Senior Year 1992

9206.23

How long has it been since I sat down and committed to paper from so very volatile memory the names of those I’ve liked? Never, you say? Good. I woke up this morning with strange visions and Elvis’s Burning Love washing over. So here I go. They’ll be arranged in chronological order, so please bear with the sloppiness.

• 2nd Grade (K-1st, I was 6 and 7, okay?): Stacie K.

I think that was mostly because she was the only other Asian besides Charlie, and to like him beyond friends would not be good.

• 3rd Grade: Miranda G.

All I remember is that I couldn’t look into her eyes.

• 4th Grade: none.

I was deep in the throes of despair from being in that cow’s class, Mrs. Van Matre, but if you force me to pick one, maybe Tammy D. Maybe. Maybe Lana.

• 5th Grade: perhaps Amy A.

The only one bold enough to lay hands on my person until this last year, at the all-nighter, when Amy Al. pinched my butt. Hmm. Maybe Lana.

• 6th-7th-early 8th Grades: Jennifer F.

There’s little else I can say that hasn’t been said before; her essential aesthetic perfection, her graceful ways, her (damn!) she’s beautiful reaction, her attitude, her niceness (sappy but true), her joy, her closed eyese in the sixth grade picture, but perhaps most of all, her down-to-earthness; she never let a bit of my worship go to her head. And you know, I don’t think I ever stopped.

• Mid-8th (my hormonal period): Tiffany M.

Though she was an awfully nice person, it seemed as if she lived in a little unreal world of her own. Please, I don’t mean it as seriously bad criticism or anything like that, but we all need to dream; some just do it more often than others.

Towards the tail end of that year, I guess you could throw in another: Stacy S. She moved, she liked, she signed my annual. Period. Throughout Junior High, didja ever know those people that you know would be basically impossible to approach? She was one. Tina T. was another. Both of them were so damned nice to me, ‘specially Tina. Hmm. Would I have (asked her out, you fools)? You bet. She moved, too.

• 9th-10th: Teresa K. (plus Stina for at least a week)

She was witty, she was funny, she was attractive. At least she was to me. Read 8912.08. But by Spring Trimester of sophomore year, she’d already started to fade. Then again, you have to see who she faded against; there were the likes of Alissa S. and, of course, she who much of this NewJournal has been devoted to her. But more on her later.

As for Stina, I think I’ve trod that ground already. I liked her for a week; at the end of the week, I had a dream (just a dream) that I, ah, er, she and I were making love and when I came, well, actually, just before, I woke up to find the like gone. No matter what you think, it was a loss.

Back to LTK? I know that it got started before 9th Grade Recognition Night (in other words, before NewJournal), because I was thrilled that I’d learn to dance from the one. What else can I say?

She makes me do things I don’t want to do
I don’t know why I should be telling you 

— You Want Her Too, Elvis Costello/Paul McCartney

Alas; it was not to be. The death blow came when she admitted that she liked Adric. Lucky Adric. Poor me. But I think that’s quite enough of the self-pity, don’t you? To move on.

• 10th-11th-part of 12th: (ooh, another steady) that legendary one, Dani.

I’d first gotten the inklings in 9th grade, when she wore her hair almost vertically. I thought it was neat. Now that I look back on it, it looks almost hideous. She was, at once, both everything I’d ever known and nothing I’d ever seen. How could I help but fall for such a one, an exotic beauty who lived in the legendary Salnave district? she was the girl-Goddess next door. I even had dreams, full-color, vivid and very eye-opening dreams about her.

I daydreamed. I couldn’t help myself. And you do know that most of this NewJournal has been dedicated merely to singing her praises. D’ye remember when she swung by the Whitworth auditorium with friend and my heart nearly stopped? D’ye remember every day in Humanities when I’d be looking over to check if she was there and every day it seemed as if she was looking back? 9007.26 9106.01 D’ye remember the way she looked with the sunlight filtering through her hair, what with the reddish highlights? D’ye remember the way her blue eyes would sparkle, the way they’d stare, they way they could be nothing less than vivid remembrances of her soul? D’ye remember her almost painful shyness, unmatched by any besides my own?

How many conversations went unspoken? Would it have worked out? Unfortunately, with Dani, I’m left with far more questions than I have answers for.

Did I ever
open up my heart?
Let you look inside? 

