i'm done with letting it get to me.

this... this is mine. not yours. mine. it will be what i want it to be. you may read into it what you will, but you will not perceive me to be all about what is here. it is mine and what i make it.

a year ago, i wasn't a writer.

today, i am.

...and i'm going to write.

"hold on to your butts!"

i'm done

briefs

::: house of swoon ::: so we're moving into our new home this week. the computer is staying at the observatory for the time being until dsl becomes a reality at the new place. sadly, it looks as though the sex dungeon will be put on hold as the permit from the department of health is tied up in red tape and the space has been filled with cardboard boxes.

::: work,work,work ::: gearing up for sxsw in the next two weeks, and starting/finishing several projects that are to be ready in time for our jaunt into austin.

::: allright already ::: i'm getting jabs from my new roommate about not posting this week. sorry. it'll all be better soon.

::: a perky thought ::: there has been a suggestion for an "erotica" writing contest hosted by your's truly. hmmm. let me think about that one.

::: must've just missed you ::: i've gotten a couple of "post-facto invitations" in the past week or so. i'll have a better chance of showing up to one of those events if i am informed prior to the event taking place.

::: start what you finish ::: ok.ok. seems i forgot to tell you more about the canadian i was determined to marry. that will come in the next couple of days. promise.

...soon....

the following is not cleared for parental consumption

the claw-foot tub
i sit on the cold bathroom tile with my back against the door. a short distance away, she is burried beneath a blanket of bubbles. a steady apparition of steam distorts her image and fills the room with a lightness that forces my lungs to grasp at the air for enough oxygen. the mixture of cool tile and warm air makes me shudder as the hairs on my arm stand on end. through the fog, she cast's me that half-pitied smile and cocks her head to the side.

"i think i just feel like i should be further along. like this is not where i expected to be at this point in my life."

her smile fades and she sits up slightly in the claw foot tub. "where did you expect to be?" her voice has softened.

"i thought by the time i was 31, i'd have a couple of kids, or at least one. i thought i'd own my own house and drive around in a new volkswagen."

"well, you got the volkswagen part down just fine," she said, her smile returning.

"sure, but i expected to have it all figured out. i wanted stasis, permanence. i wanted to be sure of who i was, where i was going, and how i was going to get there."

"why do you put so much pressure on yourself?"

i stalled. "honestly, i want my children to be old enough to know my parents. i want them to grow up with memories of their grandma and grandpa. i really only knew my grandmother on my father's side. i feel like i missed alot."

i find myself here so often; thinking about past, future, mistakes, missed opportunity. i let myself dwell on the unknown until i forget to move on the known. the fact is... there's opportunity now.

"come here and scrub my back." her request interrupts my thought. as it is, i'm amazed that she's allowed me into the bathroom with her while she bathes. now she's asking me to wash her back? i hesitate to move. not sure if she was serious. "well?..."

taking the sponge from her wrinkled fingers, i move around behind her and take a seat by the heater. i pull up the sleeves of my shirt and start with small strokes at her shoulders. she leans forward, exposing the pale skin of her back to the cool air and wrapping her arms around her updrawn knees. i begin to gain more confidence and move to circles around her shoulder blades, then pushing the sponge into the water and reaching the lower half of her spine. traces of soap bubbles race down her upper back and melt back into the froth at the water's surface.

she pushes against my hands and leans back, lifting her arms over the side of the tub. over her shoulder, i can see the shape of her breasts as they disappear beneath the soapy surface. i caress the side of her back, my hands move near to her underarm.

she turns toward me, eyes closed and head thrown back. the sponge brushes the side of her breast and i make no effort to withdraw my hand. my free hand reaches forward and grabs her right shoulder, pulling her gently toward me. i lean forward and place my face near hers. i can hear her short breaths and see her quickened pulse beat in her neck.

the sponge makes its way across her belly, just underneath her breasts, slightly cupping them as it moves back toward me. the thin, warm air seems to act as a drug, causing my eyes to close slightly and my breathing to become even more slight. my hand slips toward the top side of the sponge and my thumb and forefinger brush against her right breast. she takes a sharp sudden breath and holds it, but makes no attempt to stop me. by the time my arm is sweeping back, i have dropped the sponge and am caressing the cups of her breasts with my palm. she is breathing again as my right arm reaches further around and pulls her closer into me, at the same time finding her nipple in my fingers.

