Portrait of the blogger as a young boy

I've been going through all these old photo albums that my mom has, slowly but surely scanning the pictures in so that they have a little more permanence. One of the albums that she has was from my grandmother's house and has a lot of pictures that I had not seen before. Anyway, this was one of them.


When I think of myself as a young boy, this is how I remember myself. I had a school desk that I would sit at and do math workbooks, if you can believe it! Funny thing is I see a lot of Anna in that photo. I can't imagine getting my child to do something like that, although she does manage to spend a lot of time at her computer (although she's spent more time with the Wii since she got Zelda for Christmas.)

That's the part of ourselves we have to take care of because those of you that know me well probably recognize him in the adult me. I know I sure do.

This stinks

If ever a picture begged to be either 1) captioned or 2) turned into a LiveJournal userpic, it's this one.


It's kind of got a what-if-Streisand-had-done-the-Sex-book-instead-of-Madonna vibe about it.

And if you don't find that disturbing (or hilarious, depending on how you look at it), check your pulse.

Are you a good witch or a bad witch?

It seems kind of silly to post it here, since there's a full album of it over on Facebook. Anymore, posting stuff there reaches a wider audience, but I still can't put near the amount of commentary there that I'd like. Because of that, you get the redundancy. But last night was Halloween, and because there's been so much sickness going around this year, we were saying small prayers all week that we would be able to make it through to Halloween without getting sick. In all seriousness, I'd rather be sick on Christmas than on Halloween, because you sure as shootin' don't get to dress like this on Christmas!

We had what is rapidly becoming our annual Halloween bash last night which was well attended and fun all around. As you can see, we all dressed the part as well. Anna is Coraline, Heidi is a Scrabble tile (which was an idea that I sarcastically suggested when she was trying to figure out what her costume should be, only to have her pick it up and run with it) and I am an Alien chestburster victim. Here's a close-up - I am prouder than hell of how it turned out.

The costume overall was easier than you'd think to rig up - I had the plush chestburster already (which was originally blogged about during Nerdery Week) and the bloody shirt was an ink-stained T-shirt that I cut a hole in the center of. I wore a red fleece shirt underneath it, pushed the chestburster through the hole in the shirt and wrapped the tail around my body. A bit uncomfortable, but not bad. The blood on the shirt is spray blood from the Halloween Bootique here in town and the blood on my face is lipstick.

As good as my costume was, it will not top my good friend Jeff who once again proved that it's not Halloween if he's not in a dress.

Jeff is my hero if for no other reason than he is so completely fearless in his actions. He, as I have said before, leads the "fuck you" charge against traditional masculinity and all its traps and preconceived notions of what being a man means. I am nowhere near as brave as he is, but I will always cheer him on and draw inspiration from it.

There was a lot of candy and food and good conversation. It's always that way with this crowd. It included people like my parents who have known me since birth and Jeff who I have known for 20+ years, as well as bringing in new faces like Jan and Sarah and their 4 kids who we met this year. And while the transitive property of friendship is sometimes a bit dicey, it always seems to work with us - and I'll just be thankful for that.

So today has been a bit more subdued. We went to the NaNoWriMo write-in at Smokey Row in Des Moines. Well, actually Heidi and Anna were the only ones writing, but I finally finished The Worst Hard Time so at least I can say I accomplished something. What I really should have done today is spend time in the yard raking leaves, which I'm not sure I would have had the energy for even if we'd have been at home.

The demise of October and switch to November is always a little hard for me. I'm not really sure why - it's purely arbitrary and really shouldn't matter much. I guess it's because to me, it feels like fall is over the instant October ends and November begins. It may as well start snowing, although actually forget I said that because of the aforementioned yard full of leaves. We stopped at Petsmart in Ankeny on the way home and they are full-on Christmas already so I can only imagine what less niche-y stores are like.

So here's to November, let's see what it does. Mostly I'm ready to kiss 2009 goodbye. There have been a few good things (the trip, Heidi's book sales) but mostly, it's kind of sucked. There's two months left to redeem it.

Phamisist

I got home from work today and saw this sitting on the counter. It totally made my day. (you might have to click on it to read the writing)

I've figured out that there is a chair in front of a computer, but I don't know what the other thing is. I also like how I have a HUGE hand. Must be all that typing I do. Also kinda looking like Plastic Man.

