Life. Love. Yeah.
This is absolutely beautiful and got my heart pounding. In case you were wondering- there's no way it's me, because I don't know this woman. The thing is, some day for someone it's going to be me. At moments like this, that's just cherry.

At the end of the Spotlights
Unsure of what to do and where to go next, I spotted the universal signal for overhyped event- the dancing spotlights in the sky. I was a moth and the spotlights were, like, um, spotlights...

New Orleans has Bourbon. Austin has Sixth (Texas, because Austin, MN has the SPAM museum). From my limited research it appears that Tempe, AZ has Mill Ave. I fluttered my way through a wide variety of Westerners on Mill. There were middle-schoolers, fully sluttified. There were middle-aged tourists. There were motorcycle enthusiasts and their jealous girlfriends. I saw bicycle cops busting drivers with fortys. I can't confirm it, but I am sure someone must have been cruising. And as to be expected when you line a street with bars, there were 20-somethings. I flew through all of this with only the occasional glance at the bumper crop of plunging necklines and small-of-the-back tatoos. When did the unmarked back become the pleasant surprise?

Drawn to the light, I finally arrived at the source. My pot of gold was another bar. I knew it would be and yet somehow I was disappointed. It had a name like Froggy Frog's or The Beach Bash or something else unmemorable. The music pulsed and the lights flashed. I stood in the courtyard and looked in, wondering what the cover charge would be. Inside hot women gyrated. Don't worry mom, it's a dry heat out there.

I didn't know what to do. What could I do with a pulsing, flashing, gyrating place like that? Feel the same way I feel now, but have paid 10 dollars for it. I thought of the moth and how it circles the light, until it's crashing into it and bouncing off, probably dying before the light even goes out. I didn't want to be the moth. I turned away from the bright lights with one last look at the gyrating and went to get a scoop of ice cream.

Put that in your mobile and smoke it

Dear cell phone (ab)users,

I will grant you two things:
1. Cell phones can be useful in emergencies.
2. Cell phones can be useful for meeting (or not meeting).

Now, I rant.
I am sick and tired of hearing your personal conversations. I don't care what errands you have to run. I know what station we are approaching. I'm terribly sorry that your sister's husband kidnapped his child. I'm even sorrier that I have to hear about it. Please feel free to argue with your boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse/mom/dad in my presence. I don't mind. The more emotional you are the better. It would help me enjoy the soap opera that is Y-O-U even more if you could be physically violent. Pound things, yell, act like we're in your home. It is a small world after all.

I find that when you leave a party, a lunch, or a dinner because you have to answer your phone, it is a reflection on your disinterest in me. It's fair. I'm not that interesting. Neither are you, and you certainly aren't interesting enough for people to need to talk to you RIGHT NOW. They'll leave a message. Get over yourself.

If you decide to make calls in my presence, please have the courtesy to 1. move away from me or 2. let me know you will be placing a call. This way if I start to tell a story I won't be interrupted by the sound of your voice or I won't suddenly drive off the road because you started saying "Hello!" in your professional voice and scared the beejeezus out of me.

If you call me once because you are stuck in traffic and you want to hear my voice or you were thinking of me, it's kind of cute. If you do it often- stop. If you cannot carve out a little time in your busy schedule to talk to me, what you have to say cannot possibly be that important to me. If it is, please write me a letter instead. You keep pens in your car, don't you?

If you are somewhere with people that I love and you just know I would wish I was there; you're probably right. A call, however, from a noisy bar is not the same as being there. It's a lot closer to the opposite. Skip the call and tell me about it later. We can reminisce about those special people and have a moment.

If you are about to lose service, but decide to call me anyway, please realize that when the phone dies I will scream and curse you and you'll have no way to defend yourself.

If I call you and you're really not available to talk, don't pick up the phone. I too can leave a message. Let me give you some possible places where it's ok to let my call go to voicemail. Say you're 1. at a movie. 2. having sex 3. at a movie having sex. 4. At a concert 5. Any other place where you might be unable to hear or talk at this moment. Don't pick it up. Our friendship can survive the extra two hours of not speaking. In fact, if you let it go to voicemail I can pretend you never got the message when you don't call me back. If you talk to me, I'm much harder to ignore.

