Undulant

Peace.

Quiet.

Nature.

A rented-out cabin on a bluff overlooking Lake Erie, a youth can hear the waves crashing all night. Bugs buzz and chirp in the cool air outside in the trees. The moon lights up the room in a dreamy hue. The youth cannot sleep. It's far too quiet.

He can only think about how much he would love to walk down to the beach at this late hour. Stroll along in the sand, cool and yeilding, while the waves spritz him with a light mist. She would be there, too. Walking smooth and confident over the bumpy sand like it was carpet. They would be with each other, sitting next to a fire to warm while they told each other the truth, about the real person they are, about everything they were afraid to admit to even themselves.

It would be like a movie where romance was king and the love was uncomplicated.

If only he had said something when he had the chance. He decided to just keep swimming in the disorienting waters. He dried off and walked back to his cabin. He knew what to say. Well, pretty sure he knew.

Excursus

The fact that anyone and everyone has a blog is sort of baffling. It's not too hard to understand that a person might feel they are so important and/or interesting that their life shouldn't be chronicled for the entirety of the internet to read. On the other hand, people divulge so much information in their blogs, like they would in a diary, that they would never even bring up in real-life conversation.

What is it about the honesty of the blog? Is it simply misplacing trust? Hiding behind a false sense of anonymity? It's one of those weird realizations that some people come to after it's mentioned in person-to-person contact. Hey, people actually read this.

And that's another thing that I am still not entirely sure about; why do people read other people's blogs? Most of us are boing, regular people with nothing new to say or give an opinion on. We may chat about the latest episode of our favorite show, how much trouble the cat is getting into, or maybe just some cock-eyed rant about the people who are annoying us that week. It's a practice in minutia. The truly exciting people are out doing stuff instead of writing it all down day-to-day. Then they write books about their exciting lives, because books are the more respectable form of written expression. They are also the most lucrative.

I guess that's what makes this whole exercise weird for me. I try to be honest. I try to write about interesting stuff. I try to be consistent. I don't try to advertise it, though. I'd rather it spread through word of mouth. That part is up to you, dear readers.

Presentiment

Storm's a-brewin'.

Looks to be a doozy of a storm, too. Sky's darker than it should be. Darker than it should be on a summer afternoon. Cool winds blowing in. Give ya a chill. Make your hairs prick up. Give ya goosebumps. It's a shame that these nice refreshing breezes always come in right before the weather gets terrible. Then all the sunshine comes back and puts that rain into the air. It's the humidity that'll get you this time of the year. Real shame that it's only nice before it gets all sort of terrible.

Best get to shuttin' the windows in the house, I guess. Get all that mold in the drywall if you let that rain in. Big mess. Make my allergies act up. Good thing I got the storm door in back in April. Need to be prepared in this part of the country. If you don't like the weather, wait 10 minutes, like my dad always said. Hell, last tornado that came through town touched down about 50 feet from here. Scariest god-damn noise I ever heard in my life! Like a god-damn frieght train was trying to find a place to park out on the road. Shit.

And I hate goin' into that god-damn basement. Never gets cleaned. Full of dust and agin' furniture and a bunch of other shit we don' need any more. It's like hiding in a smelly old nightmare from your childhood. And the monster isn't under the bed, it's outside rippin' up utility poles and crushin' houses and cars.

Hell, back when I was a boy, I was woken up in the middle of the night to go down to the basement. I woke up in my dad's arms as he was rushing me down them crickety basement steps. I was wide, wide awake as I heard a gigantic crash above us. The old oak tree we had growing in our back yard had broken the roof and started to push down on the wooden floor of our living room. We could see the floor crackin' above us. Before we could get out of the way, the floor gave way. Our sofa fell right on top of my mother. I don't think I stopped crying for about 5 years.

Looks like it might be a rough one. It's too dark. It just ain't a right color for the day time. It's almost turnin' the sky green. I hate these god-damned storms.

Roborant

Holy shit, it's spring! It's like 72 degrees outside! Can we have class outside today? Can we go home early? Is it too late to call in sick?

When the weather finally turns brighter, we all feel this sigh of relief. We can put away our thermal socks, wash our huge coats and put them away. We can leave the house with our favorite jackets. No one has a favorite coat. They are too bulky to love in the same way you love a jacket.

