The state of my Internet address

Fellow Internet inhabitants,
We are all presidents in a land with none, which is why I choose to address you so. I have shown up on your rss feed, you happened to stop by, you have no idea why you've come, and I share your automation, good fortune, dumb luck. Thank you for coming this October, I promise to keep this relatively short. How short? Let's just say if I had written out this speech and placed it in my left breast-pocket, an assassination attempt using only steel-tipped darts would probably do me in. Not to fear though, my secret service personnel have been put on high alert to watch for excellent dart marksmen. My personnel are very thorough and have spent weeks leading up to this evening studying darts at establishments far and wide. They have also sampled some of the finest in October-flavored beer. Very thorough indeed.

My point, the plastic tipped dart which compels me to write today, is on the state of the Internet. It appears that porn continues to drive the Internet bus, but I will leave that portion untouched here today. I want to focus my discussion of the Internet in a way that the Internet seems to appreciate. I want to focus the discussion on me and the way the Internet is meeting my needs. Obviously, my abiltity to share in this very space is telling about one important part of the Internet. This continues to be my bulletin board for the thoughts and conversations that I'm not sure anybody even wants to listen to; or if "thoughts and conversations" strikes too intellectual of a tone, this is at least the space where my half-formed word combinations can go to rest comfortably in the knowledge that they are at least available for someone's consumption. I've had exciting moments here, but the babble seems more one-sided of late. My interest in me tends to outstrip others' interest in me. I understand that since you unlikely have a self to focus on. But, this has left me still searching for that social, or at least *favorite word of the month* parasocial connection.

Before I address that though, I would like to point those still listening to the upcoming National Novel Writing Month at nanowrimo.org. It's babbling with a goal and a story, so maybe a step up from blogs like this. It's also a great challenge.

Now, back to the parasocial universe that I inhabit. Facebook has sort of, kind of connected me with a number of people that I was sort of, kind of connected with before. It's pleasant enough finding out that people I like, but don't talk to that often like certain movies or songs and come from towns that I never thought to ask about, but it's also addictive and other than that sort of, kind of connection I'm not quite sure what it buys me. It does allow me another new way to use up my time and this time there are pictures.

Pictures are good, but I'm motivated by words. That's why goodreads.com is emerging as my favorite new place on the Internet. It's cozy, friendly, and fun. It's like a cute little coffee shop without the charming proprietor, the real people, the thick smell of fresh coffee, and the overpriced Internet connection. Well, that last one probably still exists. It does lack some of the tactile joys of a cute little coffee shop, but it makes up for that in its connection for readers. I believe I've touted the site in this space before, but I continue to see benefit. The site is keeping me reading. It's allowing me to get recommendations from my parasocial pals who probably wouldn't reach out otherwise. It's giving me a place to track my books, keep my reviews, and stay excited about reading. It's quickly moving to the top of my list of life-improving Internet addresses. Your blog is undoubtedly right up there in second place, don't worry.

And now for those who stayed and skimmed my every word, I give you a small piece of joy which comes not from the Internet, but instead a book I read. A joke book.

Question: What's the hardest part about hunting elephants?

Stop me if you've heard this one.

A: Carrying the decoys.

I KNOW!

Burned by an icon

I'm spending an unreasonable amount of time with my iMac lately. Sometimes, he even lets me call him Mac. We watch TV together, read the paper, visit with our parasocial universe, organize movie rentals, and even check the weather. Yesterday, Mac told me that today would bring rain. I stopped listening to weathermen some time ago, but the icon showed rain and I believed it. It turns out that Mac is good for a lot of things, but predicting the weather isn't one of them. Maybe it's harder than I thought. It's a little amazing that the weather even matters; I mean by 2007 someone surely thought we'd be traveling in glass tubes, but the earth is not dead yet. It might be sick, but I'm holding out hope that we'll survive the melting. Today it didn't rain, not even a little bit.

Mr. iMac, sir, please fix your predictions and get started on those glass tubes just in case.

STUCKEY-ville

I'm in the mood for Ed. Mix up some of that Tom Cavanaugh goofiness, throw in some Carol Vescey angst, and a few wacky bowling alley lawyer high jinxing fun and man... that'd be swell. Will Ed and Carol get together? I mean he did kind of ride in on that white horse or as a knight, or man he was a little bit too much of a hopeless romantic. It was kind of sickening. I think I stopped watching before they cancelled that show.

I could go for some right now.

I am a liar
Remember all those times that I said, "I just want to play Ultimate. It doesn't matter how or where." You probably don't because I tried not to let it consume you the way it has consumed me. Trust me though, I was saying it. Well, I lied. I played Ultimate today, the first time, other than a brief stint in July, and I don't just want to play Ultimate. I want to be good at Ultimate. It's a very different game when a cut or two sends me panting and when my body feels so fragile that a single cut might snap me into pieces.

I certainly wouldn't call today miserable by any stretch... there were some glorious moments where the disc stuck to my hand and my throws felt good, but for the most part I felt like an old man chasing the past.

I'm reading a book right now about Michael Jordan's final comeback, the one that was going on when I moved here. It talks about his flashes of brilliance, but it also talks about the struggles he went through physically and possibly emotionally as he was "de-throned." The writer is not terribly fond of Jordan or his motives. However, as Jordan's knees swell and younger players take him head on and win, I find my stomach churning and my eyes starting to water. Jordan was off for three years and came back at 38. I've been off for 6 months and I'm not 38. He did start a little more on top of his game than me though. I want to come back and be a good Ultimate player, but I can't decide what sacrifices I can make to do that. And deep down there's a little voice asking, "Is it Ultimate that I want or is it the competition and camraderie?" I don't like that voice right now, but he may be pushing me toward bike racing, or even triathalons if running can rejoin my sports vocabulary. It's just that Ultimate has been so good to me and it had helped me make a life for myself. Without it, I need to refigure me and so far that's been a struggle I'm not willing to tackle.

Merriweather Pleasure, my donkey
I was in "Downtown Disney" recently taking in a little piece of the mouse-themed consumer mecca. It was Kid Vegas. Even the shops were set up like casinos with no clear paths to the exits. In the heart of this faux-downtown is a club district called "Pleasure Island." The name conjures up a few images, but sticking with a Disney theme, my mind immediately went to Pinocchio. In that cartoon, "Pleasure Island" was a haven for boy and boy-to-be debauchery. It's been years since I've seen the film and I could still feel the ugliness of that island that eventually turned the boys into donkeys. What a weird name for an adult club district in the middle of this family-friendly environment, I thought. Then, I began to doubt my less-than-perfect memory. Perhaps, I had the wrong island. Why would Disney name their club district after a place that manufactured donkeys? I started to ask around; no one I spoke with could remember Pinocchio well enough to confirm the island connection.

Wikipedia confirms the connection and then introduces a wrinkle more unsettling. The Disney PR folks have created what appears to be a false legend to explain the "Pleasure Island" club area moniker. They introduced a shipper named Merriweather Pleasure who was the island's owner and of course not a boy-into-donkey manufacturer. They obviously wanted to have their island keep its associations, but clean it up a bit. I didn't see any evidence of this fake legend on the island, but I wasn't really looking. I find this very disturbing. Disney surely researched this name and recognized that most people have forgotten their Pinocchio associations, but knew that a few of us would hang on to the horror. So, to take care of those of us scarred by that "Pleasure Island" they created this legend of a friendly shipper so we could go to their clubs safe in the knowledge that we weren't teetering on the brink of donkey-dom. Creepy.

Tiny pink hearts are all we need

Facebook has a tiny little icon of a pink heart separated by a squiggly line of space. There's a lot in the parasocial universe I haven't seen and don't understand, but that little icon made sense immediately- it's a broken heart. I'm sitting here trying to remember what it was to have a broken heart at 15. All I can really remember is that I couldn't eat for a few days. Would it have been easier to announce the heartbreak to everyone at once with just the click of a button? Or is there value in the play by play to every one of your friends? Hashing and re-hashing every detail, working it out in your own mind. Maybe that happens anyway. I suppose there's something pleasing in the way facebook would allow this communication to all of the peripheral friends; the ones that wouldn't get a first-hand account anyway. And yet, how much harder is reconciliation when all your friends have already read with their own eyes that it is done? There's very little opportunity for the "But I thought they were..."

I remember the break-up as a lonely time, early journal evidence calls the event "...traumatically dumped in Nov." There was an upperclassman named Bill. He had 5 pairs of jeans and ironed shirts for the week hung on the back of his door. He was a little dark with his slicked-back black hair and his cigarettes. I think he had a car. I was just a freshman, innocent, quiet, and fearful of authority. I was no match for Bill in the high school hierarchy. I struggled with this for a while. I kicked things. I ran until the ache in my lungs matched the ache in my chest. I fasted with emotional pain. Some of this I remember well, but most of it is a shadow of a feeling. It's an extrapolation backwards from pain inflicted since then. That wasn't my first rejection, but it was shocking in its swiftness.

The squiggly line compresses over time, eventually all but disappearing. Cliches fly out of mouths- "other fish in the sea" was my favorite. Time wears on and the events become less about her and more about how we deal. Does the little pink heart icon pulsate with new love? I haven't been around online long enough to find out, but whether the icon appears or not, tiny pink hearts will prevail.