— This One, Paul McCartney

I tried to let her know (no, I never really was all that good at concealing feelings, especially these that run so deep for Dani, through deep, meaningful, exchanged glances. I could cite the hair, the legs (both long and nicely shaped), the looks, tbut more than anything else, I’d rather talk not about her absolute beauty, but of her inner peace, that which she seemed to have achieved very early.

Y’look at her and you say to yourself “That person’s on an even keel.” What was that saying — oh, yes — if I’d let my reach exceed my grasp, perhaps it could have worked. Unfortunately, I’ll never know. I keep on guessing; while it may have ended this last fall (it seemed as if my entire world had caved in on me, to be true), it could still start. while you may be different, you can’t just drop someone from your mind, especially if that one has represented the hopes, your dreams for an entirely blissful two years. Y’know, I even thought that she was put on the earth as a challenge to all people (male), whether or not people (male) would have the courage, or whether or not they’d be able to work it up sufficiently in order to ask her out.

I know that it was difficult enough to go up and work it up for an entire week before Valentine’s Day.

So, after mooching through Junior Year in a sort of spiritual bliss, I come to the latest (but, as the past dictates/indicates, by no means the last) chapter of this particular entry. But first, let me just say that I could envision Dani as the mother of a series of Amerasian love children. To be more specific, of Chinese-Americans. She was/is that beautiful, that sweet, that nice, et. al. shall we move on? This is, indeed, probably the most diffficult aspect of all to talk about, not only because of the disastrous results, but also because of the recentness of it, making the scars look fresh indeed.

• 12th: a two-way battle, decided by default, between Missy and Jodi.

Y’all already know the winner. Who lost? Me. (Damn this self-pity, it’s now starting to bother me). As I’ve said before, it went with the left brain rooting at first for Jodi, then switching and joining the right brain when it was shown convincingly that Missy could do much, much more than stare (but still look good doing so). It was a long, drawn-out battle; undoubtedly, Jodi could have won. I guess that Dani’s abrupt withdrawl from the availables sent my thoughts into a tailspin.

Do You Believe In Love?

I’m losing faith. Why? It’s like this: here I am, a pretty likable guy, and (well, I do guess that it is her faith getting in the way, as before) there I go, crushed ego and all, from all of my (in)action from that warm Saturday Night. I don’t know if I’d be able to live with either, though, because of the inevitable comparisons that would set in with one and the moodishness of (both) the other.

Y’know, when I started this some two and a half hours ago, I had no intentions to make this my longest entry ever, but if you look back at all of the long entries in the past, most of them have to do with this particular topic. So why do I find this the easiest subject to write about? All I can imagine is that sneaky someone will be able to pick this up in the future and remark that those guys in the Nineties weren’t all that different.

Eventually, all of us are going to come to the conclusion that yes, we do love someone. If that particular person reciprocates, then all will be all right. So please, perhaps there’s only been two of this group of fifteen (that’s it?! I’m no Wilt, so please, don’t accuse me of being TOO shallow) that I’ve loved.

Can I forget about them? I don’t think so. Will I forget about them? The love can only grow. The steadies. So now, I’ll freely admit that my first love was Jen F., the second was Dani G. I still do. I still might. But what did I love? Images? Please don’t trouble me so.

I guess the rest of the day could be summed up with the athletic activities that I’d done: Rollerblade and swimming.

I wish that this pen would behave a little better. So here I stand, without even a pen to write with, at the tail end of five pages of schmalzig stuff. So if you do read this, please remember that those I’d said for 12th Grade are still valid, if fading, while the other two that I’d talked about are also valid. And both seem (right now) just pale remembrances.

—————

Patrick Litchfield, Joanna Lumley, St Regents Park, London (1970).

When I first set virtual pen to paper I had a hard date in mind for the end (30 June) of this senior year blog but I think I beat myself to it by a week here. I’m not convinced that I did it consciously but this helped close a chapter and get me ready for the next movement, so this is where I draw the line for Senior Year 1992. That’s it, see you later. Movie’s over. Go about your lives, citizens.

Well if you’re sticking around (and after that long, self-indulgent entry, I can’t blame you for fleeing) then you probably deserve some better explanation than just a simple “that’s all folks!” I think this was my boost for the summer: keep the memories alive, just two weeks after the last time you’ve seen these people, carry them through to August and the start of school and hold your hometown close to your heart. Cheney über Alles. It did work for a while, while the geographical distance was short and the days were long. I’d go prowling the summer night air after getting home from the store, no doubt you may have seen me passing through or passing by.

