human resource

they move them in and process them with all the speed and precision of a south texas slaughterhouse. they aren't the butchers, only the administrators of process. they are not looking for the choicest top round, only the disease.

the more you do something, the more accustomred you become to that process. how to dress, how to speak, how to act, what to bring.
what to bring.
after searching for nine months, i've become very familiar with the 20"x30" flat case at the end of my arm. it contains samples of my best. some are labors of love, some simply of obligation, but all are representations of abilities. it is supposed to be the answer to the true test of my worthiness to be here.
you want them to accept you because you are good at what you do. they want to reject you if you don't fit into a profile that says your background is clean, your credit is good, your mentality stable, and you are who you say you are.

so you sit in the queue and wait patiently for your turn to be processed. thirty minutes past. one hour past. hoping only to get the usda stamp of approval that says you are fit for consumption. but they don't want to see your work, your pride, they only wish to size you up.

"mark, the purpose of our meeting here today is to make sure that you fit the profile of a person that might be considered to be hired by (our company). we want to verify the information on your application as true and correct. it should only take a couple of minutes."

and it does. certainly less than five. i notice her writing as i'm speaking. top right corner. 'watches what i'm writing.'
i'm asked to restate the information on my application regarding my tasks at the past several positions i've held. "um hmm, and what else did you do there? yes, anything else?"

"so what happens now, mark, is we go over this information, create a profile of your personality, run a background check,and forward that information onto the hiring center. they will determine if you are qualified for any positions with (our company) and then forward your profile onto the appropriate departments. if the department is interested in speaking with you, they will then schedule an interview with you to discuss your qualifications."

that's it? i came down here for four minutes of your time? what a waste!

"do you validate parking?"

"um, no, we used to do that, but we don't anymore. but you can use your own, um, currency to pay for parking. if you don't have your own currency you can purchase a token downstairs."

fuck that.

i would like to say that the they might be giants show was one of the best i've been to in a mighty long time. the spin at liberty lunch in 1990 comes to mind. saw pat and never after the opening band had finished.

i would like to make one comment for everyone out there. if you go to a live music venue or concert and try to muscle your way through the crowd to the front and stand directly in front of anyone that is shorter than you... you're an asshole!

small little dissappointments in some of the patrons of tonight's event did not taint the two hour performance of they might be giants. for that short time, my body actually forgot that i was nearly 31 years old and started jumping up and down and screaming and clapping and... and... and....

i feel it already. i don't know what kind of condition i'm going to be in at my 8:30 interview in the morning.

after three encores and more classic tmbg songs that i could ever have hoped for the evening is at an end. paul was a little upset that they didn't play ana ng, but they really covered just about everything else. birdhouse in your soul, fingertips, doctor worm, spy, instanbul, older, the guitar, shoehorn with teeth, lie still little bottle, dig my grave, man it's so loud in here, i've got a fang, bangs, james k. polk, new york city, she's actual size, the sun, and many more!

i could go on, and on, and on, and on....

leia is the queen of all nations. she rules with a kind but strong hand.

dfwblogs happy hour was so much fun since leia was there. she is so funny. she makes me laugh. everyone should hang out with her.

i'm off to tmbg, post more later.

tomorrow is the dfw blogs happy hour at new amsterdam. i'll be there, so i hope to see you there. and you, and you, and of course you. not you though, you don't live here. oh, but you can come if you make the drive.

thursday night is they might be giants at the gypsy tea room. andy is my date and we are meeting paul before hand to down an angry dog. you wanna go with us?

friday is my second interview this week. at precisely 8:30 in the a.m. i'll probably still have tmbg on the brain and angry dog in the gut. send all your good vibes to ut southwestern. she is going to houston for the weekend. what are you doing?

i want to date the girl at the mac counter in macy's

i want to date the girl at the mac counter in macy's. she stands there, in her black baby doll shirt and black jeans, an ever-present smile on her face and tempts me from across the tables of the food court. i know we would be perfect together. she is beautiful: i like beautiful people. she wears makeup, so she must be a creative person. she wears matching colors, so she must be intelligent. she works in retail, so she must be introspective and multi-cultural.

how does a guy like me meet the girl at the mac counter in macy's? i don't think i could pretend to browse her shop and hope to stumble into a conversation with her.