Cell phones are becoming like cigarettes. If I see one in your hand I feel a little disgusted by you. I know all cell phone users are not bad people, just like all cigarette smokers are not bad people. Second hand cell phone use, like secondhand smoke, is a killer. And when it's not, it's annoying the beejeezus out of me. Keep it up and I'll give you an emergency to call someone about.

Good morning suckers
or I am not on E
Warm and pretty wanes
rising sun
screeching cicadas
The Aliens landed in my backyard.
I remember
walkin' banjos
and talk
more talk
a whirlwind of talk
and then silence
Yellowy green
Salty and sweet
I feel
warm and pretty
tired and close.
My chums,
I think
I love yous.

What have I done?
I don't have Ultimate this weekend. I've "given it up" for Marathon. Is running my lent? How the heck do you spell lint? "Given it up" is in quotes because I am beginning to doubt the wisdom of that decision.

What have I done? I've freed up my Saturdays, so I'll have to plan them better. This one had a little too much lounging and way too much Sex and The City. Tonight, when I go hang out, there is a very good possibility that I won't be exhausted. I'll have to think of new excuses for my social awkwardness. I haven't seen anyone all day. I opened the door once and stuck my head out. What have I done? NOTHING. I don't like it at all. Lucky for me, there's another Saturday coming up next week. Next week I'll do it better.

Just one more, for now
Picture me in a long dark hallway or a cave. You're up close, level with my face and then you pull back and up; it's dark, but you can still see me as you drift away and I scream, "What am I supposed to do with that?"

More questions. Some answers
Why is argyle sexy?
Why is paisely in?
Who's better than Netflix? She is.
Have I been engaged?!? Um. Not that I recall.

Answers not required
Do you ever have moments where your past and future seem to be glued-together velcro slowly being pried apart? Where your heart seems to molt like so many cicadas? Are you afraid that it will only molt once?

Do you ever look back at the pieces of your life and notice the way one thing does seem to lead to another? And that things really are ok? As promised, I remind you.

Does it ever seem like nothing can ever be as good as it was, except for that one thing which will make everything perfect? And aren't you afraid that while you're looking forwards and backwards you'll miss what's perfect right there in front of you? If you stand on the corner and wait until all of the cars from your past have passed and all of the cars of your future have not yet come into view, will you ever cross the street?

And is it just me or is the ticking of the clock getting louder? Are the days getting longer and the ways to waste them, not in the sipping lemonade and reading a book sort of way either, getting more numerous?

Is there a lesson in that?
Mean Girls wasn't very good. Saved! wasn't very good. They both were teen comedies. They both had a moral that boiled down to "Can't we all get along". Mean had Lindsay Lohan. Saved! had Mandy Moore. I no longer like Mandy Moore. I still like Lindsay Lohan. Saved! dealt with teen pregnancy the way most people deal with pimples. Mean dealt with anthropology, sort of.

All of that to tell you that I liked Saved! better. Not because it was good to see the elder Culkin kid working either. Saved! didn't try to be more. It didn't suggest that it had greatness inside, that it could be funnier, more moving, or in anyway better. It was what it was.

Glossing over the teen pregnancy thing did bother me a bit though...

Bright lights, tight pants
I'm so surburban it hurts. We can pretend that I live in the city, one that purports to be edgy and hip, though the Philadelphians may disagree. I don't live in THE city. I live in a suburb. And even if that suburb is hipper and happeninger than anywhere I've ever lived before, it's still SUBurban. The urban areas have night life. The urban areas have people in tight pants mulling. Suburban areas lack the tight pants element even when people mull at all.

That's no excuse. I live close enough that I could get out there and be part of the purported hipness, at least stand on its outskirts instead of just reclining on my couch in the outskirts.

Should I move? Even if I was in the tight pants zone, I'm not sure I would get out. The tight-panted seem to be partaking in some combination of the following: smoking, drinking, conversing. I am not particularly fond of combining those elements. So I would end up in my little city apartment, and if I paid an arm and a leg (more like all of my limbs in this area) perhaps I could poke my head out (since that's all that's left of me anyway) and watch the tight pants and their smoking, drinking, conversing good time. But I wouldn't. Generally, that's not how I have a good time.