Then life happened. Six weeks into my new floundering existence as a full-time college student something clicked and I found a new home. After that first year I stayed on to snag a summer job, then started spending only bare weeks at home, impatient to get back at first to my Bay Area weather and then to my girlfriend, my fiance, my wife. Life happened, as I said. We’ve been married for twelve years now and thoughts of my life before fade into a distant haze that doesn’t bear up under close examination. Twenty years seemed like a long time before I lived it.

Something else that surprised me this year: I thought for sure I’d be drawing from this pool of memorabilia, which dates back to that rough period of time, but I can’t remember posting more than a picture or two. Contemporary stuff, sure, and stuff I found on the Internet that piqued my interest lately have been my touchstones; creative commons has created a vast pool of questionable stock photographs and the written word that I used to rely so heavily on in college seems to be filled with an endless stream of images and video, using technologies so new and amazing to 1992 that I might as well be writing in a magic book for all I knew then.

I’m glad I had the chance to share this, and I know that I’ve learned more about … everything? … since starting this. By everything I mean it: the world around me, the way I was, where I’m going; I watch the patterns of the past spin endlessly past me into the future, I see the same path to be trod by new feet and next generations and though I sometimes wish I’d tell them that they aren’t going to like that route, I know they’ll learn something from it, and grow up a little more, day by day by day.

My faith is renewed, my pace quickened; I’m smiling more now than ever. Magic? No. Just share. 

9206.22

It hit 97 today? Perhaps tomorrow I’ll just sorta sit around the house, not really caring all that much about the weather. Geesh. We had to go to the store twice today; y’see, the alarm sounded just after we left the first time, which was after Dad was dropped off at SFCC and we effected a car switch in order that we could offload all the groceries that Dad and Mom brought home, which was after Dad called and told us to go to the Falls so that all would be possible.

Actually, that was about all of the excitement that could be had for the entire day. In truth, today’s been a very long day. I put in ten hours, far too much. Well, anyways, Uncle will be coming over — actually, now — so I guess that all I can do is take a small pause. I guess not.

What should I do? What reinforces the notion that we Pacific Northwesters are environmental-slightly-strange-people? Four words: Northern Exposure; Twin Peaks.

It’s still too hot, almost too hot to write/think effectively; then again, it could be my tiredness. So if you think about it, maybe that’s what sets off the hormonal rush.

Y’know what? It seems to keep on getting harder to finish this up. As before, I’d thought that this white space just kept on growing. I just wish that I could sorta go to bed right now, even though TV seems so very interesting at this time. I’m too tired.

All around, the people looking half-dead
walking on sidewalks hotter than a matchhead

What was wrong with the Supreme Court today? A unanimous ruling for hate crimes. Hurm. D’ye s’pose that Tom Thomas could have had some big effect on that, what with his disinformation on Brown v. Board of Education?

—————

Dana Tuszke, Ashley, Redheaded Lefty (2008). 

Sadly this turns out to be the norm for summer entries: without other people to bounce against I end up bouncing against my family for three months, which drives everyone nuts. Lord knows how vain and critical I am, and Lord help you if you should run afoul of that particular capricious mood. Funny thing is that the Spokane area is a little like Larry McMurtry’s Texas: sooner or later everyone runs into each other, our Danny Decks going through life one encounter at a time (what, you’ve only read the old West fiction by McMurtry?).

You say the right words and nod at the right times, shake hands and maybe a back-slapping hug is in order, goodtaseeya, seeya soon, pleeztameetcha and byefernow. If I didn’t already have too much on my plate this summer I’m not sure I would have made it back to the reunion; twenty years is a lot of time to put on yourself and the weight of expectations sometimes won’t wait. Have I already said how America is the only country where it’s polite to ask what you do? And even if I’m sure that no one’s judging, I’m ready to run away again, thank you very much. I did it once. I can do it again.

What am I looking forward to this summer, twenty years in the future? Seeing my kids. Going to a foreign country and leaving the continent for the first time ever. Setting up a Linux machine. Putting our power station back to work generating electricity. Working with the good friends I’ve made, these past few weeks. I know that I’m not always patient with the kids lately but I know I’m going to miss them like crazy in a few more hours.