"do you have the new haute voltage dada delight cheekhue? will that go well with the galvanize lipstick and the powersurge eye kohl?"

it would never work.
no mac girl is going to go out with a guy that uses the same cosmetics as her. forget the fact that it's a little creepy, she knows that the guy would always use up the last of the lipstick and never replace it.

i could go for the "it's for my girlfriend" approach, but that casts me immediately into the "taken" category. sometimes this scenario works, when the girl likes the idea of meddling with forbidden territory. if she does, you know that from the moment things get serious, you'll always wonder if she's fallen for some guy that wears the viva glam iii line. anyway, it's probably not too likely to happen unless you're of the russell crowe variety.

maybe it's just a brain freeze from sipping my orange julius, but i think she just smiled at me. this mac girl is really into me. o.k., i'm going to go talk to her...

one last tug at my straw.

i decide to go for the "mom's birthday" ploy. but as i'm walking up to the mac counter, i'm suddenly distracted by the silvery distorted m • a • c across her chest.

i lose my concentration.

i forget where i am, what i'm doing. i catch myself and glance up in time to see her "may i help you" smile turn into a look of disgust and aversion.

i've blown it. even the "mom's birthday" approach won't work now. i saunter past her with my head hung low, dissappointed in my own maleness.

i can't believe i blew it with the girl at the mac counter in macy's... hey...


that estee lauder girl is pretty cute....

mister generous

we arrived at the inwood about one hour before our movie. we could both easily spend an hour in the bookstore next door or the lounge, having cocktails. i was in more of a drinking mood than a book browsing mood, so we purchased our tickets and headed into the lounge.
as soon as we sat down at the bar, we were thrust into the middle of a conversation occurring on either side of us.
"harvey gough is a first rate a-hole!"
"yeah, but his burgers are good, so i pretty much just bend over and take it."

mister generous sat to andy's left. loud, obnoxious, and clearly quite drunk, he shared his indiscreet opinion with a young gentleman close to our age sitting around the corner of the bar. andy and i sat there, silent and smiling. i didn't want to get involved, and i don't think andy did either.
"these guys probably like him. you guys like him don't you?"
andy and i have no idea who he is talking about. well, actually, i have some idea.
"goff's hamburgers, right?" now i've done it. we're in the conversation now. seeing his chance, the young man to our right pays his tab and leaves.
"a round of drinks for these guys, bartender. i just buried my two best friends today. everytime i bury one of my friends, i come to this bar and buy a round of drinks for everybody. but these people in this town are all assholes. you know what's so special about monte carlo? do you?" he's looking right into my eyes at this point. "ah! he knows! he knows! he knows! he knows, but he isn't going to say it 'cause he's an asshole! i have four houses all over the world, i've got one in highland park, one in monterrey, and one in boulder. i rent my house in boulder to oshmans. you know all those sports people?"

i'm still waiting for the location of his fourth house. i assume it's monte carlo, because, well, you know why.

"let me tell you something. you guys go to the races?"
"no, not really."
"aassss-hollls! you guys want to know the secret?" he's leaning in close to andy now. "i'll tell you guys what the problem is.... damn, this girl over here that's talking to that guy... she's beautiful! listen, i buried my best friend today, he was from this town and he was the best friend i ever had! look, i own three houses: two in higland park, one in monterrey, and one in colorado. you want to know what the problem is?"

"what's the problem?"

"i've got a house here in highland park and i open up all the doors in back in the evenings and sit out there and play my harmonica. steve miller... most people don't know this now... steve miller is the best goddam guitarist that ever lived. do you know who steve miller's dad is? he knows!"
"no, i don't know. i know that he's from dallas."
"he's from dallas. but you wouldn't know that because you... are... an assss-hhhooollle! who is the greatest harmonica player ever?"

at this point, we've been served our second round of cocktails care of mister generous. i tell him that i personally think that john popper is the best harp player alive.

"who? who?! what the hell? hahaha! tell him he's an asshole!"
"he say's you're an asshole."
"no, man. i said, you tell him he's an assshoole."
"you're an asshole."

i ask mister generous his name.

