Most informative encyclopedia entry ever?

I know I JUST posted, but that's irrelevant. What IS relevant is that we all know that Wikipedia is the world's best online encyclopedia, nay, the world's best encyclopedia. It is constantly updated, has articles for nearly everything, and has other sites such as Wikibooks and my favorite, Wikitravel. One of the things I enjoy about their encyclopedia is that at the bottom of whatever entry you're currently enjoying, it has a list of categories. I looked up two people yesterday, Rip Torn and Tony Reali. Rip Torn is a totally awesome actor, most famous for his role as the boss man in Men in Black, but was also in another of my faves, Welcome to Mooseport. At the bottom of his entry, he's under a number of categories including people born in (whatever year he was born), etc., but of higher interest was that I learned he was a Freemason. This is informative. Not so news to me was that he was in the category titled "Living People." Now, this could be useful incase you didn't know whether or not a serial killer had been executed, or didn't get the memo that Lincoln was assassinated, but is it really necessary to have a documented list of living people in your encyclopedia??? You decide.

H'n'B Don't Read This Post!!!

Viva la France??? More like Morte Alla Francia Italia Anela. (That's supposedly the phrase that creates the acrronym "Mafia," and it translates out of Italian to "Death to French Cries Italy.") It could be Italy and France in the finals (check out the tree or whatever it's called for football), although my guess is Brazil's going all the way. I'd like to see Italy, Argentina, Portugal and Brazil in the Semifinals. I think Brazil's got it taken care of on their end, and shouldn't have any problem serving the French head on a platter. That's what I think... but considering France also beat the living mess out of Spain, which was disappointing... hmmm.
People need to understand that I'm only PRETENDING to know all about football, but I do know that Brazil is the mackdaddy.
Spain scored first, and it didn't take France long to tie it up. They took their second goal in a very graceful set of passes, culminating in an impressive shot. That was with about twenty minutes left, and Spain had a few chances, one very close one as a matter of fact, to tie it up. But with about three minutes left to play, the Frenchies added insult to injury by sealing their victory with a goal that put them two up with mere seconds left. It made me sad. I will admit they played well.

Україна!!!!

Ukraine wins against Switzerland!!!
(I know I haven't posted in a while because I just got back into town, but more on that later.)
I did just get back into town and have been keeping up on H'n'B's play-by-play, and had Ukraine vs. Switzerland on television all this afternoon. Not a very exciting game, as the entire 90 mins was spent not scoring, but the shootout at the end is the most exciting thing in the world, so as I understand it, Ukraine advances to the quarterfinals. I'm not up on football right now, but I'm working on it.
In keeping with H'n'B's criteria for deciding on favored teams, Ukraine is much more closely related to Russian, geographically and linguistically, but I've been to Switzerland, and it's beautiful. The SwissAir pilot performed a beautiful landing in Zürich during one of the worst storms I've been in, and everyone clapped. Anyway, I decided upon Ukraine, but that's short lived since they're playing Italy in the quarterfinals, and very few countries rank as highly in food, language, history, beauty of population, and general culture as Italy, so I'll be hoping they pull it off against my Slavic friends.
More on my trip later.

Only one small thing about a story

Turns out my first real completed story isn't so much as I thought. A fellow blogger convinced me to go back and change some things around, and it's making its way through an experimental phase (like when you decided to go get those colored contacts and talk with a Jamaican accent) that I'll at least entertain for a while. I've made all the changes, and have either maintained or fixed most of the continuity issues, but I haven't read through it from end to end, so I'll have to make sure that's actually the case. We'll see how I like it, and decide where to go from there: I may trash it, but we'll see. I want to keep the same tone, or atmosphere about it, a lot of which is created in the order, and that's the big thing that fellow blogger suggested should change. We'll see. There were a few things that HAD to be where they were, and I was able to work around them and keep them where they needed to be. I want to make sure these changes didn't make the chain of events too light-hearted, because, as far as I'm concerned, this story isn't. I also want everyone to know that I won't be posting the story on the blog. If you want a copy, you'll have to grovel just a tiny bit to get me to send you the entire word document, and if you're lucky, you may get the cool version, with the cover page, and all that stuff, but I doubt it.
We also know i've been working on trying to get together something that IS lighthearted and happy and not so incredibly downhearted or dark. Well, nothing so far. I'll keep you posted. This is a short post.
I also feel it noteworthy to mention that I have nothing further to say, which is important because I ALWAYS have something further to say. It may just be because the smell of dinner is wafting from the grill in the backyard into the office and into my soul, saying "feed me," so I guess the speechless thing is foiled again.
Until we meet again...

Take one off my bottom ten

Welp, number six has been removed from my bottom ten, if you remember reading that post. Number six was… Turkish. I didn’t give those people enough credit. I like the organization and feel of the language. It’s highly agglutinative, and has NO IRREGULAR VERBS and ALL nouns follow the EXACT same pattern. Also no articles.
Agglutinative means that it’s similar to Finnish or Hungarian, and doesn’t use specific words or prepositions or other things to create meanings, but rather that a base word has prefixes, suffixes, or infixes that give the base noun it’s meaning, so things like “into the house,” away from the house,” (and more things than just prepositional phrases) could be one word and carry the meaning of many individual ones, because you build from one thing, and add to it. An entire sentence in English involving a subject, verb of being and either some predicate adjectives or predicate nominatives can be translated as one (sometimes extremely long) word. It sounds confusing, but it’s incredibly precise and logical. The language doesn’t seem as icky to me as it once did. This is why.
I met a woman in service who speaks it. My brother actually spoke with her first and called me and told me where she lived. She said she was living with her brother, who also speaks Armenian, and I was able to say some things to her in Turkish, like “I apologize,” or “nice to meet you,” and “What is your name,” and “My name’s The Polyglot.” She was no taller than about 4’10” and was incredibly buff, but had the mentality of the sweetest grandmotherly housekeeper type. She was delightful.
I’ve also been podcasting, and because I haven’t had a lot of time to search for/organize these things into logical sequences yet, I haven’t been hunting for a whole bunch of language aids, specifically Chinese and Russian. What I’ve been doing instead is getting news broadcasts in foreign languages, so I’ve got a half-hour news story in Finnish, another in Hungarian, a wannabe “Entertainment Tonight,” episode in Italian, some Persian folktales, an Icelandic news story, as well as some really large audio files of online restaurant review magazines in French, based out of Montreal.
Anyway, that’s all for now. I’ve got to go learn some more Turkish. And work. And have breakfast.
(Also, a Turkish accent sounds somewhat like Russian if you really don’t listen, but it’s got some sounds that are a little too Arabicky to sound similar enough to a Slavic language. Her English accent also sounds Slavic, and I asked her if she spoke Russian. That was a no-go.) Turkish is an Altaic language, and is therefore related to most of the –stan country languages: Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, (NOT Pakistan), and even Mongolian (no –stan) are all Altaic languages. Some linguists are dead set certain that Korean has its roots as an Altaic language, but this is mostly looked upon in the linguistic world as people believing the moon is made of cheese. Turkish is the largest and most practical of the Altaic language family, and the subgroup is none other than Turkic… who’da thunkit?
So Turkish is being replaced as number six by a new addition: Hmong

Flashcards and My New Toy

So. First, an announcement: I’ve decided to start making flashcards (well, not really flashcards as much as “crash course survival phrases that can fit on one 4x6 index card”) in 32 languages, or what were 32 languages last I counted: The phrases come from here, and the “incomplete,” ones that don’t have the selected phrases I’ve decided on using (about twelve of them) I’ll get from somewhere else, and the languages are (in alphabetical order): Arabic, Bambara, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hausa, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Laotian, Malayalam, Nepali, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swahili, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, and Vietnamese.