But, I just got out of college

I received a picture from a friend I haven't seen in a while. She looks fantastic, but she doesn't look like she did in college. I suppose she shouldn't by now, it's been a year and some change, a drawer full of change. She's been married, bought and sold a house, changed jobs, quit a band, joined a band, and certainly been through lots more that I'm not even remotely aware of. I don't know exactly how age shows up in people; it probably doesn't show up the same way in everybody, but she looks her age. She looks our age in this gorgeous, intelligent, grown-up sort of way. She looks the way I never thought we'd look.

I see myself in the mirror every day. Is this the way I look? I mean, obviously, you've got to take out her long hair and substitute my beard and she doesn't wear glasses, ok, ok, I mean do I look my age? Well, I've been told that when I trim my beard I look 10 years younger, which means when the beard is bountiful (and oh so rugged) I look well past my age. Wave to my age in the rearview mirror, kids. I'm trim now. I'm looking. The mirror says one thing, but my heart says another. Even with the (melodrama alert!) world-weary heart of late, I'm still a bit surprised when I don't get carded for the drinking. It's not an issue of being a regular customer either. I mean, if I were a campus I'd be a dry one. Which means that the vodka is hidden on the top shelf behind hair dryer?!? I'm not a campus, of course, but why does college feel so close?

Mind like a steel sieve

Somewhere, at some time, perhaps today in the newspaper, I read that happy people have trouble with contentment. For instance, if two people, say Paula and Paul met, had a whirlwind courtship full of flowers, hot tea, and cottton candy, and never fought they might run into trouble later on. (Not to mention the fact that they are clearly British circus florists and/or related to that ilk.) They would have their happy bar set so high, that day-to-day existence would be unable to live up to the original levels of happy. (As an aside, I'm not quite certain what the units of measurement for happy were, but I guarantee they were metric.) Thus, they would not be content. I believe the article went on to say that happy moments had less value as they were piled ever higher. I don't remember a lot more, but I think the article also suggested that these happy people were also likely to be most affected by a negative event.

For this reason, I have vowed to limit happy moments and will continue to push for conversion to the metric system. The Metric System: Units of happy easily divisible by 10.

It's for the collective good.

Update: Here it is. It's called Is Great Happiness Too Much of a Good Thing?.

Searching for this season's woman of substance?

With Veronica Mars and the Gilmore Girls relegated to DVDs, it appears I'm searching for new tv women to fill a void. Tonight Bionic Woman faced off against Gossip Girl. On the surface, the edge would seem to go to the bionic one. She's strong and can leap from building to building, plus I have vague childhood memories of another bionic woman or maybe it was a six-million dollar man. There were definitely cool sound effects. The sound effects have gone away; there's no money in sound effects. The money is at the track, the soundtrack. I couldn't be bothered with more than a few minutes of the Bionic Woman at a time. It was dark. The lead was not very attractive and I have the sense that the show should have kept with the current trend of turning old tv shows into movies. It worked for Dukes of Hazzard. The Bionic one didn't really get a fair shake, as I was busy watching that girl from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

Pants connections to Alexis Bledel aside, there's something about this show that isn't quite horrible. Gossip Girl is narrated by Kristen Bell of Veronica Mars fame. Listening to Kristen Bell is not the same as watching her, but then watching a show by the creator of the O.C. is also not the same as watching a show by Rob Thomas. There's no sound effects in this one either, although we do get some class warfare, some high-schoolers trying to fit in and more than our fair share of forced (as in crammed down our throats) intrigue. Also, The Bravery made an appearance on the soundtrack which was fun. (Ooh. They're playing here on Halloween.) There were fewer drinks and sex this week than last, but the world isn't light, even if what's her face's hair is. Finally, the potential villain, if rich high school boys without twirlable mustaches can achieve villain status, was drinking a scotch. That's kind of a draw. Though I do wonder why CW shows tend to portray more scotch drinkers than any other network. Is that in their mission statement?

I'm not calling this one completely in favor of Gossip Girl yet, it is the CW after all, but I'd say Gossip is poised to take Bionic based on early returns.

Yes!
It appears that NBC's Journeyman will tackle the big questions in time travel, most importantly, if you travel back in time and end up making out with your super-hot ex-girlfriend is it cheating because at that time she was actually your girlfriend?

Tune in next week...

Reality bites
I publicly admitted today that my 2007 Club Ultimate season was over. It's unclear whether it really began. I've been injured so long that my teammates probably wouldn't recognize me anyway. I haven't been on the field in months. I'd accepted personally some time ago that my comeback was not for this year, but I'd remained silent hoping for a miracle.

Every week, I get a little closer. I go whole days now without hurting. I sometimes have the urge to break into a run and I believe I could do it pain-free, at least for a little bit. I'm trying to heal completely so that when I do come back, I come back whole and ferociously. Many days both of those parts seem like pie-in-the-sky dreams. I've nearly adjusted to a life where playing Ultimate is not the centerpiece. Nearly adjusted may be a little strong, but I at least understand that it might be possible, if undesirable.

To admit this setback was sad for me and it makes my psoas twinge.

Dear Big Brother

Here's the key to my house. Come on in. Ransack that. Here's the music I'm listening to, the books I'm reading, the thoughts I'm thinking, the friends I have (or at least the friends who also welcome you and yours and me). It's all here- where I went to school, what I had for breakfast, the amount of space between my toes.

That's right, I joined facebook. It's possible that I'm about to become a parasocial butterfly. I will flit all over the place without ever leaving the seat that I stole from my roommate. Am I ok with this? I don't know, but at least I get to see some photos and videos that I was missing. I'm also exploring a whole world that I was only vaguely aware was in existence. The kids these days are terrifying, but man they take a lot of pictures. I'm still having a bit of trouble with facebook. I feel a bit like the grandparent and the VCR. It just isn't as intuitive as I thought it would be for some reason. I'm sure I'll get it figured out, so that I can soon paste the remaining pieces of my soul online. In the meantime, I need to find a way to consolidate my online presence. It's getting too spread out. I can't remember which email addresses go where and who signs in to what selling place how. I need a computer just to track my computer use.

If I sound a little frantic, it's because I think I may have just gone to stuck my toe in the fountain of the Internet and I ended up falling in. My clothes are soaked. My unmentionables are wet (are there any unmentionables left?). I'm not exactly sure where the nearest towel is located, but I'm willing to extend a metaphor...

In conclusion, I'm going to steal a transition from Frankie Two Toes, and say that I had some free acupuncture on Sunday. It was trippy. That belongs in another post.

Good day, sirs. Enjoy my soul and all of its pieces.

"Parasocial" behavior and the potential for the anti- of such

The interesting and entertaining storyRules of Thumb: Love in the Age of Texting introduced me to the term parasocial, supposedly those who believe that constant virtual contact is more than just pretend intimacy. If I'm allowed to interpret recklessly and without the argument that immediately bubbles up regarding the gray areas between virtual and actual intimacy, I do believe I've been a bit anti-parasocial in the last few weeks. There's really no telling what effect that has had on either of us.

I'm only shedding this anti-parasocialism because the washingtonpost.com story overlaps with thoughts of my own from Friday night. I live in a very different world. I recognize many of my friends, or mostly Daimon and Alan, have been telling me this for some time. I noticed this difference acutely on a Metro ride Friday night. My friend and seatmate held an entire conversation, including making plans for when he got off the train in a series of text messages. He found out where to meet, when to meet, who would be there, and even extended an invitation to another friend in a matter of moments. I have never done that. If I'd been alone, I would have gone all the way home and then been annoyed to even have to consider returning to the Metro to prolong my evening.

A friendship with me now requires an almost unheard of and/or unremembered level of advanced planning and patience. If I'm late somewhere those meeting me will know strictly by my absence. If we don't agree on a place to meet or don't understand one another, the only way our paths will cross is by force of will and dumb luck. I see a certain amount of beauty in my built-in requirement for patience (not to mention a certain amount of irony), but knowing how prevalent technology is in everyone's pocket makes me see how my resistance could be considered slightly less than charming. Thanks to those that indulge me and to those who don't, GR2BR.

An error in judgment

I've gone and done it. I was searching for something to liven up my life. I'd recently enjoyed some Virgil's root beer. I was in that very aisle looking for something to drink. I considered some cream soda. I thought about some other root beers. I could have had a root beer showdown in my mouth, but I declined. I looked at the izze with their mod box design (is that mod?) and strange name. I do like that stylized flower/asterisk thingy they've got going on, but I've done izze before and enjoyed it. I was looking for liven, not retread. As I stood in the aisle and contemplated my options I spied Java pop. It's got bubbles on the label and promises of organic goodness. I'd enjoyed a Raspberry Mocha Frappuccino earlier in the day, so coffee was on my good side. I decided Vanilla Coffee soda was the way to liven.

Oh boy. I took a wrong turn near liven and ended up near Yucktown. It's organic all right. It tastes a little like liquid dirt mixed with liquid grass and a pinch of coffee bean and vanilla mixed right in. It's kind of not that good, like maybe my morning coffee waited all day to chill and then vomitted cream soda. Want a bottle?

The punchline to a really sad joke
How depressed are you?
I'm so depressed that yesterday I dressed the part. I was in a suit and sporting an old fedora and I just kept picturing myself in black and white. You know, because the Great Depression took place in black and white. The pictures prove it.

How sad?
Dear 25%,
Please read. It's worth it.

At least we aren't Orioles
The Rangers put up 30 runs against the Orioles in the first game of a doubleheader. Then they beat them again. I bet it was fun to be a Rangers fan on Thursday.

Just a block up from Rock Bottom Lane
or Oh. The Melodrama.