9206.21

I’ve just gotta tell you about the dream I just had. I was back in school (oh, the horrors!), and the most strange thing of all was the fact that I was wearing Rollerblades, but I was getting around pretty good without them. It was fourth period, and I’d been gone for some time, as there were many books that I needed to turn in. Mrs. McDermott gave me her key to the book room and also a cart to carry my books on. While I was cleaning out my locker, Mr. Bryant dropped by and started to talk about the books that I was by now flinging from my locker (it seemed endless, and I found library books from August, fer chrissakes) and the books that he had personally read.

Somewhere in there, Missy dropped by and asked if we could talk; I was sorta impatient (and busy), so what I did was shove a leather (sorta a creamed-coffee color) folder with brass-plated corners into her hands. I told her “This is my personal history; please, just read it instead.”

Eventually, I got done, after the period had nearly expired. Mrs. McDermott herself had come by on her way to the bookroom (I noted with some panic that I had four or five copies of The Stranger) and had actually shot me a dirty look as I stood there talking to Mr. Bryant. I remember that there was little in my mind except for the fact that surprise at my not getting a notice for my overdue book …

… but in any case, I bladed back into the room, and where I usually sat was sitting Missy, with either tears or a glint in her eye. I couldn’t hear her too well, I so heard two replies. The worse was “I think that you shouldn’t have shown me this …” and turning on her heel, she spun away. I wish that I could have definitely heard “I thank you for letting me see this.” What happened next? It’s up tot he imagination, because at that point I woke up.

So what all did that mean? I guess that you could make a case for all of this being directly linked to the Daryl Hannah overdose yesterday, but I don’t think that that’s all of that. There were other aspects, too, but d’ye s’pose that my tired mind made the weak connection between Dr. Lecter and Mr. Bryant? In the end, I guess you could call it mostly wishful thinking; mostly, what I’m wishing for now is an end to all of this, a quick end to this entry; after nine hours in the store, I need nothing less than a full night’s sleep.

We spent about two hours Rollerblading tonight. It’s still too damned hot to sleep. Oh, well. I’ll just try to make the best of it. I’m just a little tired.

Is it the hormones? It could be. It could be indigestion from the two flavored Doritos that I’d eaten all through the movie. I dunno. I really have got to stop snacking when I’m not that hungry. I’ve built myself quite a gut now. Oh, well.

What’s to be done about the pictures? Already they fade from sight of my mind’s eye. Yes, it sounds trite. Yes, it is true. What can I expect? What am I expecting? What meaning does my life bring to others? Sure, you might tell me not to ask so many questions and just roll with the punches, but that is (pardon the comparison) like an active suspension versus a passive one; y’don’t understand that in order to rise about the commonplace and bland, you need to anticipate, not react. I hope you do.

Is jealousy the root of greed? Is greed the root of evil? Damn … I’m starting to sound like a preacher. While there may not be all that much bad with them, there is enough. Let people decide for themselves. So what was a great moment? Will there ever be another? When can I rebuild?

—————

l_a_i_a, he undressed her with his eyes … (2007).

Geez, even in my dreams I can’t give myself a break. Perhaps it was residual guilt: I’d ordered and paid for prom pictures, where if I remember right you can see my hand hovering nervously over Missy’s waist, afraid to touch — I mean, what if the — I mean, seriously — what right do I have to that kind of privilege? They are some of the things I wish I’d had the foresight to preserve from my parents’ house before they packed everything and moved; ever since then I haven’t been able to find them.

If I’ve learned anything over the course of this past school year, you shouldn’t take your memories for granted. Write them down if you have a chance and if not, find a way to recall them later when you can get them in print. There have been so many moments that I’ve read what I wrote twenty years ago and the exact mood struck me again, not through any happy accident of amazing writing, but because it jarred something loose from the depths, floating up undisturbed. Do you remember what it was like to take your first bike ride? How about driving for the first time? It’s like that — everything clicks and all at once you’re feeling competent beyond your depth.

So I know I’m a pack rat who’s spent too much time and money storing and moving stuff, but be smart about it: save the stuff that’s important — letters, photos, mementoes — because they’re your permanent record in a perishable world. If you don’t have the space, find some way to digitize them and keep them backed up in the cloud, on your desktop, off-site, somehow, anyhow, because the wonder you’ll get from tripping down the halls in your mind is going to beat any vacation.

