Today I get my wisdom teeth removed. The good news is that I only have two wisdom teeth on the bottom. My dental surgen said to thank my parents as it's genetic. Thanks Mom and Dad for the lack of wisdom.

They are going to put me out completely via IV for the event. I have to warn them that I've woken up during surgery more than once and I woke up swinging. They are going to strap me into the chair.

Then it's a couple of sick days at home (which count as holidays at the bank, cheap bastards). I'm loaded up on popsicles and senior citizen liquid meal supplements.

I'm more scared about this than I was about getting a vasectomy.

Icck. Icck. Icck.

So between my mom who spent the time with me doing that, both my parents said if you act up we can make another one just like you. We're not all that attached to you. So whatever, go act like an idiot and then we'll just beat the crap out of you - although they never did. It was more of a threat than anything else.

So, on a Thursday I drive into Houston at an unusually early time for yours truly to board a plane bound for Columbus, Ohio and the Ohio State campus. They put me up in the downtown Hilton - Merv owns a big share in the company, apparently - and I must say, it was very cool. I've never been on a plane by myself, or in a hotel room by myself, or in general completely alone in another city. When I got in at the airport, I had to hail a taxi. Apparently, this practice is not like it is in the movies - no whistling or shouting or waving. There's a nice cab stand and you get in the line and the man at the desk loads your bags and you're on the go. How about that?

"yo no creo en la edad"

- pablo neruda

Translation = I do not believe in the age.

ODA TO THE AGE
I do not believe in the age.
All the old ones they takein the eyes a boy, and the children sometimes they observe to uslike old deep.
We will measure the life by meters or kilometers or months? As much since you are born? Whateveryou must walk until like allinstead of walking it superficially let us rest, underneath the Earth?
To the man, the woman that they completed actions, kindness, force,rage, love, tenderness, to that truely alivethey bloomedand in its nature they matured, we do not approach the measurementof the time that perhaps it is another thing, a mantle mineral, a bird planetary, a flower, another thing perhaps, but not a measurement.
Time, metal or bird, flower of length pecíolo, extiéndetealong of the men, florécelosand lávalos withwateropenedor with hidden sun. I proclaim to you wayand it does not mortise, scalepure with steps of air, I brought sincerely renewed by longitudinal springs.
Now, time, I coil to you, I deposit to you in mywild box and I am going away to fish with your long thread the fish of the aurora!

What's brown and sticky?

A stick!

What's a foot long and slippery?

Slippers!

Hee hee.

Waaaaahaaaaaahaaaaaaa. Gasp. Choke. Waaaaaaahuhhuhhuh. Sniffle. Ha. Hee. ha. ha

His work would not have been weakened by a greater commitment toward concision.

http://dir.salon.com/story/books/review/2002/07/23/darger/index.html

concision
(Gr. katatome; i.e., "mutilation"), a term used by Paul contemptuously of thosewho were zealots for circumcision (Phil. 3:2). Instead of the warning, "Bewareof the circumcision" (peritome) i.e., of the party who pressed on Gentileconverts the necessity of still observing that ordinance, he says, "Beware ofthe concision;" as much as to say, "This circumcision which they vaunt of is inChrist only as the gashings and mutilations of idolatrous heathen."

If you head east out of Melville past Donny's place on the road to the Agripark and then keep going east for a while and then turn left you end up at "A Drinking Place".

Such places are established areas out of town just off of some gravel road that end up being good places to hang out in your car and drink.

The first time I was at this particular place was with Dickey and Al. In Al's super big boat of a car. I don't know what the car was but it was purple and had power windows and. And it was a massive monster car. We drank supersize cans of "Extra Old Stock" and I ran around drunkenly in the dark trying to get fireflies to find each other. I had never seen a firefly before. They flash to attract mates and I was trying to help out and play matchmaker. I was really drunk. Those supersize cans have tried to kill me more than once. But that's another story.

Another time at this drinking place was with Mark and Mike and bunch of their friends. I hid in the back seat of Mark's car while they blasted "You and Me Go Fishin in the Dark" and screamed the lyrics at me. Bastards.

And the final recollection of this wonderful space is the time my first girlfriend and I went out there for some summer lovin in the sun. After the "act" I threw the condom into the bush. Well....I meant to throw it. Instead I ended up slamming my fist into her eye. The fist holding the recently used condom, ick. I didn't see her behind me when I swung my arm back to throw. She cried the whole way home.

Good times.

Here’s your inside-baseball trivia about having TV interviewers in your home: they will inevitably want to unplug your fridge, to get better sound. Then they will put their car keys in your fridge, so they don’t forget to turn it back on.

"I bought you apples."

She breezed in from the garage where we keep our wheezing second refridgerator packed with beer, milk, fruit, sourdough starter and the occasional tub of slow-rising dough. Her skin radiated sun and clean sweat and a field of heat from her five-mile walk, tan arms against a neon-green tank top, tight in all the right places.

"What?"

I was clueless, as usual -- at the computer trying to figure out why my pages don't validate.

"The apples in the outside fridge. I bought them for you. The Fujis. Have you had any yet?"

"Oh yes. Had two last week. Yummy. Fujis. Thanks."

And that was that.

Until today, a few days later, during my lunch hour, escaping under a cluster of live oaks. As I take my third bite of one of these apples, the juice spraying and dripping down my chin, it hits me: this is what a life together is like.

