www Wednesday

Okay I know it's Thursday but I was really busy yesterday. What have I read recently- Ride the River by Louis L'Amour, it was a good short read. Escapism fantasy set in the post revolutionary U.S. about Echo Sackett the youngest descendant of Kin Sackett and her adventure travailing to and from Philadelphia and her home in the Tennessee woods. Then Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel (author of Life of Pi), it was a really good read. There were a twist or two and something near the end quite unexpected. It's a story about the holocaust, about the power of fiction, about taxidermy and a play about a donkey and a howler monkey on a striped shirt. At the end of the book there's a section called Games for Gustav that's pretty heart rending but in being so reflects the horror of the holocaust. This is the third book I've read by Martel and I've thoroughly enjoyed each of them. Also a few weeks back Librarian Who had a blog about her favorite book as a child and that got me to talking about my favorite when I was a kid and that led my lovely wife to find and order it for me online - The Little Mailman of Bayberry Lane by Ian Munn. It's a little book about a mailman that feels sorry for Ms. Pig because she doesn't have any friends and so he invites everyone to a surprise party at her house and then they all become besties.
What am I reading now? Once upon a Moonless Night by Dai Sijie. Sijie wrote Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress and Mr. Mau's Travailing Couch both of which were great and so I'm hoping this one will be too.
What's next? To soon to tell really, I just started Once Upon a Moonless Night last night. But more than likely Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

before I get to deep and perso... oops, too late

It's 3:30 in the morning as I type and I'm not in the least bit sleepy. I've watched two movies, both of them alright, not great but alright and I know I need to go to bed because I don't wont to be all tired and ill tomorrow, because I've promised myself not to ruin every ones weekend. I've been on somewhat of an emotional roller coaster the last, well I was going to say weeks but I think really it's been a lot longer than that, it's just been more pronounced in the last few weeks. My new job comes with some stress, I mean it's not like I'm running the company or anything but it's more stress than I'm use to dealing with. At work anyway, at home with five children stress can be a way of life. One day last week when I was feeling down (I don't know if maybe I'm somewhat manic/depressive or maybe slightly bipolar, can you be slightly bipolar? Or is that like being kinda pregnant? How many sentences can you put in a parentheses? Personally I think maybe it's a dietary imbalance and lack of exercise, I've got to get back on the treadmill.) I thought maybe I'd missed my calling in life and what I was suppose to be was a loner/stoner. This coming from a man who not only didn't inhale but never even came close to trying drugs. When I was young I was to much of a straight arrow and now I've got a job with random drug testing and people depending on me, not only for food and shelter but also to be a ,gasp, role model. There just seem to be days when I feel really down and then I start contemplating the seeming meaninglessness of life, the constant cycle of work, home, work, home, stress, stress, stress and why? So we can grow old and feeble? I see really old people that can barley walk, some with bent over backs, many half blind and deaf and I get scared. Because all of them were at one time young handsome or beautiful people with kids and careers and a future and now so many are just barley getting buy and I think that will be me. And it scares the shit out of me. I think I'd rather die than become feeble and then I think of death and then I think why do we put up with so much crap in our lives, why aren't we all hedonists or something? Well I think were not hedonists because even though life seems short at times 80 or so years is actually a long time and we don't want to live for the moment now and regret it for the rest of our lives, we don't want to do something to mess up our lives or get something that keeps flaring up for the next 60 years. I suppose these are the thoughts and fears of middle aged men, I blame my job (although to be honest I've felt this way while still on the old job sometimes to), I sometimes blame the kids and life in generally but I think what it really is is that I've come to the point where I'm no longer young and I feel and when I look in the mirror see old age creeping up on me. This is, I believe one of the main reasons people invent religions, to make life worth living by having a goal to work toward. Life isn't pointless if your storing up treasure in heaven are working toward salvation or trying for a higher rung on the karma ladder. Yes my belief is that religions are for a)explaining the unexplainable, b)helping us confront death, c)helping us confront life and d)for laws and social order. I would not hazard to write this blog if I weren't currently feeling better to do so while I was in a down mode would end in catastrophe, it would be such a negative downer that any one reading it would need a prescription for happy pills. As it is I've 'gotten over myself', that's my way of putting it. Whenever I go into one of these dives I know that all I have to do is forget myself, let go of the negativity, embrace life and laughter and family and friends and I can get over it. It generally takes a few days to come back 'up' and it probably takes a few days to get 'down' as well but I don't generally notice it until I'm already feeling on skid row. One of the reasons I tried to follow the Hallelujah Acres diet for a while was that one of it's many health claims was that it could even out mood swings and some, I'm not sure how to word this- mental problems, that's not there wording but you get the idea. And you know when I first started on it I did feel really good for a while but then I had a hard time staying on the diet and eventually gave it up all together. But after the last couple of weeks I think maybe it might be worth another try. The worst of it is the major sufferer in this isn't even me but Rainey, she sees it more than anyone else. She has to put up with me getting sulky and withdrawn and very irritable, there's been days when I didn't talk at all unless I had to and I don't want to put her through that. She's had enough hard times and heart aches over the years to not have to deal with any more. I'm not sure where I'm going with this blog, I had planned to talk about the movies I just watched- Hot Tub Time Machine and Funny People, and to try and crack a few jokes but it seems I've went off the deep end by mistake. I hope you'll forgive me for not being entertaining or informative this time and I hope each of you (if any one sees this as I don't believe I'll post it to facebook) has a wonderful 4th of July holiday. I'm going to make myself go to sleep now in hopes that I don't ruin the weekend tomorrow.