I'm searching for a house just a block from Rock Bottom Lane. If I play my cards right, it might be on the corner of Suck Ave. and Pull it Together Road. That house has a nice view in both directions. The house would need to have cable because I like to curl up in the fetal position and watch Hillary Duff in her modern day Cinderella. I'm looking to rent rather than buy because I've spent a large chunk of my money on the white stuff. We're talking Vanilla Bean ice cream. There's nothing like licking melted ice cream from a moustache. Actually, licking ice cream off of a small furry dog is probably pretty similar, but that sounds gross.

The place really only needs one room and a bathroom. I don't plan to do a lot of moving around. I could drag myself to a hot plate or the freezer every now and then. A small space for the in, a hole for the out. Other than that, I only need enough room to stretch out and dry my pit-stained t-shirts.

I'm bummed without Ultimate. My patience is all used up and there wasn't that much to begin with.

Fine. So it could be worse.

The competitive reader inside me

Goodreads.com makes me feel a bit like I'm in a summer reading program. It's the online version of "Dive into a sea of reading" where every book gets my chain a paper fish and every 10 books gets me a star, starfish that is. It's a place where I can walk in and compare myself to the other readers around.
My fish chain is longer than that kid's.
I bet she only reads short books.
Then seeing the scowl on my face, I can almost hear my mom remind me that reading is fun. It's just important to read, not how much I read.

Easy for you to say, Mom, you don't have a fish in the race.

The critic inside of me
Goodreads.com also lets me wield a five-star rating system like I'm a cross between AAA, Good Housekeeping, and J.D Power & Associates. My average rating is lower than all my friends. At first I thought I was a tough critic, but then I realized they didn't read A Polemic against Love or The Ballad of the Whisky Robber. Maybe I'm not so tough.

The online social networker inside of me
It's online making friends! This is the beginning of the end. Facebook and myspace are just a click away.

Please stop looking inside of me.
I'm actually very pleased with goodreads.com. I'm not sure why it doesn't sound that way.

Run to the store/ Dance in the aisle

For months that seemed much longer, I have been unable to run to the store. I haven't gone hungry. I still make just as many stops at my local grocery, but I have not been able to lift my legs and place them repeatedly and relatively rapidly along the sidewalks that lead to this place or any other. Saturday, that changed. The sun shone a little brighter. The trees whispered happy things in my ears. I moved quickly to the store, afraid to race there, but stretching out my legs just a little. The soreness that has plagued me lurked beneath the surface, but remained at bay.

My return trip brought a hint of tightness, and so the rejoicing was a quiet sort. A celebration of progress, hopes, and things yet to come.

I'm spent

Jen hasn't written back, but it's ok because I've been busy. Tuesday night I went to perform trivia at some bar. It's a good thing that trivia isn't like karaoke; this way people didn't have to hear me mess things up in a high-pitched squeal. Amongst my perspiration, the beer, and a fading memory, I was able to contribute at least 2 points to my team's 60-something. I think I cost us at least one. I probably netted zero. Maybe this is the reason I turned jock long ago. And after all these years of thinking it was an accident.

Last night I went to see the fightin' Orioles. They aren't that fightin', but it's ok because my ride was cheering for the Rhyme of the ancient Mariners. I'd barely settled into my seat, Boog's BBQ still on my breath, when the Mariners put one over the fence not 100 feet from where I sat. The center fielder probably should have tried to make a play on the ball since it cleared the wall by six inches. The right field fans expressed this sentiment to him in the most eloquent profanity-laden manner. The rest of the game is a bit of a blur. It was like 38 degrees on the good scale. That's hot. The Mariners won. The ballpark was well-made. Sturdy or so I'm led to believe. This is the point in my description where I have to decide if the emphasis is going to be on attempting comedy or attempting an honest description of the way I felt in the heat as I watched our nation's former pastime before we became angrier and more violent.

Apparently I chose political statment. I didn't even know that was an option.

Now, I launder.

Dear Jen
(of NBC's reality series Age of Love),

I know that you were trying to win the affections of a man 18 years your junior, not just any man either, the tennis star Mark Philapoulousasasas I won't spell his name, you know it. I just wanted to say that despite your covered-in-darkness massage (MASS-age according to the Aussie boy) and the on-air snogging that everyone in this show partook in, I thought you did a bang-up job. I can say this with some authority because I was able to watch all of the episodes of Age of Love. Some people might be ashamed of this fact, but when NBC pitted 40 vs. 20 I knew almost instantly that I was a fan of yours. Your hotness defied age and you seemed pretty cool too. And really, wasn't that the point of this whole experiement?

Sometimes, during the commercials I would picture our lives together. I pictured our 50th wedding anniversary. By then, I'd learned over and over again that age really didn't matter. Even at 98, your smile still melted my heart and you still looked great in motorcycle chaps. As I stood next to our cake, a tiny tear formed in my eye as our adopted Guatamalan daughter, Jane, 38, hugged her 75-year old step-brother. Or was she holding him up? Regardless, he and I had shared some good times, too. Those years where he lived with us are some that I'll cherish forever. I know you grew tired of our thirty-something antics, but we grew out of them as he entered his fifties and you and I were able to appreciate an empty nest. You always said that 70 was the new 50. Thank goodness for early retirement.

The commercials would end and I would be plunged back into reality tv, which as we all learned long ago is different than reality. It hurt me to see you with another man, but then I realized that you'd been with another man when I was born. That took away some of the heartache. It was hard to see the chemistry you shared with Mark, but when the credits roll, I just want you to be happy. If not with me, I hope you find it with someone, no matter his age. Good luck, Jen. Thank you for teaching me that hotness and coolness can come at any age at least with proper make-up and editing.

Ignore that last part. That's the heartache talking.

With (ageless) love,
Dave

The problem with syndication

It was just 30 minutes ago when young Rachel Green was getting her first real job. The world was hers for the taking. Happiness abounded. Then just like that, in the blink of a plotline, Rachel and Ross were on a break. U2 played loudly in the background. Hearts were breaking all across non high-definition television sets. The ups. The downs. It's almost too much for one man to weather.

I'll be brave.

Must look awesome

This story starts and ends in 'stache. When a weekend on the Jersey shore playing Ultimate began to take shape, my friend Alan made a call far and wide for the team to wear our finest in mustachery. For my friends this generally meant some form of facial sacrifice. It meant turning to 1970s cop shows, pre-industrial Japan, and Joe Dirt for inspiration. For me, it merely meant maintaining the prickly hair that I had cultivated over the past four years. As the weekend approached, pressure began to mount to turn my bearded look into one that emphasized the mustache. Knowing that my playing time would be limited I debated the merits of re-releasing my chin to the outside world. After some deliberation, I decided to free my face from a large portion of the hair that had taken up residence there. It proved not to be so simple. These follicles were like tiny roommates, tiny friends, tiny armed guards for my face. And there are many styles of mustache to choose from. With clippers in hand, I froze.

There's an art to facial hair and so to help make my decision I called on an artist. Matt had been there in the earliest days as I had struggled to connect the chin hairs with the upper lip hairs into pseudo-beatnick glory- the goatee. He'd been there when I'd come down from the mountains sporting six months of solid growth. I'd seen him transition from goatee to chin strap and back again. Our beards had grown together, although not in a weird blond hair twisting with brown kind of way, more like we'd both had facial hair at the same time. Now, I turned to him in my time of need. Where should I take this art, this mustache? I asked of him like a man who had gone to visit the Dalai Lama. Like a buddhist monk, his answer took the form of guidance and lead my heart and mind where it needed to be.

We reached the conclusion, and the journey took us to the fu manchu. It sounds like somewhere a monk might send me. Fu Manchu, just off the coast of the razor by way of clipper. The transformation was quick and save the buzzing of the clippers, silent. I did not wake up the next morning a changed man. I was still me, although my reflection looked quite a bit like a truck driver.

I took the essence of me with my truck driver face and headed to work where I promptly forgot the state of my face. My coworkers are very nice people and their remarks tended toward shock without rudeness. I appreciated it and was only reminded of my transformation when my fingers struck chin. My chin may be many things, but twirlable it is not.

Having survived a shortened workday, I prepared to unveil my new look to Alan and those that I would share my weekend with. Alan reacted with amusement and thrill. I felt my mission was accomplished. For the most part, although my look had changed, I felt the same. As the weekend wore on, some combination of boardwalk, deep-fried Oreos, and fu manchu worked like the sand in my shoe to free a little of the skeeviness inside of me. I could blame the mustache or New Jersey, but I have come to believe there's a little skeeve inside of each of us. With meditation and an outdoor shower, I was able to tame the skeevy beast within and return to mastery of myself and my fu manchu. The culmination of this mastery may have been in a diner just across the street from the oldest living oak. Uncle Rico, a samurai called Sunday Night Special, and me, your Thurman Munson look-alike, were halfway through dinner; The Platters were crooning on our tableside jukebox when we realized that each of us looked ridiculeautiful (that rare combination of ridiculous and beautiful) and our waitress had not reacted in the slightest. We had made our peace with the 'stache.

A day in the life of superstars and me

There are certain awesome moments in life. Moments that I don't just want blog about, but actually want to remember forever, or a reasonable approximation thereof. Today, I had such a moment. Today's moment, as many moments on this blog, is about a girl, a woman really. The moment is really a movement, or more accurately the economy of movement. The moment, the movement, involved me standing less than 30 feet from a tennis racket wielded by one of the winningest tennis players around, Martina Navratilova. I don't believe I'm one to get particularly star struck, that affliction which renders one a bit of a blubbering fool in front of the famous. I don't have opportunity to test this theory often, but I'd already stepped up to a microphone and asked Martina how she dealt with injury. Nerve-wracking certainly, but more so because I told a thousand people that my stomach hurt rather than the fact that one of them was a 20-time winner at Wimbledon. Martina seemed very affable and down-to-earth when she spoke.