"i'm not telling anyone my name, man. i live in this town and they're all assholes. you know what, you want to know what the problem is? i'll tell you what the... man, check out those pretty women there, man....
look," again, he leans in close as if to impart the meaning of life, "you guys want to make a million dollars? double-u double-u double-u dot spy safe dot com. i own it. spy safe dot com, dot org, dot anything."

"what's the web site about?" web sites, now this guy's talking my language. i'm actually thinking he might be proposing a business opportunity here. maybe i will be able to buy that vespa afterall!"
"you know someone that is a revolutionary... you come to our site... ... ... ...
... and we'll kill 'em!"

continued here

note: if this post does not load properly on the page, try reloading a couple of times

a day at the ballpark
the weather was just right for baseball. andy had acquired four tickets on the third base line in the second tier. of course, being decker dollar hot dog night only made things that much more sweet.

we pulled into a parking entrance to ask the attendant where we were allowed to park. "right here." he said. we parked about 100 yards from the entrance to the ballpark. andy and i were obviously excited and our long, fast strides soon had the girls several yards behind us. after a quick admonishment from karen, we all strode into the entrance with nothing near to the security that i was expecting. "have you had the opportunity to frisk anybody yet?" andy's question resulted in little reaction from the kind lady who tore our tickets and handed the stubs back to us. she glanced inside the girls purses, just long enough to make sure there weren't any items with the word 'bomb' stenciled on them. per karen's request, we had parked on the opposite side of the stadium from our seats, allowing us maximum exposure to vendors on our way.

so before we were even half way to our seats, we had partaken of one dollar hot dog each. i really didn't think that our seats would be as great as they were. the national anthem was sung by a gentleman who's name i did not get. but it did look like marty stouffer had crawled out of the wilderness, taking just enough time off from wrestling grizzleys to sing the national anthem.

as we all sang proudly at the twilight's last twenty minutes of gleeming, an airplane approached the ballpark. i began to think of the people inside looking down on an american tradition, tears welling up in their eyes at the site of 25,013 people standing in unity to honor their country's flag. i began to feel tears at my ducts, waiting to be released. i stood up straight and tall. i belted the words from deep inside..."and the rockets' red glare... dumdudum... the bombs bursting in air... dumdadudum...."
it was about this time that i saw the markings on the side of the plane. bright blue... red... silver...... white? it was the fedex plane. no tears. stature slumped. voice subdued.

an attendant came by our seats at the close of grizzley-man's admittedly beautiful anthem and handed us our preferred seating menu from which we could order nine layer dip, fresh fruit cups, enchilada dinners, and chicken ceasar salads all from the comfort of our plastic chairs.
harrumph!
it's dollar hot dog night, baby! chicken ceasar salad isn't all-american! enchilada dinners? come on!

andy and karen made a trip down to the cheap seats to gather up a plethora of plump deckers and we watched as the rangers took an early lead over the athletics. a-rod cleared his 46th homer early in the first inning, driving in two runs.

by the end of the third, texas had a commanding 6-0 lead and i convinced the crew to take advantage of one of the perks included with our tickets. we had access to the elite gold club lounge. a place where only the wealthiest of the metroplex's social giants mix and mingle during pro ball games; watching the game on flat panel displays from the comfort of plush leather lounge chairs, sipping cosmopolitans and eating nine layer dip.

we hob-knobbed and exchanged banter with our flight attendant waitress, and tried to gain access to the leather center seats but were turned away by an authoritative elderly woman wearing an official rangers golf shirt. we are later informed that it costs $100 per game to sit in a leather lounge chair, but you can purchase seats individually, so you don't have to sit with your friends.

o.k. so we're not as high up on the social food chain as we would like, but we're still in the gold club. we get to watch the game on satellite digital tv, delayed as much as five seconds. this allows us to hear the crowd's reaction to yet another rangers' home run seconds before we watch it happen in brilliant flat panel color. but then we see these...people. these...common people walking into our exclusive digs. what!? who are these people? don't they know that you have to be lofty and elite to come in here? what is this, the gold-plated club? are those the pleather center seats? we've had enough.

on our way back to our seats, we pass the vendors once again. this time, it's nachos for karen, and a helmet sundae for erica. back at our seats, erica's intuition pays off and the yellow dot wins the dot race in the middle of the sixth. maybe i should take her to the horse tracks. what do you think about marlboro's ashes in the fifth race to place?