In any event, it's just about the coolest thing I have ever received from her. The even funnier part was on the back of the drawing is a school assignment talking about how we show respect. There is a sentence she wrote that says "I respect my mom because...she helps me make my bed." Mine was "I respect my dad because...he makes money for us."

She's come a long way from this (even though I love that just as much).

Stop! 2nd grade time

It happens every year without fail - the first day of school, that is. Only this year, the State Fair's not even over yet and school is starting! Tragic, I say. Whenever I dare get riled up about that fact and the "what about kids in 4H?", Heidi gently points out to me that we don't have a kid in 4H and it really doesn't affect us so why are you getting so riled up? Point taken.

Anyway, it's written in a law book somewhere that you have to dress to the nines on the first day of school. Anna would have it no other way. She's is Hello Kitty'd out.

She was extra-excited because she got to ride her bike to school today, even though she had to have us tag along. There's no way she's biking the 1.8 miles to school on her own (yet). It was actually kind of cold on the way there. It's late August and it's only supposed to be 70 degrees today. What the hell happened to summer?

She's super-pumped about school. She met her teacher yesterday, dropped off all her school supplies, and left with nary a hesitation when we dropped her off. I was telling a friend that she is 5000 times more excited about the first day of school than I ever was. That probably has a lot to do with the fact that she is about 5000 times more social than I ever was growing up. Just how did two introverts birth this incredible extrovert?

Storms and engagements

We trekked down to Iowa City to celebrate the engagement of my sister Wendy to her fiance, Andrew. Although both Wendy and Andrew live in Santa Monica, Andrew's folks still live there (he's originally from Iowa City) and they invited as many people from both sides of the family to come down for a late Sunday picnic and get together. It was the end cap to a busy weekend that saw us driving over to Carroll on Friday night to see my folks, as well as Andrew & Wendy, and also watching a boatload of Queer As Folk episodes with Jeff on Saturday.

Here's the happy couple. They are pretty damn cute.

I also snapped a couple of Anna, one in the back yard and one in a room at Andrew's parents' house that has been completely decked out in 50's malt shop decor.


I jokingly called it the "one stop malt shop, everything that I got." Their malt powder was raw.

We made the obligatory stop at The Java House to get St. Louis Blues au laits and picked up a pound of St. Louis Blues for home brewing even though I can never get it to taste as good at home. I wish the Java House would come to Ames, but it would probably give good old Cafe Diem a run for its money and I really, they're close enough. Anyway, the guy at the counter, upon finding out we were from Ames, told us to watch out for the storms that were headed this way.

We got back on the interstate and this is what we saw. (lower quality images as they are screen captured from videos we took)

That folks, is a good old fashioned Iowa wall cloud. We know how to do severe weather up right here. This is the kind of cloud that spawns tornadoes. We drove into it anyway (even though I wanted to wait it out).

I am always awestruck by severe weather like this during the summer. It, like Glinda, can come and go rather quickly, and it frequently does not live up to its billing. I have lived in Iowa for 37 years and have never once seen a real live tornado - not that I really want to. But when it does deliver what it promises, it can be some of the most frightening stuff you can see.

I thought about how these storms really are just a product of an energy cycle all out of whack, with the only way out a violent reaction that spits a lot of energy back out. If this is what nature does in response to out of whack energy, is it not all that surprising that our bodies would do the same thing?

Anyway, in spite of the thunderstorms, it was a great time. It is always good to see my sister and Andrew who are truly well matched and he fits into our family like he's been here all along.

This is the picture Anna drew of Andrew and Wendy on Friday. I love it.

They wanna make it in the neighborhood

No trip to L.A. is complete without heading up to Hollywood - and that's exactly what we did last night. Say what you will, but I am kind of a sucker for the touristy stuff.

We saw the Hollywood sign (from quite a distance, I might add) and walked up and down Hollywood Boulevard on the famous Walk of Fame. We also hit Grauman's Chinese Theater and some of the souvenir shops up and down Hollywood Boulevard.

Somehow or another, we hit evidence of many MANY gay icons on the way. It was as if we were drawn to them. Photographic evidence below:

Joan Crawford - outside Grauman's Chinese Theater. "May this cement our friendship!"

