THE WORK HAS JUST BEGUN

Don't come around here no more

2003-10-30T18:00:00.000-06:00

Go here. I'll see you there.

It's not speed on your breakfast plate but I'll try...

2003-10-29T20:02:00.000-06:00

Things are pretty static on my CST side of the Mississippi. I’m still getting to work on time, I’m still running after work (although the sudden chill has me off by two days) and I’m still working on a plan to do something else for the rest of my life. All this doing nothing has shrunk my world down a bit and, with the exception of sporadic barroom gatherings, left me feeling more than a little cloistered. And while many features of my cloister are self-designed (the go straight to voicemail, the no-blogging, and the short answers when short answers will do) I have found the world a willing co-conspirator. Aside from being coal stack-black at five o’clock it has been cool and sunny in the morning, cool and windy by mid-morning, and for a stretch of time cool and rainy at night; this is the quintessential weather-soundtrack to seclusion.

But God has more guiding digits on the Dexter than just the weather-controlling index finger. Middle finger: I’ve seen beautiful bruised-knee sunsets most nights that I’ve looked. Ring finger: My cat has become unusually gentle with me. Pinky finger: The Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros CD came out at midnight on Tuesday. Thumb: The Strokes CD also came out midnight. By 12:51 this alliance of seclusive indicators had roundly defeated my years of socialization and I was in jeans and t-shirt happily doing nothing with anyone. I was Iraq and the sequestrating God above was tearing down my statues of Saddam.

But I have also been Afghanistan. This fit of isolationism is not a new development in the great chain of me being. Every so often I just like to step out of line and run around the corner and behind the bar and have a nice smoke, all by myself. Sometimes this means a day away from the phone, sometimes a week, and this one time in 2001 it was three months. 2001 was a weird year for everything. Point being, I just do this for myself and more important than the guilty part is the pleasure part. I love doing this. It’s true, sometimes the circumstances that compel me to withdraw are not so nice and soft but being alone is.

Yeah, I know, it sounds like I have problems connecting with people and being vulnerable in general. Well, fuck you, I just might but I don’t think I do have these problems as a rule. Being alone is like how I imagine being homeless, it makes me thankful for the bed I have and, in this analogy, the people I get to talk to, connect with, and be vulnerable with. That sounded far too sexual for my liking but I’ll let it stand. So, occasionally, the toppling of a giant statue of an evil dictator IS a good thing.

But the shoe slapping and gleeful discharge of firearms never persists for very long. Deep down inside I know that eventually I will have to return to the social comity of nations. Welcome the intervening figure cum guerilla fighter/suicide bomber: Los. Los understands, better than most, this strange phenomena and is fairly well schooled in the art of the call to arms. Result: we’re at the Crystal Corner and my phone is slowly turned back on. And if the dizzying heights of my socialization seem to you to be too steeply set against the light-swallowing depths of my isolation then you sir or madam do not know me.

As for my advice to Chris. Take it & leave her.

That’s that.

But I know that’s not that.
“That’s not that” point #1: Why don’t you tell anyone when you’re doing this so that they know the score and don’t waste their time trying to get you on the phone? Well, I waste my time doing a lot of things and leaving voicemail is hardly the most time consuming of them. On balance, I'm working on the timely response thing. As for the lack of advance warning, lots of things in life come unannounced: suicide bombers, herpes, babies, and brushfires. Put it that way and I’m not so bad for not calling ahead.

“That’s not that” point #2: You have problems connecting with people and being vulnerable in general. Didn’t we cover this. Sure, whatever. I’m a robot and you’re a squishy bag of sloshing emotions. Everyone’s different.

“That’s not that” point #3: The Strokes suck. Thank god you’re not one of them or you’d suck too.

“That’s not that” point #4: So are you going to start taking calls again? Ha! Maybe.

“That’s not that” point #5: Your advice to Chris further supports point #2. My advice to Chris is realistic and safe. When you’re in your mid-twenties and as neurotic as all of us are I think realistic and safe is sometimes the right band-aid for the fantastic and bold move that leaves you with skinned palms. It’s not a life policy that I’m encouraging everyone to adopt, it’s just a means to avoiding further “fuck-your-brains-up-move-home-with-parents-start-blogging-obcessively-fall-on-your-steak knife” situations.

“That’s not that” point #6: I think you suck. Hey there, I’m not The Strokes CD. Actually the new Strokes CD is really good, save one song that sounds like it was stolen from the Weezer songbook. I say buy 1 for yourself and 1 for the tollbooth operator.

Love you all; but secretly, I love Sarah a little more.
A_RON

Back to blogging

2003-10-29T02:45:00.000-06:00

I'm looking forward to some time off from work and with that a little bit of time to collect my thoughts on the many topics that have not yet been covered herein. Until Wednesday night I offer only this assurance: I will post more than sad stories.

DO THIS NOW or thinly veiled references to my own pain and anguish

2003-10-28T12:41:00.000-06:00

CUT HER OUT OF YOUR LIFE.

If you don't do this now things will unravel thusly:
You will never learn how to cut people out of your life and consequently you will start accumulating "friends" that you don't want. Eventually you and your multitude of "friends" will drink/smoke too much and someone (most likely her) will say something that will end the "friendship" painfully and, this is more important than the painfully part, after you've suffered many weeks/months/years of horrible personal growth-crippling repression.
In summary: SHE WAS NOT YOUR FRIEND BACK THEN. SHE'S NOT A FRIEND NOW. SHE'S AN ABORTED LOVE INTEREST. Don't be one of those sad mothers that takes pictures of their dead baby, why?
Because: nostalgia for something that never was is called delusion.
Do as I say: CUT HER OUT AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.

Where's God when you need him?

2003-10-24T02:16:00.000-05:00

Oh right, fighting Mel Gibson; nevermind.

The Cougar speaks & other things that interest me through my allegery medicine sponsored haze.

2003-10-23T22:50:00.000-05:00

Open Letters. The letter itself reads better to the tune of "Life Goes On" but still. I guess that's just another person I have to start taking seriously "despite their hairstyle or ownership of oxygen bars. Fuck, if Snoop Dogg ever starts writing open letters to the Bush Administration I might have to stab myself. Sorry, no more Elliott Smith suicide shit, I promise. Poor, sad, crazy Elliott Smith.

Bumper Stickers. I've already said that my favorite bumper sticker, and winner of the scarlet "I" for ironic, is "Don't blame me, I voted for Nader!" Poor, sad, crazy Nader voters.

Suicide bombings. Poor, sad, crazy suicide bombers.

Assualt. Worth laughing at.

CCTV cameras. I didn't find them to be as Big Brother-y as most but then again I didn't really do anything worth zooming in to watch closer.

Carl with a K. There are other Karls out there.

And last, but not least, Cuba. Even from within the womb I supported lifting the travel ban.

Re-e-val

2003-10-23T12:50:00.000-05:00

While reading Karl's essay in many parts regarding the suckyness of Bloomington, Indiana I was struck with a horrifying vision a la Great Expectations. Maybe Karl has inadvertently discovered the next great style geyser. What once was the urban-mish-mash of Seattle, Wash is now the trailer-parks of Alabama and will soon be known as hand-clapper sheik from Bloomington, Indiana. Shudder to think.

Newness

2003-10-23T01:06:00.000-05:00

The inspiration for the title.
As for the work that has just begun: How does destroying the english language from the inside out sound? If that's not your morning beer howsabout this for work to begin doing? Maybe this?

Addendum:
In the order they appeared:
Those are Nora's shoes, circa 1997.
The English language has survived Shakespeare, James Joyce, Virgina Woolf, Norman Mailer, Dave Eggers, Strom Thurmond, and even George W. Bush and it will probably suffer greater tricksters, phrase-turners, po-mos, and fools in the future. I think the worst connection being made in language studies today is that this decline of formality means a decline in the rhetorical quality of speech. As if to say that a debate is totally without value so long as it resists the formality of Socrates. True, Bush's complete betrayal of the English language does obscure many of the issues he attempts to address but Bush is not speaking informally, he is speaking uninformedly...or whatever that word might be. Point being, he doesn't understand the language well enough to switch between formal and casual. All of Bush's inanity aside, the review does make a case for a kind of nostalgic fondness for language that is probably worth remembering, even if we decide that "whom" is worth discarding. Nostalgia can be a great grammatological epoxy, it helped Joyce create a "new" English and strengthened Mailer's rhetoric when it was called into play. It may not be a restoration of eloquence but sometimes nostalgia is all we can muster for Shakespeare. But it is important to acknowledge that nostalgia is a vaseline jar NOT a magnifying glass, it may be that the language of the past sounds more eloquent than the language of today but that's a trick of the ears as much as it is truth. Last thing about the review, I loved the end, particularly the comments "McWhorter himself certainly seems happy to abjure formality in his own prose. He obviously is a very smart guy, but a lot of the time he writes like a dumb one." Language-nerds are SO catty.
Wateraid is a really fantastic charity to remember when Christmas comes around.
RSF offers a series of breathtaking photo albums for sale on-line. Profit from the sale of these albums helps RSF fight the good fight.