i kiss her neck and she turns quickly to offer her lips to mine. the salt from her face fills my mouth as i press into her, our tongues darting together rapidly. she reaches across with her right arm and pulls me in closer, raising her chest above the surface of the water. small clumps of soap cling to her erect nipples. she turns and takes my neck in her mouth, biting down slightly.

she sucks on the lobe of my ear, grabbing me by the back of my neck, and whispers to me, "did you expect to be here at this point in your life?"

i sat on the sloping grass watching them, waiting for a person i did not know and would not recognize. "i must learn the rules to this game" i thought to myself. some of it is obvious. they pass the ball down the field to a goal line. when one gets held up by the opposing team, he tosses to another teammate and everyone scrambles toward the new carrier. they huddle in scrums and push and pull. the ball is thrown into the fray and they scramble to gain possession. that's about as much as i understand.

he's about thirty minutes late. i'm ready to leave. perhaps he went to another rugby park with the same name? oh well, we'll sort it out on monday.

they aren't your typical athletes. at least, not all of them are. some are toned and trim. some of them walk up in their garb holding a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other. the players' wives have set up a coleman outdoor grill and are beginning to cook the plethora of meat products pulled from a styrofoam coors lite cooler. the keg sits under a portable awning at mid field and the players occasionally saunter up and grab a frothy pint to replace lost nutrients.

as soon as i've stood up to leave he glances toward me with a hurried look on his face. "mark?" he asks timidly.
"yeah, are you james?"
"sorry i'm late, i got lost. hold on just a second."
he walks over to another gentleman who has been playing with his daughter for the past twenty minutes several feet away from me. they both walk back toward me and propose sitting on a more level area of ground. i place myself slightly on the slope above them, but looking into the midday sun. they tell me first about their business, their plan, their needs. we talk for about thirty minutes.

later, as i stand up from my computer, i feel a tug at the back of my pants. i look down to the chair to see a wad of gum that has settled into the wicker weave, the other half of which is still firmly adheared to the middle of my ass.

i wonder if they'll hire a guy that walked away from the interview with gum on his ass. let's hope so, i'd love to be on the company rugby team.

they come into the store in pairs, mostly. well, what did you expect? it is the fourteenth of february. and that means that yesterday was the thirteenth of february. the day that i was fired for a second day in a row from the same job. what do you mean you don't understand? i was fired on tuesday. then, i was un-fired when i pointed out that they had no reason to fire me. then i was fired again on wednesday, because, well... they don't need a reason to fire me. it's what we call "right to work" and texas has practiced this system of laws since 1947. everything i've read on it seems to say that it's meant to protect the employee, but it seems that more often than not it's used in the employer's favor. but that doesn't matter right now.

it was the thirteenth of february; her birthday. granted, i completely forgot about it. i'd like to say it was because i was busy being fired again, but i would have forgotten anyway. it was part of the deal i made with myself. forget everything about her and get on with your life. i was doing a pretty good job of it, too. well, i mean, exept for that nine-part tell-all last month. so maybe it was partially because of that. maybe it was just that it's hard to forget someone's birthday when it's the day before a "holiday". or maybe it was because of the absence of someone to think about tonight.

tonight... as they come in in pairs. it's about 45 minutes until the pocket sandwich does it's last show for the evening. it's pretty typical to get a little rush before the show starts. people want to waste a little time. tonight however, i seem to notice them in pairs... more so than usual at least.

next door they're selling little wicker baskets in the shape of a heart. inside each one is a bottle of wine and two glasses nestled in deep red tissue paper. next to it is another basket. this one is rectangular and contains the same red tissue, but in this one are four little two-serving red bottles of wine and four glasses. there are no baskets with a bottle of crown royal and one glass. i walk out with just a coke.

being fired two days in a row from the same job can take alot out of a man. i'll be back in a couple....