So, what's the problem? There are so many women my age out there. And so few in here. I briefly considered converting the house into a speakeasy complete with secret knock, but Spoilsport said they'd only come here to smoke anyway to escape the local ban. So, I'm stuck. I've got nothing to lure the tight pants out of the city and no tight pants of my own (metaphorically speaking).

I'll be sitting in my rocking chair on the front porch if you need me.

The Greatest
In Ultimate, a player may leap from inbounds, grab a flying disc and throw it back into play before he/she hits the ground. If that disc is caught by a teammate the player has completed a "Greatest".

I've never completed a Greatest, but I want to.

Sunday afternoon I had already sweated buckets as I charged back, forth, to, AND fro chasing that 175 gram disc. It was reported from the sidelines that some were questioning whether the guy in the red shirt ever stopped running. I try not to. It's what they pay me for, after all. (They don't pay me.) Hot days are hard on me. The team had been playing well, but we were starting to get tired. I was being covered by a young man they call "Scrapper". A pass went up to our Captain on the home sideline. He snatched it out of the air. While he was turning up field, I faked hard toward him and then propelled myself toward the back corner of the endzone. I had a good two steps on Scrapper. Our captain zipped me one of his trusty lefty backhands. Tired minds and tired muscles can destroy things like trusty lefty backhands. The backhand was going to be reachable, but not before it went out of bounds. I could see the back cone out of the corner of my eye. I planted my foot and leapt out after the disc. As I took off, my calf muscle seized up in a cramp. I grabbed the disc and snapped my wrist to send it flying back into play before I landed on the ground. The disc went up and then trailed away further out of bounds. I watched it flutter away in the wrong direction and then like a baby suddenly realizing that his pacifier is missing, I collapsed to the ground seized by the pain in my calf muscle. The Greatest attempt was now just a pain in my leg.

Everyone is on top of the world, except the miners
Parking garages have somehow managed to become a place of solace for me, and I don't even know what solace is. At night, when everyone has gone home to park in their driveways or use the valets, many a parking garage stands empty or nearly empty. Empty parking garages are almost as lonely as full ones. The wacky thing about parking garages is that they are buildings built up, up, up so that you can park. your. car. Massive structures of steel and concrete and neon are built only to hold our massive steel and plastic vehichles that are made to move. Like so many of us, many garages do their job during the day and sit empty at night.

If I climb to the top of a parking garage I find more than a bunch of parking spaces. I find a new perspective. I can float above the trees and find my home below. If I look carefully through the construction I can see the whole world. I can watch all the little people and the little paths they take. I don't have the patience to linger in the home of so many spaces, but for a moment I can be right when I think, "I'm above this."

This is my fictionalized version of Rob’s version of his recent business trip.


The Rob Show heads south
We join Rob cruising south down I-95 in the left lane. He’s at the wheel of a big white van, gummi worms in his pocket and a handful of Runts in his mouth. Some men his age would not be comfortable at the wheel of a van, but Rob has been driving vans since they dominated the soccer mom scene. When soccer moms left for SUVs, Rob stayed with the van, so he’s no stranger to this mode of family transportation. Instead of a family, today Rob has coworker Shelly riding shotgun. Shelly is the Mary Tyler Moore to Rob’s Lou Grant, except in this sitcom Lou is the title character.

Four lanes, a white van, the rising sun, Rob and Shelly heading south to Raleigh, North Carolina. Four lanes, a white van, a black cat streaking across their path on this morning run to Raleigh. An omen of things to come? Rob and Shelly exchange nervous glances. Rob grabs a handful of gummi worms and mixes them with leftover Runts. He gulps them down, then washes it all down with a nice hit off his 44 oz. Mountain Dew. Ah, mornings. “Nothing to worry about,” he tells Shelly. “Gummi Worm?”

Shelly politely declines and the white van hurtles on. In less than 2 hours they’ll be in Raleigh and ready to join forces with other workers who are setting the stage for the Bike-across-part-of-NC or some other worthy cause. Even Rob isn’t sure what he does, but he does it well and that’s why they send him to places like Altoona, North Carolina.