People move faster, emboldened by the comforting breezes and the returning warmth to their faces. Politeness hits an all-time high, as not to ruin the good thing we got going. We've all woken up from a mental hibernation well-rested and ready for life to be beautiful again.

Bikes come back. Dogs take off their ridiculous sweaters. Birds start to sing.

I hope that it stays like Spring forever. I hate it when it's too hot outside.

Autochthonous

I'm a creature of habit. I like my days in.

Although I love to go out to the city or on a trip or anything adventuresome, I equally love those well-earned days of lazy. Days where you don't have to leave the house for anything, you don't have to go outside, and you don't expect any company that make you get dressed or comb your hair.

These relaxing hours always start off with one of the best things in life; a hot shower, then getting dressed in pajamas. That's such an amazing feeling, putting on the most comfortable thing you own at the beginning of the day. It's a uniform of defiance. I'm not going to do anything today that would normally call for a pair of regular pants. The pizza guy could care less.

A little relaxation could go a long way. I would love to have these sorts of days more often, but I'm more glad to be out, expending my energy, getting things done, and meeting people. Then I can reflect on how much I hate being tired in a genuine fashion.

Expunge

It's almost Spring, and that means one thing; It's almost time for Spring Cleaning.

I have a natural aversion to having a clean living space. My tendency is to throw things where I believe they should go. Some instinctual system that I could never explain without sounding like a crazy man.

Then my floor becomes messy, things get broken under foot, dust collects. Nothing gets lost though. Barely ever. So when it does become time to clean, I just have to put piles into boxes or drawers then vacuum.

It's still a pain in the ass.

Because then there is the bathroom and the kitchen to clean. Places where grime and soap scum form. Rooms that require you to use chemicals that make you tear up and gasp. And at the end of the day things don't really look cleaner, since they've been stained for so long.

Maybe cleaning more than once a year is a good idea.

Dour

It's always startling to come upon someone with no sense of humor. In times like this, when there is so much tension, it's hard not to laugh at it.

As much as good as it is to maintain a sense of reverence and sincerity in the proper settings, like board meetings or funerals, it's as importance to show some irreverence whenever possible. Making fun of what should be respected is just that, fun.

Being around a person who sets things off limits for humor puts you on a bit of an edge. A declaration of offense could make you feel like they won' understand that you are joking about anything else. "I don't really mean these things I am saying. These are just jokes." A feeling of paranoia can almost take over. What if there is something else I can't make fun of? What if there are several and I hit everyone? Are they going to be mad at me?

Not to say we need to let every gross, racist, or deragatory thing be considered a joke. The automatic restriction of one topic or another is what's the culprit. A good sense of humor is not laughing at anything that's phrased like a joke. A good sense of humor is being well-rounded in what you find funny. The occasional gross-out gag, a subversive turn of phrase, a satirical political remark, someone falling down onto a cake, and even the occasional pun. If you laugh at things that are phrased like jokes, then you end up finding Carlos Mencia funny.

All in all, It's probably better for everyone if we all just lighten up.

Animadversion

I'll be glad when irony finally dies.

My generation thinks they are funny by referencing shows like Saved By The Bell or Transformers. There's nothing really inherently funny about these old TV shows or movies. Most of them are pretty crummy.

Sarcasm is pretty rampant, mainly from amateurs. People just taking a contrary stance in a snotty voice. No well contructed arguement. No wit to speak of. Just people being mean to you.

We're mean-spirited, insincere, and without any creativity.

I know I bring up a lot of problems and never really solve them or pretend to solve them. I'm not without answers this time. I'll leave you with the New Sincerity Manifesto.

Perforce

You know what sucks about having to do this blog?

Crummy words like this.
Inspirationless days.
A lack of formal writing skill.
An easily distracted writer.

I know it was my own idea to do this and I could quit whenever I want. I really need to keep it going. That's what successful people do, they stick it out and keep on working. And I really want to succeed at blogging.

Clerisy

I'm very Midwestern.

I'm not too fancy. I'm pretty easy-going. I try to get my work done. I don't cause a fuss for anyone. I use the word "fuss." I have no sense of entitlement. I'm polite to people in food service. I'm polite to people in general.