The only issue is, I have JUST enough room right now to be able to get in everything I need to have in, plus a few lines for notes. The cards are in two columns with some empty lines at the bottom of the right-hand column for extra stuff, if I come along something notable. Here’s the thing: for languages I cannot read (yet), like Hindi, Japanese, Burmese, Laotian, and other Indian or Asian languages, or other languages that don’t use our alphabet (with the exception of Slavic languages, because I can read those) I have got to figure out how to incorporate room for a phonetic spelling in the Roman alphabet. So that’s in the works, but I’ve got seven or eight of them saved on the compy already.

More about my new toy: first the bad. It crashed on me once, but that was a quick fix. It also wouldn’t turn off one time, and I just had to hit the reset button to restart it; when this happens, it takes a good five minutes to reboot and “recover,” just like your computer scans the hard drive for errors or such, so that was a little irritating. You also can’t use the device when it’s plugged into the USB, which is inconvenient, but not enough to be severely important. Also, there’s a dongle that plugs into the bottom of the device that allows a place for the charger, the USB cord, and an A/V out cord to plug in. I haven’t checked to see if these are available individually, but it would be nice to have one at my desktop, one in my room, and one at the stereo so I didn’t have to keep up with it, although the A/V out I haven’t used yet… So those are some irritations.

The screen is remarkably clear. It seems nearly absurd to watch a movie, a clip, a downloaded episode of your favorite television show, or anything else, for that matter, on something the size of a cassette tape with a screen that’s even smaller, but it become highly reasonable when you see it. It’s also not one of those really soft screens like for your monitor, and since it’s not a touchscreen, it’s not horribly sensitive to pressure. It seems far more sturdy (I just realized Italian isn’t on my list of languages; make that 33 unless I take out German, which I’ll explain later) than most other device screens. I’m told it scratches easily, though, but I haven’t noticed that yet, probably because I haven’t taken of that plasticky rubberish screen cover that comes on most cell phones and alarm clocks and things. I figure I’ll do that if I decide to keep it (and I am, but just for good measure, they can’t say I damaged it if I freakishly decide I don’t like it). I like the FM tuner/recorder for OBVIOUS reasons. Even though I don’t listen to the radio, the recorder feature is super duper for some talk shows or things on NPR or whatever that are worth listening to. Oh, it’s a little hard to use with one hand, unlike the Karma, and it may be easier to use with smaller hands, but it’s a little awkward for me to get my thumb to the scroll bar with it in the palm of my hand without dropping it. The clarity, I think, is as good as most anything I’ve heard without being live, or on a CD. The picture functions are actually pretty sweet: rotate, zoom, set as wallpaper, as well as creating slideshows to music (a function that has to be done on the computer). There are also a lot (from the little bit that I’ve looked) of coolish clips, cases, and thingys for this device, like one for the iPod, a carrying case, but also a hard case with a kickstand to set on the tray table (or office desk) while you watch a video, so you don’t have to hold it the entire time, instead of hovering over it lying flat. It also fits perfectly into the leather holster for my PalmTreo®, and the headphone jack matches perfectly with the hole where the earpiece is supposed to go thru to the bottom of the phone, so I’ve been using that until I get around to getting one for this (if I decide to). The buttons aren’t super sensitive, so they don’t get mashed by accident (except for the scroll bar, which I’ve already mentioned is moody and takes some getting used to). It’s sleek and fits comfortably into every pocket I’ve put it into (except for the teeny tiny one inside the right pocket of every pair of jeans. You know: the one that’s only good for a stick of chapstick, or that you can’t get the quarter out of the bottom of? Yeah, that one), so it’s easily tote-able. I love it.

The Difference

The difference between what, you may ask? Well, of course, the promised analysis of my current mp3 players. And of course, this really doesn’t do anybody any good that isn’t looking for one, but it has been a topic of discussion lately among me and… (shut up, I didn’t ask you.)

The old (and stolen) and the new (and growing on me) are two different monsters. Here’s what I like about each.

I LOVED this thing. The Rio was very sturdy. It was rather thick, but compact. I really don’t care how thin something is if it’s the size of a regular sheet of paper. This thing was about three inches square or so, and maybe even an inch thick, but it was the perfect size to fit in my hand. The main controls were on either side (left and right), and for anyone that’s ever used a blackberry, you know what functionality the scroll wheel brings to any device. This one works very much the same. It is accompanied by a joysticky thing just below it that can be used to scroll, but mostly to pause, stop, or skip tracks in either direction. The other side has the two volume buttons, so holding it in my right hand, I have my thumb on the right side, and index and middle finger on the opposite for the volume buttons. It was great. Oh, something that this has that the blackberry doesn’t (with regards to the similarities between the scroll wheels, not because these two are competitors of any sort) is that (because the scroll wheel sticks out on the corner, you can change the screen orientation for southpaws so that the scroll wheel is on the left corner. Very nifty.

Next is that it holds up to 20G of music. It’s actually just shy of that (more than just shy, if you ask me), at around 18.6. The screen was not a color screen and was nothing more than a very basic screen with 16 shades of gray. No photo displaying here, no crazy visualizations, none of that, but who cares? The screen didn’t suck battery life because it didn’t do a whole lot. It was very well-lit (you could change those settings), and had some great equalizer settings. The features for this thing were unbelievable. You could search for song by artist, album, song title, genre, year of release, and I think even playcount. It had some great DJ features, like “most popular music,” “least popular music,” “random,” and some other grouped searches like “music listened to in the evening,” and stuff. The super cool thing about it was that you also chose how much music to pull off, so if you chose random (a very basic feature, if you ask me) you could select the length of the music at 15 minutes, 30 mins, 60, 90 min, and 2, 4, or 8 hours of music. It was spiffy. The power of this thing to create on-the-fly playlists was outstanding. Most mp3 players will only let you do this on the computer and sync them to the device. Crappy. Super crappy. You could choose songs, albums, or entire artists to queue to my “now playing,” and then delete the ones you don’t want, or change the order, or WHATEVER, and then save it from the device. You named it and everything, and could open and edit it later. This seems like such an easy task, but it’s so rare. It’s a beautiful thing. Rio Karma also played many many file formats, from mp3s and WMAs to lossless formats, and even OGG, which was super cool, even though I only have like two .ogg files. Also, sound quality, very good. Drop-safe (although I wouldn’t recommend it). Doesn’t have a whole lot of extras, like carrying cases, or clips, or anything like that, but that’s no biggie. Using the docking station, you can connect to anything with an RCA cable, and you could even do this thru the headphone jack if you had the right stuff. The first one I had crashed that week, but Circuit City replaced it, and I loved it ever since. I did have to use the reset button every so often. If it weren’t stolen, I would have run out of space on it shortly thereafter. No FM tuner, no voice recorder (but a really solid stopwatch) Just a great player. Very basic, but it covers ALL the basics.