www Wednesday

It's been about a month since I put one of these up because I've been reading the same book for about that long. Some thick books, like say a Harry Potter book, I can read very quickly others, like the one I'm getting ready to mention take a bit longer.
What have I read lately? The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse. It's an biography of a fictional character named Joesph Kecht who rises to the top of his profession, Magistar Lundi of the Glass Bead Game which is kinda like being the commissioner of MLB. The glass bead game isn't really played in the book and just roughly outlined it's a game for the highest of intellectuals in which they try and put the sum of human knowledge into musical and mathematical equations and then they meditate, ooohhh. The forward of the book pointed out that while most people get the duality of the book and the warning against complete intellectualism most miss the humor. Well I'm happy to say for once I'm with most of the people, I suppose I'm not intelligent enough to get the humor. I really became quite bored with this book by the time I finished it, well sort of finished it. After the main body of the book the were some poems and short stories written by the character Kecht, I read the poems and even like a few of them but I just couldn't get into the short stories so I put it down. After finishing The Glass Bead Game I read C.G. Jung and Hermann Hesse A Record of Two Friendships by Miguel Serrano, a book that I thought was going to be biographical of the friendship between Jung and Hesse and while it did touch on this relationship it was actually about the authors friendship with the two men and his inclusion in what they referred to as the hermetic ring. While it was very interesting it was also very out there. These guys were hippies before there were hippies. One neat thing they talked about was the Gnostic god Abraxas, a god that combines creation and destruction, good and evil in one. I don't really have the time or inclination to discuss it here so maybe I'll devote a blog to it some time.
What am I reading now? Well after such heady and far-out reading I decided on something much more pedestrian and am reading Ride The River by Louis L'Amour it's one of the books in the Sackett series.
What am I reading next? Probably Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel.

My weekend

I officially, by the powers invested in me by the internet blog, declare this weekend to be My weekend. And it's started early. As all of you should know this Sun. is father's day or as I like to sometimes refer to it, motherf#*kers day, because after all that is how we earned the the right to be celebrated on this nice little holiday. But not only is Sun. motherhumpers day but it's also my birthday. Yes it was almost 38 years ago to the day when my mother's ob accidentally broke her water, he was trying to hurry and get home to get his hey in out of the field before the rain started. I don't guess he did. I was a couple weeks early, had to sit in an incubator a few days, I believe it was. I don't really remember. I'm giggly excited about my holiday/birthday for some very immature and self-centered reason- presents and cake. Yes, laugh if you will, scoff if you must. But I'm antsy with anticipation. Why? Well a few weeks back my lovely wife started asking for gift ideas and bibliophile that I am I ticked off a list of books I'd been wanting. So I'm terribly excited because in just two short days I might get some new books. Yeah! I'm such a geek. It's not like I don't have twenty something books sitting on my shelf waiting to be read and a to read list that stretches from here to kingdom come and passes through every library and Barnes and Noble/Books-a-million along the way. But the ones I asked for are really cool books. I know some of you may be thinking, as my wife did- All you want for your birthday are books? No, I also asked for an Fisher Space Pen, such a geek, and... and a nice pair of work gloves (put that in you geek pipe and smoke it). But wait. I know your thinking- you also mentioned cake. Yet again that dear wife and companion of mine (bone of my boner, flesh of my flesh- thats from the Bible, well sort of)ordered me an ice cream cake from DQ. Yum. So to kick this weekend off, I took a vacation day for tomorrow so that I can go see my daughters drama camp production -Wendy Welega wrote and directed it, it should be funny. Which means no stressful work tomorrow night. Saturday night Araine and I are planning to go see my bud Chris in GSCT's production of The Boys Next Door and then- bum,bum,bummmm- Sunday. Ribs from Hillbillys, books and maybe some other stuff and... cake. Yum.