The alluded to moment though struck me and made me into a blubbering fool. As I looked on, Ms. Navratilova volleyed soft faux-tennis balls with an amateur- a competitive amateur and coach, but an amateur none-the-less. Martina hit the ball as she talked about the importance of racket placement. Her racket moved almost impercectibly and at a perfect angle to return the faux-balls. The difference between how she used her racket and how the amatuer used hers was like the difference between a tornado and its eye. On a much smaller scale, but her racket head remained placed perfectly, whether it was behind her back, between her legs or as a simple forehand. There are hundreds and thousands who have observed Martina up close and on the court. They've seen this movement combined with the other skills that made her great, but I consider it an honor to have witnessed this tiny moment and these simple movements which she has undertaken probably millions of times.

I feel I have not done justice to the moment. So with a bit of a stretch let me contrast it to the time I nearly danced with Tina Turner.

It was lunch time and I was eating my smaller portion. I had just shared an hour with a champion and a thousand others, when the emcee had me put my hands together for Tina Turner. Many of us leapt from our seats and headed to the stage as hits like Proud Mary and Rollin' on the River were belted in our general direction. There was some girlish screaming, not from me of course. I am not a big Tina Turner fan, but the day suddenly seemed full of possibility. During an early song of the performance, I started to scrutinize Ms. Turner. She certainly sounded right, but her face didn't look quite right. Not being a big fan, I realized that her age and my poor memory might be causing doubt where it did not belong. As the song ended, the test occurred to me. I glanced down from her face to her legs. I don't know much about Tina Turner, but I know she's got some fantastic gams. This performer did not. Either this was an imposter or the famous legs had taken a turn for the worse. And by turn I mean they exited the highway of "Wow" at the Truckstop called "ughn". I returned to my seat and announced my opinion- not Tina. Those more prone to proclamations declared, "I know Tina and she is no Tina."

Despite these proclamations, the power of a crowd is mighty. Important people, people who should know, declared she was the real deal. The crowd remained around the stage and frankly, the imposter was giving a good performance. She brought a group of guys up on stage, one I was nearly pushed into, who took to shaking various things. This performer made an awkward statement about Ike which seemed like it was in bad taste for an impersonater... this brought back a few bits of doubt on the other side. Maybe it was her? Others were certain she was the real deal. One looked me in the eye and said, "her tone and pitch are right. Her movements are right and her eyes are right. It's her."

"But the legs?" I squealed, and he could not answer.

One perfect moment on a champion's racket, and one pretty good imposter with legs that betrayed her (or I heard rumors of him). Not a bad brush with the famous and nearly famous.

Points of order and beyond

Point the first: My new definition of success states that when a bike tire goes flat, success is being able to change bikes.

Remember where George Washington lived? I biked there on Saturday on a bit of a whim. Quite pleasant, really. The food court is a little overpriced, but I'm sure the money goes to a good cause, like making Washington's pockets even deeper. Come on, the man is on the dollar bill and even the rappers know it's all about him. Or was it Franklin? Regardless, the ride was a good one. Downhill both ways; or at least rolling enough to make me think that.

Point the second: Harry Potter fans are kind of kooky, but fun. Read about the second largest celebration in the statesat the Gig. I ducked out early because I like to support J.K.'s retirement from afar and read other people's books. To expand on that point secondhand underwear is no good, but secondhand Potter novels are excellent. I will not continue except to point you to this Washington Post article which has pointed me to some other interesting reading and made an excellent observation about how part of the charm of Potter may be in the sense of community. The writer didn't say it like that, instead phrasing it more that the appeal was in being in synch with the world due to mass media hysteria, but I think it further supports an idea that I keep coming back to-- people are seeking community. If that means standing in line for a book at midnight, that's not so bad. It just reinforces that there need to be more opportunities to meet that need.

Point the Monday: Desk jobs and poor posture may have contributed to my current injured state. It's hard to expect muscles to work when they just sit around all day. I'm not going to quit, but I'm going to try to improve my posture along with taking some other more agressive measures.

Point the Tuesday: I heard from a nutritionist today to "eat light and eat often." I've heard this before, but her presentation on how this translated into controlling glucose made more sense than anything I've ever heard about eating before. I want to follow her advice. I expect some challenges, but hopefully this can lead to a healthier me.

There's the points. Add it up. $5.79, please.

Profound moment of the day

I'd like this to become a regular feature, but I don't think it will.

I said, "I'm not like everybody else."

She said,"Nobody is."

Blasphemorophic

I think I get it. The appeal of the exercise-free existence. It's "extra" hours in the day. There's fewer sweaty shirts and shorts. I can go to a place and not spend the whole weekend teetering on the brink of exhaustion. I can eat Nachos in the middle of a Saturday and not worry about the cheese weighing me down or worse coming up. If I'm a little dehydrated, it doesn't affect the performance of my Metro ride.

I think I get it. I can even appreciate it.

P.S. I hate it.

A battle for the 50

It was vs.


It was a battle of wits. It was a battle of charm. Armed with my winsome personality and my learned ability to attract the greatest generation, I took on what some have called "the cutest baby EVER." It seemed like an impossible task. Look at those adorable little arms! We agreed to the terms. At the end of the weekend, the winner would be the hat wearer who had attracted the most people over 50. I agreed not to go out of my way to recruit so long as she agreed not to use words. At a coffee shop, she immediately jumped out to an early lead, but I was able to battle back, taking the lead by snagging a couple in a conversation about a strange gathering of birds on the surface of the lake. I had the advantage of mobility, but what the girl lacked in transport she more than made up in squeaky sounds. My lead was short-lived and a flock of elders apparently descended on her in a grocery store, putting her total out of my reach.

I accept defeat humbly. Hats off to my worthy opponent.

If I could just ramble for a moment
DFW, or thereabouts- It's like I'm at summer camp for grown-ups. I'm at a training and we're staying in a compound. I've had cafeteria food for the last three days and it's been fun. One day I had a Frito pie for lunch. I was thinking that a Frito pie might be more manageable than the also-available Super Frito pie. The Frito pie was *newly-added-dictionary-word* ginormous. I can only imagine that the Super would fill a bus with chili and cheese. It was Texas-sized, y'all.

This place is a perfect training facility except for one thing. I'm trapped. Please, don't send help, but there is not a lot to do here at night. I have decided that my best course of entertainment is the ping pong table. Sure, they have a pool, a tennis court, a basketball court, a strange bar-like room, but the ping pong table immediately attracted my attention. Two nights ago I volleyed with with a colleague for around an hour or so. It was quite enjoyable. Last night, I volleyed with the same gentleman and then another man from a different training cut in. He was quite a bit more agressive in his ping pong style. I had been toying with my paddle grip all evening. Growing up, I had played with an upside down paddle- four fingers on one side and a thumb on the other. This was fairly effective for me, but involves moving my fingers whenever I need to hit a backhand. I toyed with a grip that looped my index finger and thumb around the neck and left three fingers that had to be moved to hit a backhand. It was also ok, but I knew something more lurked. Finally, I decided to loop all my fingers around the neck to meet my thumb. This grip immediately yielded a lower, faster serve and some natural forehand spin. At the risk of revealing my weakness, it also rendered my backhand nearly worthless. I began to find ways to cope, but I still need more time to perfect this technique.

This man and I volleyed for a while. As the evening wore on, I decided to test my grip in a game situation. I was immediately trounced to the tune of 21-13. During a second game, I quickly found myself down 4-1. Then I had a realization and some good luck. The good luck came first, as my forehand with top spin began to find the table. The man I was playing had a fairly wicked backhand with top spin, but I returned a few and clawed my way back into the game. Combine that luck with a realization that there are more weapons than one in a game so nobley dubbed ping pong. I started to change the pace of my shots. I stopped serving everying low and fast. I'd lob some in. I'd put some to the left and some to the right. This wasn't an exact science and some of my good luck continued, but I found my opponent unable to rip his backhand with as much confidence as I did this. I pulled away and won 21-12. In our final game, he again pulled ahead early. I talked myself off the ledge, went back to my pace changing strategy, threw in some good luck top spin and found myself on top again 21-14. Oh, the delicious smell of sweat and victory. Also my greatest sports triumph in more than a month...

Apparently delirious from my victory, I somehow set my alarm clock an hour earlier, not the alarm mind you, the actual clock. I thought that I'd lost an hour awfully quickly last night as I was watching TV in my tiny room. Now I find that hour. Too bad I rushed through my bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch (product placement alert!).

Endless Summer

It smells of burnt marshmallow and despair. The perspiration has pooled inside my bike gloves. The pools leak through the fabric and slime my palms. It reeks of day old pit toilet and anger. My weakened lungs wheeze at the effort of pedaling up the last hill on the way home while my sore stomach muscles grind against one another in an unnatural friction. The Guinness on my breath goes unmasked by the moldy water from my bottle. I begin to question the wisdom of the Southwest burger medium well. I'm now riding like I'm mired in the guacamole from dinner. I sweat profusely in a way that has far more to do with genetics than jalapenos. I labor through the thick summer air, cooled slightly by an afternoon thunderstorm. This is my ride home. This is the second best part of my day.