My Midwestern identity was really formed during college. A lot of my friends went to big colleges like University of Illinois and The Ohio State University. Although my friends had the same sort of sensibilities, they allowed me to meet some people who were clearly taking the higher education experience for granted. People who prided themselve on never going to class, or not even knowing where the library is. People who tell you to drink before noon to help cure the blues. Men who treat women like shit, and women who let themselves get treated like shit. My parents didn't go to college, so I grew up with the idea that higher education was a privilege not to be squandered. Partying is definitely a part of that experience, but it should be more of a reward for a hard week of class instead of the entire cirriculum.

Another thing that really informed my personality was having a really good friend at an arts college in the city. I was able to constrast our experiences in the same field. I got a real sense that I was getting a more well-rounded education, taught by passionate instructors. The big-time New York City college sounded more like it was a lifeless cirriculum taught by people with notariety instead of any sort of instructorial skills.

I'm proud to work hard, earn my rewards, and not ruffle any feathers. Then again, New York is making me want to ruffle feathers.

Empyrean

One of the spookiest things about dying is the finality of it all. When things end in life, like school, you have another step beyond that or maybe even another path you can continue on. Dying is it, though. You're dead and you're done. You don't get to see the series finale of Heroes. You don't get another Sunday morning pancake breakfast. You've opened your last birthday present.

That's what scares me the most. Being completely finished. Being active and busy is what I know best. If I don't think I have enough to do, then I get really antsy or even despondant. I feel bad that I don't have enough to do, like I'm wasting time.

I was pretty lazy as a kid. But there really isn't much to do when you are a kid besides sports. I'm not really an athlete now, so as a youth I was practically worthless. I scored one goal in soccer, but only because the forward and the opposing goalie clobbered each other and the ball rolled right in front of me. It was like in a movie. Very rarely in competive sports are your goals handed to you in Disney-esque fashion.

Going through high school, I was able to do more activities that fit my nerdy lifestyle that I was starting to settle into, like Quiz Bowl. In college, I hit my stride. I worked at a TV station and drew cartoons for the paper, all while taking 18 semester hours. I was in art competitions and putting on my own shows, and going to Open Mic Night at the Bootlegger regularly.

But now the idea of having to end everything all at once really scares me. But I guess I won't be around to be bored.

Adage

There aren't enough hours in the day.

Limpid

Ice has turned the city into a really dangerous obstacle course.

Some lazy property owners have been lax in their upkeep duties, and the ice storm has left to collect into a sheet of crumpled slippery death. The walking aimless tourists stop and prevent you from walking in the clear. Sometimes you are not only forced onto the icy patches, but into the stacked up plowed snow that is not going to melt until June.

I slipped on some ice today. Can you tell?

Specious

I think I looked a little too cool, so I decided to go get my haircut by a stranger.

I've seen a lot of cheap place on 7th Avenue, below 23rd. It seemed like the right thing to do. Cheap haircut, no fuss, no muss. However the barber I was saddled with was an angry-looking Russian who was possibly gay. Schlubby gay. No matter his orientation, he seemed eager to do anything but cut hair. Especially mine.

He shoved around my head, guiding it with forcible shoves and a finger in my ear. Snipping with little discretion. He took off my apron and said it would be ten dollars. I looked at the finished product every now and then, wondering why it looked so weird to me.

Later that night, I was stranded in Lyndhurst, waiting on my cab. After an hour, and no word from the car I called, I hopped in another cab I saw discharging his passenger. I chatted up my driver about rescuing those in need of a ride on St. Patricks Day, my messenger bag in the seat next to me. As I got out, I tipped the driver about 7 bucks because I was so thankful to get home. He asked me if I was religious. I said no. He said "Oh, I thought you might be a Mormon or something." Then I realized that I have a Mormon's haircut.

Appurtenance

I love my new tv. I absolutely fucking love it.

The roommate and I found it on sale, and split the cost. It's 27 inches of LCD High Definition love that imbues our living room with the light glow of televisual entertainment. It makes watching TV better, it makes my video games better.

It's the first real luxury item I've bought since moving. My laptop was a gift, my DVDs are by no means necessary, but also not extravagant. This marvelous TV, however, is very much in the realm of "No, you didn't need this at all."

