9/22

I took a walk to the New Moon in order to “get out of the house” and study. One of the issues I’ve dealt with in the last few places I’ve lived is having to just about ALWAYS drive to get somewhere. This, in retrospect, was particularly true in Bozeman.

My biggest pet peeve in coffeehouses is people who can’t (or won’t) say “espresso.” For the last god damned time, it’s not EXPRESSO, it’s ESPRESSO: Eee. Ess. Pee. Rrrr. Eee. Ess. Fuckin-ess-O. Why don’t you get back in your Neon and drive off a nearby cliff?

There are all sorts of people having “important” or “significant” conversations in this place. Why is that? What elevated caffeine and tiny tables with stiff-backed chairs to such a status?

There used to be too many high school kids in here. It seemed like ALL THE TIME. Maybe that’s just the way I’ve chosen to remember it. Of course, I look around now and see a bunch of college kids, whom I’ve come to the determination are just high school kids without curfews who can get drugs and books a lot easier. But for now, they’re just feeling important, deep, or substantial because they paid two dollars for a CUP OF COFFEE.

That damned cell phone ring. That’s Raul’s ring and it’s everyone’s. Note to R: dump the Nokia, you could get something better; more unique.

She says to Nick on the phone, sounding important, ‘WE-eee are at the NewMoonCafe?, having some dessert and drinking COFF-ee.’

My thumb hurts, I’m pretty sure I sprained it on the Golden Tee machine. It’s making my writing look worse than usual since I can barely hold the pen.

One day, someone will probably look at some of my “original manuscripts,” scribbled in important coffeehouses at nine on a Wednesday, and just looking at them, thinking of all I’ve done, someone will feel important, and following the afternoon at the museum, Nick’s grandson will ask her granddaughter if she’d like to go to the coffeehouse for some Important Pie and a cup of 200-dollar coffee.

9/21

I had poetry class tonight and I realized that it will not be the end of the world.

I was admittedly apprehensive, because god knows I’ve never really written any poetry, and there are clearly a lot of people in that class (more so than in the fiction writing from last term) that fancy themselves poets, if they are not poets proper, where I didn’t get the impression that lots of people in Rindo’s thought they could write fiction.

In this way, I’m exactly the opposite of most of my mates in these two classes.

But here’s the other thing: Gemin has been right all these years, and Pam is a helluva teacher. I can see after just one full class period that she breaks everything down in a way that makes it all seem manageable, and I envy that ability. I don’t think I have it at this point.

The other thing that will not cause the world to end? The semester’s courseload. I’m not going to be overly swamped by the work I have to do in the combination of two classes, and I feel better and better each day about the schedule that I’ve made up for myself.

Y’know, there was even some good stuff @ work today: I didn’t have to sit at the front desk, so I got some work done, learned some new crap, had a staff meeting where I found out some of our understaffing problems are going to solved in the next couple weeks, and that’s definitely good.

Holy moses.

I think this is the first time I’ve felt like I had a good day this late in the semester… ever.

Huh.

Take a look in the ‘Galleries’ if you have a chance and see what I’ve done with the digital camera lately.

9/20

It never seems to fail that a bunch of the things that I have been putting off around the house get accomplished when I leave the friendly confines for a spell. Here I am at Starbucks (I’d go to the New Moon, right by my house, if not for the parking issues) and getting all my reading and blogging done. Not a bad morning.

The other thing that works perfectly is the Mondays off. Weekends, I’ve found, are tricky because so many people have off on weekends, and so much non-work-week stuff happens on weekends, it’s hard for me to concentrate on regular stuff Saturdays or Sundays. Hence the non-working, non-class-having Monday, and hells bells, it’s still brilliant.

I had initially planned to get you up to speed on a number of random musings that I’ve carried around in my pants the last few weeks the other day, but that didn’t work out. I’ll share them with you now:

1. I still need to get rid of more t-shirts. This is less of a volume problem, and more of a size issue. Facts are, that regardless of what my body looks like, I’ve finally realized that you don’t hide anything inside XL shirts, and that instead you just look like a jackass with a shirt hanging over your ass. I’ve you’re an “XL,” let me know, I’d be glad to empty out some drawers.

2. The situation where I need to get rid of the XL t-shirts has, ironically, spawned a new problem: I need to get some more “L” t-shirts.

3. If you still Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, there’s a tub of the fat free variety in my refrigerator that I think could convince you.

4. I was shopping for a vintage Mini Cooper during the summer, and as fate would have it, I’m now driving a 1995 Buick LeSabre?. The only way I could’ve gone further in the opposite direction would be to get a Ford Expedition. The bit that surprises me even more is that I’m enjoying driving the Buick. It’s comfy, it’s got cruise, Joe helped me put the CD deck in there, and once I get a handle on parking, I will be a bona fide Buick Driver.