"i'd like to thank the academy...."

when she still lived in montreal, she would help me over the phone with the database problems. i was handling all the rma's, registrations, and mail for the company. at the time, we were only 38 people. a third of those were developers, another third tech support, and the rest of us were the sales people, administrative peions, and executives.

we were always flirting through email or on the phone. i had never met her, but we had a kinship that was instantaneous and solid.

i actually forgot that she was going to be visiting the austin office. i had been so excited about it the weeks prior, but that day i was preoccupied with the album and what needed to get done in the studio. when i came in, i heard everyone in the back sales office. they had spilled out into the hall and were talking and laughing. there was a voice inside the office. a voice i recognized. she was here.

i poked my head around the corner and she smiled as she turned to look at me. only one thought filled my head.

i'm going to marry this girl

the large prismatic stone glared off her left hand.

i'm still going to marry this girl

you know, i was writing this piece on mixing audio for a symposium. how each speaker, every five minutes, has a completely different audio profile. how this auditorium creates a lot of reverb. how difficult it is to make these people sound understandable. how i hate having to sit in a mixing booth all day on saturday while friends are visiting. how another night of four hours of sleep, combined with sitting in this cold control room is making me doze off during each presentation.

i was writing this piece... but it sucked.

kinda like this day.

it's funny 'cause it's true!

wedding photos

they're here! i think i'll take a break from scanning things for a while.

some are in black and white

most are in color

whew! i'm tired!

guest blog by the pater familia

note: tomorrow is my parents' 41st wedding anniversary. my father emailed the following story to me asking if i thought it would be appropriate to post here. it most certainly is.
i hope you enjoy it. please feel free to leave him props as he reads the site.

Forty one years ago today I arrived in St. Louis Missouri in my little Chevrolet Carvet. The day was cold and overcast and there was a week old snow on the ground which had turned black from the slush and pollution. My little car was cold, as it always was, because it had a heater which ran on gasoline and the tank only held 10 gallons, so you conserved gas if you had a head wind by not running the heater or you might not make it to the next station. It was one of those days that most people just want to get over with, hoping that the next might bring pretty weather. That was not my mood though, because I had driven from Texas to meet the one that I felt I could no longer live without and was ecstatic. She had taken the bus from Pittsburgh and I was meeting her half way. We did this for two reasons, 1 -neither had enough money to either drive all the way or take the bus all the way, 2- this way we would see each other sooner.

I put her single tiny bag in the back of the car and we got in and took a long time to say hello and get reacquainted after being apart for almost a year. Then I asked her to look in the glove compartment and get a little paper bag out. In it was a ring and from the smile on her face I had my answer before I could ask the question. We were both in bliss.... The straight-through drive to Dallas was long and I had been driving for many hours but we got there about dark and went to my brother's home.

The next morning, (Feb 7), was a beautiful sun-shiny day in Dallas. We got up after the others had gone to work and went down town to get a blood test and marriage license. After this we stopped at a little tea room near SMU. As we sat there I told her something about my brother that she needed to know. He was not the type to let any event like a wedding come off without a big show. We were in for more that we wanted. We had decided to get married at the First Unitarian Church in North Dallas. After a little discussion I said "Let's do it now" She said "I'm game". I think we were both afraid that the fish would get off the hook. So we headed for the church. The minister, who I knew, said there was no problem except when she said that she had been raised in the Orthodox Church he thought that it might be a good idea to have an Orthodox Priest there too. After several calls it was obvious that they were rare in Dallas. It took a lot of talking to convince him that this was not needed.

There in a very large church with only the minister, his secretary (as witness) and the two of us we were married. You know that those large marriages are very nice but for us we would not have noticed if the church had been full of people, we only saw each other.

I must say that my Brother, for years, would not let me forget how we had spoiled his fun and now that he is gone, his wife still reminds us of it each year on our anniversary. The rest of my family too felt that they should have been allowed to take part, but immediately accepted her as a sister and daughter.