Going down the stoney end, I never wanted to go!

With the star of my first celebrity crush!

Oddly, the only Golden Girl with a star.
Judy Garland's cement block at Grauman's Chinese Theater.

We also managed to find Joan Crawford's star - it took us quite a while to find it (with the help of a star map which cost 6 bucks!) but it was totally worth it for this photo which Anna took.

Pacifically speaking

It only took 37 years, but I've finally been to both U.S. coastlines.

Easter then and now

We had our picture taken today after the Easter service. I figured that since we are Unitarians, it would be just like any other Sunday, and in a way, it was. But it also wasn't. We are also VERY good looking!

In 2005, we had a similar picture taken in our front yard. We were good Lutherans then. Here's that picture, just for the nuts of it.

I cannot believe how much longer my hair is, and honestly the last time I wore a tie was to my grandmother's funeral last summer (not counting my turn as Doctor Who at Halloween.)

We've come a long way in 4 years. It'll be interesting to see where we are 4 years from now.

Easter - if it were a horror film

We went down to Ankeny today to my friend Jeff's sister's house for an Easter egg hunt. Anna had a great time, and Jeff surprised all the kids by dressing up as the Easter Bunny. Anyway, I snapped photographic evidence of his arrival.


Looking at it now, it is like I captured the moment just before everyone at the Easter egg hunt was murdered by the evil Easter Bunny. I think that Easter is the only holiday that does not have a companion slasher movie. Instead, we have to settle for Night of the Lepus, which I have never seen and after watching this trailer, I think I must Netflix it immediately.



And here's a clip from the movie. To quote The Vicar Of Dibley, it looks like a "production of bloody Watership Down!" Emphasis on the bloody part.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

As my friend Kelly always told me in high school, St. Patrick's Day is a ready-made excuse to be happy! Even though I am only 1/8th Irish (my father's side has the Irish in it, hence the last name) we diluted it out with the German from my mom's side. Plus I am Irish Protestant and not Irish Catholic, so I should be wearing orange instead of green. If I still wore ties, I would wear an orange one.

Anyway, one day of the year I like to pretend I'm more Irish than I am. I saw this picture on this isn't happiness this morning and I just loved it.

How I wish I were there today! Or in Chicago, where they turn the Chicago River green for one day.

One of these St. Patrick's Days I will be in Chicago for the parade and the green river. But alas, not today.

Green beer after work will be a problem because there is no beer in the house, money is low in the checkbook but you just never know.

Intensity

Don'tbuguswe'replaying.

What might have been

I have bitched A LOT in this space about how I really do despise the Hard Candy album art. Actually, it doesn't stop with the album art, but every. single. photo. inside the CD booklet as well. As Jeff put it (in his patented "I wish I had thought of that!" way), she seriously looks like she is recovering from a bout of violent stomach flu or diarrhea (or maybe both) in all the photos. The worst offender is probably this one.

She has a very "pass the Imodium!" look if you ask me.

Anyway, via Boy Culture, some of what would have been the Hard Candy album artwork has finally leaked and, as usual, Matthew Rettenmund is right and they kind of make her look a bit ridiculous. However, I think that it is FAR AND AWAY preferable to what we got.

There is still the unnerving emphasis on her crotch, but she at least looks healthy! I love how the windswept shoulder length hair and the prevalance of white makes her look like a naughty angel (but with a soft side)! The photos were still taken after what I believe to be ill-advised plastic surgery. I never expected Madonna to give into the vanity of stardom, but perhaps that was just wishful thinking on my part.

I remain hopeful that the next phase of Madonna's career, no matter what it is, will show her embracing her age rather than running screaming from it.

Let it snow

Actually, despite my previous post professing to love the snow and winter (which I still do), at this point, let's not and say we did.

Last winter we were stuck in an incredibly snowy pattern. I don't know how much snow we got last winter, but it doesn't seem like I fired up the snowblower even half as much as I have this year. It snowed again today. The snowstorm delivered much less than it promised, but it is of the light Canadian variety which will cause great travel problems long after it stops falling.

