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Back at Pragmatik.Org. See you there.

Where did PRAGMATIK go?

I screwed up some stuff, and I had to clear the Wordpress database. Yeah, that means that I have to re-import, re-categorize and re-upload photos to all 400 plus posts. Yeah, I’m wondering if it’s worth it, since blogging has really become my narcissistic way of living with an audience. Not sure if that’s good for me, and so many people that actually know in real life (real life!) read it, that I find myself censoring myself to an increasing and alarming degree. Plus, it’s just become a very boring blog because I’m a grad student and — thus — lead a very boring life. I don’t write poetry anymore, and I pulled my bass out today for only what I think is maybe the tenth time since I moved to Illinois. I don’t read enough or write letters anymore or take enough photos.

I’m told I should still post photos. So I have Flickr. Maybe I’ll get a Flickr Pro account, etc.

Maybe I need a break of blogging or this blog. Maybe this break will be a weekend, maybe a week, maybe forever.

Maybe I won’t take a break at all.

Who knows? If you still read this crap, thank you.

Photo Friday: Baby.

I’m going to get crap for posting this at all, let alone under the “Baby” challenge, but enough folks are going to post photos of babies, puppies and kitties. Besides, newly born and newly deceased are not all that different. And I think Uncle Walt explains it best:

“The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceas’d the moment life appear’d.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.

I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe, and am not contain’d between my hat and boots…”

Looks like we’re in for stohmay wetha.

Yes, in the middle of February, we are under both a Tornado Watch and a Wind Advisory. This used to drive me crazy when we had the black car. Wind means stuff falling on your precious shiny black car that can scratch dent smash it. Maybe hail, which can do the same. All bad if you are the kind of person who worries about stupid shit. And that was me. My legs and bike are all inside and safe and dry. So bring it on, Mr. Thunderstorm, you bitch.

Let's all shoot our friends.

I would like someone to help me prove a point, that point being that members of the Bush administration can get away with almost anything. Rather, I don’t want to prove a point so much as test a hypothesis. Proving a point makes it sound like I want to be proven right. The ramifications of being right in this case border on unbearable, so I think it’s more of a hypothesis. I am a moderately strict vegetarian (no meat, but eggs and milk), and I am not exactly into hunting. Aside from shooting guns at targets being among the few manly (!!) things I’m good at, I don’t go carrying or playing with guns very often. Really, I swear. Anyway. Okay. Now here’s where I need help. I need someone willing to go hunting with me so that I can shoot them. No, seriously, I need someone to go hunting with me, and I’ll let you shoot me in the chest. I want to see if you get charged with assault, with being an irresponsible idiot, some gun charge, etc. I don’t really know much at all about The Law, but it seems like shooting someone is a pretty bad thing to do, even if you did it by accident and even if you say you’re sorry. What happens if this dude dies? Will they charge the Vice President with involuntary manslaughter or some such offense? Or will they let him go? Is there some loophole in American Law (whatever that is) that makes killing a man not a crime, just because you said (but can’t really prove) that you didn’t mean it? I’m not saying Dicky did it on purpose, but would anyone believe me if I shot a dude and said it was an accident? What happens if Dicky goes to jail? I’m sure lefty bloggers (like me, though I rarely blog about political gear) are eating this all up and hoping the old dude dies just to see what happens (not really wishing for that, though, thanks). I’m sure the righty bloggers are trying to blame this in the liberal media and those America-hating bloggers. Yeah, well, you know, Dicky was thinking about the damage that the evil liberal media and anti-American bloggers do to the greatest country on earth, and he got distracted while toting his gun around shooting things. It’s our fault he shot that poor dude. I have really fallen out of the political loop, especially after too many lazy assed Americans didn’t vote and got us four more years of Mr. Winkydoodle, so I don’t pretend I have much to add to the discussion. I try to be practical — pragmatik. So my contribution will be my experiement, for which I need your help. Let’s go out and get me shot! We can pick up a gun at Walmart, or any pickup truck in the parking lot there, in these parts. But, dudes, I’m not paying for your lawyer if you get charged. Sorry.

Happy V-Day!

