What if friends were like passwords and you had to get new ones every 90 days, but instead you just changed them slightly so that you wouldn’t forget them?
That would be sad.

Peeps to the pizzo
Peeps arrived in the cube today through the mail. I guess they'll ship anything these days. Upon arrival and after expressing my disgust, I found out that the little pink peep bunnies were not in fact the original peep. Oh no. There are little pink chicks too. The chicks are more three dimensional, though just as foul. As I meted out the little peeps to coworkers, I got suspicious looks.

"I just don't like them, all right," I tried to explain.
"Didn't you just go to the SPAM museum?" they asked.

Curses.

La,la,la,layover
It was a land of flip-flops and cotton-candy pants. I could almost feel the sunburn on their cheeks and smell the tequila. It didn't matter if they were coming or going. Bleached blond boys with their roots showing were hanging onto tiny girls with cali on one cheek and fornia on the other. Woven together by the fibers in their trendy track suits they meandered toward the gate to Ft. Lauderdale or Cancun or some such tropical destination. "This is going to be awesome" their eyes seemed to say. Mostly, they traveled in threes and fives. Someone's arm was always around someone else. One could only imagine that the odd one out was hoping that the closer they got to the equator the closer the group would become. And it wouldn't just be them, it would be an entire bar or row of bars or maybe even a city. It would be this pulsing mass of track suits and flip-flops and butt cheeks with important messages all pounding together in one heap of rollicking Spring Breakedness. All this in the Detroit airport. And it wasn't even noon.

I met the girl of my dreams
and was none too pleased when I woke up.

She played Ultimate for a mixed team called The Cynical Tyrants though she wanted to start a women's team. She was a bit of a nudist, didn't quite get along with my friend Renny, and drove a really nice car that I don't think exists. She was cute and funny and had snowboarding posters on her walls.

Other details I remember: Renny and I compared the sleeves on our Gor-Tex jackets.
The car seemed to be part BMW Z-3 and part old-time roadster.
There was snow on the ground when we got to her car, but I don't remember any before that.
Renny had friends with him, but I didn't know them.
I asked her out and somehow we had to go to her car and then to her house to get her phone number. That seems awfully smooth.

Easter Bag Hunt
Tomorrow morning while lots of little children are running around searching for candy, I will be running to the airport to search for my luggage. Northwest was really in a giving spirit this week. They gave me more food vouchers than I could use. They upgraded my seat. They sent me to an airport closer to my home, but they couldn't do the same for my luggage. All I had to endure was a two hour delay, a cancelled flight after a three hour delay, and another one hour delay. For those of you that haven't been in first class, it's not amazing. The drinks come in glass instead of plastic and the armrest is big enough to share. Other than that it's a few inches of legroom and a lot of strange looks from the flight attendants. (Free drinks of the alcoholic sort if you so desire.) I'd take an on time departure any day.

Super Techno-wizard jargon debunked and/or mocked
I'm shopping for a digital camera. Being a curmudgeon-in-training, I have quickly come to realize that the tech-speak gives me a headache. In order to make light of my inability to care about important technology that will revolutionize my picture-taking experience I will now mock some of the terminology that I don't know or understand.

megapixels: not just giant dots anymore, megapixels are like calories, the more you have the better you feel, as long as your megapixels aren't empty megapixels. Nobody wants that.

Optical zoom: Picture Grover (not Cleveland)going near and far. Now picture his eye. Now picture an eight ball over his pupil. Punk Sesame Street characters with their personal expression.

Digital zoom: This is the sound your favorite techno band makes when the crowd gets really rowdy and they have to leave in a hurry. Either that or it's the sound robot toddlers make when they are playing with their miniature digital cars. Why does my camera need this sound?

NIMH batteries: These are batteries powered by brilliant, though misunderstood rats. They don't last as long as Lithium batteries, nor do they provide 1.21 Jiggawatts, but you're not running a flux capacitor here.

