speed bumps and secrecy

sorry for all of the vaguery (?) on the supertopsecretspecial project. trust me, once i can tell all of you guys, i will. there are a host of reasons that i can’t say anything that will all make sense sooner or later.

speaking of the project, i think i hit a speed bump last nite. or it could’ve been a moose. i’m still trying to assess the damage that was done. to use a bunch of cliches, i’ve been thrown a curve ball, set back on my heels, thrown for a loop, and caught with my pants down.

as of approximately 11.15 last nite, i don’t know if i’m going to be able to make the supertopsecretspecial project happen. i don’t know for certain, but i’ve gone from pretty sure it will to pretty sure it won’t. i’m disappointed, but i’m remaining positive that i simply took a wrong turn somewhere and that with a little bit of advice and a little bit of a pep talk from some friends that i’ll be back on the horse again.

still, today looks dreary and glum. my disposition very closely matches the sky that i can barely see out of the window of the office where my cubicle resides: gray & cloudy, but calm & cool.

we’ll get it figured out. fold or flush, we’ll get it figured out…

standing on the precipice of the unknown

i’m inching closer and closer to the edge. i’m not scared, but i’m cautious. normally, i don’t mind taking risks, but this one’s a little different. you see, it doesn’t just involve me. it involves us. for that reason, i’m cautious. if we decide to step off into the unknown it could be:

stressful

scary

hard

painful

embarrassing

but then again, it could be:

fun

exciting

an adventure

the start of something great

we won’t know unless we step into the void. we like the safety, but the path of the known is starting to show signs of traffic. soon the path could become a rut. and when it becomes a rut, will we be so far down that we can’t get out? will it no longer be safe to abandon the familiar for the unknown?

we’ll know soon. we’ll either trust ourselves and test our mettle or we’ll decide that the time isn’t right, that the opportunity is a trap. either way, we’ll convince each other that our decision is the right one and we’ll move forward hand in hand.

we’ll hold hands for safety. we’ll hold hands for comfort. we’ll hold hands for strength. we’ll hold hands…

funerals, family, and belt buckles

first, thanks to everyone for the condolences and well wishes. i appreciate your kindness and thoughtfulness.

i won’t make this long, since i am 190 emails in the red, have a handful of voicemails to reply to, and am too tired to work late today.

a few observations from the trip:

-when travelling with a one month old, add 30 minutes feeding & changing time for every 60 minutes driving. example: a 12 hour trip will take 17 hours.
-gps units are illogical. they do great on the macro, not so great in the micro. example: rather than drive through texarkana via interstate, we took the scenic route. by scenic i of course mean that we drove through the industrial section, the poor section, the deserted section and the “what the hell is the gps unit doing?” section of texarkana.
-power inverters (the things that you plug into a cigarette lighter that let you use wall plugs) are fantastic inventions. at any given moment, we were charging either the gps, the psp (another fantastic invention), the ipod, the mobile phone, the breast pump or the camera battery.
-34 hours in the car with my brother is about 10 hours longer than our threshold for each other without a break. at some point i was being referred to as senator fillibuster and he was being called chief talksalot. additionally, 4 days without any break from each other that didn’t involve sleeping or using the bathroom is approximately 2 days longer than either of us can handle.
-gps units, while illogical, are fantastic at finding liquor stores in strange towns.
-one cd’s worth of jack johnson is one cd too many. the same is true of sublime.
-being able to walk into a banana republic, after forgetting one’s shirt, tie and slacks, and purchasing a shirt, tie and pair of slacks without so much as trying them (because you already know how they fit) saves lots of time.
-having to explain the difference between french cuffs and barrel cuffs to the banana republic sales clerk wastes most of that time.
-sirius satellite radio pales in comparison to xm.
-if i never see a bk veggie burger again, it might be too soon.
-if you ask nicely, the guy at the front desk at the fairfield inn in germantown will let you use the hot tub and pool, even though they closed 2 hours ago.
-my dad’s family is sorta weird, but really pretty cool. maybe it’s because i didn’t know that most of them existed until the funeral.
-my great uncle apparently is quite the craftsman. among other things, he makes belt buckles out of keys that are used in the prisons around texas. i didn’t really follow the whole story about how they were obtained, but it had something to do with making retirement gifts for guards.
-i’m the proud new owner of a brass texas state prison belt buckle.

go to a funeral, get a prison key belt buckle. nothing’s more texan than that.

