When I was a kid, I remember how adults always seemed so pleased when people thought they were younger than they actually were. It was strange conduct, and I would observe it and think: how stupid. Why would you want to be younger than you are? All I knew then was that six years old sucked because it meant there was a world of things I couldn't do yet. Older was always better. Ten, for instance, meant I would be bigger and could do more. Sixteen was even better because I could drive! And if I was thirty? Well, how cool would that be? Then I could surely do all the things I wanted, and some. Yes, thirty seemed mighty cool at age six. For that matter, so did twenty, or forty, or fifty. It was all the same, really: any age older than six. Older was always better. Older was positively fascinating.

Well, thirty has come and gone for me . . . two years past now . . . and you know what? Not all that fascinating.

And, just as I feared, I now find myself pleasantly surprised downright giddy when people think I'm still in my twenties. I observe this weird behavior in myself and I still think: how stupid. Only now I say it like this: how fucking stupid. And it is. I mean, if I'm already acting this way at 32, then in about ten more years, I'll be shopping for my first mid-life crisis car (a BMW) and telling cheesy jokes to girls half my age.

Shit. This isn't good. I mean, I've always said I couldn't wait until I got older so I could be a 'dirty old man.' But this is way too soon, man. Too soon. Dirty old men are 'cute' when they're 75. But they're called something altogether different when they're in their 30s and 40s. It's a word you tend to say right after the words, 'Get away!' and 'I'll call the cops!'

Anyway, something happened to me yesterday that got me thinking about all this. I was working out in the Red Room at the 17th and Rhode Island YMCA. Normally, at the time of day I work out, the Red Room is populated with people who are . . . well . . . I don't want to call them 'old' because, you know, who am I to throw stones, right? I'll just call them 'people who were born a little closer to . . . the time of Christ.' I think that sounds better doesn't it?

Anyway, I was in the Red Room and using the bench press machine and this kid was working out near me. I would put him at about 22, maybe 23. He walked over to me and said something, but I had a hard time hearing him because my iPod was set to 'blare.'

I removed the earbud from my left ear. "I'm sorry?" I said it amicably. I figured he probably was interested in using the machine I was on and wanted to 'work in' with me. I was a little put out by this, but I didn't want to appear so.

"Do you know . . . are these machines just for . . ." He lowered his voice. ". . . older people?"

I stared at him for a moment, not really understanding the question. Are . . . these . . . machines . . . for . . . I tried reconstructing the sentence to see if it made better sense in my head that way.

"You know because aside from you and me, everybody else is . . . "

Then all at once I caught his drift. He had noticed that the majority of people in the room were . . . old! And (this is the part I really like) since he figured me to be much closer to his age, he wanted to see if I knew what the fuck was up with all these old people, yo.

I laughed out loud, which I think might have made him a little self-conscious.

"Oh!" I said with a little too much delight in my voice. "No, no. It's cool." My point was clear: Never mind these freakish ancients, my fellow twenty-something friend. You and I can hang here no problem. Our kind is welcome in these parts. It lifts their spirits to have us around.

Here was a guy who didn't know that, later that night, I would pop two Aleve before going to bed. That sometimes I have a hard time orchestrating trickier movements, like standing up from a chair. That I use various and sundry ointments. That my hair is beginning to fall out of my head at an alarming rate . . . and (even more alarming) sprout out of my back with a sort of glib alacrity.

Nope he didn't know all that. To him, I was just another twenty-something in a room full of 'older people.' There's still hope for me, yet. For another couple of years, anyway.

link to this | comments (6) | File:  Health  Chewing  Age 

Confessions have always been my favorite. (And I'm not even Catholic.) Something about that little secret I don't really want anybody to know, and yet I can't help but blurt out loud to the Internets. It's gnawing at my gut. I know I will feel better if I just let it go.

So here it is: I miss Texas.

Man, that feels good. Rid the toxic shit. Again: I miss Texas.

Let the healing begin.

