Hi.

It’s been a while, but cry me a river.

Today I’m at Jen & Joe’s, doing some heavy-duty document scanning.  Later on, I want to go to the baseball game, but I’m short on people with whom to do that.  We’ll see how it goes.

I am (sort of) actively compiling that list of my 50 all-time favorite records, and I’m sure you are as well.  Looking forward to comparing!

Ummm… lemme see, what can I do in terms of updating you?  Well, y’know that I’ve got another year of grad school left, and after that, things would pretty much be up in the air, right?  Well, I’ve got an application in for a full-time, permanent job at the Financial Aid office, where I’m working as a grad assistant right now, and if I landed that, it would (at least) cement plans for the next couple of years.  And it would also mean that I could go to the doctor, so that would be cool.  They still haven’t begun the interview process, and I have no idea where I rank against the other candidates, and I’m also terrible at interviewing, so I’m certainly not counting on anything yet.  We’ll see how it goes, and I’ll let you know…

I’ve been spending a lot of time this summer with a young woman that I met at Jen & Joe’s wedding back in April.  Her name’s Michelle.  We have a really good time together, and in this short span of a few months, I already have some interesting stories I could tell you.  So, y’know, basically just in case her name comes up here or in person in the future, you have some foreknowledge.

I haven’t done as much writing lately as I’d like, but I think I still have time to do another draft of my novella, ‘Timepiece,’ before the summer is over.  I’ve been doing some reading as well; right now I’m in the midst of the newest Harry Potter book.  Have you read it?  DON’T tell me how it ends or I’ll hate you.

Somewhat related to reading/writing, I’m also going to be the fiction editor of the Wisconsin Review this year, which I think is pretty neat.  It’ll be fun, a good chance for me to hone some ‘management’-type skills, and will probably look OK on a resume in the future.  For those that don’t know, Wisconsin Review is a literary magazine published at UWO.  It comes out twice a year.  I’ll let you all know…

That has to be it for now, I’m afraid.  The drivers for the scanner are done downloading and Joe is all "get moving on the scanning, eeehhh…"

So anyway.

Last thing, give me some feedback and/or discussion:
what’s with the space program and the fate of the shuttle as a launch vehicle?  Balls…

(Not to be confused with the Fred Savage show that was regrettably shuffled around the NBC lineup before being prematurely canceled.)

I should’ve written it down, because now I can’t remember how the conversation came about, or what the context was. I was talking with Mom last weekend about work, and how every job falls into one of two categories: you either have a sit-at-a-desk-job or you have a movin-around-job.

Most jobs are pretty boring unless you’re talking about them with people who do similar work, or understand the industry you work in. Occasionally, something really generally facinating might come up (like if you do medical research and you find a cure for cancer or something), but more often than not, when asked “how’s work?” a person could respond with “I’m still sitting,” or, “I’m still moving around,” or, “Well, I used to move around, but at my new job, I sit,” etc. In the grand scheme of things, that response will probably have just as much meaning to the person making the inquiry as something longer or more specific.

I will, in the near future, need some assistance in updating/revising/revamping my resume. I won’t be looking for a new job exactly, just one that’s almost the same as what I do now, but for more money. And insurance. Man — going the doctor would be super-neato. I would get allergy meds, and asthma meds, and checkups, and flu shots, and all kinds of cool stuff. Even better would be a dentist. I would get my teeth cleaned twice a year, and maybe I’d get those wisdom mothers yanked out. And maybe I’d even go get my eyes checked, too! I am totally like a car that you’ve owned for 5 years, and the only “maintainence” you’ve ever done is washing it and buying gas.

In other news, the heat/humidity wave in Osh Vegas has temporarily subsided. I have the windows open and the fans blowing, and it is a comfortable 74 degrees in the apartment…

This weekend I’ll be going up north again w/ Joe for the father’s day and whatnot. I’m trying to plan some other “up north” weekends for the rest of the summer, too…

Yesterday Joey K was nice enough to let me borrow his wheels for an evening trip down to Madison to see Modest Mouse. My plan was to meet Dave Slotten at his place, then proceed to the show, at Orpheum Theatre on State Street, in tandem.

I was about 2 or 3 miles southwest of Oshkosh on hwy 26 when Dave called and asked what the date was that was printed on the tickets.

Yeah the show had already taken place the night before. So that kinda sucked. I don’t know how I got it in my head that it was supposed to be June 7, but I never even looked at the date printed on the tickets.

Since I had Joe’s car, I took advantage and stopped at Target for new pillows, and the grocery store for milk bread cereal and cheese.