…on death and travel (a midweek shuffle)

i leave early tomorrow morning to bury my grandmother. my brother, his wife and daughter and i will drive to dodge, texas, where he and i will serve as pallbearers for a woman that we barely knew and with whom we hadn’t spoken in years.

to be frank, my grandmother was always a little weird. she was a hypochondriac and notoriously paranoid. that’s not anything that we realized when we were kids going over to play on her living room floor and in the project where she lived. we didn’t even realize she lived in the projects (to be honest, you’d have a hard time telling the projects from the rest of overton, texas). all we knew is that, in the days before we moved to tennessee, dad would take us over there to hang out for an afternoon, where we would eat pizza or church’s fried chicken, play with little green army men or knock off hot wheels or whatever board game we brought over. sometimes dad would stick around. sometimes he wouldn’t. sometimes we’d be bored stiff watching one of the three tv stations she got. other times the time would fly. our age seemed to be a determining factor in the perceived length of the stay.

as i got older i started to realize that, while my dad didn’t necessarily argue or bicker with granny joe, he didn’t exactly enjoy the time over there and seemed to be a little put out with her. i also started to pick up on the paranoid hypochondriac thing. she was always sick, always going to the doctor for one reason or another, always firing her nurses because they were stealing something from her. i had no idea that most of this existed only in her mind.

when we were kids we’d get christmas and birthday cards from her, even after we’d moved to tennessee. it’d be a humorless “precious moments” type card with just her signature and maybe a few bucks in it. eventually even that stopped. i know i got a graduation present from her. i think it was $50 or $100. i bet that she saved half a year or more to give me that money.

i can remember the last time i saw her in her house, sorta. i was in college and i think had just started dating bwe. we were down for christmas and, as was the obligation, we went by granny’s place to visit for a minute. we didn’t talk much, just sat on the couch that had smelled exactly the same for 18 years updating her on school, what we liked to do, basic grandmother conversation. there wasn’t much of a personal connection, and i think we probably stayed less than an hour.

about a year ago my dad called and told me that she was losing her mind. that’s dad’s tact for you. he didn’t say she had dementia. he said losing her mind. i got the point. i talked with granny for a minute or two with dad in the room with her, explaining to her who i was, having dad re-explain it, and then telling her that i loved her and that i hoped she would get to feeling better. i knew she wouldn’t, and i know she would forget who i was as soon as i hung up the phone, but what else do you say?

she died monday morning at 2.45. i’ve been telling people that i wasn’t emotionally involved in it and that this was more of a hassle than anything else. that i was mostly going to help and support my dad. that’s still true, but i’m starting to remember being a kid on her floor. i’m starting to think about lunch at her house in the projects with my dad and little brother, her cooking catfish that we’d caught the day before while we played scrabble or upwords. i remember being a kid and being innocent but confused about why mom and dad weren’t married. i remember going to her house and seeing it as a relief from being at my stepmothers parent’s house, full of the stale stink of old people and stale filterless camel cigarette smoke. but…

mostly i’m thinking about something my dad told me a couple of years ago that i think will haunt me until i eventually become like my grandmother, old and possibly losing my mind, knowing i’m going to die soon and that there isn’t a damn thing i can do about it.