It's been building in me for some time, this strange confession. Strange, because I really can't imagine moving back to The Lone Star State. There are aspects of it that I know would make me entirely miserable. The weather, for one, being top on the list. I have a poweful dislike for the heat. Summer in DC is bad enough. Now add three months on to that, and you have most places in Texas. No thanks.

Second on the list of bad things about Texas is the deep conservative culture and mentality that persists in towns and cities across the state, the kind of thing that just beats you down gradually, day after day, making people like me feel different, like an 'outsider.' Even weird and liberal Austin, "Live Music Capital" of the US, has it. Sure, it's a liberal oasis in a vast conservative desert, but it's still part of the same political eco-system.

Third on my list of dislikes would have to be the pick-ups and SUVs that rule the roads down there. I'm all for having a pickup when you live on a ranch. But why Dallas urbanites need to drive oversized four-wheel-drive vehicles to the corner Starbucks will always be something that mystifies and galls me.

So why do I miss it? I guess for me, Texas is something that winds up being better - and more romantic - in my mind than it is in reality. But there are real things to miss about Texas. Here's a quick list:

The Music

I've always loved certain flavors of country music. Not the over-produced modern country you hear today. I mean the stuff from the 70's and 80's. When I was a kid, I remember being a huge fan of stuff from Willie Nelson, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Shelly West ('Jose Quervo'), and The Oak Ridge Boys just to name a few. Classics. And now it's turned me on to bands like: Wilco, Old 97s, Neko Case, Jenny Lewis. Getting drunk. Driving alone on long highways. Break-ups. Trains. Prison. Did I mention 'getting drunk?' - These are the themes of the country song. It's blues, but with a twang. So delicious. And it's the delivery that matters. The heartache, the grit: it comes from the voice.

The Road Trips

I was reading Prentice Riddle's post about a trip he took to west Texas and how he stopped in this small town called Marfa. I always loved taking road trips in Texas and stumbling across these little towns. They're part creepy, part cool. Makes me nostalgic.

Beer, Margaritas, and Patios

Sipping drinks on patios isn't purely a Texas thing. People do it everywhere, including right here in DC. But there's something different about it in Texas. I mean, aside from the crushing heat. Try it. You'll see.

Family and Friends

This one's a big one and probably doesn't need an explanation.

So there it is. A brief confession. And now I can get on with my day. Thanks for listening. . .

link to this | comments (5) | File:  Chewing 

I like where John is going with his dcblogs411 idea, but I really like the idea of a set of shared community tags. It needs some kind of site that would help gather the content based on those tags.

link to this | comments (1) | File:  Blog  DC 

Repeat after me: I would like a short cappuccino, please.

link to this | comments (12) | File:  Coffee 

Nobody likes writing 'About' pages, but they've got to be done. Some good advice at alistapart.

link to this | comments (2) | File:  Web 

For the last couple of days, Amy has been in town visiting us from Dallas. C and I have taken her to all of our DC-area haunts for food and beverages at night. And for non-caloric entertainment, Amy and I have been consumming art from the Hirschorn, National Gallery, and The Phillips. The ladder really had an impact on me this time, partly because I haven't been to the Phillips in a few years, and the last time I was there they were renovating, so a lot of the collection was not on display. This time, I saw some stuff I'd never seen in person before, which was exciting. Also, I was pretty impressed with the Klee exhibit. It showcases a lot of great watercolors and oil-transfers which, according to the literature from the exhibit, have rarely been seen. The show is only running for a few more weeks (until Sept. 10th) so if you're at all interested in the kind of primitive, child-like styling of Paul Klee, I would highly recommend going. Also, anybody who likes the Phillips but who hasn't been back since the renovations have been completed should definitely make a trip over there. Really nice.

So even though it's technically Amy's vacation, it's been kind of a mini-vacation for me, as well, walking around abandoned DC in August with the other tourists, visiting the galleries, admiring the Capitol, checking out the sniper on the roof of the White House, and viewing the Lincoln at night. Good fun.

