Finally, a nice movie for 2007

It had been a slow year for movies this year, but Quinceanera finally made its way through our Netflix queue this weekend. It's just so good. I feel like I want to put the dvd back in the player and press play in the hope that the story will pick up with the characters where it left off. But they're not real. It's hard to convince myself of that.

Sitting up, taking fluids

I guess I'm better. Whatev. I'm well enough to sit up at least. Picked up the guitar, even. How is it that every time I look up the chords to a Wilco song I like, it's always GCD with maybe an Am or an F? How can one guy make so many different cool songs with the same material? Today: "Handshake Drugs," D, G, F.

Slate has a pretty funny four minute segment from the This American Life show that starts on Showtime this Thursday. It's animated by Chris Ware, even. I still think I will prefer the radio version of the show, but that may be because I don't have cable and will never see the Showtime version.

The Horror

Just compare this picture of me from this morning with the one below to get a feel for how I'm doing today. I like the hair, though.

I wish that God or Flying Spaghetti Monster or whoever had designed us so that we had old fashioned pull tabs on our skulls so we could just rip our heads open and pour out the sinus pressure. That seems like it would have been the obvious way to do things.

Shoot me.

I think this picture explains pretty well how I've been feeling the past few days.

Gatorade probably wasn't the best plan of attack; I can admit that now. I was thinking that my electrolytes were low, though, which you can't let happen, ever.

So today I will try Theraflu even though I can't stand the taste of the stuff. If I can get to the co-op, I'll try that throat coat tea too.

Cure me

Oh man am I sick. It's one of those where you are dizzy all the time and feel like you are walking on the moon. It probably wasn't safe for me to drive into school, but I had to put together some kind of plans for class tomorrow--and even Tuesday the way I'm feeling. If you know any folksy cold remedies, let me hear them. So far, I have been sticking to drinking lots of Gatorade, and that's not helping much.

A recent one

Here's a new poem about tee-vee . . . or is it? I have no idea.

Syndication

This is the episode where the guy
recalls scenes from his life
you know what a clips show is
and he relives the one
when he said goodbye to her
at the airport
she got a job in marketing in Seattle
she would have stayed if he asked
and he remembers that and
decides to kill himself.
God, that isn’t funny at all.

What about the one where he
is avoiding his boss at work
because he botched a project
and then runs into him
at a baseball game
there is an awkward moment
someone should tell a joke
and his boss fires him
and he cries right
there at the baseball game.
That is so humiliating. God.

Remember the one where he
doesn’t even get out of bed
the whole show is right there in bed
and he doesn’t even say anything, he
just lies there but his eyes are open
and his mouth is a little open
he looks funny
I wished the phone would ring or something
I don’t even know
what that one was about
I had to leave the room.

Brother to Wed Local Cutie

There she is, our Leslee, the future Mrs. Brian Hill! Wow. I think the whole family has been laughing giddily since we heard today--she's just that wonderful.

Brian took her north, way up in Michigan, to make the proposal out on a frozen lake so that the exact place of the asking will eventually disappear, a place they will only be able to revisit in memory.

For some reason, the only pictures I have of Brian and Leslee together are from Germanfest last summer, so pardon the beer--it wasn't Disneyfest.

Man, Brian and I were kids, I swear, yesterday.

Syrup 07

Here are C and Mr. B walking back to the car (parked up there at the barn) after a couple hours of emptying buckets of tree sap and filling up with pancakes. We usually go to one of these in a woods north of town an hour or so, but just heard about this one through the Acres web site, and it's so much better. For one thing, it's free. For another, you have to walk through 1/2 mile of mud to get there, so you know you are spending time with people who really like their syrup--good people. You feel like you've earned your day. And then for another thing they give you buckets and let you trip through the woods collecting sap, and then finally there is Mr. Yoder, who owns the farm and talks to you about trees and whatever.
Some fun stuff going on today--this, and now I'm going to go watch a rugby tournament at the park across the street that I can see from where I'm sitting . And if I don't take too much time C might let me get in my first road ride of the season today, too, since I let her spin this morning. I'm almost glad IU lost last night so that I don't have to be inside watching that boring offense on this pretty day.

Injury update: two to report. Had to call the bike ride off when I hurt my back whilst leaning over to turn on the dvd player. I mean geez, I carry a kid a mile on my back today with no problem, but it's this that gets me.As much as my back is killing me, though, I still probably feel better than the rugby playing kid I saw dislocate his shoulder today. His team had driven all the way from Columbus, Indiana, too. That's the first time I'd watched rugby in person, and it seems designed specifically to cause injuries just like that. Pretty ferocious stuff. My kids will be forced to stick to mountain biking where at least you know the trees aren't trying to hurt you on purpose.

Library Honeymoon Over?

No, I'm still crazy about the place. It's my new office. I'm still claiming it, one Dewey decimal at a time. But yesterday it seemed noisier than usual. I heard more moms telling their kids to "shut up." And the movie I wanted wasn't in. I guess that last one could happen at any library.

The most annoying thing that's occurred to me took place yesterday, when two tools tried out the old "can you give us some gas money?" routine. If my computer wasn't on my lap, I might have thrown them over the balcony. How much money can that scam really make people, anyway? It just can't be as lucrative as checking pay phones for quarters or placing "tiny classified ads" in newspapers. What idiots.

I've been the target of this Abbot and Costello routine at least five, and I think six times in the six years I've been in town, and the cultural anthropologist in me has noticed the following motifs for this particular example of alcoholic/crackhead folklore:

1. They need to get back to Indianapolis, Chicago, or the hospital.
2. They have been to the churches but they got turned away.
3. They went to the mission, but nothing could be done for them.
4. This is not a scam.

Some variations have included the claim that they had "just been jumped" and I could call the cops to confirm their story. Another claimed that he was our neighbor and "for gosh sakes, my wife walks our dog by here every day."

What's tough is keeping your cool and not throwing them off the balcony. I usually try to just turn into a robot that says "no" a lot with no inflection in my voice. I've thought about using humor, like saying "damn, I was just about to ask you for the same thing, man." Or maybe I could say "hey, you missed the part about getting turned away from the churches." But you never know what will set some people off. My brother says the next time he gets this, he's going to offer them some actual gas from his lawnmower can to see what they do. I need to think about this so I can be ready next time to do something more than the effective but dull "just say "no" plan.