(This is a photo from June 1999, when we were 18 and 19, together less than two years.) We played/are playing hooky from work and responsibility today, like we always do for Valentine’s Day. Slept until 11:00, had a big breakfast of frittatas (my specialty!) and gifts. Rather than totally play into the whole “spend money to prove your love” thing, we do a little V-Day of a small gift. I am the lucky repicient of the gnome book I’ve been wanting, and my Valentine scored a set of Faber-Castell Polychromos colored pencils — we’re strange, yes, a little. It’s fun and fresh, and that’s what’s important. For our first Valentine’s Day ever, we went hiking. Then we had to be apart (long distance relationship thing) for two years, and we sorta spent most of the rest of the V-Days after doing the sorts of things lovers do, like dinner, movies and the like. We resumed the hiking tradition two years ago. So we are taking a trip to the Marberry Arboretum which is a short walk from here but where we’ve never been because we were too lazy to go. While we don’t have any snow for photos and merriment, we have sun and a nicely warm day to enjoy. And my camera batteries are charged, for some photos to share with you lovely people.

Jealousy.

So New York got a record-breaking blizzard or some such. Baltimore City is buried. All we got were some some dustings. Like flirtations from the person you want for Valentine’s Day, only they are forced, half-assed, hardly there, and so you don’t even want them. After several grey days that didn’t give me any snow to take photos of or to construct dirty snowmen and snowwomen, I’m glad the sun’s out today. But I know, buried people with buried cars who can’t get to their hurried jobs will tell me that I don’t know what I’m asking for, that I’m better off. Like unhappily-joined people tell single people on Valentine’s Day, as if they really know other people’s hearts or as if everyone will fail to appreciate what they have like they have.

Photo Friday: Blur.

Dang, it’s hard to choose a blurry photo — ever-present caffeinated shaking makes so many blurry.

New blogs.

One of my favorite things to find on my favorite blogs is a group of links for my pleasure. But I feel like a nerd when I do it. For some reason. But screw it. I’m gonna do it anyway.

Flow to Bliss: Gary’s blog is back, with a new direction and gorgeous look. Inkmusings: Gary’s main blog is back. I’ve been looking forward to its return. Binky Boy: Fellow Carbondaley blogs his heart out.

Two years old.

Despite going on hiatus for nearly a month after while I posted at Blog Collective, this here blog is two years old tonight. Blogger to TypePad to Blogger to Wordpress. Etc. Who knows where it will be next week, or what the template/theme will look like tomorrow? Or when I’ll get off my ass and add the links, etc.?

Gnomish beard.

It seemed, at three this morning, that one of the gnomes on my desk looked like me, but with a whiter beard. And smaller, of course. It was like looking into a tiny mirror that made me appear as a two-inch desk ornament fifty years older than I am. Okay, so it wasn’t like a mirror. Funny though.

Photo Friday: Disguise.

My brother in New York, December 2004. I think this looks like a Rene' Magritte painting, in a nowhere near as good kind of way. We were waiting for a table at a fancy pizza joint, and I tied that yellow balloon to his bag on our way to our table, which he was not happy about. Funny, though. For Photo Friday: Disguise.

Story. Soon.

So I have a story about my Magic Gloves. My Magic Gloves and how Tuesday can't stand up to them. But I'll have to tell it later today or tonight. Been very hectic, moving the pencil blog to Wordpress, for reasons I can't talk about yet. You know the love I have for Blogger, etc. So you know it's for good reasons. Here's more snow village, cause it's going to hit 60 degrees today in Carbondale (cold planned for the weekend, though).

Not cold enough.

So I must be crazy. We either walk or bike everywhere we go, and I am pissed that it's not"cold enough" for winter. We sold our car at the start of winter (December 1st!), and the dude at the dealership thought we were nuts. We sorta told him we were moving sooner than we are. Didn't want the nice guy to think we were trying to pull a fast one on him. "Yes, we're dropping a lot of money doing this. No, the car has never been in an accident. No, we don't owe any drug money. We are not trying to screw you over, nice man." Etc. But I think the dealership homey was crazy. It seldom gets very cold in Southern Illinois. Of course, this is only my third winter here, but I checked the almanac, and things are pretty normal. One of the things I got excited about when we moved to Boston was the idea of a long and cold winter. The first one was not so great. But the second winter (three years ago) was cold, snowy, and long. Perfect for me. People told me I was nuts, and I will admit that I was glad to see spring come that year (in May). Yes. Okay. But I don't think it follows from these or any other guidelines for human sanity that I am crazy for wishing it would get colder here, damn it. Thank you.

Photo Friday: Vanity.

I don't really like to take photos of myself, much less put them on the net. But here is me, without a beard, lit by a red lamp. Summer 2004. Bored as hell, and hiding from the heat in the AC. No, I don't live in a brothel. For Photo Friday: Vanity.