When I speak, you nod and pretend to listen, quickly look away and excuse yourself citing something-or-other as the reason you have to leave.

2003-10-22T23:45:00.000-05:00

Sarah sits perfectly still at the cafe table. Motionless and solitary like one of those urban sculptures that lurk in the atriums of larger city public libraries or outside mercantile exchanges. Lit cigarette in hand, hand inches from face, face tired from being a bit sad lately, a bit sad lately from being so far from home, home being where the heart is, the heart is beating beneath ribs, ribs expanding as she inhales from the lit cigarette in hand. For all of these connections she is a perfectly arranged rendition of a woman at the middle of twenties. She is a woman whom neighboring patrons would swear to be in regular attendance at the trendiest of cafes, the most learned of lunch tables, the best-read of parties, and the warmest of queen-sized beds. Holding her book or maybe the local newspaper, she rests her elbow on the table, the book's spine is cradled in her palm or the paper is folded smartly before her. She absently rotates the coffee cup atop its saucer with her smoking hand. Yesterday was a miserable yesterday and today is two boys richer in pocket. Thinking about Boy A and Boy B she begins to wonder what ever became of Boy pre-Boys A&B. And what of Boys before him? She knows that she must do something soon or else she will only have the memory of Boy pre-Boys A&B and the stinging regret of never knowing Boy A's favorite dirty word or the layout of Boy B's apartment. And yet, in the cafe, she sits still while students--wild in conversation--bang table tops, as businessmen and women exchanges meeting times, and as errant children totter on the tightrope routes traced in tile spreading out on the floor beneath her chair.

Say yes

2003-10-22T16:53:00.000-05:00

Stabbing yourself, to death. I can think of a few better things to do on a Tuesday night but then again, I'm not Elliott Smith. As thElizabeth properly notes (I capitalized), "I would say 'WTF' again, but who didn't see this coming?"

Addendum:
A really good obit, if such a thing can truly exist.

Is short content new content?

2003-10-21T12:38:00.000-05:00

I ask myself that question everytime I check a website and find some newly posted paragraph obviously written only for the sake of having a new content for that day.

Parts of my life are worth mentioning

2003-10-20T23:41:00.000-05:00

The BEST:
The best feature of the evening run? Spitting, by far spitting. Spitting over everything from looking athletic and thereby more attractive to the cool gear and springy shoes. Yes, spitting. Why is it the best feature of the evening run? Because it's an opportunity to be vulgar, gratuitously so, without really injuring, offending, or antagonizing anyone. Once that little hand sweeps over the nine and the porch lights switch to motion-sensing I am free to spit on everything below the horizon, except people and pets. It's not that I DO spit on everything it's just that I feel the awesome rush of the total liberty. In point of fact I only spit occasionally (3 or 4 times) and generally I spit three paces in front of my feet and nowhere else.
The WORST:
The worst part of driving to work is watching the Pontiac Silhouette mini-van with one of those "Children First" license plates speed past you in one of those neighborhoods that pepper their median strips with those ridiculously soccer-mommish "Slow for the children/Drive 35" lawn signs. Why is that the worst part? Because you know that one day you'll be driving 36 mph and the previously nonexistent speed trap will slam shut on you. Indignant and full of righteous fury as you get a ticket in full view of some fat-faced child whose seatbelt strains to accommodate his size as he presses his face against the tinted windows of his parents' Pontiac Silhouette. A close second: Knowing that the woman who caused a car accident and then proceeded to curse and howl at passerby and police officer alike, inside and outside of your place of employment, will be back on the road at some point.
The UNNGH, I COULD TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT:
Too numerous to name. I might suggest the following as a brief primer: A Florida Marlins World Series Win, a warm pretzel, a drink at the bar.
The THAT'S A SHAME THAT _X_ DID _Y_, I REALLY LIKED _X_ BEFORE _X_ DID THAT. :
You'd think that a guy who writes a column about having distance-from perspective would actually have it.
The I FIND THE HILTON SISTERS TO HAVE THE SAME CHARM AS ____:
Broken glass underfoot.

Bathroom tiles and other places my pen won't write

2003-10-19T21:02:00.000-05:00

Howabout at work, or the bar, or at a show. Actually two of the three are also places where my phone is unlikely to be answered (unless you're in Madison or about to be). Part of it is that conversation is a pain in my ass when it's either being eavesdropped on by my boss or the people next to me at the show. The other part is that I can't always hear my phone at work (because it's generally turned to wiggle) and at shows it's hard to hear the people on the other end (because people at shows generally don't care about me hearing you). What this means to mean is that I'm sorry I couldn't talk to Sarah or Karl when they made calls to me this Friday. Sarah, Karl, sorry, I was out. This declaration officially brings the times and places I'm freely available for phone conversations down to 1. 1=January 9, 2006; around 7:00 CST.

But that's also the day the Mormons have picked for Judgment Day so I might be kind of busy, it's hard to say.

Also hard to say: I love you, I think you're annoying--alright I said it--you're just a little annoying when you ask if you're annoying over and over, I'm choking on a very large piece of gum, I lost your only child at the supermarket, I've eaten the last of the dodos, I've superglued my lips shut and never learned sign-language.

Anything you find hard to say?
Comments at the ready.

Q's, A'd by readers

2003-10-16T23:37:00.000-05:00

Q: What to do with this Pledge of Allegiance scandal soon to confront the SCOTUS? The "under God" part was a tack on but then again can you really escape God when he's on the currency right? Everyone discussing this issue seems to either claim that "under God" was critical to our founding fathers (so critical that they didn't add it themselves) or that the "under God" part is a blurring of church and state that offends the sensibilities of atheists and no-Goddies alike.

Q: Why do the Cubs choke in such heart-breakingly spectacular form?

Q: Does love at first sight exist?

Q: Is it ThElizabeth as I assert it to be or is it thElizabeth as she types it?

Q: Can't we get ChriscalledSkippy/Chester/WakoGeko to use a better moniker for CAR_L than his K-dog(hot) monstrosity?

Q: Is there a person among us who knows the name of P_TERS blog?

Comments ahoy!

Might as well jump

2003-10-16T23:21:00.000-05:00

While at work, and by that I mean supremely idle, I played catch-up with The New Yorker. Lots of quality paragraphs inside but one story managed to win by an unfair margin of nearly all to most. The letter from California, Jumpers, is not, as far as I can tell, available on line but is a worthy hunt-up for those with library cards and fair-to-good hygiene. The article divided its time between wind-knocking-out-of-you stories of Golden Gate Bridge suicide attempts (failures and successes) and a Tarantino-essay analysis of the Golden Gate Bridge as THE place to jump. The analysis is neither preachy nor is it dispassionate, it IS sensible and introspective with proportionality; a condition of critique that sharply contrasts many of the reasons people jump and the manner in which they do it. One of the survivors, interviewed in the article, recalls: "I still see my hands coming off the railing...I instantly knew that everything in my life that I'd thought was unfixable was totally fixable--except for having just jumped." That is fucked up on a scale that I don't own. Many of the personal stories told in the article are simply quick second impressions, some in the third-person because the 1st person is no longer alive, but that's not the whole deal. Tad Friend, the article's dad, discusses the effort to erect a suicide barrier that have consistently been put down by "the people" and uncovers a rather disturbing pride that Californians seem to take in the Golden Gate Bridge's infamy. It seems they just can't resist a good show. But then again, Californians have always had bad taste.

Whatever the logic, the article stirred a rage inside me. I found the debate over aesthetic purity and public safety to shallow and wrongheaded. Those who defend the GGB as a work of art and insist that it not be vandalized by a jumper barrier are high-minded without being minded at all. In point of fact, the barriers really seem to prevent suicides or drastically curtail occurrences from the outfitted locale. Those who believe the barriers will solve the problem of suicide (there is some evidence to suggest that jumpers, once thwarted, don't pursue a more available bridge) appear unwilling to address the real issues behind suicide and represent as engineers without souls. In short, the debate can seems hopelessly overwhelmed by forces outside the individual's grasp and THAT is the real misperception that often starts the walk across the Golden Gate. True, despair over the state of public discourse is rarely cause for suicide but it is a factor when scaled down to individual interactions...People are just itching to make connections with other people and when they can't they often give up and go for the water or Green Party vanity candidates.

And sometimes they miss the water and end up really getting it as in "those who jump from the north end of the bridge hit the land instead of the water they saw further out." What made me maddest was the sensation that the shortsightedness of "those" was the same afflicting the current pool of democrats running against Bush. Bush controls the debate and the democrats run for the bridge when they can't muster the brain matter to call him on the bullshit he spins into Fox News gold each waking minute of his unblinking-cow stupid life. In fact, it would seem that California might just have let go of the railing collectively when they elected an action hero to governor on a whim. All in all, I'm just hoping that the 4 second descent our country seems to have committed itself to is one I can recall in the first-person to my children.

Braving new worlds

2003-10-16T12:32:00.000-05:00

Prologue & quasi-resolution: I have been informed that ThElizabeth now speaks without the aid of others and with complete intent to do so publicly. I formally apologize for being 1 step too far over THE line.
But let's not revisit the troubled past here (comments may be posted further on down) when there is so much brittle present and yet-to-cure future to dissect and reassemble.