Don't I know you?

Perhaps, nostalgia may have been swirling around the wrinkles of my brain. I'd skipped my high school reunion not a week before. Maybe, my mind had taken to inventorying every face I had ever seen and culling them for those that were still relevant in day-to-day or year-to-year existence. Whatever was going on, I seemed to be nearly recognizing a number of people. There on the Metro, wasn't that the girl from high school pom-pon squad who also taught at the local gymnastics class? No, her face had been thinner, her nose more angled. As my old classmates walked a fine line between remembering and reliving, I stared at Ultimate players who tend to look similar anyway and was sure I'd find one I used to know. I didn't.

A week later, as luggage slowly tumbled from the conveyor belt, I spotted a girl I'd known in middle school. She was taller than I remembered, older too. She found a man and they embraced. I looked away and waited for a suitcase. The man stayed and the woman left. I was tempted to walk up and ask him if the woman he was waiting for might be the girl I once knew. I was dissuaded from this notion as the kinked metal went round and round. I looked back and saw that the woman now waited for the man. She was propped comfortably against the wall, an instrument case at her feet. The girl I had known played an instrument of some sort, but then at that age most of us did. There was no hurry about her. She was waiting patiently. Unable to silence the voice in my head, I turned and walked up to her.

"Are you Lisa?" I asked.
"Yes." she said, quizzically.
"I'm David. I think we went to middle school together."
She looked at me stunned and then said, "We were in Science Olympiad"
I don't know whether it was a statement or a question, but I confirmed that we were. We had a brief conversation, the kind you have after a surprise greeting from an adolescent teammate who now sports a beard, very few mutual acquaintances, and 13 or so years between the last undoubtedly awkward interaction. It was middle school after all.

I fled before her fiance returned and could only cackle with glee at the thought of her telling him that some guy from middle school had just recognized her.

Baseball, Irish torts, scotch, and fireworks

America. America. I like to celebrate with thee.

I was treated to some fine Nationals baseball on my birthday. Reuben even let me wear his glove in case any foul balls managed to reach the middle upper deck. None did, but it was a birthday my grandpa would've been pleased to attend, although he might not have joined in during the wave. The Cubs knocked off the Nats 3-1. We had ample opportunity to shout "HeyBattaBatta," but didn't. I consumed a hot dog, a lemonade, and grew nostalgic for the lightboards that are not yet extinct.

After the game, I was treated to an Irish Chocolate tort and an 18 year old Glenmorangie single malt scotch. I savored the scotch well into the 4th of July and was excited to discover that Glenmorangie has a Missouri connection. It is aged first in casks made from wood from the Ozarks. It appears that Glenmorangie and I have taken our original Missouri connections and aged into tasty inside-tingling savor-able goodness. Or something like that.

Firework viewing in this area is a bit of a challenge. There's something about seeing stuff blow up in the capital that just brings out the crowds. I've been told that the mall used to be a massive fourth of July party, but last time I was there it resembled an outdoor airport security line. Last year, Clare and I watched the fireworks from a Metro station. It put us a ways from the fireworks, but paid dividends in both oddity of the environment, trains occassionaly blocked our view, and the efficiency with which we managed to beat the crowds. Construction this year has obstructed that view further. This year we rode our bikes to a prime viewing spot about 2 miles from the Washington Monument. We gathered with a crowd, but a much more manageable one. The Monument wasn't in a position to add much visual drama to the exploding colors filling the sky, but it served as a nice peripheral reminder of why the sky was exploding. The ride home in the darkness was my personal celebration of independence as we manuevered past lines of traffic and packed Metro stations.

July 5 seems to be just another day, but it's still early, so I'm holding out hope.

It will be soon
To sit and eat peanut butter and jelly and drink the celebrated Oatmeal Stout is the flavor represenation of the clash of my youth and a new age. Finger painting meets art appreciation set to classical music. I've always believed that age is only a number and as I continue to be unable to play Ultimate that number hovers dangerously close to 500. No offense to the hobbits.

Is it prime?

I got passport photos taken last week. Time has certainly passed between passport photos. Nothing makes ten years quite so apparent as comparing 2 x 2 close-ups. My glasses have squared off. My hair has migrated from the top of my head to my chin and jawbone. I look wiser and rougher, but I'm still me.

Upon a time: A short review
Once is a rich man's Music and Lyrics. It's beautiful and moving, charming and genuine. What it lacks in Hollywood production it makes up for with splendid singer-songwriter music that spins a tale of awkwardness, connection, and creativity. I suppose it's a musical, or perhaps a love story. Either way, I dare you to watch it and not want to make music and love of your own.

Word

The word fairy has pointed out that "fervent" may not have been the word to use in yesterday's post. fervent (adj.) having great warmth or intensity of spirit. I might have been able to get away with it once, but twice really elucidated the awkwardness.

Ripe might have been a better word. The banana joke certainly points in that direction. ripe (adj.) advanced to the point of being ready to use.

Words have been tricky for me lately. They aren't coming out so well and I'm second-guessing them when they do. Times like these make me pleased that blogging doesn't put food on the table.

The great thing about Mary

Kella has greatly undertold the ambush of Mary. It grows more fervent with each passing day. By now, it's pretty fervent; if it were a banana it would probably be black. Luckily, its just a story and I'm just its teller.

I needed to visit the icon and ice cream establishment Ted Drewes, famous for concretes and other cold concoctions. Having grown up with just the bulk of Missouri between me and Ted, I was fond of the place and suggested we hit him up for something chill. Kella agreed. Then she hatched her ambush plan.

It didn't start out as an ambush plan, just a friendly visit. It started with a phone call that went unanswered and then another and another. If we had been asking Mary out on a date, our call volume would have been high, but we weren't and it wasn't like she was answering the phone anyway. I should mention at this point that although I was and still am quite fond of Mary, she and I had fallen pretty far out of touch. Far enough that if Kella hadn't been around I wouldn't have even found her in the phone book or known which side of the Mississippi she called home. If Mary and I had been components of a BLT, we probably would have been on separate sandwiches at this point. None of that would stop Kella; she is a determined woman.

We arrived on Mary's street, where brick houses bumped up against their neighbors and sidewalks sliced through front yards. Every house had porch steps. The straight slightly sloping street looked like the suburbs of a childhood someone older than me would remember. We found Mary's home and the ambush unfolded.

More calls went unanswered. So did banging on the door, ringing of the doorbell, and shouts of "MARY!" through the screen. Lights were on, but nobody was home. Dogs didn't bark. Babies didn't cry. Streets were quiet and Ted awaited. I would have given up at this point, if not at points before. I didn't want to wake anybody. I started to doubt my appeal to Mary at 9:30 PM on a school night. I tried to convince Kella of this; but, and you may have heard this, she is a determined woman. She strode confidently to the neighbor's door and rang the bell. A neighbor, a friendly enough Midwestern woman with proper neighborly curiosity answered the door as I stood on the sidewalk between the two houses. Kella introduced herself and explained our plans and our surprise that Mary's family was not to be found. The neighbor took in the story only eyeing the bearded stranger lurking on the sidewalk once. Fortunately for me, beards hide blushing, and darkness hides the rest.

The concerned neighbor and Kella proceeded to go through the same knocking, ringing, shouting ritual that I had already witnessed as I stood on the sidewalk behind them. Had we been scorned lovers of Mary's this was the point where she might have considered a restraining order.

None of this seemed to have an effect. And then when I was really ready to give up, which was three notches above ready to give up, their ritual reached ears and my blush reached pinker. Finally, we entered the house, Mary appeared, eyed me for a moment in then said in a high-pitched greeting straight out of my past, "DAVE." The blush left, Ted was on his way, and I was regaled by the fabulous storytelling styles of Mary.

Score one for determined women. Score one for an ambush.

Like the Kool-Aid Man says

Oh yeah. If you want to see the College Championship Finals , check it out on CSTV: men and women. Try to spot me in the crowd!

Where were you when the Internet overtook TV and where will you be when Ultimate takes over the world?

Book review: Pistol

I don't find books. Books find me.

I just finished a wonderful, painful biography of Pete Maravich. I'd heard of Pistol Pete before, but I had no idea what he meant to the game of basketball or to anyone else. Kriegel did a beautiful job of trying to capture the thrill of watching Pete play (here's a glimpse on YouTube). He also captured a lot of the pain that Pete went through trying to live up to expectations and fight through injuries. He told a complete story from the generation before to the generation after. I didn't quite cry or leap from my seat, but I think I was close on both counts.

Update: This glimpse is better. It really shows what a great scorer and passer he must have been. He's got all the moves that NBA players of today have clearly copied, or by now have copied the players that copied Pistol Pete. He was clearly ahead of his time and probably hungry... Wow.

Now even spam is taunting me

From the inbox between the snapfish solicitations and the promises of better performance (wink, wink) comes the latest jab at my inability to shake an apparent ab strain- "Can you imagine you are healthy?"

Leave me alone, spam. I'll get there.

I made a Steamboat Willie joke today. It wasn't that funny. I don't want to talk about it.

Black pants, black shirt

She melted into her black Passat. Her exposed arm became silver trim. Her blonde hair the translucent passenger window. This singular event in a parking lot caught merely by a passing glance would forever confuse his mind's tenuous hold on women, cars, and transformers.

