Category: thoughts

Reasons for naught

elvis3 Comments

I’m having one of those weirdly incommunicado weeks. I can’t find anything to write, I don’t seem to be talking to anyone. I just can’t seem to communicate. I can blame this on Resident Evil 4, or on the fact that I just started working out and it’s eating up my time, making me tired, […]

I’m having one of those weirdly incommunicado weeks. I can’t find anything to write, I don’t seem to be talking to anyone.

I just can’t seem to communicate. I can blame this on Resident Evil 4, or on the fact that I just started working out and it’s eating up my time, making me tired, and leaving me sore. Or the fact that I’m deep into the latest Bujold Chalion fantasy (Which fucking rocks – when did she get this good?)

That’s all bull though. The bottom line is, I’m just feeling fucking fried, mentally and emotionally. I’m in one of those places where I drop out so bad I start getting mail from people who want to know if I’m mad at them, or worse, I start to think they’re mad at me.

I need to sleep late and then have noplace to go for a week. I need to take mid-day naps in a hammock under a palm tree and then wake up to lunchtime rum drinks. Instead, I’m looking out the window and seeing night already, and I’m remembering how much I hate this time of year, when the clocks change and suddenly it’s dark before my work day is anywhere close to over.

God, it’s been a long time since I’ve felt tropical air. It feels like a whole fucking lifetime has passed in the fifteen months since last I swam in warm ocean. Two lifetimes maybe. And I’m still dreaming about sailboats.

The nipples are healing well. But I’m remembering how fucking long it takes to heal these things. They are just aching to have someone lick and suck on them. Maybe if I pick up a dental dam…

Piercings are made to be sucked on.

I want to be writing. I have a novel, or a short story, or something, forming in my head. A deranged sort of psycho-drama (well, duh, what else). I have models for three characters, and a vague plot line. But I know I can’t get anywhere. My life has no space in it right now for the kind of drop-everything week I need for a writing project, the kind of week that birthed my novella. Best I can do is write an outline and hope it sticks well enough to write later.

I know, I owe pictures. Halloween pix of the kids, plus I’ll-show-you-mine-you-show-me-yours nipple pictures. Soon. Promise. And maybe one of the dozen entries I have unfinished will finally see completion and I’ll have a meaningful update here.

Just, you know, never assume I don’t love you to death, just because you don’t hear from me.

Dorthy Parker Mood

elvis8 Comments

Razors pain you; Rivers are damp; 
Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful; Nooses give; Gas smells awful; You might as well live. I bet ‘ol Dorthy was a riot at parties.


Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp; 
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

I bet ‘ol Dorthy was a riot at parties.

Meant to be underwater?

elvis3 Comments

I’m not really a fatalist. I don’t really think very many things were meant to happen. Ok, there are a few people – very, very few – who walked into my life and I felt, this had to be, this person needed to be here, and the universe would have brought us together somehow. People […]

I’m not really a fatalist. I don’t really think very many things were meant to happen.

Ok, there are a few people – very, very few – who walked into my life and I felt, this had to be, this person needed to be here, and the universe would have brought us together somehow. People who changed me, changed my life.

But as a rule, I don’t think there are things fated, or meant to be.

And then I look at pictures of the ninth ward vanishing under water again and I think, maybe some primitive thing, something that was here before europeans walked this continent, has chosen to take it’s land back. And maybe we need to just give it back.

Sigh.

I’m afraid to look at any more news. I’m afraid to look at the pictures tomorrow morning when Rita hits ground.

Summer Sunday

elvis3 Comments

I spent my sunday not being at the computer. I think this was a good choice; I’m arm-wrestling a lotta frustration and staring at a screen on which I’m unable to do anything useful makes it unquestionably worse. I managed to sleep unusually late, thanks to lovely chemicals; what was was that old DuPont quote? […]

I spent my sunday not being at the computer. I think this was a good choice; I’m arm-wrestling a lotta frustration and staring at a screen on which I’m unable to do anything useful makes it unquestionably worse.

I managed to sleep unusually late, thanks to lovely chemicals; what was was that old DuPont quote? Without Chemistry, Life Itself Would Be Impossible.. I woke just in time to make fine, strong coffee (Peets of course – there’s simply no better coffee the world over), and then tune in a football game.