1st and foremost, it is Fall like a mo fo in Madison. The leaves are giving up their green and the trees are getting naked like it was the eighties. Not that Fall is unique to Madison but I just thought I'd offer the weather report free of charge, and specifics. More to the point: Fall is supposed to make you think of your own leaky heart and all the matters of human frailty because it's the time of year when nature can't keep her shit together but that's just silly. Mother Nature self-immolating and then blowing her ashes all over your shoes is sweet satisfaction and glorious spectacle. To me, Fall is performance art, without the pretentious theoretical tracts and vain introspection; it's MSNBC. Something needs to be done to halt the surrender of Fall to those who would have us sit by the space heater and mourn lost childhood with each dropping leaf. Short sleeves and plainly visible goosebumps are in order.

2ndly, I delight at the internet's involvement in our circle of friendlies. First it was friendster (thank you Karl) and now it seems that blogging has become something I'm not to be so embarrassed about doing. At this rate I won't have to hide my comprehensive knowledge of all things Christina Aguilera from everyone. I hope the posts remain as consistently entertaining as they have been. I also hope I never have to resort to this type of embroidered-pillow flattery again; the internet is a prison and sarcasm is a carton of Marlboro Reds, remember that.

3rd before 4th, Arkansas was like the stations of the cross but in reverse and only a fourth of the way through. Dead, slow death, and dying on the way to the car. Bloomington watch out, Little Rock is on your tail. Portland, by ThElizabeth's summary, is a city that smells foul after a rain and behaves like a bored 8th grader in sex-ed class the rest of the time.

B4 I leave you: Chronic Wasting Disease for dueling piano bars, I propose a trade. While touring the south I had the odd pleasure of discovering the dueling piano bar. Not so strange as the off-brand fried chicken chains of London but worth a considered study. These DPB's have common elements between them: slanted mirrors on stage for enhanced viewing of the DP's, obscenely over-sized brandy snifters for tips, the stable of mis-matched personalities each with a stated preference for certain songs and playing style, and a drum kit. Each DPB adds something unique, a particularly ironic team pennant or a selection of vintage bar posters, to the mix but the aforementioned 4 elements are never absent or obscured. With all of these elements arranged on stage and lit by powerful stage lights what follows is not quite a duel so much as a celebration of the possibilities for double entendre in popular songs of today and yesterday. Even better, the songs that do not suffer subtle lyrical alterations for the purpose of higher tips, are played with such great intensity that I found myself compelled to actually sing along to John Cougar Mcamp one night. Seriously, these DPB's are for real. Bring them North and I dare you to resist their wiles.

5inally, remember, there was a time when we didn't talk to each other and when skulls and crossbones were our business cards. I'll try and think of something more profound or incisive to say while I'm dying of boredom at work. By now you should expect big things from the same workplace that has given me enough time to actually count my teeth, with my tongue, three times without interruption.
Epilogue & a challenge to fight: There are still some friendlies not holding up their end of the internet conversation; where are you and when can we fight?

These things are rough & unfinished

2003-10-16T02:18:00.000-05:00

Dice, Brassknuckles & guitar.

None of which I used on my trip. But I did catch up on some F.Scott while voyaging from Little Rock, St. Louis & Cape Girardeau. I didn't read any of it nor did I listen to it on audiobook.; I got sense of it in my conversations with Grover.

Rough:
Grover is a quadriplegic, has been since the early-seventies when he was in a car accident.
My dad hadn't seen him without moving legs and that totaled something like thirty years gone by.
Both Grover and his second wife, who is from Trinidad, have suffered through some exceptionally repulsive incidents of racism in their past.
Grover lives by a clock that is set to be thirty-five minutes fast because he knows how long it takes for him to get into and out of his van.
Little Rock, Arkansas is a city in disrepair; it is hollow and segmented.
The parts of Little Rock that are developed are generally not open very late and certainly not open on Sunday.
Some places are even closed on Monday.

Unfinished:
Quadriplegic is a condition of the body only. Grover's mind and sense of humor are as lissome as the legs of a ballet dancer. Since his car accident he has captured several world records for swimming and is a member of the Black Hall of Fame. He is also a motivational speaker, a believer in some of the stranger Clinton conspiracies, and a man with an enormous appreciation for the female form. He is planning on breaking his world record in April when he swims in Minnesota and believes that Clinton will strike again.
My father and Grover are like drunken teenagers when they get together. They plan to meet again, in a time to come sooner than 30 years.
Both Grover and his wife, Helen, have accomplished so much despite the ugliness of their treatment and they continue to make plans to do more.
Grover goes where he likes, he just takes longer to get there because everyone stops him to have a word with him. He is planning a possible move to Washington DC.
Little Rock is being rebuilt. Slowly.
There are no plans to be open on Sunday or Monday.

The trip was great and will filter through this forum in due time.

Comments

2003-10-15T16:26:00.000-05:00

Say "something". Say something? Say something! Say "something"?!

Do as you please.

Gone from here

2003-10-08T02:20:00.000-05:00

For the next week I will be in Arkansas, land of limited internet access. You can find my progress updated frequently on my mob. I'll try to update the blog official once in Arkansas but I won't be back in gear until the 14th. If you want to e-mail me I'd suggest my phone-checkable e-mail: rockselaborate@yahoo.com. Until then, Peace.

When doing means not trying.

2003-10-05T23:43:00.000-05:00

Through the window of the bus, it is all clean blue sky and very small birds. From the highest point in my neighborhood, I can follow the small birds in flight. The celebrated simple life was never this simple inside my skull. But what do I do when I am not a watcher of birds, a night runner, a passenger on the bus, a sober bar time driver, or an overfed furniture store clerk? I don't try. Inside my skull I am never any of these things in large part: they are the clapboard house, anchored on the Lee Shore, surrendering to the sky and sea of an Edward Hopper afternoon. They are me, but not very me. But now is different.

Sometime shortly after the floor gave out under the weight of my own personal anchor I moved home. It was financial, it was the easiest thing to do, and it was apart from everything that had begun to press upon me. There is no sense in trying to pretend that this is not, in some small part, a story about my long-since given up ghost. In terms already discussed, she is the clapboard house and I am the blue sea and sky.

In the larger picture moving home was an excuse. It was for Chris and it was for me too. But for me it was a pathetic one. Not because we are supposed to swear off the homestead once we start having sex and smoking but because I was doing it as an excuse to stop being me dealing with my problems. At home I was reinvented as a robot, I became the child of soulless labor and gluttonous rest. I was a battery refreshed periodically by the occurrence of social lightning: the Junker's, a visit from a far-flung friend, a kiss, or a handshake and a beer.

My new life as a battery wasn't so bad. In fact, for many weeks it seemed that the thunderstorms might never cease. It was all flash and glamour and sugary energy shaking my teeth. It was Chicago, Milwaukee, and Madison like The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost and being home was a church. A church of beer and stolen cigarettes, but a church nonetheless. And then the skies cleared and the car battery began to fail. The driver's door broke and the passenger's door served as entry for both pilot and co-pilot. Most everyone left in a huff and I began to see myself as a person with the person drained out of him. Inside my skull was an echo chamber of serious debate: stay or go, stay working or go hungry, stay awake or go to bed. I was Joe Strummer and deciding to break up just happened to come to me in song that was playing on the radio. But I stayed and they went. And after they had been gone for a while I still stayed. I have spent more time than I can count in this bedroom and I think that needs changing.

Change should never have to look like Arkansas but sometimes it just might. I'm not leaving for Arkansas to live there forever nor am I seriously considering doing so but it can be a risky proposition to bet against what I am not seriously considering doing; I might just do it by accident. Fuck have I done a lot of stupid things in 24 years; many of them I've done by accident, neglect, or inaction. I've made a lot of semi-corrections and done a good deal of sorting out after making so many accidental decisions, but not since moving home. At home everything is cause without effect. In my skull I am seeing causes but not effects and I keep thinking: At least when I was spitting into the wind I knew that something was there. So it's time to hunt up some wind.

This means some things are going to get broken and that some old broken things will need repairing. But that's moving for you: you break a candy dish but you discover the phone number of an old girlfriend you thought you'd lost. Checks and balances are not cause and effect but sometimes karma is like fate and sometimes you might not care which is which just so long as you are looking at a new room or city. I think tonight I begin the search in earnest for one or the other.

Until then, I'm two days from a vacation. And what does life look like two days removed from a vacation? Nice. Like an Edward Hopper painting.

STOP IT NOW

2003-10-05T01:33:00.000-05:00

Seriously, stop it.

Drinks avec Peter

2003-10-03T21:40:00.000-05:00

The illing Peter has agreed to cash in for some drinks, courtesy of me. See mob for continuing coverage.

Chicago Public Library Desk Vandals

2003-10-02T14:29:00.000-05:00

Even funnier than Rush Limbaugh's drug problem.

The McLaughlin Group

2003-10-02T14:16:00.000-05:00

Topic #1: What of ThElizabeth?
Stir the cryptic message via Friendster.
Brief update: drive pretty, new house nice until
ceiling collapsed, new job weird, romantic
relationship over, shows rocking hard (Interpol,
Walkmen, etc), school not attended yet, Wisco
friends and others loved and missed greatly.
No more romance? Has Portland shrunk the heart?