Now for the new, but only in comparison to the second, because this is getting long-ish. It has a lot more gadgety features like an FM tuner, voice recorder, FM recorder, photo viewer, VIDEO (!!!!), slideshows, file storage, 10 more GB of capacity, full color 262,000-something color screen, organizer, contact manager, (both of which sync with Outlook, which isn’t too terribly useful for me because I have a PalmTreo®), saved pictures of album art that displays when you play the album, and some other cool things like “album of the day,” which is really just a “random album,” function. The playlist function isn’t as great: you can create and save them, but you can’t change the order. If you open one up, play it, and queue more tracks behind it, you can save it with the same name, and it’ll ask if you want to overwrite the existing one, and you can do that, but you can’t change the order. Somewhat irritating. There are a total of seven buttons and a scroll thing. The power button on top also doubles as the “hold,” button in the other direction (during hold, the buttons obviously are not functional, but the screen goes into hibernation after about five seconds, which dramatically reduces battery usage, which is cool, but I keep forgetting to turn it off, which can be a pain). There are six main buttons under the screen: top left is a customizable shortcut button (neat feature) top right is the play/pause/go-to button. Bottom left is a “back,” button, and bottom right is a menu button. Right in the middle, running from top to bottom is a touch-sensitive scroll bar that mimics the i-pod’s wheel, except this is a bar. It has a section in the middle to select or change screens, and then the actual scroll function where you can either run your finger up and down, or hold at one end or the other. I have found that my “scroll down” section on the bar is disproportionate to the middle or scroll up sections, so that is kind of irritating, but you get used to it all. It’s not as intuitive as the Karma, but I’ve gotten used to it. Give it a week or so of constant use, and I suggest creating playlists to give yourself some practice. It’s very quick once you get the hang of it, but it takes a little while to do that. Don’t let that stop you, though; this thing is extremely powerful, and I have come to love it in the week (exactly) that I’ve had it. Oh, also, it seems that the video and photo storage does not detract from the total capacity on the hard drive (which makes no sense, so lemme ‘splain). I’ve put about 21 GB of stuff on here so far, and when I added about an hour’s worth of video clips and shorts and things, the “free space,” stat did not change, nor did it change when I added a few hundred photos. This thing boasts “thousands of photos,” and “120 hours of video,” or something like that, so don’t be worried about that, I’ve got about 8,000 MB still left on here, with many of my songs at about 300 kbps, which is far too high, but whatever.

I’ve gotta go. More later. If you’re good.  

Catching Up

It seems that I never post over the weekend because that’s my time off from the computer, I guess. So, here’s the updates (formalities, really. The interesting details may come later in the day):

Friday- took a day off from service to go play golf an hour and some change away from home. It torrentially rained twice while we were there and the entire way home. My uncle was in our foursome (it was a scramble, a best ball thing, and that’s the only reason I went. It takes the pressure off) and it was really good to see him. We played all but two holes and drove home so I could make GSAM (or rather POAM: part of a movie), and H’n’B and Kimmi Stewart did bring me my Thai tea, or my “this tastes like sticks,” drink, but H’n’B can’t decide what kind of sticks. The movie was Young Frankenstein, and it’s sad to say H’n’B did not appreciate it. Everyone else did (I think) and Madeline Kahn, Marty Feldman, Teri Garr, Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle and Gene Hackman were as good as ever.

Saturday- Regular: bookstudy, service (‘twas hot)(I spoke to a Hindi-speaking person), played Tennis with I Dunno, and we did better than I thought. We were actually playing at a congregation get-together for a couple that’s moving to not-so-South-Georgia (shout out to H’n’B) and I’ll see them more regularly because OthaBrotha lives down there and I’ll visit his congregation, too. So I played tennis at a going away party.

Saturday evening- a very nice get-together for I Dunno finishing his school career as he knows it. Lots of our favorite people were there, and I ate far too much food: spinach bread, awesome pizza, little mozzarella-and-cherry tomato bites, and phenomenal desserts. I’m already hungry. All in all, I Dunno got some great things, and it was made known that everyone is proud of him for all that he has done and is doing.

Sunday- the usual, and Grandpa called Saturday to ask me and I Dunno to move a treadmill from his driveway into his house. Told him we could do it Sunday afternoon. Scratched lupper plans to go and everything. Called him on the way there from the meeting; turns out he took it apart and brought it in in pieces. So I missed lupper. Turns out my bad headache was developing into a miserable one, and I was losing any functional vision. Forget lupper, I’m going home. That also meant that the open house for Spanish class was out, and I spent the day at home watching something about the Loch Ness monster. I only felt better when I slept, and that was only in increments of about fifteen minutes apiece about half an hour apart. Yeah. Got feeling better and all was well.

Back it up! to Thursday afternoon: was driving myself crazy not having anything to do at work and having far too much to do outside the office. Got a lot of it done, and went to Circuit City to buy what I had long gone without: an mp3 player. My Rio Karma was stolen last May in a Publix parking lot, and I nearly went into cardiac arrest. Also stolen were my eyeglasses (in a gunmetal Oakley case) and the radio transmitter I used to play my mp3 player thru the radio. NOT stolen was a few hundred dollars worth of tennis equipment and many hundreds of dollars of CDs all sitting in the passenger seat, untouched, not to mention the car itself. So I went and got myself a new mp3 player, and it is delicious. I don’t have time to now, but I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each one in an upcoming post (most likely tonight), so be ready for it. I’m thrilled with it so far, but I’ve got a road trip (of sorts) later this month, and have thirty days to return it (no strings attached) or to go ahead and buy the 2-year warranty plan diggy bob incase ANYTHING goes wrong with it, so basically I have it on loan right now. I’ll ‘splain later.

You must be joking

I saw a commercial for this yesterday on television. Humans have seen too much of themselves in reality television. But isn't that the point? Besides the fact that what we see on "reality" TV isn't normal anyway, what makes this show reality tv? Isn't it based on the audience's perception? I think this show was a bad theory put into practice.

Two evils do not one good make

Funny that two things I only kind of like create something I don’t like. I was talking to a Pakistani friend of mine at his gas station about an acquisition he’s interested in. It’s quite a purchase, and he asked me if it would be “good for [his] future,” or if I could find out… Like all I had to do was go ask the real estate agent. We talked for a while about some things, and some other things, and he had a customer come in, so I quickly stepped aside. When I did, I was met with this. I had heard about it, but never did really think twice about spending one and a half of my hard-earned dollars on one of these bad boys. Until it stared me in the face from it’s teeny tiny fridgy thing atop the counter next to the soft drinks, and I told it “you look cold, and it’s hot outside; may I buy you?” and it said “of course,” but in a more uncouth way, because I don’t see Coca Cola Blak saying anything like “most certainly,” or anything. My friend and I spoke a little longer, and he asked me to keep my eye out for land for sale. I told him I would and I was on my way. The bottle, covered in a plastic label shrunk so tight you couldn’t even tell it was there, was cold to the touch, and I cracked it open. It did a dramatic steam, bubble thing, like you’d expect to come out of the three witches’ cauldron in the first act of Macbeth. I took a sip, and that alone did not change my mind. I took another, and contemplated, but the simple fact was that the complex flavors and tastes were not being released because the beverage was too warm. I got in the car and had a Chick-Fil-A cup with only the ice left in it, and poured it in and stirred. Once colder, the essence of the drink came to be, and it tasted less like an exact mix of 50% coffee and 50% regular coke as much as it tasted like a coffee jelly bean. I don’t know, but it certainly can’t touch the Thai tea that Horse’n’Buggy thinks tastes like sticks. It’s nowhere near as good. So, after drinking nearly the entire bottle in an effort to like it, (as I was not repulsed by it so much as confused) I was home and poured the rest down the drain. I set the bottle next to the sink, though, because it looked cool. I kept the cup, as it was Styrofoam, and filled it with ice, poured a healthy portion of half and half over the ice, topped that with a few packets of Splenda ®, as it dissolves in cold beverages and sugar does not (no matter how much you stir), and poured the remainder of that morning’s lukewarm coffee over this concoction. I was left with a delightful iced coffee drink. It pleased me, and eliminated the jelly bean-ness left over from the other drink.
The conclusion of this is, as I stated at the beginning, and repeat (as any convincing writer does at the end of a persuasive dissertation) that Coke, which I only like on certain occasions (mostly when someone else is drinking one and it’s chilled and somewhat diluted [and only matched with the perfect meal]), and coffee, which I’m trying to convince myself to like (but can’t because I’m told that the coffee I drink looks like melted vanilla ice cream: just as sweet, and just as light), together make something I am not fond of. I should have known this from the beginning. A lesson learned.