Safe travels back to Big D, Amy!

link to this | comments (2) | File:  DC  Art  Friends 

Can you imagine if this happened in the states? After the maelstrom of Janet's boob, methinks we'd probably be on the brink of civil war.

link to this | comments (3) | File:  Media  News 

It's really strange to have something like a car stolen. It seems personal, somehow. I've had bouts of paranoia since last Wednesday when Carmen disappeared, like somebody is looking over my shoulder. Following me. (Remember Rockwell?) Like somebody has it in for C and I. Maybe that guy we cut off last week knows a guy with a tow truck. Maybe the mechanic who butchered our car door a few months ago, leading us to reverse our credit card payment to him, decided to get his money back. Maybe 'they' are watching us. Maybe we are . . . not . . . alone.

When something like this happens, my immediate instinct is to try to make sense out of it by trying to find a reason for it. Maybe it's because the reality of the situation is sometimes harder to accept: that sometimes you are just that person who parked in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's just so random. So arbitrary. And that somehow makes it more comforting and more disturbing at the same time.

link to this | comments (3) | File:  Carmen 

Some really smart ajax and microformats implementations being made over at Adactio with his tagging system. It's nice to see somebody doing some things like this and getting away from the multiple 'add this link to . . . ' buttons at the bottom of most entries. Not that I have anything against those buttons, but they really only seem to benefit those services by providing advertising. I rarely use them to actually bookmark a post. Anyway, some great ideas at Adactio. I'd like to try to implement something similar when I have some free time.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Tags  Tech 

I know I've had some gripes about owning a car. I know I've said some pretty harsh words about Carmen's recent break downs and flat tires. But I didn't want this. I swear. I didn't want her to leave us.

This morning, C walked out to where she had parked Carmen last night and she was not there. There was a taxi where she had been. An ugly taxi.

It took a few moments to sink in, but our car was stolen, and we are sad.

I guess it's what we get for living in central DC, the only area of DC where property crimes are up. I suppose it was a matter of time until something like this happened.

I called the police. C called the insurance. Everything is underway. The police are going to look for Carmen ("That's right, Officer, she goes by Carmen. That's with a 'C.'") today and if they don't find anything, an official report will be filed. It seems like there's a good chance she'll turn up somewhere, but who knows what shape she'll be in. I hope whoever has her is being nice to her . . .

Sorry, Carmen. I hope somebody finds you. Keep a stiff upper . . . bumper.


link to this | comments (15) | File:  DC  Carmen 

A funny cat clip to get things started on a Monday morning. Wait for the voice in the background.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Ho_Hum 

I found this post (via Godin) in which MJ Rose debunks the premise that a blog is a sure-fire way for authors to market themselves. She has several arguments why this is the case, but this seems to be the crux of it:

The very last thing every author should be doing is starting a blog.

Not just because the very act of writing the blog draws on the creativity [sic] energy that it takes to write our books but because only a small percentage of us have something to write about three or four times a week, week after week, that readers crave - other than our books.

If you're a writer and you're skeptical about starting a blog, then MJ's article gives you some great excuses why you should stay away from them: It takes too much time, it might turn people off, it's too hard and takes 'creativity' and 'passion' - things you should spend on your real writing. After all, while blogging may be a lot of things, it is not real writing.

What the hell? This from a writer? A writer who blogs?

First of all, let me say that I do agree with MJ on one point: If a writer doesn't get blogging, and doesn't really want to invest time in blogging well, then they shouldn't try to do it simply on the premise that it will help them sell their books. Their lack of interest will come across in their blog and it probably won't lead to much success. (Success from a financial or marketing sense, that is.)

But since when does a writer start a blog to be a success? Probably since blog celebrities have made it seem easy. But most people who started blogging years ago, did not do it to be 'successful.' They did it because they had something to say. And most every writer has something to say, I hope.

Unlike MJ, I wholeheartedly think writers should be blogging. Especially good writers. I think the medium is calling out to them, but a lot of writers are late to the party, or are staying home altogether. The reason is that 'serious' writers, especially fiction writers, seem to have a high-brow attitude about blogs. They've seen some crap online (and there's a lot of it) and so they've written blogs off (so to speak). They balk, in part, because of some ingrained prejudice that blogging and writing fiction are intrinsically at odds with one another. That what they do online and what they do in print, by definition, must be different. But already, this notion is beginning to crumble. People are discovering the fictional blog. And while I have yet to see a really compelling execution of the idea, I'm confident one will present itself soon enough. I have seen some pretty interesting attempts. It's new. It will take time. But it will happen.