Topic #2: What, no Port Washington?
Looking straight ahead, I have skipped out on my loosely planned trip to Port Washington and have instead decided to clean up and organize. This means that a visit to Port Washington is now a bit farther back on the calendar, say the 17th or 24th. Hang on grandparents.

Topic #3: The Kills, Rock?
Yes, quite nicely they did rock.

Topic #4: Junk drawer.
I think the Rush Limbaugh thing is hi-larious. Not only is he a pompous, liberal-media-conspiracy believing, pseudo-race blamer but he is also a pill-popping brain-fuck...allegedly. No, scratch that, FOR SURE. At least he still has three hours on the radio.

I made the mistake of watching Sorority Life. I cannot stress MISTAKE with any greater force. That show is an abortion of a television show. Those girls are beyond insane. Even worse, the constant batting about of the banshee whine "She has no respect for me". There was not this much discussion of the appropriate amount of respect due any single person or entity in Scarface or in Godfather. Maybe both put together. Fuck, it made me what to fall out of my chair.

Good lord. I read a great article in The New Yorker. It starts off with a strange pace but it finds the right steps in the second paragraph. Worth reading, just sharing.

Predictions:
I win 1st place.

I can go all night, a series of short engagements

2003-09-30T21:34:00.000-05:00

Pictures of me:
It is day #5 of the great moblog/camera phone experiment and my life feels somewhat more focused. Although I am a little disappointed in the untech-ness of many of the friendlies.

Work:
It is what it is--work. I've been getting to do some different things at work but I am still planning to escape. I need to find A) a job, B) a city to live in, C) an apartment, or D) a girlfriend with some extra money.

Little Rock, Arkansas:
I'm leaving to go south for a week to visit my dad's "brother"--Grover Evans. I think this trip will be a nice break from the bullshit of work and the monotony of the Madison checkerboard. If I get excited, drunk, or possibly engaged I might just move there for the hell of it. Some of the highlights: Auburn/Arkansas football game, mansion tour, Clinton library, and southern hospitality.

Stupid people and assigning blame:
I once more saw the famously illogical "don't blame me, I voted for Nader" bumper sticker in town. I take this moment to explicitly blame everyone who voted for Nader for where we are. Vanity candidates are totally useless, unless you just filmed "Cribs" or an episode of "The Fabulous Life...". Stop it.

Politics is junk:
I don't care about any of the Democrats anymore I just don't want Bush. I don't want Bush's stupid face, his outrageous ignorance of the customs of civil society, his angry white men and the skeletons in their closets, his war, his sinking ship of an economy, his rule of law, his butchery of the English language, his massacre of international goodwill, his clear-cutting of the forests--for their sake, his administration's outing of CIA operatives, and his whole fucking "enemy combatant" status.

Fuck all this reading about Bush. I think I'm going to work on my resume.
And I just might vote for Clark...or Kerry, really anyone but Lieberman.

George Plimpton

2003-09-27T17:48:00.000-05:00

So long.

Scraps of my mind

2003-09-25T17:40:00.000-05:00

Just an excerpt, but a good one none the less; courtesy of The Paris Review.

Rocco Coxxx

2003-09-25T01:07:00.000-05:00

Thank you very much. Goodnight.

What other people are doing and how it makes me seem uniteresting.

2003-09-25T00:23:00.000-05:00

So you can see into my life but should you crave more than the vanilla flavor of the bus rides, vacations out to the countryside, and bars that constitute my life I offer this. Plus Chris' livejournal seems to actually have comments left on it...that must be nice.

When the good things are the bad things in disguise & you know that, but you just don't care.

2003-09-25T00:17:00.000-05:00

No further observation available at this point.

Free Press

2003-09-20T18:59:00.000-05:00

A quick round up of the far-flung:
ChriscalledChester is living in Minneapolis (sharing the city with NyCK) and recently let me know of his livejournal-writing tendencies. The fruits of his labors can be read by searching in usernames for chromeeyes. At present he has a scant 3 posts but, as Chris is want to do, the postings will probably come in manic rushes.
NyCK, also of Minneapolis, called me today while I was at work. He's not real "tech" but he is reachable by Friendster message.
ThElizabeth is finally set up in P_Land. Set up under a leaky ceiling with an upstairs neighbor who floods the bathroom. Set up in a place where the ceiling caves in under the weight of the flooded upstairs residence. Set up under a foot of collapsed building. She does have a new phone number that you'll need to get from her. Poor ThElizabeth.
MCR is in SanD but has been sadly absent from my outgoing calls list. I believe she is working and teaching in SanD and is probably enjoying her canyon view of a power generator and some scrubby southwest bushes. That and the California recall. MCR's got a picture phone but has not yet set up a textamerica account. I will encourage her to do this, as I did friendster, and she will not.
Gundlach is Chicago-employed and studied in the finer things to be found on the menu. He is reachable by friendster as well.
Sarah is temporarily in Chicago city proper. She confessed to me that she loves friendster and is in search of some geographic warmth.
noraaaron is in Michigan and even sent me some fine pictures of her efficiency complete with white melamine cabinetry and eggshell wallpaint. She is not on friendster because she's trying to prove something to me.
Ben writes his blog from Chicago and received his free press yesterday.
Karl is in Indy. He is back from Uzbekistan with no visible genetic mutations. His band is not yet assembled but I trust in Karl's skills. He is on firendster, in many forms.

That's everyone who's not in Madison, except some people that I've left out to spite them.

Let's close this circle.

Skipping Friday night, for what?

2003-09-19T23:59:00.000-05:00

Death and Justice.

Measure for measure

2003-09-19T19:15:00.000-05:00

Ben's most recent post to his insanely smart and smartly insane blog made me wax nostalgic for the most pleasurable of all fire-dependent vices: smoking. In the service of all who have quit I offer the quitmeter.

My arms are never too short to box with God.

2003-09-19T15:25:00.000-05:00

Johnny Cash's words from his final interview with Sylvie Simmons of The Guardian UK. Also from The Guardian, this time The Guardian Weekly, Thom Yorke's op ed piece from the supplemental insert TRADE: "Debt burdens are a beautifully tight noose, and now, even better, they have the WTO to do the dirty work form them." Despite the tone of the quote it is a fairly sensible take on the WTO without being blindly anti-global. Plus, the attribution reads, "Thom Yorke is the lead singer of Radiohead".

Mob is picture-fat, stop by and protest your internet exposure.

R.

2003-09-19T15:16:00.000-05:00

Yes, it is pirate-talk day.
For now, that is all I've got so I'll say it again.
R.

Not so Built to Spill

2003-09-18T19:55:00.000-05:00

I was thinking BtS but as it turns out the show is at 8pm and I decided at six thirty that I got no chance of getting down to the Metro by 8pm. I did accompllsih some thing this fien day off from work: moblog.

Now you can see me in shocking color by directing your browser to the following internet address:
1stepahead.textamerica.com

For the time being I'm only posting via my Canon Digital Elph but I suspect a camera phone in the future. Stop by and look, leave comments, and get your own.

One week later.

2003-09-18T15:25:00.000-05:00

The plan for escape continues to be written and rewritten.
I'm thinking of getting a camera phone.
I discussed a possible move to Chicago with Sarah H of Chicago.
My uncle is now in Madison, having moved here (I think entirely by car) from California.
I have been considering a "cold quitting" from the recently near-to-violent-encounter world of furniture salesmanship.
I bought some new fish.
I haven't contacted any of the expats.
Too bad, so sad.
It's a beautiful day outside and I think that means this is all you get.
Oh, and Johnny Cash is dead.
As is John Ritter and many thousands of other people who didn't record music or work in television.

See you outside.

How stupid am I?

2003-09-11T13:51:00.000-05:00

I had to pick up some little kitty treats for the not-so-kitty-like Elvis and that meant a trip to PetSmart. Things to do at PetSmart: talk to the homeless kitties, look at the fish, tap on the mice cages, and gather up some kitty treats and ready myself for the checkout. Now, I don't get my paycheck direct-deposit until Friday and I don't have any cash in pocket so I decide to write a check rather than use my debit card which, when the money gets low, is for last drinks at the bar. I start to fill out the check and the nice girl asks me about my cat (What type? Stray. How old? 1, no 2, maybe 2.5. That type of stuff.) and I begin to think that she's being friendly and inquisitive beyond the call of duty for a PetSmart clerk so I'd better be cute and witty, just in case she's working her way up to something. My next move? I ask her what the date is so I can fill it in on my check.

September Eleventh.

Oh, right. Sorry.

Why did I say "sorry"? Because that's how stupid I am.

Voicemail messages and conversations I'm not a part of

2003-09-11T01:46:00.000-05:00

I've made contact with all the expats as of yesterday. That's Matt G in from Chicago, CAR_L in Indy via AOL instant mess., ThElizabeth in Portland and Sarah in Chicago via short telephone conversations, MC in SanD via longer telephone conversation, & noraaaron in Michigan and Chester in Minnesota via my voicemail. So that's everyone that once loved Madison, at least by voicemail; good to know that we're still all connected by something more than friendster.com and cigarette debt.