The evening turned out to be fairly productive anyway, as I cleaned the floors, the bathroom, the kitchen, the dishes, sorted through mail, and even dusted the whole apartment. My TV was particularly dusty. It’s much better now.

Hoping this evening will work out better, when I travel w/ Jim Droste down to Milwaukee for the Brewers game. We shouldn’t have a problem getting there in time, and I have it on good authority that this game is definitely going to happen. Crew’s won 2 in a row against the Team Which Personifies All Things That Are Evil In Major League Baseball, so I’m guardedly optimistic about the prospect of a sweep.

You may recall I was there for Capuano’s last start @ Miller Park as well, and his fine effort was wasted when the offense couldn’t muster 3 runs. That kid’s pretty good, though; I like him. I think I like everybody on the Brewers staff except Obermueller and Tommy Phelps. I wish both of them were more consistent.

Hope everything on your calendar is unfolding as expected and without incident.

I am baked.  Completely.

Went to the Brett Favre Celebrity Softball Game yesterday at Fox Cities Stadium in Appleton.  It was a good time.  Joey K, April, BryGuy? and I were in attendance.  We sat on the grass along the left field sidelines, where the sun had a great shot at us from 11:50 to 2:30 Sunday afternoon.  My legs are burnt the worst, but my arms and face aren’t far behind.  Actually, I take that back.  My face is not as bad as the arms.  Still, legs much worse.  I am "medicating" all burnt regions with Noxema, and it seems to be helping a little.  What’s really creepy about sunburn in my book is how the skin keeps right on burning after you get out the sun.  I was sitting at my desk today, and my face got redder as the day went on.

Enough about the burn, though — the game was entertaining if nothing else, and Bryan and I had a good time doing our commercial-top-40 radio voices, mocking the announcers that called the game.  They were a little annoying, but we made our own fun.  Afterwards, we *were* going to go to the hibachi joint in Appleton, but it turned out they weren’t open until 4 pm.  We were there at around 3:30.  I think the consensus was that we were a little tired at that point anyway.  When I got home, I took a nap and let the skin continue to sear.

Later on Sunday evening, I finally hooked up with Jim Droste for the post-semester smoke, which we enjoyed on the steps of Breese Hall, in stark violation of university policy.  That’s sort of the best part.  We took a walk to Oblio’s for a couple beers and then had burger’s at Brooklyn’s for dinner.  It was a nice little Sunday, and Jim and I commented that there’s really no reason to ever leave college if you don’t have to.

Right now, I’m working on cutting the commercials out of the ‘Alias’es that I taped this year.  I figure I’ll put the whole season on disc, and who knows, maybe Mom and Dad will have time to catch up before next year gets rolling.  *Sigh* I really couldn’t believe the finale, as usual, but I guess that’s why we watch the show.

Busy week ahead — Modest Mouse tomorrow night in Madison, Brewers on Wednesday in MKE, then out with Bruiser on Thursday night here in Vegas.  I was hoping to maybe get up north for the weekend, but it doesn’t look like it’ll happen.  Unless Joe feels like going up, I dunno… he’s probably gotta work.

Lemme know if something interesting happens, eh?

I looked up at myself in the mirror while I washed my hands this afternoon, and for a moment I thought, “What the hell am I doing here in the men’s room on first floor Dempsey on June 1, 2005? Wasn’t I supposed to be somewhere else by now?”

I concluded that I shouldn’t dwell on anything too long, and quickly reminded myself that everything that happens is supposed to happen. There are always possibilities, of course, but what we experience is right.

Right?

I listened to an old 80’s Rewind the other day, too. That was already four years ago. I missed the show a little, and thought maybe I would record a new one in the apartment. It could be fun. Maybe I could make it a podcast. But I think I would run into some copyright infringement issues. I’ll look into it, though.

If you haven’t been here for a while, things are generally good. It’s summer, I don’t have a car anymore, I’m working fulltime during these months at the FAO, and the floor in my apartment is fairly clean.

If you’ve known me over the course of the last 12-18 months, you know that I’ve given myself one of Ray Lorch’s old, most annoying habits: turning anything anyone says to me back around into an action which I will perform “in said person’s face,” or something similar. For example, if we were engaged in conversation, and you said to me, “Let’s go down to the park,” then I might retort with, “I’ll go down to the park. IN YOUR FACE!” You can see how this makes no sense at all, which makes Lorch doing it completely understandable.

Anyway, I don’t know how I got started on it, but the other day, Joe-my-brother-in-law said something like this to me, and I immediately recognized how annoying and dumb it is to say. Since then, I’ve been trying to break myself of the habit. I am up to the point where I have good control over saying it out loud, but internally, everything is still hitting people’s faces. Maybe in another week or so it’ll be all over.