Flux Capacitor: Uncommon on today's digital cameras, but it's what makes time travel possible.

LCD screen: This is where you watch all the kids taking their LCD. It's trippy, but the bigger the screen the clearer the trip will be.

Film: Glaringly absent from the entire digital camera phenomenon. Kodak is pissed, but you will now have the not unique and mind-numbing ability to shoot hundreds of pictures and then share them with your friends with little thought to cost or quality. (Not that anyone you know would do that.)

And thusly, chanting my favorite piece of non-advice "Ignore unsolicited advice" I managed to keep my big yammer shut and not offer advice that was not asked of me

More thoughts from the road:

*To me road trips are about past-- so much reminds me of what has already happened. The waking up to the sun reflecting off of snow was a friendly reminder of the good times I had in the longest winter of my life. The red-roofed building, a reminder of a Stuckey's joke I never quite got. The music blaring requires that I recall so many road trips from before to N'awlins, Chicago, Toronto, and more. The times I was stuffed like like a sardine in a teal Mustang, or had no one riding shotgun as I headed to see Elvis. It reminds me of mountains and emotional valleys that I have since driven away from, but always seem to be driving toward.

*It's also about present. About the realization that certain people hug like they have something to prove and certain people hug like they have something to give and certain people hug like they need to borrow a little bit of your love and you should let them. About the fact that when you say "good sense of humor" you actually mean "laughs at my jokes." And the fact that there is a whole different world out there and it's best not to forget it. Because somehow you need to remember that far apart is not always spacious and grown-up is not always suffocated by responsibility. It's ok if vegetarians eat meat and it's ok if two people want to rush back into love. It's ok to camp out in the living room near a creek, Dawson's, because vacation is what you make it.

I have seen the SPAM
and it is glorious. While it's true that I seem to have an affinity for the cult-favorite processed meats, I would think that anyone* would enjoy the SPAM museum. I spent 2 hours there. It seemed to me that most people were done in 35 minutes. Go figure. Although the SPAM exam was a bit of a thrill, I think my favorite tidbit was The SPAM girls. We just don't have enough traveling shows with singing and dancing to promote products anymore. The SPAMettes seemed kind of interesting too. Like the lady said, "There are thousands of female quartets, but we're the only ones that sing about SPAM." The best part of all though, FREE ADMISSION. The SPAM museum gets my seal of approval.

Thanks SPAMtown, USA!





*In this case anyone should like SPAM, SPAM advertising, and Hormel (whether you say it Hormel or HorMEL, you know you're right...)

The SPAM museum IS SO a vacation destination
I'm on vacation. I'm going to the SPAM museum. If I get free samples, I'm stuffing them in my pockets and everyone I know is getting some because never before has my vacation destination caused such an adverse reaction. Not even the Rhode Island-Delaware combo with the side of Newark-Newark caused this kind of stir.

On my trip I am making a few other non-SPAM related stops. I am currently impersonating Kristin in the Quad City area. It's a good gig. There will probably be more on that later. For now, I'll share some of my thoughts on the first leg of my road trip.

-Rest areas have wireless Internet, now? Because you can't rest without the Internet.

-Kum & GO? Seriously? Is this convenience porn?

-Driving in the Midwest makes me think I'm headed to one of two destinations: University of Missouri-Columbia or the Rocky Mountains. It's strange when I'm not.

-I used to think everyone on the road was headed to MU with me, now I look at cars and wonder where they could possibly be going. There's a metaphor in there, I'm sure of it.

-Road trips are doing nothing with a destination. There's something deeper in there too.

I'll try to shake some more out and sing more songs in falsetto tomorrow.

SPAM. SPAM. SPAM. SPAM.

Ways my life is not like my fuzzy recollection of the Dukes of Hazzard
1. The only woman in town is neither my cousin nor wearing short-shorts.

2. My brother and I don't live together. The man I live with almost never slides across the hood of his car (at least not when I'm around).