As for strange connections: there is the mysterious Ben from Chicago in Illinois. Ben is the most recent offender to appear on the "Sometimes I call Aaron just by jostling my cell phone" list. Oh what fun it is to have a name with two A's and friends with cell phones and no keyguard, oh what fun. Not that I blame Ben. I don't. In a way I feel honored that I am trusted enough to remain at the head of the cell phone phonebook list even after having been accidentally called, especially when I've got such a widely known and generally accepted solbriquet. Until such time as I am relisted in mobile phonebooks as either "Kraus", "A-ron", or simply "Baby" I will try my hardest to be like a priestly doctor or lawyer-husband to all who call and leave me ten minute messages of conversations I'm not a part of. I'm not complaining, I just want it to be known that my far flung friends are having conversations that include me but only in a "hearing it over the phone" capacity. Actually it's rather pleasant, the whole people talking through a pants pocket or from the passenger seat of their care about things that I am generally unfamiliar with: people, places, or things; nouns, proper and otherwise.

This weekend is shaping up to be something of a renaissance fair, socially speaking. Karl and ChriscalledChester are making stops in Madison on Saturday so the home fires will have to be lit and the buster-calling-out will have to worked on. I'll report you deci--no wait, that's not right at all.

On the blinding light and not being saved

2003-09-08T21:38:00.000-05:00

Alright, short version:
I smashed my hip on my car Friday night, blacked out from a migraine on Saturday, took some heavy duty pk's that night, and returned to work on Sunday. So much for the "Day of Rest". This past week has been slow and boring. I staying in and began a more concentrated hunt for employment and housing. I don't have too much more to write tonight but I promise to be more exciting when next I post. Still no babies.

Down the street there is a car.

2003-08-28T16:05:00.000-05:00

In that car is a man who can only walk so far before he needs to rest. He needs to rest because he is a large man and is not as young as his incessant and creative cursing would suggest. He walks, and curses, and sometimes smokes his way from the bus stop to his house, taking short rests at points in between. He sits on back porches, low rock walls, park benches, and finally in the car parked in his driveway. Once he is in the car he doesn't curse with the same veracity as he curses with resting on the low rock wall. He listens to the radio and waits for someone to talk to. Sometimes it is his son (who lives with him or vice versa), sometimes it is the mailman, sometimes it is a kid walking home from class, sometimes it is me. Sometimes he talks to no one, he just sits there for a while then goes inside and sometimes I think he's still in the car but it is just the backseat head-rest or a shadow.

Not much gets done these days

2003-08-28T01:56:00.000-05:00

I've got a little break in the work schedule and have been thinking of doing some job hunting. I reapeat: "thinking of doing". That's a pretty good summation of my approach to almost everything related to my eventual elevation into "adulthood"...nevermind that I'm 24 as of a week ago. But who wants to do anything when thinking about doing it is just as good as doing it? In weekly conversations as in high school reunions as in internet weblogs, the perception of accomplishment is worth just as much and requires only half the work, less if you lie about sexual prowess (afterall, you only HAVE to prove yourself to 1 gender if called into question). So, maybe I can just spread the rumor that I'm doing well in some career/relationship/adventure and that will be good enough. My cat does that and no one looks at him and says "You fucking self-decieved idiot, that fabric pom isn't a real mouse and YOU are not a good catcher of mice." No, he just gets treats and back rubs. Then again he's never really tried to convince me that he's a wildly successful author/seducer/world traveller so it might be a question of scale.

Might be.

Other than looking for a career I think I might actually consider finding a new city to live in. But that will have to wait until later, because, as you can see, not much gets done these days.

Onto a less "I'm thinking of becoming a liar" subject: Let's try, "giving up the ghost", as ThElizabeth advises me to do. With so many "ghosts" lingering about Madison these days and so many "people" leaving it the landscape is getting very haunted house-ish. And when every bar, coffe shop, bookstore, and bedroom that you like to spend time in is either full of people you'd like to forget or people you hope don't forget you it does start to feel a little crowded, inside and out. So, "giving up the ghost" is really about cleaning house and making space for new things/people/drinks and that is a lot easier typed than done, especially when the house you are trying to clean has such small doorways. Maybe "giving up the ghost" is about destroying the house and plowing salt into the earth or maybe it's about donating the house to charity and laughing as the underprivelidged dance on the indian-burial mounds of your past, blissfully ignorant of the "ghosts". Whatever the case may be: arson or "for sale buy owner", I'm going to have to find some way to make some space for myself otherwise all I'll ever do is hang around the ouija board and kick myself for not having bought Life instead.

So, consider the ghost given up. And consider this my notice to those not in my area code that I'm looking for some new pen pals, at least until I find a job and a new area code for myself. I hope that everyone I know, stretched far across the US or right here in Madison, is rid of small doorways, clunky furniture, and haunted houses.

You would think; wouldn't you

2003-08-28T01:21:00.000-05:00

The man buried in his coffin.=Disbelief. For now these things happen to other people, for now.
The woman dead in her bed surrounded by family.=Inconsolable sorrow. The thought of something that you forgot to say and now itâ€™s too late to say it.
The stillborn child in the grocery bag.=Self Condemnation. For the failure to succeed at even the simplest tasks.
The cancer growing inside the body.=Mistrust or Doubt. Life is as trustworthy as a 7-day weather forecast.
Mir disintegrating in the atmosphere.=Degraded. The decent from family fame to social obscurity.
My scuffed shoes in the hallway.=Shame. Your body is imperfect.
The tree in the backyard split in two by lightning.=Besieged. The threat of intervention looms large.
The man in the bath of ice.=Desperate. Wishing for a solution that works.
Hillâ€™s interception and touchdown.=Measured jubilance. Your success is predicated on the failure of others.
The silent telephone beside the empty bed.=Peace. A quiet space for thoughts.
Kate Mossâ€™ car accident.=Inconsequential tragedy. The knowledge that your troubles do not transcend.
The motorcyclist driving past my apartment window.=Vanity. Say a prayer for immortality.
The smoking nurse in the hospital waiting area circa 1972.=Resignation. There are no more lifeboats on this ship.

All the Sun could think about

2003-08-27T02:16:00.000-05:00

All the Sun could think about was setting, but the Hillside insisted he stay up for just a little while longer. â€œJust a little while longer,â€� the Hillside insisted. But the Sun had already made up his mind. He was thinking about his wife, specifically: her slight curves and gentle touch. He would be with her soon and soon they could spend the evening hiding beneath the horizon in the comforts of their home. Cold beer and evening television were the fleeting delights of their brief time together. It was a precious stretch of rest enjoyed while his brother tended to the business of lighting the other hemisphere.

The Hillside, rooted in boiling magma pools and caressed by the swift and ever-blowing winds, did not understand the Sunâ€™s reluctance to stay aloft. â€œSheâ€™s seeing someone else,â€� the Hillside offered quietly. The Hillside had such an easy job ever since the War had left his hemisphere. "She's seeing someone else," he repeated.

Distressed, the Sun gathered a cloud at his side and reached in for his phone. At this hour his wife would be on her way back from getting groceries, cigarettes, and a six-pack of beer. The Sun dialed the home number and got their answering machine. Dialing the private access code he arrived at their voicemail. â€œOne new message: â€˜Hey, itâ€™s me: the Moon. I was just calling to see if you wanted to get together tomorrow for coffee. Let me know what you think alright?â€™ â€�
The sun knew the shimmering appeal of the Moon, that nearby orb which hung fat and low like a wounded god or strained with held breath to affect a wispy, artistic form. â€œFucking Romeo was right to say what he said about the Moon.â€� The Hillside looked up at the heart-broken Sun and thoughtfully added, â€œSheâ€™ll never love someone she cannot look at directly.â€�

* * * * * *

That's what I think of love.
Not really.
Okay, just a little bit.

When calling collect was cool.

2003-08-27T02:10:00.000-05:00

I've called collect once or twice in my life. In Chicago, at the Greyhound station and inside the Hotel Essex; in Florida, at the airport and outside Disney World; and in Washington, at the Days Inn and beneath Union Station. I was lonely and didn't mind making someone else pay to talk to me, even if it was only a nominal fee. I was lonely and didn't mind making someone else pay to talk to me. Point being: I understand the demands people make of each other when they are lonely, or just alone. It sucks to be apart from the action just as it sucks to see the action from just beyond the boundaries of the action, that's why kids shoot up schools or listen to The Cure: loneliness. It's also why people call collect or e-mail looking or some friendly conversation. So, I make this solemn vow to all of those newly distant from Madison: I will try to keep in touch, so long as you don't shoot up schools or call me collect.

In the "You have not been paying attention" folder, file this: My car is dead no more than three days after officially becoming "my car". In a gesture of queer sentimentality, or possibly sensing the opportunity to plumb the depths of my new social isolation, it died in the aforementioned TGIFriday's parking lot just before I could say goodbye to noraaaron. Fucking Camry with 200k+ miles, so unreliable.

Anyway, that's all the goodbyes I've got in me.