The straw before the straw

The little things are getting on my nerves lately. I suspect it's related to lack of exercise. Today, a very little thing about sent me over the edge. I was grocery shopping. On my list were the item eggs. Eggs is probably too strong for what I want. I really just want "egg". I think I've used an egg in the last three months. It was time for another. I'm willing to plop down $1.50 for one egg and 5 eggs that will have unrealized potential, which is really doubling their unrealized potential. First they are not baby chickens and then they are not brownies. The eggs that pick me end up seriously down on the actualization scale. If there is an actualization scale.

I looked around at the eggs and saw the various dozen egg holders. Now, back in the day, the last time I bought eggs, I could tear one of those dozen containers to make two six-egg single-guy friendly egg carrying cases with extra ventilation. I ripped and clawed and eventually came up with one this time. It was a lot harder than I remembered. As I was being checked out, the checker paused and looked at the eggs. She was new, so I didn't think much of it until she said, "Did you rip this? Because we don't sell them like that."

I nervously laughed and said, "You should."

She called her manager over and he looked at them too. He wasn't new, but by then I was embarrassed and unable to get my words out. He said, "We don't sell these."

I wanted to eloquently state that I had no $#%@%$# use for 12 eggs, but all he got was my sheepish grin. At about that same moment he opened up my six eggs and noticed one was broken. "One is broken," he told me. "Give it to him for a dollar," he sighed. The checker confirmed that I still wanted the 5 good eggs and 1 broken one.

I should have cried out, "HECK YES! That puts me closer to my actual egg need," but instead there was vigorous head-shaking.

Epilogue: I have emailed my displeasure to Safeway. I am trying to decide whether next time I should buy 12 eggs and then drop 11 of them on the floor, along with a note that says, "bring back the six." It will be in lowercase letters because they are ominous.

It's drive-into-and-then-fly-around-in country, thankyouverymuch
I'm going to start lobbying for a Mideast counterpart to the Midwest. I think Ohio (that's spoken with hand gestures and transformer noises-oo-ee-ee-oo) is unfairly classified as midwestern. It's not even in the central time zone. Ohio (oo-ee-ee-oo) proved to be an excellent driving destination. Just far enough to make the ol' rumpus hurt, but not far enough to send shivers up my spine. There would be no Arby's encounter this time, only a car ride full of arms in the air like we just didn't care or perhaps cared too much and dancing, or the seated marching to The Bravery's circus/Andy Griffith-esque trip theme music. Eventually, we'd end up in Columbus to watch the annual flight of the frisbees. It's a mating ritual. It's a force of nature. (C) It's none of the above. (D) It's all of the above. The College Ultimate Championships is where some very aggressive, physical, beautiful Ultimate gets played. My favorite moment was a successful greatest in a quaterfinal match-up between Stanford and Texas. A big huck to the end zone by Texas was D'ed by Stanford. The Texas guy then jumped out of bounds to grab the D'ed disc and flung it back in for a score. They don't call it the greatest for nothing. I was awed by one Colorado man because he appeared to be doing nothing and then suddenly was doing everything. I think I only saw him try once, every other time it was effortless. He was bored. Discs couldn't move fast enough to elude him and no one could keep up. In the end, he was only one man and he was felled by a bunch of Ho'dags.

Life on the streets
The Spring Onion's on this street are possessive. Not in an Ike and Tina kind of way, but in a purposeful and commanding way, in a way that rhubarb will never know. I sense that these onions have it figured out. They aren't the sticky hot onions of summer. Their insides are not a frozen wasteland of emotionless existence. No, not at all. They are Spring Onion's. They are onions of rebirth, of new life; they are the phoenix of onions, rising from the compost to take over a salad. A really big salad. A sort of mixed greens of the universe.

I'm lying. I don't even know what spring onions look like. I certainly wouldn't know a purposeful one from a slacker onion. Maybe the onions on this street are no more purposeful than you or me... or mostly me.

The blockbuster as metaphor

I have not seen Live Free or Die Hard, but I don't think it was filmed in New Hampshire. That's disappointing. However, from the preview, I was able to discern that it's clearly a movie that goes beyond action flick and straight to social commentary.

As best I could tell, Bruce Willis represents the boomer generation. The villains in this film are representations of government programs like social security or health care. Hopefully, one of them is named Doc. It looks to me that as the action unfolds, the boomers (Willis) have to fight the villains to save their children. Only a screening will let me know whether the boomers and Willis succeed in righting the societal ills or if as the final installment of this franchise, we finally see some hard dying.

It just takes a little

There is a tightness in my stomach. It's not nerves or a premonition or a hernia. What it lacks in narrative qualities it makes up in ongoing pain and annoyance. The abdomen is a vastly underrated piece of the machinery of being mobile. I know it should, but my pain has not stopped me from playing Ultimate, a less-than-stellar brand of the stuff, but Ultimate still. Today the off brand was particularly frustrating, as the pain in my abs was supplemented by the very poor decision to eat pre-game pie.

Take it from me, pre-game pie equals error. Pregame pie will, how do you say, gum the works. It's a recipe for the gastrointestinal fireworks. Not, as Napoleon would claim, flippin' sweet. So between the muscles that surround my stomach and the stuff going on inside I was not exactly fit to rock. I was probably more fit to be a rock.

Dropped passes, poor throws, a handblock by my defender... my play was a reflection of my mid-section. Except for three points where it wasn't. The highlight of those three was when my defender asked, "do you stop running?" At least for a moment, my torso went back to being carried around and around by my legs.

That's better than post-game pie.

I'm trying

In about fifth grade, I tried out for the Bob's IGA baseball team. Bob's IGA was a grocer, now defunct, and strikes me as an excellent little leauge team sponsor. I don't know whether Bob was, I didn't make that team. I never had much of a bat, or much of an arm. My fielding was decent, but not spectacular, and certainly not enough to make up for my difficiencies in two other pretty important baseball skills.

My freshman year of high school, I tried out for the freshman basketball team. Baseball had been out of the picture for a while, and basketball was my new sporting interest. I was a five-foot something scrapper. My shot was ok at best and it was matched by my passing and dribbling abilities. I could run and I could out-rebound a lot of other five-foot somethings. I might have had a chance. Only in my preparation for basketball I had discovered running. Running, it turned out, I could do well. After a single day of gymrat-like drills, I realized something about basketball. It wasn't running. So I scrapped plans to be a high school basketball player.

That was my last tryout for a long time. Running tends to take all-comers. Ultimate in most communities tends to do the same, and if it doesn't, there seems to be a self-sorting process. Not in this town. The Ultimate community in DC is large enough to support at least two men's Open club teams, and might have room for a third. So, after nearly 14 years without a tryout (job interviews don't count), I found myself out on the field trying to prove something to the people doing the picking.

It's been a complicated thing trying out for an Ultimate team. It's complicated by my body and its nonverbal complaining. It's also complicated by the sheer dependence on other people. There are certain skills that can make an Ultimate player shine, but to really have a great day, it takes great teammates. Teammates, who in this case are also trying out. Add to the mix, the wind, the lack of a weekend-ending goal, and this try out somehow seems more involved than my other two. It could be that it's more involved because, I've been playing this sport for 6 years and for once in a tryout my positive attributes seem to outweigh the negative. Maybe there's more at stake too.

The most interesting part of the process for me is trying to find the line between those that are going to get cut and those that aren't. It seems so fine. Talk about complicated, the best players may not get chosen, based on a team concept. Sometimes the best outright don't fit with the other puzzle pieces. In that sense, I'm glad I'm not the one doing the picking. This isn't gym class, but I'm never quite sure what it is. Fun, hopefully.

My future's so bright, I have to wear shades
or at least tinted glasses. Or maybe a hat. With a wide brim. Or a brim.

This game wouldn't be fun if we were perfect

There are moments when discs stick to hands like crazy glue is somehow involved, days where the sun shines brighter than an HDTV, and times when words fall into this box like they were wild horses released from a pen. Then there are moments, days, and times when the very opposite occurs.

Yesterday, in my first game of the day after my first cut, I had a moment when the disc hit my hand and glanced off, floating away in a sea of surprise and disappointment. It was a harbinger. The day was not filled with those moments, but we were never quite able to right the ship. And we sank.

The day was overcast. Rain has threatened us for nearly a week. It hasn't made good on those threats, perhaps realizing it is too drunk to fight, or maybe hoping that the threats will be enough to keep us in line. With the threat still lingering somewhere between cloud and sky..... Soaked. Shirt, shorts, face dripping with water. The weather had risen to the challenge and fulfilled the threats in a storm of nature's tears. With drops of rain rolling down my bike helmet and into my beard, I could not help but sing.

Rain. Rainbows. Lemons. Lemonade.

Times. Times just like these. When the wild horses can't be found and the pen isn't even mightier than the sod. Not that grass can't cut deep. They don't call 'em blades for nothing.

The life of a bean

Tonight I want the life that the L.L. Bean catalog promises me. I want to be in a place with my Adirondack chair in one of its three adjustable positions, perhaps all three as I mirror the sun sinking behind the lake. As darkness drips over the scene, I'd pull on my hunter green anorak, snuggling comfortably up near the light of a rechargeable lantern to finish a chapter in my Tom Robbins book. There'd be no mosquitos in my night. The only pest would be the one inside of me wondering how I'd gone so long without crocs hugging my feet. Yawning, but knowing that the night was too young for sleep, I'd switch on my LED boules balls and play the game that European campers preferred 20 years ago. Only, I'd do it in the dark. With the moonlit-colored jack just centimeters away, I'd emerge victorious, chuckle audibly with my mates, and then retire to my hammock, pulling a fleece blanket tightly around me and nursing my beef jerky. During my slumber I'd dream of another day frolicking near the dock under the warm summer sun. When the only cloud in the sky failed to shade me, I'd pull on my British-khaki-colored trekking hat, adjust the neck strap, and return to the frolick already in progress.