3. The law is not a fat man; though it may or may not be as incompetent.

4. I do not enter my car through the window. No one I know does this. Which begs the question: What's the point of growing up if you don't enter your car through the window?

5. I can't remember the last time I tried to jump a crick 'cause the bridge was out. For that matter, I haven't run from the law in quite some time either.

6. My uncle does not wear overalls or drive a jeep or possibly run moonshine.

7. I do not know anyone named Ennis.

8. The narrator is conspicuously absent.

9. The line between good and evil is not so easy to distinguish outside of Hazzard County.

10. I don't have cool music nor does life freeze right before I'm about to find myself in a whole heap a trouble.

...and she has to be animated...
I'm not looking for Ms. Perfect, more like...
Elastigirl. It's a stretch, I know...

"It's kind of like an unofficial college holiday"
When did green beer go out of fashion? I don't remember ever hearing so many (at least 2) people (or was it publications?) rail against green beer. Is it the town? Or has green beer gone the way of jalepeno pepper Christmas lights? Why it seems like just yesterday you couldn't have a party* without either and now look at this place.

*I've never been to a party with either as far as I can recall. It felt poetic. Happy St. Patrick's Day. If you've got Irish in you, let it out.

Avril Lavigne: gateway drug
It could be a coincidence, sure. At about the time that I snagged my first Avril album (Wait. Have there even been others? That answers your query, Clare.) I started to realize that there was a whole lot of music out there. I assume some part of me already knew that fact, seeing as I had multiple friends with CD case upon CD case, but I had always managed quite nicely on less than 25 CDs. Suddenly, it occurred to me that the world was more than SK8r boi and what the radio was feeding me.

Fast forward to today where I now consume what the Listening rack at the local independent bookstore is feeding me. (Still with quite a bit of restraint compared to some.) Today's entrees are a fun bluegrassy, folksy, female-driven The Ditty Bops and Petra Hayden sings the Who Sell Out. I'm not much of a The Who fan. The Who? Exactly. has often been my motto, although I suppose I did name a snowboard after a rock opera that I'd never seen, but that is neither... Right. So this Petra character sings the whole album, a live album from what I'm told. When I say the whole album, I mean everything. This is an acapella version of The Who Sell Out , all the drums, the guitars, the-one-can only-imagines-what-The Who-plays all sung by Petra. When I first heard it, I found out that I did know one song, "I can see for Miles and Miles," but basically through the whole unfamiliar album I didn't know whether I was supposed to laugh or be moved. I kind of like that in a CD and I couldn't get it out of my head, so today I bought it. I can't decide whether to laugh or praise it for being beautiful. Maybe I should ask Avril.

The more things change, the hungrier I get?
For those of you just tuning in, or looking at blog trends, the last 17 days for me went something like this: search for meaning, forgetfulness, self-confidence/food/weather, vanity, music, video games, "Nobody mocks harder," frustration/dreams, weather, frustration/escape, nostalgia, food.

I'm detecting some trends here. Let's compare it to the same time period last year: Hilary Duff, DE poetry, blogs, voting, CVS girl, action, Saturday AM, Grand Canyon/girl, laughs, "YOU CAN'T HAVE MY PANTS!" TV on DVD, interview with myself.

The year before that: musical prepositions, Mr. Rogers died, friends, grumpiness, Avril Lavigne, "My life has more bells and whistles." elevator etiquette, war, mix tapes, awkwardness, sister's growth.

Hmm. Very interesting. (That's what you say when you don't know what else to say. If you really don't know what to say, extend your "r" in the "very" and speak slower. Like this: verrrrrry interesting. It makes you seem more thoughtful and/or stupid. It's a crap shoot, really.)