Men and women.

Stephen's comment makes me wonder why there is no science of the sexes? My wife does work in gender studies, and I know there is a new thing going on that is more or less the male version of feminism but isn't just dudes in an alley beating the shit out of each other -- or so I've been told. But I mean a science. Forget Mars and deep-sea exploring. They don't make our daily lives easier. At least not yet. But if those of us of the male persuasion understood those of the female persuasion (and vice versa of cource, lest I get labeled as sexist), think of how much easier life would be? How much better -- how much more time we might have to explore Mars and the murky deep if we didn't have to spend days a month trying to figure out our significant other or how to get one or why we don't want one. In the Bigoted States of America at least, there are myriad reasons that homosexuals have a tough time, so much so that I feel guilty for being of the other orientation, the same as those damned bible-fuckers. But at least you nice folks are lucky enough to not have the darkness of the opposite sex to muck with. Of course, even in same-sex relationships, there are certainly problems. It's not like women all understand one another or like I have a clue about my guy friends sometimes. So maybe we need a science of other people. But damn, that might take a while. I'll quit philosophy for it, though.

G2 mini.

I know, word about these is all over. But for anyone who doesn't read Moleskinerie enough (and why not?!), the new Pilot G2 Minis I was talking about this summer are here. Gary found them at Staples. And apparently, they've had them for quite some time at Jet Pens, in blue, black and red -- with good US shipping rates -- cheap!.Not to mention from Cult Pens in the UK.

True story.

A syndicated episode of "Frasier" tonight reminded me of a dream my wife had over the holiday. Apparently, in this dream, I was a cad and then some. I slept with eleven women (other than the Mrs.) and impregnated one or more, I don't remember which. I was not at all sorry in this dream. My wife woke up in a mood, and after prodding revealed the dream. She was pissed because of something I did in a dream. "But Honey," I pleaded, "if that really happened, I'd at least be sorry!" She was not amused.

On foot.

Some bridge that crosses Interstate 64 from Louisville, Kentucky into Southern Indiana. January 2006. We got to the mall in Carbondale on foot Saturday. Leg power anyway. We were going to bike the whole way, but we got out of shape over the holidays. I got softer and slower, anyway. Shame, since I was able to ride a good five or six miles at a time at a good speed and not get too winded. Anyway, we were too tired, so we rode about two miles to Faner and then walked the other two or three to the mall. It's all up hill to where our departments are, and we were pooped. I know, you fit Europeans are thinking, "So?" But we doughy Americans don't do anything like that. We don't walk anywhere. I live about five minutes from the market on foot. It's so close that I never ever bother to get my bike out to go there. My neighbor drove there yesterday. I don't know if it was because it was raining or because he's lazy (and I am, too, so don't take it like that), but he drove less than 1/4 of a mile, and he didn't even get a lot of groceries. I saw things on foot Saturday that I had never noticed in a car. Let's keep it at that. Streams that run through town, a huge motel I never saw before (I drive fast). Etc. There was one point where crossing the street got difficult and required some darting. While this sort of thing made me feel like a loser for some reason when we didn't own a car in Boston (because we didn't need one and didn't have the money for one), it doesn't anymore. I think it's funny, and it makes me feel a little braver. That's good, I think. We stopped by the liquor store and bought some local wine, at Walgreens and at the bike shop downtown to get lights for our bikes and more bungies. We wound up staying past closing talking to the nice owner, and I even found a tiny cable to lock my helmet to my bike so that I don't have to carry it around. Am I passing judgment on cars and car owners? Please, no. I'm beginning to view car ownership like meat: fine and good and very enjoyable, but just not for me. Believe me, I miss meat and wish I could eat it and feel Okay about it. It would nice to be normal enough to be able to order anything on the menu when I go out with people for dinner. In getting judgmental, I'm judging my Pre-December First (no more car day for us) self that was too afraid to do anything fun and who gave up the urge to travel because it meant scratches on the damned car. The guy who was too lazy to visit the market he lived across the street from for two years because, by golly, he's gonna drive the car he pays too much money for. The guy who was very lazy (and still is in a lot of ways) to try anything new. And a hundred other things I want to kick two-months-ago me in the nuts for.

Birthday.

Happy Birthday to my wonderful wife, who turned 25 yesterday. Until she starts lying about, and it is then perpetually her 29th. Not that she would ever lie about that. But she kicks ass, so she'd be allowed to lie all she wants. (Not that she will need to.) Etc.