Numb3R5

So what have I to catch up on? Well: (1) Visitors to GoodSoupAndAMovie (2) a lazy man on the way there (3) a concert (4) learning Romanian (5) learning Portuguese [but not really] (6) people from Mississippi, and (7) last night’s movie. But maybe not in that order. But probably.
Affable Olive, her sister Marry Me, and their mother all came to visit Friday evening. Affable told me that they were coming, and warned that they may come to the house early. I was out in service all day Friday, and was going to be home a little after five o’clock, as usual, but this week we were meeting earlier because my grandmother, famous for her date balls at Horse’n’Buggy’s housewarming party, was coming. We were watching Walk the Line and it was a movie H’n’B thought she would like. She did. But anyway, I was on my way home from service, and it’s HOT, I mean HOT (yes, that’s bold, italics, underlined, and all caps), so I’m less than presentable, and as part of my regular schedule, come home from service and take a shower immediately. I then have time to check my email, relax, catch up on things before I leave for GSAM. I was behind this car in the neighborhood, and I don’t know why I noticed it, but I didn’t notice the county plate that would have made it obvious that this was the Olive family. I followed them through the neighborhood toward my house up my driveway where I lay on the horn for a while. Summary: all three get out, Mamma Olive decides to go to Fancy Mexican with my parents, and Olive children come to GSAM. The parentals left early, and we weren’t far behind. We listened to good music of one kind or another on the way, and I think Guster was in. Anyway, I drive thru this neighborhood to get to the restaurant because going the normal way, there’s a left turn at a stop sign you have to make where I have sat for literally fifteen minutes. So I go through the neighborhood. It’s a fancy one with big houses that don’t match, and they don’t have a HOA and stuff, and some of the curbs are painted white, and there’s speed bumps, or “traffic calming devices,” as the signs say. So we’re driving thru and we see this guy pull up into his driveway and get out to check his mail. He parks the car at the bottom of the driveway and leaves the driver door open. He grabs his big fat trash can like he’s gonna bring it up to the house and then come get the car. With a twinkle in his eye and a (supposed) spark of ingenuity, he tries to fit the weird handle of the trash can over the trailer ball on his hitch, only, I imagine, to his disappointment, to find that he has to walk it up either way. People are so lazy. (That paragraph takes care of 1 and 2, and I have decided not to discuss 4 and 5 at this time).
This paragraph handles numbers 3 and 6. I got a text message Saturday evening from a friend of mine in Mississippi, who said she was in town and wanted to do something. She would only be here until Tuesday, and wanted to go see a movie or something. That was cool. I had plans Saturday night, a prior engagement, a dinner thing for some friends that are moving away, and I couldn’t not go. I told her that Sunday would work fine, and that I’d give her a call when I was home. She said she had dinner plans with her relatives, but they were going to be early, and then we could go do something afterwards. (Oh, she also had with her some of her friends from San Antonio). This girl NEVER answers her phone, even when I know she’s just texted me or something, and Podunk Mobile doesn’t offer voicemail, so there’s no leaving a message. Didn’t hear from her, didn’t hear from her, called, didn’t hear from her, called again, etc. Then, Cpl Mother (whose nickname will change, but suffices for the purpose of this post) pulled me aside and asked if I wanted to go to a concert that evening. She and her husband were going, and so was Kimmi Stewart. H’n’B was supposed to go, but couldn’t for reasons immaterial to this post. I agreed on the spot, thus dumping Miss MS for the evening. The weather was unbearably hot when I went home to do yardwork, and I showered and prepared to leave to meet at the Cpl’s house. Summary: we packed a delightful dinner (thanks to Kimmi), the weather cooled down greatly, the opening act (Toby Lightman) was AWESOME, and Jewel was spectacular. I don’t have any of her CDs, but she’s a great live performer. She talks between songs as if it’s over coffee, and does somewhat of a comedy routine, but not enough to be annoying. At one point, she stopped and went on this spiel: “This is the best song I’ve written; I don’t want to brag, but as far as song writing goes, this one’s way up there. It’s lyrical, poetic, socially relevant, moving, and emotional. And, like any other classic socially relevant song, it’s a polka!” (Oh, by the way, the rest of the band had moved off stage by now, and everything else she did was solo, so she just had her guitar.) She proceeds to play this jumpy cutesy singalong number that should have belonged on Sesame Street or Barney or something, and it was entitled “Does anyone want to catch a cold with me?” It was HYSTERICAL! Summary: Jewel has an incredible voice, can totally rock out or play the delicate singer/songwriter, displays phenomenal voice control, sings “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” a capella that would make Judy Garland extremely jealous, and can yodel to make even the staunchest yodel-hater jealous and/or highly emotional. She was amazing, but in the end, got the nix because the neighborhood ordinance doesn’t allow yodeling (or any other loud stuff) to go on after 11 pm, and therefore the timers clicked and she lost sound. It was over. She was incredible. I shall elaborate more later.
Continuing with number 6: since we didn’t go do anything on Sunday, we’d figure on doing something Monday night. I had made plans with the Cpl to be out Monday until at least 3 pm, and maybe 5. Miss MS texted me at 2 pm and said they were going downtown to see all the cool stuff that real cities have, and she wanted me to come. I declined unless they were leaving after 3, and she said they were already on their way. She told me she would be back around 4-ish, and that she had to go to the mall to return a few things. I would be home by then and would call her to catch up with them. That was the gameplan, and she had dinner plans at seven or eight, so we had time to bum around before then. I got home later than I thought I would’ve (around 4), and showered. I txted her and said I would be available the rest of the evening. She did not respond. The family and I had to go downstairs and watch a movie for the meeting tomorrow night, and it was only about a half an hour (Oh by the way, H’n’B had called me earlier to see if I wanted to see X-men: The Last Stand that evening, and I said yes. She suggested about a 7 oclocker, and that would be perfect because Miss MS would be having dinner by that time.) My family and I watched the movie, and I had developed one of these tension headaches (or something) that I seem to get, and nothing can cure it. I’ve tried to exercise, drink water, avoid reading, take Tylenol, etc. and the only thing that works is sleep. I lay in the recliner and turned on X-men 2 and slept for about an hour. Dad woke me up, and I had been dead to the world. Feeling somewhat better, I texted Miss MS and it said something to this effect: “Hey, good job with catching up at the mall.” I was tired of her by this time. I immediately called H’n’B to finalize movie plans, and we went to see it, along with IDunno (who I think at one time was called Hugginest Boy).
The movie was awesome. Lots of people die, though, but very, very significant things happen to a lot of characters. It was a little disorganized at first, because there were a lot of factions in the movie that you couldn’t identify with, or know who to focus your attention on, and it made for a busy plot at first. It became more well defined later on, but the one thing I was a little disappointed with was that it wasn’t really long enough to be the grand epic finale that a third (and last) movie in a series should have been (in my opinion), but I would definitely recommend it, especially because Famke Janssen is stunningly beautiful. I was expecting a three hour thing, but it was good. I’ll just have to see it again.
I’m finished for now, and I’m sure more details on all of this will come later, as will numbers 3 and 4.

