There’s a little ritual that I’ve been indulging in for quite awhile now that is pretty much my favorite part of the day - Oxycodone.
I kid of course. Seriously, I’m kidding.
No, it’s putting Kickers down for sleep every night. I’m sure this sounds dumb, and I’m way “kidding out”, so I apologize ahead of time.
The night will lead to dinner, and depending on the sauce quotient of said dinner, it may lead to a bath as well. There’s a diaper changing where we practice the alphabet or counting (it keeps him from getting upset with me for being all up in his junk), there’s the dressing in PJ’s which eventually itself leads a tickle fest of grand proportions. Afterwards, there’s usually some reading.
All of that’s fine and well, it’s the next step that’s the one. And understand, like most kids, this one is not one for just giving up the ghost and charging into sleep, he likes to fight, fight against the dying of the light. There have been some epic screaming fits, particularly when we rudely took the bottle away.
Like father, like son.
But the routine… We get the blanket, he wraps his little arm around my neck, sort of cocks his head on my shoulder, and man, if I have any say in it, that’s a feeling I want to take with me when I go. Then I start to sing.
I don’t know why, but “Ship of Fools” by the Grateful Dead has become the lullaby of choice. He doesn’t shout out requests, I don’t do encores. When I’m done, I tilt him down to get him into the crib and he’s usually either blinking long and slow as if the Baby Oxycodone has kicked in, or he’s smiling. I ask for a kiss, and get it. Then I say my goodnights and walk out to never a fuss since the singing started.
It’s nice that at least once a day I can do something that actually means something.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Rain
I can’t say that it’s longing for fall, being we haven’t had much of a summer, but we got a metric shit ton of rain in the last couple of days and I was digging it.
On Sunday, the day started out with some promise; mostly blue sky, a fine and fresh smell on the cool breeze. I opened the kitchen window to get some air in the place and was reminded of green things and sunshine, a subtle and slow vitality. Then at some point I heard the raindrops hitting the corrugated fiberglass of the carport.
I was reminded of other times and other memories that weren’t mine, but felt close enough to have been passed down through the blood. There was nothing concrete, nothing visual, just a feeling of calm of having literal shelter from a literal storm.
Kickers went down for a nap and I stood at the window watching all of that muted gray shining through running water. I thought that sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a book sounded like the best damn idea I’d had in a week. A damn fine idea it was, and the pot of red beans on the stove seemed like the perfect set piece.
A little later I was running errands, driving through washed out streets downtown, the wet and deserted, industrial and absolutely shining atmosphere kindly grabbed hands with the Tom Waits on the stereo with a smile and dragged it along for a great ride.
And yesterday there was more rain, heavy rain. There were lightening bolts that while attention getting, seemed almost ashamed to be here and so out of place.
The thing is, I don’t mind it, all this noise of a storm, all the compressed gloom of the clouds waiting to let loose their load, I'm kinda digging it. I know that summer’s leaving quick, that we’re probably in for a dark and wet and cold winter, but somehow my mind, my soul needed this.
I needed something to make me stop and stare the world for a minute, enjoy the quiet music already playing.
On Sunday, the day started out with some promise; mostly blue sky, a fine and fresh smell on the cool breeze. I opened the kitchen window to get some air in the place and was reminded of green things and sunshine, a subtle and slow vitality. Then at some point I heard the raindrops hitting the corrugated fiberglass of the carport.
I was reminded of other times and other memories that weren’t mine, but felt close enough to have been passed down through the blood. There was nothing concrete, nothing visual, just a feeling of calm of having literal shelter from a literal storm.
Kickers went down for a nap and I stood at the window watching all of that muted gray shining through running water. I thought that sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee and a book sounded like the best damn idea I’d had in a week. A damn fine idea it was, and the pot of red beans on the stove seemed like the perfect set piece.
A little later I was running errands, driving through washed out streets downtown, the wet and deserted, industrial and absolutely shining atmosphere kindly grabbed hands with the Tom Waits on the stereo with a smile and dragged it along for a great ride.
And yesterday there was more rain, heavy rain. There were lightening bolts that while attention getting, seemed almost ashamed to be here and so out of place.