We really did need it, though. The replaced TV was falling apart. It failed to turn on whenever you hit the actual power button. Sometimes the picture would blank out, and you would have to hit the screen to make it return to life. It took a little Fonzie finesse. Who wants to deal with that when they've got two episodes of The Office running back to back?

Taciturn

This is a very fitting description.

Descry

For those of you with poor eyesight and thinking about Lasik surgery, go for it.

When I was in 4th grade, I sat in a crowded doctor's office waiting to get my first set of glasses. I remember going right after school and not getting home until dark, having to wear a large set of spectacles. I never really had a pair that fit me very well. I broke my glasses often, repairing them with tiny screwdrivers or superglue.

When I went to high school, I got my first set of contacts. For a year, I had gas permeable lenses, hard contacts. Tiny pieces of hard plastic that you are supposed to wash with soap, rinse, and stick in your eye everyday. You never truly get used to them. You can always feel them on your eye. The first hour or two you have them in, you can't bear to open your eyes. Soon they dig a groove and settle in. You can't wear them swimming at all because they may slide out. You cannot wipe your eye too hard or they may pop off of your eyes. Make sure you rinse 'em real good, or you'll be stuck with soap in your eye all day. Also, if you only get one pair, and they are very expensive to replace.

Then for 5 years, I wore soft contacts. They were nice and comfortable, easy to replace. It's was still another chore to deal with in the morning and evening. Still needed my glasses if I took them out.

Then I had my eye surgery in 2004, and it was the best thing to ever happen to me. I now have 20/10 vision. I read all sorts of things comfortably from far away. Nothing to worry about.

I'll have to wear reading glasses at forty. Oh well!

Cogitate

I don't know if you people can tell, but I am usually distracted when I write this blog. I think it stems from the fact that I am distracted in real life.

I don't have a ton of things that make my life to ponder. There's nothing rough in my life that I need to mull over and figure out what I need to fix. I'm usually thinking about how much I want to keep playing Saint's Row but there is a super-hard mission that I can never finish. Things like that.

Daydreaming has been a huge part of my life. These private little tangents I go on often connect in the wildest patterns. Thanks to the magic of internet, I can actually substantiate my aimless brain's path by showing a browser history from surfing wikipedia for nearly 2 hours. How does a grown man start reading about Albert Camus and end at Rocky and Bullwinkle. Only Firefox knows.

Trepidation

One of the terrible ironies of my life is that I work for a man who has made his name in the Sport Fishing arena of publishing, and I suffer from a mild case of icthyophobia. I'm not sure what happened or why it happened, but fish have just made me nervous. The older I get, the more I start to dread being near a fish.

Fish are gross, slimy creatures with big dumb ugly heads and monster faces. They make no noise. They have no facial expressions. They just want to kill and eat. The bigger they are, the scarier they grow. Look at sharks. They deeper into the ocean you go, the more frightening these monsters becoming. Angler fish look like they were created by H.R. Geiger when he had to sub in for God on his day off.

Having grown up near the Mississippi River, I'm well acquainted with catfish. They are probably the spookiest fish, with their thick face tendrils, their scaleless bodies, and their sharp barbs they hide in their bodies.

I hate going into pet stores near the giant wall of aquariums. I feel like they are going to all crack at once and then all end up stuck to me. Even worse would be to fall into a hatchery trough, over-saturated with young fish. I would probably puke and hyperventilate at the same time and choke to death.

Man, I'm getting nervous just writing about fish.

Nonplus

Some one from my class decided not to participate in the class graduation show.

I'm really suprised that someone would put in the money, the time, and the effort for a class and not do the last thing you need to do to pass. That's one of my pet peeves. People who will abandon something that they work on because they don't feel that they want to meet the challenge.

And in this circumstance, it's pretty disrespectful for the other people. For us. We all felt left down that someone would abandon the team, the community, the friendship that we all built together over the past weeks.

I don't know. Maybe they missed because of traffic or death. A phone call would have been nice.

Effete

I did want to be an artist at one time. I wanted to live that romanticized poverty lifestyle, pouring all of my angst into my work, forging an oeuvre to become the touchstone of my generation.

But then I learned it's mainly decorating rich people's houses, and it's lost the appeal.