The burrito that's killing my brain cells
My burrito, so carelessly wrapped in foil. First it’s a shiny silver gift. Then an ice cream cone. Soon a spicy hot forty in a soft silver bottle. Walk with a weave, as rice and peppers and little bits of chicken fall to the ground. At least the ones that don’t get stuck in my beard. I’m saving the scraps and ruining my breath. I burrow deeper into the cylinder of faux-Mexican meal on the move. Savagely biting at what’s already dead. The weave of my walk is but a drunken burrito stupor. The last unpleasant scraps are slurped as chewing has become too much like thinking and both I eschew. I wad up the wrapping, the cone, the bottle, the foil, the trash. It’s a tiny misshapen ball, remnants of a meal squished between a malleable metal. Crumpled and useless it lands in a barrel as I stumble on toward home. The motion sensor lights announce my arrival as I make my way straight for the car. Climbing, I lie face up on the roof. For what better use of an auto than as a metal mattress with a perfect view of the sky and telephone wires. This is not where I usually take my respite, but then I’ve never been bombed on a burrito.

With respect to the author, Ms. Olson, I offer up a little inspiring bit of nostalgia. Hope she doesn't mind, wherever she may be.
I found this going through some zip disks. It still gets me right *here*.


Let’s say there’s this bunch of kids that you know.
Maybe you even met them once upon a time in what you now
know will one day soon be a faraway land.
And perhaps you knew the moment you stepped into the world
they share that these kids were like nothing you’d ever
seen before.
Probably even like nothing you’d ever see again.
They are the artists of a generation that has been said to have no
direction, no defining characteristics, no real purpose.
But you realize upon introduction that whoever said that hasn’t
been to this world, and certainly hasn’t met the ragged
bunch of kids that live here.
They offer themselves honestly and without pretense in a calm
come-as-you-are fashion.
They are harsh critics that know what they like and dislike
about you within seconds.
But they are forgiving, and they won’t hold a grudge over a simple
flaw of the personality—they simply find you all the
more interesting.
These kids don’t really know themselves yet, haven’t had a
chance to explore, and most of them have seemingly no
idea of their full potential.
When they do finally realize it, they’ll probably scare the hell
out of the rest of the world.
These kids are not perfect, but you realize, as the old saying
goes, nobody is.
They have courage beyond their years—courage to find
themselves, to live according to their own happiness, and
to make their own ways.
Perhaps you wish that you had the guts to act with their
abandon.
They want to share every thought that occurs, every word
produced by their pens, and each melody that plays at
the tips of their fingers and parting of their lips.
To think twice about confessing sin, divulging desires, or
professing true love is unheard of, because these kids
live to tell a story.
To go unheard is to starve.
Maybe these kids are so talented and so bright that you have
been afraid to take part.
Maybe you’ve always been envious that you couldn’t quite
follow suit.
Maybe one day, you get brave.
You’ve always admired their world from a distance, and
wondered what it would be like to participate.
But you’ve come to realize that you’re never really going to
belong here.
But this doesn’t make you sad—not at all.
You’ve had your chance, had a taste of this incredibly unique
world, and that taste has been far from bitter.
It has simply shown you that you belong somewhere else.
So maybe you leave this world and this amazing group of kids.
You’re probably torn, because you know that you’ll never find
another place like this with people like that.
But you know that it’s time, that the decision has been made,
and that you have to go.
And maybe, just maybe, you will forever hold in your heart a
little piece of that world.
Because you have to know, to feel that it would be impossible
to forget a bunch of kids who have shown you so much,
who have taught you to perform, reminded you how to
play, and who have blessed you with the courage to
finally give back a little part of yourself.
And maybe most of all, you hope that these kids won’t forget
you, either.

Not even a good spectator
I'm so sick of watching Ultimate. I just want to play. I don't think I mentioned that I pulled my groin last week. It's great for say, having people ask, "How's your groin?" The attention is nice, but really it's kind of a private area; mine perhaps less so than some... Anyway, I'm tired of standing on the sidelines and wishing I could be in the action. I had three lovely weeks of running and jumping and now I'm back to stalking the sidelines and hollering. It's just adding to my frustration, actually I think it's more like multiplying. I just read a book that was all about the "things happen for a reason" schtick, which I totally buy, especially if the reason is postive and instantly gratifying and identifiable. When it isn't, like now for instance, I'm all about the WHY? WHY? WHY?

