14 December 09

Ominous rumbling outside and you check the window and see this across the street, and it's intimidating, but also kind of cool and impressive, and humorous in at least two different ways considering the sign. (Click to enlarge.)

1 December 09

Paul McCartney's Wonderful Christmas Time, that holiday equivalent of the ceti eel Khan puts into Chekhov's ear in Star Trek II, grows more detestable with each passing season, but I find that my loathing of the song has acquired a warm, nostalgic glow.

30 November 09

Party in the U.S.A.
A Journey of Discovery
Based on a true story by Miley Cyrus

I disembark at the Los Angeles International Airport with an optimistic agenda and a cardigan sweater. I am greeted by a locale typically associated with celebrity worship and superabundance, and I consider the likelihood of assimilating into such a milieu. Once I've settled into a hired car--this being my first visit to the area--I glance out the driver-side rear window and see what is undoubtedly the district's most recognizable landmark: a lettered sign that tells me, both literally and symbolically, that I have entered an exotic new world. A feeling of senselessness surrounds me. Each citizen, however ordinary, has an air of specialness or renown. My stomach rolls with nausea and I experience a vague longing for my native environment. An excess of mental strain leads to anxiety, but at that precise moment, the driver of the car turns on the stereo and I hear a composition by a popular hip-hop artist...

The driver leaves me at an establishment for evening entertainment. Inside, the patrons assess my appearance as if to say, "Who, pray tell, is this young woman wearing boots of a common, nay rural working class, style? Surely she must be visiting from a vastly different locality." I find that merely being in attendance presents a considerable challenge without the support of my closest female acquaintances. This is decidedly not the variety of social gathering to which I am accustomed in the southeastern city I call home. My attention focuses on the other women's footwear, particularly the long, thin heels that are aptly named after a type of dagger. I think to myself--wryly, I admit--that I must have failed to receive some widespread notification regarding mandatory sameness of shoe. Yet again, I suffer nausea, displacement, and mounting apprehension, until the disc jockey selects a song by a former child star turned teen idol...a song I happen to enjoy a great deal.

I raise my hands overhead, both delighting in the familiar music and, in a way, claiming it as part of my identity. The fluttering sensation in my stomach departs. I nod my head in affirmation and, curiously, rotate my pelvis in concurrence with the aforementioned nod. It occurs to me, in near-epiphanic fashion, that my well-being is now and always has been secure, and that in spite of geographic and socioeconomic differences, this specific gathering is, thanks to the commonalities of music and dance, universal, and, indeed, representative of the country at large.

17 October 09

Fine start to the Super Six World Boxing Classic tonight. Arthur Abraham vs. Jermain Taylor was a measured, interesting fight with a spectacular 12th round KO from Abraham. Carl Froch vs. Andre Dirrell was a not-quite electrifying but slightly more exhilarating match-up, largely due to the unpredictability and messiness of the action.

I liked Germany's Abraham going in, and then he warmed me up even more by entering the arena to the music of The Scorpions. Not music over the sound system, mind you, but the actual Scorpions, replete with pyrotechnics and all that wondrous 80s metal Germanness, which was not--you could just tell--intended as retro camp...not even when 'King' Arthur Abraham descended onto the stage wearing some kind of crazy longhair barbarian robe with a high collar. As for the fight itself, Abraham's defense is virtually impenetrable, and his late knockout didn't seem fluky but genuinely devastating. This is a guy who once fought eight rounds with a broken jaw and won. Tough as old German nails, one of the top guys to beat in this tournament, no doubt.

England's Carl Froch is one scrappy, occasionally dirty fighter, and while his sneaky after-the-break hits and back-of-the-head shots would normally turn me against a guy, I found it weirdly satisfying tonight, maybe because--as Froch himself explained after he won--he was trying to fight and Dirrell kept holding and very nearly whining. Still, Froch wasn't outright illegal (not often, anyway...he just seemed like a good tough Brit) and Dirrell showed serious stamina and skill. Split decision went to Froch, which seemed about right.

I did enjoy when Showtime commentator and former light heavyweight champ Antonio Tarver accidentally referred to Carl Froch as "Crotch".

The tournament continues in November with Andre Ward and Mikkel Kessler, the second of whom is real Danish dynamite and has some bad-ass Viking tattoos:

14 October 2009

I finished Round One of prepping the pumpkin patch for next spring. Most of the major, close-surface shale has been removed, and my drainage tests are good. A farmer told me over the weekend that shale, which he has in abundance in his cornfield, is often more porous than soil, but I needed to remove the upper layers and mound the surface to give the roots a foot or so to grow. I expect my soil test from Cornell in the coming week and will add whatever's lacking. I'll also be mulching most of the leaves from our Norway Maple, which doesn't really turn until November. Below are before/after photos of the patch, along with a few pictures of the shale I removed.

29 September 09

Took me an hour to get a flu shot but--I kid you not--three minutes to renew my driver's license at the DMV. I walked in, went straight to the counter, handed over my form, read Line #7 on the eye chart, signed the organ donor agreement, passed my current license and credit card back and forth, exchanged salubrious badinage, received my temporary license, mentioned the hour-long wait for my flu shot in contrast to the exemplary DMV service, said thanks, and left.

_______________

Shale Haiku

Harvesting pumpkins:
Sunset cornucopia,
Undercrop of shale.

28 September 09

Spent 5 hours digging massive amounts of shale out of the garden today. Excellent core workout. I estimate another 10-20 hours of shale removal before I'm satisfactorily finished. I'd quit if it weren't killing my drainage. The big challenge at the moment is a giant shale mass with a concrete top, apparently a former clothesline pole support that was buried 6 inches underground. I'm borrowing my Dad's sledgehammer.

Good stuff I found in the process: one nickel.

Later in the day, I took a nap and dreamed that I was digging large plates of shale out of the ground. The dream was surprisingly pleasant.

Let's say the word together for a while, shall we? Shale shale shale shale shale shale shale shale shale shale shale shale Shale shale shale shale shale shale shale shale shale shale shale shale.

It's like "shit" and "hell" combined.