by the eigth inning, the action on the field had quieted down. then...middle of the eigth, first pitch to palmiero, he jams it to left center, 493 yards for a solo shot homer. woo hoo! fireworks go off. the very next pitch, carlos pena sticks one in the same place! it's the first time i've ever seen back-to-back home runs on back-to-back pitches. amazing.

i never got my cotton candy that night. i'm a little dissappointed there, but it was a small glitch in an otherwise beautiful and perfect evening at the ballpark.

game update later today

so, i've been working on redesigning the way that i exhibit my photos on this web space and i need opinions. the way it is now, the photos are viewed in the same window as everything else. this makes for a neat and tidy desktop, but causes folks with smaller browser windows a little bit of discomfort when trying to view them for the first time. it also makes it quite a bit more difficult to just add new photos as i see the need. this was the purpose of that area all along.
i have a couple of solutions which will also clean up my site heirarchy, making my dav server look like the maid comes in once a week. one is less time intensive to implement and is already half-way done. it involves having each group of photos open in a new window, however, and i know that there are many that do not like windows popping up all over their precious monitor real estate. the other would keep the photos in place on the page, but does involve a bit more trickery on my part to make it easily upgradable.
so, kids, i'm looking for your comments here.
a)do you care if i post photos?
b)if you answered 'yes' to a, do you have an opinion on the above choices?
c)there is no c.

i'm not terribly happy with the idea of opening new windows purely from a design aspect. i like everything being tight and complete. i will also be adding comment functionality to photos soon and how they are displayed will depend on today's topic of discussion.
and....go!

andy got four tickets to the rangers game for tonight. so erica, karen, andy, and i are headed to the ballpark for decker dollar hot dog night. we should all be pleasantly naseous by the 7th inning stretch.

andy said that the seats are really good, so we should be able to get some real game watching in. hope i catch a fly ball!

prioritize
for some reason, i can't justify spending money on lunch, but i can justify spending it on an antique camera in mint condition. but i got a good deal so i feel somewhat like the thrifty shopper today. they had a case for a great pin-hole camera, but the lady couldn't find the actual camera and guessed that it had been shop-lifted. it's a shame, cause i was going to buy it for you. don't worry, it was real inexpensive. but the one i got is fetching four times as much on ebay as what i bought it for.

richard and tony
if you are offended by foul language, you may want to skip this one.

richard hobbles up to the bar on a pair of crutches, some sort of make-shift cast on his left leg. his clothes are dirty and a thick layer of stubble covers his face. tony stands directly behind richard, silent. he is a good foot and a half shorter than richard, but looks more clean-cut and tidy.
"can you believe what these fuckers did to us?"
"no," i say "it's pretty hard to accept."
"who the fuck do they think they are coming in here and fucking with us like this?"
"yea, it's really quite sad."

normally, i will make efforts to avoid talking with drunk, homeless people. well, i'm assuming that richard is homeless because of his appearance. tonight, however, i feel like richard has as much right to conversation with another human as anyone in this bar. "are you living on the streets?" i ask him.
"yeah. can i have a cigarette?"
"sure."
"my dad died last year. he was the only person i had. he was brilliant man. he knew numbers and shit. he could call up anyone he wanted. he was the only person i had in my life, now i don't have no one."

i offer tony a cigarette.
"aw, he don't smoke man."
tony just nods in agreement, and walks around the corner of the bar to sit next to richard. richard talks further about his father. the man with connections; with all the numbers. "i call these people, man, and they tell me they don't have a job. they say they don't know who i am. i tell them 'well, do you know robert meyerson? he's my dad.' and all of a sudden they're offering me jobs and shit."

richard's a welder. "what kind of welding do you do?"
"aw, man, i'll weld the shit out of anything. i can do shipping and receiving. ain't that right pancho?" he says nudging his friend.

rob, the bartender comes over and asks if these guys are bothering us. "you want me to kick them out?"
"no, they're all right. we're just talking."
"what do you do tony?"
"he does body work, man. he can fix any fucking car out there."