“I thought we were going to Raleigh,” Shelly says to Rob.

“We were, but the signals got crossed and the event actually starts in Altoona. It’s only 45 more minutes off the highway.”

One lane, gravel road, Shelly and Rob bumping their way to Altoona.

Less than 2 hours turns into less than 5 hours. Eventually the van pulls into Altoona. Rob is famished as he is wont to be. There’s no time for him to eat. The local events coordinator needs his assistance. It should only take an hour. They just need to put up some signs for tomorrow’s Bike Ride for the Children, so the riders know where to go- then Rob can eat, no problem.

Small problem; an hour turns into 3 and by this time its midnight, which means Rob and Shelly have not only endured a hell of a day, but they also seemed to have lost like 6 hours of the day with no explanation. Finally they get the signs up and now all of the bike riders will know exactly where to go during their Ride to Stop War. Rob and Shelly are weak with hunger. They venture into Altoona and after circling both streets repeatedly they realize that there is nowhere to eat. Rob pulls out the last of the gummi worms and they share those while they search for the hotel that will supply their beds for the next few hours. Don’t forget they have to be up for the “Ride to Prevent Scioraisis” by 5 am, because they need to work the registration tents. Rob and Shelly haven’t forgotten. That night Rob sleeps like any loyal husband away from his wife. Shelly will claim she heard tears, but Rob will deny it.

Up at 5 am, the white van heads to the local high school track where they are to set up the tents. One small problem- the sun is not up yet. There’s no light pollution in Altoona. It’s black as that cat they saw on I-95. A crafty events veteran pulls his Chevy Malibu onto the infield and turns on the headlights. Rob leads the troops as they fight to the back of the trucks to remove the tables that have to be set up first.

“Who packed this?” Rob mumbles to himself. Eventually, the registration tents get set up, despite the Mailbu’s tendency to automatically turn off its lights repeatedly. The sun rises and the first of the Bikers to Save the Whales arrives chomping at the bit to start the event.

Rob’s troops have to turn away the early risers.
“The event starts at 7:30,” he calmly explains.

The early risers hem and haw, desperate to start so that they can reach the end sooner and Protect the Forests faster.

Shelly explains the course and the riders head off, just as God turns on the showers. Rain. And lots of it. Bikers, hundreds of them, are getting soaked by the downpour. Rob and Shelly don’t have time to worry. They hop in the white van and head to the first tricky check point. Their responsibility is to make sure that the riders who want to ride 100 miles go to the left and the riders who want to ride 60 miles go to the right.

It takes them 35 minutes of winding through the nonexistent suburbs of Altoona and the pouring rain of North Carolina Spring time before they make it to their check point. Standing drenched in the rain they direct the riders who haven’t already passed. The weary looking get “Go Right. RIGHT!” The speedy, and those with especially attractive calves are directed to the left. The rain pours on.
More than one Southern Gentleman stops to ask if Rob and Shelly need a lift. When they decline, the gentlemen turn gruff and peel away, angry that they don’t get to use their Southern charm and manners to save a few Northern fools standing out in the rain.

Finally, the last of the riders have been set on their course. Back to the white van the two wet coworkers head for that evening’s camp. They wind through North Carolina. Shelly works the maps and Rob coaxes the van to the next town. And through the next town. And through every small town in North Carolina. When they finally arrive, Rob figures they have an hour to rest before the riders pull in. He parks the van and notices a pack of riders coming up the hill. So much for that hour. He then walks to the camp and realizes that pack is the last half of the riders. The big guns have beaten them to the camp.

Dinner would be the ideal task, but instead Rob, Shelly, and the NC crew have to figure out how to cram 400 bikes into a gymnasium that could easily fit 200. Eventually they manage to balance the bikes against walls, against chairs, against lockers, and in locker room showers until all 400 are protected from the elements.

The rain stops.

Rob and Shelly could stay with the riders for a big Spaghetti dinner, but instead choose to take the van to the nearest greasy spoon. After some searching they do manage to get food, but just barely.