More and more we're going to see a blurring between the terms 'blogger' and 'writer.' More than that, we're going to see a blurring between the term 'book' and 'blog.' In that respect, what we're witnessing here is a new literary medium. Those don't come along all that often. It seems downright counterintuitive that a writer would not want to get in on that. How does a writer, especially a 'serious' one, not appreciate this kind of medium? How does he not want to do something important with it?

Writers of books who have no online voice are going to become relics before the time where it will become 'fashionable' for them to be one. What I mean, is the literary community loves their relics: John Updike, Tom Wolfe, Philip Roth. Most authors would love to have their kind of 'relic status.' And if you're a relic, then you do not blog. It's not what you do, and it's okay. But if you're a young author today and you disregard the importance of having an online voice, you may not have a chance to become that kind of relic. Instead, you'll be a relic in your own time.

link to this | comments (2) | File:  Fiction  Blog  Writing 

A footnote to my previous post about backing up. For Mac users who get Leopard, the upcoming release of OS X, due out in Spring 2007, it will soon get a whole lot easier. Welcome, Time Machine.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Mac 

OK. I hate to do this, but let me just take a moment to be a shining example of the kind of spoiled American attitude that makes a terrorist's skin crawl. . . [foot stomp] What do you mean I can't bring my cup of Starbucks on the plane with me anymore?! Guess I'll have to start packing chocolate covered coffee beans, instead.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Travel  Terror  News 

This morning I got up early and drove C to Union Station. She's on a train right now to New Jersey and, thanks to a snazzy EVDO card, she's probably checking her email right now. Of course, thanks to the rocking motion of the train, she might also be sleeping. Either one.

It was still early after dropping C off. Pre-seven AM time. Carmen needed gas, so I figured as long as I was up and in the car I would go ahead and take care of it. I enjoy being up and running errands early in the morning, as the sun is coming up. There's something peaceful about it, even when it's set to the sound of construction, as it is in my neighborhood.

I fueled Carmen, drove her back home and, after circling the block a few times, parked her. Beautiful morning. Temperatures in the 60s. Not humid. Even a soft wind. What is this? Where am I? After the recent heat wave, this felt downright exotic. Now it was time to fuel myself up. I walked to my local Starbucks in a pretty good mood, despite this nagging pain in my upper back that I've had for the last several weeks.

The baristas who work the morning shift at my Starbucks are a friendly lot. The guy slinging drinks this morning was from Boston. We'd had a prior conversation about buying groceries online. He was in favor of it. I don't know his name, but he seems like a nice guy. I call him Boston.

Boston was working by himself at the moment, so he had to do the register and the drinks. His workmate was outside on a cigarette break. He nodded at me when I entered.

The woman in front of me ordered a white mocha latte, and paid for it. She spoke in a thick New York accent to her friend who stood with her in line. They were talking about the expense of traveling. They both wore convention name tags on blue lanyards around their necks.

Before making the woman's drink, Boston went ahead and took my order since he knew I was only getting a coffee, and it would require no preparation. I like that about Boston: he thinks ahead. He poured my coffee and set it on the counter. I paid for the drink and Boston went about making the white mocha latte. As he did this, and as I put away my change, we went on talking. We talked about the weather and the effect it had on moods. I thought how it was nice talking to the local coffee dealer in this familiar way, even though I barely knew him. Casual chit-chat: it makes us feel connected to one-another. There was definitely something about this weather. Good vibes were all around.

For coffee drinkers, there is a haze that surrounds us before we imbibe that first cup. We walk in a cloud. We do not notice the most obvious things, like when a woman, in this case the mocha convention lady from New York, takes our cup of coffee, tall, black . . . not a drop of white chocolate mocha in it . . . and leaves the store. We do not notice these things. Until it is too late.