"i can build you a fucking car, man." tony finally chimes in, slurring his words together.
"what do you do?" richard asks me.
"well, when i have a job, i'm a graphic designer."
"computers and shit? fuck, man, that's what got us into this shit. fucking computers."
"i disagree"
"fuck, tony, these guys aren't going to buy us any drinks, let's get out of here."

god bless you, richard and tony.

send a message to the people of new york.

i really have no idea what to say about today's events. you all feel the same as i do. we are all shocked, angry, stunned.
matt, dave and i spent the entire afternoon at the hospital, waiting in line to give blood. dallas' reunion arena was backed up to a five or six hour wait. ours only lasted four. matt said, "i wish there was something more that we could do than just give blood." two students from smu that had come down to baylor to donate blood made use of the wait by going and getting sandwiches, drinks, and chips for the people waiting in the halls. i thought it a great act of support and kindness.
in a way, it's encouraging to see the outpoor of empathy and support shown at the massive turn-outs across the city today and i'm sure likewise across the country. however, i also find it dissappointing that it takes such a tremendous tragedy to bring people out donating blood. i learned today that the hospitals in new york, on a regular basis, have a shortage of blood for patients. i'm sure it's like this all over the country. my dissappointment extends to myself. i avoided blood drives in college and afterward. i have a huge fear of needles and i don't like bleeding. it took a feeling of helplessness to drive me to overcome this petty phobia. never again. from now on, i will donate blood regularly.

i am thankful that the people i love are safe. i am thankful for the friends i have made in the past two years of my life here in dallas.

mostly, i'm stunned. stunned that our security and way of life can be breached so quickly and our world turned upside-down. this will certainly be some sort of catalyst for me to live my life a little more deliberately. how many of the thousands that lost their lives today had something that they wanted to say to someone and never got the chance?

this past weekend gave me the opportunity to meet some incredible people that i am very fortunate to know. sara, kevin, julie, amanda, tony, hanh, shaun, alison, leia, erica, billy, jessica...i hope that our friendships strengthen and we don't just remain acquaintances.

i'm shocked.

it's a blur....

armed cattle
somewhere between hillsboro and waco was the gary nichols and the ballistic bovine boys van, apparently on it's way to the holiday house concert in fredricksburg, texas. yet another of my brushes with fame!

"but we're just meeting some friends here for dinner"
erica and i dropped off our stuff at autumn's place and went to meet up with the pre-fray festivities attendees at stubb's (whose web site likes popping up annoying soft-porn ads and will not be referred to here). the kind door-man finally gave in and let us go inside without paying the $6 cover charge so that we could sit with the gang. heading to empanada parlour (who's website is hosted on the same server as stubb's and, likewise, will not be referenced), i had my first true dose of why i love austin so much. the diversity of the crowd was refreshing. there was no dallas-socio-elite coagulation going on here.

bert, ernie, and the buddy shark
i was a nervous wreck saturday. i really wanted to meet up with some of the many friends that i had from the ten years of living in austin, but they were all too busy to see me. slightly bummed, i hooked up with billy and jessica and ended up having a very wonderful time strolling around with them and window shopping. the three of us wound up at lucy in disguise and it was like three kids in a candy shop. the place is so huge, you could easily spend an entire day browsing the hundreds of racks of clothing and costumes for sale and rent. billy will be posting some pictures soon.

we met up for the pre-fray dinner at iron cactus and i smoothed out some of the nervous knots in my alimentary canal.

out of the fire and into the fraying pan
dakota started the evening off with some music and then introduced dave as the first speaker. jessica spoke next, followed by alison. i was fourth and, though very nervous, utilized my experiences as a musician to calm myself down. sara and kevin finished up with a chilling tale about the power of being just friends. billy was one of about ten other people that spoke during the open mic portion of the evening. honestly, i was so relieved to have been finished that the rest of the evening was somewhat muted by a great sigh from within my whole being.

papparazzi
turned out it was a good decision to not lug my camera down to austin. at one point, i believe there were more than two hundred flashes going off at once. so don't look here for comprehensive photo montages of fray day 5. instead go here, or here, or here, or here, or here.

et al
tony, hanh, and shaun came up from houston with alison. hanh blew a kiss as i left b-side. tony was a riot. i really enjoyed talking with him. amanda helped with organizing fray day and brought her father. michael was responsible for getting it all together. thanks michael.
it was nice to see my old roomie adam and his sweetheart megan come to give me notes at fray day. thon, damon, and tanna showed as well. woohoo!
leia and julie gave me a ride home saturday after everything ended. ciao!
there were others...others that i can't recall names or details of. if i met you this weekend and you're not here, let me know.