The art world is sort of a sad parody of itself now. It really has no relevance to people's lives now. It's become a sensationalist one-upsmanship contest. It alienates the public who aren't in on the joke. Although the joke is pretty old.

Art snobs deride the general public for watching television or movies that weren't produced by some Czechoslovakian crippled man. They laugh about how regular people hate Marcel Duchamp's found object work. They also don't seem to understand why anyone would want to live in Middle America.

I don't think I could stand to live in the world of hypocrisy, prentense, and rich-dude sycophancy.

Art people seem to be adverse to working for a living. Being paid for something other than the fruits of your genius is seen as selling out. But putting a shark or a vacuum cleaner in a plexiglass box is more than acceptable.

I'd much rather draw zombies for books.

Father Eugene

A quick, non-word post.

Fr. Eugene Middendorf, mentioned in the post Homily has died today. He was 88 years old.

He was a great man, and a big part of my childhood. He was kind of a nut, but I think that's what made him great with us grade school kids. We like it when grown ups behave like us.

Fr. Eugene was in a rest home for the last few years of his life. It always pains me to think about how we can get so old that we can't take care of ourselves anymore, and Fr. Eugene had no family to take care of him. I don't really want to think about what his last few years on this earth were like. He wasn't in good shape when I saw him last, about 8 years ago.

I just hope that wherever he is now, he's happy.

Coterminous

Do I have any peers? Who are my contemporaries?

Does anyone else keep as busy as I do? Where do the other designer/cartoonist/illustrator/artist/Trivial Pursuit champions hang out? Do they also have a head for insane amounts of minutia? Do we watch the same TV shows and movies? How comparable are our record collections?

Did any of them go to school in the middle of nowhere? Did they have to create their own fun? Is life rewarding them more than me? Why or why not?

Are they bothered like I am?

Malapropism

There are a lot of varying degrees of comfort in interpersonal relationships. Depending on how you feel about someone, you feel more at ease talking about certain taboo topics. Some topics might be avoided outright just to keep from complicating a simple friendship you really don't want to get too involved in. Certain good friends you may feel completely comfortable with to buy them a Christmas gift.

We all have our own little checklists for how involved you are in someone else's life. We take a weird sort of inventory every time we think about doing something that may be out of line. You wouldn't invite someone you just met on a cross-country road trip. You don't want to give a platonic friend flowers for any reason. A comic book geek like myself wouldn't want to take his new girlfriend to ComiCon.

Seinfeld popularized this whole agonization and system-building Americans deal with in their friendships and day-to-day relationships. I think it's made the country more neurotic.

The one benchmark I can tell I have, is that somehow, subconsciously, I start to talk incorrectly with the people I'm closest with. I'm very measured with my speech in day to day life. I use a lot of vocabulary words, most of which were drilled into my head in 8th grade by Ms. G. However, when I know I'm in the company of my best friends, I don't really think about what I am saying. A lot of things come out incorrect. Spoonerisms a lot of times. I've been known to say things like "This angries me" as well. I supposed my guard goes down and I don't worry about sounding like a jackass. By then, I think, my good friends already know I am.

Collegial

My last day of my first improv class was yesterday. I wish it could last a lot longer, but I guess it can't.

I got to meet a lot of cool people who all made me laugh. I made some new friends and started getting a practice group together. My confidence had grown a lot. What I love the most is the chance to perform again.

I haven't been able to do a lot of theater since high school. Grade school and high school, I did shows at the community theater and in school shows. I loved the comradarie of being in a show. Spending your off-stage time making friends, pulling pranks, creating weird inside jokes based on the play you are performing. Then aafter your last show, it's over. You go back to your regular lives, your schools, your day job. The memories of all the silly giggling moments, the great saves you made on stage if someone forgot their lines, the people you wish were in your lives more.

Those are the feelings that are going to creep back to me after my graduation show. Hopefully this isn't the last time I get to be a part of a show.

Indefatigable

I don't think I can stand the taste of energy drinks.

Before I started college, I worked overnights at the post office in Quincy. I had a lot of trouble adjusting to the schedule, even falling asleep in my car for an hour after I arrived a few minutes early. It was around the same time that Red Bull had entered into the American snack mainstream. Mountain Dew had their own version. Rockstar had just come out. I tried a lot of different nasty fruit juices to help me sort packages into the small hours.