The thing is, I don’t mind it, all this noise of a storm, all the compressed gloom of the clouds waiting to let loose their load, I'm kinda digging it. I know that summer’s leaving quick, that we’re probably in for a dark and wet and cold winter, but somehow my mind, my soul needed this.
I needed something to make me stop and stare the world for a minute, enjoy the quiet music already playing.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Home
Sitting in a sideways seat on the old 22, coming home, I’m struck suddenly by a combination of things.
First, there’s Tom Waits’ “Come On Up To The House” in my ears. It’s a song that’s held a special place from the first time I heard it, a song that really foots the bill at the moment, a song that reminds me that even when it’s rough out there, there’s always a place of solace.
“When the only thing that you can see is all that you lack, you gotta come on up to the house.”
So I got that going on, caught somewhere between a goofy smile and tears. And honestly, that’s one of my favorite places to get caught; way better than between the moon and New York City. I’m noticing the mists and low gray clouds that have come to town in a coach of unseasonable storm patterns. I’m watching all that West Seattle green fold itself inside the gray and can’t help but think that they were meant to be together the way it works so well. They’re like lovers. No, there’s something volatile and fragile about that. They’re like old fiends who have more than once gotten drunkenly naked together – unashamed and still digging each other’s company.
Then the bus passes right by this little house. Nothing fancy, probably four rooms up in there. The front door is open and there’s a boy of about 5 standing in the doorway. He’s looking out at the yard, I’m assuming at the rain gathering in the yard. The look on his face as I quickly passed him by caught for a long second. And I’m totally reading into it, but there wasn’t this look of annoyance at not being able to play in the yard, no sadness, just this serene look of being caught in a moment unguarded.
I caught him, though he’ll never know it. And I held onto those things the rest of the ride, through the walk in the strengthening rain, myself caught once again somewhere between a goofy smile and tears.
First, there’s Tom Waits’ “Come On Up To The House” in my ears. It’s a song that’s held a special place from the first time I heard it, a song that really foots the bill at the moment, a song that reminds me that even when it’s rough out there, there’s always a place of solace.
“When the only thing that you can see is all that you lack, you gotta come on up to the house.”
So I got that going on, caught somewhere between a goofy smile and tears. And honestly, that’s one of my favorite places to get caught; way better than between the moon and New York City. I’m noticing the mists and low gray clouds that have come to town in a coach of unseasonable storm patterns. I’m watching all that West Seattle green fold itself inside the gray and can’t help but think that they were meant to be together the way it works so well. They’re like lovers. No, there’s something volatile and fragile about that. They’re like old fiends who have more than once gotten drunkenly naked together – unashamed and still digging each other’s company.
Then the bus passes right by this little house. Nothing fancy, probably four rooms up in there. The front door is open and there’s a boy of about 5 standing in the doorway. He’s looking out at the yard, I’m assuming at the rain gathering in the yard. The look on his face as I quickly passed him by caught for a long second. And I’m totally reading into it, but there wasn’t this look of annoyance at not being able to play in the yard, no sadness, just this serene look of being caught in a moment unguarded.
I caught him, though he’ll never know it. And I held onto those things the rest of the ride, through the walk in the strengthening rain, myself caught once again somewhere between a goofy smile and tears.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Grain Of Salt
The memories of my high school years get fuzzy as time continues to grow between then and now, as more drinks are consumed in that growing time, so I cannot remember if it was an ad hoc substitute Chemistry teacher, or Mr. Dempsey, the intrepid Physics teacher who barely let me skate by to graduate, who performed this experiment in class. The idea is that you have this salt water solution that is as packed with salt as it’s going to get and still be liquid. One more piece of salt will literally force all of the solid salt out of the liquid, it will change the physical composition. It’s a nifty parlor trick, it’s the idea of critical mass.
It’s also a great analogy for my work situation.
I can no longer keep up with the demand. I can rarely step away to go to the bathroom without trying make said trip more efficient by also printing up a document, possibly make a copy on the way to the john.
Here’s a funny thing, and when I say funny I actually mean bitterly sad; I’m a completely disposable and interchangeable middle management drone. As such, I’m subject to the whimsy of others. Let’s say that there’s a person I have to answer to that obsesses over details that should be invisible to someone at that height; oh, and is a friggin nutball made up of the worst kind of nuts – Brazil nuts, peanuts that are eight weeks old and found beneath a barstool, the elusive loco brain nut.