Ok. So my team sucked. They basically conducted a clinic in how to suck. Big deal though, it beats that empty, mocking screen. Final score? I think it was about seven hundred to minus 5 or something. If we were not in negative numbers, we should have been. There goes my fantasy team stats for another week – can I have a mulligan on this week and start over?

It was one of those afternoons where it feels, for a day, like summer isn’t over. Hot, bright, clear, with the feeling that there’s not just a day, but an entire season before me. A life before me. Starting fresh.

I walked out and looked up and breathed in a summer smell, and wanted it not to end, ever. I wanted to walk and keep walking. I felt like if I could just follow the sun it would lead me to a place where summer never ended. But it’s not so simple as that and I can’t always simply make the choice and have it go as I dream.

So instead, I gathered up my children and spent several hours simply walking, exploring our neighborhood, with stops for lunch in a new italian deli, and for beverages in the odd little market that still scratches a living in town, somehow.

We walked until out feet hurt; Olivia’s outgrown another pair of boots. Like me at her age, shoes seems to shrink before our eyes.

We returned home, finally, to change shoes, drink and then we needed to feed Ruby’s obsession with goofy-golf.

We spent the rest of a sunny, dusty afternoon knocking small, brightly-colored balls about on ratty outdoor carpet; I entertained my children with snippets of old monty python routines. My hovercraft is FULL of EELS!

I’ll finish my day with a short workout, something I’m trying to get myself back to. I’d forgotten how much I need that, how much better I feel when my muscles have the vague ache of weightlifting. So I’ll do a short set of curls, some pushups, as many crunches as I can stand. Just the basics, though I need to be back at the gym, I need to get myself back to heavy leg-press sets and squats and bench. I’ve never felt better, in my adult life, than when I have a routine of heavy lifting.

And then, I think, a glass a scotch, and if my eyes will stay open, tonight’s RockStar INXS. This is the last week and I’ll miss it. Though I may not stay away that long.

Simple sundays.

Still though, I thought, as the sun was setting, I want to follow that sun. I want to be where summer never ends.

Someday.

Never call, never write.

elvis4 Comments

I’m having a terrible time with any sort of communication these days. I can’t seem to get a blog entry finished (I have at least a half dozen started). I’m not able to maintain an IM session for more than a few flirty comments. I’m not responding to email. I’m not able to maintain a […]

I’m having a terrible time with any sort of communication these days. I can’t seem to get a blog entry finished (I have at least a half dozen started). I’m not able to maintain an IM session for more than a few flirty comments. I’m not responding to email. I’m not able to maintain a conversation in SMS text.

I’m feeling sad and angry and withdrawn, and finding no good outlet for all this.

Part of it’s simple logistics. I just picked up a stack of new responsibilities at work – basically, I wound up the defacto owner of every major internal web site for all of my company’s hardware engineering organization. I didn’t exactly mean to do that, but once it started to pick up momentum in my direction, I wasn’t gonna stop it. But I’m having to un-do a lot of very bad work that contractors did, in a hurry. The goal is to eventually get this all into a content management system, but god knows how long THAT will take. So I’m suddenly a web monkey and having to figure out the basics of fucking css.

This is on top of my existing job; so now in effect I have two.

So that’s part of it. I just got an order of magnitude busier. I woke up thinking, not about my morning coffee or about what I’d like to be doing to some nasty little slut or about what I was gonna do with my weekend. I woke up thinking about fucking css and all the work I have to do.

But it’s more than that. I feel defeated in some way. I feel things in my life slipping away from me, people slipping away. And I feel like my own ability to communicate is going with all this.

I need to write. I need to create and communicate. Words are my tools, my way of knowing my universe, and when my command of language slips, I feel as if I’m disconnected.

I keep flashing on the last shot in the last episode of firefly; Jubal Early spinning in space, isolated and utterly alone in the universe, insulated by the thin skin of his space suit. And he says – “Well, here I am.” Like nothing matters so much.