9206.20

And even if YOU didn’t like it, I do. The Silence of the Lambs actually does justice to the book. Of course, what that generally means is that there was much greatness in the book to begin with …

I spent this, the longest day of the year, in the store.

And so now you tell me that Orion Pictures is bankrupt? It’s probably the Media’s fault.

Okay. There’s two more Daryl Hannah flicks — well, actually, four that I know of now. Blade Runner. Legal Eagles (? R.Redford, D.Winger, D.Hannah — whatever the name of that movie is). Happy Spirits. Steel Magnolias. All of which fall along with the all of the previous ones I can remember — Roxanne. Splash. Wall Street. Crazy People. Memoirs of an Invisible Man. So? So what? There’s no obsession here. I’ll just need to go up to the Kennedy …

So what has prompted all of this? Jodie Foster’s nose, the end, to be particular. D’ye notice that sorta dimple there? Hmm. Just fifteen days after school’s out, the hormones are already shifting higher. And I thought all of this would pass this year, but it seems to be kicking in even earlier. Sigh. Woe is me. Why is it that I lack even hope this year?

This summer is fairly short, anyways. Sour, Sour, sour grapes. I guess there’s really nothing that I can do about any of it so I might as well relax a little and just try to make the best of it. You did know that we need to open the store two days in a row, because Mom and Dad are going to visit friends in Seattle, right?

Yeesh; when Alex’s family comes along, this house — what — then it’ll be ten people — yeesh — but only for about three days. Still, though … you’ll never know, will you?

What the final mystery is, though, is why people really can’t care less about each other anymore.

—————

Mary Ellen Mark, Jodie Foster 221P-035-009 (1995).

I always liked (perhaps abstractly) the idea of having a large family; I was overjoyed when my grandparents came to stay with us, and then the next year, an uncle and aunt too: eight people shuffling through the house. A few years later they moved out (to be closer to the store) but I still remember how full and warm the house was most nights. It’s a distinguishing factor but probably a dubious honor; what do you actually get out of it?

There are probably a million reasons to limit the number of kids you have to two (and probably a million more not to have kids in the first place) but I feel a little greedy and keep thinking that it sure would be nice to have more. Then I take note of our denuded bank account, the chaotic state of the house, the million things we have to take out of the younger child’s mouth (seriously, he puts that thing on everything) and I begin to understand why everyone stops at two.

9206.19

Is it just a bit sad to you, too? Tomorrow’s the longest day of the year, and besides wasting it on/in the store, I have to be faced with the conclusion that everything merely goes downhill from there; the days will only get shorter until late December. Yeesh. The entire year (it seems) has been spent building up for the climax of tomorrow, and it seems that; well, to blow it all out on one day is like squandering a fortune on pet rocks. All that we earthly mortals may do is try to make the very best of it.

I dreamt I was good on Rollerblades, and lo! I learned to use my brake well.

Despite the Cheesy music, most of today’s been some pretty excessive brooding introspection. Like what? Like this; why do fools fall in love? Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers never told you, either? One thing I’ll always refuse to believe: falling was, will never be a mistake. If you think so, (1) don’t forget how you felt, at least, (2) you’re a truly hardbitten cynic, or (3) maybe it wasn’t love. Number three? Sometimes I think so, but doubt swoops down hard. So why do I expound so on the subject? There’s really no good reason, so I’ll talk some on the book I’m reading.

Needful Things. Good Stuff, I say, even if I’m already halfway through the book and there seems to be no really classically good ending in sight. It looks like you’ll get one of those Stand endings — sort of a pyrrhic (sp? Pyhrric Phyrric Pyrrick) victories. It all seems so sad, but that’s the way it’s shaping up. I hope it turns out better. I’m almost sure that it will.

Really, my braking’s gotten much better.

The gang of three: really, actually, well. No more. You don’t suppose that there’s more than one victim in all of this spectacular botchedness, do you?

—————

Matt Millard, Triple threat (2007).

The solstice is so-named because the sun appears to stand still and then reverse its course; about this time I always reflect on how long the days are getting and how nice it is to wake up and see a bit of light. Consider how early I have to get up most days and it’s pretty remarkable to get any kind of sun in the mornings. If you could freeze one day, which one would it be? I’m not sure I would have chosen working at the store as a highlight then, but for someone who was painfully shy it wasn’t a bad gig.