well...i'm back in dallas...almost. actually i'm at erica's house at the moment.

the weekend in austin was incredible. i got to meet some really great people and i plan on giving a full update tomorrow once i have rested my mind.

stopped by the folks' ranch on the way home. it was good to see them. my father asked if i had joined the hair club for men because of my purple hair...which now looks only black because the majority of purple seems to have washed out of it. hmmm. i guess i need to reapply.

wash. rinse. repeat.

it's fray time. i hope my story doesn't tank. i have to follow dave, jessica, and alison.

crap

i need a place to stay this weekend...guess i should have figured that out earlier. crap

come to fray day kids!

the cockrell bridge toll collector
somewhere in the midst of dallas' greenwood cemetery, if you look carefully enough, you will find the only remaining wooden gravestone in the entire dfw metroplex.

the greenwood cemetery is populated by some of dallas' most elite families. former mayors, sheriffs, and city founders are buried here. private william stewart simkins, who served under general jackson, is believed to have fired the first shot of the civil war. but the most facinating burial here is the discreet grave of one man marked only by a blank piece of wood.



i went to the greenwood cemetery to capture images of unique gravestones and sculpture from over a century ago. i was approached after a while by a middle-aged man carrying pruning shears. "you looking for anything in particular?" he asked me with a slight grin on his face. "not really," i said, "unless you know of something unusual i should see." his grin turned into a big toothy smile. "right over here" he said, leading me only a mere fifteen feet from where i was standing. i can't believe i hadn't seen it before. there it was, a plank of brown wood, standing a little more than two and a half feet out of the ground. the volunteer caretaker explained that it was the only one of it's kind remaining in dallas and that it belonged to a gentleman who at one time collected tolls for the first iron bridge to cross the trinity river.

in 1872, sixteen years after her husband alexander lost his life in a duel, sarah cockrell was responsible for the construction of the iron suspension bridge at commerce street. linking dallas with all major roads to the south and west, it is considered her greatest contribution to dallas. at the east end of the bridge stood a small brick house that was the home of the humble toll collector. i was told that the man who lived there was a loyal acquaintance of sarah cockrell's and served as toll collector until his death in the late 1880s. sarah cockrell, in an extreme show of gratitude, purchased a plot in the prestigious greenwood cemetery for the faithful toll collector. his headstone was never engraved, and numerous attempts to remove the "unsightly" plank of wood have so far been unsuccessful.
it's amazing that this piece of history has stood here for so long and not experienced the wrath of vandals or succumb to the brutality of erosion and decay. i'm glad i was able to see it and capture it forever on film.

i have this strong desire to drop everything and take off for europe. i could sell my car and have enough money for a flight and at least three months of travel in europe. i told matt that i think it's some sort of escapism. i'm not sure, really. it definitely would be nice not having to worry about finding the job right now. but in some strange way i want to believe that going back to europe will restore everything back to its state before i left for italy last december. as if the italy trip had been some sort of time altering event that fucked up the stasis of my course in life and returning is the only way back through the looking glass as it were.

lotto update
o.k., so financial success has eluded me once again. no vespas, no cameras, no passat, and sadly, no asspants.

but krispy kremes are on me kids!

thing i will buy with the cash option winnings on my lottery ticket totalling 2 million dollars post tax:

2 vespas
1 fujifilm finepix s1 pro camera
1 mamiya 645 pro-tl camera kit
3205 tremont street
1 vw passat
1 dozen krispy kreme donuts for every person that posts a comment to this list
1 pair of asspants

one quick-pick lottery ticket worth six million dollars - $1
one 'weekly grand' scratch-off lottery card - $2
one mountain dew - 65¢
winning $4 on the scratch-off card that pays for it all - priceless

'things are gonna start happening to me now'

additionally....

paul is 31 today! woo-hoo!

no posts since friday makes mark a dull boy. no posts since friday makes mark a dull boy. no posts since friday makes mark a dull boy. no posts since friday makes mark a dull boy.

i sat on my ass the majority of the weekend, doing nothing. i hung out with chimi, hazel, and murphy this weekend while josh and carly were in miami.