Gone:
Mark called Cheater
ThElizabeth
Karl's in charge
MCRobot
noraaaron

â€œBlessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.â€� Matthew, 5:4

Tuesday, after Monday

2003-08-26T01:54:00.000-05:00

First things first.
In the proper order.
Everything in its right place.
Wait your turn.
Wednesday, after Tuesday.

Wednesday was the first day of post-work week rest. At least until 4pm when I packed up to drive, with parents, to Milwaukee to see the Brewers play. It was "Madison night" at Miller Park, a promotion that virtually guarenteed a rich tapestry of the usual un-ironic Brewersâ€™ fans and the unusually irony-minded collegiate alcoholics, all in NASCAR hats. Well, at least most were. Even better was the collision-of-worlds theatre that Miller Park played host to by cross-promoting Wednesdayâ€™s game as "Waukesha-area Girl Scout recognition night" and "Lady Brewers night". It was a three-fer. In case you're wondering, the introduction goes something like this: Girl Scout meet drunken night-game attendee, drunken night-game attendee meet Girl Scout. See, itâ€™s not that awkward. And it wasnâ€™t, Iâ€™m exaggerating. It was a night of five dollar beers, fleeting glimpses of Bucky Badger, and a Brewersâ€™ win. A Brewersâ€™ win that was almost a shut-out but the Brewers, it would seem, are contractually obligated to remind the crowd of their inherent pathos, even in the face of a nearly complete shut-out. So it stands: near shut out.
Putting Milwaukee, the Girl Scouts, and Brewersâ€™ history behind me, I got back into Madison around midnight and to the downtown parking ramps by 12:30.
12:34 and I was at Paulâ€™s club (thatâ€™s away game turf for me) to met Karl and ThElizabeth (each returned for limited stays), â€œJeff called Losâ€�, â€œAshley known as Ashâ€�, and J_ME for some drinks and welcome backs (where appropriate). We did the drinking and even the liquor shooting thanks the indefatigable efforts of J_ME. Her summons of the â€œPeanut-butter and Jelly shotâ€� left me questioning my refusal to shoot tequila but as she was gutturally chanting â€œcrust cut offâ€� in celebration of a successful shot I was convinced of her taste. Sheâ€™s a bon-a-fide lady of the bar. Perkinsâ€™ color-coded dinner plates and a blunt, sarcastic assessment of the friends strategic picture ended the night. Not without a cigarette for ThElizabeth who sat down to wall-lean-smoke in true emo form whilst Karl and I enjoyed the higher standing altitudes of anglo-punk posing. â€œJeff called Losâ€� also sat but did not lean, as best I can recall there was no particular affiliation signalled by his posture.

Thursday started with a kick out the door of the floor-sleepers before noon and then some house-cleaning. After all the cushions had been straightened and the beds made to look â€œmadeâ€� I was sleeping off some of the Wednesday left in me. I had cake with my parents and then readied myself for a dinner with Melanie, it would be our last (ominous foreshadowing is fun). And so, where do an English major and his Philosophy/Math major friend/old-school flame go for a nice birthday/going away dinner? Damonâ€™s, the place for ribs. I know. After sports trivia (we finished a respectable 3rd), domestic beers, burgers, and an even exchange of brown-bagged gifts we were ready to experience the more urbane houses of drink in Madison. That took us to TGIFridays. A quiet little sophistâ€™s cave in secluded West-Towne adjacent Gammon Mall. Actually, Melanie and I had recently adopted TGIFridays as our own little close-to-home guilty pleasure so it was more a matter of tying up loose ends than a preference for their brand of coolly disengaged bar-humor. We finished with TGIFridays and moved on to Gennaâ€™s for the party-proper. Gifts and beer, the story is pretty much the usual except for the ending. While preparing to house-party after Gennaâ€™s last call I was confronted with the company of a serious Jacob Marley's ghost-of-the-past girlfriend. We ignored each other in that playful way that reaffirms our seemingly limitless resentment for each otherâ€™s happiness and avoided eye contact as though it were an Olympic sport. That would be classy enough had I not also been drunk and very aggressively (but in equal measure) play-fighting with a particularly playful friendster and occasional drinking partner/shower-sharer. Classy, I know, but it gets better. We were not only in public but we were using â€œsafe wordsâ€� to repel each otherâ€™s advancing hair-pulling, nipple twisting hands. Thatâ€™s classy. But it was my birthday and I got to see almost everyone I like so that helps offset some of the italicized classy taint.

Friday was the official Melanie goodbye. I was sad; fuck you, sheâ€™s my little Maggie May. I dropped off some light-hearted road reading material and picked up some pirated Microsoft technology all before the heartbreaking â€œI love youâ€� goodbyes were unleashed. Like I said: I was fucking miserable; fuck you, sheâ€™s my only ex-girlfriend that still talks to me, in the world, little Maggie May. But it was important to our friendship that I maintain my robot-esque marble-gaze and so I did until the pet store where I cried in the cat food aisle. No, thatâ€™s not true, I donâ€™t cry. Iâ€™m dead inside. No, seriously, I was sad to see her go.
Anyway, Friday was scheduled to be a show night and was to be the J_ME meet up. Was to be show night, until we left four bars into the headliner and decided to get pizza and drinks. After the show (which we all left early) and the pizza (which Jeff and I ate) we moved to the bar for drinks (which J_ME and I drank together for reasons that can only be called Saved by the Bell-ish in there hair-thin variance from realityâ€™s boundaries). After the other three left citing very â€œhmm-tha-that-thingâ€� type prior commitments I was worried that the fix was in for J_ME and I but together we shrugged off the yoke of Saved by the Bell forced coupling and enjoyed some serious conversation about family and sex. Letâ€™s hold off on the classyâ€™s for the time being.
***Backstory: J_ME and I are ThElizabethâ€™s pet â€œsocial engineeringâ€� project. Think idle lady of the South schooling her Negro handmaiden and youâ€™ve got the right mix of noble intentions and muddled desire. So, it was nice that J_ME and I actually could talk, it lends credence to ThElizabethâ€™s numerous assertions of â€œperfect for each othernessâ€� but I digress.***
Actually, I regress. After leaving the bar, J_ME and I headed to the cell-phone triangulated location of the after-bar for a little taste of the â€œno goodâ€�. Our petty terrorism included crashing the after-bar and sniping on many of the guests, smashing some cups and saucers found on the street or unattended bathroom counters, removing some roofing tiles in a vain attempt to fashion a geographically accurate roof-tile map of the US, relocating door mats, and finally shattering an ashtray of mysterious origins. We did, however, stop at Peterâ€™s new place for the tail-end of the tail-end of the Jeremyâ€™s going to fucking Russia party and wish Jeremy goodbye. He was asleep, but itâ€™s the thought (and the pictures of him sleeping) that counts. We congratulated ourselves with a cigarette and went our separate ways for the night. Sorry ThEliza-B, no giant babies made. Karl, J_ME and I did however block off a one-way street.

Saturday woke up early but didnâ€™t get its feet until just before noon. I spent much of the day preening and laying about with Elvis but I did manage to get a majority of Al Frankenâ€™s book moved to the left side of the spine. It was a great read (I finished it Sunday) given to me by â€œJeff called Losâ€� for my birthday and I recommend it just for the Barbara Bush and the â€œIâ€™m through with youâ€� story. By eight oâ€™clock I was climbing to the crest of the hill that looks down on Alpine Valley just as Radiohead opened with â€œ2+2=5â€�. It was a nice moment in the totality of its senses, whatever. The rest of the show was a perfect swan song for my weekend, playing it off into oblivion. Well, we did eat turkey cold cuts and cheddar pretzels in a bank parking lot and visit 2 East Troy pubs before the night was over but Radiohead is the period to this sentence as far as Iâ€™m concerned. In a bit of parallel story-telling I have to mention that Melanie was only seven hours on the road (any a few of them spent doubling back) by my eight oâ€™clock hill climbing momentâ€”she was to have left on Friday by nine.

Sunday was a late morning and the rest of the Al Franken book before sunset. After the sun set it was a jog (thatâ€™s getting back on track) and then some internet correspondence (thatâ€™s catch up) all with enough time left over to get to bed late enough to miss my bus. Actually I missed it because it was obscenely early due to inexperienced drivers being given less critical routes. No, it was my fault. Well, it was a bit of both.

Monday will be work, jog, then sleep in the bank because on Tuesday Nora leaves,

And Monday always comes before Tuesday even when Melanie is at a U-Haul in Amarillo, TX. Night.

The week that ended on Tuesday

2003-08-20T15:06:00.000-05:00

I finished the work week on Tuesday and that feels like something I might like to keep doing. But Tuesday wasn't the first break with scheduled social interaction that I've made this week. After saying goodbye to virtually every person I know in Madison the chain of friendlies is starting to look a bit short. We've got Jeff, Peter, and Angie. Elizabeth's departure for points first north and then west has been like a fast amputation--lots of strong drinks and biting of the lip--and not really like that becasue I got to say "goodbye" to my leg four or five times. But without Elizabeth there is a whole group of people that have suddenly disappered from my regular call list...so really it's a matter of adjusting for inflation. Elizabeth leaving, while just one person, carries an adjusted value of six or seven people leaving. Next up is my oldie MC. What to do without the MC in Madison? What to do...