we were reflecting back on things when i was a kid and he relayed that he’d go over to granny’s house to visit or drop off groceries after one of our visits and he’d accidentally step on a green army man, or see one in the windowsill that we’d missed when we cleaned up after playing. he said that he never would pick them up because he knew that as long as that little army guy was sitting there, he’d have a little piece of us waiting for him anytime he went to see her. he held on to that and cherished it.

so that’s where i am. i go to see ryan adams tonite and leave tomorrow morning at sunrise. on friday when i normally would be plugging in 10 songs and recapping my boring week, i’ll be driving back from texas, having buried a woman that i barely knew but who loved me and who helped my dad keep a little bit of “his boys” close to his heart.

a shuffle for old time’s sake:

1. boys – ryan adams (rock’n'roll)
2. in shades – tom waits (heartattack and vine)
3. diamonds from sierra leone – kanye west (late registration)
4. gimme a sign – ryan adams (demolition)
5. rudderless – the lemonheads (the best of…)
6. moving in stereo – the cars
7. trust me – the fray (how to save a life)
8. you’ve got her in your pocket – the white stripes (elephant)
9. haiti – arcade fire (funeral)
10. there’s a story in your voice – elvis costello (the delivery man)

truffle shuffle (pass the coffee, extra white crosses mix) 10.19.07

the headaches have subsided a bit since monday, which is a good thing. i think that i’ve been living with a low grade (2-3 out of 10 on the pay scale) headache since last week. this is the first time i’ve had something like this since my tmj treatment and it’s pretty damn frustrating. i think that the weather is part of it. rain, cold, heat, rain, heat…my sinuses and head parts don’t know what to think. i also think that part of it might be that i’m grinding pretty hard at work right now, and i’m working a couple of hours a night on my project.

bwe & i are going to sommet center tonite to see the walking with dinosaurs “thing.” i’d be lying if i didn’t admit to being excited beyond my years about seeing this thing. if it sucks, i’m gonna be kickin’ some dinosaur ass. not that we usually don’t, but she and i have some type of really cool connection happening right now. i think that part of that feeling is her crazy awesome support of me as i work on my superawesometopsecret project. every time i come up with some new something (sorry. saying more would give it away), she just hugs me and tells me how proud of me she is and how much she hopes this (the project) works. that’s such a cool feeling.

i got approval on my building project tuesday, so i officially get to our concrete and set posts this weekend. maybe, just maybe i’ll get this addition done before i’m 32, which would let me just squeak inside the three year window on this thing.

remember the man? well, he’s still parked up my posterior. i’m really, really hoping that changes soon, because it’s crowded enough as it is.

shuffle? you want the shuffle? you got it!
1. see your sunshine – paul mccartney (memory almost full)
2. i never fall in love again – elvis costello (forget which record)
3. by your side – the black crowes (by your side)
4. caroline no – the beach boys (pet sounds)
5. no more keeping my feet on the ground – coldplay (safety ep)
6. God says nothing back – the wallflowers (rebel, baby)
7. a big hunk of love – elvis presley (elvis: 30 #1 hits)
8. bring on, bring on – the black crowes (three snakes and one charm)
9. song for children – brian wilson (SMILE)
10. you still believe in me – the beach boys (pet sounds)

there you have it. i still think it’s weird that out of all the tons of songs on the ipod, i manage to get two (TWO!!) sets of repeat artists in 10 songs. at least it’s the crowes and the beach boys.

quick hits

the man’s been making permanent residence latched onto my butt lately, so i don’t have much time to spare today. that being said, i’ve got a few things that i just gotta tell the millions (and millions…thank you duane “THE ROCK” johnson) of you people that actually read this drivel.