Hope you're getting a visual

Some things (and one very good one) I forgot to mention about the graduation party last weekend:
1. I saw some of my very dear cousins (one of whom I stayed with for a while and we bonded) (another of whom is identical to my mother, and has a very cool husband) and it made my year to see them

2. My uncle and his son each took turns playing the really old (but cool) piano. It was all dusty and cracking on the inside, and the felt on the hammers were all rotted out. They played all sorts of  things, and it had a very cool (and out of tune) distinct “old” sound, like walking into a ghost town. I took some really cool pictures from my phone and I don’t know why they didn’t get saved, but here’s one, and it’s blurry because the person that was playing it hit me.

Anyway, it was old and the finish had almost turned green, but you could see, if you opened the cabinet, that it was the prettiest mahogany. Oh, by the way, it was an upright piano, the deepest I’ve ever seen. The cabinet itself, before even reaching the keys, was probably three feet out from the wall. Very nice. The sound was like the sound on (I know, I’m a nerd) Bells for Her, from Tori Amos’ CD Under the Pink, because in that recording, the took apart and (speedily) rebuilt the piano she played on, and it has a really cool sound.

3. Now for getting the visual: the backyard of this really cool western-style barn/party hall/shack-looking-thang sloped down into a thin forest where you could just see through to the pond. It was very cool, and was a perfect amphitheatre. The band was set up after dinner to play; they were a local gig, and good friends of the graduate. Dear Cousins and I were walking around after dinner, drinks in hand, (and 300 degrees outside) walking the backyard, and one of them says to me “So what kind of music do these guys play?” They had the “Sound of Music,” soundtrack playing (as a joke obviously) while they set up, so I responded “They’re doing My Favorite Things, a few Mary Poppins numbers and an Ethel Merman medley. My cousin responded with the following, and thus the “Ethel Merman Tribute Band,” was born. You really had to be there, and maybe it was just the scorching heat, but it was hysterical. We laughed about that for quite some time, as it was a real knee-slapper.

I think that’s all for now… except that they played Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing, and almost did a really good job.

And as a bonus, which I’m thoroughly excited about but too tired to expound upon, I was informed that someone was thinking of me and bought me a ticket to go see Guster. And no, I don’t have any extras, so if you want to come you must buy your own. You see, I WAS INVITED.

Thank you. That is all.

Filler

I haven’t blogged in a while (aka a few days) and I feel it’s about time to fill you in on the nothing that I’m doing.

I made a list a while ago on Amazon.com of a bunch of recommended CDs that are things that were either recommended to me, or were listed on the “if you liked…” type of thing, so I checked out some of my favorite albums and tried to see who was suggested to me, and then looked at the “if you liked…” for them, so I have a huge list of people to check out. The list is very long, and right now I’m listening to Patrick Park’s album Loneliness Knows My Name. It’s really good, and to me he sounds l like a cross between Bread and Bob Dylan… I think. I’ve recently gotten a few Best Buy gift cards, and since they’re not for a whole bunch, I’m going to treat myself to a new CD, since anything I buy makes me feel guilty for not saving the money for my Big Trip coming up next year. So I have reason to buy something, and I’m going to make it worthwhile.

Besides that, there’s not a whole lot going on. I went to my cousin’s graduation party this past weekend, and it reminds me that there’s nothing like family. I have a great one. We had a blast, from playing soccer indoors (with a volleyball) among light fixtures, windows, and an old piano (which I was not fretting about. It looked super cool, but was at LEAST a hundred years old and had not been kept up); we drove home through the nothingland and had the windows down with two of my favorite cousins listening to one of the best CDs I own, and it was all mellow and nice. We came home and put said CD while about fifteen of my family, aunts, uncles cousins, watched graduated cousin open his presents and count his loot. We all ate tons of barbecue sandwiches, complete with jalapenos, yellow mustard, onions, coleslaw, and washed it all down with gallons of Welch’s grape soda. There were, like I said, about fifteen of us, and we barely put a dent in what we had. It was grand. We all crashed around 2 am. We hung out at the pool the next day, and then on the way home enjoyed listening to the Walk the Line soundtrack, aforementioned best CD, and John Mayer, and we all sang all the way home, except when one cousin slept for a while. It was very enjoyable.

Now I’m listening to Will Hoge’s Blackbird on a Lonely Wire, and this may be the one I’m buying, but his voice isn’t entirely unique, and neither is his sound, but I like it. We’ll see.

Nothing else to say right now, except that I’m looking forward to watching Walk the Line Friday, as it is a delightful motion picture.

ZzZzZzZz

BackintownTootiredtoblogrightnow WillposttomorrowmorningGoodnighteventhoughitsnotthatlateSeemslikeit…

The last one... and begging for ideas

So I had a wonderful breakfast this morning: a fried egg, two pieces of honey wheat toast, both buttered, and one with peanut butter, and a bowl of honey bunches of oast (con almonds) with soymilk. It was delicious. I was worried about using another frying pan, because I’ve ended up having to wash them all, and didn’t want eggs THAT bad, but dad had already made eggs for I dunno. So I did too.

Anyway, this is the last installment of the Williams’. I found out that two of my readers are out of town, but that’s no excuse for not having any comments for ideas for this poor family. I copied everything I have, including the incomplete sentence at the end, but I added some ellipses afterward, so yes, it does drop off into oblivion. That’s why I need your help. Comments start… (1…2…3…) NOW.

 

Although the weather hadn’t changed much since he came in that morning, it seemed different: the wind was no longer a gust, it seemed more a breeze; the cool temperature wasn’t cold, it was now brisk.  He felt good, and got in his car but didn’t go anywhere immediately because he didn’t know where he would go. He didn’t want to go home, but he didn’t feel like driving around everywhere, so he thought for a moment, turning off the radio. He looked out across the parking lot and saw some napkins and a small paper cup strewn off in the corner farthest from the building. He thought nothing of it, but it gave him his idea. He started the car and drove away.

Sarah was finishing a small quiz in her Portuguese class. She wanted to spend some time in Brazil in the coming years. A family member had a business that was thriving down there (coffee-related, of course), and had volunteered to let her see what of it she wanted while she visited. The corporate world was booming in Brazil, and she loved the language and the people. Having already taken Spanish, it wasn’t that difficult a jump for her, and she was acing the class. She had the last blank to fill in next to the word “climb,” and she wrote “escalada,” without pausing.  She looked over her work, satisfied with how quickly she had finished, but she wasn’t the type to attempt to turn in the first paper. Her grade was far more important than that. She checked it over again and was happy with it. She stood up to turn it in, and as she walked back to her seat, there was a beep from the intercom, and the pleasant voice asked for Sarah Williams to come to the front office. There were some students that knew that bad things were in their future when they were called to the office, but Sarah knew the opposite. The last thought on her mind was getting into trouble, and she calmly grabbed her things and approached the door.

Melinda was outside with her drama class. She had decided to take drama when she needed another credit to catch some extra grades. It would bump up her GPA, and it was a class she knew she could skip if she wanted to. It was close to the last class of the day, so she could take the rest of the day off when she felt like it, or have an afternoon nap when she needed it, before she went to Civics, another extra, but one she would more than likely use later on.

They were outside performing a “greatest hits” of sorts, trying to decide what they wanted to study next; there was Hamlet’s famous “to be or not to be,” speech, King Henry VIII was sitting next to a Professor Henry Higgins listening for the accent of a confused Puck, and Romeo and Juliet went to get something to drink with Willy and Biff Loman.  She was racking her brain for what character she would play in this mishmash of dramatis personae when she was handed a note by a student that worked in the office. She was needed in the front office, and was told she should probably take her things with her. She was less the student that was confident of good thing when called to the office, but nothing suspicious came to mind if she thought she could be in trouble.