I cleared the driveway for the what feels like hundredth time this winter today before going to pick Anna up from school, which got out at 1:30 today. As a friend of mine said this morning, Alice Cooper singing "School's...out...at 1:30" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

For those of you who live where there is no snow - whether you usually get snow and haven't gotten any this year or you never get snow - I snapped some pictures of what I'm up against right now. (click photo to enlarge)

A look down our street. That sidewalk in the foreground is ours.

The entrance to the driveway - what I have been able to carve out. By far the worst part to snowblow because it contains all the snow from the street that the plow pushes out of the street.

The side of the house down the driveway. That door was recently openable as I lugged all the Christmas stuff to the basement through that door. As it stands now, we won't be using that until the spring.

The path that I have dug through the back deck to make it easier to get to the garage.

One of the most crucial snow removal places - the turn from the main driveway to the long approach to the street. Heaping mounds of the white stuff mostly thanks to the snowblower, but still.

Anna's swing set (and mine from my youth and my mom's from hers) slowly being consumed by snow. Pretty soon we won't see the glider.

We're not to the point where you have to start shoveling the roof, but I'm starting to wonder when that will happen.

What we need is a SERIOUS melt before we get anymore. But that's not likely to happen as there's a 60% chance of snow tomorrow.

And once it does melt, I have no idea where it will go. Actually, I do. Skunk River and Squaw Creek, which will probably result in a repeat of this.

Happy snow everyone!! I still like it, but everything in moderation.

Artistic supplement

I meant to post this with my Tusk post from earlier this week, but I completely forgot! As I was listening to Tusk, I remembered this picture of the cassette tape that I had drawn in a high-school journal from around that time period (1988.) I still have all those journals, tucked away in the basement and I had to go through pretty much all of them to find it, but I did.


I have cropped out all my writing around it because there is no way on God's green earth that those words will ever find their way on to the internet. Let's just say, that which seemed profound when I was 15 is not so profound (and actually quite painful!) at 36. *shudder*

What I love about the picture is how the top of the cassette kept getting larger because I couldn't write as small as the writing on the actual tape! I couldn't even get all the songs in.

What it feels like...

...to be on Madonna's T-shirt.

And because this one is just plain freakish...

As Thomas said, I could do this all night. Well, maybe not all night, but it's still damn fun! And I think it gives you better results than that Yearbook Yourself site (which always made me feel like I was having my picture taken at one of those carnival things where you stick your head through the hole and suddenly you're a gorilla.)

You can do this too!

One more for the road.

Deh Jabba wanga

One of the stops that we always make on every trip to Chicago is Gaymart Chicago. The name is actually a bit misleading because, while it does have a lot of Pride merchandise and greeting cards with men in their birthday suits for sale, it also has a TON of pop culture items that I have not been able to find anywhere else. They have a shitload of Doctor Who merchandise that usually you would otherwise end up buying online (I could have bought my Sonic Screwdriver there rather than ordering it from Amazon Sellers) as well as other stuff that frequently borders on the kitschy side of pop culture.

However, I did come across this little wonder, and at 5 bucks, the price was right. It is a Bib Fortuna coffee mug!

(Bib's intergalactic mug shot - no pun intended)

It was actually mislabeled as an Emporer Palpatine mug, if you can believe that.

Anyway, the more I look at it, the more I think that the character of Bib Fortuna must have been inspired (at least a little bit) by Joseph Merrick, probably better known as The Elephant Man. Talk about a story that I was obsessed with when I was a kid. I watched the movie The Elephant Man more times than I can count as a kid. I read the book several times. But more than that, I remember the documentary Some Call Them Freaks that ran over and over again on HBO (and that we probably taped back on the VCR my father used to bring home from school over the summer.) It was narrated by Richard Kiley and featured Robert Wadlow, Robert Earl Hughes, Chang & Eng Bunker and Tom Thumb among others. It rode the line between amazing and a little too scary, but it just kept me coming back for more.

Anyway, here's probably the most famous scene from The Elephant Man. I had completely forgotten about it.



Wow - this post went in a very different direction than I intended. Such is the fun of blogging I suppose.

Nothing but corn

We went to Center Grove Orchard yesterday after I got off work. This is the bread and butter season for places like that, and honestly, it's one of the better ones I have been to. We went there two years ago when Anna was in preschool, but they have significantly expanded since then, adding on a whole bunch of kid friendly attractions.

