blog.jpg
you or me

Did I finish that last bit of toast?

See, the dog in on the couch, paws crossed, alternately looking at me and at the plate. Each time he shifts his gaze, he alternates which eyebrow is raised. He looks guilty to me. But I don’t remember if I ate it, or he did.

Posted 06/29/2009
(1) Comments • Permalink•
goodbye to a time

It felt like this when John Lennon died. It was something much more than a single person. It was saying goodbye to a time and all the places associated with the music and the man.

It feels like this now. There was no prescience in thinking about Michael two days ago. Actually, that started while sitting at the ceremony as Connor’s class was introduced as the class of 2016. It hit me then—time is passing. Innocence and childhood is fleeting.

The second album I owned was The Jackson 5’s Greatest Hits. Funny, since they had only been around maybe three years. (The first album was Carole King’s Tapestry, is you must know). By the age of 10, Michael and the Jackson 5 had already done ABC, Ben, Got to Be There, I’m Going Back to Indiana. That voice. Their dancing. Our dancing. Innocence and pure talent.

That’s what is gone. After Thriller, I didn’t really listen to him so much. When I saw him, I always wondered about the little boy that was lost along the way. I Want You Back.

These kids (and I will call them kids) who found him when he was starting to turn into something else nod to his music and give him props for that, but think of him as some strange creature - a joke. I can’t laugh about it. I remember the Michael before that time, the one that got lost.

They’re playing his music now. Got to Be There made me want to cry. He was so good.


Got To Be There


Who’s Loving You

*Here are links that articulate a lot of the different ideas that I am still wrestling with:
Michael Remembered: A Bloggy Round-Up
Thinking About Michael
and when J Smooth posts his vblog, I’ll be sure to include it.

Posted 06/26/2009
(0) Comments • Permalink•
calling a mulligan

Reset my 30 day challenge to day one. Allergies laid me out. I was a pitiful lethargic lump o’ some-noun-that-is-pitiable-lumpy-and-maybe-gelatinous-here.

Now lucid, I awoke to find myself six pounds heavier than I was before the cottonwood exploded. Damnit. I am bringing the wii fit with me on my travels and will infect my seester.

Sidenote, and possibly TMI...while at the conference, Liz and I ducked out to go to Intimacy. I now have the power of a decent sports bra. This is no small thing. I have no small things. The two are related.

Posted 06/25/2009
Permalink•
living off the wall

This is when I thought he was at his most handsome, even with the sparkly leg warmers. Got onto a Michael-when-he-looked-human binge after reading Ta-Nehesi Coates’ Echoes of The Bubblegum Age. The dude could sing. Look at his Jackson 5 stuff. Donny Osmond wasn’t even close, no matter what my cousins said. (This was when we fought about such things. Michael all the way).

It’s hard to look at his later videos, but back in the day, he was the king of Pop.

Posted 06/24/2009
Permalink•
do

Sometimes it is better to do something rather than think about doing it.

Posted 06/23/2009
Permalink•
aaaaand go

Not quite in gear. the movement is full of false starts and stuttering. There is no rhythm to summer. Not sure there will be as we alternate between work and play and travel.

The boys have requested a repeat of last week. Perhaps this will be part of it. Monday nights are eat, play and then work. We shall see. Adobo in the slow cooker. Go.

Posted 06/22/2009
Permalink•
State of Play prepost post

Been offline.

Been fun.

Have met around 20 guild members. Have not necessarily introduced myself as my toon. Many of them are wonderful.

Going back to the conference after a 20 minute power nap.

People (even good people) are work.

Posted 06/20/2009
Permalink•
the day of

Packed. The dog does not like the rain. I really need him to get out and do his thing, because it’s going to be a while before he gets let out again.

Trying to decide if I have doggy time?

So there’s this joke...Who loves you more? You want to know? Put your wife and your dog in the trunk of your car and drive around town for a couple of hours. When you open the trunk, who’s going to be happy to see you?