5. You should check out the following jazz CD (unless you’re Ben Leubner, who poo-poos all contemporary jazz): Jamie Cullum’s “Twentysomething.”

6. Don’t laugh, because it’s getting to be where it comes up time to time, and what I’m talking about here is getting closer to 30. I have a variety of stories I could tell; I think for me the reminders come up more often being around all these college kids all the time, but you begin to fight this losing battle where you no longer have all the tools and resources to being “hip,” or “with it,” and if someone asks you what the kids are into, you honestly don’t know. But as I considered the stark reality of that situation, the following things occurred to me: I don’t really give a damn what the kids are into, and it’s no big deal not being “hip” in my case, because I never was to begin with. Now, instead of being a quirky weirdo, I’m becoming an old quirky weirdo.

7. Stand-up comics have done bits about how “you go to the store and always get that cart with the broken wheel that’s always pulling to the right,” but for me, at Wal-Mart?, it is actually true. I’ve written it down. This most recent occasion marks five in row.

8. The presidential election is the American electorate what Christmas is to Catholics: even if you only vote once every four years, you fancy yourself a participant in the democratic process.

9. The last time I was in LaCrosse?, Mom and Dad and I went shopping a little on Saturday morning, and Mom observed that my wallet smells like a moldy old shoe. I had never really taken more than passing notice, but now the smell is driving me goddamn nuts.

That’s all I’ve got for you right now, enjoy the rest of your Monday, and hope for a Philadelphia victory on Monday Night. God knows I will.

9/18

Damn, the first two thirds of this month blew by really fast. Things have been busy at work, and with school starting, and everything else, so I’ve had to take the few moments that have been here or there to jot some stuff down. I’ll share them with you if you’d like…

Before I get to that, though, I want thank everyone who sent their condolences, prayers, etc, to me and my family as we cope with the passing of my Grandma Bock. One of the things that has really impressed me so far is how our entire extended family continues to lean on itself for support and strength, and of course a part of that comes from friends. So again, thank you all very much.

Some people asked me when they found out about Grandma, “Was it unexpected?” and, OK, I’ll grant you that I don’t think anybody who knew her had a lot of confidence in Grandma’s biological fortitude, particularly since her heart surgery about a year ago, but seriously: you can know things are going to happen, but that doesn’t mean you start marking off the days on the calendar or just go out for coffee after you get the news.

Maybe it’s that I was able to tell people about what had happened with a fairly even voice and in complete sentences. But here’s another thing: a person dying is not what makes you cry. A corpse doesn’t make you cry. An empty house, in and of itself, should not make you cry. It’s thinking of the times. It’s the birthdays and the Thanksgivings and the Easters. It’s the mornings watching Bob Barker and the evenings with Alex Trebec. That’s what makes you cry — the realization that the only time you’ll have one of those times again is in memory, and somewhere, it’s also realizing that memory fades a little every day.

Well I hadn’t really planned on getting into that here this morning. Maybe I’ll have more on the drudgery tomorrow.

9/1

My Grandma Bock passed away yesterday, 8/31.

For those in the know, you may remember that last fall she had a very difficult heart surgery, followed by a long stay in the hospital, some time in rehab, and only a few months ago she started living by herself again (but still relied on the helpful and loving assistance of family and friends for a lot of things).

I talked to Grandma on the phone about six days ago, and she didn’t sound that great, but she hadn’t been sounding very good for a while, I suppose. It was only about six or seven months between when Grandpa passed away and Grandma had her heart surgery. When I called last week, her machine picked up before Grandma finally grabbed the phone. She said she was in the laundry room, and had been calling for Grandpa to get the phone. She told me she was doing stuff like that a lot lately.

The funeral is tomorrow, then I’m riding back up north with Mom and Dad for the rest of the weekend. Talk to you again after.

8/24

I don’t know if you know how the ads on the Internet work, but basically all the sites that sell advertising are asking your browser to eat a cookie (and unless you’ve taken specific steps to stop it from doing so, trust me: your browser is a cookie-wolfing fatass) and based on where/when/what you’re clicking or searching for, or whatever, the ads are geared toward what the cookies figure out you’re probably interested in.

This is where my browser and I have a problem.

I’m using Yahoo! now for a calendar and address book at work, and EVERY SINGLE DAY I see no fewer than six ads (in seven hours) on those pages for Yahoo! Personals. Today’s just really pushed me over the edge. It said, “She *IS* out there.”