For the first time in I can’t remember how many years, I got up this morning and didn’t check my email first thing. I get about 100 automated reports and notices every night, system statuses, database backup reports, disk space checkers. Same stuff every day. I always log in and check email first thing, in case something has gone badly haywire. And because, almost always, I have some conversation going with someone. And today I didn’t even open email until I’d made coffee, had some breakfast, settled four kid fights, looked at the usual morning news web sites.

I knew there was nothing but bad news in email. Bad news and empty silence. Well, here I am.

I need to fucking do something.

Jittering

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I’m absolutely jittering today, waiting for word from Seth on the drive recovery. Yeah, I know it’s too soon, we really could not hear before tomorrow at earliest and friday at latest. But something in my head decided it was today and I can’t stop checking email and looking at my IM client (adiumX) to […]

I’m absolutely jittering today, waiting for word from Seth on the drive recovery. Yeah, I know it’s too soon, we really could not hear before tomorrow at earliest and friday at latest. But something in my head decided it was today and I can’t stop checking email and looking at my IM client (adiumX) to see if Seth’s logged on. At which point I’ll have to resist the urge to pester him.

Thanks to glorious chemicals, I managed a decent night’s sleep last night. God I needed it. Also thanks to my friend Mike, a stray brought home by yummy-ex-nanny Andrea (who brought over her photo ipod last night so she could show me pictures of her ass – I love this girl). Mike’s havin’ a bad patch in his relationship, and needed some love; for Mike, this means cooking for someone. He made a fantastic salad of spinach, maytag bleu, chopped almonds, fresh sweet corn, balsamic and a light oil (we were out of EVO, but we all agreed that was ok, the lighter oil let the ingredients shine in this salad). He followed with great grilled rib-eyes and chard sauteed in bacon fat with a little cider vinegar, and mashed potatoes. An excellent dinner, and all I had to do was clean up around Mike while he played my usual role of chef.

This is why, back in days of yore when I had dotcom money, I built a giant kitchen. So people would come to me and cook; an evening in the kitchen is one of my absolute favorite things.

It made for a relaxed evening, rounded out by watching the DVD of Sin City, which I just got. My god, I love this movie. It’s sheer brilliance, and a second viewing just makes it better. I was noticing minor touches I hadn’t seen the first go-round, and the noir crime-novel-b-movie dialog, which sounds stilted at first, becomes poetry. Everything about this movie is beautiful, casting, visuals, pacing, music, lighting, language. If you have not seen it, go buy the DVD. Don’t even bother to rent it, go buy it now.

An evening like that helped, but I’m still vibrating today. I just want word back – did we get any data or not? I wanna move back to the m’sphere and finish cleaning up, but I don’t wanna rebuild everything until we know if we have to.

More coffee. That’ll help. Mmmmm, Peets!

who needs sleep, anyway?

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I’m getting on to that fog state where I’m sleepy and wired; I fall asleep when I’m watching TV but can’t sleep when I get in bed. I need to do some one some violence, but it needs to be, you know, the good hurt kind of violence.
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I swear I haven’t slept more than three hours any night the last week.

I’m getting on to that fog state where I’m sleepy and wired; I fall asleep when I’m watching TV but can’t sleep when I get in bed.

I need to do someone some violence, but it needs to be, you know, the good hurt kind of violence.

Soon, if this keeps going, I’ll get to the hallucination phase. That’s where it gets entertaining.

I dunno what the fuck it is. Ok, well, that’s not true, completely. Some of it’s the cocktail of stress my life has become the last few months; new speed bumps in my road, old speed bumps come back. The usual, only more. And there’s the low-grade mental and physical health shit that comes with that; not getting enough exercise, drinking too much, thinking about sex and escape all day and not having the time or energy or whatever for enough of either.

The wonder of it all is that I have not been sick, really sick, in almost a year. With kids in school, I’m used to having at least two major colds and a sinus infection every winter.

But it all adds up to no sleep. I managed to get myself on a school schedule last week, driving my kids to early day camps, and my clock’s set for early wake-up already; yet my sleep-time clock (damn, I keep typing that as ‘cock’ – see where my brain is at?) is still set for well past midnight no matter how I try to get it earlier.

I need to channel is all into something. I need to get back to the gym and start pumping iron, I need to get my bicycle tuned up so I can ride it (21 gears don’t help much when the front derailleur won’t shift). And I need to get my head off of things I want but can’t have. I need to get back to living in the here-and-now.