Teo doesn’t know that he’s got a long stretch of no-pee time. And when I walk in that door again in a few days he’ll react the same way he does when I’ve gone out to check the mail. I love that about him.

Posted 06/18/2009
Permalink•
night before

It was a night just like this…

The wind is whipping the trees about. We’re on the verge of a dark and rainy night.

This is a good story. Much better than I could come up with.

Tonight, I got nothing. Just laundry and house cleaning before heading out for a conference. I am thinking that a conference called “State of Play” should be a good time.

Posted 06/17/2009
Permalink•
blues

"Give me a subject.”

We’re all working at the dining table. Matt, Paul and I. It was a lovely dinner born of 6 pounds of fish chunks from the public market. Fish chunks begat bouillabaisse. Kim, Mark, Matt and Paul contributed the things to go around it - bread, wine and strawberries.

It’s still a school night. The boys are in bed. Gabriel is on the couch, not far away. He’s even asleep. And here we are. Working.

Blues. Like icing on what’s left of the cupcakes. Like the light of the monitors reflecting off our faces. Not like sadness. Not like wailing guitars and whiskey and cigarette coated sad sack voices. No. No sadness. It’s been too good an evening.

Sometimes I feel in color. A hug from Gabriel is tangerine with a lime green stripe. The dog is a friendly shade of turquoise. Not so aloof to be cold, not so springy to be warm. There was a kiss that was a purple chocolate brown rimmed in fuschia.

Blue. yeah. Tonight could be a blue - indigo. Not a pen ink indigo. More like well worn denim. That’s what it’s like to be here in this pool of light with my friends, clacking keys in quiet camaraderie.

11:24

Posted 06/15/2009
Permalink•
8:10 AM

Yesterday it was quiet. I walked through the house from where I was sitting on up to my room. Clutter and quiet and light.

8:10 AM

8:10 AM

8:10 AM

Posted 06/14/2009
Permalink•
waiting in the wings

check.

Waiting in the wings

Working on models and animation for an upcoming Alternative Reality Game (coming this Fall to Rochester, NY). These guys are hanging out in the sidelines waiting for their time on stage.

Typical.

The Set

The set. (Katie, see the purpose of the sheet?)

Posted 06/12/2009
Permalink•
never settle

Annelogue shot me a request to change her name in an old comment to her web persona in lieu of her real one. The entry took me back quite a few years to my brother’s wedding. The entry is titled With feathers, flying solo.

Not sure if anyone got the reference. There is an Emily Dickinson poem.

Hope is the Thing with Feathers

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

But I digress. At least I snuck in some poetry and you had to read it for a bit, you non-literary you. (Oh, you know who I’m talking to).

In the comments, Brint said, “Never Settle.” And that was echoed by the next few.

And at this age, what do I want? What can I hope for? What do I need? Each question elicits a different answer. In each case, the threshold of settle shifts.

I am not settled. I am unsettled in so many ways. But, I am still hopeful and do believe what I believed back then - that my children were meant to be, and there is love enough to go around.

the family 2

Posted 06/11/2009
Permalink•
ephemeral to external memory

feleab tweeted: Lanksher on blogging: What’s the point...?

@feleab I missed my bloggiversary (June 2). I’ve been at it for 6 years. A single day isn’t worth much. 6 years is a life story.

Posted 06/10/2009
Permalink•
new equilibrium

Missed the Saturday dance.
Heard they crowded the floor.

Me? I’ve been Jack Horner. But enough of that. Enough ‘round midnight and crossroads and single blues. I’m going out now. I am reinventing myself as a physical social being.

This is work, since my most natural state is contemplative home body. Odds are, I’ll meet that someone just like the way I’ve met the past someones. He will run into me when I am not looking, and may have to actively flag me down because I have forgotten I needed someone in my life. 

Posted 06/10/2009
Permalink•
Page 1 of 118 pages  1 2 3 >  Last »