JESUS CHRIST!!! LEAVE ME ALONE!! I’M WORKING ON IT, OK???? NOT ACTIVELY, NO, BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I’LL FIGURE IT OUT IN MY OWN TIME! JUST STOP BOTHERING ME! WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS WITH THE HARASSMENT?? YOU’RE ALWAYS ALL, “WHY AREN’T YOU SEEING ANYBODY?” WHEN HAVE I *EVER* SEEN ANYBODY? WHAT DO YOU THINK THIS IS? YOU THINK THIS IS SOMETHING LIKE, WHAT? I FORGOT? LIKE I’M GONNA WAKE UP TOMORROW AND ALL OF A SUDDEN IT’LL HIT ME: “OOPS, FORGOT TO BE SEEING SOMEBODY FOR THE LAST SIX YEARS, I GUESS I’LL TAKE CARE OF THAT TODAY…” JUST LAY OFF! I ALREADY THINK ABOUT IT FOR TEN HOURS A DAY, I DON’T NEED ANY GODDAMN REMINDERS!!!

Meanwhile, it was a nice weekend which included the delivery of a kitchen table, two more chairs, a dresser, and a former microwave cart which no longer needs to hold a microwave, as well as the Kiefer’s housewarming party and Grandma’s Markowski reunion.

Saturday night, Jen and I went to see ‘Garden State,’ and we both enjoyed it quite a bit. I think it was BryGuy? that I was discussing this with: we agreed that it was impossible to NOT love Natalie Portman to pieces. Oh lordy.

Christy is coming into town today to get her car fixed. It’ll be fun to visit.

• sigh* I really need a digital camera. Grr.

8/19

I forgot to mention something yesterday pertaining to last weekend’s shopping escapades. I want to talk about the cost of ownership of the Swiffer.

The Swiffer seems like a marvelous idea, and I’ll be the first to admit that it works just spectacularly, at least on the ‘dry’ side of things. The wet Swiffer, not really designed as a substitute for mopping, I don’t think. But yeah, dry Swiffer: it beats the crap out of sweeping, you can trust me there. The dust, it sticks to the cloth, whatever, and the thing pivots around whatever you need to get under, etc, it’s a nice cleaning tool, especially for someone like me who has 900 square feet and no carpeting.

The problem with the Swiffer is cost of ownership. You use ONE of these Swiffer pad things per ‘sweep,’ which, I mean, to keep your place looking like humans live there, you need to take care of once a week, and the “refill pack” of 16 of these things costs SEVEN AND A HALF DOLLARS.

Let’s break this down.

The initial investment of the Swiffer broom apparatus and 2 dry cloths was 9.88. 16 replacement cloths are 7.50, so that means they’re about $0.47 apiece. $0.47 * 2 = $0.94, 9.88 – 0.94 = 8.94. So the ‘broom,’ which does nothing without the cloths, is 8.94. Just to offer some perspective, you can get a sort of “home-sized” dust mop for 10 bucks. So we might as well compare there.

Over the course of a year, you need to sweep the floor at least 52 times. That means you have to spend $24.44 per year on replacement cloths for the Swiffer. Add your 8.94 for the broom, and in the first year of Swiffering you’ve spent 33.38 on stage one of floor maintenance. Or, you pony up the one-time cost of 10 bucks for the dust mop (which also has the pivoting head but which may not clean the floor as effectively over time).

OK, so let’s say you need to get a new dust mop, because this one wears out… wha’d’ya think? Every 18 months or so? Lets say 18 months for the sake of argument. And let’s say, for the sake of argument, that the Swiffer broom lasts twice as long as that. What are you looking at as a cost of floor cleaning over the next 10 years?

10 years is 120 months, and in 120 months, we’re figuring we’ll need to buy 6-and-two-thirds new dust mops, at 10 dollars apiece, plus the initial mop at 10 bucks, so that means 76.66 over that amount of time. If we’re going to assume that the Swiffer broom lasts for 36 months (or three years), then in 10 years we’d need to purchase 4-and-one-thirds new Swiffer brooms, which, at 8.94 apiece, is 47.68, plus the first one, we’re at 56.62. Of course, we can’t forget out annual Swiffer cloth cost (24.44), which, relative to the brooms themselves, is simply outrageous: 244.40 for ten years of cloths.

76.66 to dust mop for ten years, 301.02 for ten years of Swiffering. And we didn’t even bother to calculate inflation (current annual rate of inflation, by the way, is about 3.2%, so if we apply that figure annually over the next ten years, the 76.66 will actually be 79.11, and the 301.02 would be 310.66).

Clearly, if you can be satisfied with the job done by a dust mop (and it’s not that bad) you are the thriftier person to pass the Swiffer by. Had I just thought this all through while I was there in the cleaning aisle at Wal-Mart?, I could have avoided the issue altogether.

8/18

Got up fairly bright and early for a weekend with plans for a full Saturday. Got most things accomplished.