Here is a person who has a severe case of crazy eye, a person who I had to talk to when I went to work with a 104 fever and was pretty damn sure I was tripping balls because of the things they were saying, a person who will use this psychotic baby talk voice in business meetings, a person who says “right?” in a sentence roughly 27 times.
After said crazy face pointed out to me that they realized how busy I was at the moment, and even more so now that they were throwing a bunch more crap at me, decided to have me investigate a customer case that had gotten up to them.
Let’s say that I worked for a cookie company, and within the stores of this cookie company, along with cookies, the company also sold brightly colored sugar water. Let’s say a customer writes to this cookie company to let them know that when they went down to the ol’ cookie store, the store was out of their favorite colored sugar water. And this is not the first time this has happened, oh my no.
Now let’s extrapolate this a bit. Let’s say that’s one customer contact out of roughly 3000 that this cookie company gets daily – all contacts more or less playing on that same theme to varying degrees of “poor me”. Now, let’s say that after a couple of weeks this customer realizes that their colored sugar water (let’s say aqua blue, spicy cucumber flavor) is still out when they go to the cookie store. Being a the tricky bastard they are, the customer uses a friend to get a name higher up the food chain to contact. This customer bounces around the executive emails for a couple of weeks, like a .22 slug ricocheting off the inside of a skull and tearing apart the bubble gum upper management brain. Until Captain Baby Babble taps me to answer to why this customer wasn’t escalated correctly.
I feel that I shouldn’t have to explain that in the grand scheme things, there’s no reason that they should even be paying attention to something like this. I feel that I shouldn’t have to explain that sending a report to the store so they can adjust their ordering is the correct way to handle this pig fucker and not to send him on up to an executive (who should have way more important things to do) just because the customer has learned to whine more efficiently. I feel like I shouldn’t have to explain the reason why there’s a floor of disposable and interchangeable folks like me.
This person is Legion, and my job has become like a Captain Beefheart album; disturbing, surreal and in so many ways very wrong. It’s a little thing in the scheme of things, it’s my missing colored sugar water, but it’s enough to realize that a huge majority of my life’s energy is spent on it.
If this isn’t rock bottom, it’s a comin’ soon.
It’s also a great analogy for my work situation.
I can no longer keep up with the demand. I can rarely step away to go to the bathroom without trying make said trip more efficient by also printing up a document, possibly make a copy on the way to the john.
Here’s a funny thing, and when I say funny I actually mean bitterly sad; I’m a completely disposable and interchangeable middle management drone. As such, I’m subject to the whimsy of others. Let’s say that there’s a person I have to answer to that obsesses over details that should be invisible to someone at that height; oh, and is a friggin nutball made up of the worst kind of nuts – Brazil nuts, peanuts that are eight weeks old and found beneath a barstool, the elusive loco brain nut.
Here is a person who has a severe case of crazy eye, a person who I had to talk to when I went to work with a 104 fever and was pretty damn sure I was tripping balls because of the things they were saying, a person who will use this psychotic baby talk voice in business meetings, a person who says “right?” in a sentence roughly 27 times.
After said crazy face pointed out to me that they realized how busy I was at the moment, and even more so now that they were throwing a bunch more crap at me, decided to have me investigate a customer case that had gotten up to them.
Let’s say that I worked for a cookie company, and within the stores of this cookie company, along with cookies, the company also sold brightly colored sugar water. Let’s say a customer writes to this cookie company to let them know that when they went down to the ol’ cookie store, the store was out of their favorite colored sugar water. And this is not the first time this has happened, oh my no.
Now let’s extrapolate this a bit. Let’s say that’s one customer contact out of roughly 3000 that this cookie company gets daily – all contacts more or less playing on that same theme to varying degrees of “poor me”. Now, let’s say that after a couple of weeks this customer realizes that their colored sugar water (let’s say aqua blue, spicy cucumber flavor) is still out when they go to the cookie store. Being a the tricky bastard they are, the customer uses a friend to get a name higher up the food chain to contact. This customer bounces around the executive emails for a couple of weeks, like a .22 slug ricocheting off the inside of a skull and tearing apart the bubble gum upper management brain. Until Captain Baby Babble taps me to answer to why this customer wasn’t escalated correctly.