I dunno if you’ve seen the movie E.T., but that is one show that was wildly popular with my generation, and I pretty much thought it sucked.

So how was your Memorial Day weekend? Do anything exciting? I was in Milwaukee, and had a fabulous time in all my various activities. I did forget to gas up the rental before I took it back. I figured it out, and it wound up costing me an extra 17 dollars. Could’ve been worse, I suppose.

I’m looking at the calendar here and realizing that I’m not going to make it up north until Father’s Day this summer. That’s crazy. Last time I was there… was it Easter? Nah, couldn’t have been. Actually, y’know what? It was Easter. Jeez. That’s longer than I usually go. My whole summer is booking up awfully fast, as usual. This weekend I’m quasi-booked, next weekend I’m open, then it’s Father’s Day, then it might be Milton for croquet, then the 4th, then Summerfest, then I’ve got some time, but man. Y’know?

BTW, this year’s Summerfest lineup totally caters to my parents’ generation. Look at all them dried-up old crackers they got to headline! At least I know I won’t want to blow any cash @ the Marcus. You know anybody with free tickets yet?

The FAO is a virtual graveyard today. Lots of folks I think have the 3-day weekend on the brain, and a good portion of them have slipped out early. I am one of four in the office today; eight are out.

It looks like it could be a helluva nice weekend, provided that the rain holds off. Yesterday was just gorgeous in the afternoon, so I took some photos. I should probably put them up here in case you’d like to have a look.

Right, so Memorial Day: not always that memorious, what with all the visits up north and the comings and goings and cursings and rantings on the highway, but y’know — it’s important to keep the reason behind the holiday in mind. I guess I didn’t realize that it started way back during the Civil War, so there’s a little trivia for ya. I think that, especially during these times when we have our servicemen & -women strewn across the globe risking their lives all the time, we should be seizing the opportunity to remember the people who made the ultimate sacrifice. For those who were fortunate enough to come home again and have since died, we should remind others of their great deeds and lift them to a special place in our minds and hearts this weekend.

So take care this weekend, have a good time with family and friends, and may your summer begin on an enjoyable note.

Has it really taken me this long to figure out the flaw in my writing philosophy? Possibly so.

Last night, I had what one could characterize as “an explosion of creativity,” during which I rapidly whipped out a short narrative of 1100 words. I thought more about those words later in the evening, and realizing that I have a lot of similar ideas that I could string together, I figure I could have myself a neat little 5-8 thousand word story by the end of the week.

And my question of myself today is, “why the hell haven’t I always just acted on these impulses?” My tendancy has always been to catalogue them, file them, allow them to percolate and eventually have them lead to nothing. I have a file drawer full of half-good, under-developed ideas, but what good is that doing me? Really nothing.

I should be acting on all of these ideas as quickly as possible, because a completely written story that’s shit is always better than a fleeting idea that’s awesome. At least the shit story gives you something to work with. And, if you have some shit stories, when people ask you what you’ve written, you can say, “Well, this, this, this and this. They need a little work, but they’re done.” The other nice thing? The more you just do, the better you get and the less you have to follow up on later.

In all honesty, what I’ve been trying to do the last couple weeks is to use the Internet only for things that are absolutely required, and leave the TV turned off unless I’m actually watching one of my stories, because those two things alone have freed up a considerable amount of time.

So anyway, I’m at work and I’m going to do some other stuff. Have yourself a fine Tuesday…

I’ve had a very nice extended weekend here in the greater Milwaukee area… all four screenings of Episode 3 were good (although, I have to admit that by the 6:20 show on Thursday, I was getting pretty tired, what with having slept just 3 hours the night before), I had a very relaxing and enjoyable Friday, my Saturday night was great, and now I just have to find a way to get back to Oshkosh.

Jen called me last night with her initial reactions to the movie and I was a little bummed that we couldn’t see it together on opening day like we have with the other two. But, I anticipate going another 2-4 times over the course of the summer, and I know Jen will want to see it again, too, so…

Christy also said it was really good, and she had to run out and rent Attack of the Clones to see the goings on in that movie (relative to the third) again. So I think that goes to support the notion that this new flick did such a great job of sewing up the events of the whole saga, it makes the less-than-spectacular episodes in the series better.

Enough about Star Wars I guess. I was sitting here for a bit at Joe’s computer, just surfing the web and not really reading anything of consequence, then all of a sudden I had this pang of paranoia where I tried to remember what it was I needed to be doing today: ‘OhmigoddoIhavetoreadsomethingforclassorwhatohcrapI’msupposedtobewritingI’mgonnafallbehinddammit,’

But then I remembered that it’s summer, and it’s all good.

Hope to be back soon…