When I looked down at the counter for my drink, I found that, presently, nothing was there. There had been coffee there. I had seen it. But now, sadly, there was no coffee. I looked up at Boston. My confused expression, which was probably infused with a touch of panic, must have said what I was thinking: "Coffee?!" We looked at each other. He looked at the door. I looked at the door. Stop her! I ran outside, hoping to catch her. But these were New Yorkers, after all. They walk fast. She was already a good distance away. I shouted "Ma'am!" But she did not hear me.

I went back inside. Boston poured me another drink. "Well, I guess she'll come back when she takes her first sip."

"I guess," I said.

But I felt guilty for not running after her. I had a vision of this poor woman, sitting down for her first panel discussion of the day at whatever convention she was attending and taking that first delightful sip of what she thinks will be a white chocolate mocha latte only to get a mouthful of bitter black coffee. A rude awakening, to be sure. I had to do something.

I thanked Boston for the joe, then left the store. It was a little out of my way, but I went after the mocha lady and her friend. I had to walk pretty fast, but I eventually caught up with them after a couple of blocks.

"Ma'am?"

She seemed startled at first. But then she seemed to recognize me from the store. That, or simply because I had a Starbucks cup in my hand, I appeared trustworthy.

"Sorry. I think you grabbed my black coffee off the counter, instead of your drink."

She looked at the color of the liquid through the little sip hole in the top of her Starbucks assembly. She did this for an oddly long period of time, turning the cup this way and that. I think she was hoping that her eyes were betraying her. That what she was seeing in there wasn't a murky black, but rather the familiar light brown color she was used to. When she finally realized I was correct, she looked up at me with a sad expression of defeat and just said one word: "Damn."

I understood how she felt. It's disheartening to walk two blocks with the wrong cup of coffee in your hands.

"I just wanted to let you know before you got too far."

"Thanks."

I felt bad. If the mocha had been ready I would have taken it to her. But it hadn't. And now she had to walk two blocks back to her drink. It was no way to start a morning. But at least the weather was good.

link to this | comments (4) | File:  Coffee 

MPPS recently discovered that somebody had found his blog while doing a search for information on what to do when a dog eats superglue. He now strives to be the foremost authority on canines with a bad case of sticky mouth. I wish I could help him in his efforts, but alas, I have no dogs and certainly no experience involving them and any kind of adhesive. However, if you can help shed some light on this subject, leave a comment on his post.

Sometimes reading through the phrases people use to find your site can be kind of scary. For instance, I had one for, "girlfriend giving colonoscopy." That one still gives me the chills. And not in a good way.

But by far, the greatest number of people who stumble on my site from a search engine are looking for information on the 'Rose of Jericho tattoo.' I usually get over 50 searches for some variant of that phrase per month, and I'm not even on the first page of search results on Google.

I think MPPS is on to something. Maybe I should embrace the authority Google has bestowed upon me and not leave these poor people, who are searching for answers (probably in the form of a photo) high and dry. So if anybody has an original rose of jericho tattoo photo they'd like to send me so I can append it to the above post, upload it to flickr and send me a link.

But let me be clear: I have no interest in being an authority on "girlfriend giving colonoscopy."

UPDATE: 12.05.20006

A reader forwarded me this great photo of a Rose of Jericho tattoo. Enjoy! (Thanks F!)



link to this | comments (5) | File:  Surfing  rose_of_jericho  Blog 

Something like this would be even more nifty if all the radio stations weren't owned by the same big company and playing, in the words of Ani DiFranco, the same damn song. (via lifehacker)

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Music 

I've been looking for a way to better keep track of my time, and this little utility might just do the trick.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Lifehack 

I don't really go to that many concerts anymore, and when I do, it's usually somebody I really like. So it's hard for me to give an objective review of the Fiona Apple concert I saw Monday night at Wolf Trap. Some people might remember from this post, that I have a slight thing for Fiona. (If by 'thing' you mean 'crush' and by 'slight' you mean, 'resembling a 2-ton boulder.') Luckily, C has a sense of humor when it comes to these things, and doesn't mind my weakness for a certain genre of female vocalists. In turn, I put up begrudgingly with her addiction to anime. It's a fair trade.