I feel that I shouldn’t have to explain that in the grand scheme things, there’s no reason that they should even be paying attention to something like this. I feel that I shouldn’t have to explain that sending a report to the store so they can adjust their ordering is the correct way to handle this pig fucker and not to send him on up to an executive (who should have way more important things to do) just because the customer has learned to whine more efficiently. I feel like I shouldn’t have to explain the reason why there’s a floor of disposable and interchangeable folks like me.
This person is Legion, and my job has become like a Captain Beefheart album; disturbing, surreal and in so many ways very wrong. It’s a little thing in the scheme of things, it’s my missing colored sugar water, but it’s enough to realize that a huge majority of my life’s energy is spent on it.
If this isn’t rock bottom, it’s a comin’ soon.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Today Is The Day Of The Day
Because I’m in need of a celebration, and because I did a bunch today but accomplished nothing – I dedicate this post to a variety of “things of the day”.
Song of the Day: “As Sure As The Sun” by The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
Ice Cream Flavor of the Day: Memphis King – Banana with peanut butter and chocolate covered bacon. This was actually the flavor of the day yesterday from my neighborhood ice cream vendor Full Tilt, but was good enough to slosh over into today. Thanks for coming along Mandy.
Everyday Word That Seems Like It Should Be A Dirty One of the Day: Proclivity.
Product That Should Be Ashamed To Be Around (Especially Because of the Commercial) of the Day: Pizza Hut Chocolate Dunkers with Chocolate Dunking Sauce - Some new desert that Pizza Hut is offering that involves a chocolate dipping sauce. The commercial features a delivery girl putting on a fake French accent to trick all these dumb white folks into thinking this Pizza Hut travesty is a French bakery travesty. Word to the wise: The French would never name something a "dunker". Fool me once...
Word To The Wise of the Day: If someone who is 8 kinds of high says to you, "seriously man, really think about Sesame Street for a minute" walk the fuck away without looking back.
Someone With A Case of the S'pose To's of the Day: Mark Spitz, former mustachioed Olympic swimmer, sounds like a friggin' child while talking about not being invited to the Olympics in these (admittedly out of context) quotes:
Douchebag Who Could Still Kick My Ass of the Day: Mark Spitz.
Weekend Celebrity Death That Seems Like A Real Drag of the Day: While Isaac Hayes is a bummer, I’m goin’ Bernie Mac. The man seemed like a funny guy and pneumonia is no way to go.
Song of the Day: “As Sure As The Sun” by The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club.
Ice Cream Flavor of the Day: Memphis King – Banana with peanut butter and chocolate covered bacon. This was actually the flavor of the day yesterday from my neighborhood ice cream vendor Full Tilt, but was good enough to slosh over into today. Thanks for coming along Mandy.
Everyday Word That Seems Like It Should Be A Dirty One of the Day: Proclivity.
Product That Should Be Ashamed To Be Around (Especially Because of the Commercial) of the Day: Pizza Hut Chocolate Dunkers with Chocolate Dunking Sauce - Some new desert that Pizza Hut is offering that involves a chocolate dipping sauce. The commercial features a delivery girl putting on a fake French accent to trick all these dumb white folks into thinking this Pizza Hut travesty is a French bakery travesty. Word to the wise: The French would never name something a "dunker". Fool me once...
Word To The Wise of the Day: If someone who is 8 kinds of high says to you, "seriously man, really think about Sesame Street for a minute" walk the fuck away without looking back.
Someone With A Case of the S'pose To's of the Day: Mark Spitz, former mustachioed Olympic swimmer, sounds like a friggin' child while talking about not being invited to the Olympics in these (admittedly out of context) quotes:
- "They voted me one of the top five Olympians in all time. Some of them are dead. But they invited the other ones to go to the Olympics, but not me. Yes, I am a bit upset about it."
- "I won seven events. If they had the 50m freestyle back then, which they do now, I probably would have won that too"
- Speaking of visiting the Olympics in Athens – "They did not once put my face on television”
- Speaking of Michael Phelps – "He's almost identical to me. He's a world-record holder in all these events, so he is dominating the events just like I did. He reminds me of myself."
Douchebag Who Could Still Kick My Ass of the Day: Mark Spitz.