Or I need to go back to using narcotics.

Who needs a good spanking? I need to take out a little something on you. Now, not fair offering if you’re far away and can’t travel.

[made with ecto]

Sun and Sea

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It’s been a while since I’ve sat at work and daydreamed about a sandy beach, diving exotic oceans, sailing sunny seas…. I want to sleep in a hammock under a palm tree.

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I can’t stop thinking about sun and sea today.

It’s been a while since I’ve sat at work and daydreamed about a sandy beach, diving exotic oceans, sailing sunny seas. Today I can’t stop picturing it.

I want to sleep in a hammock under a palm tree. I want to walk on a beach and feel my skin go tan. I want that salty feeling my skin has when I’ve been in and out of the ocean all day.

I need to be on a boat. It’s been too long. I feel good when I’m on a boat, at one with the universe. I’m made to be at sea, not land-locked in a valley.

I need to get the fuck outta here.

[made with ecto]

Can’t get my blog on

elvis11 Comments

I have all sorts of shit I want to blog about. A movie I watched saturday (awful!), doing kid-stuff with my kids (simple pleasures), cooking, a book I just finished (very good).

I have all sorts of shit I want to blog about. A movie I watched saturday (awful!), doing kid-stuff with my kids (simple pleasures), cooking, a book I just finished (very good). Another movie I watched last night (funny, and deeply odd).

But I just — can’t. I’m feeling too low, too frustrated, too spent. I just can’t find the words.

I was trying to comment on a friend’s blog last night, and I couldn’t even find the words for that, just stared at the gray background with my fingers on the keys and had — nothing.

I’m again struggling with the urge to take it all down, or archive it all and start over.

Howl and Father’s Day

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So the short review of Howl’s Moving Castle.As Miyazaki goes, don’t expect Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke…. Sweeping vistas, skies that glow with life, inventive creatures, motion that’s not like any other animator.
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So the short review of Howl’s Moving Castle.

As Miyazaki goes, don’t expect Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke. It’s not even close to the magic of those films.

But as films go — well, it’s still Miyazaki. And he’s fucking brilliant.

As always, it’s beautiful. Sweeping vistas, skies that glow with life, inventive creatures, motion that’s not like any other animator. It’s inventive and clever.

Unlike the other films, though, there are plot and pacing issues. The plot makes little sense, and the title character never really makes any sense, vain, shallow and cowardly one moment, brave and honorable the next. We never really see any reason for anyone to love him, yet love is supposed to be the motivation for much of the plot. It’s a muddle, but a light-weight one. There are also moments that drag, where characters are talking to each other without it seeming very relevant.

There’s plenty to like though; the main character, a girl names Sofi who’s under a curse that turns her into an old woman, seems to change ages continually throughout the film in a deeply surreal way; this wasn’t an accident, I think Miyazaki is saying something with it, but I couldn’t quite crack the code. The voice acting is low key, with good turns by Lauren Bacall, Blythe Danner and Jean Simmons, though Christian Bale is entirely too manly as Howl.

Unexpectedly, Billy Crystal’s vocal performance as Calcifer, a fire demon, was wonderful. Usually when they put someone funny in a part like this, it screws up the character, as with Phil Hartman doing the cat in Kiki. Here, for some reason, Crystal’s performance makes it work.

It’s well worth seeing; I’m hoping the weaknesses were due to it being a story from outside source, not due to any slippage of Miyazaki’s talent.

My father’s day was pretty much uneventful. No one fought, no one cried. The kids and I went to the Winchester Mystery House, a place that seems to have endless entertainment value for Olivia, and then I took off and had a little time to myself while the family made me dinner. Not exactly the plan I had in my mind’s eye for the afternoon, but you take what you can get, and peace is not a bad description for a day. Later, I’ll pour a scotch and watch Six Feet Under, and then I’m thinking good thoughts about sleep, something that’s been in short supply lately.

[ of course after I wrote that, I realized that they’ve moved six feet under to a different night, so I had to content myself with old Monty Python episodes, but you know there’s still sleep to look forward to… ]