They squeeze in to Charlie’s or Fred’s or Derek’s at 10:25. The doors close at 10:30. The host already had his tennis shoes on. The waitress is none to happy to see them.
She no more than hands them the menus then asks, “Do you know what you want?”

Rob wonders where the Southern hospitality is now. The waitress grabs the menus and asks again, “Do you know what you want?”

“Trout” Rob says.

“And to drink?”

“Sam Adams?”

The menus and the waitress leave. Shelly ordered, but she’s not the main character here. Her scene is coming. Relax.

Another waitress comes back with the beers. She slams them on the table, peanut shells scatter and she says gruffly, “That’s last call.” They never see that waitress again.

Rob’s trout arrives. If it wasn’t hot, he would’ve wondered if it had been cooked at all. The head is intact, the fish skin is intact. Looks delicious, he thinks, if you’re a cat.

Rob and Shelly survive dinner and head to a local motel.
They see “No Vacancy” after “No Vacancy”. Finally when they arrive at the Eager Beaver Lodge or Muskrat Love Motel or the Flying Crow Hotel they have found a place with some rooms. While securing their rooms, Rob asks, “What’s going on in town?”

“Why, it’s the Putt-Putt tournament, honey,” the woman behind the desk explains as she points out the window. Rob looks and sees a crowd brandishing their putters up on the hill. No one knows why they were on the hill with clubs in the air at that hour. Somethings just don’t get asked. Other things do.

“You mean mini-golf?”
“Sure. Now, here’s what your room will look like,” she says as she opens a door nearby.

Rob should’ve been tipped off by this strange display, but the room looked normal and he was exhausted.

The kind woman leads them around back to their rooms as she explains that she and her husband had just bought the place and had it cleaned, so everything should be in great shape. She is altogether too pleased with herself, but again Rob is too tired to care.

“Your rooms,” she says as she gestures a bit too majestically for a woman with a hairnet. The woman looks in her hand at the keys and suddenly crosses her arms, handing Shelly what logically would’ve been Rob’s key and handing Rob what had seemed to be Shelly’s.

Odd, very odd, Rob thinks. He soon finds out why-- his room has the unmistakable smell of urine. Shelly says her room is ok.

Sitting out on the sidewalk between the rooms, Rob and Shelly fight off a few bugs and lament the unbelievable weekend they are having.

Rob’s keen eye spots a strange object over by the dumpster. He stands up, walks over, and has a look. A snake!

“Shelly, I think there’s a snake by the dumpster.”

Shelly comes over to confirm the snake’s presence. Neither can confirm whether the snake is still breathing, so they leave it alone by the dumpster and return to the concrete between their rooms. Not 3 minutes go by before several small toads hop up next to Shelly. She stands up in a huff, says, “I’m going to bed,” slams her door and leaves Rob out on the concrete alone.

He soon follows suit, choosing the bed that smells the least like urine and falls into a slightly satisfying slumber.

The next morning comes quickly. The pair head back to the camp to help extract 400 bikes from a gymnasium. The worker bees are up before the riders and they begin removing bikes as fast as they can. Bikes spill out onto the lawn, placed haphazardly wherever there is space.

“Whatever happened to kickstands?” Rob wonders aloud.

The Bikers for United Way wake to find their high-dollar two wheel machines scattered in the grass. They are visibly and verbally upset. “Why didn’t you put them up on trees?” they whine.

Rob looks at the 3 trees within 100 meters. He looks at the hundreds of bikes. He smiles apologetically but says nothing. He didn’t get this far by being a moron.

The riders settle down and head out on their way. Within ten minutes, the rain starts up again.

“You bastard,” they curse at Rob, God, and each other. “If only you hadn’t made us care so much about diabetes and bike riding.”

Wet and weary, the riders carry on. Meanwhile Rob and Shelly realize they have descended even further into the depths of North Carolina. Even if the Carolinas had decent highways, it would take them 7 hours to get home. Realizing this fact, Rob and Shelly manage to sweet-talk the other workers and head out.

“I’m never going on another business trip,” Shelly says as they near home.