Aside from my social subtraction, the world is blowing up without my intervention. Here's a neat experiment to try: I think tomorrow I will set my alarm ahead so that I'm not waking up at prime-Middle-East-strife-time. Should there happen to be some disasterous bombing or tragic mine-shaft collapse at or around 7:30am CST I will assume no responsibility for the earlier hour of the attack, my alarm clock and I are officially out of this. Ont he other hand, should Ralph Nader happen to be hit in the face with a pie at this earlier hour I will certainly take responsibility for this. Begin prayer circle for Nader/pie collision NOW.

Things also worth including in your mealtime prayer, other than world peace and a more transparent government: Karl's safe return...actually Karl returned home from Uzbekistan via London yesterday and will no doubt be in Madison soon to regale us (that'd be me and Los) with stories of his stay in nightmarish Uzbekistan, no rain on Saturday, and lastly, a Brewers win tonight.

Speaking of hopeful intersections, I have successfully assembled my new bed and packed up the old bed for storage until I make up my mind to either burn or recycle the squeaky beast. Mine's in read and NO I did not pay retail for it. The new bed is low to the ground and required some additional hardware for a more perfect assembly but it provides a nice sleep nevertheless.

Brief PowerPoint freak-out update. It seems my strange obsession with PP has infiltrated another mind, courtesy of Wired magazine. It looks like any chance I had of cracking the publishing market wide open with my PowerPoint fictions may have been struck down well before its time. So sad.

Speaking of sad: Brewers game begins in T-minus 4h12m...I'd better shower and make all the proper "go-team-go" clothing choices.

Go team go. It's Miller Time.

I Heart FOX

2003-08-17T01:53:00.000-05:00

Fair and Balanced...God I love the internet.

Sorry to post a day late but everyone is leaving town and that is neither fair nor balanced.

Al Franken, better than pie in the face

2003-08-13T15:21:00.000-05:00

Al Franken is doing his fair share to keep me entertained on this fifth day of work, and he doesn't just take a pie in the face to make me laugh. He goes the extra mile and gets sued...by FOX.

I should credit my father with providing me with the second link and, by extension, enlivenning my sleepy workplace just that much more. And, while I'm making hourly shout-outs here, I should also tip my hat to Karl for his daring escape from Uzbekistan to London where he will be arriving shortly (if my trans-atlantic math doth serve me right). Karl's final Uzbekistan-genereated e-mail provided some especially funny snapshots, among them:

His description of Uzbekistan as "this Marxforsaken country" and his housing as the "most obnoxious of shitholes". His description of "what is supposedly the best disco in town, Shabistan...and it was, too - there was only about a quarter as many hookers as there are at the other places." And if you think Karl is being unfair jsut remember this: Uzbekistan is one of TWO countries IN THE WORLD that is doubly landlocked. Doubly landlocked. That is God not liking you.

In a Texas book depository style

2003-08-13T13:30:00.000-05:00

There is no more satisfying a wake up news broadcast than that of Ralph Nader being hit in the face with a pie. I only wish that I had woken up earlier so that I could have been brushing my teeth or having a glass of juice; anything that I could have spit through my teeth in unrestrained animal pleasure would have done. Personally, I hope this is just the beginning of a larger strategy and if it is I hope Ralph Nader stops through Madison before going home. If only Al Gore had thought of this in 2000 we might not have Bush in the White House, or an aviator's suit for that matter.

This is day five of the return to work disaster and I feel slightly outside myself. I got to go out last night and destroy a friend's computer which would have been more immediately satisfying had I agreed to back-up her data before mortally wounding her grey-boxed beast. But, a few PBR's further up the road everything seemed forgivable and even fixable, which, I later discovered, it was. Even better I got to visit, only briefly, with Madison ex-pat Ben and the "usually-at-work" Peter. Aside from the "I wish I weren't in Madison working at Rubin's"/"Chicago is nice" conversation that precedes any Aaron/Ben interaction I got to hear Ben and Peter formulate odds on the DNC's 2004 presidential nomination. To wit, Ben's blog is a fantastic resource on politics and, in general, the more scholarly pursuits of life--and Ben knows scholarly pursuits.

I, on the other hand, know only of an undying passion to not be at work for another seven days in a row.

Nailed like Christ

2003-08-11T16:59:00.000-05:00

I just got back this credit application report that a customer submitted to Wells Fargo and realized something about myself. I have no new car debt. I have no new life debt. Now this shouldn't be too straneg to me because I essentially live as a high-schooler with a fake ID and high-schoolers rarely have anything but clothing-related debt. All I've got is college-education debt and that doesn't get you girls, drinks, publishing contracts, or illegitimate babies. Some of these things I can continue to miss out on, but, as people continue to move away and Madison shrinks to a three-friend city I might find that new life debt hard to resist so long as it offers me a change of venue as well as a 28.3% interest rate. Then I could get nailed like Christ for sure.

Sleeping, standing up

2003-08-11T11:22:00.000-05:00

"Monday, monday, monday," as I shake my head in disapproval.

I need a day added into the week between Saturday and Sunday so that when Sunday turns to Monday I'm not sleeping on my shoesoles, recovering form Saturday still. The aforementioned Saturday of conflicting schedules was put to bed around half 4 and I for 1 do not plan on being it's war widow. The night went as smoothly as any plan involving everyone I know can be said to go smoothly, which is to say "no one's feeelings got hurt." Except when Jeff informed Elizabeth that she'd never see any of us again and that she'll probably forget about us. And.....scene. Otherwise, "The Hat Party" was great fun and Jeff really made good on his promise to metaphorically rock my teeth out. That was Saturday; Sunday was spent at work; and now I'm on to Monday, sleeping standing up.

With so many people leaving town it is perhaps worth noting that Karl will be returning from Uzbekistan in a week+1 day. In a bit of a run-up to his return I wil try and post some Karl in Uzbekistan-related materials from his hilarious e-mails and my equally, but opposite, e-mails. It's not a promise though, just a Monday-morning dream.

Googled!

2003-08-09T16:26:00.000-05:00

I just discovered that this blog can be tracked down via Google by searching for "skunk rancher"...see the proof here!

Ain't that the strangest.

What happens to Madison?

2003-08-09T15:11:00.000-05:00

So, this is me back at work. Even better, this is me at work for another 2.5 hours. Better than that, this is me trying to figure out with whom I will be spending the night, not in the "sexy way", but in the "we've all planned to do things tonight and you've got to be there for because it's ______".

That ______ is a tricky bit of calculus for me to perform in my head without paper and pencil. But, near as I can tell, I need to be at all of these places for reasons as numerous and as foggy as those that brought us to Iraq.
Los' Band "The Hat Party" at The Glass Nick. I need to be there because it's their first show and they are doing this show for friends and no cover.
Elizabeth and Sarah for drinks at a dive bar I need to be there because Elizabeth is leaving soon and Sarah's only in town for a visit.
Melanie for drinks on the terrace I need to be there because Melanie's leaving soon and plus she's old school crew.
Angie and Robyn for "cocktails" at a "cocktail party" I need to be there because I have, in the past, disappeared on Angie plus I have a bad rep for playing hookie on bar nights.
Parents and Grandma for dinner I need to be there because they're my family and my Grandma's only in town for a short while.

You figure it out. That's some "for reals", SAT-caliber, story-problem math. Working in shifts I should be able to see everyone and get in a reasonable amount of conversation. If I sense the downward spiral of bad bar-hopping and mobile-phone tag, I plan on going "scenister" for the night and just sleeping through everything.

So, what happens to Madison tonight?

On the spend

2003-08-08T17:48:00.000-05:00

I made some rather necessary purchases while on my 3 day vacation, here they are In descending order of purchase price:
The 15th ed. Chicago Manual of Style - 55 bones
Sex and the City 3rd Season DVD- 42 bones
Canvas Repro of Picasso "Nude du Nos" from shopgoodwill.com - 41 bones
Sex and the City 4th Season DVD - 37 bones
The Mothman Prophecies DVD - 15 bones
A Grey Wool Overcoat from shopgoodwill.com - 5 bones

And that's not accounting for the drinks and grub. In the grand scheme of work schedules this vacation my not have been the longest or the most productive BUT I did manage to score some nice time wasters AND the new CMS without breaking the bank and without going to the mall. On the downside of the vacation: the return to work. Starting Saturday I've got an unholy 13 consecutive days of work, many of them of the 10-8 variety. But the money will be good and after the first few days of mind-numbing paper-shuffling I should be essentially living outside my body. On the list for the remaining handful of my vacationneering hours: I think some Sex and the City DVD watching, New Yorker reading, and then some friendly conversation with the friendlies.

Could Steve Martin "have" Weapons of Mass Destruction?