It was a very humid evening at Wolf Trap. The only breeze came from the weak movement of air made when somebody opened their mouth to speak. I'm willing to bet there was not a dry patch of skin in the entire place. But I didn't mind. After all, I grew up in Houston. I have an excellent humidity tolerability index. And besides, as soon as Fiona went on, most corporeal concerns vanished from my consciousness, which was kind of nice. Sort of like a really good painkiller.

David Garza opened the evening. Jeff had clued me in ahead of time to DG, so I checked out some of his songs on iTunes before the show. I liked them, but found I mostly liked the rock-oriented stuff he did with a full band. So his acoustic performance at Wolf Trap was quite a different vibe, and I had a harder time getting into it, but part of that might have simply been my anxiousness to see Fiona. His sound did grow on me as he got further into his set.

Fiona came on stage dressed in a long, blue, strapless gown. If she was bothered by the heat, she did not let it show. I respect that in a performer: carrying on, regardless of surroundings. (A side note - When I lived in Dallas, I want to two different concerts at the Starplex during a particularly bad cricket epidemic. Elton John barely said a word about the crickets. As he sang, you could see on the giant screens above him that the buggers kept perching on his jacket lapel. But he didn't flinch. Dave Matthews, on the other hand, who I had seen a week earlier, was really freaked out by them and eventually had the Starplex turn up the house lights so that they wouldn't all flock to the stage. This had the unfortunate side effect for those of us out in the lawn, of not really being able to see the stage very well. Now, I like Dave Matthews, and I'm sorry he gets freaked out by crickets, but come on, what a pansy-ass. It's not like they were deadly bees or anything. (Sorry, Dave, I know you work hard, but we're talking about crickets here.)

By the end of the performance, FA was pretty well drenched in sweat, and her dress was a darker shade of blue across her torso from the wetness. But, lost in her music, she barely seemed to notice this until late in the show when she paused to introduce the band. "I feel like a giant ink blot," she said. Also, a nasty scrape appeared on her chest just above her left breast early on in the show, apparently self-inflicted, and apparently the result of an overly-aggressive bout of self-flagellation as she writhed on stage. But never mind cuts and scrapes. She seemed oblivious to them, too.

She performs with a certain violence, Fiona, bordering on rage. Her lyrics already have that quality to them, but on her records the anger is tempered somewhat by her soft, throaty vocals. On her records, she's like a shed full of dynamite, quiet and calm, but threatening to blow at any second. Onstage, it's as if somebody finally went inside and lit a match, causing her to explode in a cathartic display of rage and resentment. But her fans love it - I love it - and on Get Gone, when she spoke the words Fucking go! to the unfortunate 'you' of that song, it inspired a roar of approval among the crowd.

Fiona hit her stride about two-thirds of the way through her set, during 'Not About Love,' (also my favorite song) where her vocals took on this perfect mixture of raw emotion and a sort of jazzy playfulness.

I guess my only disappointment was with the band. With the exception of Dave Palmer who played keyboard and sub'ed for FA at piano when she stood at the mic, I thought the rest of the band sounded uninspired and flat. The drummer should have been on life-support. His licks were dull and unimaginative. And the bass player dragged like Snuffle-upagus on heroin. This was made all the more apparent against the backdrop of FA's force. I have to say that when David Garza joined the band to do Extraordinary Machine, it really rounded things out. Things sounded slightly more energized. Maybe he should have played with them on every song.

But I don't mean to end this on a bad note, so let me summarize this way: FA was incredible and I'd definitely pay to see her live again, sweat and all.

link to this | comments (8) | File:  Reviews  Music 

I'm fascinated by coincidences like this one.

link to this | comments (2) | File:  Weird 

Seth Godin throws out 19 pearls of wisdom for authors. Number two is interesting, and if you did it, you'd probably give yourself a great incentive to finish (as well as a deadline.) I should do it. I also like number 18.

link to this | comments (3) | File:  Books  Publishing