The re-Hash

The world is a smaller kinkier place and it has been since last Thursday. I went on my first Hash run on that day. This group, like others, was said to be "a drinking club with a running problem." Having a bit of a running problem myself, I figured a hash run might be a kick.

I arrived to find a wide variety of people in a wide variety of shapes and colors milling about, some already drinking beer. The pink skirt, the green on green matching shorts and shirt, the billowing black bucket hat stand out in my memory. Some had the look and shape of typical runners, others had the look and shape of typical drinkers. Most were somewhere in between, and a few even had on really tight pants.

At some point during the milling I noticed a chalked "6:54 Hares off" on the sidewalk. The hash had already begun. Four runners, called hares, were out setting the course. They left small piles of orange flour to mark the trail and where the road split the hares left a chalk circle, called a check, to send those of us in the pack to scurry in all directions to search for the right path.

Meanwhile, the millers organized to introduce the vistors, those that had hashed with other clubs, and the virgins, those that had never hashed before. Introducing myself and giving the club-appropriate nod to the recruiter who had brought me to my hash I announced before the crowd, "I'm JustDave and Bound-to-Succeed made me cum." Experienced hashers have descriptive names. These names tend to be on the vulgar side, as does much of the "official" hash conversation. Throughout the night I would meet "Sticky Throt*le", "Cum Dumpl*ng" and "Dildo Bag*ins". There was a pack full of like-named hashers.

As the pack took off after the hares by following the flour and chalk on the streets, I felt the world shrink. We bounded over sidewalk and street, 50 or more people racing around like recess had just begun. Loosely, we had direction and purpose, something like beer, running, and company or maybe it was tracking the hares. The objective was not as clearly defined as the course we were trying to discover.

There was a fascinating "leader and lemming" mentality in action. Some leaders were clearly not trusted by experienced hashers. The checks tended to produce a moment or even a minute of standing around and waiting for the right trail to be discovered. Sounds of "bad trail" or some signal of the right trail could be heard before the stampede would start up again. Personally, I struggled some with cutting corners on the trail when the opportunity presented itself. Was I cheating myself? fellow hashers? the hashing deities? None of the above, it seemed. And the crowd of runners poured on, sometimes bunching together and other times stretching out in a dynamic band not entirely related to speed.

"BEER NEAR" may have been one of the most excited hasher calls of the day. Eventually everyone found the van that carried the beer and settled in for a gossip or a drink or both. A few could be heard re-hashing the current hash. Others were doing a bit of pre-hashing. Next week, apparently is Cinco de moustache; an event I was encouraged to attend based on my current facial hair situation.

After everyone had gathered again, and the hares had set out to set the second half of the trail, the group pounded away from the van in the coming darkness. Within 200 meters, we stumbled upon my first BC- back check. The whole pack then set about retracing our steps. The new trail soon plunged us into the woods where running became more of an exercise in not stumbling or getting poked by branches than a fluid movement with the legs. Eventually we emerged from the woods and continued on to the finish.

The second half of the hash seemed to have fewer checks and the pack began to unspindle into a long line of runners, much to the disappointment of my hash buddy. We bounded through places I'd never have found on my own, and wound through alleys that I didn't even know existed. The world seemed like ours, 50 or so runners out taking over the night. We pressed on until the sounds of "Beer Near" echoed through the air again.

I thought that beer and running wouldn't mix, but beer has never tasted so good. It was a bit like magic Gatorade, only with fewer electrolytes and more hops. I downed some beer as well as some delicious cookies and waited for "the circle."

The circle was a delightful place, filled with singing, revelery, and pornagraphic references. I'd describe it more thoroughly, but the song lyrics escape me, the revelery may have been beer-induced, and the pornagraphic references are probably best left untold.

The cops did stop by, but apparently they understand the world in all of its shrinked kink.

Talking to my TV

Every so often a commercial comes along that makes me say, "Spot on."

Hanes new commercial starring one Jennifer Love Hewitt is that commercial. Admittedly, I don't buy a lot of bras, but the attitude, the casting, the lines seem perfect.

Kids say the darnedest things
or I am bringing sexy back

I was passed by a 5-year old kid and his mom pushing a stroller today on the way home from the grocery store. He said something quietly to her. She turned around and said, "Did you hear what my son said?"

I had not. She asked him to repeat it.

"You look like Justin Timberlake."

In a rare moment I am going to not only admit that I work, but also admit that I care

Today, I learned about pivot tables in Excel. I was aware of the pivot table's existence, having seen a few in the wild, but it had never ocurred to me that I could create one. I didn't think that kind of power was granted to just anyone.

This may open up a whole other dimension to my spreadsheet experience. This must be how movie-goers felt when Smell-o-vision was introduced. This is like a whole new flavor of Excel. Although, I still have to figure out how to really use it. So right now it's still pretty much vanilla Excel with chocolate chip potential.

A greatest negated

I was not having the kind of Ultimate game that I prefer to have yesterday. I'd been more unbalanced than usual. I like to consider myself a pretty steady performer. I'd taken some early shots at the end zone with questionable throws and had some luck. That luck turned sour and I threw away some discs that I'd like to have back. I dropped a disc and I just felt a little out of whack. I had some good moments too, just eluding my defenders for a score and just missing on some defensive efforts. As the game wore on and both teams battled in and out of the lead, I found myself cutting break-side toward the endzone. My teammate, dipped down and threw a backhand around her defender that floated up into the air and toward the front cone and on its way out of bounds. With one of the best players in the local league on my heels, I jumped up after the disc. He bumped me as we went up, but with my body in the way he couldn't get to the disc. I latched on to it with my right hand and then as gravity pulled us down, I flicked my wrist and sent the disc flying over my left shoulder before we landed on the ground in a heap. I rolled over to see my teammate diving into the endzone to catch my desperate throw. A GREATEST! I barely reacted. It seemed right and lucky. Sometimes when a game is moving so quickly and I'm asking my body to be special, I don't get the opportunity to appreciate what is going on like I do when I watch someone else. I really don't know if it was disbelief or something else, but I didn't get to ponder it long. My defender questioned whether I had jumped from in bounds when I made this greatest attempt. Unfortunately, there was no way either of us could see where I had left the ground. Everyone else on the field was fairly far away from the play and no one had a very good perspective. We discussed it briefly and unfortunately decided that the best course of action was the do-over. One of my teammates told me that in my heart I should always remember this greatest, that I was in and it should have counted.

I want to.

I also want to remember the do-over. With the disc back in to the original thrower and a new defender on me, I made another cut for a throw. This was a force-side throw, but it floated as well. I reached for it with my right hand extended and missed. My defender flung his arm windmill-style to swat the disc down, but also came up empty. Spinning around the disc floated down at about shoulder level and I plucked it from the air. I made a couple looks up field and then threw an inside-out flick past my defender to a cutter for the score. For those that believe that the disc never lies, chalk that up as a victory. For those that think that's a lot of hooey, we still got the score.

It's the little moments that make this game so special. The ups and downs of competition, of pushing to the limits, of believing that if I just run hard enough or stretch far enough I will be rewarded-- by a disc that floats to just the right spot or sticks to an outstretched hand. It's impossible. It's beautiful.

My shoes should be on VH1

And not in that washed up, they had a career, but now they don't Behind the Music sort of way. No, sir. My shoes should be on Best Week Ever. Last week at this time, my shoes were hanging out in the Grand Canyon. This Tuesday evening, in all of their red-rock-stained glory they took to the track to help a friend meet a lifelong goal of running a sub-five minute mile. I don't know about my shoes, but I wasn't exactly sure this would be an easy task for anyone involved. We set out to come as close to five minutes as possible. My shoes were in charge of pacing, since they had some experience in this endeavor. The first lap was 76 seconds, one second too slow. It took some convincing, but my shoes and I very carefully resisted the urge to panic about starting off a little slower than expected. My shoes carried us through the second lap at 2 minutes and 31 seconds, exactly on pace for a five minute mile if it hadn't been for that start. Knowing that the third lap can often be tricky, the shoes found some fortitude. The third lap is where a lot of shoes start to ask really poignant questions, most of those questions starting with "What the ???" So the shoes surged to fight off these questions, and together we rolled through the third lap at 3 minutes and 45 seconds, perfectly positioned to run a 5 minute mile. The final lap, with the imaginary bell ringing through my laces brought at the best lap of the day. Cruising in that painful way that only shoes on the track know how to do, my shoes moved to the outside and encouraged my friend's shoes up next to me. Coming out of the last turn our shoes mirrored one another. Pulling and gutting, our shoes charged for the finish line that just wouldn't get there fast enough, finally crossing in 4 minutes and 57 seconds.

Somebody buy those shoes an odor-eater, they're having the best week ever.

Even big beards are tiny in the Grand Canyon

I had the look of a man on a backpacking trip, so long as the look includes cheap white plastic cat's eye sunglasses with fake rhinestones, a thick curly brown beard surrounded by week-old stubble, and a sweat-stained full-brimmed safari hat. I had that look, but the look was secondary to the attitude. The attitude is in the freeze-dried Teriyaki chicken and rice, in four liters of water, in full length toothbrushes and deodorant left behind. The attitude is in one short-sleeve shirt for three days, a sleeping bag that takes up 3/4 of that previously enormous blue backpack. The attitude is in 38 pounds, a walking stick, and the silent pleas to my knees and in the rankle of my ankles.