I wonder if the people we used to know at the store are still in the neighborhood; through the magic of Google Maps I’ve virtually cruised by a thousand times to see  that there’s nothing left of the store I remember — it’s not even a grocery store if I read it right. What of the people? I remember some names but not enough to figure out what happened to them, either: Roy with his son David; that girl across the street, Buffy, what of the old neighborhood?

9206.18

Oh, boy. Even though it’s only (only?!) 11:00, I’m feeling a little more than dead tired. I dunno. I really shouldn’t be feeling this way (but I am, and there’s little I can do about it). Oy vey, indeed.

Well, today the really big news (I guess) is that we went to the Wu’s after closing the store; there, not only did we watch a movie — Edward Scissorhands (again! (will I never be tired of that movie?)) — but also half of another — The Pick-Up Artist, in which our protagonist (he’s so lucky) gets to drive a cherry, red ‘68 Camaro RS Convertible. Yeesh, indeed. I’ve already run out of words …

What else? I got to explore a mid-80s, third-generation Camaro; for starters, there isn’t even a glorified glovebox … the seatbelts had already fallen from their retainers on the seats … the hood actually warped when I tried to lift it because of a grumpy shock … the dashboard just absolutely reeked, full of idiot lights and a enormous gas gauge where the tach shoulda been … but at the very least, for all of the wondering I did about it today, it could have had the TPI engine (that one with the beautiful intakes?), but alas, it was a carbureted V-8, with only one nozzle leading in. At least it had the F41 option.

I’m just so very tired at this time that I feel no particular desire to hurry, okay? And it’s still only Thursday; it’s as if this week has been revolving very, very slowly, and that slow motion is the only kind that I have at this time. The truth is that I feel/see no need to do, as I have said before, anything much this summer. So sue. I’m just sorry that there’s nothing that I can do about your little lives, but that’s too petty.

—————

dalmuln, Jack Scissorhands (2003).

Quick, name two of the ways you can tell a ‘67 Camaro from the ’68s! Okay, I picked vent windows (the ’67s have ‘em) and round front turn signals (again for the ’67s … they went to a rectangular turn signal on the ’68s). So are you terribly shocked that I keep spitting out random facts (nice F41 suspension option, by the way)? I suppose that’s another twenty-year change; before you could wow and amaze everyone with your knowledge, now everyone has a smartphone and access to Google at their fingertips, and everyone’s an expert.

This ends up being one of the best summers in a long time, and for a long time to come; by the next summer, I’m already looking to get a job (fool that I am; why would you WANT to hurry into an adult life?) and then it’s go go go from there, gotta study, gotta find a job, gotta get married, gotta gotta gotta. You never get a chance to yourself again — that’s the dirty secret of high school graduation — and life keeps getting better too, the giant upside they also don’t tell you about. At this point being an adult means getting the chance to do things you want to do, not because someone’s made it a requirement or is holding something you want just out of your reach. Welcome to real life, graduate: your world just got empowered.

9206.17

So, what do you think? Once again, I find myself in the unenviable position of having to catch up; I still need to start/finish up these damned thank-yous.

Well, now that I’m finally through all that (except for addressing the envelopes) I guess I can start to really write. Sure. Was there any meat to this day? So far, nope.

Please please me
oh yeah
Like I please you

Oh, sure.

Well, they’re out there having fun
in the warm California sun

What sort of demented justice does this world have, that some schmo from Don’t Tell Mom … (okay, okay, it is fiction, but still, it raunches, you know?) would land the most beauteous Christina Applegate, and yet, nicer persons (i.e. Raymond Jardine or the Sun of Interflux, if you insist on rubbing fiction in, or, more to the point, me) can’t? Please, don’t plod, pass with pride.

So, d’ye think that the O.J’s going to rot my teeth, really? Just you wait and see.

After going by Dani’s house (oh, fer shame, fer shame) we came home; I talked to Dad about our cousin’s driving. Although he seemed to be fairly good when me and the Kuos passed by, but from what I hear, he shifted into Park without shifting into — uh — wait — he shifted before coming to a complete stop. If Dad got half as mad at him as he did as that one guy who burned his socks on the heater some years ago, I personally (if I wasn’t in the driver’s seat, even; if I was just watching in the backseat) wouldn’t have wanted to drive again, ever. I’ve actually felt that way before.

