since finished, his razor sharp stainless steel teeth slowly gnawing on the glass bottle. I’ll scowl at myself and think that I should have given him a beer in an aluminum can instead. But what’s done is done. I’ll park my car and set the parking break with a loud ratcheting sound. I’ll be prepared if the alien asks me why I set the parking break when my driveway is not very steep, or if he suggests that I install a few anti-gravity mag-lev inertia dampeners. And then when he doesn’t I’ll be a a bit disappointed because the argument I have ready is a really good one.
And he’ll see this on my face but not know what the frown means, because even though his quarter-inch photo-sensitive skin can read the variations in my body temperature to hundredth-of-a-degree accuracy, he will have no empathy gland, owing to a terrible space accident with an asteroid and joy-riding Melaplurx from Planet Gojaxicak. Hence the need for the book. Nevertheless he’ll ask me why there’s a centigrade temperature elevation in my risorius, platysma and depressor anguli oris.
And I’ll say, let me guess, you asked some asshat for the same thing you asked me, and he handed you Gray’s Anatomy?
And the alien will be a little bit confused, because, yes, someone did, and also because someone else handed him a Dr. Seuss book, and since my question to him rhymed, he would wonder if I was going to next tell him about my disdain for viridia ova atque perna.
The I would seize the moment! Thrust Finnegan’s Wake into his seven-fingered hands! All three of them! And I’d say, “This explains everything!” And then I’d go inside my house and eat some Doritos and play some Xbox.
And I bet you a thousand dollars we’d never hear from that alien again.
Review: Arthur Rex
Arthur Rex by Thomas Berger
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I came across Arthur Rex twenty seven years ago, in my high school library. That day I discovered two things: the joy of browsing stacks and finding random gems, and the joy of reading Thomas Berger.
Arthur Rex was like no other book I’d ever read, (nor was it like any other Berger wrote, I’d come to find). Seemingly gussied up with thees and thous, it was nevertheless easy to read. Such a matter-of-fact style. And that whole “show, don’t tell” rule? Annihilated.
Berger sticks to the Arthurian romance most of us already know, and gets us through the big stories: Arthur’s accidental fathering of Mordred, Tristram and Isolde, Guinivere and Lancelot, Gawaine and the Green Knight, to name a few. But in the finer details, Berger maintains a consistency that would be otherwise missing if this was just a gathering of the old stories. Gawaine, for example, when tested by temptation before he faces the Green Knight, speaks no ill of women (unlike the “Pearl Poet version) when he realizes the nature of the Green Knight’s game. In this way, Berger takes the traditional definition of “romance” and updates it to mean what it meant all along: novel.
I decided to reread Arthur thanks to being able to get it “free” on my e-reader via Kindle Unlimited, and I found myself reading it on all of my devices that support the Kindle App. On my tablet before bed, on my PC at work, on my phone waiting in the doctor’s office. Berger’s prose style for Arthur Rex is that easy to fall into. It really does feel like you’re being told a story by your old grandpa. The Princess Bride treatment of The Round Table.
Lovers of the King Arthur stories should read this book, as it stands up against any other telling, including Mallory, White, and Pyle. Lovers of Thomas Berger should read this book, as it shows how his subtle hand can nevertheless create a deep and rich tapestry. Lovers of reading should read this book because it’s just fun to read.
Wire Flower (Photo of the Day)
NaBloPoMo Day 22: Inside
Today’s NaBloPoMo Prompt: Tell us about some of the photos you keep on your phone.
The only photos I keep on my phone are the ones I’ve taken on my phone spontaneously, and have not bothered to move or delete. The detritus of laziness. Begs the question: what inspires me to take a photo with my phone in the first place? Something novel or unique. A surprise of some kind. If ever I anticipate that there will be photo opportunities, I take along the DSLR.
But then there are some photos that, once taken with the DSLR, I’ll transfer over to the phone. This is merely for the purpose of using Instagram. I’ll keep a handful of photos that I think I’ll want to share, and then in bored moments waiting for something, I’ll bring one of those photos into Pixlr, mess around with it, move it into Instagram, mess around with it, and the publish. Call it “filter doodling” if you like.
In this way I may be, in some respects, ignoring the whole point of Instagram. There’s no “insta-” in my use of Instagram. But if there’s one thing Jurassic park has taught us: nature finds a way.
You can see how seriously I take all of this, since I’m quoting an action adventure film from 1993
Today’s NaBloPoMo Photo Prompt: Inside
This picture was taken outside.
Floating and Hoping Tomorrow Will Go Away
Postaday for May 21st: Linger. Tell us about times in which you linger — when you don’t want an event, or a day to end. What is it you love about these times? Why do you wish you could linger forever?
At first the swimming pool was freezing cold, but then we got used to it, and we splashed around and clung to the side and talked and splashed some more and just floated by ourselves. Now the pool is cold again, and we’re stubbled with goosebumps. But we don’t want to get out.
We’re shivering and the sun over there is shrugging its shoulders. Looking down at the edge of the sea and getting ready to set. We’re kind of of hungry because we’ve been in the pool for three hours, and three hours without food while you’re on vacation is tantamount to starvation. And yet we can’t get out of the pool.
Our hair is nearly dry, so long has it been since we dunked under, but we still find ways to bob and make small waves, and so our shoulders are wet. They’re the coldest part of us, just above the water where it laps against clavicle and shoulder blade. Maybe that’s why we’re reluctant to leave: the towel’s over there, on the chaise, and it’s so far away.
Or ancient memories of yesterday, when we were in the pool for hours, so long the muscles in our legs atrophied, and when we pulled ourselves out we felt like we weighed a thousand pounds each. We linger because we don’t want to feel so heavy. And the siren calls of a hot shower and room service and a pay-per-view movie are too faint to compel us. We’re deaf to the future.
Even though we’re shivering and our fingertips have turned into wrinkly old men.
If we get out of the pool, we’ll have to go to our room, where we sleep, which brings tomorrow, which brings repacking, a ride to the airport, returning the rental car, that slow rental car shuttle, checking in, the long security line, waiting to board, the cramped airplane seat, the meager four ounces of complimentary beverage, the clenched fist turbulence, waiting for rude people to rush off the plane, baggage claim, car retrieval, a boring familiar highway, the dusty smell of a house closed up for a week, and then work, and then life, and then, and then…
And then no more swimming pools. No more weightlessness. Last night’s luau and yesterday’s snorkeling will be last week’s and then last month’s. This morning’s photo with the sea turtles will be just a piece of paper or an image that floats by on a screen saver.
We don’t want to go. Even though we’re shivering and it’s getting dark and we’re the only people left, even though there’s a sign over there, frowning at us and telling us the pool closes at dusk, even though we know we can’t stay here forever, we’re hoping we can make forever last just a few more minutes.