I guess what I am trying to tell here is that while weddings come in many different ways, it is not how big it is, how many people attend, or how unusual the setting, the success is how much love is involved. Our love and our marriage has now lasted for forty one years and two grown kids, and is still as strong and growing as it was on that beautiful day in Dallas.

sometimes it's wonderful when you're wrong. we had a good three inches of accumulation this morning. maybe conditions are closer to being right than i thought. snowy pictures later. higher priority items right now.

it snowed all day long today. i can't recall seeing it snow so much for so long in texas before. some of the flakes were the size of half-dollar coins; the ones you don't see much anymore, with j.f.kennedy on the head side. the wind blew a strong cold wind into my face as i stepped outside and the white crystals alighted on my jacket, sitting still for a moment, then disappearing into the soft leather. my chilled ears burned with the rush of blood and my chapped lips caught the ocassional flake which was wisked away by my tongue.

but for as much as the sky unleashed it, the ground would not hold it. as the snow continued to fall, the streets began to bloat. it was coming down hard and fast enough to cause flooding. each individual flake resting only for a fraction of a second before warming enough to become another droplet in the rising waters.

snow can be very beautiful. it is light and airy and floats gracefully to the ground. it can build up to form a white blanket across the ground, hiding grass, concrete, and asphalt alike. it can erase the lines between man and nature.

snow can be tiresome. it can build up to a point that it hinders our tendencies and causes us to rethink the way we move about.

snow can be fun. we can carve through it with long blades of fiberglass and carbon fiber, spraying white plumes of ice in alternating and opposing directions. we can bundle it into balls and pelt each other with it.

today, though, the snow brings fuel for a tumultuous evening of icey roads and dangerous conditions. it refuses to remain snow.
sometimes the conditions aren't right for snow to be snow. sometimes, circumstances beyond our control prohibit us from experiencing events the way we expect them to unfold. today, the snow won't stick to the ground. but there will be other storms, other beautiful flurries to take your breath away and leave the blood pulsing in your ears. one day, the conditions will be right. one day, the snow will stick.

you could smell it before it even started. it had been one of those brutal texas summers, but after 87 days with not a drop of rain, the clouds had finally darkened and the wind had shifted direction.

it's the steam from the heated asphalt that emits the odor. that sickly-sweet smell. a mixture of motor oil, gasoline, and something else.

we had only been home from work a few minutes when those first few drops began to fall through the cedar trees outside the balcony.

"it's starting!" she screamed, as she swung around and came running through the sliding glass door. she grabbed my hand and pulled me along behind her, past the futon where we first made love and out the front door. i could feel the temperature drop as we decended the three flights of stairs to the parking lot.

"it feels so wonderful!" she was twirling now, her arms outstretched and palms facing the sky to catch what drops she could. i stood looking upward, following individual drops of water that managed to escape the web of brittle dry branches overhead until they landed on my face. tasting the release of three months of waiting on the tip of my tongue. i removed my t-shirt to feel the cool droplets on my skin as the trickle turned to downpour.

her shirt clung to her skin and her short hair matted against her scalp. she once again grabbed me by the hand. "dance with me!," she said as we conjured up an imaginary 2/3 swing beat to support our movements. one by one, stepping through every step we had learned. we turned, and twirled, and dipped, and twisted until our hearts raced at full speed and the rain beat down at an almost painful rate. puddles began to form at our feet and we jumped and splashed, and turned and twirled.

our laughter rang out in harmony with the cacophony of water hitting the tile roofs and steel hoods. turning and twirling, and laughing, she embraced me hard and pushed her wet lips onto mine, her tongue playing with mine. we collapsed on the wet earth and pressed our enlivened bodies tightly together. i brushed the wet hair from her face and grabbed her cheeks to bring her mouth once again to mine.

just as soon as it had begun, it was finished.

she's still the most memorable rainstorm of my life.

so... i may not have much to say, but i do have a lot to show.

new pictures from 020202!

go now!

wedding day!

two things

the j-man goes for another year
yep, it's jeremy's birthday today, man. he doesn't have comments on his site (doesn't believe in them), so feel free to leave some love for him here. happy birthday jeremy!


antibloggies baby
look kids.... i don't care where you put me... but it's time to nominate for the antibloggies and i feel a sweep coming on!

so go on! get out there and start nominatin'.