up late, half lit blog- you've been warned

A few facts to start us off. 1- it's very late as I sit typing this, 2- I'm bleary eyed sleepy, C- I'm a little tipsy, 4- I meant to use a letter last time and 5- that song Get Low is a freakin classic.
I ate half a pie tonight, I'm not proud, it wasn't for a contest or anything. I feel like the guy from the old commercial that say's 'I can't believe I ate the whole thing.' The reason I stopped at half instead of eating a whole pie was because I ONLY BOUGHT HALF A PIE! I'm an emotional eater and tonight was fairly stressful at work, well most of the night it got better towards the end. But it was enough to make me want something sweet, and since I figured Rainey would be asleep (love ya babe) I stopped and got pie. I miss watching Pushing Daises, although by the end of the second season I hadn't really liked the way the writers were taking things. I feel as though I've lost my sense of humor lately, if any one sees it please send it home. It's rather strange and a little quirky some may say geeky even, though it doesn't mind occasionally working blue. I like to curse, I'm not sure why, I guess because it's frowned upon by the moral majority although I'm sure they curse quite a bit too. I try not to curse in front of folks it might offend because I don't want to be offensive. But under my breath or when people who I know don't mind are around I use a few invectives. Christopher Moore who wrote,among other great books, Lamb is a swear word prodigy, I've seen him use the f-u-c-k word, ;), in many an new and interesting way. My favorite euphemisms when there are sensitive ears around are God bless it, shoot a monkey (which I would never really do unless it was attacking someone that didn't deserve it) and dang it Dan - which is from an old K-Mart commercial actually. Gosh, I feel like I'm on Inside the Actors Studio. Where's the bearded, balding guy with the note cards? My birthday is next weekend and I'll be 38, I'm getting old or at least older, I'm a f-ing grown up now. I may need some Just For Men for my birthday if all these silver hairs don't stop popping up. Looking back on my life I think, , well I don't really know what to think. As the facts mentioned at the top of this page will show, I submit this as evidence, I'm in no position to take deep meditative looks through the pages of my life at this juncture. So I leave you with the immortal words of Lil' John- Now stop, then wiggle with it, now stop, then wiggle with it...

Feeling Charlie Brownish

Dear old Chuck, nothing ever seems to go right for him. No matter how hard he tries everything backfires. The kite will always get stuck in the tree, Lucy will always pull the football out of the way as he tries to kick it, he'll never get invited to a party (unless it get's sent by mistake), and the little red headed girl is never going to notice him. Well that's kinda the way I feel today. It's just been one of those weeks (or so) when everything starts to come undone. We had some electrical problems last week and it cost quite a few pennies to get it fixed and I feel like the electrician ripped me off a little bit. That's part of what bothered me, I felt like he was ripping me off and I didn't say anything, I just paid the bill because after all it was fixed. What is it Charlie says? AAUGH! I believe that's it. Tuesday morning while on my treadmill I noticed the incline wasn't working, it's under warranty so hopefully that problem at least wont cost anything. Then my heat pump went belly up (or if you spent time in the military- tits up). We can spend a small fortune and get a 20something year old unit fixed or spend a big fortune and get a new one. Well with some wheeling and dealing and some loans here and there, I believe where going to get the new one. I'm about ready to go live off the grid, get me a farm house and plant some crops. If only I wasn't so bourgeois. I could live without blogs and facebook, I could live without satellite t.v. (thus without my now beloved Doctor Who), without cell phones and video games and even without air conditioning. But I have to have running water. Yes I could live without those things... but I REALLY don't want to. Then the piece-de-resistance after spending a couple of hours cleaning out a kiddie pool that was given to us. I blew up the top ring and began to fill it full of water. It's about 3 feet deep and quite a ways around so it took a good bit of water to try and fill it up. Try being the key word there. When the pool was about half way full (being positive here) the water begin to flow out of it and it was then that I realized the inflatable ring around the top was losing air, it apparently has a small hole in it somewhere. So as the pool begin to becomes half-empty (negative now, sorry) I let out a nice Charlie Brown, AAUGH! Which warranted some unwanted attention from neighbors. AAUGH! It hasn't' all been bad this week, I started reading a new book that I'm enjoying, work went well, we had free lunch yesterday while seeing a old friend and then got some yummy ice cream from Red Bone Willies, I watched Avatar which I thought was pretty good (effects were really good, story was alright) with my 3 year old (first time we had gotten along in several days) and then last night was a brand new episode of the afford mentioned Doctor Who (as much as I liked Tennant, I gotta say I'm really liking Smith,and the bow tie). So of all the Charlie Browns in the world I'm not the Charlie Browniest, but right now I feel as though I could be in the top 100.

WWW Wednesday

Okie-dokie here we go, since last week I finished reading A Primer of Jungian Psychology by Calvin S. Hall- very interesting, you get the feel that these guys (Jung and Freud the two I've read about) were just shooting in the dark but they happen to hit upon some very useful ideas. I also read Othello by Mr. Shakespeare himself and all I can say is Iago's a dick and Othello was a fool. Okay that's not all I can say, when I was younger my parents went through a rough patch in which my dad was as jealous as Othello, so much of his ranting sounded somewhat familiar. Thankfully my mom and dad got counseling instead of turning into a murder suicide (I meant that to sound funny but it comes a cross a bit macabre). What am I reading now? The Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi) by Hermann Hesse- it's a bit of a thick book and being Hesse there's sure to be layers of meaning so this one will probably take me a few weeks. I'm never sure if I want to read intros or just make my own judgments about books and so sometimes I read them and sometimes I don't (kinda like a certain coconut and chocolate candy). This time I read the intro and one thing it said was that this book contained a good bit of humor that was often overlooked and so I will try to keep that in mind as I read. What's next? Probably something light and easy, will see though.