Oh boy, not another one of those damned WAR protesters. They’re just so very un-good for this country, like all of those gun-control freaks, oh, like Mr. Brady. Mebbe y’all don’t understand; you’ll still get your guns, if you’re un-criminal. I guess that all of you shouldn’t have anything to be worried about, less’n y’all got somethin’ to hide.

—————

Christina Applegate, c. 1990.

They say you have to be smart to play dumb, and Kelly Bundy was about as box-of-rocks as you could get (not that I ever watched the show, nope, not me). I was talking to my wife about actors and actresses we admired and it turned out they had one thing in common: a refusal to be typecast. Sure, it’s easy to fall into a role but to be known as that’s what you do — make it that’s ALL you do (Sandra Bullock — light romance until lately; Leonardo DiCaprio — doomed brooding lead roles) must be pretty tiresome.

I’m not sure what to say about the cousin situation, except that we weren’t really close; here I was come into my full glory that summer and all of a sudden there were extra folks in the house to keep entertained and amused. Maybe it was jealousy on my part, fueled by paranoia and my own refusal to hang out with my parents: here’s a new immigrant, steeped in dutiful filial piety and in comparison, the kid that they’d just spent seventeen years on turns out to be pretty ungrateful. Hey, I never claimed to be rational. No need to start now.

9206.16

Ungh. Discords again. Y’do know that I thought that all of this is/was going to stop as soon as Lawrence went off to college, but the thing is that, as before, I seem to be caught in the crossfire. I guess that all of these difficulties are life’s little ways of telling us that yes, we still are tied down by these earthly bonds.

The whole idea behind this business seems to be trying to make your own portion of the world a little better for yourselves, damn whoever you hurt. It’s those people that actually care more about those beyond their immediate vicinities that merit attention; they are those who need (but so rarely get) to be recognized. I mean, we need to recognize them, they’re not just publicity hounds. And now this pause (that definitely doesn’t refresh) has lasted for at least five or so many minutes. So, like a UN Peacekeeping Force or the Swedish Army, what’s a neutral observer to do?

I’d really like to reconcile these two gladiators, he of sharp tongue and he of even sharper, but it all seems so very complicated at this time. I just feel so utterly helpless. Well, it’s really not that I’m incapable of doing anything; as things stand, my own ego is hanging by a thread and one gust could easily snap it.

In lighter news, I nearly crashed the Beetle (ooh, great). Really, today hasn’t exactly been my day, even if the last few hours were salvaged somewhat by Charlie inviting us over to watch Don’t Tell Mom, the Babysitter’s Dead and we shooting the bull with him for about an hour. Really, that part was all right. But the rest of the day … well, let’s just say that somethings are better left in the distant past.

Someday, you do know nothing will be perfect, but I can try to make it that way.

—————

Gordon Tarpley, IMG_5813 (2011).

I don’t remember having to play peacemaker but it sounds familiar. After he’d moved out to college my brother became very independent-minded and vocal about it; coming from the background that we did (parents: absolute final last word and no sassing back) this was a shock and dismay moment for me. Hey guys sorry, but could we go back to getting along please?

Everyone has a moment that they realize their parents are just people doing the best they can; mine just didn’t happen to happen until after I’d moved out too (and really, not until I became a parent myself; it’s one of those things you find yourself perpetually unready for; there is no perfect time to have kids, right?). Sooner or later they’re going to expose me for the fraud I am; I wonder if it’ll happen while they’re still at home, though.

9206.15

I thought that I was over you
but darling, it’s true, so true
that I love you even more than before

[— Roy Orbison, Cryin’]

… yes, it’s the Big O. I still need to finish up with these thank-you notes, though. At the very least, I got to Rollerblade today, even if, coming back from the parking lot, I was unable to brake effectively and so I lost control and decided to crash instead of get hit by a car. I think it was a pretty decent tradeoff. Unfortunately, in doing so, I ripped a hole in my shirt. That’s okay. I’ll just spend a little bit. I guess I should write the thank-yous.