Part of the morning was slated for a variety of shopping trips. I took a ride over to Wally world and got all the necessary cleaning supplies for the apartment. I really don’t like the way the super-Wally has all the cleaning crap on the grocery side of the store and random cleaning accessories (like, say I wanted a bucket to go with my mop) in a totally different part. But the supplies were all reasonably priced, so…

I also bought some socks.

I got my mop and bucket at Fleet Farm, where I figured I could get masonry drill bits as well (I was wrong about that), but I ended up having to conclude the trip at Menards. I stopped in to the old Menards, too (it’s a ‘Big Lots’ now) for no particular reason, just because I hadn’t ever been before. I didn’t find anything interesting.

I climbed my new ladder and took my new drill bit and put holes in the wall so I could hang stuff up. I hung all my clocks and printed out new tags for them (so people who come visiting will know which clock is which).

I did some wash while I was at the house, and then I loaded up the wet clothes to take them to JJ’s for the drying. I figure that the lower cost and shorter time commitment needed to do the drying commercially are worth the slight inconvenience of leaving the house. And let me tell you – there are some people in that laundromat, man; there are some people…

So I’m getting done with the laundry, right? And I’ve got everything loaded up and in the car again, and let me tell you: I was quite efficient with the drying that day, and my whole list was getting knocked out, one item at a time, and I was feeling really productive, and then there was the roadblock on Main Street at Lincoln. And then there was the same roadblock on Jefferson. And people in their cars are just scurrying around the side streets trying to figure out why the hell the Main drag is closed.

And then we heard the drums.

Another goddamn parade, which, as Devin observed later, seem to have a sort of creepy, hermaphroditic capability for reproduction in Osh Vegas. It’s almost as if more than 12 Boy Scouts stand in the same area for over 10 minutes, flag poles and instruments grow out of their pores and they just start marching. I have no idea what the hell this past weekend’s parade was about, but it took me 25 minutes to drive home from the laundromat, a trip that should usually take 5.

Oh – and that trip was pretty much the Last Ride of Willy. I’ve been driving the ol’ Festiva on a wing and prayer all summer long, as it’s in need of some repairs that exceed the value of the vehicle. It was about two or three weeks ago now that I decided I couldn’t leave Oshkosh with it anymore (the occasional grinding noise in the right front wheel had become much more frequent), and then Saturday night I realized I should probably avoid driving it altogether (the more frequent grinding noise in the right front wheel has become constant). For the time being, I’m walking a lot more, and I’ll have to catch a ride with people traveling my way if I want to go somewhere.

That or I’ll have to rent.

In either case, I’m in the market for a new car, and after a close examination of my finances, I think I can afford a bigger payment than I initially thought: Do you know any place that I can get in a new car for *THREE DOLLARS* a month?

Jen and Joe picked me up at about 6:15 on Monday night on their way to Green Bay for the Packers game. Joe got the tickets from somebody he works with. It was fun; the inside of the stadium is nothing like I remember from the last time I went (which will be five years ago this October). Yes, the Pack got their ass handed to ’em, but at least the lines at the urinal were short.

If I get back to Green Bay for a game at some point in the next year or so, I should really take a camera with me. I should really get a digital camera. Do you know any place that could finance something for me for *ONE DOLLAR* a month?

8/13

Am I the only one who thinks that it’s weird you have to pay MORE to NOT be listed in the phone book?

You’re saving the phone company ink and space in the book that they probably have to pay an absolute fortune to print, so the way I see it, you don’t wanna be in there, you’re doing them a favor.

Well anyway, it was 1999 and the Internet was absolutely on fire. Little did we know that all the money apparently being manufactured in cyberspace was nothing but futures speculation and Enron scandals.

But there was a time, it lasted about 5-7 months, when you could get dial-up Internet access for free (so long as you could stomach the ads), and nearly all manner of telecommunication solutions could be found for low- to zero-cost. It was at this time that I was so bold and hopeful that I said to my grandmother, “No Grandma, you don’t have to *pay* for the Internet anymore…”

At 456A High Ave, we also had ad-supported voice mail for a little while. We each had our own mail box, and you could dial in a toll-free number from anywhere to check it. In addition, each message was captured as a .wav on this company’s server, so you could be away from a phone, but near a computer, log-in, and listen to your voice mails on the web.

I really wish I could do that with my cell phone sometimes. It’s not like the tech’s not there. What’s the hold up, y’think?

8/12

I should blog, and I have some things to say, but I’m really, really tired. I’ve actually been busy at work, it’s “that time of year” in Fin Aid, and I’m doing more stuff in general over there, too.

I got a ladder today. For free. Have you heard about this?

I’ll see you tomorrow.