Candy quiche and the liquid brownies
We could stand around and debate the times and places where I may have erred in the kitchen tonight, but maybe you should sit. I can see (and still taste several hours later) now that shortbread crust is not the best crust for a quiche. But it said "Ready Crust" in such big letters.

Maybe ginger is not the ideal nutmeg substitute, but really they're both spices, right? How different can they be?

Timers, measuring cups-- those are for people that don't cook intuitively. I feel the kitchen. The kitchen feels me. And the kitchen likes. Me. Ow.

"I just felt like running"
Escape is my new four letter word. It's all I do. (Not that four letter words are all I do.) I get home, turn on the Xbox and escape into a game of football. I don't listen to the game, I'm too busy escaping via the radio. When push button football turns me antsy, I head to my room for some vicarious living through blogs- which is just an escape. That gets old quickly. I'm not sure if it's me, or the sites I'm reading, but things seem to be a little slow of late. So I escape with the closest TV on DVD. I'm tempted to start watching Buffy all over again. Alias doesn't tempt me in the same way, not that I wouldn't watch the new season if it happened to be on a DVD wiggling in front of my face. That lasts an hour or two and then I'm ready to escape into a nice slumber. Every morning I grab my hip Express which is just my Metro escape tool. After a week of hard work, it's either escape to the cinema or escape to the Ultimate field. Escape is a four letter word. It may also be spelled l-i-f-e. Can't escape that...

Old man hangs in
I've got to hand it to the old man. I had my doubts early, but Old man Winter has been hanging on. I thought he'd slipped away when it reached 60, but with the paddles to his chest his chilly heartbeat came beeping back through the heart monitors. This morning it was 50 degrees and for all practical purposes I figured the old guy was out. 50 degrees in the morning? That's like a closed casket or something, but the old guy ripped through the casket and turned the rain into snow and then with a mighty huff he sent the temperature plummeting 20 some odd degrees.

(Now between you and me, I know that the DC version of old man winter is a little weak. He's getting on in years, though you wouldn't know it from the way this town reacts to his dandruff and icy stares. In all fairness, I'm judging him by past performance; it wouldn't be right to compare him to a real winter. Compared to someplace like Texas, he's like Super Old Man winter. Whose comic book incidentally never took off. I digress.)

We interrupt this post to announce that there will be no more gressing for today. Tune in tomorrow for another exciting gressful post.

What's the written equivalent of shaking your head really really fast back and forth so that your lips flap around and your brain rattles against the inside of your skull?
'Cause that's what I need to do to get back on track. Any semblance of creativity has taken a major dip, even the old confidence shower didn't quite fix things up. (Bet you didn't know that if you twist past cold and past hot you get to confidence. It's true and you know it works because it burns.)

I'm stuck. I'm stuck. I'm stuck.

I had a dream last night. In it I was running a race, only I was so sore from earlier in the day that I couldn't get anywhere fast. All I could do was plod along. And everyone was running faster than me. In my dream I could tell they were waiting for me at the finish because we had someone important to meet. Someone important like Margo. Still, I couldn't go any faster. I distinctly remember my friends Monika and Matt commenting on how incredibly slow I was. At some point it became night time and all the other racers disappeared. I was all alone and running at speeds that can't even technically be called speeds, because that sounds too fast. When out of nowhere this car came along and nudged me. The next thing I knew I was in a screaming match with the female passenger. When I realized yelling wasn't helping the situation, I told her to take a deep breath. I took one too. Then I calmly explained why she needed to share the road, and why it wasn't necessary for her car to run into me. She saw my point and changed her driving habits forever.

There's a valuable lesson in there somewhere. I think it's don't race around if you have to meet Margo, lest you get hit by a car driven by a passenger.