One of these attractions was what they called the "corn pool" - an area surrounded by haystacks filled with dried corn kernels. I guess it is the agricultural equivalent of the ball pool that you see at Chuck E. Cheese or whatever. Heidi tells a story about how she was not allowed into one of those ball pools on account of being tall-for-her-age. Serious trauma that is not likely to be repeated in our tall-for-her-age daughter. In any event, Anna thought it was awesome. She loved trying to bury herself in corn. Naturally, this led to her wanting to bury me in the corn - something that I was not all that keen on. But then I thought "What the hell? How much longer is she going to want to do that?" so I did it.


Heidi called me a "good sport." I was AT LEAST that. For what it's worth, I now have a taste of what it must be like to die in a corn crib, only minus all the corn falling on top of you and suffocation and other such stuff.

Deck and Darth

Over the last few weeks, my father has been helping me rebuild rebuilding my deck. It was in kind of bad shape when we bought the house, but that's what happens when you buy an old house. During the last 5 years, he has replaced boards that have threatened to give way and ones that have. This summer, though, it was apparent that there were more bad spots in the current deck than there were good ones, so a concerted effort to replace the lion's share of the boards was made.

Well, as of yesterday the work for 2008 is completed. And it looks fan-effing-tastic. Take a look:

Now we want to have people over just to sit on the deck!

I wish I had a "before" picture to show the dramatic transformation of the deck. However, we didn't do the entire deck. So this picture kind of shows what it used to look like vs. how great it looks now.

The top portion of the deck and the outward facing boards are on the 2009 schedule. But for now, we are no longer in danger of falling through the deck whenever we step out onto it.

And what became of all that rotted deck wood? Well, Heidi and I became complete sweat bombs this morning and loaded most of it into the back of the pickup. The longer boards that didn't fit are piled up neatly in the yard. I have grand designs of cutting them up into smaller boards and fitting them into the back of the pickup as well, but we'll see. For now, that's where they are, awaiting a better paycheck (the next one) to be taken to the physical plant for burning. Please note that there are multiple opportunities for tetanus now in the back of my pickup.

It looks so good, and I can't thank my father enough. He came over on days that I wasn't even home to do the work! Every time I tell him that he doesn't have to come and do upkeep on my house while I'm at work, he says that he's just earning all the Social Security that I'm paying right now! Well, however he wants to look at it. He rocks.

When he came over yesterday to finish the work, he also brought my Darth Vader Collector Case that I had been looking for when we were back home for Mom and Dad's 40th. Mom must have found it and it still has 99% of the figures in there. The only ones missing are Leia Organa and Jawa. Many of them are broken or missing pieces (too much time in the sandbox most likely) but they were well loved.

It has been, all in all, a good day off - not to mention a productive one. Not only did we move all that wood but I also cleaned out the grossest utility sink in all of creation and hooked up the converter box for the TV since we have no plans to get cable prior to the great Digital Switchover in February of 2009. We now get three PBS channels.

Not sure what the rest of the day holds, but it has been just the kind of day I needed. But it is 2:05PM and I still have not showered. I need to remedy that very soon.

Sparkle, Neely, sparkle!!

We had a pretty good 4th of July here. We did all the usual things -- the parade in the morning and fireworks at dusk. The best part about fireworks is that we can just walk down the block and watch them from the 6th Street hill. Even though they are shot off a ways away from there, it affords a decent view of the pyrotechnics.

Of course, there were also sparklers and snakes. Anna prefers the new-fangled, 3 stage sparklers. Me, I'm much more partial to the old fashioned sparklers that sparkle for a minute and then go out. I also have very little time for snakes because they are messy and leave what appear to be permanent stains on the cement. We did some at our house in Washington the first year we lived there and when we moved 5 years later, the stains were still there. Mommie would not approve. No doubt she'd make me get out the Old Dutch and SCRUB.

Anna had a good time though. Her grandma (Heidi's mom) has been here the last couple days and today she's going to go back with her and spend a couple days at Camp Grandma. Heidi and I are going down to Jeff's for a Star Wars themed party that promises to be fun.

Anyway, here's a couple of pictures of Anna "sparkling" (but not like Neely) as well as some amazing pictures of the fireworks display that my mother-in-law took. Apparently she has a "fireworks" setting on her digital camera. Who knew?