friday night, slick and jenny came over and we watched mallrats. jenny had to leave early, but slick and i stayed up till 2:30 watching all the extras on the dvd. it was exhausting.

saturday. saturday. nope, nothing happened on saturday.

sunday? sunday was erica day. i believe she relates the day's events much better than i ever could. very comprehensive indeed. it was a great day out and about. the wolfgang laib exhibit was one of the most interesting temp exhibits i've seen at the dma. i would recommend that everyone go see it, but sadly sunday was the last day of the show. alas.

so, yeah, i cooked...what's it to ya?
honey-mustard breaded baked swordfish ala moosewood, with brown rice, shitake mushrooms and honey-mustard glaze (ala chimchim). booyah!
so rather than try one of my own creations, i went for a recipe book. this was a wonderfully easy dish to prepare and tasted absolutely amazing. it once again made me itch to take cooking classes and become a chef somewhere. i didn't itch enough to go and sign up for these classes, just a little itch that was quickly scratched and only left little red lines on the skin as proof. i don't get to cook like that unless i'm entertaining because it is cost prohibitive for one, but i do enjoy it when i can.

film at eleven
i have been thinking of late about this blog and the things that i say here. different people use their blog for different reasons. some use it solely as a literary output for fiction while the other end of the spectrum use it to display their most intimate life details with whoever would like to read. i think the majority of them, like mine, fall somewhere in between. there are things about my life that i don't divulge here. perhaps through time these things will eke their way out and onto the page. until now, i have been careful about talking about others in my blogs. and i would not say things about someone on here that i wouldn't say directly to them first.

so my problem is this: i often use this as a means for capturing thoughts as they arrive in my mind. it's about what i think. i'm afraid of sharing certain thoughts about friends on here before i've had a chance to talk to them about it in person. it's this notion of broadcasting feelings before you've told someone how you feel.
e.g. no one wants to find out about a tragedy in their family by watching the evening news. they should know the details first hand before it is filtered out for everyone else to hear.

yes, i'm talking about erica, and the fact that we met through our blogs, and the fact that our fellow blogger friends want whatever juicy tidbits of information they can get. i'm not complaining, i would be interested too. but i'm going to be as discreet as possible.

poor little fella
i have a strong aversion to running over road kill. i think this is a good thing. sure, the squirrel is already dead, but it feels like desecration if you hit it too. part of my problem is that it's just plain gross. i get this mental picture of skulls crushing and guts gooshing (which i have now given to you, dear friend) that makes me whince.

it's sad for me to see a squirrel whos happy little nut-munching life was snuffed out due to a mishap with technology.

i once saw a squirrel nearly meet his/her maker while i was wating to make a turn. i remember the incident in a zepruder-esque flashback of frame-by-frame events. the little guy started on my side of the street, full blast, darting in front of my stopped car, across the median and into on-coming traffic. sensing the danger, wondersquirrel lept into the air full stride, michael jordon style, just as his fate darted his way.his timing was perfect to say the least. his quick reflexes sent him head first into the side of a chevy impala, easily two feet off the ground and just above the wheel well. the whole action-equal-reaction business hurdled wondersquirrel back into the median. he sat for a second, shook his head, turned and ran back to whence he had come. safe. for the moment.

somewhere, in a big oak in virginia, the national squirrel statistics consortiuum has developed a pie chart designating vehicle related deaths as the number-one cause of squirrel fatalities each year.

those less fortunate than wondersquirrel end up part of the parkway. i would imagine most people try to avoid flattening out the poor creature. then, there are most certainly those guys (and they are most certainly all guys) that go out of their way to pound the lifeless body further into the pavement. eventually it will become this thin squirrel-skin pancake and i won't notice that i've even run over it. but as long as its carcass sits above the road, i'm not touching it.

ok, i'm blushing now!

i must say that i really enjoyed spending time with erica last night. she caught me in one of my more talkative moods. if fact, i blabbed on and on. i'm sure i was redundant and exhaustive with my comments.

her recent visit to italy gave me my first real chance to relate certain experiences of my trip to someone that understood the vibe of the places i was talking about.

and, for the record, her slight tardiness didn't bother me at all. i usually end up being a little early to appointments and do not mind anticipating someone's arrival.