How should I handle it? It is Monday, isn’t it? Urgh. I still need to tell you about the dorks in the Toyota Corolla hatchback who decided to squirt me with water as I was first trying to ‘blade, but I guess I’ve said enough, almost. Next time, I’ll bring along a hockey stick. Hmm. The second time I tried to slide, I got much better with the brake, but not good enough (or so I thought) to go down the hill; the last time I’d tried, I wiped out at the stop sign; I guess I’ve already told you about it, though, so I’ll just try to keep it short.

I did mow the lawn today, with no really ill effects on my nasal passages. What really needs to be done is a little bit more organization in the compost heap; y’see, not only is it growing more steadily gargantuan, it is really starting to decay, and thus give off that nice odor; perhaps it was the recent rains that are doing this. Oh, well — I still don’t own a classic Camaro. But, as before, that’s okay.

Is MacUser going to collapse under its own weight, caused by a steady stream of business-related topics that turn most casual users off? I surely hope so.

—————

Dimitris Papazimouris, Rollerblade in villa Borghese (2007).

Remember when rollerblades were new (or exploding in popularity) and folks either resented them or envied them? I jumped in, aided by graduation cash and an enthusiastic skating family (Dad knew how to ice skate from his years in Canada, and Lawrence picked it up at Stanford, doing tricks too — I never got up the courage to go ride stairs (backwards) as he did). So the first week I’m on skates I’m pretty much a dead lump of flesh on wheels — how do I go, this isn’t much fun to plod around and oh … I’m rolling now.

I had (delusions) dreams of getting so good that hockey teams would be beating down my door and each other’s heads in to get in my good graces. Of course, I had dreams of being so academically adept, so world-renowned that I’d have universities and industries begging for me to join, too. How has that worked out so far? One thing I’ve learned over twenty years is that you can’t wait for things to come to you; as busy as you are, the people who could use your talents are at least as busy looking for you. Why not make it easier on them and show yourself off?

9206.14

Yes, it was a fairly lazy Sunday. Not a Pleasant Valley one, though, unless you’re one who like gloom without rain. Thunderous weather, ponderous doings. It’s really been a quiet day thus far.

And you do know that Paul (my man) McCartney will be fifty on the 18th — that’s what — Thursday. Do you want to be a paperback writer? It does sound like fun.

D’ye know that, because I’m not writing this at som insanely wee hour — it is 4PM, that is — my thoughts are nearly as scattered as they can be?

Do you need anybody?
I want somebody to love.

How do I feel at the end of the day?
I feel sad because you’re on your own.

Gee, thats a good song. I’m still a little bit disorganized, but tomorrow, I should be able to finish off most of my unfinished business; of course I’d be happy to do it tonight, but in truth, I’m waiting for the sun to rise and brighten my mood. Tomorrow, perhaps; I’m about ready to give up on today. Then again, if it got too warm, it would be too humid. SIGH.

Today really turned out in slow-motion; i met the one guy that I was suppose to; should I be happy? I guess so, but I’m a bit too tired to do much of anything. I did just spend the last hour and a half watching TV; more specifically, I watched reruns of both Night Court and Quantum Leap. As usual, even though it was a Sunday night, it was very enjoyable.

It’s Flag Day? Oh. Uh-huh. Please, I do like this country, but don’t spew your phlegmatic attitudes towards me. At least we’re not in Canada … 6 inches? Yeesh.

At the very least, St.Louis won.

So what is there to be said about anything in life in general for very much anything? It’s all too sad. Really. I’m just so very tired. If you don’t think that all of this has been a very dull (but mellow) day, please add some sort of — measure of — spice in. You’ll see.

—————

Lone Primate, PMC-IR Another Pleasant Valley Sunday (2006).

This was a terrible entry; I apologize. You think that from zero to eighteen years is long enough to create a (mostly) complete adult, so what does twenty extra buy you? Apparently not a whole lot more besides weight in the gut and shortness of breath. I try to look at years now in terms of stages of my life: twenty years ago I was this, now I’m something else, what does the next twenty years hold for me?

Well, if my daughter follows our example, she’s getting married in twenty years. Forget graduations and college; that’s only twenty years on. Would we be ready for that? Is this what our parents imagined when they watched us playing at five? For me, even the passage of a year (as seen by reviewing photos from last year) seems like an epoch for both kids; I wonder, coming back in a few weeks from two weeks away, what that’ll feel like, seeing them two weeks older, not an insignificant chunk of their lives. Why do I keep trading time at home for time at work?