Melinda was there first, and she saw her dad there. She knew he was working today, so was concerned when she needed her to come home. His demeanor dispelled her fears. All was well, and she thought that maybe something very good had happened that required attention, rather than a catastrophe. He invited her to sit down in her own school’s office. They did, and he didn’t say anything aside from the usual greetings and meaningless conversation stuff. Melinda didn’t know what they were waiting on until she saw her sister coming down the hall with more confidence about her fate in the office than she herself would’ve had. When Chuck saw her, he stood up and exited the office with Melinda behind him and they both followed him out. They did not yet know why. He told them not to move; he ran and got the car, drove it up and opened the two doors for them. They put their stuff in the trunk and felt like little kids again. Daddy picked them up from school and they were excited to have the rest of the day off. They asked about the car they had driven to school, and he said they could pick it up later. They were both sitting in the backseat and the smell of their home and the leather brought refreshment from school and a quick start to the weekend. They talked about the day’s affairs and the girls were discussing their classes when they found themselves at the ice cream parlor.

*           *           *           *           *

Diane was glad the family had had a good time today; she didn’t want to be a party pooper or ruin anything, but there were some things that had to be done, and she was going to try to get them to go out to dinner tonight. Nothing really happened on Tuesdays anyway and she didn’t much feel like cooking. She finished putting up the groceries and reorganized a few things in the refrigerator, threw a few things out, and sat down in front of the TV. Last she heard from Chuck, they had just finished ice cream and would be home in a little bit. She flipped around on the television but found nothing of interest. Not long after that, the rest of the family came home very happy. Everyone had been treated: ice cream, clothes, Dad got a pair of driving gloves (a gag), and even Mom, who wasn’t around was brought home a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of wine. They ended up going out to dinner.

It wasn’t long after they had been seated (which wasn’t long after they got there, for it was a Tuesday, and not very busy) that they began to discuss…

                                                                                   

 

Raise High the Roofbeam, Bloggers

So I’ve started reading J.D. Salinger again. I pulled “Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction,” off the shelf, and read the second story, Seymour. They were published together, and the writing style, very typical of Salinger, is riotously hysterical. I love his writing. Some of the lines are excellent. For example:

“It is (to describe it figuratively) as if an author were to make a slip of the pen, and as if this clerical error became conscious of being such. Perhaps this was no error but in a far higher sense was an essential part of the whole exposition. It is, then, as if this clerical error were to revolt against the author, out of hatred for Iron, were to forbid him to correct it, and were to say, 'No, I will not be erased, I will stand as a witness against thee, that thou art a very poor writer.’”

Well, one of my favorite quotes of his comes from “Catcher in the Rye”:

“Boy, when you are dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a god dam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you are dead? Nobody.”

But back to Seymour:

“What I am, I think, is a thesaurus of undetached prefatory remarks about him [Seymour]. I believe I essentially remain what I’ve almost always been- a narrator, but one with extremely pressing personal needs. I want to introduce, I want to describe, I want to distribute mementos, amulets, I want to break out my wallet and pass around snapshots, I want to follow my nose.”

And the Best:

“But what, at least in modern times, I think one most recurrently hears about the curiously-productive-yet-ailing poet or painter is that he is invariably a kind of super-size but unmistakably “classical” neurotic, an aberrant who only occasionally, and never deeply, wishes to surrender his aberration; or, in English, a Sick Man who not at all seldom, though he’s reported to childishly deny it, gives out terrible cries of pain, as if he would wholeheartedly let go both his art and his soul to experience what passes in other people for wellness, and yet (the rumor continues) when his unsalutary-looking little room is broken into and someone- not infrequently, at that, someone who actually loves him- passionately asks him where the pain is, he either declines or seems unable to discuss it at any constructive clinical length, and in the morning, when even great poets and  painters presumable feel a bit more chipper than usual, he looks more perversely determined than ever to see his sickness run its course, as though by the light of another, presumably working day he had remembered that all me, the healthy ones included, eventually die, and usually with a certain amount of bad grace, but that he, lucky man, is at least being done in by the most stimulating companion, disease or no, he has ever known.”

And that, my friends, is my favorite sentence in all of literature that has graced my mammoth brain. It’s just superb. Despite the fact that it’s horribly long, he doesn’t rape and pillage the rules of English grammar. And what he says is meaningful I think. It’s just delightful. Scrumtrulescent.

But since J.D. Salinger has written most of this blog, I won’t go on about what I’ve been writing lately except that you should expect a post sometime tomorrow about what I’ve been  writing lately and how difficult it has been to continue with it. Don’t forget that, because if I do, I expect you, dear reader, to jog my memory, because if I know anything about my audience, I know they’ll look out for me, if for no other reason than for the sake of making sure I don’t stop posting. Or something.  

Only one more episode after this:

Also, please be aware that after the last installment (the one after this one) or even before, I’ll be looking for suggestions as to where this should lead, either vaguely or specifically. It’s up to you because if I come to a dead end with them, their literary life could be in severe jeopardy: they could be forever retired (or worse).

 

After the movie was over, they went downstairs and had coffee; Sarah had hot chocolate. She remembered:

“Guess who’s coming to school on Friday! Senator Shaw! I thought that was great! A bunch of the kids are on a field trip that day, and it’s hilarious that everyone’s sitting in traffic fighting and fussing to get a glimpse of him, and all I have to do is go to school. He’s going to spend lunch with us and everything. It’ll be neat.”

Sarah was class president in eighth grade and had always enjoyed politics, not so much the title or idea of politics itself, but the effort to do it and glory involved once at the top, since she could always do it. It was a hobby for her, but to meet the presidential candidate was a big deal, maybe even for the wrong reasons, but needless to say, she was excited.

“That’ll be very nice,” said Mom, without really thinking about it. “Daddy, didn’t you meet him once? You can see if he remembers your dad, sweetie. I’m sure he does.”

* * * * *

He got out of his car in the parking lot of his office building, opened the trunk and stared inside blankly. Somewhere along the line, his wife’s familiar down-home feeling got to him. He loved his job, but he suddenly realized that it was taking more time away from being with his family than was giving him other happiness; the consequences began to outweigh the benefits.

Staring at his trunk, he thought of a time when his trunk, the trunk of a beat-up car-lot sale piece, was filled with old athletic equipment from the gym that he was taking home. He was very excited to take it home and use some of it, for he was in high school now and had never really done anything athletic. It would bring him friends, and he was very excited. Now, however, it was full of toys that belonged to an old office: briefcases, manila folders, binders, phone cords, and an occasional necktie.

Some time later, he found himself behind his desk. There was only one other person in the office that day, Pam Martin. Pam Martin was the secretary for the southeast corporate branch, which Williams ran. She was fresh out of college with a degree in bean counting and needed a job. Somehow she found her way into a job that really didn’t exist until she got there; she didn’t do much of anything, but she was nice, and a pleasure to be around.

“‘Morning, Mr. Williams! Can I get you anything?”

“No, thank you.”

