We belong to the night

Toe,
Merry Christmas. I enjoyed your drunken blog entry--you should blog drunk more often. What is that called, anyway? Blunking?

We're pretty frenzied with the house stuff right now. Having the floors re-done, polished, etc. Spent three days painting. Painted through Xmas day. Ate Xmas dinner at the local chinese buffet. Bought a washer/dryer yesterday. A sweet time, but exhausting.

I didn't get enough sleep last night, I think because I had too much beer. I also had a lot of house details on my mind. It's exciting, but stressful. We have to pack our shit today and tomorrow, then move the following day. So much to do, even more to think about, but right now I am almost too tired to do much of anything.

By the way, I second your love of nerdy girls. They do rock.

I think I saw Spellbound. That's the documentary about the spelling bee, right? Yeah, that's a good one.

Anyway, wish we could meet up with you this New Years. Are you going to Korea? Wouldn't mind meeting you there, actually. I imagine it would be insanely fun. We're staying around this town, working on the house, sliding into domestic oblivion for a week.

So, happy new year to you and the missus if I don't manage to communicate with you before then.
E-Word

There were times that I could have strangled her

E-word,

Hey man, congrats! I have had a few drinks, so my brain is not functioning very well. Fucking hell shit, I'm not good at math, you know? Fucking hell shit.

Um, you know what a painful thing it is for me to really know that I'm not good at math? Definitely troubling.

But um yeah but drunk. Fuck. Math. Where I'm watching Spellbound right now. Nerdy girls rock.

You know, I think I always expected to marry a nerdy girl, not that I've dated that many seriously nerdy girls, but I always expected to marry a nerdy girl.

'Oh, April, why don't you get a life'

I recommend this movie, it's pretty awesome so far. April is a pretty nerdy girl.

I need more drink. I don't want to go to work tomorrow, sorry for my what what.

Toe is toe toe toe moe foe

Small town

On the local public radio station they just announced a "pretty nasty gastrointestinal problem" several counties over. I love small town life.

We have our own house. Walking in for the first time, I felt a little shiver go down my back. It was odd. I don't know if it's just all the result of the hype I've heard all my life about owning a place or the weight of the hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt literally underwriting my ability to say "we own this place," but I shivered.

Chantey

Hello Toe,
Feeling better than I did when I last posted. I think house-buying is making me stressed in ways I wouldn't have expected. That, and aging.

I am starting to realize that I write pretty vaguely on this blog. I think I just don't like revealing myself in a public forum. I know that you are probably the only person I know who will read this, but I can't help but want to hide behind imprecise and undetailed descriptions of my feelings, my town, etc. I hope that what I write doesn't read that badly--my goal is to be descriptive without giving away locating details or thoughts that, should the wrong person read them, will come back to haunt me. Why am I so paranoid?

Went to the coffee-dispensing barnacle this morning. I wanted to tip the barrista twice today because the other day I didn't leave a tip at all. Unfortunately, he didn't have change for my fiver, so he let me have coffee without paying and without leaving a tip. Tomorrow I have to pay him twice and tip him three times.

(I almost wrote "tip him thrice," but realized that this word choice would reveal me for the Lord-of-the-Rings, Renaissance-poetry major that I am.)

The photo at the top represents me coming into harbor. I am towing my boat, singing chanties. "Once I had a woman, but, damn her, she had me thrice/There ain't no sense in paying once, if you have to pay her twice...."

Anyway, what's up with you?
E-word

Out of time

Toe,
I'm having one of those existential afternoons. I was thinking about my past, reminiscing about the days we used to have the writing group, and wondering why I have stopped writing. Then I started thinking about other missed opportunities, things I've passed up on because of fear of failure, or just fear, and I began to feel slightly disconnected from my life. It wasn't quite an out-of-body experience. I felt more like I was out of time, or outside time, as I had somehow stepped out of the chronology of my life. I supposed with all the reminiscing, I had stepped out of my time, out of the present moment. To snap out of it, I found myself wandering around the apartment, going from one corner to the other, saying to myself "When I want to walk over there, I can walk over there. I am walking over there." It was sort of an exercise in will power, demonstrating that yes, I can follow through on things I want to do, I am not on a rail, driven by an unseen engine. I have more directional control than even the best automobile.

I began to think of my grandfather, hopping on that train out of Nebraska. How scared he must have been, a boy on top of a freight train that would not stop. Did he understand he would never go home again? Did he want that?

I have never felt that kind of fear, never really been on that kind of life-changing adventure.

A friend who was some years older than me told me told me "You don't regret the things you do. You regret the things you do not do." As I get older I realize more and more that this is true.

OK, I need to get my head out of this bucket. Just needed to drain some angst onto the log.
E-word

Jesus had a twin

Toe, I don't know what to make of this, but it seems strangely beautiful to me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBeFL3qI-n8

(Sorry, you need to cut and paste this)

E-word

Snow storm

Toe,
We had some major snow yesterday. Went for a walk with C* and Hi C, and took this, among other, photos.

Sorry I have been so incommunicado. It has been a busy week, with some travel for work, plus generally time-consuming tasks at home.

I have done the google-search of old classmates. It is sometimes depressing, because the people you can find google generally are the hyper-successful ones, and you can't help but compare. Of course, I also find heartening comparisons, like the elementary school classmate who won a local golf tornament. It included a picture, and the guy just looked like he was your average late-30s former jock. Not depressing to compare with--in fact, it was nice because he seemed so bland.

Anyway, I try not to compare myself to others I went to school with. It's hard, though, it's hard.

We have our mortgage, apparently. I am psyched. Now we just need to sublet this apartment. Ugh.

Running errands today if we can get the car uncovered, then going to catch up on work and possibly make some soup. The snow is damn beautiful.

Talk to you soon, man.
E-word