27 January 2004, 3:00 peeyem
It was a good birthday. Aside from the part where I launched myself headlong into the restaurant. But really, that wasn't terrible either. No blood was shed and my pride is used to such things, so no harm there, either. Just one giant, jolly-whopper bruise on my knee. At the very least, it made my friends, after expressing the necessary concern, guffaw.
Sunday I drove to Dublin for Daddy's birthday, and man, what a drive. When it wasn't raining, it was just drizzling and miserable. Coming back up I-16 was like driving in a cotton tunnel and I caught myself drifting just before Macon, so I pulled over and took myself a little nap in some bank parking lot for about half an hour. I was so wiped out by the time I got home that I didn't have it in me to even go out for a movie, all that being upright and all.
I have been watching this presidential race with some trepidation. I hope that I don't know what's going to happen, but I fear that I do. And I'm not altogether certain that I can stand it if it does. But of course I will stand it. We all will, no matter what celebrities threaten to move to Canada or wherever it is they all say they're going. They're celebrities, after all, they aren't mental giants and they aren't even elected officials.
19 January 2004, 4:35 peeyem
Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. If you don't know why we observe Dr. King's birthday with a certain amount of reverence, get thee to a library and look it up. I wonder how he'd feel to know that his birthday has become one of the Federal Mondays, another day off, not even on his actual birthday except every seven years or so, give or take?
Of course, there are other days that we should observe and we don't. Edgar Allen Poe, for instance, had his birthday today. If you don't know who Edgar Allen Poe is and you don't know any of his work, you are missing a huge chunk of literature.
Thursday will be the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and that, too, is an important date in American history.
This morning there was something on the radio about men with hats, and the more I think about it, the more I think they should have put Hawk's hat in with him when he went, because that was not a man who left home unpressed and hatless and unprepared for the day ahead. Then again, maybe he got a new one when he got there.
13 January 2004, 4:21 peeyem
I always wanted to go to Lion Country Safari when I was little. Actually, I didn't really want to go, I wanted to want to go. I was scared to death of the actual going.
What was really appealing about it to me was being able to drive past the animals and look at them, lingering only at the ones that really interested me.
The older I get, the more pronounced that propensity of mine becomes. I don't like to look at every single thing in the museum. I like to walk through and stop if something catches my eye. I am a zipper, not a lingerer. When a few friends and I were in Washington, DC for a week, Michael Womac and I managed to get through all of the Smithsonian in three hours. The last time I was in New York, I got a map of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and zeroed in on what I wanted to see and was done in just under a half hour.
It's ridiculous really, because there's probably a lot I miss. On the other hand, I never miss what grabs my attention and I save a lot of time, so maybe it's a wash. Maybe I don't need to see everything in the world.
9 January 2004, 12:04 peeyem
I forgot about New Year's resolutions, but I have one. This year I will throw away containers without lids and lids without containers.
That is nothing you say? Ah, it is everything. One year my resolution was to throw away pens that don't write, and that has saved me at least a day or two over the last few years, because I never have to rifle through the pen cup looking for something to write with, because they all write.
Last night was the first night of Continuing Darkroom. We're going to be printing 11x14 prints. This blows my mind mainly because I don't think I can reach high enough to turn the knob to get the enlarger head where it should be. I will stand on a chair. In the pitch black dark. And try to move a finely calibrated instrument up and down and focus on light sensitive paper all at the same time.
For my next trick, I will be taking a color developing seminar. I'm not that interested in developing my own color prints, but you never know when you'll be called upon to do it, so there you go.
My head hurts.
8 January 2004, 10:58 ayem
It is the birthday of that Great American, Elvis Presley. He would have been 69 years old today. Or, rather, he is 69 years old today.
I think they ought to make it a federal holiday, and I might get that movement started tomorrow.
There's a young man who works here in the building who might be around 26 or 27. He's nice as he can be, but he wears his pants hanging down around his ass. This makes me crazy because it looks stupid. I also think he might be stoned a great portion of the time (which would likely explain his pleasant disposition). The other day I went to the first floor to mail something and realized I needed something else, so I stayed in the elevator. He got in on the first floor, took one look at me and said, "Whoa! Where did you come from? You just materialized right here, in the elevator with me."
I have got to stop being so damn mean. I looked that boy right in the eye and said "I was sent here. From out there. To pass things along."
He looked completely stunned and asked me "what are you?"
Without missing a beat, I leaned in and whispered to him, "You don't have a word for my kind here yet. But I can tell you I was sent to tell you to pull up your pants."
His eyes got really big and he hauled his pants up and said, "Whoa. Sent here. With a message. For me. Dude."
I should feel some remorse for this, and yet I do not.
Living
in the
Past?
2003
2002