-i slept on the couch last nite. not on purpose, mind you. i sleptwalked over there and slept for a couple of hours for some weird reason or another. it’s the first time it’s happened, and it’s a really weird feeling to go to bed in one place and wake up in another, with 3 dogs sleeping on you, and a crick in your neck because your dumb sleep walking ass didn’t think to grab a pillow. note to self…

-i’m officially a fan of the fighters of foo. bwe thinks i make too big a deal about this, but there aren’t a lot of “modern” rock or “alternative” bands that i listen to. in fact, the foo fighters might be the only one. the new record’s good. the last record was good. the one before that? it’s good too. as i told my brother last nite, i’m 31, i’m not angry at anyone, and i really dig the foo fighters. there, i said it.

-tonite officially starts the “newton goes to bed really late” predators west coast road trip. anaheim tonite, l.a. saturday nite, san jose tuesday nite. the games don’t start until 9 or 9.30 central. start brewing the coffee boys, and make it strong.

-speaking of hockey, i’m so flippin’ ready for this whole ownership crap to be done with. i don’t know how much more i can take of this roller coaster ride before i vomit. at least the fans in cleveland lost the browns overnite, and the whalers and north stars knew they were moving well in advance, with no ownership drama. preds fans aren’t so lucky. please, please, please mayor dean, mr. freeman, and mr. leipold: tell jim balsillie he’s an ass and then hurry up and get this deal done so we can all just go back to being hockey fans.

okay, the jaws of servitude are starting to clamp down…gotta get back to work. if you hear screams and wailing, you know where it’s coming from.

truffle shuffle (hittin’ double digits mix) – 10.12.07

ten years ago today i saw this hot, leggy blonde (pictured above with my beautiful niece) walking through the warehouse of homeplace in cool springs. “i’ve gotta talk to this chick,” i thought to myself as i unloaded a truck full of pillows, comforters, dinner plates or something smelly. i managed to come up with some excuse to go out on the sales floor to track “hot & leggy” down. i found her in the pillow section, pricing designer throw pillows.

i came up with some miserable excuse to talk to her, probably something about needing the price gun back or whatever. small talk being something i sucked at, and not being able to tell if she was really old enough for me to ask out, i asked where she went to school (a pretty safe start). feeling good about myself, and knowing i wouldn’t go to jail for asking her out, i asked where she was from. “arkansas,” came the reply. “oh, i f***king hate arkansas,” i said before i could think to not say it. truth is, i really DID hate arkansas, having spent 5 hours in the back of a grand cherokee with only a thermarest as a cushion heading back from a backpacking trip. to this day it ranks as the most miserable 5 hours of my life. anyway, i somehow recovered and managed to ask her out on a date. well, it wasn’t really a date. she came to my apartment, we drank a couple of grolsch, listened to almost my entire cd collection, and i talked non stop for about 4 hours (this talking trend would continue for the first 4 months of our relationship). since that nite, i haven’t gone on a date or even held hands with any other woman (except family members).

there’s a reason i call her best wife ever. actually there’s a million reasons. it would take me way too long to list them all, but in a nutshell:

bwe gives me more support & freedom than she realizes and certainly more than i deserve. she knows me better than any other person in the world. i trust her more than i’ve ever trusted any other person. i crave her – her voice, her scent, her spirit.

ten years ago, a hot, leggy blonde saw a scrawny dude with sideburns the size of porkchops, a chain wallet, and a chip on his shoulder and somehow knew that he’d turn into someone worth knowing. i’m a better, stronger man because of, and for, her.

bring on the shuffle:

1. stone cold crazy – queen (classic queen)
2. long & sad goodbye – ryan adams (century ballroom, seattle, feb ‘01)
3. i love rock & roll – joan jett
4. pecan pie – golden smog/jeff tweedy (down by the old mainstream)
5. don’t get around much anymore – willie nelson (stardust)
6. gauzy dress in the sun – richard buckner (bloomed)
7. metropolis – the pogues (if i should fall from grace with God)
8. celebration – kanye west (late registration)
9. footloose & fancy free – camera obscura (teenager)
10. almost summer – jason collett (idols of exile)

this may be the most appropriate, perfect random song selection to ever happen. buy me a beer one nite and i’ll tell you why…