2003-08-08T17:25:00.000-05:00

It All Depends on What You Mean by 'Have'
By STEVE MARTIN

So if you're asking me did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction, I'm saying, well, it all depends on what you mean by "have."
See, I can "have" something without actually having it. I can "have" a cold, but I don't own the cold, nor do I harbor it. Really, when you think about it, the cold has me, or even more precisely, the cold has passed through me. Plus, the word "have" has the complicated letter "v" in it. It seems that so many words with the letter "v" are words that are difficult to use and spell. Like "verisimilitude." And "envelope."
Therefore, when you ask me, "Did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction," I frankly don't know what you're talking about. Do you mean currently? Then why did you say "did?" Think about "did." What the heck does that mean? Say it a few times out loud. Sounds silly. I'm beginning to think it's just the media's effort to use a fancy palindrome, rather than ask a pertinent question.
And how do I know you're not saying "halve?" "Did Iraq halve weapons of mass destruction?" How should I know? What difference does it make? That's a stupid question.
Let me try and clear it up for you. I think what you were trying to say was, "At any time, did anyone in Iraq think about, wish for, dream of, or search the Internet for weapons of mass destruction?"
Of course they did have. Come on, Iraq is just one big salt flat and no dictator can look out on his vast desert and not imagine an A-test going on. And let's face it, it really doesn't matter if they had them or not, because they hate us like a lassoed shorthorn heifer hates bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
Finally, all this fuss over 16 lousy words. Shoot, "Honey, I'm home," already has three, with an extra one implied, and practically nothing has been said. It would take way more than 16 words to say something that could be considered a gaffe. I don't really take anything people say seriously until they've used at least 20, sometimes 25, words.
When I was criticized for my comment, I was reluctant to point out it was only 16 words, and I was glad when someone else took the trouble to count them and point out that I wasn't even in paragraph territory. When people heard it was only 16 words, I'm sure most people threw their head back and laughed. And I never heard one negative comment from any of our coalition forces, and they all speak English, too.

Steve Martin is author of "Shopgirl" and the forthcoming "The Pleasure of My Company."
NYT 2003

Gay Bishop to King's 4

2003-08-07T00:26:00.000-05:00

Good for him.

I haven't much more to say about New Hampshire's newest Bishop other than that.

As for current events other than those involving gays in positions of power:
I read a couple of interesting articles about Iraq and the mess we seem to be in, The New Yorker's article was a nicely composed long form piece, sadly the photopage introduction was the only featured in the article. The article titled "Iraq's Bloody Summer" is not yet online but there is some material by John Lee Anderson in the Online Only section that overlaps with his printed story. The other article that I read on Iraq was not actually a story but an interview with Michael Kelly, the Atlantic Monthly correspondent who was killed in Iraq on April 4, 2003. He does a little of the obligatory bookpushing but otherwise the interview was pretty insightful. His experience as a reporter during the first war foreshadows some of the strife this go around. In parts it's a bit dry but you can't help but be moved a bit by the conversation, in light of the fact that Michael Kelly died in Iraq not too long after talking so candidly, and at times excitedly, about his time there as a reporter.

Leaving Iraq, I read yet another article about the Killing of God's Banker. This one, a relatively short piece in the Guardian Weekly, had some new details on the re-openning of the case and the suspects. I don't have an available link for the GW story but I'll try and get it up as they send it to me. The jist: This story just keeps getting stranger and stranger.

That's all I got for the news.

In a final note:
I now have something like 4 or 5 e-mail addys...seriously, this is getting out of hand.

akkraus@facstaff.wisc.edu

(professional contact addy)

aaronkraus@uwalumni.com

(alternate professional contact addy)

aaronkraus@hotmail.com

(most frequently checked mainstream junk mail magnet addy)

rockselaborate@yahoo.com

(phone-checkable e-mail addy)

akraus09@sprintpcs.com

(phone-checkable e-mail addy #2)
I might be forgetting 1 or 2 but who's counting after 3 addys?

That's the rest.

My life as an open grave

2003-08-06T19:56:00.000-05:00

Background: A few nights ago I cut my foot while chasing after my runaway cat.

Last night I discovered that it ressembles the stigmata in both its physiological placement and the quality of the gore. So, as of last night I'm nearly a 1/4th resurrected from the grave. What of the remaining 3/4's? Trouble, that's what. Despite my claim of having the better sense to stay in and rest, I went to a casual gathering of friends that featured the normal smattering of alcohol, corn chips, and recreationally abused drugs. Despite knowing that I would be getting up early to assemble furniture, I stayed out until half four in the morning. Okay, so I spent the last hour or so in a hot tub, but it doesn't mean the birds sing any softer. Anyway I feel exhausted now and fully expect that I will be asleep for at least one hour before going out again tonight. Not that this marks any special milestone on my odometer of my life but it is getting a little tiresome logging the same miles every night. Bar, friends, bed...morning news, work, bus home, run...It's sad when your life has fewer unique scenarios and events than Life by Milton Bradley.

Maybe I'll strike oil and collect $300,000 tomorrow but I can't help but expecting that I'll inherit my uncle's skunk farm. Basically, I need to find a better job than skunk-rancher and that shouldn't be TOO hard to do, even WITH G.W. balancing the checkbook. In the mean time, you can find me in my open grave waiting for something to fall into my lap.

Be my September 11th

2003-08-05T21:09:00.000-05:00

I was just going through some old ghosts and came across that little bit of culture from the orignal "1 step" and thought I would re-post it. I'm going for a run and then a drink, maybe a kiss. Maybe a clove. I hope I don't die young before I start really having fun.

As I create so shall I destroy and profit from the sales of t-shirts

2003-08-05T20:53:00.000-05:00

I'm finished with "work" for today. On an improvised scale of 1 to 10 this state of being "finished with 'work' for today" ranks damn close to the square root of 100. Tomorrow, God willing and car operable, I will be earning sweet tax-free, under-the-table clams for assembling some home furnishings for the elderly. That is also cool. As for the whole Power Point thing of some minutes ago, I have resolved to publish more works in the PP medium. Add it to the list, it's a go.

Also on the list:
T-shirt designs
A graduate school education
The new Jay Farrar cd
The new Chicago Manual of Style

Well, the list is rather long and fat in the middle with the usual blah-blah about being sure to stretch before running and drink water after beer. Anyway, "Power Point publishing magnate" will soon be listed just after "Death or Glory tattoo".

1000 Power Points of Light

2003-08-05T19:56:00.000-05:00

I spent nearly one full, uninterrupted, hour at work creating what I can only justly describe as the FINEST Power Point presentation EVER crafted. It was not of a particularly noteworthy length (I've done longer PP's for a college ILS course crosslisted with Social Science) nor was it of exceptional importance (I did a really informative PP presentation for a science course, also in college) but none of these individual rankings could lessen the appreciation of the whole project. It was fucking awesome. And what is the topic of my FINEST EVER Power Point presentation?

My life as a Power Point presentation.

I know.

Why doesn't anyone hire me as a writer? I don't know, but I could probably generate a Power Point presentation to investigate that question.

When I say GO

2003-08-05T18:28:00.000-05:00

An up-to-date scorecard of imminent departures:

Mark leaves for Hampshire on August 19, 2003. 14 days.
Elizabeth leaves for Pland on the August 25, 2003. 19 days. (She leaves Madison on th 14th)
Melanie leaves for SanD. on August 22, 2003. 17 days.
Nora leaves for Ann Arbor on or around the closing of August.
~2.5 weeks.

I am staying here until a proper employer sees fit to call me up from the Minor leagues.

What Papa Tomato said

2003-08-05T18:02:00.000-05:00

Well, this is new. I decided to destroy my original blog and reimagine it as something more than an outlet for my unstudied thoughts on West Nile Virus and plainly-written stories about parallel parking. These topics will not be completely expurgated from this forum, but, I wouldn't bookmark this page in your browser's "Cliff's Notes for West Nile Virus enthusiasts" or "Parallel Parking Fetishists" folder, should they exist at all.

Now we play catch-up for a bit.

Officially felled in mid-July of 2003, "I am 1 step ahead of you" was as distinguished a record of my life as is likely to ever be found in print--electronic or scrawled in blood on the bathroom wall. I was a dutiful blogger for the better part of a year and quickly amassed an archive to rival that of Aristotle, except with more liberal use of the words "fuck" and "fucking", I think.

I contributed the better part of my time at "real work" to the "contrived work" of keeping my readership informed of my thoughts on where my life was going, who I was likely to be drinking with on any given night, and why the noise air conditioners make sounds like people talking. July's sheet turned up on the calendar and I discovered that I was sick of pursuing these questions and that more importantly, no one else cared much either.

Sad but true: not even my compelling essay on the cross-genre similarities between "Pirates of the Carribean" and _Ulysses_ seemed worthy of comment.

That was mid-July, and I could hear that the end was stumbling around the bend. Punched-up by the drunken awareness of my own irksome blog I pulled the plug and never slept better in my life. As I said, that was mid-July.

Now is August. I officially de-listed my occupation on Friendster and have since re-listed it. From "Retail Terrorist" to "Iraq and Afghanistan" and back, very little changed. I want degree-adjacent employment but it doesn't want me, same; I want less George W. Bush but he persists, same; I want more time to sleep but people need furniture questions answered at 10am, same; and on and on it goes. Expect something to change and will always stay the same. Pray for routine and you're bound to be kidnapped.

And what you're left with: that's catch up.