She was at the store. She saw apples. She thought of me. She bought them.

I bought them for you.

I see then that perhaps this is what well-aged love becomes. Gone are the days of extravagant gifts, high-impact vacations, passionate weekends. Three children, a mother-in-law and multiple jobs have inked their way in to once-nonexistant planners. We communicate primarily through emails and sticky-notes.

We find the time in the granular moments of opportunity presented to us. For now, these are the only ones we have.

I rub her feet. She calls me from work to get me up in time to run before work. I have dinner ready and her pajamas out for her after she's worked a gnarly double. Sex is as infrequent yet dazzling as meteor showers. And of course, she buys me apples.

She will deny this, of course.

"I only got them because they were cheap."

"Well, then you got a bargain."

"I know."

Whether she means the apples or me, she'll never tell, but either way I win.

I put on Fishscale one day and everyone popped their heads above their cubicle dividers like prairie dogs, staring at me like I'd grown two extra heads that were tongue-kissing each other

I hate moving. I've said more than once that I lived in the same apartment for almost 10 years just because of how much I hate moving. That and it was an OK place and I didn't really really have to move.

But here I am again. We are selling the one bedroom condo and cashing in on the real estate prices before it crashes completely. So tomorrow morning we are renting a van and carting all the stuff out of the storage space and other crap out of the apartment and out to the house. At least there is room at the house. By the time we actually move to the house it will be full.

And our course the entire bathroom needs to be redone. Broken pipe in the ceiling means all the pipes are to be replaced. And all the tile around the tub is going to be ripped out by yours truly today and we have to rebuild. Ugg.

The new job at the Bank is a little boring and no real challenge at all. The team isn't quite at the level I'm used to working. I guess I can slow down to this. I am noticing that I've the brain and power bandwidth for other things. I'm starting to write new music, I'm blogging again and I'm recording various ideas for a new business. We'll see how this business thing works out.

I guess it's been a couple of years. Thanks for waiting for me little bloggy.

Today is also my wedding anniversary. And the bathroom ceiling is waterlogged and ripped out.

And I have a new job at the bank. And we are gonna sell that ceiling and everything wrapped around it. So long to the one bedroom leaky leaky condo. Reading back in this blog reminded me that things didn't start well with that place. It treated us well but it's time to cash in and move on.

I'm seriously thinking about starting my own business.

Three years of marriage. Still really dam good, I love my wife. And we've got the house now too. And I ain't gonna be making any babies. Although I think they are growing back?

Hm.......

As Jandek told the Texas Monthly reporter who asked him whether he wanted people to "get" what he was doing, "There's nothing to get."

Ummmm....yup. Work, house, hottub, school, work, house, hottub. Busy. Good. Yup, good.

Give me head or the monkey gets spanked.

...which is about as redundant as an 'orange orange

Guess what happened to me? Cause stuff like this always happens to me. My Dad and I come out of the hardware store to see my car driving out of the parking lot. Dad shouts "Someone is stealing your car!". We run up to the car to see that the security club is still on the steering wheel, but the car is driving away. Well, not too far away as it is being very intimate with a concrete light pole. I drop my shopping and dash for the car. Running along side it, I open the drivers door (what's left of it) and jump in the car and hit the brakes. The driver's side mirror and most of the body panels are ripped off. The emergency brake was on the whole time but it was also in gear. What happened? The remote start went haywire. Why do we have remote start? It came with the alarm. The car just started itself and drove into a concrete pole. And remote starts should never EVER engage when the car is in gear. I was just a little mad. Dad's comment "If I hadn't seen it, I would have called you a liar". Heavy words from my Dad and foreshadowing too. At the grocery store about 10 minutes later it did it again. While I was sitting in the car, with the keys in my hand. This time it wasn't in gear so it just sat there and ran the engine. Wife not very happy, but understanding and trusting. Forward 3 days, the car is at the dealership. They agree to remove the remote start but smarmy mechanic says to the Wife, "I'm not sure about this, remote starts don't work when the car is in gear". Forward 2 hours later, the staff and ICBC are discussing the situation about the car and then right in front of them the car (now named Christine) starts up and runs into another car inside the garage. They promptly yanked the remote start wiring out of it. To wrap up, we have to make an ICBC claim and pay the costs because they still won't take the blame. And yes, there is a class action suit against Honda by other owners this has happened to and we are joining them. I hate cars, cars hate me.

A Worse Mousetrap

As I type, the mouse climbs my shoulder and leaps into my breast pocket. I laugh when his furry gray head pops out. He twitters his whiskers, watching as I finish my apology. I hug him against my heart. Later, I will sign my note as the rat poison makes it way through my system.

100 Jolts: Shockingly Short Stories by Michael A. Arnzen

My brother came home from living in Bolivia and Ecuador with a new game. I don't know spanish, but it was something like 'pase del gato', or 'Passing of the Cat' in english. The premise of the game being that a group would sit in a circle and pass a cat around. Eventually the cat would want out of the game, and would therefore claw its way out. The clawee would be the loser, and the players would find something else to do (or another cat).

Fear is realizable. Fear can only be overcome through diligence and patience. Winnie the Pooh wasn't named after Winston Churchill, but Winston Churchill did say, 'The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.' I like Winston Churchill. He wrote a lot of great books.