In his pensive state of mind, he wondered what Pam’s lot in high school was and whether she enjoyed it. He obviously couldn’t compare his high-school success with hers, but she probably had brothers or something. His parents were very concerned about his high school education, and he believed it stemmed from the fact that they, as post-depression era adults, were incredibly worried about the future: financial future, medical future, family future. In their opinion, having a good strong education backed by a solid personality and good character was the makeup of champions, and having a solid job with the same company for thirty years would not only secure one’s future, but would solidify his well-being now with all sorts of benefits. He had heard this for some time growing up, and at a very young age felt that it was his responsibility as their child to fulfill, (or assuage) their dreams (or nightmares) for the future of their offspring. He reasoned that if he did not, they would not live a happy life, and he would be responsible for it; so, as their flesh and blood, he resigned himself to doing their will, making his life theirs, and only looking at what he was told was the big picture.

The office was no busier than usual, and it was, in fact, somewhat slower. With a spring of sorts in his step for which he could not account, he walked into the building, pulling the heavy stainless steel doors open and walking inside, straight ahead as if he were on a mission, very confident as he could hear the clack of his shoes on the marble tile below them. He pushed the elevator with his knuckle and waited but a moment, and walked inside the elevator. He heard someone open the lobby door, but it took at least eight or nine seconds to get to the elevators, so he punched his floor button and the doors closed. He did not wait; on his way up, he looked at himself in the one-inch margins between the oak panels, where lay clean stainless steel, and he looked good. It wasn’t until he reached his floor and approached the doors did he realize they were completely open, and he saw all of himself; he still looked good.

Once on his floor, he looked around, and there weren’t that many people in the office. He decided he would clean some. There was a clutter in his office and in some of the public domain places, the printer, the fax machine, where some of the obscure office supplies were. He began with his office, and although a thorough cleaning did not involve scrubbing in torn jeans, it was still refreshing. He sat in his desk as usual, but the gratification was the same. He stacked papers, shredded papers, crumpled papers, moved boxes, rolled across the room to replace things, and slowly but surely more desk space began to appear. He felt better and better, and it wasn’t long before lunch rolled around. He went up to the seventh floor, where there was a small food court. He grabbed a green lunch, a chicken Caesar salad and some Ritz crackers. He wasn’t too hungry anyway. Eager to get back to work, he sat back down in his office. He didn’t eat lunch there for fear he may muss the carpet or leave the trash there, so he came back after he was finished. As he was finishing his cleaning his phone rang. It was a number he did not recognize, but he knew where the area code was from and started thinking of whom he knew in Maryland. He answered. After a few minutes of introduction, the caller was in no danger of losing Mr. Williams on the line, for he sat down to listen attentively. He pulled out his notepad and began to ask a few questions and make notes. They talked a while longer and Mr. Williams said he would be in touch with the caller.

 There wasn’t much left to do, and he decided to take the rest of the day off after he got another thing or two finished. He got some phone calls about some odd pickups on a run, and was unconcerned; he wasn’t uptight, but gave the word to do with it what they felt right.  He handled a few other duties and was out for the day.

 

The Three Faces of Homsar

I was doing some recreational reading lately in my old high school textbooks, and picked up my high school psychology book to look at the chapter on mental disorders, mostly dissociative stuff like dissociative identity disorder (a.k.a. multiple personality disorder), schizophrenia, psychogenic fugue, amnesia, and other stuff. I was reading the chapter on schizophrenia and it was interesting, but what was more interesting was the chapter on DID (dissociative identity disorder), and decided to do some additional research on the world's best encyclopedia.

(I must explain here the phenomenon that one encounters when reading anything at Wikipedia. I find their discussions to be very thorough, but to have many, many other terms that I am unfamiliar with or interested in that have links to their pages. The right-click, “open in new window” function leads me to having eight or ten windows open after reading one entry, and each of those spawns a few of its own peripheral readings. Check out the passage here about schizophrenia. If you were looking at this article, in the first paragraph, you would notice links to: diagnosis, mental disorder, perception, reality, delusions, hallucinations, Cognition, behavior, and Eugen Bleuler. These are not especially exciting, but are of mention simply because of the abundance of extra stuff, and when I see really super medical terms dealing with these things, I want to read, like, all of them. Hence, the time spent reading all sorts of things on things I had no intention to look up at the outset… thus leading us to conclude that I’m a geek.)

Anyway, I looked up dissociative identity, which lead me toward dissociation, and then all sorts of things like psychosis, delirium, dementia (yes, dementia), psychopathy, insanity, and also to a phrase something to the effect of “thought disorganization” leading people to speak, write, think, or act in jumbled, disconnected ways, often associated with schizophrenia, and a red flag that there IS a serious mental issue.

Aside from the very serious and uncomical aspects of that, the definition of thought disorganization as related to speech is called Word Salad, and they explain it as just that. If you’re not going to go read it, I’ll mention here one of the examples they use: (this comes from Wikipedia.org; I’m not plaigarizing): “In some cases word salad can be a sign of asymptomatic schizophrenia; e.g. the question "Why do people believe in God?" elicits a response like "Because he makes a twirl in life, my box is broken help me blue elephant. Isn't lettuce brave? I like electrons, hello."”

Why am I saying this, you might ask? Well, because ths psycho-medical stuff is fascinating, but also because Wikipedia’s “Pop Culture,” section of the word salad page says this: “The character Homsar in the animated internet cartoon series Homestar Runner is known for speaking in word salads, as are …” I dunno was at GoodSoup yesterday and did his very best HomSar impression, just without the Word Salad, but it’s always encouraging to know that a home-based American internet cartoon character is a solid diagnosis for a serious mental condition.

 

Why am I still working???

I am sitting in my office, at my computer checking voicemails. Why, you may ask? It is because I have no life, and the few things that people rely on me for consume me. That is why. I have been on the phone with Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania within the past half hour, pretending I don’t mind working when I’d rather be watching an infomercial for “Oxyclean,” or something. Anyway…

I started writing some new things yesterday that are going to be worked in along with something else of mine that you’ll eventually read, that I’m rather proud of, and that someone has a copy of and is hopefully reading by now. Anyway, they’re things I’ve had the ideas about for a while now, but just haven’t started them. Yes they’re depressing, yes they’re disheartening, and even maybe a little morbid, but they’re also real-life. Yes they are. So I’ve decided on a couple of ways to write them and have them be as I want them without people thinking I’m depressed or loathing. Because they’re also not things I MADE UP, but are actual, true life stories (not first hand, but related to me from someone who knew the first hand account personally) and I found them powerful in some way or another.

I’ve had enough of the computer for now. Goodybe. I bid you all adieu.

It hasn't been long but... THEY'RE BACK!!! in a full length episode!

So I was talking to Kimmi Stewart (aka Bottom Level) today and she evidently hasn’t been reading the blog lately or SOMETHING, but she said she caught up on some of The Williams’ and said something to the effect that she was getting hooked, although it wasn’t that intense a thought I’m sure. In light of it, however, I decided to air another episode of the family. I must also say to Horse’n’Buggy that I haven’t read this lately (and don’t have the time to currently) but have dropped names and places of a certain familiar city, but don’t criticize the flippant use of their names, because I know they probably don’t make sense. I had to have something to work from, and in all honesty, see this family more in Virginia Beach or the California coast rather than where they are now… I needed a prop…

Mr. Williams was very successful, but took more pride in being humble than he did in being ostentatious. He was secure in that he knew he did not have to buy anything fancy to feel fancy, and that if he didn’t want something expensive, he could buy something cheap and not feel weakened by it. He knew that anyone who knew good Chianti or leather when they saw it would notice that the Williams’ enjoyed some nice things, but that they did not feel a need to show others. By being humble and modest, he felt that they could live well within their means as well as afford some exceptional items when they felt they were needed, such as Sarah’s private instructor, whose hourly rates were exorbitant. The family mentality was that things that were too expensive would make them nervous, and too much would make them cramped; it was just easier.