Coming Soon
Look for the director’s cut at Candy and Monsters

The hand of fate
won't carry me now. I, and my esteemed Smithmates, will be running in the Marine Corps Marathon come this fall. Dust off the running shoes and put the disc down, because it's about time to get serious. This guy who doesn't plan for the weekend is now looking to create a plan that lasts until Halloween. Holy Commitment Batman!

Misty black and white hued memories
My VCR is on its last legs. It has taken to playing everything in black and white, when it plays at all. Black and white TV always reminds me of black and white TV. When I was just a wee lad, we had a black and white TV in the basement. Day time television posed a challenge for my mother and me. I wanted to watch "Sesame Street" and she wanted to watch "All my Children". Neither of us wanted to watch the other, so we took turns watching our show without color in the basement. I don't remember having a problem with that. I can't remember how the seating arrangement worked down there, but I can imagine that I plopped down on the "Sit 'N Spin" or bounced around on that big yellow ball with a horse head and handles while I watched that big black and white bird and his neighbors. For some reason I also remember grilled cheese sandwiches. They were in color.

Growing Pains
Last week I may have suggested that there hasn't been much growth in the last 10 years. My lack of growth might be an exaggeration. I've learned a trick or two. Why, I can make grocery store brownies without help from my mom. And while 10 years is longer than I've known most of my readership, I'd like to think I've learned a few things since I met you. Maybe not a whole lot, but a little. Sure, there are lots of things the same. Yes, I may not be "growing up"(yesterday's post)as fast as some of you, but I'm not stagnant.

As a friend of mine, I trust that you'll call me out when you think I'm not being true to myself, but by the same token I trust that you won't always see me the same way, that you'll give me a chance to change. I might be slow, but I can be better.

Pants, or the lack thereof
I'm very sad that I missed NO PANTS DAY! I've been known to celebrate in short intervals, but never for a full day. Maybe next year we can celebrate together.

Out wit' da boyz
I've these little homies who just like to chill like ice cold milk. Me and 'bout 9 of them hooked up tonight and did some serious couch cruising. Keep it real, E.L. Fudge.

Fufu
Wasn't there a bunny that went by this name? I had fufu as a side dish for dinner. It was kind of potato-like, but also a lot like mushed- together bread.

Subpar expectations
Expectations seem to be playing far too dominant a role in my everyday experiences. If I expect a movie to be good I hold it to a higher standard. Movies that shouldn't be good end up being pleasant surprises, and movies that should be good end up as crap. This goes beyond movies. Let's look at weekends. Somewhere along the line weekends have become an expectation fest. First thing at work on Monday, everyone is asking "What did you do this weekend?" Isn't part of the joy of some weekends that you didn't do nothing? Or Ultimate. I now expect to catch everything. I make a nice catch and I barely pat myself on the back, but if I drop it- I'm extremely disappointed. It can even taint my enjoyment.

Maybe it's time to expect a little less. How's that for a new motto?

Is there anything left to say?
The finale has been disected, discussed, and destroyed everywhere I look. It's probably all been said, but just in case I thought I'd add:
-I thought the skirt-boot combination that Rachel wore was killer.
-Remind me again why Ross couldn't give up his life and move to Paris?
-I just wanted to cry. Why couldn't you make me cry? Stupid TV and its uselessness as a substitute for real connections and emotions.

I'm awesome. Don't make fun
Ten years ago yesterday I drove to and from piano lessons with my pink learner's permit folded up in my pocket. I didn't "kill" the manual transmission on either trip and I was very proud.

Ten years ago I was just starting to run. I didn't even know what Ultimate was. The previous winter I went on my first ski trip.
Ten years ago I was a debater. My friends stayed over and we played video games. We took standardized tests. We mowed lawns for money. Ten years ago I was in Health class and I hated it, but Ace Ventura was brand new and I loved him. I had a friend called "Tequila Styrofoam" when I was "Chocolate Cellophane." Ten years ago, summer vacation was just around the corner, once I survived finals. I was headed to Science and Math Camp, Iowa, and the Megamall in Minnesota. Ten years ago the world was driving, running, and women in that order. Look how far I've come.

At least I got the driving thing down pretty well.