They all taste like chemicals. It's what I imagine mad scientists in the movies taste when they are swigging a potion and grimacing. The mixture sits in your guts, corroding away your stomach lining as if to enter your bloodstream by any means necessary. It's never a pleasant experience.

However, people love to drink these things even when they don't need to pull an "all-nighter" (like the kids are saying these days). It's almost becoming a replacement for coffee. Kids are drinking it to get through their day.

Maybe if all the good shows on TV didn't air so late, we could get to sleep at a reasonable hour.

Galumph

I think one of the weirder things I've noticed about myself in recent years is how my clumsiness has helped improve my hand-eye coordination.

I have a bad habit of losing my grip on things, and it ends up in one of those bobbling juggling acts that you only see Yosemite Sam perform with a stick of lit dynamite. I've broken a lot of glass, spilled a lot of drinks, and ruined a lot of meals by letting them hit the carpet.

I always feel kind of foolish whenever I start my fumbles. No matter what you do, there is no recovering from such a spontaneous display of silliness. An intensive PowerPoint lecture of String Theory for an audience of 1000 peers could be immeadiately ruined by a slippery laser pointer. It is almost like watching someone trying to play hackey-sack with a found object.

After 23 years of practice, I've started to catch soap that slips out of my hand in the shower, or safely grab a falling off of a shelf. I'd much rather just be able to hold on to things.

Sagacious

One of my pet peeves are people who feel like they need to constantly speak when they are in a conversation with you. People who never really make a point, but feel the need to keep going and going until they think they have. I try to listen to everyone, but then I just start to space out and forget whatever is being said to me once I discern that they are spinning their wheels. Life's too short to talk through it.

I think that seems like a weird thing to say on a blog where I ramble on about nothing in particular, but there it is.

Entreat

I'm writing from work. Work on a Saturday.

I come in on Saturdays a lot. I'm the only full-time person in the graphics department, so I've got a lot of extra work to do.

That's just the way it is, though. It used to really bother me that I've got to bear the brunt of the workload. Then I have to think about it properly.

At 23, I'm designing a bulk of a good publishing company's catalog. I get to do illustrations for certain books. I have two interns working under me. I have a larger portfolio than most people my age. Other people in this neighborhood are working in sweatshops or porno stores.

If I can work hard to make my life easier later, I can take a few days out of my free time. As long as it ends someday.

Conflagration

The weather has always held a certain fascination for me. I get it from my dad. He used to videotape lightning storms off in the distance when he first got a VHS camcorder. He's always watching the Weather Channel. He can talk about fronts and pressure centers as if you knew what he's talking about.

You also get to see a lot of different kinds of weather growing up in Illinois. I've been in some tornado scares, blinding rain, and town-crippling snow. Power outages are normal in the spring seasons.

It's a fun kind of scare. You hole up for safety, but you are usually certain you will be ok. It's like a horror movie. It's all not real somehow. Well, until shit goes down. In 1993, a levee broke across the river from my hometown, effectively wiping out 1000's of acres of farmland, businesses, and major highways. Thankfully, we were safe at home.

I'm still kind of curious to see what happens in a major event. I was actually hoping for a blizzard this winter. New York is notorious for them, and yet we've only gotten two or three days of snowfall. I really wanted to see what it was like when the city needs to shut down.

I could have used the day off, too.

Profligate

I hate Entertainment News.

I hate what it stands for. I hate the way it invades people's privacy. I hate the way it disrespects the sensibilities of the viewing public. I even hate the way it's shot.

These incredibly smarmy hosts like Billy Bush, Ryan Seacrest, and even Mark McGrath throwing out buzzwords while the background goes all sorts of crazy. Their overly made-up faces talking about other peoples problems through a bleached, shit-eating grin.

I don't see how any of this information is pertinent to anyone. Britney's rehab, Anna Nicole's funeral, Marcia Cross's nursery? Is anyone at all asking for information about these topics? And if they are, do they really need to know? I don't see why we need to get into these people's lives. We have so much to with our own lives. The way their stories are presented, it makes you feel like you aren't good enough because you aren't living celebrity lifestyles. You don't have all the things the incredibly rich have. It's insulting to the happiness you can feel from getting a hard day's work under your belt.

I wish there were more things to watch at 7:30.