Weekend Celebrity Death That Seems Like A Real Drag of the Day: While Isaac Hayes is a bummer, I’m goin’ Bernie Mac. The man seemed like a funny guy and pneumonia is no way to go.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
The Voids Of Summer
Today I felt another piece of my soul slide away for some chump change due to me on Friday. Whining about a job is a pretty ugly form of self-pity, duly noted. There are worse jobs out there to be sure, I’ve had some of them.
There’s just this cyclical destruction of the inner wall that I’m able to put up, that psychic masonry that doesn’t let me forget how this job is slowly making me into something I hate, but at least lets me ignore it for awhile. The wall cracked a bit today.
I didn’t flood out in a wash of anger as is typical, there was just this quiet and sad moment that I realized that our breaths are numbered, and I’m spending a good chunk of mine fighting pathetic battles against enemies that could care less in a war that means nothing.
So yeah, there’s a bit of an existential funk brewing; no sexy bass line, but I can hear some vibraphones trying to get through back there somewhere…
And this is precisely the mood one should be in to hear the two bits of news I did when I got home, both revolving around the baseball stadium downtown.
First, the city is planning on spending something like 5 mil to build an over-street walkway over the train tracks that run near the stadium, this will take the place of the typical sidewalk with traffic lights and those easily ignored crossing arms with flashing red lights and bells that you can hear two towns away. And I definitely see the need, as a handful of people – strike that – a handful of drunk dumbasses, have tried to beat the train getting back to their cars after a game. I gotta say, point blank and without clever, if you’re dumb enough to try to run across the tracks as the above mentioned arms of obvious are warning you not to, than you deserve to be someone’s sick fuck fodder on youtube.
Moving on….
There will now also be a “no peanut” zone at this stadium so people with peanut allergies can go catch a game. This will surely increase those flagging ticket sales. I know there are folks out there with life threatening allergies, and a drag that is, but having dealt with a number of allergy claims at the above mentioned job, and after listening to a middle aged woman the other night go on and on to a number of wait staff about how she was allergic to coconut which was apparently in the Pan Asian soup that she ordered (go figure), I feel like about 85% of people with food allergies just talk about them so that they can, in some sick way, show how “special” they are. It’s like vegetarians who can’t wait to tell you all about how they’re vegetarians. Shut up and eat already. I might need a special zone at work as I think I’m deathly allergic to my job.
Isn’t this where we came in?
There’s just this cyclical destruction of the inner wall that I’m able to put up, that psychic masonry that doesn’t let me forget how this job is slowly making me into something I hate, but at least lets me ignore it for awhile. The wall cracked a bit today.
I didn’t flood out in a wash of anger as is typical, there was just this quiet and sad moment that I realized that our breaths are numbered, and I’m spending a good chunk of mine fighting pathetic battles against enemies that could care less in a war that means nothing.
So yeah, there’s a bit of an existential funk brewing; no sexy bass line, but I can hear some vibraphones trying to get through back there somewhere…
And this is precisely the mood one should be in to hear the two bits of news I did when I got home, both revolving around the baseball stadium downtown.
First, the city is planning on spending something like 5 mil to build an over-street walkway over the train tracks that run near the stadium, this will take the place of the typical sidewalk with traffic lights and those easily ignored crossing arms with flashing red lights and bells that you can hear two towns away. And I definitely see the need, as a handful of people – strike that – a handful of drunk dumbasses, have tried to beat the train getting back to their cars after a game. I gotta say, point blank and without clever, if you’re dumb enough to try to run across the tracks as the above mentioned arms of obvious are warning you not to, than you deserve to be someone’s sick fuck fodder on youtube.
Moving on….
There will now also be a “no peanut” zone at this stadium so people with peanut allergies can go catch a game. This will surely increase those flagging ticket sales. I know there are folks out there with life threatening allergies, and a drag that is, but having dealt with a number of allergy claims at the above mentioned job, and after listening to a middle aged woman the other night go on and on to a number of wait staff about how she was allergic to coconut which was apparently in the Pan Asian soup that she ordered (go figure), I feel like about 85% of people with food allergies just talk about them so that they can, in some sick way, show how “special” they are. It’s like vegetarians who can’t wait to tell you all about how they’re vegetarians. Shut up and eat already. I might need a special zone at work as I think I’m deathly allergic to my job.
Isn’t this where we came in?
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