We'd descend a vertical mile while traversing six. We plunged into the canyon I'd always planned to save for later, but the company proved to be too much to pass up. I was a member of the death group, males in my age group tend to die in the Grand Canyon with greater frequency than others, but fortunately I had my family looking out for me. We made our way down the South Kaibab trail, only once passing through New Zealand, and only ten times passing through the scorch of a desert spring day. At 30 degrees shy of summer temperatures, my parched lips wondered how the summer crowd handled the intensity. At the bottom, just down the creek from Phantom Ranch, there was a campground with real toilets, lots of running water, and picnic tables. Phantom ranch had a small shop and a pay phone. The bottom of the Grand Canyon, where less than 1% of all Canyon visitors go, is really quite cushy. Cushy if you stay on the main trails and don't veer into the 47 degree Colorado river or into the vastness elsewhere. In our bid to reduce cushiness where we'd landed, we slept in our tents next to the creek, and only lit our tiny stoves when we needed to boil our bags of dinner or fire up our oatmeal.

Our trip up proved much easier, as it taxed heart and lungs rather than pounded down on my poor legs. Every bite of food transferred the weight on my back to my stomach- the poetry of "the weight of my decisions" dissipated into the calories for me to burn up, up, and up. We split the trip back to the rim into two sections of 4.5 miles each. The first half took us to the Indian Garden, where there was a campground, cushy, but not like Phantom Ranch. This walk may have been the most pleasent of all of our days, as the morning crowd was thinner. The trails we chose, even with 99% of the visitors hanging out near the rims, were surprisingly crowded. Moments of solitude were best caught between breaths and breaths were best caught in the narrow sections where the sun wasn't shining and the mules had not recently found relief. Or maybe it was the following morning, when the rim was just a few hours away, the bag was just a few pounds lighter, and the trenches carved by those same mules made for steps that resembled starting blocks, allowing hikers to propel up the hill when they found the right rhythmn. With a bounce in my step, and most of 2 liters emptied from the bladder on my back into the bladder in my middle, I began a final surge through the rim crowds. I passed hikers that wouldn't leave the relative comforts of the canyon wall. I passed families with their flip-flop shod children bounding down the trail and I thought about the nearly 15 miles behind me. Was I emerging from the big hole a different person? There was a sense of purpose in my step and a sense of accomplishment. I could feel the admiring stares of the underdressed as I lugged my now lighter backpack up the final yards. Putting the enormous pit behind me, I began focusing on the only pit that would be my reward- the pit toilet. With a final high five from the boy scouts that tormented my elders, I made it to the bathroom and to the top of the canyon. I felt more triumph than I'd anticipated and more pride when my family joined me. There was a twinkle inside matched only by my rhinestones. Immediately, I began to wonder what was next and what look I would need to cultivate to cross that off my list.

Go to bed

-October road has mastered the close-up are they? or aren't they? "falling in love" shot. Tonight's episode featured at least 4 instances. The punky perky pizza delivery girl look pretty much sealed my fate- I will continue to watch this show. It's a little booky, sometimes to the point of forcing literary references, but it feels like the show has its heart in the right place... maybe too much heart.

-Put this on the list of calls that I'd prefer not to receive from the cops, "Sir, we found your pants...and your wallet on campus. Call me back at 555-555-5555."

- I've been thinking about cutting my toothbrush down, but I'm hoping I can handle the weight of a full-length brush.

Advice columnist domino in age-awareness explosion

Dear Amy,
I'm 30-years old, never married....

This was how one young man began his letter to an advice columnist. I may have read the rest of the column, but this is the only line I remember. My brain immediately began racing- how many 30-year old men or nearly 30-year old men did I know that had never been married? Bazillions! was my first reaction. Granted, I live in a transient land where men and women come and go, which was suggested by the word transient, rather than stay and grow roots, but has the world gone mad?

As I arrived home, plopped my keys on the Star Trek-insignia-shaped table, and pilfered my mail, I noticed a "Save The Date" card. This wasn't one of those fancy-schmancy wedding cards. No, no, this was the announcement of an impending high school reunion. In theory, I have always wanted to attend my high school reunion out of "curiosity." In practice, I now realize that attendance is much more daunting than I previously anticipated. Why? myspace.com, that's why. Without the Internet, I may have been able to prod and pluck a few pesky memories from my mind about high school, but with visual aids strange feelings of both inadequacy and superiority have come flooding back. For some strange reason, I am unable to look at my high school classmates and not make some sort of comparison- my god man, you call that a beard? LET ME SHOW YOU A BEARD. Or on the flip side, how is it possible that in ten years you have only gained hotness? Isn't there a law of physics that prevents that sort of continual hotness upswing?*

Beard and hotness issues aside, perhaps the most daunting piece of all is acknowledging that 10 years have passed since I left high school. Somehow, I feel the need to account for those 10 years. I suppose 4 of them can pretty well be summed up in the 300 pages of blog postsings here. It's mundane and vague, but life has those moments. Then I can fire up the juicer and squeeze out a mention of college, ski lift operations, and the never-ending drum that beats a tune on a plastic disc. That covers another 5 years. I must have a missing year, wait, no, most of that was spent with a plastic disc. I guess that covers a big chunk of it. Throw in some travel, a little heartbreak, some really great friends, the on-going but lackadaisical search for meaning in running, novels, and life and we're getting pretty close. Not so bad.

Perhaps though, the tough part isn't acknowledging what has transpired in the last 10 years, but in what hasn't. So tough, that I can't bring myself to do it right now.



*Not all of my comparisons are quite so superficial, but give me a break, all the girls have private profiles and it's easier to compare looks than actually dig up memories and try to compare those with all the valuable information in a myspace quote.

All the best stories go untold

The weekend by the numbers:

4 wins
3 losses
25 hours of driving
1 successful and 1 unsuccessful comeback
11 players
3.5 second winds

A history lesson of the vague

Someone somewhere once said to beware of today. Somebody else somewhere else said that if we don't learn history we are doomed to repeat it.

I think those somebodies might have been on to something.

I'm off to make like Sherman, but with less actual burning.

The world is not black and white.
I know because I am constantly reminded of the gray.

In fifth grade, for somebody, I learned about opportunity cost. I'm quite sure there was a hypothetical example. This example allowed that I could either buy a walkman or a baseball glove, but not both. I had to weigh my options and consider how I was going to spend my money. If I picked the walkman, the baseball glove was the cost. If I picked the glove, no radio. I remember being intrigued by this concept. Learning economics at such an age seemed kind of cool and grown-up. Decision-making, big words, walkmans, and gloves- for someone who had just entered the double digits, this was pretty revolutionary stuff.

I had no idea that opportunity cost would be the governing principle of my existence. If I had, I think I would have been a little more reluctant to choose a hypothetical tape deck with headphones.

Exercise the darkness inside

Sometimes, when it's cold and a bunch of hot bodies gather to sweat and pant and stuff in Gold's Gym, the windows fog up. If the panters, and sweaters, and stuffers create enough of the exercise fog to cover the windows, then when I walk by I see only shadows bouncing up and down to some unheard rhythmn.

It's a little like a glimpse into an alternate universe. An alternate universe where the opaque people only bounce up and down and never seem to get anywhere at all.

They have ponytails in the alternate universe, so it can't be all bad.

I'm so tired of you and the words you keep spewing on the screen that I read like a dog lapping up toilet water. Why do you do this?

Please go outside and play.

I don't care if it's cold.

From high to low

It's curious that highs and lows very rarely average out. Last Saturday, I was on Ultimate Cloud 9. Today, a storm has blown through and the wind carried my Ultimate-related joy away with it. Wind makes Ultimate a curious game; a lot less beautiful and a lot more blooper-ful. Add in my own recent battles with sickness and that's some sense of how far down I've tumbled from 9.

If I may be so bold as to compare Ultimate to knitting, which thanks to the Internets I find myself doing more often than I thought possible, I'm starting to wonder if I have too many projects going at once. I think I'm getting a little tangled up in what other people want and I am struggling to remember what I want. It's easy to pick up the needles, and it seems that the knitting is fairly straight forward once you've got the knack, but the trick I think is to actually choose the right yarn and turn that yarn into something useful or beautiful or at least accomplished. I've been knitting mittens with the same basic yarn for about four years now. Recently I have found myself with a whole lot of new yarn and ideas for all kinds of projects. I can't knit them all even if I knit furiously for the next 6 months, so sometime soon I need to pick a yarn and a project and knit something I can be proud of. It's ok if that's not mittens; it's ok if it is.

I don't know if it matters, but I'm also starting to worry that I'm about to pass my knitting prime.

Variations on not yet dying

Sick leaves. They aren't the ones falling from the tree. No. No. Those are already dead. Poetic as they may be set to music from 1963. Poetic like a plastic bag dancing in the wind or so the Americans would have us believe.

Sick leave. Spending days in and out of sleep, I recall a time when this is what I did. It kind of makes me want to go back to work just so they won't make me go to that place when I had nothing to do with my day except wait for the next one. It also seems like a good opportunity to reflect on the value of health and how easy it is to overlook that on a day-to-day basis. I think I'll drink some orange juice to that. This also provides an opportunity to reflect on all the other important things in my life, but then I realize that I don't feel that great and I'd rather curl up and go back to bed, but not before I make a joke.

Stick leaves. I'll miss that little stick.