headlines

Favorite local headline of the week: "Officer Tasers Agitated Lawyer."

Funniest ambiguity: "Piece of the Past Returns: Through an Unlikely Series of Events, Her Grandmother's Fur is Found."

by special request: (p)update!

Fanny Lou (aka Monkey Paw, Fan Fan, Fanners); Louie Atlas (aka Boop, Little Louie, The Boy); and Roxy Brown (aka Squid Eye, Rox, The Little One). Taken this afternoon in the back yard.

dreamy

Since I usually do not remember my dreams, I like to jot them down here in case someone wishes to hazard an interpretation. The dreams I remember are usually of two kinds: either I am being chased by something like a large alligator and I feel like I'm running waist-deep in tar or the setting is utterly mundane with some random weird element. This dream was of the latter sort. What I remember is the imagery. I am at some kind of social event because it is a crowded setting. People are milling around, chatting, walking by. Then I start to see that every time I stop to look at someone, I see they are wearing an article of my clothing. At first I think it's a coincidence, but soon I realize that everyone is wearing my clothes. No one seems to recognize me, or to express any shame or discomfort that they have been found out. Oddly, I recognize most of the people, but I do not know any of them. These are people I see around campus, the gym, the neighborhood, or the pub--but whom I have no relationship with at all.

lazy, hazy, and dozing

out of context

I just finished Denis Johnson's Tree of Smoke. I'm not sure yet what to make of it, though I'm compelled to place it in one of my favorite categories of fiction: post-apocaplytic. Johnson's Fiskadoro belongs there, as does McCarthy's The Road. Each is brutal in its hopeless beauty.

Anyway, I marked three pages because of brief little passages I found compelling. I do this all the time, but never do anything with it. So, for a change, at least I can share the quotes, completely out of context.

"There's no traveling side by side in the narrow places. In the narrow places you climb alone. It has to be enough to believe there's somebody behind you."

***

"What comes is the coming thing. I just look on it like whatever madness takes a dump on me, it must be a lesson, man, a lesson some random-ass sadistic Hitler-God wants me to learn. That's why I don't like it."

***

"Why must we have any legacy at all? Things are destroyed over and over, the good things and bad things. [...] The same thing for all of us--ashes, dust, poof, that's our legacy."

wisdom from 'zines

From Burn Collector 13, a most prescient observation about real estate:

"Location, location, location:" these are the three principle tenets of real estate, a modern pseudo-science that combines the more forward-thinking aspects of eugenics with the common-sense economics of a compulsive gambler on crystal meth.

low-brow toilet humor

I couldn't help myself from giggling when someone handed me a flyer that read, "Vote NO on number 2."

Heh heh.

alternative grading systems

I'm trying a different grading system in a reading-intensive course I'm teaching this semester. I've adapted a sort of "step" model grading structure sometimes used in self-directed learning. Basically, I let the students choose the level of engagement they want to in terms of choosing the grade they will strive for. So, for example, students who wish to earn an "A" will have to, among other things, turn in reading notes every class period. (This assignment simply asks them to type a summary of that day's reading, quote a favorite/exciting/troubling passage or two, and provide optional commentary). Students wishing to earn Bs or Cs still have to turn some of these in, just not one every day. 50% of the class did not do it for the first reading assignment, essentially conceding during the second week that they do not wish to earn an A for this course. I did not expect that right at the beginning of the semester. There may be a lesson here. I hope I am patient enough to figure out what that lesson is.

happy derby day

I haven't been to the Derby since 2000, but I still couldn't help but make a mint julep:



(I would post something for Cinco de Mayo as well, but I already ate my tamales and I don't have any limes).

stress dream variations

I rarely remember my dreams. If anything, after a few minutes passes, I only remember that I had had a dream that I tried to remember. But this morning, I awoke remembering a dream AND remembering that it has been recurring this semester. Like most dreams of mine, it is utterly mundane. But this one seems a variation of the "I forgot to dress and now I'm in public naked" type stress dreams. What happens in this dream is that I find out that I'm teaching an extra course that I never knew I was teaching. What is weird is that I keep forgetting that I'm teaching this class (I can't even remember the title of the course), yet when rush, embarrassed, to the class after not being there for several weeks, it seems that they are getting along just fine and that someone, somehow, has been taking care of things. And then I forget that I'm teaching the class and I rush in embarrassed and all is fine. And then I forget . . .

Like I said, I rarely remember my dreams, and they are almost always mundane. So I wanted to jot this one down that also occurred this morning. I only have a fragment, and not the whole narrative arc, but the basic action/actors is this: I'm living in a a Brady Bunch style of house, and a deaf Japanese punk rocker comes over and starts dancing, as if he is auditioning for something that I didn't know I was casting. And suddenly he has a friend with him who is also dancing, and maybe DJ-ing. Then this second guys curls up in a little ball and falls asleep in a chair. And then I wake up.

Feel free to analyze.

louie update

Notice the look of defiance:

best buddies?

or territory dispute?

awesome

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: The Very Reverend Dr. M(mmmm) the Antediluvian of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndro- bwllllantysiliogogogoch Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Seen at lucyrain's.

the size o' the boy

For those of you keeping score at home, Louie is now off the chart—the chart being the distance between the two arms of this chair. He continues to surprise and delight. Instead of jumping into my lap like a regular little dog, he runs right up my body and into my face before doing those dog circles and plopping down on me.

phonebooth stencil

I hope everyone is having a happy holiday. It's pouring rain here, all soggy and muggy.

it's the eyes

Thanks for all the kind words. This skin cancer thing is a strange experience. On the one hand, there's really no such thing as good cancer, and I was certainly a little freaked out to get a piece of registered mail telling me I have it. On the other hand, most people talk like non-melanoma skin cancer is no big deal. They chop it out and you get a quarterly skin exam. Just par tof "getting older."

But, I'm still concerned. Because I'm under 40. Because I'm skin type III (rarely burns--I never had a sunburn until I was in my 20s). Because I have dark hair. But I don't have brown eyes, which puts me in a risk category. I'm not sure my eyes are blue or grey or some kind of off-green:

Regardless, they are a marker for at-risk for skin cancer.

But I'm surprised because the bump that turned out to be cancer was seen as nothing to worry about. My massage therapist (trained to spot questionable marks) said it looked too symetrical to be a concern. Even the chief of dermatological surgery said it didn't look like anything to be concerned with. He still chopped it off and biopsied it (which was sooooo gross because I could HEAR it being sliced off--I nearly hurled). And now I'm freaked because I know there is cancer in me and I have to wait five weeks for it to be taken out.

little

It's hard to believe how little Louie was at the beginning of summer.

made you look

leaner

reverse stencil + paste-up stencil + goofy three-eyes = milestone marker; or, loosely, this is my visual cairn

According to blogger, this is my 450th post. Last Saturday, I passed the 20,000 visitor mark (not much compared to many, but it seems significant). I never thought I'd still be doing this after 20 months.