Nevertheless, he did earn a living, and he needed to get to work. That was not an issue; he enjoyed work. He walked down the hall back into his office; he put away yesterday’s things while he looked at what was in order for today. He made a list, and from that list made a list of calls he had to make. Running down this list, he left a few voicemails, and was able to scratch off the first few people. The next call was a live one, and he talked to his representative in Tallahassee for over an hour about what to do with things that were not being sold: Goodwill was not taking appliances, and in some cases, the cost of repairs was extremely high. They decided the tax write-offs were good enough.

The call had ended in time for a much-needed bathroom break. His phone rang again just as he left the room, but he cared not. He finished up, washed his hands, dried them on his robe, and walked back to his desk to see what he had missed while away. His wife had called, and left a message. She was ready to meet for lunch. She wanted to go to “the bar,” which was really not a bar at all; it was more of a sandwich shop with spirits. It was called “The Storehouse,” and it rather was. It had a little bit of everything, from breads and pastries to great cuts of meat to fine wines and liquors, all displayed on naked shelves around the restaurant, giving it a homey, general-store feel, but classy. It was near River Street, downtown.

Diane Williams was fighting traffic from the mall, where she treated herself to a new pair of jeans and sunglasses. Friday was her day. There was nothing good on the radio; she scanned through the stations, and finally defaulted to news radio. She put her sunglasses on.

“This is Susan Sanders for Talk Radio WZAP, YOUR source for the news, weather, traffic, and trifles. Republican Presidential candidate Mason Shaw is in town today, signing copies of his book, ‘It’s Not Over Yet,’ on Tybee Island, on Tenth Street, holding traffic up all the way up to the river, with an unplanned parade and visits to local eating establishments down the strip. His acceptance speech is soon to come, and will be given at the Republican National Convention held this year in Atlanta. Shaw says he’s ‘more than ready to change the face…’” Diane clicked the radio off as she passed a billboard ad for John Keys, Democratic Presidential candidate, who had already give his speech and chosen his running partner, a senator out of North Carolina. She became irritated with the banter of politics and sighed. Continuing to fight lunch traffic towards home, she made her way to The Storehouse. She could smell the lotions and oils her masseuse had used and they were relaxing.

Diane was a busy woman, although it didn’t seem like it on paper. It was life, nothing out of the ordinary. She truly enjoyed seeing her children come into their own as growing women, and, like her husband, had a large hand in their lives with regard to being in tune with her children. With Sarah in high school, and Melinda coming out and going to college, she was seeing the fruitage of their efforts. Diane had always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. She had been raised Catholic, and went to twelve years of Catholic school, but later confidently relinquished her parents’ faith (to their dismay), but they were on good terms and came to respect her independence for doing what she wanted to do. Diane Wozniak, as she was known before she married, wanted to try something different, mostly to cleanse herself and have a fresh outlook on life outside the rose-colored glasses of Catholic school. She didn’t realize it, but her desire to have a family was not spawned from her Catholic upbringing, and it stayed with her through college. She majored in English with a minor in business, but never did feel content with the professional world. She held a job with a few local newspapers as assistant editor or part-time writer, and she served well, but her real desire was to raise a family. She and Chuck met in a library while she was still in college. Chuck had dropped out of college once sure of his business success and was in the university library looking at a manual on rotary engines, while Diane was researching for a paper on the literary successes and developments made by Virginia Woolf. Because of her years spent in the professional world, she somewhat regretted not having a family earlier and therefore appreciated them more. She was protective, loving, and made sure to keep things as balanced as possible, trying never to lose sight of what was her dream for so long.

Lunch was nothing special: he had a mushroom-Swiss burger, cooked medium-well, and a root beer made at a local beverage shop; she had a Cuban sandwich with a coke. It would have been enjoyable for anyone to sit in on lunch, as they were really concerned about their children and talked about them as they would close friends. They discussed Sarah’s strengths and weaknesses on her technical and lyrical pieces she was to perform later that day and the Calculus test Mel was taking and what she still had problems with while studying the night before. They had a care and concern for their children that was all too rare in today’s society. It was with that in mind that they departed, as they went back home to drop off one of the cars to go shopping for something to have for each of their children for making it through the day. The coming weekend was a long one, with Monday off.

Chuck escorted his wife out of the restaurant and to her car, where she had parallel parked a few cars down from him. He kissed her and told her he would see her in a moment.

That night at dinner, the whole family gathered around, they discussed the day.

“Holy crap. You wouldn’t believe the Calculus test I took.”

“Before you pulled out your notes, it had been years since I’d done any Calculus,” Chuck said, sitting at the end of the almost square table, just rectangular enough to have two distinct ends. “All that studying we did was probably just as good for me as it was for you. I probably learned more. And Mom’s afraid of the stuff; she took it in Business, but neither of us ever used it.” He glanced at her with a smile, knowing that she was better at science and math  than he ever was.

“I’m just glad it’s over. I was glad we started studying and reviewing a few days in advance because it takes the pressure off learning it all over again. You know you can take your time with it if you don’t get it on Wednesday night, because you have Thursday, too.” She got up to get a glass of water, set it down on the table, stood behind her dad and leaned over him, giving him a kiss on the cheek that said “thank you.” She sat back down and smiled at her sister, who was in a great mood, and took the opportunity to listen patiently before she opened fire on her family, her excitement not letting her be brief about the audition. She was waiting for her sister to ask, and as soon as Mel gave her the smile, she took it as her cue. Mel confirmed and said “but let’s hear about the big auditions!”

“It was amazing, you guys. Remember Dr. Adams, the conductor from Stetson University? He came when we had our annual competition. He was the one that got me going with the lessons from Jen. Anyway, he was there! He had come up to listen to the auditions, but he wasn’t a judge; he was even better. He’s been chosen to commission a piece for the new season and wanted to get a beat on the strengths and weaknesses of the new group. He told me he had a few things in mind, but he didn’t know where he’d go with it. Anyway, there were thirty-four people that were trying out, and seven of them were from school, so that made me more comfortable; I know all them. The Cameron twins were there and one of them had prepared the same lyrical piece as me. I heard him through the wall while I was talking with Dr. Adams, and he messed up on the triplet parts…”

“So all in all,” Mom said, getting up, “you feel pretty confident of your performance?” Sarah didn’t like to seem overconfident or too sure.

“No, not necessarily. Dr. Stratton was a judge and we have never gotten along. He’s also the assistant director and will be conducting some of the weekend rehearsals. He might be organizing a few master classes, too.”

“It always amazes me how politically swayed that whole world is. You have to know the right people, be liked by them at that, and really play goody-goody with your top dogs.” Chuck wasn’t used to that; in his self-employed environment, accompanied by his business savvy, he never had to deal with having connections, or getting in with certain people, because he ran the whole show. He was always fascinated with the goings on and how his little girl dealt with it all so well. She always amazed him, and at times, he even wished he had gotten involved in some of the things she loved so much. He recognized her joy and passion.

“The results come back next Friday, and after we find out, we have our first audition, but it’s really more of an orientation. They’re getting us ready from the get-go, trying to figure out strengths and weaknesses and how we all mesh together. I can’t wait. A few weeks after that, we go back for chair auditions to see who gets what parts for what pieces.”

Dinner carried on in the usual way, with Dad migrating to the couch to watch the news. It was usually the girls’ responsibility to clean the kitchen since Mom makes dinner, but she decided that they had the night off. They were both tired, but decided to go upstairs in the bonus room and watch a movie while they played Scrabble. They popped some popcorn, and brought a few drinks with them. They grabbed “Pillow Talk,” and walked upstairs.